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:"

===============================
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.

=====================================

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?

Philosophy of experience

Philosophy of experience

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SURVIVING A HEART ATTACK BY YOURSELF

It was June 30, 2005 and the end of my 1st six months of teaching piano for 2005.

For the first time since 2001 we were going to take a two week vacation. We had finaly gotten to the point after 9/11 that it looked like we just might keep the business going.

It was just after 7:30 p.m. and I felt very good and very relaxed.

I said to my wife "Let's go to dinner" and she replied "that sounds great! Where?" I suggested the Outback, one of our favorite restaurants and off we went. I love the appetizer at the Outback called "Grilled Shrimp on the Barbie". Soon as we got there I ordered the appetizer plus a steak, salad and steamed vegetables. I don't often drink and Lynne is on a diet (on which she has lost a spectacular 22 pounds!) so without any drinks, we just relaxed, I watched a little bit of the baseball game and we chit chatted some.

The Grilled Shrimp came and I started in on it feeling like I'd died and gone to heaven. Just as I finished the shrimp, here comes the steak, salad and the veggies. I really wasn't that hungry so I ate about five bites from all of it and told Lynne that I wanted to bring the rest of it home - as I said, it's "great chow for tomorrow."

We left the restaurant about thirty minutes later after Lynne had finished her Grilled Salmon and arrived back home about 9:30 p.m. I told her I was tired and going right to bed. She stayed in the living room to read and I went to the bedroom.

Now what I am about to tell you is really bizarre. Seems like a full fledged hallucination. I don't know if it really happened or if I was dreaming or what but who can tell? It sure seemed real at the time!

About four minutes to midnight, someone came after me with a big blow torch and proceeded to burn the middle of my chest. The pain was EXCRUCIATING! It was like I was on FIRE! The only pain that ever came close was the pain from the severe arthritis in my back three years before. I bolted upright in the bed, opened my eyes, and looked right into the face of the devil! The traditional one - I mean with the horns and the red color, etc. He had both his hands around my throat and was squeezing unmercifully. When I looked down, his barbed tail was going right through my heart. It was simply unbelievable but it still scared the living hell out of me. Then he opened up his mouth and screamed "MM-RR-OO--RRR-WWW-RRR!!!" into my face as he breathed fire and smoke on me.

It was at this time that my wife's sister saved my life. She lives in California so she wasn't there but six months before she had sent me an article by Dr. F. Daniel Rochman. The title of the article was "How to survive a heart attack alone". I had made a bunch of copies and left them in the waiting room for all of my students. It fit my case because I was alone since my wife was in another room and she can barely hear. When she stays up late to read, she usually ends up sleeping on the big sofa in the living room. If I had not been able to get out of the bedroom to where she could see me, I truly believe she would have found me stone cold dead on the floor the next morning.

As instructed in the article, I started to cough very vigorously with about two seconds in between each cough. I would cough and then say "One, Two". You have to deep breathe to do this and this gets extra oxygen into the lungs. The coughing movement squeezes the heart and keeps the blood moving. This provided me with the energy I needed to get up from the bed and stagger to the living room. She looked up from her book and said "What's the matter?" I just pointed and led her into the kitchen still coughing. I managed to point to the heart and ask for my keys on which I keep a small stainless steel container with nitroglycerin tablets. I managed to get one of them under my tongue and pondered the events that caused Dr. Clement Eiswirth to give me the prescription seven years before "just in case". Meanwhile, she got on the phone and called 911.

At this point in time, she used the right words. The police told me later on that most women blubber about how their husband is in pain, please help, etc., etc., etc. so the dispatcher sends the police. That's about ten or fifteen minutes of very critical time gone because when the police arrive, they call for an ambulance right away. She told the emergency dispatcher "we have a medical emergency here, please send an ambulance". During all this time I could hear her answering a couple of questions as I looked around our beautiful, newly renovated kitchen and it dawned on me that "I may never see this kitchen again!" About seven minutes later, the front door bell rang and New Orleans Finest Fire Department was at the door.

Now I know the Fire Department has to train their personnel on how to approach an accident or heart attack victim. I don't know if they specially trained this particular fireman who walked into my house. I did have a direct view of the front door from my seat in the kitchen. When my wife let him in, he didn't just walk in, he swaggered in and his whole attitude was "All right! Where's this stupid, puny heart attack that thinks it's going to steal one of OUR citizens?"


