Producer Andy Johns Dies

Andy Johns, brother of Glen Johns, who worked with the Doors and the Eagles, died yesterday or sometime of liver cancer at age 61 or something awfully young.  You had to know I was going to blog this story even though I had been "planning on taking the day off".  We need to just chronicle a list of mainly British groups that this guy either produced or engineered or both.  They include "Axis Bold as Love" by Hendrix, which is strange because he was only sixteen when this album was recorded.  I was only seventeen or there abouts myself.  "Stand Up" by Jethro Tull, and the "Blind Faith" album, and "Why Doncha" by West Bruce and Lang.  Three songs off this album have ended up on ZAC compilations over the years and most notably "Third Degree".  This one graces "Don't Take Me Alive" which originally "came out' in September of 2004.  My brother Al had the quadraphonic version of this album we listened to in his trailer and notibly the "trailer" portion of "Third Degree" is a much longer fade than the version I own.  Of course I'm a die hard "Blind Faith" fan and in general this is "My kind of Music" including the production of Led Zeppelin II and IV and "Houses of the Holy" and "Coda", all of which albums I used to own, and still do, technically.  My brother Al owned "Spooky II" and he also owned the follow up "Free" album after "Fire and Water" out in 1971.  As you know it's a saying of mine that Eric Claptin no longer sounded as "annointed" after he got rid of Bobby Whitlock as keyboardist, and I'd like to buy this 1972 album.  I've never owned a Humble Pie album and know very little about the group.  And Andy Johns produced "Sticky Fingers" and "Exile on Main Street".   Of course knowing me also- - the Federation yesterday said as an explanation for why they might not be contacting me as much in the next few days is that "We are preparing for an important new arrival" but at the time I had no idea whether this individual was even from this planet.  It is interesting the high percentage of albums this man has produced or engineered that I once owned, or own now.

Let's talk about the famous "Glen Johns' or is it "Glyn Johns" tapes from "Let It Be".  I have spoken of that KMET tape listed by the DJ as being 33 minutes and 30 seconds consisting of nine songs.  These nine songs are "Get Back", which is used on the vynal record but has been "embellished' a little at the beginning, and "Teddy Boy" which appears on Anthology III, and "Two Of Us" "I Dig a Pony" and then "I Got a Feeling" and this track also appears on Anthology III, then "Let It Be" and then "Don't Let Me Down" and this version I've heard played on the radio in the past year, but I'm uncertain whether it's the identical version that appears on "Let It Be Naked" but it might be.  Then there is "For You Blue" and "The Long and Winding Road" which is NOT the version you hear on Anthology.  Anthology uses the vocal track from the original vinyl record minus the choir and orchestral embellishment.  I believe I've covered that.  Again at 33:30 and nine songs it's almost enough for a full album in itself.  All you needed to do is to throw in "One After 909" not on this tape, and you've got your album release.

Three other deaths grace the news.  Last week it was Roger Ebert, who survived Gene Sisco but for a long time they were a super media Duo with their thumbs up and thumbs down.  If they BOTH either liked or hated a movie, it could sway that movie's draw at the box office.  Then we have Anette Funacello.  They had one of her movies in the big room late yesterday afternoon and I'm not sure if that was a coincidence or not.  I inquired whether Anette was one of those 'Hollywood A" people on Aldeberan VIII and some representative told me "Hell no, those people are all a bunch of snobs".  Then we come to Maggie Thatcher or "The Iron Lady".  Johnny Wendell gave considerable comentary on her this morning.  Saying that this legacy of patriotic revival and conservatism is basically a bunch of propagandistic bull.  England was just used to getting all of their raw materials used in industrial production for free.  But after the War, echoing what Pat Buchannon has claimed, that WW II sapped the sap of England and they lacked the will to hang on to their colonies but had to let them go, and suffered economically for it.  Of course in this country we used to have FREE labor in the South because of our "peculiar institution" of Slavery.  Now all of these Republicans who want to build electric barbed wire fences and gun towers at the border- - Still want a "Guest Worker" program.  May I suggest that these migrent workers are treated as anything but "guests".  They just want to drive down the wage base and feed the corporate-ocracy.  Of course Maggie Thatcher to prove her nation's virility- - took back the Faulklands from Argentina, and Ronald Reagan the next year fought the Battle of Granada, and I'm still not sure what happened there.  But of course conservatives from both countries remember the 'eighties as some golden revival era for patriotism and prosperity and it being "morning in America' and all of that.

