Dr. Rob Cohen talks Sen. John McCain on Fox 5’s On The Hill Podcast

Dr. Rob Cohen, a former staffer for Sen. John McCain, an Army veteran and host of the “Democrises” podcast, joins Tom Fitzgerald on the “On The Hill” podcast.

On the one year anniversary of Senator McCain’s death, Cohen looks how even after his passing McCain’s legacy still looms large over the Republican party, even as few in the GOP seem interested in carrying on McCain’s “maverick” reputation.

Have a topic you want Fitz to cover? Tell him about it on his FacebookTwitter and Instagram or drop him an email.

On The Hill is a weekly politics podcast featuring FOX 5’s Tom Fitzgerald in which he expands on the conversations that are the staple of Sunday morning political talk in Washington, D.C.

Listen online here.

“Augie’s War” Author John H. Brown on The New Rationalist

February 18, 2019

Author John H Brown talks to us about his book Augie’s War, which ‘explores the healing power of family to recharge the human spirit when wartime experiences threaten to darken the very soul of the protagonist.’

He draws heavily from his experience as a Vietnam vet to deliver the reader a blunt look at the ravages of war and attests to the true spirit of brothers-in-arms.

Tell us about yourself.

I was the owner of Brown Communications a public relations and marketing company. I retired three years ago to write my novel- Augie’s War.  I have been a newspaper wine and food columnist for more than 30 years and I continue to write for the Charleston (WV) Gazette-Mail daily newspaper and for The State Journal – a statewide business weekly. I graduated from West Virginia University with a BS in Journalism and an MA in Speech Communications. I am a veteran of the Vietnam War (1969-70) and I reside with my wife of 48 years in Charleston, West Virginia. We have two sons and three grandchildren.

What is your favorite childhood book?

My parents bought me a set of books in the 1950’s and I spent hours reading fairy tales, mythology and various biographies of famous people like Napoleon, George Washington and Mark Twain.

When did you first realise you wanted to become a writer?

From grade school and into high school I wanted to write. At first, I concentrated on poetry and then when I returned from Vietnam I began to write about my experiences over there. When my career and family took precedence over my desire to write, I always hoped I could finish my Vietnam story.

How do you deal with bad reviews for your book?

So far I haven’t had any, but that probably is more a product of the limited number of people I have reached.

What are some jobs that you’ve worked? Have any of them had an impact on your work?

Obviously, my service in Vietnam was a prime motivating influence, but I’ve always written, particularly for newspapers, and PR clients. And through my wine and food columns, I have been able to keep my skills honed over the years.

With the rise of the self-publishing industry, do you think the writing market has saturated? How hard is it to get readers for your work?

It is exceptionally difficult to get a book attention in the broader reading public. I don’t have an agent so all the marketing is up to me and I find it daunting. My book is widely available, though. You can find it at online retailers such as Amazon, itunes, etc.

What do you enjoy about your writing style?

Sometimes I can amuse myself in developing odd characters and that’s a lot of fun.

What are some unconventional habits you have when it comes to writing?

Sometimes it takes months for me to “noodle” my story. I can’t seem to get started for all the thinking about I do about my work. But then once I begin, some force inside me takes over and I can write non-stop for hours.  It’s weird, but sometimes I’ll spend four hours writing at my desk without getting up and then it’s usually because I have to go to the bathroom.

Do you have any regrets about your published works? Are there some things you wish you could go back and change?

I’ve only had one book published and I have made minor (grammatical changes) to the novel that I’ve sent to my publisher. But no regrets.

Tell us about your latest work.

Augie’s War explores the healing power of family to recharge the human spirit when wartime experiences threaten to darken the very soul of the protagonist. In the story, Augie Cumpton leans on, and flashes back to, childhood memories of his large and boisterous Italian-American family, the bakery where he worked and the humorous, sometimes outrageous, but always memorable characters of his youth.

As Augie’s Vietnam deployment draws to a close and enemy attacks are a daily occurrence, he must find a way to not only survive the war, but also make life and death decisions forced on him by a coterie of deranged and corrupt superiors. If he refuses to comply with their illegal demands, he may end up like another soldier in his unit who is murdered.

Do you have any advice for writers struggling for inspiration?

Write about things that you know or have a familiarity with. That’s always a good way to begin when your having trouble getting started. I find that just beginning the process of writing always seems to lead to something interesting.