I can't tell you how happy and relieved I was to see him and that attitude! He caught sight of me and came right over to where I was sitting, knelt down on one knee, patted my knee and said "All right, Podnah, your in good hands now!" He grabbed hold of my hand. shoved some stuff in it and said "Here, chew this up". It was partially crushed aspirin. Ten minutes later I was laying on the gurney, strapped in and out in the street with all of the gawking spectators, even at midnight. I looked around at the outside of our beautiful house thinking "I may never see this again". Ten minutes later I was in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital. Twenty minutes later a doctor at Baptist Hospital was working on me with an angiogram and inserting a stint into a blocked artery. Talk about quick response! It doesn't get much better than that!

Now folks, in regards to the ride to the hospital, I don't know how many of you have had the great misfortune to have to be carted off to the hospital in an ambulance but I doubt any other ride would have been as painful or jarring as that short trip to Baptist Hospital, less than 4 miles away. We all know that the streets in New Orleans are in terrible shape but to put an accident or heart attack victim into a vehicle that has NO shocks and NO springs is nothing short of criminal. A good set of shocks and springs can make a trip on very rough roads very tolerable. Without them it is HORRIBLE! I intend to pursue this as soon as I get back on my feet because I feel that under other circumstances, the trip in that ambulance could have killed me.

The treatment I received at the hands of the entire emergency crew, and from all the people at Baptist hospital involved in helping me recover from my heart attack, was first class. I don't think I'd be alive if it hadn't been for them. Thanks to all of you - someday soon I intend to thank you in person.

Copyright 2005 by fritz owens, hendersonville, NC 28792

May 2006 - a few additional notes. Less than two months after I was released from Baptist Hospital, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and Baptist Hospital was wiped out. The last information I got about a week ago is that neither Baptist or Mercy hospitals are ever going to open again. I hope it's not true but I certainly wouldn't be surprised.

We have left New Orleans never to return because of the avoidable flood that put five feet of water in our home and destroyed everything we held dear after 42 years of married life. The crooked politicians who are responsible for this disaster won't give up easily as is evident from the things that have gone on in the last six months, particularly the lack of meaningful action in fixing the levees to handle a Category 5 storm. We are not going to live in fear, wondering if it's going to happen again every June and tremble everytime a hurricane hits the Gulf until November. We are NOT going to live like that. The weather people are predicting a worse hurricane season than last year. I sure don't want to be around for that!

Sight Reading at the Piano

THE TRUE SIGHT READER

I had a long running battle with some hard nose teachers on an Internet newsgroup several years ago. They made it quite clear that there was absolutely no room in their book for anyone who cannot sight read well. Guess that leaves me out because although I am a concert trained pianist and a commercial performer by trade for over forty years, my sight reading skills have never been very good. I do it better than the average pianist but that's because I've been at it a lot longer. And if I've been working a job where it's required that I sight read a good bit, after a couple of weeks I get in the groove and am much better than usual at it. So my contention is this:

Living in the United States, we are both going to go to Chicago from Los Angeles. You're going to take the direct route via Denver, Colorado and I'm going to go by way of Phoenix, Arizona. It's going to take me a couple of days more to get there than you but who cares? It's not important for me to get there quickly, it's just important that I GET there.

I would think that you can see the analogy right away. We're both going to learn the same piece of music and memorize it for performance purposes. (NOTE: We memorize for performance simply because it is easier to play without the music) Because of your better sight reading skills, you are going to learn it faster than I do. So what? Eventually we're both going to perform the same piece of music in public from memory. What difference does it make whether you learn it and memorize it in ten days or ten weeks? The proof of the effort comes from the PERFORMANCE, not the learning procedure.

The howls of rage from several members of the newsgroup were deafening. They contended that there was absolutely no room in the business for someone that didn't learn to sight read well. In their mind, sight reading well was imperative to being a good musician. I guess the same principle should apply to anyone playing basketball - you're no good unless you can play as well as Michael Jordan. That is patently absurd! I dropped out of the newsgroup and have not been back.

Let me tell you about someone who was a good sight reader. I was a freshman at the University of Notre Dame and either volunteered or was elected to turn pages for the accompanist of a hot shot baritone who was giving a concert on campus, probably because I was one of the few in the music department that had the white tie and tails outfit. She came in about ten minutes before show time and talked to the star of the show about a few notes she had made in the margins of the music on the plane.

