Thursday, March 29, 2012
Hoodies?
Gratitude. Thank you, Barbara Z, for renewing your subscription to Frog Hospital. Your check for $25 is very gratefully received.
Barbara Z is one of many intelligent, socially-concerned subscribers to the Frog Hospital newsletter. You can join this excellent team. For more information on our spring subscription drive, see the bottom of this newsletter.
Ted P. from Boston sent a check. He's been with Frog Hospital since the beginning, in 1999. He sends me postcards from far away places like Cuba or Finland, but he gets around and sees the world. I got to know Ted years ago, in 1993 when I lived in Boston and belonged to the local Tikkun group.
Spring. I left the dahlia farm in Ventura after 17 months. I had hoped to stay long enough to see the sweet peas blooming again because I had worked on that crop all winter. But things didn't work out. I was replaced by another fellow -- I guess you could say he shared the owners' vision, while I did not.
I landed on my feet, and I think that's why I like living in southern California so much. The day after I left the farm, I secured a six-week job restoring two gardens in Altadena, at pay better than I was making on the farm, so I guess that's all right.
It's landscaping work, which pays a lot better than farm work, except it's not steady. You have to hustle and network and accept it that down periods will come and nobody calls. But I put my rate low enough to catch the market and there is more work out there -- I'll find it. They might even find me -- whew!
The weather has been good. We had some decent late-winter rains, so the hills might green up a little bit.
Hoodies?
The only time I ever got beat up by a cop I was wearing a hoodie. This happened in January 1976 in a suburb of Orlando ( not Sanford, but nearby ). It late at night. Wearing a hoodie, you can't see the face too well. I compounded the error by thrusting my hands in my pockets -- a stupid move. The cop worked me over with his night stick. A young man should know -- keep your hands visible and don't cover your face. That's been my custom ever since......... Orlando was kind of a nice place in 1976, before Disney World blew the place all to hell. But back before that it was a sleepy southern time, and we were there that winter, just hanging out in the park downtown, enjoying the sunshine......... The thing is -- what was I doing wandering around at 2 a.m. in the morning? That's when I ran into the cop. I decided, after this one-sided altercation, that I just ought to get off the street and stop hanging around.... Shortly after this, I asked my sweetheart to marry me, and we had two children and the rest is history.... That's how it worked for me.
But I'm still careful about where and when I put on a hoodie. It shows very poor judgment on the part of Trayvon Martin's supporters to be using the hoodie as a symbol of righteousness. I stand with Trayvon and his supporters, and I say keep your face free where I can see all of it and keep your hands out of your pockets and pull up your pants.
And, jeez, I wouldn't ever go back to one of those cracker-barrel redneck towns in Florida. The cops didn't hate Trayvon,. They weren't glad he died, but there's seems to a lot of evidence that they took the easy way out, like how can we resolve this situation with the least amount of paperwork and expense. Because a homicide in a small town is a huge problem. First of all, they don't have their own full-time homicide investigator, so they need to bring one in from the big city, some wise-guy know-it-all who takes over the investigation and makes everyone else look like a bunch of hicks. So they don't want to do that.
What I think is that Trayvon Martin is lying dead on the sidewalk and the cops are strategizing on a plausible scenario and a way to wrap this thing up -- Self Defense! Yes, that could work, and that's where the racial prejudice comes into play. Trayvon Martin. His people are not well-connected. They won't fight the ruling. We can spare ourselves a lot of paperwork.
Not forgetting the expense of a murder trial that could absolutely ruin the budget of a small town in Florida. So they had reasons -- they wanted that self defense ruling. They were all sweating in their socks. They knew their careers were at stake......Or they just wanted to go home that awful night, and maybe they just didn't care enough about the youth bleeding, now dead, on the sidewalk.
the annual spring subscription drive.
Save Frog Hospital!
Actually we don't need saving and we face no crisis, but we sure could use a few checks. Subscription revenue keeps the editor from getting cranky. It makes me feel good. It helps me to point out the good things going on in our trouble world. Subscription revenue prevents the harsh tones of self-righteousness. It helps me to make my point without preaching.