What are your tips to help find the right publisher?

There is no easy way. You should do your research, talk to other writers and ask for an introduction. Try and interest an agent – which is almost impossible for debut writers. And send your work to publishers who publish your genre.

Editor’s note: The acclaimed author of #1 New York Times bestselling memoir ‘Rocket Boys’, Homer Hickam, had this to say about Augie’s War, “One of the most powerful novels I’ve yet read on the Vietnam War. As a veteran of that awful conflict, I was absolutely riveted by the tale of Augie and his buddies, and every word rang true.” Augie’s War is bestselling book of 2018 at Charleston’s iconic Taylor Books in West Virginia.

To learn more about John H Brown, visit him online at https://www.augieswar.com/.

To get a copy of Augie’s War please click here.

Read the article online here.

Following release of “Four Bears in a Box”, Dreama Denver visits WCCB Charlotte

November 15, 2019 by WCCB Rising

Dreama Denver, wife of late TV-icon Bob Denver, is in Charlotte for the Southern Christmas Show. She is launching her new children’s book “Four Bears in a Box.”

Watch online now.

D.C. Florist Alisa Rabinovich Sends a Message of Support to Congresswomen Targeted in Trump’s Tweets

WAMU | 

By Ashley Lisenby

A D.C. florist is sending encouragement in the form of fresh flowers to the four U.S. Congresswomen targeted in President Donald Trump’s incendiary tweets this week.

Alisa Rabinovich, who owns and operates Nosegay Flowers in D.C. and Galleria Florist in Falls Church, Virginia, said she designed custom flower arrangements to send to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts), Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) to show the women support.

“It’s really not about politics for me,” Alisa Rabinovich said in a statement sent to WAMU. “I’m not a terribly political person. It’s about these women being bullied by the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, and standing up for themselves.”

She delivered the flowers on Thursday with a note thanking the Congresswomen.

The notes read: “Thanks for being a role model for women everywhere. You are the best part of America!”

Trump told the representatives to “go back” to “the crime infested places from which they came” in a racist tweet.

The president’s intentions behind making the comments urging the women to go back to their countries of origin have been widely disputed by lawmakers and pundits throughout the week, some denying the hurtful usage of Trump’s “go back” comment and the context in which the statement has historically been used toward people of color.

Omar, a Somali refugee, is the only representative of the four women born outside of the U.S. She became a naturalized citizen as a teen.

Rabinovich immigrated to the U.S. with her family as a child from Russia. She said she identified with the four Congresswomen who received Trump’s taunts.

“I love America, and one of the things I love most about my home is that people here have been able to have civil disagreements, and also look for ways to come together for the common good,” she said. “That seems to be lost on the President sometimes.”

Read the article online now.

Mine 9 includes familiar plot in West Virginia (WV Metro News)

By  in | April 12, 2019 at 12:02PM

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Audiences at theaters across West Virginia and throughout the Appalachian coalfields will be the first to see the new movie Mine 9. Inspired by true events, the movie is about a crew of nine men working in an underground mine in Appalachia when things go wrong.

“It’s not based on any one event, but based on several that have happened over time,” said Kevin Sizemore, a Princeton, West Virginia native who stars in the movie. “Our director and writer Eddie Mensore put the script together and took it from different elements over the course of his life and friends of his have told stories.”

Mensore is a native of New Martinsville, West Virginia. The plot line contains familiar elements from the three most recent high profile mine disasters in West Virginia; Upper Big Branch, Aracoma, and Sago.

The trailer reflected the men in the movie wind up trapped with only one hour of oxygen and faulty self contained self rescuers. The unreliable oxygen units were a notable discovery from the Sago mine disaster in Upshur County. The plot also reflects a culture of production over safety and employees afraid to blow the whistle on an unsafe workplace for fear of losing their jobs.

“It’s about nine different miners, just like every day they work hard to put food on the table for their family,” Sizemore said. “It’s just another day at work and they get two miles deep, something bad happens and suddenly they have about an hour of oxygen left and they’re hoping somebody will help save them.”

It’s a familiar story in the coalfields, one that will likely hit very close to home for some. Sizemore is one of them.

“Some of my family and some of my best friends families worked in the mines,” he said on the West Virginia Morning News Friday. “I’m very familiar.”

