The Oil Spill, Who's in Charge?

Yesterday I heard President Obama say he was in charge of the oil spill -- to stop it and clean it up. When people are in charge, they don't have to call a press conference to say they're in charge.

BP is in charge, as best as I can tell. They are the only ones who know how to operate at 5,000 feet deep. The Gulf of Mexico is their lake. BP should not be in charge, but they are.

It's already happened. We can prevent this from happening again, but right now, BP has the ball and the rest of us are just stuck watching. I don't like it anymore than you do.

I wish President Obama was in charge, or that nice rear admiral from the Coast Guard, or Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana. But wishing won't plug the leak -- which should be called an eruption, not a leak.

This oil "eruption" can result in a good thing -- because it unites us. I am finding common cause with a wide variety of people -- because so many people are extremely angry about this.

This experience can result in positive changes. The eruption will be stopped, the oil will be cleaned up, BP will no longer be in charge, and a new day will come our way, all those good things we hoped for.

This eruption in the Gulf of Mexico is not the worst. The worst is oil from the Persian Gulf. I am not completely opposed to offshore drilling because it's not the worst -- maybe the second worst, but not a close second. Oil from the Persian Gulf is far more dangerous.

Oil from Nigeria --- millions of barrels of oil piped out of the delta of the Niger River. Desperately poor people live there. Oil is spilled on their mangrove swamps every day. There is no protection, none, no safeguard, no media watching, no government oversight. BP is in charge there.

Offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is not as bad as oil from the Persian Gulf or from Nigeria.

If we did not have one army in Iraq and one army in Afghanistan, and a fleet in the Indian Ocean -- all noble American young people risking their lives to protect our supply of oil........ if we withdrew from that region, then we could apply our resources to sound oceanography and drill for oil offshore in a much safer way, with serious submersibles watch-dogging the whole operation at great depths.

And meanwhile plunging even more resources to onshore, domestic sources of energy -- all those pretty things -- wind mills, solar panels and biodigesters, which is where the real answer lies.

But the priority is to get rid of the worst -- the oil from the Persian Gulf. Get our troops out, bring our navy home. And then President Obama would not have to call a press conference to say he was in charge. He would just be in charge and he would make good decisions.



--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

Grumbling about Facebook

"One means of communication is as good as another." I wrote that last week to mean that Facebook and Twitter and YouTube were just as good as newspapers, books, and magazines.

That's true, but glib. The big problem with the new social media is that nobody gets paid. Thousands of journalists are walking the street, or pounding out blogs for Huffington Post -- for free. Doing for free what they used to get paid to do. Doing it for free because they can't help themselves.

And thousands of clerical workers --thrown out of work by craigslist.org. There used to be a room full of women at the offices of the Skagit Valley Herald -- lots of jobs -- and these women answered the phone and took down the details for classified advertising. And the newspaper made money off those ads and used that money to hire reporters to get the news.

Everybody got paid.

In the new model, nobody gets paid, except the people who own Google and they are wealthy beyond measure.

You could say they were innocent, the people who invented craigslist.org and YouTube and Twitter -- just a bunch of geeks who found a cool new app and let it loose on the world.

Innocent like two-year-olds who have no sense of responsibility for the damage they have left behind.

No, these people, these inventor geeks are not innocent. If you don't take the time to think of what the longer and wider consequences of your actions will be, then you can make no claim to maturity.

Many thousands of people out of work.

I have no solution, the job-killing spread of social media, these crazy ideas about how it's supposed to "advance communication" and "create new jobs." That is a fanciful lie. Because I know too many people who used to get paid, and now they can do it for free.

Facebook is free. Twitter is free. YouTube is free. And nobody gets nothing.

Talking with Digger Jerry

I ran into Digger Jerry by the front desk of the Anacortes Library. I said hello and walked over to speak with him while SIMULTANEOUSLY sending a photo from my cell phone to my Twitter page.

Frog Hospital was multi-tasking. Such a miracle. Digger Jerry and I got into a somewhat animated conversation about kohlrabis -- a most favored vegetable in his mind and in my mind as well.

Such conversation segued over to a story I had written about Mother Flight Farm on Fir Island. This twenty-acre organic establishment is where I was first introduced to the wonders of kohlrabi.

Digger Jerry knew of Mother Flight Farm himself and we both praised the owners, Glenn and Charlotte Johnson, for growing vigorous vegetables.

What happened next could only happen in a library. Someone walked up to us and asked us very politely to stop talking so loudly.

They were reading books! In a library!

Digger Jerry said he wanted to read books too, so he went off upstairs "to get lost in someone else's thought" as he put it.

Meanwhile, I had finished transmitting the photo of a kohlrabi from my cell phone to my Twitter page, and I felt triumphant.

Serious Discussion. Communication always requires effort. You need to first gain the attention of the person you wish to communicate with, and then you must have something to say ("content" to you children out there).

The Internet does not make communication easier or better. The Internet is a solution to a problem we never had.

I am NOT techno-phobic. I am techno-indifferent. One means of communication is as good as another.

Which is why you can often find me on Facebook ( go to "LaConner Views") or on Twitter ( go to "Frog Hospital")

Is there a lot of tedious nonsense on Facebook and Twitter? Yes, indeed, and it's much like the tiresome and endlessly boring stuff that people used to say in face-to-face conversations.

Human beings have been yawping about nothing for a hundred generations. Imagine two aborigines sitting around a fire in Australia five thousand years ago.

"Do you like to eat those frogs?"

"Nope, but I was hungry"

"So you could have ate those antelope bones?"

"Yeah, but the bones were over at Xhasi's camp and I'm mad at him because he borrowed my short knife and he won't give it back"

"So why are you and Xhasi always getting mad at each other?"

"I don't know, it just happens. Do we have to talk about this?
I just want to eat the frogs and go to sleep"

See? A boring conversation, but completely organic.

You can be boring in any language and through any medium.

Or you can be interesting, which is "having something to say."

Being interesting requires effort. Make that effort and you will make the world a better place.

Book News. Books are not going out of business, not in the least. I am sure of their enduring value and feel no need to promote or defend them.

You walk away from books because you get caught up in other interests, but then you come back -- because they are so awesome.

Frog Hospital Book News. The Frog Hospital book, Frog Hospital in italics, has gotten off to a good start. Sales have been brisk at the Next Chapter bookstore in LaConner. The book-signing went really well on Friday night. It's Lisa Nielsen's bookstore and she is a pleasure to work with.

I also spent three days in Seattle flogging the book. People don't know me down there, so this will take a little longer.

After Seattle, I'm going to take the book to Los Angeles.

Why Los Angeles? Because it's a honking big city with millions of people who read books, that's why.

You can buy Frog Hospital on the Internet -- cheap and easy.
For a signed copy, write a check for $25, make it out to Fred Owens, and mail it to Box 1292, LaConner, WA 98257. Or you can hit the PayPal button on the Frog Hospital blog for $25, but then you have to send me an email with your mailing address.

Kohlrabis Continued. Digger Jerry is upstairs someplace, lost in the stacks. We might have to send out a search party. He's a hard guy to find when he doesn't want to be found.

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

The Book Is Out

Frog Hospital, the book, at 196 pages and costing $14.95 is on sale at the Next Chapter bookstore in LaConner, and also at amazon.com and at bn.com, the Barnes & Noble website.

On Friday, at 5 p.m. The Next Chapter will host a book-signing. Please come if you're in town.

On Saturday afternoon, I will be reading at the Robert Sund Whoop-Tee-Doo on Guemes Island. That should be fun. I might read a very dramatic episode titled. "Lunch with Bob Dole."

This is what the book is about:

Frog Hospital is a story about LaConner, a small town at the mouth of the Skagit River, where it flows into Puget Sound. In LaConner, there was once a grocery store in a quonset hut, run by Mr. Grobschmidt. Clyde, an old drunk who lived out on the river, thought that Mr. Grobschmidt looked like a frog, so he took to calling the store the "Frog Hospital." That became a local joke. Now the quonset hut, Mr. Grobschmidt, and Clyde are all gone, but that's how I came up with the name.
Frog Hospital begins in LaConner and leads out to America and the places I've seen in the past ten years. Then it comes back home. That's the theme of the book, coming home. You will find it easy to read and very likable.

The introduction was written by Gary Bornzin of Fairhaven College who had some very nice words to say:

Somehow, amidst all the noise and clutter and artificial urgency and perpetual responsibility that regularly fills up my email box, I continue to receive and read Frog Hospital. Realistically, it’s a small part of my life, yet I occasionally print out a paragraph or two to share with my wife because of the insightful or moving way you expressed something. I often find your words refreshing and reassuring. Even when you’re down, your “everybody hurts” honesty helps me carry on, sometimes even with a bit more hope and courage.

I enjoy your insights, the connections you make, your shared feelings, your ability to see good in the commonplace, your longing/grieving for a better world, and especially your honesty, your lack of phoniness. I appreciate that you allow your readers to see things and experience things vicariously through your eyes that they themselves might never encounter -- like living in South Texas, or joining the Mexican laborers in field work.

You’re a good man, Fred Owens. I wish you well

I should have the book at Watermark Books in Anacortes and at Village Books in Bellingham by next week.

If you buy the book on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble online, please be sure to write a review. Unfavorable reviews are especially welcome. My book is deeply flawed, and it will be child's play to point out the more obvious errors in composition. However, keener minds will discover more subtle faults -- ones I haven't yet realized myself.

Nevertheless I am more proud than embarrassed in presenting this work.

The best way to buy a copy is to order a signed copy directly from me. Make out a check to "Fred Owens" for $25 and mail it to P.O. Box 1292 LaConner, WA 98257. I will promptly mail you a copy of the book. Or you can pay $25 in the PayPal on my Frog Hospital blog. But be sure to email your mailing address to me.

Thanks a lot,

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

When the Nurse Abuses a Patient

I haven't brought a problem to the readers in some time, but I'm doing it now. My only motive for telling this story is that I want to be believed.

I left my job at Skagit Valley Hospital several months ago, and I figured that the passing of time would settle things and I would just leave it all behind. I left because the stress of the work was just getting to be too much. That's what I told everybody, but it was worse than that.

I saw a nurse abusing a patient. Working as her aide, I was not only a witness to this, I was an accomplice. It was horrible. So many hundreds of hours bedside, working with wonderful nurses, and I had never seen anyone act like that. I had seen kind and caring nurses. I had seen nurses, tired and under a lot of pressure, but still managing to act professionally.

But this nurse was just being mean. There's no other way to put it. The patient was past 80, hard of hearing and confused. He hardly knew he was in the hospital. This is a common situation. There's medication for anxiety and people like me are with the patient to help them get through the day.

Then she comes in and says, standing at the foot of the bed, "Mr. Jorgenson, It's time for your medication.....MR. JORGENSON .... Why you're as deaf as a stump!" Then she gave him a slap on the leg and a poke in the chest, and that seemed to stir him a bit. He woke a little and took his pills.

You had to be there. I was deeply shocked. I had never, ever seen anything approaching this kind of behavior. Of course, the patient couldn't hear here mocking words, but he could feel her contempt. He was just a kind old man living out his last days.

You never take it out on a patient. You take it out on the rest of the staff if you need to, or your dog, or your family.

This kind of behavior is rare, but it happens. And it was the third time, on three different shifts, that I had seen this same nurse act this way, scolding patients and treating them with contempt. She wasn't having a bad day. This was habitual behavior and very wrong.

And yet it was so deniable. I didn't report it. I knew what would happen if I did report it -- lots of trouble, for me. Jan Iversen, the Chief Nursing Officer at the hospital, had made it very clear to me in prior conversations that the "chain of command" was inviolate.

And I knew the culture of the hospital. It had become almost ingrained in me. "Keep your head down and do your job."

I didn't report it, because I would not have been believed.

Three choices I faced:

1. Report the abuse, and go through Kafkaesque bureaucratic hell.
2. Continue to work and pray that I would not be assigned to this nurse again.
3. Leave the hospital.

I left the hospital and never told anyone. Months have passed. It still bothers me.

You don't need to go to nursing or medical school to know abuse when you see it. Her behavior and attitude was dramatically different. My instincts and life experience are enough to make that judgment. She knew she could get away with it in front of me, because of my position. That was awful too.

This is true, what I have told you.

I'm not going back to the hospital. I'm not going to pursue this in anyway. We'll be getting back to the farm and garden news shortly.

Have a good weekend.

The Solution to Suburban Sprawl is to Farm It

People have been concerned about suburban sprawl eating up acres of valuable farmland. But it's not really a problem. You just need to think about it in a different way. The American lawn, all 50 million acres, is our largest agricultural reserve.

