This Writer Wrote

Independence Day – July 4th – Laying their Lives on the Line

gollysunshine — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 22:04:17 +0000

It’s sad that in today’s world, we have public figures who don’t seem to know American history and get their facts wrong about our Founding Fathers, our fight for freedom, even Paul Revere’s famous ride. If nothing else, didn’t they grow up on Longfellow’s famous poem? And this morning, CNN ran a teaser question about July 4th where all their choices were wrong and they didn’t even know it.

So I decided to republish an article I wrote about Independence Day more years ago than I care to remember and had published here a few years ago. Can’t even remember the original publication, except it’s long ceased publishing. But it is my original work, so I feel I can repeat…

Independence Day – July 4th

We celebrate July 4th with days off work, family visits, barbecues and fireworks. But how many of us take the time to reflect what Independence Day is all about? That the day commemorates a revolt by citizens against their lawful government because they felt that government didn’t represent them or their best
interests, echoing a cry of “no taxation without representation.” At the time, the 13 American entities were colonies of Great Britain, but there was growing unrest because the colonies had no seat in the British Parliament and hence, no say in their fates. In 1774, the 13 colonies sent delegates to Philadelphia to create the First Continental Congress, but they were not ready to declare war. The inevitable clash came in April 1775, when the extra troops the King sent to control rebellion fought with colonists in Concord, Massachusetts. This became the unofficial beginning of the colonies’ war for independence and was made famous by Longfellow’s poem, “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.”

A Second Continental Congress was convened, which then appointed a committee of five to write a declaration of their intentions to seek their independence.
Thomas Jefferson was chosen to write the first draft. The resolution to make the United Colonies free and independent States and cut the bonds of allegiance
to the British Crown was passed by Congress on July 2nd, but only nine of the thirteen colonies said yes. Pennsylvania and South Carolina said no, Delaware
was undecided and New York abstained.

However, when the Declaration of Independence was voted into acceptance and signed on July 4th, twelve of the thirteen signed the document. Delegates from
New York weren’t empowered to sign until July 7th, and the document wasn’t finalized and disseminated until August. But July 4th, 1776 was chosen to
commemorate the Colonies independence and formation of their own nation because it was the day they declared their intentions and put their lives on the line.

It’s important to note that every one of the 56 men who signed the document was putting his life on the line for his belief in independence, self-determination, and freedom. Essentially, they were committing treason against their lawful government. Five were captured and hanged. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Nine died in the Revolutionary War which ensued. All were well educated, men of means, but most saw their properties and possessions confiscated, looted or destroyed. Many of them gave everything to the cause and died in poverty. It is important to remember today what they taught us with their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor: that freedom and independence is never free… it comes with a price tag.

And like those who fought and won the American War for Independence, we have people today who are willing to pay that price so that the rest of us can have
our days off, visit with our families, barbecue, and shoot off fireworks.

Interesting trivia:

Did you know… when the Declaration of Independence declared ‘all men are created equal’, it meant all white men with property only — no blacks, or women?

Did you know… that both the North and the South used the Declaration of Independence to justify their positions in the Civil War?

Did you know… that many Brits call our “Independence Day” “Thanksgiving Day”?

Did you know… that pyrotechnics started in China with the invention of gunpowder?

Did you know… that Nat Turner’s rebellion was originally planned for July 4, 1831?

Did you know… that the Declaration of Independence is not legally binding?

White Collar Articles – Hanging with the Cast at Comic Con 2010

gollysunshine — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 01:32:19 +0000

Photo by C.A. Taylor

Tim Dekay at San Diego Comic Con 2010

My articles on White Collar from the press conference I attended in July 2010 at the San Diego Comic Con have been up for quite some time at Suite 101.com. I apologize for not getting the notice for WordPress people up sooner. I’ve just been incredibly busy.

As always, there is more information than one can ever use, so I thought I’d put a few tidbits from Sharif Atkins and Marsha Thomason up here. Also, the photos here are from my private collection — ones I took on the red carpet. Unfortunately, my photos of the lovely Marsha Thomason did not come out well.

Those on the official Suite101.com site are publicity releases through the kindness of USA Network.

Matt Bomer at San Diego Comic Con 2010

On the question of if the cast gets any input into the scripts…

Sharif: The cast does it really well. We all get a chance to talk to Tim and Matt. They do it really well. We get a lot of rewrites. We get like about eight—so sometimes what’s happening is they rewrite a scene and the scene itself is okay, but then it doesn’t quite link up with two scenes that you’ve done a couple of days before. So they’re so on it that they are able to say, we’ve said this twice already. For us to say it a third time is absolutely ridiculous and it’s going to get very redundant. So they’re really good at making sure that the logic of the show stay intact.