So please make out a check to Fred Owens for $25 and mail it to
Fred Owens
35 West Main Street, Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001
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Cops in Florida. Okay, back to my essay about cops in Florida. It seems that this little town in Florida might be one of those shit-heel places where the mayor's brother gets arrested for running a meth lab, and the town treasurer is embezzling the funds, and the town council members are all first cousins to each other. These places exist and they have lousy cops and the harsh glare of national publicity is what they deserve.
But I wouldn't smear the whole region. Not every small southern town is like that -- some are just as good as anyplace on earth -- you know, Mayberry, with Andy Griffith and Barney Fife -- that's not a total fairy tale, it's real and it's the flip-side to this sordid tale from central Florida.
--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214
My blog is Fred Owens
send mail to:
Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Native Schmative
I had a cosmic experience at the car lot. Laurie and I went car shopping this Sunday in Santa Barbara. Our first stop was Hughes Pontiac. The salesman, Gary Tschantz, came out to greet us and I told him I owned a Toyota but it was getting old, and did he have a newer one for less than $7,000. He said, "I know just what you need, follow me." So we walked over with him and he showed me a Buick…… What part of Toyota don't you understand I wanted to say.
But instead I let him give me a pitch for the Buick. Well, it was in pretty good shape and only had 88k miles on it, a golden Buick LeSabre from the year 2002. And he would sell it for $6,600 -- or less.....Okay, this is the wonderful thing about the guys who sell cars -- they really know how to read people. They live or die by how well they can read people. And Gary Tschantz had me pegged from the minute I got to his car lot -- that I was, in fact, an Inner Buick man, that I had owned and enjoyed two Buicks and I loved the ride..... This is where we get to the difference between a Japanese car and a car made in Detroit..... I love my Toyota, it runs good, it never breaks, it looks nice, and it doesn't use much gas, that's why I love it. But a good Buick -- you could LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE a good Buick.
Anyway, I knew I liked the car, but I told Gary I was only looking and so we left, and went to three other dealers and looked at some nice Toyotas and Hondas -- reasonable cars at reasonable prices.
That was Sunday. Today is Monday and here's where it gets cosmic, because I left Santa Barbara in the morning and drove to Ventura to pick up my mail and stop by Tuneups UnLimited on Thompson BLVD where my friend Redgie works as a mechanic. He's my go-to guy for car-buying decisions and he had advised me all along to get another Toyota.
But I had this funny feeling. I found him in his office and I was about to tell him about my car shopping venture the day before, but instead I asked him, "Redgie, what kind of car do you drive?"
"A Buick," he said. "It's out on the lot."
(Insert cosmic vibration music, like some kind of telepathic connection to Detroit)
I go out to see Redgie's car and I swear this is true -- he owns and drives the exact same car that I was looking at -- a 2002 Buick LeSabre only it's silver instead of gold.
"Oh, it's a good car," Redgie, "and it gets pretty good mileage on the highway."
So, will I buy the Buick? -- maybe. I won't be back to Santa Barbara until next Sunday, but if the car is still there, I'm going to take it for a test drive.
More Car Talk. We see interesting patterns in car buyers. Left coast liberals buy Japanese cars made by non-union labor in Alabama, but crusty old farmers from Nebraska by Buicks made by union labor in Detroit. Can somebody explain this to me?
Casey Stengel Said. Casey Stengel once said that “most ballgames are lost, not won.”
Harvey Blume Responded. i was just thinking about casey stengel. i remember him well, the things he sd. they prepared me for "finnegan's wake". people quote yogi a lot. that's cause yogi's nonsense made sense. but you won't find good compilations of casey stengel'...
Then I said. Casey Stengel understood a lot of things, and he didn't say "Nice guys finish last." ………… Who did?
MAIMONIDES in the MORNING. Reading Maimonides is a superior way to begin your day. He was a philosopher, legal scholar, and physician, his fame was worldwide, his authority was respected by Moslem and Jew alike. He lived in Cairo for many years and during those times Jews and Moslem lived together well. They sometimes shared a business together, such as goldsmithing. The Jew would go home on Saturday, his Sabbath, and the Moslem would go home on Friday, his Sabbath, and that way the shop could stay open seven days a week -- a pleasant arrangement, don't you think? But the Jews at that time, although prosperous and widely travelled, were a formally dependent people. They must pay a certain respect to the Caliph and they must, in certain ways, recognize the superiority of Islam.That live and let live arrangement lasted until 1948 when the Jews declared independence -- they would no longer bend a knee to the Caliph. The furious reaction to that independence continues since that fateful year of 1948. I wonder what Maimonides would say about that, because his life was dedicated to accommodation, to working things out under the current conditions. The thrust of his scholarship was to bring reason and scientific understanding to bear on traditional biblical studies, but he was no revolutionary and he never defied the Caliph.
I have a friend, an email correspondent, whom I never met, but he's a Jew and he was born in Cairo, and his family was expelled from Cairo in 1948. In that year all the Jews were kicked out of Cairo, where they had lived for several hundreds of years, since the time of Maimonides, but they were kicked out and so his family migrated to Italy where he acquired Italian citizenship as a young boy -- they then moved to Israel and that is where he grew up. Now this man owns a vineyard in the Judean Hills, called Domain du Castel. He makes fine wine and he hopes to stay on this land forever, but ----- BUT, he still keeps his Italian passport, because he knows he might not be able to keep his vineyard for all his days. There is no promise of tomorrow for independent Israel, but for now, he does not bend his knee to the Caliph -- do you think he should?
from Wikipedia
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn (Arabic: موسى بن ميمون), or Rambam (רמב"ם – Hebrew acronym for "Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon"), was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages. He was born in Córdoba, Almoravid Empire (present-day Spain) on Passover Eve, 1135, and died in Egypt (or Tiberias) on 20th Tevet, December 12, 1204.[6] He was a rabbi, physician and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt.
Subscription Drive. The annual subscription drive begins today -- we do it every spring and rake in a few hundred dollars as a reward for our effort throughout the year -- doing this newsletter twelve years now.... It is a great group of readers we have, like lawyers -- we have a few lawyers on the mailing list -- Pat Paul in LaConner, Felicia Value, also in LaConner, Aisha Barbeau in Alameda, California, and the inestimable, always Irish Ed Burke in Framingham, Massachusetts.......So, when you read the Farm News/Frog Hospital, you are part of a high-quality crowd.
Send your $25 check today. Make it out to "Fred Owens" and mail it to 7922 Santa Ana RD Ventura, CA 93001. Or use Pay Pal -- go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the Pay Pal button.
--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214
My blog is Fred Owens
send mail to:
Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001
--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214
My blog is Fred Owens
send mail to:
Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001
But instead I let him give me a pitch for the Buick. Well, it was in pretty good shape and only had 88k miles on it, a golden Buick LeSabre from the year 2002. And he would sell it for $6,600 -- or less.....Okay, this is the wonderful thing about the guys who sell cars -- they really know how to read people. They live or die by how well they can read people. And Gary Tschantz had me pegged from the minute I got to his car lot -- that I was, in fact, an Inner Buick man, that I had owned and enjoyed two Buicks and I loved the ride..... This is where we get to the difference between a Japanese car and a car made in Detroit..... I love my Toyota, it runs good, it never breaks, it looks nice, and it doesn't use much gas, that's why I love it. But a good Buick -- you could LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE a good Buick.
Anyway, I knew I liked the car, but I told Gary I was only looking and so we left, and went to three other dealers and looked at some nice Toyotas and Hondas -- reasonable cars at reasonable prices.
That was Sunday. Today is Monday and here's where it gets cosmic, because I left Santa Barbara in the morning and drove to Ventura to pick up my mail and stop by Tuneups UnLimited on Thompson BLVD where my friend Redgie works as a mechanic. He's my go-to guy for car-buying decisions and he had advised me all along to get another Toyota.
But I had this funny feeling. I found him in his office and I was about to tell him about my car shopping venture the day before, but instead I asked him, "Redgie, what kind of car do you drive?"
"A Buick," he said. "It's out on the lot."
