Pete Earley

Marc Beige (third from left) with his two siblings (on left) and co-owners of Rubie’s Costume Co.

(10-22-16) Four hours after posting a blog about Walmart’s Razor Blade Suicide Scar Wound Latex Costume Make Up, the offensive product has been removed from the store’s website.

In an email, to Sarah Noelle Hammond, who first brought this to my attention, the company said:

“This costume is appalling and it was unacceptable for a third-party seller to list it on our marketplace. It clearly violated our prohibited items policy and we removed it when it was brought to our attention.”

Now, let’s focus on the real culprit: Rubies Costume Company  which supplies the other stores. It bills itself as the world’s largest designer, manufacturer and distributor of Halloween costumes and accessories. It also notes that Rubies is a family owned and operated business celebrating 65 years. A quick glance at its online offerings shows a host of other stigmatizing Halloween offerings that marginalize folks, including “psycho” costumes.

 

 

The owner of Rubies is Howard Beige who was profiled in a recent article that described the company’s growth from a mom-and-pop shop into a thriving, $100 million mass-market juggernaut with the rise of the Halloween industry. Beige works out of the corporate office at 1770 Walt Whitman Road
Melville, New York 11747. Phone: 516-326-1500. Fax: 631-293-0043.  Customer service can be emailed here.

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PHOTO FROM WALMART INTERNET ADVERTISEMENT 

 

BREAKING NEWS.  Sarah Noelle Hammond, who first brought this to my attention, has received the following notice from Walmart. 

“This costume is appalling and it was unacceptable for a third-party seller to list it on our marketplace. It clearly violated our prohibited items policy and we removed it when it was brought to our attention.”

Thank you Walmart. Now let’s take this fight to the supplier, Rubies Costumes! 

(10-22-16) Walmart is selling a Halloween item that glorifies suicide!

Every October, companies and television programs stigmatize and marginalize individuals with mental disorders, but Walmart has hit a new low: selling “Razor Blade Suicide Scar Wound Latex Costume Make Up.

Would Doug McMillon, the president and chief executive officer of Walmart Stores, think it hilarious if his wife, Shelley, or one of their two sons slit their wrists?

Perhaps Mr. McMillion needs a bit of education.

• Suicide is the SECOND leading cause of death for ages 10-24.
• Suicide is the SECOND leading cause of death for college-age youth and ages 12-18.
• More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease, COMBINED.
• In 2013, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs released a study that covered suicides from 1999 to 2010, which showed that roughly 22 veterans were committing suicide per day, or one every 65 minutes. Some sources suggest that this rate may be undercounting suicides.

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(10-18-16) Within two days of going on sale, my new, co-authored novel, TREASON, sold out at Amazon. Before that major bookseller exhausted its supply, we were on spot 26 of the bestseller list.

Even though Amazon is out of stock, TREASON is still taking orders during this frustrating time as the publisher hurries back to the printer.

I will be announcing the winner of my share-the-blog-and-win-a-free-copy contest in a few days.  You can still enter by sharing this blog with your friends.

Meanwhile, here is what readers are posting on Amazon about TREASON:

My FAVORITE quote from the entire book is from Major Brooke Grant’s (one of the main characters of the book) Aunt:
“It isn’t the devil, Brooke, it’s called free will. God gives you a choice because He knows true love can only happen when someone chooses to love someone else, and that includes us loving Him. If God sent down that lightning bolt, you wouldn’t love Him because of who He is. You’d love Him because you were afraid of Him and that’s no love, that’s fear and intimidation.”
After personally questioning God for MANY YEARS concerning which power (God or satan) controls events in life and whether prayer affects the outcome, I received confirmation from this explanation of how we are to love God unconditionally, no matter the outcome.
To summarize, OFTEN times I get bored with a book mid-way and never finish it. That did NOT HAPPEN with this book! I couldn’t wait to pick it up where I left off every time I had a minute to read! I highly recommend this book!

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(10-14-16) When it comes to mental health care in America, Republican candidate Donald Trump scores only one point on a five point scale ( 5 being the highest) while his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton earns three points on the same scale.