Matt Bomer and Tim Dekay at San Diego Comic Con

Marsha: Again, I’m really learning about Diana’s backstory as we go. No, I don’t. Jeff gave me a heads up before we shot episode 2… she’s the daughter of a diplomat, she grew up in hotels, her parents – this is something I didn’t say – but her parents aren’t thrilled about her working for the FBI. That was not supposed to be her path.

To learn more, check out my articles at Suite 101.com:

White Collar: At the Core It’s About the Relationship of Two Men

White Collar: Neal and Peter’s Other Partners

White Collar: It’s Not Just Neal & Peter, There’s a FBI Team, Too

White Collar: Conman May Be Old School But the Showrunner Tweets

Whit Collar Cast at San Diego Comic Con

Saluting our Veterans on Veterans Day

gollysunshine — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 21:05:48 +0000

I want to thank all of those who have served or who have had family members who have served in All Armed Forces fighting to keep us safe and free, regardless of which country that may be… who have put their careers and lives on hold to do so and especially those who have sacrificed for us. I wouldn’t be here without you.

What Jensen Ackles Revealed About Directing at San Diego Comic Con

gollysunshine — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 04:26:04 +0000

photo courtesy of The CW/Jack Rowand

At the press round table at San Diego Comic Con 2010, Jensen Ackles was asked about his directorial debut on Supernatural‘s fourth episode of the sixth season, an opportunity he had been preparing himself for since season one. You may read about his answers in my article on Suite 101.com which you can access here:

It’s Good to be Captain: Jensen Ackles Helms Supernatural Tonight

photo courtesy of 2010 Warner Bros Entertainment/Greg Gayne

I also had the opportunity to ask executive producer and sixth season showrunner Sera Gamble for her thoughts on how pleased the writers were with the episode Jensen turned in and her comments are also in the article.

And then in an exclusive, I asked my friend Bob Singer to give me his thoughts on Jensen directing, since Bob has directed many of Suernatural’s episodes and is still an executive producer on the show. And he was kind enough to provide me with a statement as well.

photo courtesy of The CW/Jack Rowand

However, as always, there is information that one can not fit into an article, space-wise, so for you readers here, I offer the following quote that I didn’t have room for. When asked about Dean Wincester’s feelings over which of two lives he wants to live, Jensen said: “Well, from what I know so far, you know, it’s a reluctancy[sic], there’s definitely an inner battle between wanting to stay out of the game and wanting to live a life and wanting to be there for this woman and child that he’s now become a family to. There’s also that undeniable urge of being a hunter. That’s what he does. That’s what he’s known. So that kind of battle of wanting to protect his family, and keep them as far away from it as possible, but in doing that, he’s getting deeper and deeper back into it.”

Supernatural airs on CW Network on Fridays at 9pm ET/PT.

Press coverage on Human Target at San Diego Comic Con 2010

gollysunshine — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 06:59:01 +0000

Photo courtesy of 2010 WBEI

Photo courtesy of Brian Taylor/2010 WBEI

This year at San Diego Comic Con 2010, I was covering the press rooms of various TV shows at San Diego Comic Con 2010.

I attended as many as I could, but Comic Con is so huge these days that many of the press rooms were up against each other or staggered in such a way that you still had to decide between multiple events.

Because I attended both the press room and the panel, I gathered a lot of material. Here is where you can read my four articles at Suite101.com:

1. Human Target As Charlie & Her Angels, Revealed at Comic Con 2010

2. Like It Or Not, Human Target’s Men Got Each Other’s Backs

3. On Becoming Human Targets: Stars and Boss at SD Comic Con 2010

4. Human Target Will Show Team’s Conflicts and Emotions in Season 2.

Photo courtesy of Greg Gayne/2010 WBEI

But even with writing up four articles, there was more information than I had space for. So I shared some of the tidbits on CAT Scratchings (http://dannygirlpaceyjack.blogspot.com/), where I wrote up my personal account of doing the press room and I’ll share the rest here.

Showrunner Matt Miller said he loved Human Target way before he took over. He has no control over the time slot but he thinks the Friday night 8 o’clock time slot is great because “people work hard all week, they come home, they want to kick back, and have some fun.”

Photo courtesy of 2010 WBEI

Matt laughed when asked if they were going to get a location budget. “A location budget? We’re gonna get a really big effects budget. You will not know the difference, I promise you. We’ll be in Vancouver and we’ll not—the other thing about last season, we were in Vancouver but it’s supposed to take place in San Francisco. But part of season one was Chance shrouded in a little bit of mystery and hiding. We’re taking away that element and allowing him to be at the forefront and not be in a position where he has to hide from anyone. And in order to do that, we’re able to use San Francisco as a character in the show he’s in. You could watch three or four episodes last season and not really know that you’re in San Francisco. So if we’re not going international, if we’re in our home base, we want to feel it, we want to know it, we want San Francisco to be part of the show.”