Some people are puzzled why libertarians today are so different from eras gone by.  Of course today's libertarians in most cases are all for the Military Industrial Complex, and people like Larry Elder are their champions.  Some have suggested that regulating the border crossings is "anti libertarian" and anti free market.  Well, I believe in a regulated free market, but I also believe in a nationalist economic policy which these corporatists don't.  I don't see how in any way it's fair play to let illegals stream accross the border and drive down our wage base.  I think it's just synacal that "There are certain jobs American's just wont Do".  I think they will DO them - - if they aren't being under-cut with wages no American could possibly live on.  And nobody can even live on today's minimum wage- and so they certainly couldn't live for Less than minimum wage.  Of course today's libertarians are all for these recent abortion law restrictions, which might violate Roe vs Wade.  Not that I wouldn't like to see the issue of Roe vs Wade revisited myself in the Courts, but I'm saying "Let's just not jump the gun.  First things first".  And of course these people are all for the "War on Drugs" - which is a poor way of handling the rapent substance abuse problem - - and the war on Labor unions and pension funds (apparently collective bargaining is not a "freedom of expression" they endorse), and seemingly they are now for other kinds of wars, such as the War on School Teachers by imprisoning a bunch of them in some nice "Guantanamo Bay West" setting where their rights are being violated- they are mistreated and humiliated- and forced to lose their jobs without a conviction or in many cases to defend themselves directly or face their Accusers, or even to know the specific nature of the (apparently sexual) charges leveled against them.  It makes no sense to me that over three hundred LA school teachers would suddenly be guilty of sex crimes against their students.  The students have to suffer now from incompetent Substitutes.  David Cruise has talked about this whole "economizing" and "efficiency" stuff that Businesses are doing to squeeze that last ounce of productivity from their workers.  They work them to death and that the productivity of workers is now the highest in over fifty years- - means nothing to these Employers.  They demand more.  So they put the workers in these gold fish bowls spying on their personal lives.  How "libertarian is that'.  And they will also push them so hard that stress mounts and they are forced to take sick days off, and the quality of the workmanship drops.  Worst of all for the Employers themselves, worker's loyalty falls to nothing and they will leave these job hell holes at the drop of a hat.  Either that or they will be fired by the Corporations themselves perhaps weeks before their scheduled retirements.

Of course people are trying to make sense of what the Republicans consider a proper gun regulation bill.  We have told you these NRA people aren't interested in gun safety or skill in opperation, or in any way the interests of gun owners, but their whole thing is Gun Production and increasing sales by hook or crook or sheer fear.  They thrive on that.  Unfortunately our country does not thrive on their kind of Fear.  Common sense has flown out the window.  Someone pointed out that gun deaths will soon overtake automobile deaths.  You see we have regulated the automobile in the past ten years making them safer and highway deaths have plumetted.  Of course we've made them more fuel efficient too. People like Judy maintain that we get fuel efficiency due to the fact that the metal is thinner and they aren't as safe should a collision occur.  For a tea party member, they don't let actual Facts get in the way.  Fear is their thing.  Of course under Clinton the crime rate dropped dramatically through things like the assault weapons ban and this "100,000 New Cops" program, that Rush Limbaugh mocked endlessly on his show.  The thing is that government regulations DO work.  Many have suggested that these whackos must be afraid that they Themselves- - would not pass a Background check, or they themselves have sociopathic tendencies that would recomend against their owning firearms.  I think we can all agree we don't want sereal killers or rapists or wife beaters or people nursing irrational and dangerous beliefs to own guns.  Randy Rhodes makes it clear it's only those who have been Ajuticated by a Court to be Insane and remanded to some State Institution.  All of my "Internments" have been "Volentary" at least technically.  Besides even if I wanted to own a firearm, which I don't,  I believe I would think of the safety and "peace" of my countrymen and their perception as to whether I was a danger, and for the sake of "keeping the peace" I would defer and not seek a firearm.   Of course now you hear absurd things like how it only takes a few seconds to switch off magazines.  However this is under ideal circumstances and not being a psychopath with adrenaline and panic running through your system.  Those seconds are valuable.  Lives have been saved because of those precious seconds.  It takes almost a sociopathic mentality not to have at least a little for those twenty dead kids and other countless innocent victims of these shooting rampages.  No amount of extremety is enough to rouse these people to moral consciousness   They are morally Dead.  They have this Ayan Rand mentality that they are lords of their own universe or whatever, and nobody matters but then.  We need to consign people like Rand Paul and Paul Ryan to the ranks of mentally incompetent people not fit to even serve in government as a "public servant".

23 Presidential Executive Orders on Gun Regulation

First of all what the President did today I wish Mike Deletore would do, and that is take present action.  Don't make promices you're going to do something in the great bye and by in exchange for getting ME to do something for YOU today.  I keep telling Mike, and the same message goes for Christian teachers would peak in the name of God, "Don't cover up one failed promise by making even more grandios promises to be fulfilled "soon" but "soon" somehow never gets around to being "Now".  The BEST way you can get MY attention is to "Do what you SAY you are going to do NOW".  This is what the President did today in a speech I apparently largely missed and caught just a few minutes of, but the radio station I was listening to was screwing up Royal and I missed most of it.  Here are the Presidential Executive Orders

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.

3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).

9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.

11. Nominate an ATF director.

12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.

13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.

14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies

16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.

17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.

18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.

20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.

21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.

22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.

23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

And these are the legislative ideas -- i.e., the ones the president wants to push through Congress, starting with the  more pliable Senate.

Require criminal background checks for all gun sales. (a.k.a. closing the "gun show loophole.")

Reinstate and strengthen the assault weapons ban.

Restore the 10-round limit on ammunition magazines.

Protect police by finishing the job of getting rid of armor-piercing bullets.

Give law enforcement additional tools to prevent and prosecute gun crime.

End the freeze on gun violence research.

Make our schools safer with more school resource officers and school counselors, safer climates, and better emergency response plans.

Help ensure that young people get the mental health treatment they need.

Ensure health insurance plans cover mental health benefits.