That’s according to Scientific American magazine which partnered with ScienceDebate.org to pose 20 questions to the presidential candidates — questions that were developed and refined by dozens of scientific organizations that represent more than 10 million scientists.

I’ve copy and pasted only the Mental Health question and answers. At the end of the responses is an explanation for why the group ranked Trump lower than Clinton and two independent candidates. I’ve leave it up to you to decide how important this study might be when it comes to casting your vote.

You can also listen to an interview conducted by Robin Young on the NPR program Here and Now  with Christine Gorman, a senior editor at Scientific American who oversaw the process.

Question 6: MENTAL HEALTH 

Mental illness is among the most painful and stigmatized diseases, and the National Institute of Mental Health estimates it costs America more than $300 billion per year. What will you do to reduce the human and economic costs of mental illness?

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(10-11-16) TREASON, my new novel co-authored with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, goes on sale today and, I’m happy to report that it already has won top praise from New York Times Bestselling Author Daniel Silva.

“Heart pounding! Treason is a great Washington thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat –filed with insider detail that only a writing team like Speaker Newt Gingrich and journalist Pete Earley could provide'”

I’m so excited that I’m going to give away fifteen free copies autographed by me. All you have to do to enter this give-away contest is share this blog on Facebook. Yep, that’s it. Just hit share so it goes out to your friends. Ten days from now, fifteen names will be chosen from those Facebook shares and those lucky folks will be notified and asked for a mailing address. The chosen 15 will be given either an autographed hardback book or a CD version. Entering a contest can’t be easier than this.

TREASON is the second novel in our House of Cards meets Jason Bourne style series. Our first novel, DUPLICITY, was released last fall.

Several of my Democrat and liberal friends sent me emails after DUPLICITY was released asking me how Speaker Gingrich and I became co-authors. Because of my journalism background, I’ve always considered myself an independent, neither a Republican nor a Democrat. (Although my friends claim I lean more to the left than to the right.)

The introduction came through my agent. He told me Speaker Gingrich wanted to pen a Washington based novel that he could infuse with his political insider knowledge. I wanted to write an action/adventure novel inspired by my nonfiction spy books. During our first meeting, Speaker Gingrich and I immediately agreed that we wouldn’t write a partisan novel. We simply wanted to write an exciting book that would interweave current events into a believable — edge on your seat — plot.

And that is what we’ve done in TREASON.

Our opening scene takes readers into Washington’s National Cathedral where a funeral is being held for Decker Lake, one of Washington’s most powerful lobbyists and a close friend of the president. I think that scene reflects how funerals in Washington might be a bit different, or should I say, Machiavellian, than many in other parts of the nation.

Brooke Grant guessed there were two thousand mourners in attendance. She knew that many of them had not been admirers of Decker Lake. Some would argue that Lake had more enemies than friends in Washington. It was part of being influential. They had not come to grieve but to make certain he was truly dead.

The jackal-like process of grabbing pieces of Lake’s lucrative lobbying empire had begun within seconds after news of his death had been tweeted. Along the K-Street corridor, rival lobbyists had scheduled lunches and dinners to pimp themselves to Lake’s exhaustive and exclusive list of Wall Street firms and national associations. Lake had been too vain to groom a successor at his boutique-lobbying firm, leaving it rudderless and unable to keep the sharks at bay.

The ripples caused by Lake’s demise extended beyond the lobbyists now trampling over each other to replace him. President Allworth had lost her political champion and power vacuums in Washington never lasted.

This was how Washington bid farewell to one of its own: with pomp, sobriety, and a thinly-veiled impatience with all eyes cast on what was to come, who would matter, who would benefit and who would lose.

I’m posting the entire first chapter of TREASON. Please consider buying a copy, or maybe several! Writing and selling books is how I finance my mental health advocacy and pay my bills,  and TREASON is one of the best novels that I’ve had the pleasure of working on. If you don’t believe me, perhaps you will believe Daniel Silva.

(Don’t forget to share this blog to be automatically entered in my book give-away contest and THANK YOU for your support.)

 

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