Most likely, they will not be shooting anything in San Francisco. “We’re using a company called Stargate Visual Effects, which has plates and things like that. They have really wonderful ways to accomplish that in a way that feels like you’re there.” He speculated that they might do a second unit at some point in San Francisco, but as of yet, that hasn’t been budgeted.

For more information, please visit Suite101.com or click on the links above which will take you directly to my articles.

For my personal account of doing the press room for Human Target, please visit my CAT Scratchings blog.

What Are the Causes of a Cat Not Eating and Vomiting? | eHow.com

gollysunshine — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:32:59 +0000

via What Are the Causes of a Cat Not Eating and Vomiting? | eHow.com.

Finally, my first article for eHow.com is online. Please check it out, especially if you love cats.

Letter from a Shelter Manager – This made me cry

gollysunshine — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 03:49:37 +0000

This made me cry!!!

Letter from a Shelter Manager

I think our society needs a huge “Wake-up” call. As a shelter manager, I
am going to share a little insight with you all…a view from the inside
if you will.

First off, all of you breeders/sellers should be made to work in the
“back” of an animal shelter for just one day. Maybe if you saw the life
drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would change your mind
about breeding and selling to people you don’t even know.

That puppy you just sold will most likely end up in my shelter when it’s
not a cute little puppy anymore. So how would you feel if you knew that
there’s about a 90% chance that dog will never walk out of the shelter
it is going to be dumped at? Purebred or not! About 50% of all of the
dogs that are “owner surrenders” or “strays”, that come into my shelter
are purebred dogs.

The most common excuses I hear are; “We are moving and we can’t take our
dog (or cat).” Really? Where are you moving too that doesn’t allow pets?
Or they say “The dog got bigger than we thought it would”. How big did
you think a German Shepherd would get? “We don’t have time for her”.
Really? I work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my 6 dogs!
“She’s tearing up our yard”. How about making her a part of your family?
They always tell me “We just don’t want to have to stress about finding
a place for her we know she’ll get adopted, she’s a good dog”.

Odds are your pet won’t get adopted & how stressful do you think being
in a shelter is? Well, let me tell you, your pet has 72 hours to find a
new family from the moment you drop it off. Sometimes a little longer if
the shelter isn’t full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy.
If it sniffles, it dies. Your pet will be confined to a small run/kennel
in a roo m with about 25 other barking or crying animals. It will have to
relieve itself where it eats and sleeps. It will be depressed and it
will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it. If your pet is
lucky, I will have enough volunteers in that day to take him/her for a
walk. If I don’t, your pet won’t get any attention besides having a bowl
of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen
with a high-powered hose. If your dog is big, black or any of the
“Bully” breeds (pit bull, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead
when you walked it through the front door.

Those dogs just don’t get adopted. It doesn’t matter how ‘sweet’ or
‘well behaved’ they are.

If your dog doesn’t get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is
full, it will be destroyed. If the shelter isn’t full and your dog is
good enough, and of a desirable enough breed it may get a stay of
executi on, but not for long . Most dogs get very kennel protective after
about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the sweetest
dogs will turn in this environment. If your pet makes it over all of
those hurdles chances are it will get kennel cough or an upper
respiratory infection and will be destroyed because shelters just don’t
have the funds to pay for even a $100 treatment.

Here’s a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never
witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being “put-down”.

First, your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash. They always
look like they think they are going for a walk happy, wagging their
tails. Until they get to “The Room”, every one of them freaks out and
puts on the brakes when we get to the door. It must smell like death or
they can feel the sad souls that are left in there, it’s strange, but it
happens with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held
down by 1 or 2 vet techs depending on the size and how freaked out they
are. Then a euthanasia tech or a vet will start the process. They will
find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the “pink
stuff”. Hopefully your pet doesn’t panic from being restrained and jerk.
I’ve seen the needles tear out of a leg and been covered with the
resulting blood and been deafened by the yelps and screams. They all
don’t just “go to sleep”, sometimes they spasm for a while, gasp for air
and defecate on themselves.

When it all ends, your pets corpse will be stacked like firewood in a
large freezer in the back with all of the other animals that were killed
waiting to be picked up like garbage. What happens next? Cremated? Taken
to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You’ll never know and it probably
won’t even cross your mind. It was just an animal and you can always buy
a nother one, right?

I hope that those of you that have read this are bawling your eyes out
and can’t get the pictures out of your head I deal with everyday on the
way home from work.

I hate my job, I hate that it exists & I hate that it will always be
there unless you people make some changes and realize that the lives you
are affecting go much farther than the pets you dump at a shelter.

Between 9 and 11 MILLION animals die every year in shelters and only you
can stop it. I do my best to save every life I can but rescues are
always full, and there are more animals coming in everyday than there
are homes.

My point to all of this DON’T BREED OR BUY WHILE SHELTER PETS DIE!