President Obama's "Apology Speech"

Well many are saying that what we need to do is to tap into the private conversations by therapist and patient - - and get the doctor's personal notes, breaking the doctor - patient confidence long held sacrosanct by the state - - so that we can find out whether the patient is mentally stable enough to own or fire a gun.  To me this is kind of a hazy ethical gray area into which I would tread lightly.  Some national Academy of Sciences study says there is not one bit of evidence that increased anti gun legislation leads to a lower crime rate.  It is said that in Israel this whole bit about arming school principals and teachers "works", at least there.  But Israel has a more disciplined, militaristic culture than we do here.  Of course we know the crime rate plumited when New York cops began frisking people randomly for fire arms.  That seemed to get right to the source of the problem - ie criminals with guns.  President Obama I thought was going to lay out his own broad, sweeping anti gun program, but instead the President pretty much punted.  What we got was kind of an "apology speech" for the gun lobby, for offending them.  He used phrases like "We need to all look into our hearts".  I used that whimpy phrase in my Prophecy book when I was addressing Conservatives on the matter of Civil Rights for Minorities.  The President also said something I must have misheard.  He said "We just shouldn't look for support for a gun bill from the usual culperates" meaning the liberal activists.  But instead said "we need to look to gun owners themselves, and businessmen, and pastors, and teachers, and police, and private citizens from rural areas as well as the big cities".  If I heard him right.  I think where the name "assault weapon" obviously game from is in like a paramilitary situation such as a SWAT team dealing with a terrorist with hostages or something.  And maybe you have to back off from a distance, where the long firing and accurecy range of the fifty calabre rifel will come into advantage.  Because you could pick off the bad guy from a long ways away and be confident the bullets would be true to their course and hit the intended target.  But the point was raised earlier and the tea party has even said it themselves.  They said that "We didn't win the right to gun rights in the American Revolution so we could hunt moose and elk, but rather to take down a would be dictator".  So they pretty much admit that the guys and amo they buy in huge quantities, is not meant for hunting or any sports use, or for emergency protection in case of home break-in.  The guns and amo they buy are intended to kill military people and cops who come to arrest them.  There was a convincing Video on Waco in 1993 I saw a couple months ago and it should convince any would be imitators the utter futility of such a similar action.  Because you just can't win.  Even with a woman with hormonal problems as AG such as Janet Reno.  You can't win.  A woman shall do you in.

Lance Armstrong said the interview with Oprah Winfrey was the most difficult thing he’s done in his life.  That’s a crock of bull.  I didn’t ask him to do it.  The entire interview was a crock of bullshit piled high and Oprah herself said that “I don’t believe that Armstrong came clean”.  It’s not as if he were forced at gunpoint to even do the interview and you know he’s getting paid a ton of money for it.  There was some caller tht said “I hate the way that all these guys who use dope rat each other out”.  Well,  I on the contrary say it’s time to get all of the Dopes out of cycling.  His cancer work was good but he could have easily continued to do that after he was honest enough to quit cycling because he no longer “had the right stuff”.   That’s what a straightforward guy would do.

Oscar told me after breakfast that they always start with the other side of the room for breakfast and our side for lunch.  This morning our side set a whopping new lateness record of nine minutes after eight to be served our three smaller pancakes and some kind of hot dog thing.  For our side it’s the difference between being served at seven thirty or well after eight.  The other side of the room has never had to face once at lunch what our side routinely experiences at breakfast.  For the past three out of four dinners, our side hasn’t gotten seconds, or rather, our table hasn’t gotten seconds.  You see Dora disappear into that “black hole’ in the corner where she seems to stay forever.  It was a fifteen minute wait that yielded nothing, and it was 23 to five when I left the dining room to go to the store for an iced honey bun.  Dora ran out of the Chinese stir fry just before reaching our table.  It was good rice and pork and bean sprouts.  We had chocolate pudding for desert.

James showed up at the door and gave us enough coffee for not quite one full pot, which I just drank and gave Bill a little.  He also had creamer and had I known I wouldn't have spent money buying new creamer at the store.  Money draw came sometime after two and it was a new guy doing it in [the proprietor's] office.  I got fifteen dollars and went out and bought a pack of John Black grape.  Larry talked my head off with a five or six straight monolog from the instant I stepped out the patio door to the instant I came in.  When Larry gets going nobody even has time to take a breath, and should you respond to anything he says, he’ll treat it like you’re interrupting his monolog.  Then I went down to see Dr. Saran.  I was lying down listening to David Cruise when Sarah knocked at the door just ahead of the housekeeper for cleaning.  It was a long line but it moved quickly.  The big news is that my blood pressure has risen for the third time in a row.  It was 138 and then 140 and today it was 144 over 82.  I couldn’t believe it.  My temperature was 98.2 degrees.  Dr. Saran said he didn’t normally take action till the BP figure approached 160, where I hope mine never reaches.  Blood pressure medications do fail and that’s obviously what’s happening.

The soap opera continues to have vital dialog.  Samantha is still on her tyrade against Gabriel.  But if anyone is “being played” here it is Raphael.  Samantha played him by being nice to his sister hoping it would garner kissy points with Raphael.  Well now her scheme backfired and she showed her true colors.  A real friend would not “turn on someone’ so quickly as Sammy did with Gabriel.  I take exception though to the idea that repeating a conversation you overheard is a crime if it was “privileged”.  Chad wasn’t under any ethical constraints to keep any secrets.  It was the doctor’s fault for not making sure the door was closed before they even had a conversation.  Think about it.

