How Many People Does it Take to Write a Book?

Zondervan's original press release regarding its upcoming publication Multiple Blessings announces that it "has signed an exclusive agreement with Kate Gosselin", and it notes the publication date is scheduled for October 2008. It announces that the book is to be co-authored with [erstwhile friend] Beth Carson. Notice the dust jacket -- no mention of Jon.

Following the rift with BFF Beth -- the same Beth that we have seen Kate fawn over in previous episodes... the same Beth that Kate described as an "angel from heaven... the same Beth who was a regular babysitter of the Gosselin children -- the dust jacket received a makeover, this time adding Jon to top billing and pushing the publication back a month, to November 2008.

Also with the addition of Jon came 16 additional pages (jumping from 208 pages to 224) -- I wonder if Kate let him type without interrupting him, correcting his grammar, or slapping his face?

Hucksters or Scam Artists

Yes, Jon and Kate are hucksters, because they prey on people who have only the best of intentions.

It's just so offensive, especially when you consider the truly needy in this world. Hell, we have soldiers coming back from Iraq and finding themselves homeless. We still have survivors of Katrina displaced and living in squalid FEMA trailers. We have our World Trade Center survivors and heroes suffering from dastardly lung ailments and cancers from the burning debris and toxic fumes they inhaled during the disaster. We have junkies who desperately want to get straight and get their families and friends back. We have children who go to bed hungry every night. We have genocide in Darfur. We have that nice old lady up the street who is going through a miserably hot summer without running her air conditioner because she can't afford to be cool.

I'll even be a little selfish here...we have people like me, who seem to be sick all of the time but cannot seem to find a cause or reason. Too sick to work. Sometimes too sick to even leave the house. And I am one of the lucky ones...my husband works 80 hour workweeks to support us and get us good health insurance. We have many Americans who are too sick to work and yet are without health insurance or any answers.

And these two able-bodied people have the GALL, the unmitigated AUDACITY, to beg for a living and make their story out to be something worthy of attention and financial compensation. They are scam artists who prey upon the well-intentioned but not too terribly bright, sell their story to them, and reap the rewards. And reap and reap and reap. Mostly in cash and freebies, which are much harder for the Tax Man to track.

And when you consider that they manage to couch it all in The Most Holy Name of Jesus Christ, well, let's just say that there is a special place in hell for them, if you believe in that kind of thing. It takes a particular kind of mindset to use others. To use them while utilizing religion puts you in a league with Jim Jones and the People's Temple in Guyana.

I want to know how much money is being put away for the kids.

Reprinted with permission from Laura Linger.

Flimflam Artists

I am reading a book entitled: Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam.

I have figured out exactly what Jon and Kate are. They're flimflam artists. Just like the hucksters who traveled around at the beginning of the 20th century promoting snake oil medicine and operating on men to implant goat's testees to promote virility!

Jon and Kate have a real flimflam operation going on -- with both the tv show and their "speaking engagements." They are representing themselves as something other than what they are. They are shaking people down for money under false pretenses.

As P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute."