SIGHT WITHOUT GLASSES

It was early summer of 1949 in Hawaii and I was sleeping like a hibernating bear when my Dad woke me up about 6:30 in the morning.

"Please come help me son," he said. "I've got several phone numbers I need to look up and you know I can't see them even with my glasses on."

He had just been examined, tested and fitted for bifocals and he was extremely annoyed with the whole thing. If there was ever anyone that really despised glasses it was Frank Owens, my father. Since we lived on Oahu and there were no factories to manufacture the glasses, there was about a ten-week wait ahead of him since the prescription had to be sent to the mainland to be filled. In the meantime he made do with the inadequate reading glasses and a large magnifying glass. Even those two items weren't sufficient because the print in the telephone book was so small.

So I reluctantly pulled myself out of bed and went into his little office in the back of the house. I read all the numbers to him and he wrote them down, got dressed and left for the studios downtown. I threw my shorts and a shirt on, grabbed my bike and headed on down to the Outrigger Canoe Club where I stored my surfboard. It was only four long blocks away so I got there in a very short time. I guess I spent a couple of hours surfing out in front of the Moana Hotel and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel where my uncle, Harry Owens, performed for so many years with his orchestra, "The Royal Hawaiians".

That night my Dad and Mom went out to play bridge with Bill and Peg Meyers in Kailua, on the other side of the island. The next day my Dad was so excited that even though he was only 49 I thought he was going to have a stroke. This is where the story gets really good.

Bill and Peg Meyers had four big six-foot sons who were the picture of health with one exception. David, the youngest, had one eye that was completely crossed. Other than that he was in fine shape being a champion swimmer. In those days since they had no operation or treatment that would reverse a crossed eye it was considered a permanent affliction.

During the course of the bridge game my Dad mentioned what a really annoying thing it was that he was going to have to use bifocals. After he got through with his mild tirade - he never did raise his voice very much - Bill told him that they had found an eye doctor in Chicago who had cured David's crossed eye. When my Dad really perked up and wanted to know the details Bill proceeded to tell him about their attempts to find an eye doctor for David that might be able to help him. Bill was a very successful stockbroker so had the money for them to travel around the country visiting different eye doctors. They went to the mainland every summer and had been doing so for several years.

In 1948 they had heard about a doctor in Chicago by the name of Harold M. Peppard, no relation to the movie star. So they had made an appointment and flew to Chicago to see him. That was no small task in the late 1940's as the Pan American amphibious Boeing Clipper took 17 hours to get from Honolulu to San Francisco Bay.

From there it was another day to get to Chicago. When Dr. Peppard examined David, the doctor said that there was nothing organically wrong with David's eye, it just had a very weak muscle. He then proceeded to tell them about the eye exercises he had developed and documented in his book "Sight Without Glasses". David was about 16 in 1948 so the doctor showed him how to do the exercises and told him that it would be about three months before he saw the final results. However, the eye should start straightening out within a couple of weeks.

By now my Dad was extremely suspicious because he and Bill were constantly pulling practical jokes on each other. My Dad said that was so far out there was no way Bill was telling the truth. "C'mon Bill, " said my Dad. "You're just pulling my leg!"

Bill didn't say anything, he just turned around and hollered "David, come here!" In the back of the house they heard David's voice saying he was coming. When David got into the living room Bill told him to go over to my Dad and show him the eye. My Dad was astounded and said "Good Heavens! It's not crossed any more!" and David smiled and said "Dr. Peppard's exercises really work. I still have to keep up with the exercises for another couple of months but then ordinary eye shift should keep it in shape".

My Dad turned to Bill Meyers and said "Bill, where can I get a copy of that book?" Bill went over to the bookshelf and looked for a minute or so and brought the book out and handed it to my Dad.

"Here Frank, you can have it. I don't think David needs it anymore".

The next day my Dad, knowing the value of daily exercise (practice) started doing the eye exercises. His eyes improved to the point that he never again had to wear glasses. The bifocals that he had ordered and paid for showed up at the house and he put them into the top drawer of his chest of drawers in their bedroom. They stayed there for the next 31 years and he never used them at all until the day he died.

In 1969 my Dad was 70 years old. When they came to visit us in New Orleans they stayed at the Monteleone Hotel. I happened to be in the room when my mother said to my Dad, "Pancho (his nickname), please look up the telephone numbers of the places we're going today." My dad picked up the phone book and looked up about a half dozen numbers that he rattled off to my mother who wrote them down. It was then twenty years since he had started doing the eye exercises. It was astounding to me to see my father actually read the telephone book when twenty years before I used to do it for him. My mother was wearing glasses and I was amazed. I asked her why she didn't do the exercises and she said she just couldn't be bothered.

My Dad trained me a little in the use of the exercises but the main thing he taught me was the fact that eyestrain comes mainly from lack of blinking and squinting. Squinting is the worst thing you can do to your eyes as it changes the shape of the eyeball and the muscles get weak making them worse. Relaxing the eyes and letting them get into focus really works - since it takes longer when you get older people don't realize that they are harming their eyes. If you just relax and blink a few times at what you want to see, you'll be surprised at the way the eye actually focuses.

I don't have anything against glasses. I use them for reading and can see pretty well at a distance as long as I don't force it. I still have a copy of Dr. Peppard's book. The original was destroyed by Katrina but fortunately one of my students wanted a copy and made three photocopies of the book. He took one and I kept the other two which just happened to be above the five foot flood line.

Of course, 75 is catching up and it takes longer for the eyes to focus but what else is new? I have a special pair of glasses for the computer - you can buy them cheap by holding a book at arms length and trying on glasses at the drug store or asking your eye doctor to give you some glasses with a focal length of about 20" - 22". Check it out. That's about where your computer monitor sits. Guess I'm like my mother - I just can't be bothered to do the exercises.

PEARL HARBOR - DECEMBER 7, 1941

So you think you know what war is like? I'm here to suggest that until you have actually been in combat or have suffered through a bombing by a foreign power you're just guessing. Follow along closely as you get a glimpse into the mind of a seven year old and see how the horrors of war influenced his thinking for many years.

It was another beautiful Sunday morning in Hawaii. My Dad, Mom and I were getting ready to go to Mass at St. Augustine's Catholic Church in Waikiki. We had been living in our new home on Ala Wai Blvd. in Honolulu, Hawaii for about five years. It was just two long blocks from Waikiki beach. Years later I can remember my Dad regaling us with stories about how everyone thought he was completely nuts for buying the property where the house was located because there was nothing around there except ponds with ducks and geese. He bought the house AND the 5,000 square feet of land for one dollar a square foot - $5,000.00. That was an enormous sum in the mid nineteen thirties but it proved to be another one of my Dad's really smart moves.

We had a Philco radio on the bedside table next to my parent's bed. It looked like a small brown archway and it had the usual Sunday morning claptrap going on about a host of inane activities for that day. My Dad was sitting in the yard using a Sunbeam electric "Shavemaster" that was hooked up to a long electrical extension that was plugged in inside the house. I kept hearing these explosions coming from the southwest side of the island but they sounded like noises we usually heard when there were maneuvers going on at the Army Air Force Base at Hickam Field. All of a sudden the radio announcer started yelling: "The Japs are bombing Pearl Harbor! The Japs are bombing Pearl Harbor!" I ran outside just in time to see a Japanese Zero drop a bomb two blocks from our house. It landed in the middle of Lewers Road and in addition to leaving a huge crater about twenty feet deep and completely across the street, it left shrapnel marks on all the buildings around which were there for years. Amazingly, no one was killed but a couple of people inside the apartment buildings were injured. Occasionally we would take tourists around the area and show them the shrapnel marks particularly on a pink building that had a stucco finish.

Here's a little side issue. Have you ever heard about the Mitsubishi Airplane factory? No? Just the automobile manufacturer you say? Well, guess what: The Mitsubishi A6M plane (nicknamed the "Zeke", the Allied code name, or the "Zero", the popular name) was manufactured by the Mitsubishi Airplane Factory in Japan with a design history starting in 1937. It was the first carrierborne fighter aircraft to supercede all other land based planes. Can you figure out why I don't want to own a vehicle with the brand name "Mitsubishi"?

The rest of the morning was pure shock. Since the adults were frightened all the kids were panic-stricken! We were glued to the radio in our front room. It was a big Philco console and was hooked up to an aerial on the roof that gave us very good short wave reception, even in the daytime. In front of our house was a canal (Ala Wai is "water way" in Hawaiian) that emptied all of the rainwater from the mountains into the Pacific Ocean. I remember standing in the front door clutching my mother's dress as we watched a house burning on the other side of the canal. It was a very big house and painted that dull red color just like the barns you see around the farmland countryside. It was burning and large billows of black smoke were pouring out of all the windows. You could see people running around the outside of the house. They looked like ants.

We didn't know it at the time but many years later we learned that most of the bombs dropped on civilian targets went there simply because the imperfect release mechanism on the Zero often got stuck and the pilot would fly around jerking frantically on the handle to get rid of the bomb. Not paying any attention to where he was flying except to keep the aircraft up in the air, many bombs were dropped by accident simply because the pilot knew he could never land on the carrier with the bomb hanging down as it would blow up the plane with him in it the moment he landed.

Later on that day we heard over the radio that martial law had been declared and anyone on the street after nine-o'clock at night would be shot. The entire island was forced into a complete blackout to prevent enemy planes from using the lights as markers for bombing. Soon after that my Dad was busy building covers for every one of the windows. They slanted out from the house wall above the windows and had to be painted black on the inside. They only came down halfway on each window so that you could leave the top half of the window open for ventilation. However, the glass on the bottom part of the windows had to be painted black so that no light could escape. You could open the windows anytime you wanted as long as no lights in the room were on. You also had to have covers put on your automobile headlights that kept the lights from shining up. This was enforced until the end of the war. We didn't get the black paint off of all of our windows for several months after the end of the war. I can remember how relieved I was to see the light streaming in the windows of my bedroom. It was like we had been let out of jail.

There was a reason for these rules. Everyone in the Hawaiian Islands was petrified for months that the Japanese were coming back with an invasion force. Many years later we learned how Admiral Yamamoto tried for many months to convince the politicians that the best time to invade the Islands would be while the bombing of Pearl Harbor was going on. He wanted to bring along three shiploads of troops, probably about seven thousand seasoned combat soldiers, with the carrier task force and land them on the beaches around the island of Oahu while the air raid took place. Fortunately, he was unsuccessful in his endeavors or I'd probably be speaking Japanese today if I was still alive.

From then on it was a life controlled by the war. Everyone was required by law to carry a gas mask. It was slung around your shoulders and carried wherever you went. You had a better chance of walking around with no clothes on and not being arrested as long as you were carrying your gas mask. Air Raid "Wardens" were appointed and each one took care of an area that included a number of blocks. Until Katrina destroyed all of our pictures, I had several photos of my best friend, Pat Dunn, and me when we made our first communion wearing the white shirt and pants and the ubiquitous gas mask. I also had a huge wooden box of the front page of the Honolulu Advertiser and the Star Bulletin newspapers from December 7, 1941 to August 31, 1945. One of my students and I were working on selling them and I had them in my studio.

For the duration of the war the air raid wardens walked around everyone's house at night checking to see if any light was escaping from the house, If it was, you got a ticket and had to go to court to prove that it was accident besides paying a big fine. If you broke the blackout law more than two times, supposedly you went to jail. Everything was enforced by a huge military presence wherever you went. Occasionally there would be a "practice" air raid and gas attack.

The wardens would put on their gas masks at a certain predetermined time and then start throwing tear gas grenades all around their area. If you didn't put on the gas mask it was pretty severe because it really did cause a lot of respiratory problems as well as a lot of tears coming from the eyes. This happened several times a year during the war.

We still went to the beach to go swimming but that was not allowed for several weeks until massive walls of barbed wire protected all the beaches. To get to the ocean you had to walk through ziz-zag corridors in the barbed wire. This condition was maintained until August of 1945 when the war with Japan ended. Everywhere you went on the island there were military police (M.P.'s) riding around in jeeps and doing their best to keep order, particularly with the huge influx of servicemen. As with most populations, the servicemen in general were despised because they disrupted your way of life. Very little thought was given to the fact that they were on their way to die to keep us free.

As a consequence, my Dad built up Frank Owens Studios to the point where by 1946, when I
started teaching piano in his studios, he had 15 instructors working Monday through Saturday
from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. In addition, he, my mother and I were teaching. For many years the
enrollment for the studios was over 500 a month. By the time I was ten I guess I was bugging
him so much that he started taking me to the store on Saturdays. Within a few weeks I was
working behind the counter packaging things that people bought and making change.

During the entire war and for another thirty years afterward, my Dad's music stores were
exceptionally busy. Servicemen from all over the country were coming into Honolulu because
they were going through Army basic training at Scofield Barracks. Once there, they knew that
they were going to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese military and there was a chance they
might not come back. So they tried to cram into three months all the things they had thought
about doing but hadn't. They took piano lessons, guitar lessons, they bought sheet music and
harmonicas and records and other things too numerous to mention.

In spite of trying to live a normal life, it just wasn't possible. Incessant reminders of the war were everywhere. One of the really bad things was probably the air raid sirens that went off once a week. They had to be tested regularly in case they were needed but it was frightening for a few moments until you realized it was the weekly test. Even worse than that was the nighttime air raids. Radar was in its infancy and at least two or three times a month, anytime the operators saw a flock of birds they were sure we were being attacked again and the sirens would go off and the sixteen-inch anti-aircraft guns would go off. Sixteen inch! That's a shell that's a regular twelve-inch ruler plus another half in diameter. It was HUGE. And it made a huge noise when it fired a 1.25 TON shell.

Since Fort Derussy was just two blocks away and the guns were on the corner closest to us, they literally shook the entire neighborhood every time they were fired. The whole house would shake, I would make a mad dash from my bedroom to my parents bedroom, crawl into their bed in between them and shake like a leaf wondering if we were being attacked again.

This would go on until finally the sirens would signal the all clear and the tension would melt out of you like perspiration running down your back. Often times, I would go back to sleep there and not get up until my Dad got up very early in the morning.

For many years the sound of a siren would send a chill up and down my back with the hair on the back of my neck rising up. I can remember hunting for rabbits with my beagle on the batture in Waggaman, LA around 1970. Suddenly an air raid siren went off. It was so startling and frightening that I was sure World War Three had started. Turns out it was a monthly test of the system to make sure it worked. Living in New Orleans, working at night and often times being asleep when the early morning test was going on I don't recall hearing it too many times. You can probably understand that I was one of the first to be highly in favor of the new sirens for all emergency vehicles except for the fire department. It was a long time coming as far as I was concerned and a very welcome change.

My thoughts of the war have never really left me as I have been continually reminded of them by the constant wars going on all around us. Right after World War Two ended the Korean War started - please remember that we're not supposed to call it a "war" because we never declared war on North Korea - it's the Korean "Conflict". Is that another sign of the long-term stupidity of everyone in Congress? Anyway, Wheeler Air Force Base, located on the west side of the island near the town of Wahiawa was where my high school girlfriend, Sonia Poland lived.

Her father, Captain Roger Poland was in the U.S. Air Force. It was called the Army Air Force at the beginning of the war. She had a twin sister named Sharon and an older sister named Patricia. Her mother was the secretary for an orthopedic surgeon at Tripler Army General Hospital that had 3,000 beds during WWII. It was upgraded to 4,000 beds during the Vietnam War. She was responsible for helping me volunteer to get in to entertain the troops just about every week during the Korean War. A couple of orderlies would move a piano on wheels into a ward and I would play a few tunes for the wounded soldiers and then the orderlies would move the piano to another ward and I would play again for a while. The sight of our troops with lost arms, legs and eyesight was pretty gruesome but I put up with it to try and give something back to the troops for what they have always done for us. The draft board chased me next and won then came the Cuban missile crisis, then Vietnam. My memories of war are made even more vivid as we battle terrorism and those who believe we all ought to be Islamic or dead. Unless you've been through it I doubt you can understand the whole matter. Needless to say, war IS hell and it leaves its mark on every human being subjected to the whole process. Like just about everyone else I've ever met, we all hope the wars will stop but there really isn't too much chance for that. Your chances of working hard to stop wars are much better if you have experienced something like the attack on Pearl Harbor. Otherwise it really doesn't mean much.

Homes for the Homeless

Homes for the homeless

Anyone ever considered how simple it would be to provide thousands of realistic homes for the homeless? Take a look around you at all the huge highway and Interstate construction projects with many of the overpasses being five to ten feet off the ground. It appears to the folks without a lot of information about how the homeless live that the homeless go about looking for places to stay that are out of the wind in the winter and out of the sun in the summer. Seems reasonable to me.

Can you visualize areas under all of these overpasses separated into rooms without doors that would be a great place for the homeless to crash? It really seems too simplistic but in real life, the homeless do NOT want to go "home". They want a little nook or cranny that they can call their own with a few "amenities" (like cardboard to help keep warm) that will see them through another night. They don't look very far ahead you know. They're just concerned about where they are going to sleep for the night, whether their stomach is going to growl at them because they haven't eaten today and where they are going to go to the bathroom. These appear to be the top priorities to a homeless person.

It seems as though well-meaning people like those associated with Habitat International and other organizations of the same type are bound and determined to fit the square-peg homeless person into their round-hole mentality. It's a direct failure of the whole procedure to think you can take someone who has abandoned your values and force them to accept it by moving into what YOU think is a nice house. You must forget this because they don't want a nice house - they want a place to crash for the night that is out of the wind, rain and cold, nothing more.

There have been numerous studies as to why there are so many homeless people. In 80 percent of the cases it's by choice folks! These people have dropped out of society and want nothing more than to be left alone. Numerous studies have apparently shown that when you take a homeless person and set them up in a decent apartment or home and provide them with enough food and utilities they'll take it and when everything runs out they go back on the street again.

Remember what it was like to be a kid? No responsibilities, no worries except those created by the authorities (mostly parents) about what the kids "have to do" tomorrow, next week, next year and so on. Many homeless find the life satisfying inasmuch as they don't have to obey anyone. As long as they are unobtrusive and don't break any major laws, they are generally left alone. The really creative ones end up making quite a lifestyle for themselves that doesn't cost very much but provides them and a few hangers on with an existence that is better than the rat race they abandoned when they quit society.

A series of small rooms constructed by volunteers using contributions of old used plywood under a highway overpass would go a long way to get the homeless off the street, get them out of the weather and provide a ready made roof over there heads. It would also provide a place where social services could be provided for them on a bare necessity level. For example, many illnesses that become an epidemic start in the world of the homeless. They don't seek medical help because they don't want to be thrust into society's limelight. Besides, they don't have the means. How easy would it be to provide drinking water from cisterns that caught rainwater? Where do you think they are getting drinking water now?

Keeping the crime down would be fairly simple as there would not be too many volunteers required to look out for one area suitable for a hundred people. The ones that migrate there could be examined for psychological problems without intruding on their idea of homeless "society" and some help could be provided for the ones that want it. The main thing to remember is that you cannot save them all! You'll be lucky if you can save a few. Isn't that worth the effort?

Consider the fact that a great number of people living the life of a responsible adult often yearn for the days when all they had to worry about was homework and whether another pimple was going to break out on their face. I realize that it was very important then but now, it seems almost idyllic that you should have so little to worry about. Have you considered the fact that this great country of ours was settled over many years by a lot of homeless people? Perhaps you can add your thoughts on this article to make it more of a reality. How about it?

Lincoln's Other Mary

One day in the mid-1980's, I got a phone call from a gentleman in Michigan who identified himself as David Owens. Turned out that not only was he a genealogist studying and documenting the Owens clan back into the 1700's, he was also a professional musician with a band of his own (the genes do show up, don't they?). He wanted to know what had happened to my Dad's father after he left Harvard. At that time, I had no earthly idea that my grandfather had attended, much less graduated from Harvard University.

Seems as though my grandfather, Jessie Vinyard Owens, wanted to be a school superintendent and went to Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska for that specific degree. That's where my father was born. I knew that they had moved to Butte, Montana where "Bapu", his nickname, took over the school system there. During this conversation David mentioned that my grandfather's aunt was once engaged to Abraham Lincoln. I remember saying "No way! You're pulling my leg!" and he said that it was true and was documented in the book "Lincoln's other Mary". I told him I would get the book and check it out. And he was right, the book exists and it does tell quite a story.

Seems as though my great-aunt, Mary Owens, lived on a big plantation in Lexington, Kentucky in the early 1800's along with her sister and brother and perhaps other siblings. Her father was very wealthy and owned hundreds of slaves, a mark of great wealth in those days. Her sister got married and moved to Springfield, Illinois. Her sister kept writing to Mary asking her to come visit since she missed her very much. Finally, Mary got the trip organized and took the long trip by horse and buggy to Springfield. While she was there she was introduced to this attorney who was poor as a church mouse but they hit it off immediately. Mary went home and made other trips to Springfield and on the last one, this attorney asked her to marry him. She told him that she was very fond of him but would have to think about it.

Mary went back to Lexington and pondered the whole deal for a few weeks and finally wrote to the attorney and turned him down. It was Abraham Lincoln. He finally married the "other" Mary. Mary Owens eventually married a man by the name of Jessie Vinyard. Her brother, Robert Owens, apparently thought so highly of Mary's husband that he named one of his boys Jessie Vinyard Owens, my grandfather.

So I have encouraged my children and grandchildren to always tell people that one of their relatives jilted Abraham Lincoln. It's a really good, true story for cocktail parties!

IMPROVISATION

I've had several inquiries from former students of mine about improvisation. Although I am retired from the teaching business and perform very seldom, I can still write about these things. So for you piano players and other instrumentalists out there, here's an article I wrote last week for the International Piano Teachers Group in response to an inquiry for help from a teacher in England.

Improvisation is always viewed as the boogey man, something that is extremely difficult and almost impossible to learn. In the words of one of my improvisational teachers about 60 years ago that's hogwash.

For example, Twinkle, Twinkle, little star, starting on the note C is played:

CHORDS: C F C
NOTES: Middle C C up G G up A A dn G
TIME: 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

Every teacher at one time or another struggles to devise a way to teach a song without manuscript notes. The example above is what I use. It's fairly easy to understand for a student with limited knowledge of the keyboard. It's also very useful in e-mail! In popular sheet music usage, above the first C would be the letter C indicating the C chord (CEG). Above the first A would be the letter F indicating the F chord (FAC). Above the last G would be the letter C indicating the C chord.

All improvisation in the modern sense is based on using the notes of the chord and what are called passing notes (non-members of the chord and melody) to embellish the melody. Of course the options are endless, only limited by the creativity of the performer. In the case of this simple melody we can very quickly construct an improvised melody by simply using additional notes of the chord and passing notes in between:

C dn B up C up D E F G dn E up F G A dn F up C dn A dn G
1 & 2 ee & a 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 4

In this example we have changed the first and second notes to eighth notes, the next four to sixteenth notes and the rest to eighth notes with the last note being the half note. Please notice that strong beats of one and three remain the same and the weaker beats of two and four sometimes occur in other places than the original melody. If this is unacceptable it is fairly easy to change it to the way you want it.

Let me give you fair warning. In sixty years of teaching popular music I have had a large number of students who wanted to learn how to improvise. Some of them take to it like ducklings to water. Others really have to struggle. The sad part is that there is a large percentage who never catch on and just give it up as a bad deal. Maybe there's a glitch in the way their brain works or perhaps they just give up too easily. My opinion is that it is their belief system. They've "known" for years that improvisation was extremely difficult and "knew" they were never going to be able to learn it. As Henry Ford once said, "If a man believes he can do it or believes that he can't do it, chances are he is right!"

Many years ago my father regaled me with stories of great pianists who put on concerts that were attended by large numbers of people. Most of the concertgoers would tolerate the pieces the pianist performed in the first half of the concert but what they really came for occurred in the second half. At that time, the pianist would begin by stating a theme and then the rest of the time he would play improvisations based on that theme. The interaction between the pianist and the audience brought us some of our greatest classical music, particularly Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninoff.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, the marvelous blind pianist Alec Templeton was the last to do this. I was a member of the audience in Honolulu, Hawaii in about 1949 when he performed there. The last segment was when he asked for five notes from the audience and it was really an odd lot. That man sat up there and played those five notes interwoven into styles by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy and even John Philip Souza! It was one of the most remarkable concerts I've ever attended.

This venue does not lend itself well to placing the chords and the timing in the right spots. With a little bit of thought you should be able to figure it out. If not let me know and I'll tell you how it works.

Hope this helps.

Fritz

A RARE PLANT?

Most of the people I know are aware of the fact that I've been a fanatic about hunting and fishing my whole life. Actually, I've been tramping through the woods since I was nine years old. Hawaii, Indiana, California, Ohio, Florida were all states in which I hunted or camped out. Then came over 40 years in Louisiana. During a period of 20 years in Louisiana if there were 55 days of duck hunting and I didn't make 50 it was a bad year. I went every day. In all this time I was just like a kid - curious about everything and noticing things that most people never saw.

Last spring I went a ways down the mountain on our 2.6 acres in the back of our home and ran across what I considered an amazing plant. I have never run across a plant such as the one here in the Western North Carolina Mountains. I went back to the house and got my camera and took a fairly good image of the plant. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to get an identification from some biology and botany "experts in North Carolina but did not have any luck getting an ID on the plant.

I have posted this image above this article. You can click on the picture to see a larger image. Let me draw your attention to the fact that this plant has a stem growing out of the center of the large leaves and on the top of that stem which is over six inches long is another set of smaller leaves. I've never seen anything like it. There are at least two plants in the photograph.

If you can identify it or know someone who can do so, please let me know.


As usual if you have any comments they are welcome.

List of Articles

I've had some complaints from people that they are having difficulty finding specific articles I've written so this article is just a list of them all. This list will be edited and revised in the future as I add more articles to this blog.

As usual, your comments are always read and published unless anonymous. With those I reserve the right to withhold publication.

LIST OF ARTICLES

2006

1. Religious Slaves - 4/15/2006
2. Katrina ruins the life of a professional musician - 4/15/2006
3. The Last Straw, Easter Sunday - 4/16/2006
4. Hippy Dippy Bebop Progressive Jazz Junk - 4/19/2006
5. The Death Merchants - 4/21/2006
6. The Gouging Oil Companies - 4/21/2006
7. Sight Reading at the Piano - 4/28/2006
8. Surviving a Heart Attack by Yourself - 5/06/2006
9. Philosophy of Experience - 6/25/2006 (COUNTER)
10. Prison Reform - 12/23/2006

2007

1. Reliable Witnesses - 4/06/2007
2. The Mind Reader - 4/11/2007
3. Alien Invader Crooks - 6/28/ 2007

2008

1. Shaman Shame - 10/16/2008
2. How Religion Got Started - 11/05/2008
3. End of a Career? - 11/26/2008
4. Fed Up! - 11/06/2008
5. The Solution to Drunk Driving - 12/15/2008
6. Carnage in the Mid-East - 12/28/2008

2009

1. Anonymous Comments - 1/19/2009
2. Stopping the Pirates - 4/15/2009
3. Miracles or Magic? - 5/05/2009
4. List of Articles - 5/23/2009
5. Rare Plant? - 6/16/2009
6. Improvisation - 9/13/2009
7. Lincoln's Other Mary - 11/25/2009
8. Homes for the Homeless - 11/27/2009
9. Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 - 12/06/2009

2010

1. Sight Without Glasses - 1/12/2010
2. How Shipbuilding Got Started - 4/04/2010
3. Low Body Temperature - 9/10/2010
4. Global Warming? - 9/21/2010

2011

1. http://pianofritz2.blogspot.com/2011/01/assassanation-attempt-in-tucson-az.html

"Assassination attempt in Tucson, AZ" - 1/9/2011

2012

1. http://pianofritz2.blogspot.com/2012/04/rumors-of-my-demise.html

"Rumors of my demise" - 4/20/2012

2. http://pianofritz2.blogspot.com/2012_06_01_archive.html 

"The latest Political Scam" - 6/1/2012

3. http://pianofritz2.blogspot.com/2012_12_01_archive.html
"Our most precious asset" - 12/19/2012

MIRACLES OR MAGIC?

In several books about Harry Potter, there are several different ways that he can use magic. One of them is his invisibility cloak. Now that's a fine tool, very useful for the person who wants to accomplish things without people seeing what he is doing. The problem is that it is considered "magic" which is purportedly impossible.

On a daily basis, youngsters around the world are subjected to the story that an angel appeared to the "Virgin" Mary, told her she was going to become pregnant but that there would be no indication of any sexual act having taken place. The young children are forced to say over and over: "I believe! I believe!"

What is the difference? You expect me to believe that Harry Potter's invisibility cloak is impossible but that Mary had a child without losing her virginity? Doesn't that strike you as odd? I consider it the biggest case of child abuse ever perpetrated on the human race. What makes you think that children of all ages are too stupid to figure out, on their own, what a huge scam this is?

How about this one: the shaman (priest, minister, rabbi, whatever) presides over a funeral and says to the people gathered there that God "needed" little Miss Smith more than her parents or friends or relatives which is why she died. Do these sadistic people realize that they are teaching this gathering of mourners to hate God? Or how about the reaction of people when something really bad happens to Mr. X: "Well, he really must have done something exceptionally bad or God wouldn't have let this happen to him!"

That's on the same level with the performance my "converted" mother used to put on if the motor on my car blew up or a job fell through or the roof started to leak on our house: "You see? If you'd go to church more often this wouldn't happen to you!" She had to convert to Catholicism in order to marry my father. As the saying goes, the convert is the most rabid believer of all. On the other hand, my Dad went to Mass and communion every day and NEVER SAID A WORD about it! He never preached to me about it, he just did it. I call that living your religion.

I choose to believe what Dr. Harold Kushner preaches in his television special entitled "When Bad Things Happen to Good People". You can also get the book of the same name. Dr. Kushner is a rabbi whose son contracted progeria, the "old age" disease, (also known as "Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome") at age three and died when he was fourteen. His whole philosophy is that God is not sitting up there (or down there - take your choice) waiting for you to step out of line so that he can punish you. Dr. Kushner's description is very simple: "A falling rock has NO conscience! It was an ACCIDENT!"

Try concentrating on that the next time something goes awry. It makes any religion (your way of life) much easier to tolerate. The two quotes following might make it even easier!

“Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.”

"The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief."

Sigmund Freud - 1856-1939

Stopping the pirates

RE: shipping off the coast of Somali

I have watched the events concerning the Maersk Alabama and the hostage situation which ended so well thanks to our Navy Seals. I really don't care about the details of how they accomplished the task. It wouldn't bother me to learn they were hanging from a chandelier when the shots were fired. The Captain is free and three bad guys are dead. That's all that really counts.

Now a military expert says: "guarding that vast area is very tough". The news media is not interpreting that correctly. The word is not "tough" but "expensive". President Obama can spend billions bailing out worthless automobile companies and can't spare a few billion to protect American interests in the Indian Ocean?

Apparently, the entire administration and the military think the American people are really stupid. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to handle the problem. One nuclear powered aircraft carrier positions itself in the center of that "vast" area. A-10 "Warthogs" run patrols 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Helicopters create a corridor by dropping a few hundred sonar buoys that float below the surface. All shipping interests are warned to stay within the corridor when passing the coast of Somalia. Apache helicopters standby to intercept the pirate vessels that enter the corridor. Anyone fires at U. S. ships or planes and they get sunk. End of problem. Do you really think that we will believe that it's not a matter of money? Lives in Iraq and Afghanistan are at risk because of lack of money. Why is this situation any different?

It seems entirely possible that the insurance companies and the shipping companies would gladly pay a good part if not all of the expense of ending the pirate problem if it succeeded.

If you feel differently, kindly leave a comment. If you don't want to leave your name the comment will be read by me but it will NOT be posted

Anonymous Comments

On Sunday December 28, 2008 I posted an article I wrote on "Carnage in the Middle East". I have received an anonymous comment which I am reluctant to release on to my blog. I believe that anyone who doesn't have the guts to stand behind what they write should not be afforded a forum on which to rant.

In addition, this person seems to believe that since the body count of Hamas dead and injured is larger than that in Israel, more attention should be paid to the plight of Hamas. I consider that patently unfair since body count has never reflected how much people suffer during any war.

I will continue to post articles on what I think is unreasonable action particularly by the media. In the meantime Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, if you want to crawl out of the woodwork and discuss this on a reasonable basis I'm ready.

Fritz Owens

Carnage in the Mid-East

Copyright 2008 by fritz owens

What kind of news reporting do we have in the United States? It seems to be on the side of terrorism and against people who just want to be left alone. It seems fairly apparent that this religious war being conducted by Hamas from the Gaza Strip is aimed at killing Jewish citizens. Randomly aimed rockets at the countryside are certainly not militarily oriented. They are designed to terrorize people and get publicity. And contrary to all the ethics of good news reporting, we are getting a heavy dose of public "outcry" about the wicked Israel and the deaths and injuries from the aerial attacks.

Why don't we get a look at the Israeli people huddling in bomb shelters because of the fanatical religious beliefs of an organization that says this sector of the world does not have a right to exist? When's the last time you saw any pictures of Jewish people injured or killed in the rocket attacks from Hamas? Why are NBC, ABC and CBS devoting so much time to the cries of outrage about Israel and nothing about Hamas? There are two sides to this story!

I know what it is like to huddle in between your parents in the middle of the night with the air raid sirens going off and sixteen-inch anti-aircraft guns going off repeatedly less than three blocks from our house in Honolulu. That went on for almost four years from 1941 to 1945. Have you experienced this type of terror? How would you react if, while this was going on, you constantly heard about people around the world who said you were wrong to protect yourself?

It's a grim day when we cannot depend on the "news" to at least attempt to make a fair and equitable report of what is actually going on. How are we as citizens supposed to deal with the world community when we cannot even get a true picture of what is happening on a daily basis? Don't you think there should be some kind of control of these kinds of things? There is - it's called "ethics" and it appears as though it has disappeared down the toilet along with a lot of other important human issues. Seems like these news vultures will do anything to sell more ads.

The fanatical propaganda being promoted by the Arabic television Al-Jazeera should be aggressively countered with the truth promulgated by United States television stations. Anything less is a failure to live up to our obligations as a free country. NBC, CBS and ABC are failing the people of the United States as well as providing more propaganda for the crazies. There must be something we can do to stop it. Do YOU have any ideas that have any hope of working?

For many years I have been saying that a single low yield nuclear device dropped on Tehran and another on Pyongyang would go a long ways towards settling the entire world down. Imagine the thinking of these crazy dictators like Chavez when they find out we mean business. Don't you think they'd shut up and slink away into their hole, trembling with fear? How long would Mugabe last if his people knew we were after him? As the Japanese admiral said in 1941 "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant". What is it going to take this time? Wasn't 9/11 enough?