Chinks in the Armor of Liberal Credibility

You know It's one thing to use a phrase or slogan as part of some campaign promotion or something.  But it's quite another to actually believe your own stuff.  Take this idea about the use of the phrase in the Constitution of 'A well regulated Militia being necessary for a free people - - - .  Randy Rhodes is now making it official and claiming that there have been Court decisions that stated that if a certain armlement is not on the official list of weapons in the US armery or something - - or slated for use by a duly Authorized national guard, than that weapon is not protected under the Second amendment.  Were Randy Rhodes up before congress for a Justice position on the Supreme Court I would scratch her right off my list immediately because this "ruling" of hers flies in the face of 250 years of Case Law.  The Court, much as that conservative pointed out- - has stated time and time again that a Militia is like the 'minute men" of old, that could be ready at a moment's notice and were not a part of any organized military unit but were in fact civilians, who loved their country and wanted to defend liberty.  She made reference to some law passed under George Washington as she put it "establishing" the militia.  That's not how it works.  She spoke of divisions and batalions and companies.  I guess the two lowest military units would be the platoon, which comtains about four squads doesn't it, and each squad is composed of about six or seven fighting men.  That's my understanding of how it works.  There is a line on "Copper Kettle" that Dylan song about "We ain't paid no Whiskey tax since 1792, which is when Washington signed the bill instituting the tax.  But the Bill of Rights were considered part and parcel of the Constitution and many states would not ratify the Constitution without an explicit guarentee that a Bill of Rights would be passed right off.   So far as I know you won't find a shread of case law stating that the 'Militia' referred to by the second amendment is at all the same as the "National guard" or that Bill that George Washington signed in 1792.

I think there is some mental abberation going on among the gun lobby, however.  The idea of buying up all the ammunition they can and selling out store after store so that the cops can't even get the ammunition they need to practice, is a little strange.  It would seem as if they were entertaining some fantasy that in even their sober moments they must realize could never take place.  I definitely think these people need to get over the idea that Barock Obama is somehow not a Legitimate President.  That either the vote was rigged in the bit cities, which they are claiming, or he wasn't really born in the United States, or that he has some secret socialist agenda and is loyal to some secretive group that only the tea party people seem to Know about.  They raised the specter of Obama's conthiscating all US weapons in one scenario or another- even last year before one bit of legleslation was proposed by this President.  Of course they fight him on any and all Cabinet appointments, which used to be unprecedented.  They will not accord the President the respect his office has deserved these 250 years.  They don't even want him speaking before Congress at a date and time of his choosing.  Obviously the numerous racial slurs are intollerable.  Nobody in their wildest imagination would have proposed the idea that the first Black man to attain to the job, would be subject to the ammount of unprecedented racism and racial slurs as this President.  It almost seems now that the Tea Party is shall we say "exposed in their motives" for all Americans to see.  Hopefully there will be a major party realignment in the Congressional election next year.  Perhaps once the health care bill takes full effect it will be as unthinkable to repeal this bill as it would have been to repeal the Medicare act in the 1968 election.

Today was another accromonious episode in soap land on "Days".  But the one individual whom I look in an entirely different light now is Samantha Brady.  She was "going off" on a crushed bride in tears, on her own hypocritical moral moral soap box, and Raphael was watching her the whole time.  She just may have blown any possiblity of a renewed relation with Raphael because of that little temper display.  Raphael has a very key point.  Far from being the "Victim" in all of this, it was Will who drove Gabriel to the abortion clinic and if he'd had his way the baby would be GONE now.  Sonny can't be thinking very highly of Will right now.  I mean even if your Gay, honesty suddenly doesn't cease to be a virtue.  The problem has always been with Samantha is that she never looks at herself in the mirror to gauge what a jackass she is in public.   Of course now Julie is saying, like some doting Aunt that, "If only I had been here and not on that cruise of a lifetime, none of this would have happened".  Lucas is myffed by Will's attitude, stressing the inherent nature of fatherhood and it's not something that  man can just kiss off lightly.  The trouble with Lucas is, he's the only normal traditionalist on that believes in the values you and me actually grew up with.
 
In the past twenty years we have veered away alarmingly from the classic Sirius A proper spellings of various words.  So here is the list of "classic" spellings of words.

Accademy, Ecconomic, Searies
Regester, Securety. Purety
Shaddow, Chappel. Calibre
Fibre, Behaviour, Saviour
Streach, Crecent, Oviously
Sergury, Marithon, Theripist
Victum, Defence. Offence
Endource, Fource Richi Vallenz
Gennifer, Obliverate, Opperation
Accademy, Vaccume, Matress
Salery, Celler, Chayanne
Salade, Wronchy, Junkey
Phoney, Flakey, Shakey
Scarey, Judgement, Ecconomic
Accidently, Intrest, Apaulling
Crouded, Fiddeler, Spacey
Jinxy, Witchy, Moused
Collapse, Sise, Despise
Finalise, Prise, Energise
Euthanise, Realise, Criticise
Wiener, Burry, Isrial
Qadafi, Al Qaida, Spinich
Calender, Intransigent

Being Dragged into the 21st Century

Collin Powell gave an unflagging endorsement of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense.  Even David Gregory had doubts that Hagel was a little too on guard about the “Jewish lobby” in congress, but Powell isn’t a bit concerned about that, and frankly, neither am I.  You know these people who say they love Israel and yet they are professing fundamentalist Christians.  I maintain that inherent in embracing the “message” of the New Testament is an inherent hatred of the Jewish race and culture that is every bit as great as a Southern slave owner’s hatred against Black people.  The defense lobby is just an armlement lobby.   They don’t care about the wages of military personnel or possible jobs lost; all they care about are these defense contractors pitching and getting lucrative government contracts for their latest gadgets.  Mc Cain was on Face the Nation at the same time, but I never caught his message.  Clearly President Obama won the election last November.  He and Romney had two contrasting messages.  The President believed in ending wars and negotiations with our enemies.  Romney pitched the idea of looking for starting the next war anywhere and everywhere.  The people picked the President, and from where I sit, that should pretty much end the argument.  Collin Powell also took exception to this raft of racist rhetoric against the President.  There is the birther movement, and expressions they would not dare use against a White president such as “The President is engaged in shucking and jiving” and “We are going to break this President” or “President Obama is lazy and spends all his time in Hawaii, after he raises taxes on the rich”.  Judy came up with this last chestnut.   People forget that Collin Powell has served in the highest positions under two Republican presidents, and that he himself IS a Republican, and he has endorsed another Republican, Chuck Hagel, for Secretary of Defense.   Of course Powell says- - despite backing President Obama in the past two elections- - he has a long track record for decades past of supporting Republican Presidents.

There is also other news of note.  Peking is continuing to have its major pollution problems.  Their atmosphere has now risen to 755 parts per million, or whatever, of pollutants.  Three hundred parts per million is considered an emergency in the United States.  Of course in Austrailia they had those orange “waves” or clouds traveling along the ground menacingly like a scene out of some Hollywood visual effect in a Sci Fi movie.   Of course there’s the problem with Putin banning the adoption of Russian children, even adoptions of disabeled children, and adoptions that were already in the pipeline.  Now these children are consigned to Russian orphanages.  And it all probably traces back to some assenine bill the tea party Republicans passed last year.  Some people in the government are, or were concerned about government secrets being made public in the Zero Dark Thirty movie that was just out this weekend, and immediately went to the number one grossing movie at the box office.  In terms of assault weapon legislation, the odds are now strongly tilted aginst banning these fifty calabre weapons that fire these solid body “cop killer” bullets that go through walls and still kill people.  But a slim majority of the American people - 51% oppose the banning of these "assault weapons".  Law enforcement can’t be very happy about that.  We are reminded that when the Black Panthers wanted to arm themselves as protection forces against police abuse 45 years ago, it was Ronald Reagan and the NRA that got anti gun legislation passed in California.  We are nothing if not hypocrites.  Congressmen that advocated for Hurrican Katrina relief seven years ago are the same ones that are ham stringing any real relief bill for Hurricane Sandy victims.  They are only doing it peace-meal like nine billion at a time, when the concensus is that these people really need about fifty billion in financial aid.

Dr. Levy handed out an interesting sheet on the "Eight Aspects essential to Human Well Being" the other day.  There is physical wellness, which covers a lot of ground right there.  They say "If you've got your health, you've got just about everything".  Then there is emotional well being.  I like the perameters of this segment.  Because Dr. Levy boils down "emotional well being" to how a person handles stress in their lives.  Stress can manifest itself in either physical symptums, or subtle or gross changes in human personality or behavior, or in its worst form, severe psychological mental abberations.  Then there is "social well being'.  Others also say "If you've got your friends and family then you have just about everything".  Then there is spiritual well being.  This in a metaphysical sense I take to "realize One's Own Place in the overall scheme of things, Man's place in the Cosmos.  Medatation or one of the eastern disciplines like Yoga or perhaps Thai Quan Do - - would be good to accomplish this.  Then of course there is Financial well being.  If your wallet is looking a little thin and ill balance sheet winds blow- - one could argue, "then can a decline in one's physical health be far behind?"  Then there is one we overlook, but should really be thankful every day of our lives.  This is Environmental Wellness.  We have safe food and water, and we have police and fire protection, and don't fear the gunman, as well as certain things like living in a properly heated domicile so you don't freeze to death.  I told Dr. Levy I couldn't mind one bit if asked to teach a class on "Intellectual Wellness".  This one about "Occupational Wellness" is OK I guess.  I guess if you live in a communist government, they would consider it their mission to give you perhaps useless, menial work, and pay you the generous salary of a dollar ten an hour- - - because "work creates good character" or some such thing.  I guess in a pure, abstract sense, it does.

Let's talk about coffee drinking a little more.  I'm not entirely opposed to having coffee with a dash of cinnamon in it.  In fact there was a period around 1966 when my brother, Al, used to sneak it in, and he'd annoy my Dad in doing it.  And at the bakery for a while they'd have cinnamon out - - and occasionally I would endulge.  Of course fast food places are notorius for really lousey coffee- - particularly Carl's, and also George's, which I mentioned in a recent posting.  Mc Donalds has the best coffee of any of the common fast food places, and this has always been true, even before they began advertizing it.  In terms of places with the best coffee- - - my "data" comparrison is about forty years old so it might not still be accurate.  Cocos Famous Hamburgers consistently had the best coffee, with International House of Pancakes and Sambo's as the runner up.  But don't hold me to that because I haven't been to either an IHOP or a Sambo's in a long time.   The coffee at my Mom's place started off pretty good, but has steadily been declining in quality.

Marcus' Food Tips and Preferences

My secret formula for barbecue base sauce to bake chicken is the following
Catsup
A1 Steak Sauce
Vinigar
Wooshtichire Sauce
White Wine
Dry Mustard

Marcus does not salt his pasta when he prepairs it.  When he puts a lot of it in his chicken soup or Ministrone soup, he has the theory that there is enough resident salt already in the soup

Pork "needs" salt more than other meats.  So be sure and put celery salt and pepper on your pork chips, or use shake and bake if you have it.

What are your feelings about what to put in a beef stew
Answer- potatoes, carrots, cellery, onions, tomatoes, bell pepper - and that's IT!

What's wrong with most three bean salads you encounter?
Answer:  they should be served at room temperature and not chilled, they don't have garbanzo beans, and they really should have bacon flavoring.