When we started, I was standing next to her thinking that when she got to the end of the next to last stave on the second page, I would put my hand up to the music, get ready to turn the page and do so a measure or two before the end of the line. There were three staves (lines) of music to go when she said "Turn the page". I was dumbfounded. I said "Ma'am?" "TURN THE PAGE!" So I turned the page and watched in amazement as this woman continued to play the three lines that had been on the previous page FROM MEMORY! When there were three lines left on the next page, I put my hand up, looked at her, and she nodded her head. So I turned the page. This went on through the whole two hour concert.


When it was over, I told her I had never seen anything like that before. She said that it was a special talent that she had worked very hard to develop. Because of her ability and talent and hard work, she had earned a reputation as being someone who could play it right the first time and every time. It also had made her a very highly paid accompanist. Anytime someone got sick and couldn't make a concert, they knew she was dependable and could get it right. If she was available, no one hesitated to hire her. She was also in very high demand for concerts where people knew about her talent. I asked her if she had ever played the music that she played for this concert. She said "I think I played a couple of them about ten years ago." Mind Boggling!

That, ladies and gentlemen, is true sight reading. I don't have that talent so why worry about it? When I go on a job to perform for some event, I play approximately 2,000 tunes from memeory. At that point in time, does it really matter how long it took me to learn any of them? I don't think so.

Here's a little side note. The sight reading talent is not very common. Those who can do it usually end up in the major recording studios in Nashville, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York etc. The reason is very simple. The last I heard, recording studio rates for musicians were about $750.00 for a three hour session. If they go into the fourth hour, it's automatically another $750.00. If you have an orchestra of thirty musicians, the basic rate is $22,500. 00 for the first three hours. If the musicians can't cut it and get it right in the first three hours, add another $22,500.00 to the basic rate. This is truly a good example of how time is money! The better sight readers the musicians are, the better shot the producers have at keeping the cost down.

The Gouging Oil Companies

Let's teach them a lesson!

This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It 's worth your consideration. I got it from one of my students last year but never followed up on sending it to other people. However, I have NOT purchased any gas or other products from the two big oil companies since then.

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around a couple of years ago! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $3.09 for premium unleaded in my town, $2.99 for regular. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace..... not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out at this point.... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people.

I am sending this note to 30+ people. If each of us sends it to at least ten more (30 x 10 =300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am, so trust me on this one.) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you? Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.


THIS CAN REALLY WORK. It's a reasonable boycott and will do the trick. We should see much lower prices by Christmas.

Take a tip from Nike, the only company with a really good slogan: "JUST DO IT!"

The Death Merchants

The Doom and Gloom sayers.

Someone sent me an article from a blog entitled "Gates of Vienna" which is all about how the Muslims are supposedly going to take over the world. I responded with the following e-mail:

I'm sorry but I don't find the doom and gloom journalists very interesting. I try to avoid them as much as possible because it's news designed to make everyone worried and wondering and seeking more information from the very same death merchants. I think they are all vultures feeding on the hopes of dead bodies so that they can sell more ads. If there were some tragedy in my family that caused news people to flock to my home, I would carefully advise them immediately that if they put one foot on my property I would protect it with every legal means available including shooting them if I felt threatend by their actions. They would soon go away.

In my personal knowledge bank is information that most people don't believe but I have verified it many times over. The scenario goes like this: the missing girl is dead. Little Mary's body has been found mutilated and sexually abused. One news group has the exclusive story. They all have groups of telemarketers. The telemarketers are notified that the exclusive story will be running on the five o'clock news. The telemarketers get on the phone and call all the big money clients to tell them that WXXX has the exclusive story on little Mary's demise with all of the gory details and it will run at five p.m. - Do you want to advertise?" Guess how many say "of course!"? Runs about 80%. Out of the other 20% about two thirds of those say "I wish I could but the budget for the month has already been exceeded." Check it out if you can. It's a pretty closely guarded secret but it does go on.

Since I don't watch the news I'm not exposed to this type of garbage but how many people do you know that refuse to watch this crap? My kids used to ask me "Daddy, why are there so many commericals right in the middle of my favorite program?" I told all of my girls - the tv exists for one reason and one reason only - and that's to sell you stuff. The only exception is PBS. I know one family that threw away the TV about 25 years ago and they seem like the most well adjusted and comfortable members of society that you could possibly find. Is there a message there? I get questions all the time from friends and family inquiring about some news story and I say to all of them "I have no idea. I don't watch that garbage."