The Solution to Drunk Driving

On December 12, 1998 about 8:30 in the morning, I answered the phone in our home in New Orleans. It was my sister-in- law who informed me that a couple of hours before, her husband, my wife's brother Frank, got the green light and entered the intersection on Veteran's Highway from Houma Blvd. A drunken teenager, going an estimated seventy miles an hour on Veteran's Highway, ran the red light and smashed into Frank's car killing him instantly. For about a half mile around people came running out of their homes and businesses because, as they described it, it sounded like a bomb going off. Frank had his seat belt on but the crash was so severe, the entire seat was torn off at the floor and went through the back window of the car with Frank, who was already dead, still in it.

This boy had already been arrested for drunken driving but his father, a very wealthy and prominent attorney who had left the legal profession to become a surgeon pulled a number of strings and the boy got off with a legal slap on the wrist. The agony that my wife and sister-in-law went through for months was indescribable. The machinations of this man refusing to allow the courts to make this young adult stand up and accept his responsibility was simply awful. It became quite clear what was going on when we received a "rumor" that the judge in the case was up for re-election and this wealthy man had contributed "substantial amounts" to his political campaign. No hard evidence unfortunately but no doubt true.

On the day of the trial my wife and I were astounded to see the wife of the deceased, our sister-in-law, get up on the stand and say she didn't want this boy to go to jail. It became clear later on that the prominent wealthy man had bought her off with a monthly payment for her disabled son. I imagine the "legal" papers stated that the payment was in lieu of any lawsuit against the perpetrator trying to recover any monetary payment for the death of her husband.

To add insult to injury, The judge sentences the boy to two years "house" arrest, no driving except to school and a requirement to attend regular AA meetings. Within less than a year, without any notification of our family, this prominent wealthy man was back in court requesting a re-hearing because the boy was "doing so well".

On the day of re-hearing we got a call about 8:00 a.m. from the prosecuting attorney's office that there was going to be a re-hearing and there was a good possibility the judge might reduce the boy's sentence. So, we notified the newspaper and M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) about the possibility of a reduction in sentence. In the courtroom we passed a note to the prosecuting attorney asking him to notify the judge that a Times Picayune reporter and the M.A.D.D. rep were in the courtroom. Strangely enough, when the judge came back to the bench, he said that he could not find any reason to reduce the sentence. Can you guess why?

Now think for a minute. If we hadn't gotten that call from a caring prosecutor and hadn't been able to contact M.A.D.D. and the reporter for the Times-Picayune, that kid would have gotten off with less than a year for the murder of my wife's brother. Call it what you want under any other name, it was murder in my book.

And there is such a simple solution to this problem. Anyone convicted of drunk driving (D.U.I., D.W.I. and other acronyms) should be ordered by the court to install a "breathalyzer" in the steering wheel of any vehicle they intend to drive. The technology has been available for several years now. They should be forbidden to drive any vehicle that does not have this machine installed. The cost of the installation is about $400.00 and the convicted felon must pay for the installation. If the convicted felon is apprehended while driving a vehicle under the influence or having disabled the machine in his vehicle, he automatically goes to jail for a minimum of one year. And once convicted, the felon can never again buy or own or use a vehicle without the "breathalyzer" installed in the steering wheel

Over a period of a few months, before Katrina drove us out of our home in New Orleans, I contacted every member of the Louisiana legislature with absolutely no results except for ONE reply from a state congressman who said the plan was not economically feasible. What an insult!

A letter to Congressman Heath Schuler in North Carolina last July outlining the case for installation of the "breathalyzer" brought an amazing response: "...Thank you for contacting me about the high price of gasoline..." as if that had something to do with my brother-in-law getting killed by a drunk driver. Guess how he fared in our election choices! Letters to Senators Dole and Burr brought no results at all.

Talk, rules, laws, sobriety checkpoints and all of the other so-called "solutions" to reduce drunken driving have had very little effect on the fifteen thousand alcohol-related fatalities recorded in the U.S. in 2006. The same can be said for the reduction of about 275,000 people injured and/or disfigured yearly by drunk drivers, one-third of whom are children. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) is recommending all of these things but refuse to address the issue when contacted.

Enforcing a "one-strike and you're out" law nationwide would soon have these devices installed in every automobile sold in our country and drunk driving would soon be reduced to almost nothing. If you are convicted of drunk driving, you will be forced to have this device installed in your vehicle and you will NEVER BE ABLE TO PURCHASE A VEHICLE AGAIN WITHOUT IT. If you can come up with anything simpler than that I sure would like to hear about it.

Fed Up!

Many months ago, someone sent me this article entitled "Fed Up". No, it's not the new merger of Federal Express and UPS. It's all about the alien invader crooks that I've written about in a previous article. (See Thursday, June 28, 2007 on this blog). I would like to credit the author but have been unable to find the original source. I think it happens to be very apropos right now since recent election results are pointing in the direction of legalizing all of these invaders that are ruining our society.

"To the 20 or 30 million illegal aliens squatting tax-free in America, a 'Cinco de Mayo' greeting:

The American public is FED UP with the invasion of our sovereign nation by third-world outlaws from Mexico.

We are FED UP with people who are here illegally and who cannot and/or will not speak English.

We are FED UP with illegals from Mexico who cost American taxpayers scores of billions of dollars every year in health care, education, incarceration, and welfare.

We are FED UP with taxpayer dollars being wasted to print documents in a foreign language (Spanish).

We are FED UP with illegals who dump their medical bills on the backs of US taxpayers and who still send $20-40 billion a year back to Mexico each year.

We are FED UP with our schools being invaded by non-English speaking children from Mexico who impede the learning process of students who genuinely belong here.

We are FED UP with the fact that federal, state and local penal systems are overrun by illegals from Mexico, again costing US taxpayers billions each year.

We are FED UP with the fact that the overwhelming majority of felony crimes being investigated in Los Angeles have been committed by illegals from Mexico.

We are FED UP with federal, state and local agencies that refuse to round up and deport millions of illegals that are destroying American culture and language.

We are FED UP with politicians, Hispanic and non-Hispanic, who coddle illegals with drivers licenses, lower college tuitions and similar benefits which only encourage more people to invade the US from Mexico.

We are FED UP with the attempted Mexicanization of America. Mexico is a third-world slum and we are FED UP with those who want America to be like Mexico!

So, Happy Cinco de Mayo and now get the HELL OUT!"

Comment?

End of a career?

Well, it happened again today. Being a professional pianist for so many years, I have always been intrigued by movies that feature piano scores. One of the most innovative was the music created by Dave Grusin for "The Firm". It is solo piano music and it just makes the movie come alive. I like to listen to the music whenever the movie is shown on television. This morning it was on the movie channel so I got into it and the next thing I know, I'm crying like a baby. I had to turn the show off.

There's no explaining it. Doctor says I have P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) which according to comedian George Carlin, has changed from "Shell Shock" to "Combat Fatigue" to "Operational Fatigue" to P.T.S.D. Same affliction just different words. The best I can figure out is that it started back in early 1953 when I was chosen (or volunteered) to turn pages for a singer's accompanist who was performing on the campus at the University of Notre Dame (see my article on "Sight Reading at the Piano" April 28, 2006). It was my first up close introduction to a Baldwin 9 foot Concert Grand. (I find it very difficult just to write those words without choking up). It was then and there that I made a solemn promise to myself that was "Someday I will own one of these".

A great part of my life was spent in performing and finding the right concert grand was like falling in love. It was equivalent to my life with my wife of 45 years. Today I'm suffering with a very painful damaged rotator cuff in my right arm that is there specifically because I committed to performing a Gershwin program for all of my students and their friends and family members in 1990. I got the injury practicing "Rhapsody in Blue" for this performance on what would become my "dream" piano. I can't play any more because the emotional trauma of losing my lifelong dream to Katrina has made it so painful to sit at another keyboard and play I just don't do it any more. I don't know if I will ever want to play again.

It's a cruel trick of nature to saddle you with an affliction like this but what can you do except play the hand you've been dealt? If I had to perform to make a living I have already shown that I can muddle through by performing a few music jobs since I arrived in North Carolina three years ago. But I don't have to. We're making ends meet and I'm looking for some other means of making some extra money. Playing the piano right now is just too painful and to maintain my sanity and avoid the possibility of another heart attack, I have to stay away from it. After more than 60 years at the piano, who would ever have believed that something as bizarre as this could possibly happen in real life? Perhaps it will eventually go away but if it doesn't I'll just have to make the best of it.

HOW RELIGION GOT STARTED

Note: This scene took place several thousand years ago

Ogg the cave man stepped out of his cave one morning. His knee was hurting him. The tail of that huge dinosaur that the tribe had managed to kill last week had struck him right on his left knee. He was glad he was still alive. The next morning it rained.

This scenario took place several more times with Ogg's knee hurting and then rain occurring the next morning. One afternoon, he stepped out of his cave and his knee was hurting. So he called all of the tribal chiefs together and said: "I have received a message from the spirits. Tomorrow morning it will rain." They all thought he was crazy as a bugbear but didn't say anything because he was a pretty strong and fierce individual. When it rained the next morning they all got scared. After this happened a few more times and Ogg was never wrong, they started to call him the "sacred" one who could foretell the future.