That's an estimate of the acreage. Some sources say we only have 40 million acres of lawn. But it's still a lot of ground. Take all the farmland in California, the most productive fields in the nation, and that totals only 27 million acres.

Our vast lawnscape is already growing grass and proven fertile. It's flat and free of stones. The irrigation system, i.e., your garden hose, is already installed.

And consider how low your fuel costs will be when you bring your crop to market -- you just walk it to the kitchen door.

So, all you have to do is remove the turf and start growing some food.

Typical yields for potatoes. I'm trying to find a typical yield per square foot for potatoes. The closest I could get was this figure from the Ohio State University Extension Service website. It said you could harvest 150 pounds of potatoes from a 100 foot row, or four 25-foot rows. That's a lot of spuds.

Of course, you can't plant potatoes in the same ground year after year, so the next year grow some beans and squash.

Are We Too Lazy? A newspaper critic said Americans are too lazy and we have to import immigrants to do our farm work for us. The critic said, "Would you work in the Imperial Valley in California, harvesting lettuce in 120 degree heat?"

Well, I have an answer to that. Nobody should work in that kind of weather. We don't need to be growing lettuce in the Imperial Valley. Grow the lettuce in your back yard, and take a shade break when it gets too hot. It still takes quite a bit of sweat and toil, but it's decent work.

And a lot of us are overweight and we need the exercise. In fact, we can work off our enormous Fat Reserve by converting our Agricultural Reserve (the lawn) into a productive garden.

In our Skagit Valley, with a cold frame, you can harvest lettuce nine months of the year. And in the darkest days of winter, you can serve cole slaw for Pete's sake.

Or we can abuse the labor of some desperate immigrant and have it all done for us, and have our lettuce shipped hundreds of miles, spewing excess carbon dioxide from trucks fueled by oil from the Persian Gulf. It's our choice.

In my forays into Seattle neighborhoods and in trips down to Los Angeles, I have discovered the burgeoning urban garden. So what I have described is not some silly hippie dream. It's actually starting to manifest in a big and productive way.

Growing vegetables in your backyard has just become cool.

After the Arab oil embargo in 1973, it seemed that changes of this nature would happen all over the land -- from lawn to garden being just one of many better ways to do things.

Thirty-seven freakin' years ago, and waiting all that time, but it seems to be happening now.


The Opera. Here's something I wrote in 2006 when George Bush was President and when I was working at the newspaper in Texas. It's relevant to the recent failed car-bomb in Times Square:


I listen to the opera on Saturday afternoons. There is nothing better than hearing it broadcast live from the New York Metropolitan Opera. A lot of you already know about this, but the stubborn people I work with here in Texas are still gung-ho on the War on Terror, and they don’t even know what they are fighting for. Maybe they can understand it, if I explain it this way:

Osama Bin Laden never heard of Texas. It’s not worth a suicide bomb in his book -- that would only kill a few cows. He aimed – he’s still aiming – at New York City because he wants to destroy the Opera. Defending America, defending against his threat, means protecting the Opera.

That’s what the Texans need to hear. Now, if these fighting Texans had some good leadership, they could do a lot better than to invade someone else’s country. They are willing, but they lack direction.

But what the rest of you need to hear is that the Opera, and a lot of other good things are worth defending and worth being proud of, and we do have something to offer the rest of the world.

Who's happy?

A major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, like somebody poked a hole in the floor of the ocean, wild-eyed foreigners streaming across the border in Arizona, or an impending police state, depending on who you ask, and the Goldman Sachs bankers are squirming under the hot lights at a Senate hearing.

And you know who's happy about all this? Pope Benedict. "I'm so glad to be off the front pages," he told me last week.

The Oil Spill. I'm not mad. I might be if I lived down there. Plugging the leak is a challenge of dramatic proportions. It reminds me of the scene in Apollo 13, when Tom Hanks and his crew are lost in space, and Mission Control in Houston faces a technological challenge such as they had never seen before. It's not in the manual. This is not an exercise. Ed Harris, in the movie, says, "Failure is not an option."

That's true down in the Gulf. They have to plug that leak, no matter how dangerous and difficult it might be. At whatever cost. And they have to do it now.

I'm not joining the chorus of weepers with photos of oil-stained birds. And it doesn't serve to be angry. Every bit of energy needs to be focused on working the problem.

The people of Louisiana will not be helpless victims this time. They will act with resolution and courage and do what they need to do to protect their coastline

Bow your heads for the 11 who died on the rig, and the 29 who died in the coal mine, and the seven who died up our way in a recent oil refinery explosion.

And we can do better than this and we will. Disasters focus the mind.

Arizona. I'm way ahead of everybody else. I've been boycotting Arizona since 1975. I used to hang out there with the wrong kind of people, and I got in a lot of trouble. It was my own fault I have to say. But I am not going back to Arizona just the same.

Nevertheless, I'm seeing major over-reactions all over the place. The new crime bill authorizes the local police to act on immigration matters. It would be pretty easy up here in Seattle to call this the hysterical reaction to a non-existent problem. It would be easy to say the people of Arizona "feel threatened."

I would urge more motivated persons to attend and be present on the border, as I have done, for many days and weeks, over many years, along the Rio Grande River in Texas.

That's a country I know. A once peaceful border region in the 1970s has become tense and dangerous. Mexico is a different country and good boundaries make sense.

The boundary needs to be restored in a meaningful way

Bankers. I love to see them sweat. I strongly endorse stricter and more careful regulation of investment bankers. I made a proposal concerning possible regulations. I made this proposal to a banker and he said it was a good idea.

It's simple, I said to the banker. "If I can't understand it, then you can't do it." I'm no dummy. I understand stocks and bonds. I understand trading commodities on the futures market. I know that speculation is a necessary ingredient for market liquidity. But these derivatives and credit default swaps are a pure horn-ball swindle and should be banned out right.

The Pope. Meanwhile the Pope is enjoying the week off.

Our Troops in Afghanistan. Soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division, stationed in Afghanistan, made a remix of Lady Gaga's monster hit, "Telephone." Over 1,693,000 people have viewed this on YouTube. It's pure fun. What magnificent young men they are -- the best we have.

But, tell me, what are they doing in Afghanistan? I want these boys home tomorrow. We have no business in Afghanistan. We should depart and leave a post-it note to the Chinese Army -- it's your baby now.

We have problems here in American -- oil spills, financial chaos, and serious problems with immigration -- so why are the troops risking their lives on a foreign adventure that does not enhance our security?

I'm not sure about offshore drilling and how we should respond to this disaster. I'm not sure about the new law in Arizona, whether it's a good or bad thing. But I'm very sure about the military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. We should never have invaded Iraq. We should get of there completely. We should leave Afghanistan. We should get the navy out of the Persian Gulf.

No Politics. I don't have too much energy for politics. I don't spend too much time reading the news either. This comes not from defeat and cynicism. Quite the contrary. I am hopeful that we can solve these problems. I have faith in my own past efforts -- seeds I have planted at one time or another. True words that I spoke. My own good effort. My best intentions. Good things will come to pass. It just doesn't happen all at once.

Farm and Garden News. Frog Hospital readers like the farm and garden news much better than this political claptrap. I believe I cleared the deck here and will get back to the good earth in the next issue.

Spring Subscription Drive. Many thanks to those readers who have sent in checks. Your dollars are greatly appreciated. But there is still time -- the spring drive is not over. You can support Frog Hospital by writing a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens, and mail it to Box 1292, LaConner WA, 98257. Or you can go to the Frog Hospital blog and pay $25 with the PayPal button. Thanks a bunch.

T-shirts still on sale. Frog Hospital t-shirts are now available in three sizes -- XL, L and M. You can buy them in LaConner at La Crema coffee shop, or order them from me direct.









--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Argentina, Chile, China, Turkey, Brazil & the USA

I was thirsty. I went to the cooler at the local store and grabbed a bottle of Dole apple juice which "contains concentrate from Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Argentina, Chile, China, Turkey, Brazil & the USA." That's what it says on the label, kind of re-assuring I guess.

There's an apple orchard right down the road from here. If you live over the mountains to the east side of Washington state, they have a million apple trees and Dole says some of the juice might come from there, unless it came from Brazil or Hungary.

I'm betting a Hungarian apple would taste better than one from Brazil, but that's beside the point.

New York Apples Flying to India. The Produce News, published in New Jersey since 1897 reports: "In its first year of marketing to India, New York apple growers are expecting to ship 50,000 cartons of apples to that nation this year."

Watch the sky, the next plane you see might be flying all the way from Albany to New Dehli with a load of crispy apples from the Adirondacks.

Meanwhile, China has become a major apple producer. Nothing wrong with that, but why don't they just send the apples from China to India -- it's a lot closer.

What do I know? I know they grow wonderful apples in New York state. I've been there and tasted them.

Years ago, I saw apples growing in the highlands of Zimbabwe, at an altitude over 5,000 feet, in cool country with cold, rushing streams and pine trees. The apples grow well there.

Asparagus. Washington fields are expected to yield over 27 million pounds of asparagus this season. You can always get asparagus from Mexico, but it's far from fresh.
In early spring the California crop comes and that's much better. But the very best is grown right here and right now. I'm going to eat all I can.

Blueberries. The federal government has agreed to spend $14.7 million to buy surplus blueberries for school lunches and other nutritional programs.

That's because we have too many farmers growing too many blueberries. This happens over and over again. People started eating more blueberries, so farmers, being smart guys, started planting more blueberries to get into this market. Only there's no rule that would stop any farmer from planting as many blueberries as he wants. They were all seeing dollars signs, but now the supply has gone way up -- so guess what happened to the price?

Comes in the federal government to buy up the surplus and goose the price a little bit.

Wait 'til the Tea Party people here about this -- Socialist Agriculture!

Cabbage Flowers Blooming. I just now saw the first bloom of the pale yellow cabbage flower. Fairly soon the whole field will become quite lovely, as the cabbage plants -- grown to bushes now, their second year -- bring forth a cloud of blossoms.

The farmers will set bee hives in the cabbage fields for pollination. And, later this summer, tiny pods will form with even tinier black seeds inside -- cabbage seeds for other farmers around the world.

Tulips Were Early. Skagit Valley tulips bloomed two weeks early this year because of the mild winter. But it was different in England. They have a tulip-growing region in the "fens" of Lincolnshire. These old wetlands have been diked and drained and look like our fields, but without mountains in the background. Two visitors from Lincolnshire came to see our tulips this season, but they reported their own tulips were three weeks late, because of the coldest winter in 30 years.

The weather is different all over, it seems. You can read a full report of these tulip visitors in this week's LaConner Weekly News.

Curly Purple Kale. Meanwhile, I visited Mother Flight Farm, Glenn & Charlotte Johnson's 20-acre organic spread. They had some dozen plants of curly, purple kale -- really pretty dark purple. The kale wintered over because it was so mild this year, and the mild frosts made the kale leaves tender and sweet. We snacked right in the field and it was tasty.

Frog Hospital, the book. The publication date is likely to be mid-May. It will be at some local bookstores and at amazon. com. A description of the book, written for amazon.com, goes like this:

"Frog Hospital is a story about LaConner, a small town at the mouth of the Skagit River, where it flows into Puget Sound. In LaConner, there was once a grocery store in a quonset hut, run by Mr. Grobschmidt. Clyde, an old drunk who lived out on the river, thought that Mr. Grobschmidt looked like a frog, so he took to calling the store the "Frog Hospital." That became a local joke. Now the quonset hut, Mr. Grobschmidt, and Clyde are all gone, but that's how I came up with the name.
"Frog Hospital begins in LaConner and leads out to America and the places I've seen in the past ten years. Then it comes back home. That's the theme of the book, coming home. You will find it easy to read and very likable."

Spring Subscription Drive. Many thanks to those readers who have sent in checks. Your dollars are greatly appreciated. But there is still time -- the spring drive is not over. You can support Frog Hospital by writing a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens, and mail it to Box 1292, LaConner WA, 98257. Or you can go to the Frog Hospital blog and pay $25 with the PayPal button. Thanks a bunch.

T-shirts still on sale. Frog Hospital t-shirts are now available in three sizes -- XL, L and M. You can buy them in LaConner at La Crema coffee shop, or order them from me direct.


--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

The Pope Eats His Porridge

The Pope Eats His Porridge

I'm at the Anacortes Library this Sunday afternoon. Thousands of visitors are swarming over the farm roads near my home in LaConner -- come to see the blooming tulips -- so I drove over here to avoid the crowd.

I might take the ferry to Guemes Island later on, like at 5 p.m. It's a five minute boat ride, costs $2 if you walk on. When you get off the boat on Guemes Island, there's a nice beach walk, which takes about an hour, and then you can get back on the 6 p.m. ferry.

The weather is delicious, mild, almost warm, and the skies are blue.

Meanwhile the Pope is having a hard time. Maureen Dowd at the NYTimes is laying into him pretty hard. Myself, I made a decision in 2005 when he became Pope Benedict, following the great John Paul II.

I looked at the new Pope and thought, "He's a funny-looking guy with a name that sounds pretty weird in English, so he's going to need a friend."

So, I decided to be his friend. It's as simple as that. And that doesn't make the Pope right or anything like that, it just makes him my friend.

I just hope he doesn't do one of those awful apologies like Tiger Woods or John Edwards or Bill Clinton. Those public displays are deeply unsatisfying to me.

No, the Pope needs to do something much better than that -- something papal, like a public penance.

Since the papacy is a truly medieval institution, let's look back in time:

In 1170, Henry II of England arranged for the murder of Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury. Now Becket was a much-loved man, and the reaction to his murder was a widespread public condemnation of Henry's evil deed.

Kings back then were not as powerful as they wished to be. Henry had to win back his people. So he did penance. He rode to Canterbury, but walked barefoot the last few miles in ragged clothes -- not looking the king at all in velvet and furs.

Henry prostrated himself before the monks of Canterbury -- his own subjects -- and the monks beat him with rods until they were done with him.

That was his penance and most people then and now think that Henry had it coming.

Becket's murder has inspired many plays, such as T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral" and also many movies, such as "The Lion in Winter" with Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn.

Becket's tomb became a shrine and the destination of pilgrimages, made famous by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which take place as pilgrims ride to Canterbury to pray at Becket's tomb.

They have long memories at the Vatican, and are well aware of Becket's murder -- a prince of the church and he was slain by a murderous monarch. That was in 1170, but it was only yesterday at the Vatican.

So, it would be far better if Benedict made a public penance in a dramatic style, as they did in medieval times. Penance for what he let happen. Not because he was solely responsible, or more responsible -- I don't think that.

But penance because he was responsible, and because he is the symbolic figurehead of thousands of other people who bear just as much guilt.

This is satisfying to me, which is why I propose it.

I object strongly to the modern methods of apology, like going on Larry King and Oprah with expressions of remorse, looking for "closure" and and then saying "now the healing can begin." Then someone writes one of those awful confessional books -- called "soul-baring." Ugh!

There is no closure. After Henry II did his penance for the murder, he went on to commit other crimes, some much more awful. He invaded Ireland and slaughtered peasants by the hundreds. He fought and killed and lied and cheated, because he was a king and that's what kings did. Henry did not improve or become a better man, but he did his penance.

So there's the Pope, over in Italy, and he's still my friend. He gets up every morning and he goes to the room where he eats his breakfast.

He is being served by an old German nun who has been fixing his breakfast every day for forty years. She has no awe for Pope Benedict, she knows him too well. He's a man, she knows, just like the rest of us. He never wanted to be Pope. He was happiest working for John Paul II.

"It really isn't my fault," the Pope might be saying to the German nun over his porridge. "This has been going on for centuries. John Paul II knew about it too, but John Paul was great and magnificent and handsome, so he wasn't blamed. But I will be blamed because I am a funny-looking man with a name that sounds weird in English.

"Why is it my fault?" he said. She says back to him, "because you're the Pope."

Spring Subscription Drive. Many thanks to those readers who have sent in checks. Your dollars are greatly appreciated. But there is still time -- the spring drive is not over. You can support Frog Hospital by writing a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens, and mail it to Box 1292, LaConner WA, 98257. Or you can go to the Frog Hospital blog and pay $25 with the PayPal button. Thanks a bunch.

T-shirts still on sale. Frog Hospital t-shirts are now available in three sizes -- XL, L and M. You can buy them in LaConner at La Crema coffee shop, or order them from me direct.














--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

Tulips

Crowds of people are coming into the Skagit Valley to view the tulips -- 500 acres of tulips in many colors. It's quite a sight.

The weather has changed about six times so far today, like the sun is trying on clothes and keeps changing its mind. People are looking at the sky to say, "You're kidding, right?"

I have put the garden in good shape. I planted sugar snap peas, onions, and Swiss chard. Why do they call it Swiss chard? Well, if they just called it "chard" nobody would want to eat it.

We bought five pounds of seed potatoes, but not to plant for a few weeks until the soil gets warmer. I figured to buy them now because the store might run out by planting time.

I don't dig if I can avoid it. I had this pile of leaves, getting nice and moldy and full of worms, so I spread that out on the bed, then I covered that with a layer of straw. Later on I'll tuck in the seed potatoes and put on more straw. That should work.

Ralph and Helen Dexter up in Marblemount always gardened that way -- just kept spreading straw on the soil, which decomposes over time. They never dig, just spread the straw aside and put in the seeds. The soil remained soft and fluffy.

I haven't seen Ralph and Helen for some time, but I hear from their son Lane who also lives Up River.

Frog Hospital is famous for dramatic changes in subject matter. I don't do this on purpose, but all things are connected, and talking about the Dexters Up River reminded me of someone else I haven't heard from in years.

The Vatican. Another friend I don't hear from lately is Bill Sheehan. He's a priest. He used to live in Rome and worked for some years in the Vatican library studying medieval manuscripts. I always thought that was such a cool job because I am a great fan of medieval history.

I sometimes wonder who is really running things at the Vatican, but I never asked Bill about this. He probably didn't know, and if he did know he probably would not have told me.

How I knew Bill is that I went to a Catholic college and we were friends back then.

But the Vatican has been in the news lately. I have no comment to make on the particulars, but I could mention some broad outlines that I think are true. The Catholic Church is a very large and very old institution. They are quite capable of very long-range thinking, as if to say "this will blow over in a hundred years."

I'm going to say that this long-range thinking can be a good thing because most of our institutions, governments and corporations can barely think five years ahead.

Next, the Church is the largest, most powerful, and wealthiest organization on earth without a military force. That's a good quality too. As Josef Stalin famously said, "How many divisions does the Pope have?" None.

That does not make the Church harmless, but they are tank-less and bomb-less, which is a good thing.

Finally, the Church is a formal patriarchy. It's run entirely by men. If I said that was a good thing, then somebody would bite me. But that's clearly what it is.

I avoid using the word unique, but this organization is truly like no other that I can think of. We are all accountable in some way, but I have no idea how to hold the Pope to account. I didn't vote for him and I can't impeach him.