(Insert cosmic vibration music, like some kind of telepathic connection to Detroit)
I go out to see Redgie's car and I swear this is true -- he owns and drives the exact same car that I was looking at -- a 2002 Buick LeSabre only it's silver instead of gold.
"Oh, it's a good car," Redgie, "and it gets pretty good mileage on the highway."
So, will I buy the Buick? -- maybe. I won't be back to Santa Barbara until next Sunday, but if the car is still there, I'm going to take it for a test drive.
More Car Talk. We see interesting patterns in car buyers. Left coast liberals buy Japanese cars made by non-union labor in Alabama, but crusty old farmers from Nebraska by Buicks made by union labor in Detroit. Can somebody explain this to me?
Casey Stengel Said. Casey Stengel once said that “most ballgames are lost, not won.”
Harvey Blume Responded. i was just thinking about casey stengel. i remember him well, the things he sd. they prepared me for "finnegan's wake". people quote yogi a lot. that's cause yogi's nonsense made sense. but you won't find good compilations of casey stengel'...
Then I said. Casey Stengel understood a lot of things, and he didn't say "Nice guys finish last." ………… Who did?
MAIMONIDES in the MORNING. Reading Maimonides is a superior way to begin your day. He was a philosopher, legal scholar, and physician, his fame was worldwide, his authority was respected by Moslem and Jew alike. He lived in Cairo for many years and during those times Jews and Moslem lived together well. They sometimes shared a business together, such as goldsmithing. The Jew would go home on Saturday, his Sabbath, and the Moslem would go home on Friday, his Sabbath, and that way the shop could stay open seven days a week -- a pleasant arrangement, don't you think? But the Jews at that time, although prosperous and widely travelled, were a formally dependent people. They must pay a certain respect to the Caliph and they must, in certain ways, recognize the superiority of Islam.That live and let live arrangement lasted until 1948 when the Jews declared independence -- they would no longer bend a knee to the Caliph. The furious reaction to that independence continues since that fateful year of 1948. I wonder what Maimonides would say about that, because his life was dedicated to accommodation, to working things out under the current conditions. The thrust of his scholarship was to bring reason and scientific understanding to bear on traditional biblical studies, but he was no revolutionary and he never defied the Caliph.
I have a friend, an email correspondent, whom I never met, but he's a Jew and he was born in Cairo, and his family was expelled from Cairo in 1948. In that year all the Jews were kicked out of Cairo, where they had lived for several hundreds of years, since the time of Maimonides, but they were kicked out and so his family migrated to Italy where he acquired Italian citizenship as a young boy -- they then moved to Israel and that is where he grew up. Now this man owns a vineyard in the Judean Hills, called Domain du Castel. He makes fine wine and he hopes to stay on this land forever, but ----- BUT, he still keeps his Italian passport, because he knows he might not be able to keep his vineyard for all his days. There is no promise of tomorrow for independent Israel, but for now, he does not bend his knee to the Caliph -- do you think he should?
from Wikipedia
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn (Arabic: موسى بن ميمون), or Rambam (רמב"ם – Hebrew acronym for "Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon"), was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages. He was born in Córdoba, Almoravid Empire (present-day Spain) on Passover Eve, 1135, and died in Egypt (or Tiberias) on 20th Tevet, December 12, 1204.[6] He was a rabbi, physician and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt.
Subscription Drive. The annual subscription drive begins today -- we do it every spring and rake in a few hundred dollars as a reward for our effort throughout the year -- doing this newsletter twelve years now.... It is a great group of readers we have, like lawyers -- we have a few lawyers on the mailing list -- Pat Paul in LaConner, Felicia Value, also in LaConner, Aisha Barbeau in Alameda, California, and the inestimable, always Irish Ed Burke in Framingham, Massachusetts.......So, when you read the Farm News/Frog Hospital, you are part of a high-quality crowd.
Send your $25 check today. Make it out to "Fred Owens" and mail it to 7922 Santa Ana RD Ventura, CA 93001. Or use Pay Pal -- go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the Pay Pal button.
--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214
My blog is Fred Owens
send mail to:
Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001
--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214
My blog is Fred Owens
send mail to:
Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001
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