Ogg milked it for all it was worth and eventually was given the best cave, all the best food, particularly the best cuts of meat and the first choice of captured women. In general, he became a tribal hero.

The next thing you know he was telling everyone what to do and they were following him like sheep. Soon he built a special hut where people could go to tell him what a great guy he was and beg him to tell them what to do. He called it his church. Does that strike a chord? Any questions?

SHAMAN SHAME

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Sha-man: pronounced “shah – muhn” (especially among certain tribal peoples)
A person who acts as intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, using magic to cure illness, foretell the future, control spiritual forces, etc. If you believe in magic, palm reading, crystal ball gazing or someone who can control spiritual forces, this is for you.

“It seems, however, that since most religious denominations do not give approval for persons to engage in sexual intercourse outside of a marital relationship, religiosity may have a differential effect on sexual satisfaction, depending upon one's marital status.” (From the American Journal of Health Studies).

The question is, why are these religious denominations forbidding sexual contact outside of marriage? It’s a matter of control. If you give in to the dominating drive in all human beings to enjoy the happiness that a physical relationship can produce, particularly without guilt, you no longer need the services of the shaman or priest or minister or preacher to “save your soul”. The guilt is not inherent in the human mind. “Religious” people, to keep you in line and force you to do what you are told, have very carefully placed it there. Best example of lack of guilt is the behavior of children. They have no shame about nudity. It’s the most natural thing there is for kids to run around without clothes on. They have to be taught to be ashamed of their bodies.

It is virtually impossible for any human being to rationally believe that there is a god so malicious, the very enjoyment of the most overwhelming drive and desire in the human mind and body can result in damnation. It is just a scenario dreamed up by other human beings to control people so that they will support them and then they do not have to “work”. Ask any shaman and they will tell you that the “work” is very hard. Of course it is! Convincing people that the most overwhelming and strongest drive in the human body is “wrong” takes a real con man. If you actually believe this drivel, real con artists who have no shame in conning people into believing things to which they themselves don’t pay any attention, have taken you in. This puts you in a class described by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary as gullible: easily duped or cheated.

The sexual drive is not there just for reproduction as most religious denominations are fond of saying. It is there for consenting adults to enjoy in the privacy of their choice of location whether it is in a motel, a home or in the woods or on the beach. The concept that anything except sexual intercourse is wrong is so perverted as to be something that should be outlawed. This is another aspect of sexual behavior that religious denominations endeavor to stamp out simply to exercise more control over people. Remember, the ultimate goal of all religious denominations is to saddle you with guilt so you will keep coming back to church and support them so they don’t have to “work”.

Time and time again we see how little these shamans practice what they preach when they are prosecuted for rape, liaisons with prostitutes, child molestation, pedophilia and other illegal sexual behavior. Keep in mind that the lowest rates of “sex” crimes in the world are found in the Scandinavian countries. Can you guess why? These are countries where virtually nothing sexual is illegal between two consenting adults. Think about that for a while!

The world works like this: Sex is the driving force that joins people together and brings out the best in them. You make more and better friends when you are uninhibited enough to have sex with your friends of the opposite sex. No strings and it’s just fun and games in the most exciting activity known to human beings. That's if you don't let someone else's religious demands get in your way.

ALIEN INVADER CROOKS

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Let's list some dictionary definitions:

Alien:
1. A resident born in or belonging to another country who has not acquired citizenship by naturalization (distinguished from CITIZEN).
2. A foreigner.
3. Residing under a government or in a country other than that of one's birth without having or obtaining the status of citizenship there.
4. Owing political allegiance to another country or government; foreign: alien residents.
5. An unnaturalized foreign resident of a country. Also called noncitizen.

Invader:
1. To enter forcefully as an enemy; go into with hostile intent: Germany invaded Poland in 1939.
2. To enter like an enemy: Locusts invaded the fields.
3. To enter as if to take possession: to invade a neighbor's home.
4. To enter and affect injuriously or destructively, as disease: viruses that invade the bloodstream.
5. To encroach or infringe upon: to invade the rights of citizens.

Crook: (slang for a criminal)
1. One who makes a living by dishonest methods.
2. Guilty of crime.
3. One that has committed or been legally convicted of a crime.
4. Someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime
5. Guilty of crime or serious offense; "criminal in the sight of God and man"

At this point, I think it should be evident what I am referring to. The so-called "experts" say that there are twelve million of these alien invader crooks in our country but that there may be as many as twenty to thirty million of them. Isn't that amazing? The police can pop your drivers license into the computer in their patrol car and get all the pertinent information on you from a centralized mainframe computer but the government can't get a handle on how many of these invaders are in our country illegally.

Many years ago, working as a professional musician in New Orleans, I was deprived of several decent jobs by these alien invader crooks. They would go to a nightclub owner and offer to work for less than half what a union musician got for the same type of work. I can remember going down on Decatur Street in the French Quarter and wondering how these clubs with bands that had as many as twelve musicians on the band stand could afford to pay the musicians. If the law had cracked down on the nightclub owner the jobs would have gone away and lawful citizens could have demanded a living wage.

These alien invader crooks pay no taxes, they pay no car insurance, they pay no Social Security, they pay no health insurance, they pay no school tuition and then they send millions of United States dollars to foreign countries. While they are doing this they are draining our health system dry with free treatments, they get money from Social Security in as crooked a scheme as I have ever heard of, they are pushing our penal system to the limits with uncontrolled crime and killing our citizens left and right with felonious drunk driving. When is it going to stop?

Well, concerned citizens need to wake up and contact their representatives in Congress and let them know like we have for the last six months that this baloney of making criminal behavior legal with the wave of some document is totally unacceptable. I have just heard from Numbers USA, an organization I joined online several months ago, that the "amnesty" bill has been defeated. I hope it stays that way because these people are ruining our society.

The immigrants who get here legally and learn to speak the language of our country and obey the laws have always been welcome. The alien invader crooks are not welcome and we have to stop this insanity. It's very simple. Persuade your representatives in every state to demand that the law enforcement contingent pursue the companies who hire these alien invader crooks and punish them all severely. It's simple arithmetic. If you deprive the bums of a means of cheap labor, the jobs go away and the alien invader crooks go back to where they come from. No deportation is necessary except in the case of felonious crimes. Everything we hold dear in this great country of ours is at risk with these alien invader crooks. They do NOT care about us or our way of life, they are just here to milk us dry and send the cash back to their foreign home.

It's time to follow the example of almost a half a million people that bombarded Washington with faxes, letters and phone calls over the last several months to defeat this egregious amnesty bill. Get with it and do your part NOW! Let's keep the politicians from gathering the Hispanic vote from all of these alien invader crooks with a bill that will sink our ship.

THE MIND READER

I know, I know. There's no such thing, right? But what if you have a bona fide experience with someone who comes up with information that they only could have gotten by reading your mind? Here's the scenario:

I was in the Notre Dame Glee Club for the four years I attended the University. It was a great bunch and probably the most sought after glee club in the United States in the 1950's. We normally traveled about ten thousand miles per year on two 5,000 mile tours by bus. That was not even counting the five to ten side trips we made during the year that were just one day. The two long trips consisted of one at Semester break (after Christmas) and the other at the Easter break. As evidence of their great popularity, the Notre Dame Glee Club was on the Ed Sullivan show seven Easter Sundays in a row. I was fortunate enough to make four of them.

During the first tour I went on with the club in 1953, we went down to Florida and back up the east coast during the semester break in January. While we were in Florida, we gave a concert in West Palm Beach. The night before concert the Notre Dame Alumni Association took all of us to dinner at the very posh and prestigious West Palm Beach Bath and Tennis Club. There must have been several hundred people there eating and drinking and having a good time. The place was huge with large amounts of huge plants all over the place and long tables with linen tablecloths and very expensive china and silverware.

Towards the end of the meal, a man came out on the stage, identified himself (sad to say, I don't even remember his name) and said he was a mind reader. My thoughts were "what a joke! No way anybody can read minds!" He then said that there were slips of paper and pencils on every table and that we should write down some event in our lives that he could not know about and fold up the slip of paper. Then his assistants would pick up the papers, bring them to the stage and put all of them into a very large fish bowl sitting on a pedestal at the front of the stage. "At that point" he said, "I will pull out several slips of paper and read them out. Then I will proceed to read your mind and describe the event that took place strictly from the information in your mind".

I grabbed a slip of paper immediately and thought to myself, "It's not very likely that he going to pick out my slip of paper amongst hundreds of others but even if he does, there's no way he can identify what took place 5,000 miles away two years ago!"

The event I was about to describe in as cryptic a manner as I could figure out took place in Hawaii in the fall of 1951. I was 16 years old and exceptionally angry with my father, a rather usual state of affairs with all kids who are in their mid-teens. My father had bought a brand new 1950 two door Coup De Ville Cadillac when they came out and it was still in mint condition less than two years later. Except to get my driver's license with him in the car, he had refused to allow me to drive the car with him in it much less let me take it out by myself. I was furious with him about that and other non-physical injuries he and my mother had heaped on my head. It was really typical sixteen-year-old resentment at parents' refusal to treat you like an adult.

