07.11.2010

Bush to speak with Lauer, Winfrey, Leno among others

NEW YORK – The world will soon be hearing a lot from former President George W. Bush.

After relative silence since leaving office in 2009, Bush will be on the air throughout next week and beyond in promotion of his memoir, "Decision Points," which comes out Tuesday. Along with previously announced TV appearances with Matt Lauer and with Oprah Winfrey, Bush will speak with Jay Leno on the "Tonight" show, have radio interviews on the programs of conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and make several TV appearances on the Fox News Channel, the hosts including Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Greta Van Susteran.

The schedule was announced Saturday by spokesman David Drake of Crown Publishers, an imprint of Random House, Inc.

Bush will also meet with Candy Crowley on CNN and appear on "CBS Sunday Morning" with Jim Axelrod. Besides his taped interview with Lauer airing on NBC on Monday night, Bush will speak live with Lauer on the "Today" show on Wednesday morning. Among his print interviews: a cover story for the magazine of AARP, which represents millions of people 50 and older.

The 64-year-old former president will not be out there alone. His parents, former President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush, also will appear on Winfrey's show. His wife, former first lady Laura Bush, will join him on "CBS This Morning." Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, will be with his brother on CNN.

Bush's book tour was organized by Drake; the former president's literary representative, Washington attorney Robert Barnett; former White House press secretary Dana Perino; and Bush spokesman David Sherzer.

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What's a Ghostwriter?

From celebrity autobiographies to medical journals and children's books,countless works have been ghostwritten.

Ghostwriters are people paid to either write or help someone write a book, but are not listed as authors or co-authors. There are ghostwriters behind personal memoirs, guidebooks and plays, as well as abevy of fiction and non-fiction books on every topic imaginable. Even lyrics, poems and comicbooks can be ghostwritten.

"There's not a genre out there that hasn't been ghostwritten," said Larry Leichman, co-owner of Arbor Books, a major ghostwriting and independent publishing firm.

Controversial publications

In fact, the work of ghostwriters in some genres has been viewed as disreputable. The prevalence of ghostwriting inhas become a hot-button ethics issue, as journals have considered screening for and banning articles written by drug company-sponsored ghostwriters who attempt disguise their writing as that of impartial academic authors.

"Ghostwriting is not a new phenomenon," according to "Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research" (Harvard University Press, 2008). One of the studies of the now-infamous drug thalidomide, that was published in a prestigious journal and used to support the drug's FDA approval, was ghostwritten by the drug company's medical director, according to "Bending Science." Thalidomide, which wasprescribed to pregnant women to treat morning sickness, was later shownto cause birth defects.

A story to tell

But it's not just celebrities and major pharmaceutical companies thatuse ghostwriters. People pay ghostwriters to write their articles, speeches, presentations, wedding toasts and personal correspondences - evenlove letters.

"My clients include celebrities and politicians but, more commonly, they are people with a story to tell or with information to impart," said Michael Collins, who owns the ghostwriting service Your-GhostWriter.com and has been in the profession for 10 years. "It's widely believed that 70 percent of non-fiction is ghostwritten these days. And a lot of fiction is too, although that would be referred to asa very heavy edit."

The beloved series about supersleuth Nancy Drew has been ghostwritten by more than a dozen authors under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene since 1930, according to "GirlSleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006).

While ghostwriting contracts vary, most are bound by a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement that prohibits writers fromtaking any credit whatsoever for their involvement in the project. Mostghostwriters' salariesare based on their writing experience, and they do not receive royalties, according to Leichman.

All ghosts, no glory?

Why would someone want to put the time and effort into writing something that won't bear their name or pay them royalties?

"They are skilled craftsmen and artists, and have no ego that gets inthe way of their writing for someone else," Leichman told Life's LittleMysteries. "So long as you're getting paid, the idea of needing credit is way overblown."

"I'm a ghostwriter because it's a very good living," Collins said. "I'm very well paid - often far better than any book earnings - I meet fascinating people and have the opportunity to live their lives. I work from home, set my own time frames, pick my own projects and don't have any of the hassle of book launches, promotions, signings, or concerns over sales figures. It's a great life."

If there's no way to find out whether a book has been ghostwritten - unless, for example, acelebrity decides to publicly admit that she didn't write their autoography herself - how can readers tell if their favorite book was really authored by the person whose name is printed on the jacket?

"Sometimes it's obvious that a book has been ghostwritten," Collins said. "A high profile 'author' may clearly lack the intelligence to string two words together, or the 'voice' in the book may not ring true.Another clue may be in the acknowledgements - 'Michael, thank you, thisbook could never have been written without you,' is a good indicator that Michael's pen was very much involved in the process."

Why Does Sensationalism Sell? What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls? Which Celebrities Have Starred in Comic Books? Remy Melina is a staff writer for , a sister site to LiveScience.Original Story: chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries and deliver short, provocative explanations with a certain wit and style. Check out our science ,and .to debate hot-button issues like stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free , register forand get cool gadgets at the .

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Lost in the immigration shuffle are H-2A agricultural workers

Legal immigrants can get a bad rep alongside their illegal alien counterparts. In part, this is due to the ignorance of a sound-bite audience who does not realize that agricultural workers are not all illegal border-crossers. Adding injury to insult, there are times when even the businesses that are capitalizing on their cheap labor actually choose to abuse them.

Drive past some of the sprawling strawberry fields in sunny Southern California during harvest time, and you see groups of workers picking the berries by hand. The predominant language spoken is Spanish. Survey the location, and you will notice a few portable outhouses, a couple of water stations and precious little else.

Bending and toiling under the baking California sun, these laborers are commonly temporary agricultural workers who follow the crop rotation schedules to earn ready cash from farms that need laborers now -- but perhaps not next week. The same holds true for the orchards in Utah. These workers enter the United States upon the petition of a single farm or association of American agricultural producers whowith the offices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

As a result, the laborers receive an H-2A temporary visa, which may be good for as little as one and as long as three years. Family members may accompany agricultural workers but not engage in employment pursuits themselves, unless the family members receive H-2A visa status as well. The corresponding temporary work visa for a foreigner engaged in temporary labor that is not related to agricultural work is the .

A 2005 expose by Tom Knudson highlights a segment of this latter group of legal immigrants: , the forest service laborers who came into the United States with a federal guest worker permit. Working to fulfill President Bush's Healthy Forest Initiative, they were subjected to unsafe working conditions, deplorable housing and abuse. Whereas there was regulation in place to protect agricultural workers, there was little for these non-agricultural laborers, in part because the scope of the visa is so broad as to span numerous industries. This still holds true.

Pay rulings require H-2A workers to receive the , whichever is higher. This has made illegal immigrants an attractive option to employers who simply do not want to pay out the same funds that are currently being paid to American citizens. The competition for labor jobs is fierce.

Problems arise even when everyone is following the rules: An employer cannot guarantee work for more than a few weeks or months at a time. A laborer brings with him a family, who now solely relies on his income for daily needs. When the job ends but the visa allows for a longer stay, the worker and his family must scramble for a new job. In the meantime, the family lives well below the poverty level.

Sadly, this state of affairs is legal. Adding insult to injury, these legal H-2A or H-2B workers are maligned, pigeonholed and -- frequently -- mistaken for illegal immigrants. Perhaps immigration reform efforts should focus on these legal immigrants rather than border enforcement, for which ample rules and regulations are already in place -- even though enforcement is spotty.

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