What mystery ingrediant in those packaged cinnamon rolls gives them that unique flavor?
Answer - Cloves, I imagine

What are your preferences as to Pizzas
Answer- the more toppings the better - no anchoves

What do you recommend for thick "resturant style soups, flour, corn starch, or just "reducing" it?
Answer- corn starch

Which pie would you be least inclined to order if given a choice in a resturant?  pecan, peach, cocanut cream, or lemon marangue?
Answer - peach  (I like rich pies)

What is the surest indication a packaged cookie is going stale?
When they are no longer as crunchy but are now softer

What is your chief complaint about the way cold cut sandwiches are served at your place, aside from not enough meat?
Answer- not enough mayonaise  (Loretta disagrees)

As served at your place, which sandwich snack do you prefer between cheese, tuna, bologna, or peanut butter and jelly?
Answer- peanut butter and jelly

What is your taste verdict on Hostess fruit pies
Answer- generally, they're too sweet

Toby's favorite meat item
Answer- pork chops

Toby's favorite flavor of ice cream - chocolate, or rocky road
So am I guilty of animal abuse
Bones also has the favorite flavor of rocky road

What food substance cats really go for did my cat Garfield at my apartment shun?
Answer- tomato sauce

In the early days of the Palm Street house
Gin and Tang was a favorite drink of mine

My mother had a tendency to way overcook bacon

White meat is it crutial in Marcus' oppinion NOT overcook
A lamb
B poultry
C fish
D hot dogs

The correct answer is A

I'd rather have a slightly over-cooked fried egg than an under-cooked fried egg

I'd rather have slightly over-cooked poultry or fish, than slightly under-cooked

Which alcoholic beverage do I like to mix with my Coca Cola?
Answer - - Black Velvet

What is the only vegetable Marcus puts pepper on?
Answer:  Carrots

If Marcus uses pepper on salad, it's with what kind of dressing?
Answer - Thousand Island

Never mix cheese with French fries

Really good chili doesn't "need" cheese

Do you like onions on your hamburgers?
Answer - yes

I prefer plain Potato Chips

When I eat chips I scoop with my left hand and hold the bag with my right

When I ride skateboards- - my left foot goes in front

When in my apartment I liked to mix orange juice with Vin Rose

The people around here never put cinnamon in their apple sauce

The coffee around here tends the majority of the time to be weak

The only cold cereal I use sugar on is Raison Bran

When I begin a 100 yard dash - - my right foot is on the start line

What are the two key ingrediants in a Waldorf Salad
Answer - apples and bananas

Never use mayonaise on a Pestrami sandwich

When I have seafood and crab sandwiches at Subway
I tell them to hold the pickles and hold the mustard

What is the chief condiment by volume I use in my soup at home
Answer - Oregano

Of mustard greens, brocolli and spinach the one I would be least inclined to order given a choice
Answer - brocolli

What is the proper condiment to use with Meatloaf
Answer - Catsup

What hand to I use when I unlock my door, and also to throw the lock switch?
Answer - the left hand

Do I have a lifetime net gain or net loss with Nevada Casinos?
Answer - net Gain

What is the key ingrediant to really good chili
Answer - Cumin

Do you use Cloves in beef stew
Answer - No, it gives beef stew kind of an "Alpo" taste

What is are the key spices in a pumpkin pie
Answer - ginger and nutmeg

Which juice is better for a touchy stomach, apple or orange?
Answer - orange juice

Favorite beer or all time?
It's probably Henry Weinhart's Private Reserve

Worst beer of all time?
Pabst Blue Ribbon

Have you ever eaten horse meat?
Around here, it's most likely I have

What if your favorite kind of coffee?
straight coffee without any funny stuff in it

Three items I tend to avoid at George's Resturant though almost the entire rest of their menu is good
french fries, catsup, chocolate shakes (the other flavors of shakes are OK)

Do you normally drink diet sodas and such?
Answer - No,  I feel robbed when I don't get that sugar energy rush

Do you prefer shelled or unshelled peanuts
Answer - shelled, if I can get them

Favorite hot dog brand
Answer - either Oscar Mayer or Hebrew National

What is your favorite kind of bread?
Answer - Russian Rye

Do you wear arch support shoes?
Answer - Hell No!

Kosher Rejects

Last night I bought a bagel
I put it in my mouth
I went ahead and swallowed
And now it's headed South

Down with Arabs up with Jews
Thems the only proper views

I'll put a big fright into Moses if I can
Then the Nation will see that I'm a mighty, mighty man
Have you heard the news - - Mt Sinai is erupting tonight!

They used to call people in government - - Piggies
But they say that when wild board bite- - they chomp out a real piece of you that you'll never get back.  And I never knew that pigs used to be Jewish Mohwells .But you know - - This proves there can't be any pigs in government now, because the tea party has long since padlocked their snouts and then put a blow torch to the whole thing so nobody else can possibly undo it.

Here lies Jesus of Nazareth who thought he was a major dude
To King Herod he was very Rude

I can't deal with the Truth - - it knows no regulation
Enforced term limits are no conselation
They take six months off - can't pass no legeslation
Before they even take the oath their ethics suffer degradation

When young metal fornacates with factory molds
Illigitimate bastard prodgeny known as guns are the product
In the same logic the tea party uses
If we chop down fewer trees- fewer Bibles will be produced

The Heritage Foundation is on a dreadful course
They seek to overthrow drone missiles with a secret force
The most radical of Sanctuary icons they now endorse
Inside they erect a gold statue of Paul Revere's horse

Cheetos leave an orange trail back to the scene of the crime
Behind the citrus curtain the tea party lives in ethical grime
They fornacate with the media and jack off all the time
Rick Perry wants interest rates to be anything but prime

There have never been any mass Jewish murderors
West of the Deleware River

The little boy loves his Italian meal
He couldn't be cuter
The idiots in Vince's class know little about the computer
A new generation of gonoreal teenage boys
will soon need a Roter Rooter
Meanwhile Dr. Levy tries to act as an online tutor

Did you know that the majority of those who called themselves Jews in Ancient Israel
Never attended any of the Jewish Temple festivals where animals were sacrificed?