Hate me if you want to. The truth hurts and reality is what it is. I
just hope I maybe changed one persons mind about breeding their dog,
taking their loving pet to a shelter, or buying a dog. I hope thatsomeone will walk into my shelter and say “I saw this and it made me
want to adopt”. THAT WOULD MAKE IT WORTH IT

For those of you that care— please repost this to at least one other
craiglist in another city/state. Let’s see if we can get this all around
the US and have an impact.

Men of a Certain Age: PaleyFest2010 Salutes a Unique Show

gollysunshine — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:42:18 +0000

Photo courtesy of Paley Center press release

On March 12, 2010, I attended my third and last for this year PaleyFest2010 tribute. But it was for a unique show on the air, so it was quite worth it. Men of a Certain Age is not the kind of show I would normally tune in for, but it speaks truth not only for mature men, but women as well.

I wrote up an article about it, which you can find here: http://prime-time-dramas.suite101.com/article.cfm/men-of-a-certain-age-reaches-beyond-sex–age

Due to space limitations for the article set by the website, I couldn’t write up all the fascinating bits on the panel. So here are some deleted tidbits:

Andre Braugher was asked about his underwear scenes. Not only did he say that he would do anything in a script as long as it was right for the show, but he described Owen as a ‘tighty whities’ kind of guy.

Asked about why they liked working in TV, Andre said that it was all about the writing. But he also added that every show he’d worked on had struggled to find an audience (Homicide, Gideon’s Crossing and Thief.) It was nice to finally have a show he didn’t have to beg people to watch.

Scott admitted that the lure was that this show was on cable and had a totally different feel to it. And he loved TV because it was so immediate.

The party store apparently was Ray Romano’s idea. Mike Royce described it as “both a funny place and a sad place” and as a great metaphor. “Everyone’s coming in to celebrate something and he is going through all this stuff in his life.”

Mike Royce said that they actually went to a Norm’s in Sherman Oaks to shoot for the pilot but they have now built a Norm’s set in their shooting stage. I actually drove by the Norm’s by accident the other day… and I have to admit, I would have never noticed it but for this show.

For other deleted tidbits, check out my CAT Scratchings blog at: http://dannygirlpaceyjack.blogspot.com/

For the actual article I wrote, check it out here at Suite101: “Men of a Certain Age Reaches Beyond Sex & Age: PaleyFest2010 Salutes Ray Romano’s New Series” at

http://prime-time-dramas.suite101.com/article.cfm/men-of-a-certain-age-reaches-beyond-sex–age#ixzz0kg3Ygxph

FlashForward Tribute at PaleyFest2010 is Interesting, but Not As Much Fun As NCIS Panel

gollysunshine — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 06:06:35 +0000

Joseph Fiennes, photo courtesy of C.A. Taylor

On March 11, 2010, I went to my second PaleyFest2010 tribute at the Saban Theater in Los Angeles for the year. The theater is quite fancy inside with a functioning bar in the center of the lobby. Still, I liked it better when they were using the DGA theater in past years.

The show being honored was FlashForward, which I have to admit I’m not a big fan of, not like I am for NCIS, but I did enjoy the PaleyFest tribute. Of the actors present, I was most taken with John Cho, Jack Davenport, Courtney Vance and Dominick Monaghan, because they made the panel discussion fun for the audience.

I wrote up an article on the event, which you can link to here: http://prime-time-dramas.suite101.com/article.cfm/flashforward-fills-in-blanks-for-paleyfest2010

And just like a TV episode gets cut for time, articles get caught in space limitations. So I thought I’d share here a couple of the paragraphs I was forced to cut, since they do contain interesting information.

Gabrielle Union remarked that since they hadn’t told her the wedding flash-forward was really a funeral, she played it with big smiles that in retrospect look ridiculous.

When the moderator started to talk about the chemistry of the cast and when the producers realized they were gelling, Monaghan held hands with Davenport. After Borsicky gave a serious answer, the moderator asked if they grabbed asses right away, to which she answered it was a love affair between Courtney and Jack.

A couple more deleted paragraphs can be found in my writeup on CAT Scratchings on blogspot.com.

Attending NCIS Panel at PaleyFest 2010 Was Great Fun

gollysunshine — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:57:39 +0000

photo courtesy of C.A. Taylor

David McCallum told the PaleyFest2010 audience at the March 1, 2010 tribute to NCIS that he is grateful that he is still working at his age — that many of the actors he started with some 40 odd years ago were not so lucky. This is one of the many little tidbits I didn’t have space to include in my article on the fun-filled event. To read what I did have space to include, please check it out here: http://prime-time-dramas.suite101.com/article.cfm/paleyfest2010-investigates-the-appeal-of-ncis.

I really enjoyed the evening and it is obvious that the cast are very fond of each other.