The movie is expected to be released nationwide in the weeks ahead, but according to Sizmore , Mensore was adamant about showing in the Appalachian region of the country first.

“He wanted to get it into coal country first.,” Sizemore said. “He wanted to bring it home to the grass roots, so the people who really know this work could see it before we take it to other markets.”

Read the article online now.

Variety Film Review: ‘Mine 9’

By 

A modestly budgeted, cannily made survival drama centered on a fictional coal mine explosion in Appalachia, “Mine 9” plays a little like a humble blueprint for a more extravagant Hollywood exercise in high-octane heroism: Squint a little, and you can see how Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg, say, would muscle out the solemn, simple narrative devised here by writer-director-producer Eddie Mensore. That’s not a criticism of “Mine 9,” which is most interesting for the ways it avoids the standard gung-ho dramatics of a disaster movie, treating its male ensemble as heroes and victims in equal measure.

Neither is it a stringent exercise in docu-realism, however, as a streak of heartland sentimentality runs through its gritty tragedy. Dedicated to the hard-up coal-mining community in the closing credits, Mensore’s film aims chiefly to highlight the typical plight of an American underclass that rarely gets big-screen attention. That it does with honesty and conviction, if not a great deal of inspiration. “Mine 9” will surely resonate with audiences in the U.S. coal belt, where its limited theatrical release is being concentrated; elsewhere, it’s a niche, streaming-bound item.

Though it hasn’t been drawn from specific real-life events, Mensore’s script keeps characterization and dramatic complication to a bare minimum, as if to stress how easily what transpires on screen could be true. Every man here is an everyman, and the harrowing ordeal they endure across a very lean 83-minute runtime — including a full ten minutes of credits — is portrayed in such blunt, straightforward terms as to suggest this is hardly a remarkable incident in a troubled, dangerous industry. It’s effective enough in that regard, but still, “Mine 9” could stand more human nuance and environmental detail: Its evocation of the real lives and families imperiled by irresponsible authorities is cursory at best.

Mensore sets the claustrophobic mood immediately with a tense false alarm, as hazardously high methane levels in one mine cause a nerve-jangling flare-up. The grimy darkness and tight framing of Matthew Boyd’s cinematography play up the panic and confusion felt by the miners affected, in a space hardly conducive to clarity and communication in the face of danger. Afterwards, the men debate how to follow up on this near-catastrophe: Team leader Zeke (Terry Serpico) wants to report the incident to safety monitors, but his colleagues would rather take the risk and let it slide, fearful that an investigation could shut down the mine and cost them their livelihood. Slightly declarative, on-the-nose dialogue maps out the men’s differing positions in a cruel working-class bind: One even points out that, from an economic perspective, they’re more use to their families dead than unemployed.

No prizes for guessing that this gamble backfires sooner rather than later — on the very day that Zeke’s teenage nephew Ryan (Drew Starkey) reluctantly joins the crew for his first day down the shaft. Mensore sketches in the dire socioeconomic circumstances that have narrowed Ryan’s life choices down to following in the soot-trailing footsteps of his uncle, as well as his callous father Kenny (Mark Ashworth), though the scant above-ground action in “Mine 9” would benefit from a little more observation and texture: There’s little sense of who these men really are, beyond their arduous labor.

Soon enough, at least, we get to see their most visceral individual instincts, when a full-on methane explosion occurs — collapsing the mine and killing several men instantly. The survivors, meanwhile, have less than an hour’s worth of air left while they figure out their escape, making some grisly life-or-death decisions along the way. Playing out nearly in real time, it’s a tension exercise rightly shorn of any sense of macho exhilaration, anxiously realized with limited means. Production designer Tim Barrett and visual effects coordinator Anaitte Vaccaro (both of whom also take executive producer credits) work around evident budget constraints to convey a vivid sense of murky, crumbling space, as escape routes are shed and sealed off by the minute.

The actors do what’s required of them with appropriately clenched jaws, though Mensore’s script isn’t designed to let any of them especially shine. Rather like the crisis depicted on screen, this is an all-for-one-and-one-for-all affair, inviting viewers not to identify with particular characters as such, but to place themselves in the men’s heavy steel-toed boots, sweating it out with them to the bitter, throat-closing end.

Read the article online now.