I told a friend of mine, Mike Mahoney, who was a classic case of a severe juvenile delinquent, that I was going to take the keys to the Cadillac off my father's dresser, roll the Cadillac out of the garage and down the driveway, start it up and go for a ride. I asked him if he would help me. Mike thought it was a great idea and said we ought to have a lot of fun. We got together outside my house about two o'clock in the morning and put the Cadillac in neutral, rolled it out of the garage and then down the driveway. I had already taken the keys off my father's dresser and we got in, I started the car and off we went. We had a blast tooling around the island but the cops caught up with us when we went to visit our girlfriends at the Girl Scout camp on the other side of the island. In spite of my protestations that it was my father's car and I had my driver's license, they arrested both of us and handcuffed us in front of all of those girls and hauled us back to the Honolulu downtown police station. It was really an ignominious defeat!

There was a lot more to the event but that's a side issue for another story. I started to describe this event on that slip of paper and it came out like this: (NOTE: the answers were not written down, just the questions)

1. Q: Two years ago someone stole my father's car. What kind of car was it?
A: A 1950 Cadillac

2. Q: While the car was out of my father's possession, someone broke into the trunk and stole something. What did they steal?
A: A toolbox with some tools in it.

3. Q: Who stole the car?
A: Frank Owens, Jr. (NOTE: The only place where I was known by this name was at my father's music studios in downtown Honolulu. I never used it anyplace else. The secretary used it on the large appointment book to distinguish between appointments for me and ones for my father.)

There is absolutely no way this man in Florida could have known any of these details. It was too obscure and too detailed for anyone else to figure out as I was too ashamed to ever tell anyone about the incident and no one at the University knew me from Hawaii or anything about the car incident, much less that I was known as "Frank Owens, Jr." in a very specialized situation. The only name most of the students who knew me used was "Fritz" although the professors did use my legal name, "Francis".

Don't you know this guy pulled several slips of paper out of the fish bowl and the second one he read was the one I had submitted? He asked the person who had written it to stand up so I stood up. Then he said that he wanted me to concentrate on the event and he would describe what he would read in my mind. I thought to myself "I'll fix this dude. Let him see if he can figure this out." I immediately started visualizing what I used to think about to keep people from making me laugh. I imagined that I was in the glass nose cone of a rocket ship hurtling through black empty space, just like a scene from a very popular Bugs Bunny cartoon. All of a sudden he said in a very serious, puzzled tone of voice, "That's really strange! All I see is black, empty space!" Of course, everyone laughed hysterically at what they thought was a joke but it shook me up beyond words because that is exactly what was in my mind! Naturally, I immediately started thinking about what had happened. He then said almost immediately "Oh, there it is! It was a 1950 Cadillac, someone broke into the trunk and stole a toolbox with some tools in it and I think I'd better see you after the show to tell you who stole the car."

I was dumbfounded. Shocked beyond words and absolutely amazed. How could he possibly have come up with the information to answer the first two questions? A huge number of unreal coincidences would have had to take place for him to even get a glimmer of this story. It just didn't seem possible but right then and there I was still unwilling to accept the facts. When he got through with the show, I went up to meet him and he guided me off to the side and down a walkway between lots of bushes. He asked me if I knew who stole the car. I said yes and he handed me another blank slip of paper and a pencil and asked me to write the name on the paper, fold it up and hand it back to him.

By now I was about as paranoid as you can get about the situation so I checked all around to see if there was anyone in the bushes looking at me or hidden cameras recording what I was doing. I held the slip of paper cupped in my left hand close to my chest and printed in small letters "Frank Owens, Jr.". I folded it at least four times and handed it back to him. He looked at it for a moment then looked me straight in the eye and said, "Was it Frank Owens, Jr.?" I was so astounded I think I stopped breathing for a while as he turned around and walked away. It really was breathtaking.

I've thought about this incident several times a year for the last 54 years and have reached the only conclusion possible. He actually got that information by reading my mind. There is no other explanation that even comes close. The kicker to the whole story is that the Korean War was going on at the time and everyone was wondering how long it would last. During his show, this man said, "Quit worrying about the Korean War, it will definitely be over in six months."

Here's a note

"From the Korean War Time Line:"

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July 27, 1953 Cease-fire signed
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As Sherlock Holmes said, "When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. " I think the man was not only a true gifted mind reader but a clairvoyant as well. How about you? Leave your comment or e-mail me.

Reliable Witnesses

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Have you ever seen the devil? If so, do you have a reliable witness? If you don't, why should I believe you?

Has God ever talked to you? If so, do you have a reliable witness? If you don't, why should I believe you?

This business about the Bible being the word of God is so much hokum. It's the same story with everyone who wrote chapters in the Bible - there were no reliable witnesses, just them saying that God or an angel appeared to them in a dream, or while they were meditating or even sitting on the toilet. If there are no witnesses, why should I believe them? Simply because they said so? I don't think so. Many years ago, there was a man in Los Angeles who went out and used a rifle to kill 13 people. When they asked him why he did it, he said "God told me to do it!" So the way people talk about "having faith" means I should believe this nut case, right?

Seems to me the easiest thing in the world to do, if you can stomach it, is to tell people that you have a direct connection to God and if they pay attention to you they're going to heaven, or paradise, or nirvana or what have you. And if you don't pay attention to them your lot when you die is going to be eternal damnation. There are a lot of very gullible people out there and rather than think for themselves they buy into this story and oftentimes end up dead because of it - remember the Jonestown massacre? ² What exactly is the difference between Jim Jones and the head of the Lutheran church, or the Mormons, or the Pope, or the head of the Presbyterian church, or the head of the Episcopalian church, or the head of the Muslim fanatics? They all tell you exactly what to do with your life because if you don't do it you're going to hell or you're not going to get into heaven. Right?

The annals of history are full of stories of men (and women) who suddenly took on the role of an emissary from God (shaman, witch doctor, priest, minister, etc., etc., etc.) and started telling people what to do. The whole idea of hell is a figment of someone's imagination being used by these self proclaimed "prophets" of God to get people afraid enough that they will obey the "rules" set down by the shaman¹ and naturally, support him in his desired lifestyle. My response to that is very simple: "Who put YOU in charge?

The latest fiasco is this weirdo Pat Robertson who claims that God called him on the hot line and told him bad things were coming. He has no reliable witnesses so why should I believe him? He's nothing but a charlatan cashing in on people's wish to have someone else in charge so they don't have to be responsible. Have you ever tried to saddle one of the so-called "clerics" with the responsibility for what has happened to you? How about settling down and accepting responsibility for what you have done to yourself? The very definition of God precludes the idea of unhappiness and/or suffering. The sado-masochistic story of the last days of Jesus Christ is something that sounds like the Marquis de Sade dreamed it up. The Bible is full of one horror story after another, almost as if it was written by the same type of people who sit around the campfire and scare the hell out of children with stories of ghosts and goblins and witches.
RELIABLE WITNESSES - Thursday, February 01, 2007 - page 2

All you have to do is look at the obvious haven for pedophiles, the Catholic Church. They have done a pretty good job so far of avoiding responsibility for all the lives their priests have ruined in the last 75 years. I wonder how many others lived in abject misery due to the actions of priests before that time. We'll never know.

The term "religion" is quite convoluted - go to www.dictionary.com and see the definition there. Having been through an extensive religious education including four years at a very prominent Catholic university, the simplest definition seems the most apt to me: "religion is a way of life".

Amongst substance abusers, it is a well-known fact that the substance abuser very often finds something to take the place of the substance. Unfortunately, many of them turn to "religion" as a crutch and become "holier than thou" because they quit smoking pot, or taking pills or getting drunk. I had personal experience with a drunk in New Orleans who was a policeman and a very good vocalist. When he was fired from the police force he went into the carpentry business and was so unreliable that I had to quit using him. He stole from me, lied to me, overcharged me and did everything he could to get the money for just one more bottle of Thunderbird wine. He was a very personable man and had quite a knack for persuading people to loan him money. When I heard he had sobered up, I went to see him and his response was "where were you when I needed you?" I never bothered to try and explain to him that "religion" had obviously not shown him the error of his ways. I never saw him again and wonder if he survived Katrina.

Let me tell you my definition of a true religious person. I did not find out until I was in my late twenties that my father went to Mass and Communion EVERY morning. He did not preach to me about his religion, he LIVED it. On the other hand, my mother was a convert to Catholicism and she was constantly ranting about how I wouldn't have any bad luck if I went to church more often. Is that garbage or what? As if the Supreme Being is sitting on his throne up there (or down there, take your pick) and decides that the motor in your station wagon is going to blow up because you didn't make it to church last week or the last year. Please, spare me!