Carpenters love to nail wooden things to garner business
I love to take a preacher to dinner on a Saturday Night and get him good and drunk so that he looks and feels his best when he gives the Sunday morning sermon.

Here is some advice if you don't want to be a financial moocher
Radio advice should all be ignored - - for what it's worth
Wall Streeters fear a Great falls in their financial future
But the overall stream of things is actually headed North

Listen to my sermon I mean every thing I say
I'm talking about the working class that has to pay and pay
I'm gona skin Paul Ryan alive like a squerel
The piggies all run and hide in a burrow
They all just love to squeal just like they were- little girls

I get high when I see John Boehner - with a guy
Compiling all my notes on him - - and even bigger fish, to fry
You know it's just no party when all he does - is Cry

Is it right that he gets off on Savage porno - every Night
Though the he prospect of his failure makes makes hopes bright, very bright
Why are they so shy - and ask why - - before Congress

It's just a Boehner - that is all
I'm gona rub it against the wall
His tea has all run through
It's so easy - - mocking you - - mocking youuuu-!

Gonads the Size of Billiard Balls

The movie Zero Dark Thirty hasn’t even opened yet and already it’s generating contraversey.  The issue is its depiction of the torture that went on at Guantanamo Bay.  They also stated that today is the “anniversary of the opening of” Guantanamo Bay.  I don’t mind their depecting of various “enhanced interrogation methods” such as water boarding or sleep deprevation or being subject to extreme heat or cold, on the one privision, that what they depict actually happened.  The movie also states that they got “valuable information leading to the capture of Osama Bin Laden”, which is what the movie is all about.  I only have one stipulation as to whether I endorse the movie or not, and that is -  whether in fact the information they obtained through such torture was in fact instrumental in the eventual capture of Bin Laden.  Kathryn Bigalo is the producer of this movie, and I am inclined to take her at her word because she has an established credibility track record.  I think it would be and IS wrong to orchestrate some “political protest” in urging the Oscar voters to boycott this picture just to make some political statement, based on a belief that’s not even true.  Let’s compare this movie with “The Passion of the Christ”.  In that movie two assertions are made.  That Jesus gave up his life, and that through this action all of mankind was made pure from sin.  The second part is definitely false and I think I can say to a near metaphysical certainty that the first part is false too.  Jesus did not “give his life”.  Do you know how I can be so sure.  Because if he DID, he would be dead, and would have been dead for two thousand years.  And since Jesus the Christ has been reckoned as being God in the Flesh, it would mean that God Himself has ALSO been dead for two thousand years.

Some people say you shouldn't slight God because "we owe God everything, and without him there would be absolute continuous Nothingness and Void".  Well, do you know how much WORK it actually TAKES to produce what you call "nothingness?"  Personally if I were God I'd say it wasn't worth the bother.  People first of all have to have senses and then LOSE them in order to be aware that there is now "Nothingness".  Also the passage of endless Time - - requires that said "endless Time" be CREATED in the first place.  You din't think of that one, did you.  But also the SPACE for this "nothingness' to take place in, also has to be Created.  Because you see, nothingness isn't really Nothing.  Nothingness is chocked full of all sorts of cosmic matter.  In fact for a bathroom scale to register zero, it has to be subject to fifteen pounds per square inch of air pressure.  If you didn't have all that air pressure acting on it - - who know what would happen?  This author as you know has even postulated the idea of a negative light refraction index.  So not even Zero is really Zero, but something desguised as something else.  In fact we have also postulated that we live in what I call "convex" space and matter, but that there also may well exist "concave" space and matter.   But just think how it's silly to say that Job had trouble "finding God" in all of his sufferings.  First God had to create his body- - with all of its skin and nerves and all to feel sensation- - then having created it, he had to then take proactive action to screw it up - - so that it didn't work right and Job broke out in pain- - perhaps shingles, from the crown of his head to the souls of his feet.  By the way - shingles isn't limited to just six hours in the middle of a Friday in spring.

There was a real bombshell dropped at the conclusion of Days of our Lives today.  As Bill Clinton would say, “I really gotta admire the guy’s brass”.  Chad has to have gonads the size of billiard balls to do what he did.  He dropped the tomb on Gabriel and Nick just before they were about to be pronounced man and wife by announcing that he knew that Will Horton and not Nick Fallon was the father of Gabriel’s unborn child.  I think weddings are a natural occasion to disrupt anyhow because none of them ever last anyhow.  Samantha has a lot of experience in this area.  I’m not certain whether Samantha knows the truth that she is indeed about to become a grandmother, which puts a whole new definition of the word “grandmother”.    I can see the next TV movie now.  Two kids are talking with each other and one says to the other, “You know my grandpa is up to his old tricks again.  He’s spraying the school with gang graffiti”.   Some would say to me “Aren’t you contradicting yourself.  Didn’t you say that this paternity secret should never see the light of day?”  I did.  But I don’t fault Chad for knowing the secret or even telling the secret.  This is no secret that Chad Di Mira had any ethical obligation to keep.  In fact I think it’s poetic justice.  Chad has on his own volition kept Gabriel’s other dark secret, that she engineered Melanie’s abduction and imprisonment several months ago.  In other words, Gabriel has been living on borrowed time in an ongoing state of karmic debt.  And “The bill has now become due”.  She has nobody to blame but herself.  At least Will’s skirts get to stay nice and clean, at least for now.  Chad was telling Will’s lover, Sonny, “You know- - I’m going to this wedding because it’s a happy family occasion and I’m just getting into the spirit of the thing”.  Chad got into the spirit of it all right.  Rush Limbaugh used to have an expression, “Don’t poke the bear”.  It would benefit a lot of people out there to learn from this saying.