If the Muslims do take over Europe, so what? The end of the world is far, far away. These machinations of one religious group are the actions of a small bug on a gnat's ass on the rim of the world in geological terms. The chances of it affecting you or me or our children is remote so why lose any sleep over it? This is just another attempt to stir up a lot of controversy to sell more ads. That's all these big shot TV personalities do is stir up controversy so that more people will watch their show. The ratings go up and they sell more ads. They don't exist to inform you - just to make money. No controversy, no money, no job. End of story!

Hippy Dippy Bebop Progressive Jazz Junk

Being a professional musician for more years than I like to count, this definition came rolling out of my mouth about 40 years ago. The reason? Very simple. I had hired a goofball musician to play alto sax and clarinet in my quartet. So many people had said what a great musician he was and their opinion was wrong, wrong, wrong. I can remember spending the better part of four hours one night after the gig trying to explain to this hard head that a commercial job did not consist of playing anything you god damn well please. It did no good. He argued up one side and down the other about why what he was doing was the way to do it. If you could play eighty thousand notes instead of just eight, that was better in his book.

He was worse than a drummer I worked with years later. That dude is a really talented musician. He owns a drum shop and gives drum lessons. He knows every phrase, every "lick" as musicians call it, every trick of every drummer and he plays them ALL for every tune. It's a constant drum solo going on regardless of what is being played. By the time I got involved with him, I knew better. Towards the end of the Mardi Gras Ball season, I went to the orchestra leader and told him I was quitting because of the drummer. When the leader told me it wouldn't be necessary as the drummer had already told him that he wouldn't be returning for the next season, I told the leader I would stay on. The fact that I quit the band after the last ball is immaterial. I quit because the idiot leader refused to pay us on time and I was tired of that kind of treatment. He had more money than he knew what to do with and used this tactic to hold control over his musicians. The excuse was that the people who hired him hadn't paid him yet, as if that was our problem. What a bum! Live and learn.

Back to the sax player: I didn't have the experience to realize I should have fired the deadbeat immediately because he did not want to do what you have to do as a commercially performing musician. You have to play what the guy who is paying your salary wants to hear. And I'm not talking about the guy who owns the club. I'm talking about the guy who comes into the club with his date and planks down his hard earned cash to buy a drink or dinner or pay for a cover charge or whatever. If he wants to hear "Come back to Jesus Cha-Cha" you'd better play it if you know it or tell the customer that the next time he comes in you'll play it for him.
They WILL come back to see if you've done what you've said you were going to do. If you really want to impress them, you start playing it when they walk in the door and you have a fan for life.

Anyone who thinks the life of a performing musician is all sweetness and light doesn't have a clue as to what goes on behind the curtain on the bandstand. You really have to love it beyond words to stick to it. That's why when these youngsters come up to me and gush all over me about how great I play and how that's what they want to do, without exception I tell them "Don't even consider it. Stay out of show business. It's too damn hard!" My philosophy being that if that is enough to keep them out, then they don't have what it takes.
My Dad tried to convince me for years to quit playing every night and go to teaching full time. I kept telling him that I probably would when I had had enough. Unfortunately, in 1985, I made the mistake in getting really angry thinking I'd had enough of not getting paid what I though I was worth.

So I went to teaching full time. I'd always had students but very seldom more than a dozen and I didn't mind it. I didn't think twice about going to do it full time. My Dad did nothing else for 40 years and it literally killed him when he had to stop. I did it full time for twenty years and it almost killed me with a heart attack last July. I had no idea what was going on until the cardiologist came to see me the day before I was being released from the hospital. He is a very well educated man and a very good cardiologist and he took very good care of me in New Orleans. He told me that he wanted me to do this, that and the other to which I said ok. Then he asked me what I thought was a very stupid question: "What are you going to do after you get home?" I told him that when I got to feeling better I was going back to work. He replied: "Oh? Doing what?" and I said :Doctor, you know that I teach piano. I'll be going back to teaching." His response was: "Are you out of your mind? How the hell do you think you got here?" I was dumfounded and had no reply. He next said "Mr. Owens, teaching is one of the most stressful occupations you can have!" It took me about thirty seconds to respond: "Well, guess what Doctor. You're talking to the ex-piano teacher!" I quit at that moment on the basis of his expertise. Over the next couple of days, I gradually came to the realization of just how much I despised the damn job! Out of almost 50 students I had about five that were doing well. The others were driving me nuts - enough to put me in the hospital! I resolved to go back to performing, my very first and only love as soon as I was well enough. Then came Hurricane Katrina. More on this later.