This leads me to the insane babblings of the madman (or madmen) that wrote the section of the Bible entitled "Revelations". Any sane person with an ounce of common sense would take this section of the Bible and throw it in the trash. For instance, Rev. 1, verses 17 &18: "And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." Notice that there are NO witnesses to this event. So by what stretch of the imagination do YOU think I should believe this? I have to have faith you say? OK. I'll start by believing that maniac in Los Angeles who killed 13 people really did have a message from God to do it. Consequently, he should be released from prison immediately! How's that for starters?

In Rev. 2, verse 26: "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:" There's a hook for you. Just follow the precepts laid down by your friendly minister and you'll end up as president or senator or governor or whatever position of power you seek. Right? As you go through the rest of the this section you get the distinct impression that you are listening to the babblings of some wasted drug addict who has obviously gotten hold of a heavy dose of LSD and is describing his latest nightmares. And of course, there are NO witnesses. Get too involved in this and you're liable to end up an inmate of the funny farm³! If you disagree, open up and comment. Likewise if you agree.



footnotes:
¹ sha·man shah-muh n, shey-, sham-uh n] –noun (esp. among certain tribal peoples) a person who acts as intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, using magic to cure illness, foretell the future, control spiritual forces, etc.
sha·man (shä'mən, shā'-) n. A member of certain tribal societies who acts as a medium between the visible world and an invisible spirit world and who practices magic or sorcery for purposes of healing, divination, and control over natural events.
² On November 18, 1978, nine hundred and twelve (912) followers of American cult leader Jim Jones ("Peoples Temple") died in a remote South American jungle compound called "Jonestown" in British Guyana. Some members were shot, others were forced to drink poison, but most willingly participated in what Jones said was an act of "revolutionary suicide."
³ Funny farm: A euphemism for an insane asylum.

Prison reform

I just sent this off to the governor of California. Arnold is having a lot of problems with prison reform. Perhaps this will give him some ideas on how to effectively deal with the problem.

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Saturday, December 23, 2006

I couldn't sleep this morning. It's now 1:40 a.m. and I just watched part of a TV show entitled "Lockup". It outraged me beyond belief that we are paying for these animals, who have been sentenced to long terms in prison including life without parole, to be "rehabilitated" inasmuch as they are encouraged to "behave" so that they can be "released” into the general prison population. My immediate question is "Why?" As I see it, there is no reason to allow criminals to have any type of relationship with other criminals. All that results from such stupidity is to educate criminals on how to be better criminals. It also is the source of riots and mobs scenes. Libraries are full of books that document criminal's stories of how they learned to be better at beating the law in jail. And we're paying for it!

To my way of thinking, there is only one solution to crime. Anyone who is sentenced to jail time for any crime whatsoever should be in solitary confinement. Criminals inflict cruel and unusual punishment on their victims regardless of the severity of the crime. If you've never been the victim of a crime such as a mugging or a burglary of your home or a drunk driver killing one of your relatives, you probably have difficulty understanding it's cruel and unusual punishment for being a law abiding member of society. Any way you look at it, prisoners that have been convicted of a crime should not be allowed to learn how to commit more crimes in a more efficient manner. That simply means learning to commit crimes without getting caught. And that's exactly what U.C.I. (University of Crime Instruction) does for the bumbling fools that get caught. It makes them "better" criminals because they learn from old time criminals how to beat the system. They should also not be allowed to stir up trouble amongst the prison population. After all, isn't that their history from their earliest times in school?

When you actually delve into the prison systems that allow interaction between all members of a prison population, you find that about 80% of the populations of every prison system are recidivists (repeat offenders). When you study the prison systems that deal with solitary confinement, the repeat offenders are much less. When interviewing these former inmates, the information comes out that most of them swear up one side and down the other that they don't ever want to go back to prison like that again. Which makes them into good citizens and ex-criminals. Is there a message there? I think so.

Prison problems, particularly riots, are caused by interaction amongst the inmates. There are no riots in prisons that deal in solitary confinement. Look up the definition of "mob" and "riot" sometime. Both definitions revolve around a "crowd" of people, the definition of which is three or more persons. If you remove the "crowd" you cannot have a mob or a riot. That can only be accomplished in a prison with solitary confinement.

Let's look at how easy it would be to take care of a prisoner in solitary. There should be no meals delivered because nutritious food will come out of a faucet that is turned on for ten minutes three times a day at 6:00 a.m., 12 noon and 6:00 p.m. Don't laugh. Scientists can now produce a 100% nutritional slurry that can be pumped through pipes. It has all of the necessary nutrients to insure healthy living in all humans. Of course, the multi-billion dollar food industry that services just prisons will be really bent out of shape, won't they? The amount of bribery that takes place to insure that a company gets the contract to provide food to a prison is unbelievable. However, it does take place because there is a LOT of money to be made just with this one service. Check it out. People will do just about anything for a lot of money!

All cells should be 100 percent soundproof. One of the things that cause problems is a prisoner who goads other inmates with words. The only communication with a prisoner should be through the television via the computer. A camera mounted on the top of the television is adequate. If people wish to communicate with a relative or friend in prison, they can do it through the use of the computer. Do you realize that this will throw the prison guard union into an absolute frenzy? They won't be needed anymore to escort prisoners to and fro. The number of guards needed will decrease almost to zero and the subsequent savings in payroll will turn out to be astronomical.

How many times have you seen stories about prisoners carrying on about not being able to see their favorite shows on television? What kind of facilities are we running here? Education should be the primary reason for a television in an inmates cell. It should be installed behind bulletproof glass and should be on from 6:00 a.m. until 8:00 a.m. at night with one educational program after another on how to get along in society without being a crook. The inmate is not entitled to any control over what is shown on the television. They are CROOKS, not special members of some fancy club. They are NOT entitled to special privileges. The only control they should be able to exercise is voice commands to look at an educational show. In case you hadn't noticed, voice recognition software is now standard operating procedure for most big companies.

Access to a computer for education only can be provided with a flat table that comes out of the wall with a keyboard that has pressure sensitive keys - nothing that can be removed. The TV becomes the monitor. Fool with the table and it slides back into the wall.

Consider the cost of laundering a prisoner's clothes. If the prisoner does not get out into the elements, why is there need for more than one change of clothes per week, preferably simple clothes made out of paper? What a blow to the garment industry that is making a fortune at our expense to clothe these bums!

A portable shower can be wheeled up to the door of a cell and locked in place. The inmate has ten minutes to undress and take a shower. Soapy water comes out on voice command and rinse water the same way. Air-drying is just as good as towels.

A simple treadmill under a rollback door in the floor of each cell can provide daily exercise that will keep most of the prison population in good physical shape. Simple diagnostic machines can be used to monitor the health of each and every prisoner. Placing the hands on the computer keyboard table can give a very adequate readout of blood pressure. Bunks that fold up into the wall can prevent inmates from lying down when they are supposed to be exercising. A horn in the ceiling can generate a noise loud enough to encourage anyone to exercise when they are supposed to. For those who have mental problems, psychiatric care can be made available via the television since there is absolutely no excuse for face-to-face meetings between criminals and any other human being. They are CROOKS and have ended up in prison because of their anti-social actions. Until they have served their sentence, they should be denied all social amenities. They have given these up by committing crimes against other human beings.

Keep in mind that this is not supposed to be a country club. It's not supposed to be a place that someone would be willing to return to because the living is easier that being out in society making your own way. This is not cruel and unusual punishment when you consider it's a clear and just result for the pain and suffering that the inmates have inflicted on their victims.

Today, we are in the wrong era. In England in the late 1700's and early 1800's, the really hideously bad eggs were hanged and the rest were shipped off to the penal colony in Australia. Since they had no manufacturing base that could build the ships that would take them back to England, they never left Australia. And England became a low crime country. Why do you think the police there used nightsticks and no guns? They didn't need them.

A couple of hundred years from now, when space exploration is really part of the civilized world, humanity is going to come across a planet that is empty with a marginal, earth like climate. Then we can take the criminals, stick a parachute on them and push them out the door. As they go out the door, the message will be "You don't like living and getting along in our society? Well, here's a place where you can build your own. That's if you can survive. Goodbye!"

Now let's address the bleeding hearts who say that "Isolation has been documented as a cause of paranoia, problems with impulse control, extreme motor restlessness, delusions, suspiciousness, confusion, and depression." No fooling! All of those symptoms exist in just about every criminal BEFORE they ever end up in jail. Why do you think they're in prison to start with? I don't care if you've had a hard life, if your father was an alcoholic and your mother was a prostitute. Lots of upstanding citizens of all races, creeds and colors, came into this world under similar circumstances and are doing just fine. Because a person refuses to adapt because life has thrown them a bad hand is no excuse.

Once the word gets out that prison is the last place you want to be, there will be a radical change in the behavior of the young criminal. When they've had a taste of just how bad it can be, most of them will do everything they can to avoid going back. Isn't that true progress?