I think it's very reasonable for people to criticize him, whether they are Catholic or not. But I don't know that the Pope is compelled to respond.

As I watch this crisis unfold, I don't think anybody is asking the right questions. That's the key -- when you ask the right questions, you're more than half way to a resolution of the problem.

Think Globally but act Locally. Isn't this newsletter a perfect example of how this is done? The Vatican, the Pope, global warming, the war in Afhghanistan and so forth -- all global problems, all serious and worthy of our attention.

And what can do about these things? We can act locally -- we can tend our gardens.

Spring Subscription Drive. Many thanks to those readers who have sent in checks. Your dollars are greatly appreciated. But there is still time -- the spring drive is not over. You can support Frog Hospital by writing a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens, and mail it to Box 1292, LaConner WA, 98257. Or you can go to the Frog Hospital blog and pay $25 with the PayPal button. Thanks a bunch.

T-shirts still on sale. Frog Hospital t-shirts are now available in three sizes -- XL, L and M. You can buy them in LaConner at La Crema coffee shop, or order them from me direct.





--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

Picking Avocados

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana -- I heard this from Peggy Kass in Marin County

I picked avocados in Downey, California. It was Sunday morning, I was invited by Q to visit his home in Downey. He had told me many times about his wonderful avocado tree. And he had brought guacamole to the backyard BBQ on Saturday.

Everybody raved that it was the world's best guacamole, but Q said that's easy -- you just make it with very good avocados.

Like the kind that grows on his tree in Downey, which is southeast of downtown Los Angeles, and just east of the San Gabriel River.

You have to get used to these local rivers, which run in a trickle between concrete banks. They are real rivers that drain real watersheds -- you can't get too snobby about this if you come from a wetter climate.

We crossed the San Gabriel River. We could have waded, but we drove across on the 105 freeway, which is much easier.

Downey is a big town, over 100,000 people -- this is somewhere, but it's just not trendy. Downey is square, I think that's fair. People live in Downey because they like it here. The streets are quiet and spacious. You hear birds singing. And you can grow avocados and oranges in your backyard.

It gets hot in the summer, well into the nineties, because it's away from the ocean. And the smog settles in too, so that you can't see the San Gabriel Mountains to the north.

The heat has always been there, but you can get comfortable with it if you are intelligent. Q's house is stucco, which stays cool, and he has super-insulated windows, with drapes and shades. So he says, "We don't use AC, we just keep the windows closed until mid-afternoon, and it stays cool inside."

The air is still in the morning, but the onshore breeze begins most afternoons for a little cooling.

And there's the avocado tree, planted by intelligent people on the southside of Q's house, to give fruit and shade.

It's a big tree, we picked over one hundred, using a basket pole. This was the end of the season. The tree is harvested from September to March -- six months of abundance.

In April the fruit is gone, but flowers bloom and new small fruit grows through the summer, and the harvest begins again in the next September.

Persea americana is the scientific name for avocado. The fruit is picked rock hard. It does not ripen on the tree. Q said to let them drop to the ground and they won't bruise. He showed me some scalded spots, some brown rough spots, from fruit grown on the south side of the tree -- "The skin is burned by the sun on the south side of the tree but the insides are good."

I stay on the Westside when I am in Los Angeles --- super trendy, super expensive and near the beach. Everybody is rushing around hoping they won't miss out on the latest thing. It's kind of cool on the Westside. I mean, look at me -- I'm cool. That's why I'm on the Westside.

But Downey is beyond all trends, it is "trendscendental," a kind of higher realm. I didn't pick up a conservative right-wing vibe either. The right wing tends to be further south, down in Orange County. No, Downey is just kind of square, that's why I liked it there.

California grows more than 60,000 acres of avocados, and most of those acres are in San Diego County. The most abundant variety is the Hass. "All Hass avocado trees are descended from a single 'mother tree' that was raised by a mail carrier named Rudolph Hass, in La Habra Heights, California," according to Wikipedia.

Q's tree is the Fuerte variety. "Fuerte is a Mexican Guatemalan cross originating in the Mexican state of Puebla. The Fuerte earned its name, which means strong in Spanish, after it withstood a severe frost in California in 1913. Hardy to 26°F. Medium-sized pear-shaped fruit with a green leathery skin, easy to peel. Creamy flesh of mild and rich flavour. Oil 18%. The skin ripens green."

Friendly Korean Grocery Store Owners. Many Korean immigrants own small grocery stores on the West Coast, working long hours with grim faces. But they are learning how to be friendly, learning how to smile and greet their customers -- because that's a good thing, because that's the way we do it in America, and because it's good for business.

You may not have noticed this change, but I have been in friendly contact with Korean store owners for some years now. I have patiently worked with them, teaching them how to smile and say hello. This effort has begun to pay off. So, I ask you to join in this movement -- the next time you encounter a Korean store owner, give him a warm smile and a friendly hello -- his response might be very tentative, but you have to start somewhere.





--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

Buying Bottled Water is Dumb

Buying Bottled Water is Dumb

Most of the people who read Frog Hospital are happy about the new health care bill, but some readers are very much displeased.

Most readers think that climate change is a serious problem that we need to deal with, but some do not.

Or the deficit is a problem, or the war in Afghanistan -- there are so many debatable questions.

But can anybody in their right mind, from any political persuasion, declare that the bottled water industry is doing the world a favor?

It's unanimous -- drinking bottled water is dumb and wasteful.

So, good, we all agree on something. Then we can all agree to avoid and abstain from this product. Tap water is better.


Big LA and Little LA. Wednesday morning I was in LaConner. I took the bus to SeaTac Airport, got on a plane and flew to LAX, took the free airport shuttle to the Metro bus stop, and then got on the Number Three bus which goes down Lincoln Blvd. to Venice. I got off the bus at California Avenue and walked four blocks to my sister's house.

So now I am in big LA. It is the time of year for cool morning fog and afternoon sun. There is a riot of green grass and wildflowers in the hills because of substantial winter rains.

I will be here a week or longer. I have a horticultural project -- involving patios and scented geraniums. I also have a literary project -- involving a reading from the manuscript of my about-to-be-published book. There going to love Frog Hospital in Los Angeles.

The Reagan Revolution. Evidence abounds in Venice neighborhoods -- thirty years of Reaganism has produced extremes of wealth and poverty. Tattered homeless people snuggle in dirty sleeping bags on the sidewalk in front of homes that cost more than a million dollars. Drivers of BMWs and Jaguars float past panhandlers at the intersections, And everybody gets what they deserve.