This afternoon a three after Randy I was just reading my old stuff.  I highly recommend the blog “You Can Lead A Horse to Water - - but You Can’t Make him Drink”, at least the concluding four long paragraphs.  These are very meaty treaties on philophy and religion.  They would be too much for Dr. Levy to take.  It occurred to me at lunch today that I never sent him any of my writings this week the way I told him I would.  And knowing how long it takes Dr. Levy to get to his E mails, he’d never read one I sent now, by tomorrow morning at eight.  You know they interviewed this kid on Eye Witness about how he feels about cold weather.  The kid was so rambling and cerebral- - - believe it or not there are recordings of me from nearly fifty years ago that are just about that bad.  There are times when I “over-think” things.  Of course we have been having cold weather this week with tempetatures not getting out of the mid fifties.  But on the plus side the weather has been blue sky and sunny, and not too windy.  Why back in Chicago this time of year such weather would almost qualify as a heat wave.   Somebody saw me without a jacket the other day and asked me “Were you raised in Alaska or something?”  No.  But I had so many good ideas this one day back in early October- - - I was so prolific that I couldn’t even cover all the topics that came to mind.  I used the hour glass analogy to describe karmic life.  I think I alluded to the fact that if you were “hooking lines together” in some geometric math kind of way - - when the lines crossed each other- - then the direction of the karmic spiral would reverse course.  I stated in the posting “As you approach no mans land near the middle of the hour glass, direction becomes harder to plot as the life force of karmic will weakens”.  But what I didn’t elaborate on is the idea of “anti-life” in the same theoretical vein of “anti matter’ or something.  And it could be inferred that the real of “anti-life” beings would be the realm of the demonic, and just how that would work, I do not know.  I am pretty sure a lot of theologians of a Christian vein believe in this whole “anti realm” of demons and other un-dead creatures.

There is a Miss America candidate that will be appearing this weekend.  Her name is Alexis, and she is Miss Montana, and she has been diagnosed autistic.  But she didn’t garner this diagnosis till age eleven, which is a little late in the game.  But she always felt awkward and spent a lot of time by herself and didn’t believe she really fit in.  But still she took up cross country racing and got into cheer leading.  There are some people who speak for various shall we say “mental health issues” where they want to regulate the words we use to describe mental illness.  They don’t like the usual terms like “mental patient’ or “lunitick”.  Personally I don’t mind these terms one bit, and I even use them myself because everybody knows what we’re referring to.  But this caller on the Randy Rhodes seemed really defensive on the subject.  I mean I’ll be frank.  I never worry about “getting off my meds” because I have seldom seen myself as somehow dependant on some ingested substance to be stable, save perhaps for the short period of time I was actually an alcoholic, and I would not recommend that.  I’ve heard people talk this way.  Randy was told that mental patients often admit to their own illness.  Well, I have never admitted to “my own illness” assuming I even have one.  I’ve never been able to identify with these people who supposedly write poetry or whatever about their own illness- - and somehow manage to make it PC, almost as if they were members of some “lobby group” of disabeled people.  Personally, I just don’t swing that way.  I don’t judge or exhonorate people based on what label is or is NOT put on them.  I judge people by their outward actions.

In the morning I listened to Ed Schultz on “tune-in.com” from a Riverside station.  It’s nice to know a liberal program is in a conservative locality.  And of course I did a blog posting this morning, too.  Trying to raise people’s “Awareness level” is a challenge, though.  People are creatures of habit.  When I read other material I do so with the idea of learning something new.  But I fear a lot of people do things out of mindless habit, and nothing more. For lunch we just had cold cuts and three bean salad.  I had seconds on the rice and meat ball soup.  I saw Leshia on the other side of the room looking in my direction.  It reminded me that I haven’t talked to her for days, and don’t’ know how she’s adjusting around here as a new resident.  We had breaded fish for dinner and tarter sauce and rice, and green beans, with yogurt for desert.  I was called down to the office and given my official Social Security increase notice.  It’s all of twelve dollars, which mathematically is just what I predicted it must be.  But as I said earlier in the week, if Governor Jerry Brown is suddenly awash in all this new revenue such that the deficit is wiped out, why not restore programs for the poor and the infirm, and reinstitute the renters rebate tax credit?  That two hundred-odd dollars was a valuable infusion of cash once a year that a lot of us were counting on.  Of course I got one of these big insurance envelopes in the mail, too, which is a quick candidate for that great trash can in the sky.   When I was heading down, I observed sunlight on the wall up close to the roof, at two minutes to five.  This is documented proof that the days are getting longer.  Stephanie Miller’s big Washington DC bash is one week away, and it’s one of only three opportunities her fans will get to see her this year.  ABC network news is starting up just now.   Now they are saying that the flu epidemic may have peaked out.  California was one of a minority of states that was largely spared the worst of it.  Personally I think I would be a better risk as a medical worker than others who actually had the vaccine, because this vaccine is only 62% effective.  This means that while your odds of getting the flue are just over a third of what they would otherwise be- - that leaves a whopping 38 percent of the population that is vulnerable.   Oh, but now they are saying “Don’t worry, California is going to Get Theirs too”.