But it didn't used to be that way, and it doesn't need to be that way.

The Los Angeles Times Worships President Obama. In a book review, prominently displayed on the front of the LATimes website, we read, "The President is an unflappable Zen master with a belly full of audacity. Hard work, endurance and civility are inherent in his personality."

That's just one sentence -- the whole review is an unmitigated adoration of Obama -- it was like reading about the Great Leader in North Korea. It's really shameful to read this gushing prose in such a prominent and respected newspaper. I say this as a very strong supporter of President Obama, who is far better served by objective reporting.


Opt In and Opt Out. Frog Hospital has an "opt out" format. This is quite unfortunate because there are always a few people who end up on our mailing list even if they did not choose to be on it.

It pains me greatly to send Frog Hospital to people who do not really wish to read it, but advanced technical ignorance has prevented me from implementing a solution, which is to become an "opt in" newsletter. My apologies if I have clogged your Inbox.

Spring Subscription Drive. Many thanks to those readers who have sent in checks. Your dollars are greatly appreciated. But there is still time -- the spring drive is not over. You can support Frog Hospital by writing a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens, and mail it to Box 1292, LaConner WA, 98257. Or you can go to the Frog Hospital blog and pay $25 with the PayPal button. Thanks a bunch.

T-shirts still on sale. Frog Hospital t-shirts are almost sold out, but we are ordering another batch. Call or write for details.

Frog Hospital, the book, will be printed very soon.

Writing Something New. I'm doing final corrections from the proofreader today. It's a wrap. Aware as I am of its many flaws, the book goes out into the world now. Then I will be flogging it here and there at bookstores and other venues, But book-writing is the real fun and I'm looking forward to working on something new.

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

Health Care Now

It's been great political drama these past few days as the Health Care vote comes down to the wire on Sunday. I'm predicting it will pass the House. Of course, I'm biased -- I support this bill, which is a long overdue reform.

I don't know why the Democrats couldn't get it passed last summer. The extended process has been maddening and I stopped paying attention lest I tear at my hair.

But now I'm at the edge of my seat -- go team! pass that bill!

The Dismal New York Times. These people depress me. Nothing good ever gets done without an uplifting spirit, but the New York Times is a newspaper that has lost its soul.

This week, David Brooks, the conservative in the house, wrote a column titled The Broken Society -- I was assaulted by this headline over my morning coffee. Sure, Brooks made a few good points about disturbing social trends, but it left me feeling down. We don't live in a "broken society." The NYTimes staff needs to take a walk in the park.

The Problem of Unemployment is Easily Solved. Congress can create tens of thousands of new jobs with a simple change in the law, a law that could be written double-spaced on one side of a page. Ban self-service gas pumping nationwide, like they do in Oregon.

Dramatically simple, completely fair and the cost of the extra service is neatly spread across all consumers of gasoline.

But it's too easy -- won't happen.

Funderemployment. Eugene Owens of Venice, California, may be credited with a new concept, "funderemployment."
He is an academic librarian, the job he is qualified for, but, there being no work in that field for him right now, he toils at the Barnes & Noble bookstore on the Promenade in Santa Monica. It's fun working there he says, hence "funderemployment."

Toyota is a Bum
I'm not talking about the recall of cars with faulty gas pedals. That is just a bunch of bad publicity. Toyota makes a pretty good car. But this factory closing in California is really mean. Toyota has sold millions of cars in the Golden State, and California drivers were among the first to be willing to try a "Japanese" car back when most people thought they were only cheap imports.

So how does Toyota repay this loyal support -- by closing their California factory and laying off more than 4,000 workers. Toyota is a bum.


LOCAL NEWS

No Need for a Bike Lane on Maple Street. What is this, free money? The town of LaConner can build a bike lane on the eastside of Maple Street and the federal government will pay for most of it. This is not free. This is a wasteful project. Maple Street has a perfectly good sidewalk on the west side, which cyclists can use. Besides that, the cars should drive slowly and be watching out for bike riders and pedestrians, and sheriff has ways to remind people of that.

But there's no need to waste government dollars on more pavement, even for something as noble as a bike lane. Pavement is forever, as the farm preservationists say, and Frog Hospital strongly opposes the extension of concrete or asphalt on the precious earth of the Skagit Valley.

No Need for Dredging Swinomish Channel in LaConner. Swinomish Channel, a tidal slough, has been dredged by the Army Corps of Engineers on a regular basis since 1892. But I think it's time for the government to stop spending so much money on something that isn't necessary. All you have to do is wait for high tide.

Besides that, who needs big boats? LaConner could make itself the small boat capital of Puget Sound -- building and selling rowboats, canoes and kayaks, staging races, leading maritime tours, teaching classes, carving oars, designing better boats, and publishing books and magazines on the value and utility of small boats.

Don't dredge the channel. Save Money. Wait for High Tide.


--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

Can a Corporation be a Mensch?

Can a Corporation be a Mensch?

Bank of America to End Debit Overdraft Fees
In a move that could bring an end to the $40 cup of coffee, Bank of America said on Tuesday that it was doing away with overdraft fees on purchases made with debit cards, a decision that could cost the bank tens of millions a year in revenue and put pressure on other banks to do the same. -- from the NYTimes.

Yes, a corporation can be a mensch -- meaning a "stand-up guy" or a person of honor and integrity like when you do the right thing. In this case, the Bank of America removed the hateful fee that has punished millions of people who, admittedly, were stupid enough to let their balance go below zero.

Corporations are legally considered to be persons, which has perpetuated all manner of abuse, but in this case, when a giant banking concern acts like a human being -- I'm all for it. I'm sure the bank's motives are not entirely selfless, but I will take it at face value, and this news has put a big smile on my face.

Facebook. I'm getting tired of Facebook. I have more than 900 friends but my attention span has been shattered into tiny pieces. I think I will just leave it alone for a while and read a book.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. This is an old-fashioned book about a young girl who grows up in the tenements of Brooklyn one hundred years ago. That's what I'm reading -- beats wasting my time on Facebook.

St. Matthew Passion. But I like the Internet. Right now I'm listening to the St. Matthew Passion by J.S. Bach. The entire work is on YouTube. I'm listening to it as I write today's letter.

God Doesn't Want Me to Collect Unemployment. I don't often get specific message from God. But when I applied for unemployment compensation last week, I heard a mighty voice calling to me, saying, "Fred, you have to go back to work now."

To put it another way, my claim has run into bureaucratic difficulties, and I so loathe wasting my time on this kind of paperwork, that I would rather go back to my old job at the hospital.

This is a job that I can't seem to get rid of -- as a nursing aide for disruptive and difficult patients in the medical unit -- looking after patients who are unable to behave, like they want to climb out of bed and go home, and I get to spend hours and hours with them saying things like, "Mr. Jorgenson, you have to stay in bed. You're sick. If you try to get out of bed, you'll fall down and hurt yourself. We can't let you do that."

That's the job. Apparently, despite the large number of people who are out of work, the hospital cannot find anybody who will take my place. They refuse to lay me off. So I can't collect unemployment, and I have to go back to work now, because I need the money.

It could be worse. But I wish it was better.

Farm Stories. I have also been writing farm stories for the LaConner Weekly News -- our vastly improved local newspaper, co-published by Cindy Vest and Sandy Stokes. I have written stores about our local crops, one crop at a time -- potatoes, peas, dairies, cabbage seeds, and tulips.

My next story will be called "Plowing 101." I chose this topic because pretty soon the farmers will be out in the fields turning over the soil. They will likely be starting early this year because the weather has been mild. But they get going out there and it's like an invasion. It's powerful. They just keep working and working from first light until darkest night, to get it all done.

Well, there is lot more to plowing than you might first expect. It's more complicated than just climbing on a tractor and riding it back and forth across the field. So I will be explaining some of the basics of plowing in my next story.

These farm stories will soon be available at Frog Hospital, but for right now, you need to get a copy of the LaConner Weekly News.


The Muse in Conway. I went to the Muse in Conway for the Open Mike night on Wednesday. It costs $5 to get in. There were some very talented musicians playing, and they have an excellent sound system. It's very cozy too. I'm going back next week to read an excerpt from my soon-to-be-published book.
The excerpt is called "The Scars on Her Face."

Feeling Connected. I enjoy writing this newsletter, because I feel connected to many people when I do it. I imagine people in different parts of the country seeing this pop into their Inbox. This is a good thing, but if you have not written back to me in a while, I'm always glad to get a short note.

The Frog Hospital T-shirts are ready to be shipped. This year when you sign up for a $25 subscription to Frog Hospital, you get a FREE T-shirt, no charge for shipping.

Write a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens. Mail it to Box 1292 LaConner, WA 98257. I will send one XL t-shirt to the return address, unless you want another size.

Or go to the Frog Hospital blog and pay $25 on the PayPal button -- but then you need to send me an email with the mailing address.

This is not too complicated, and it's a really cool T-shirt. I had it designed by Alexander Kramer, an up and coming artist in LaConner.

The Frog Hospital book will be coming out later this spring. There will also be a book deal, but right now it's the T-shirt deal.

Thank you for your support.

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

The T-shirts are ready

The Frog Hospital T-shirts are ready, but first we go to the New York Times website and just read the headlines:

U.S. Aiding Somalia in Its Plan to Retake Its Capital

Great, let's help everybody, we can do it all. Fix Haiti, then Yemen, don't forget Detroit and New Orleans, and then rebuild Pakistan. No problem too great or small, we can do it all.

Or here's a better idea. Let's send the Tea Party people over to Somalia. They would just love it there -- no government, no laws, and no taxes. All you need is a generator, several drums of gasoline, a couple of cell phones, two or three dozen AK-47s, and some four-wheel drive pickups -- and you can set yourself up as a warlord. Lots of peasants in the neighborhood -- good for exacting tribute. It's the purest kind of freedom.

Art News

John Simon died. He was a wonderful artist. Many hundreds of people came to his show in Edison last night. This was an unusual situation. John had been battling cancer for several years, and seeming to be all right, and turning out some very impressive work.

That's why the art show was planned. But he took a turn for the worse last week. He went down pretty fast and he died.

But they still had the show planned -- all the paintings hung and ready to be viewed. So everybody came to celebrate his life and his work. Much love for this fine artist.

Joel Brock went to Los Angeles. I don't know how to make a graceful transition from John Simon's entire life to Joel Brock's less significant trip, so forgive me.

Joel Brock is showing new work at the Cygnus Gallery in LaConner. He has been in Los Angeles, painting the light. This was a surprise to me because all the work I've seen of his has been done in the Skagit Valley.

But there at the Cygnus gallery was Brock's painting of a house in Los Angeles. It was instantly recognizable. I just loved it. But then I love Los Angeles.

Charlie Krafft. Charlie's work is kind of unusual. I won't describe it, but you can find it on Google, just type in Krafft with two f's.

I visited his studio/home on Beacon Hill last week. He fixed me some coffee and then went back to work on his ceramics. We talked while he worked. Charlie has some very strong creative energy, and it was very stimulating just to be talking with him while he worked.

The Museum of Northwest Art has a show of women's lingerie. This is an attempt to restore the erotic potential of downtown LaConner. Sexual expression of any kind has been banned for decades in this town. No dancing. No suggestive hip movement. No fooling around. It has been so dull in LaConner, you could fall asleep on a bench. But a showing of women's ... you know ... is good for the imagination, it livens things up a bit.

That's the art news.

The Flower Report. The daffodils were three weeks early, but a low pressure area is moving in and and bringing back winter weather, so the tulips are not going to come on so fast.

Dating Disaster. This event deserves expansive coverage, but I have to skim over it. I dined at the Lemon Grass, a Vietnamese restaurant in Seattle, with a Lovely Lass.

You could write a book about everything I did wrong. I started out with nervous twitching, then compounded the error by trying to explain the nervous twitching, then motor-mouthing a monologue with surprising emotional intensity -- like, if I showed her I could do handsprings then she might like me.

It was really too much, but there was an underlying sincerity to my effort. I can't explain it any other way.

The Frog Hospital T-shirts are ready to be shipped. This year when you sign up for a $25 subscription to Frog Hospital, you get a FREE T-shirt, no charge for shipping.

Write a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens. Mail it to Box 1292 LaConner, WA 98257. I will send one XL t-shirt to the return address, unless you want another size.

Or pay $25 on the PayPal button -- but then you need to send me an email with the mailing address.

This is not too complicated, and it's a really cool T-shirt. I had it designed by Alexander Kramer, an up and coming artist in LaConner.

The Frog Hospital book will be coming out later this spring. There will also be a book deal, but right now it's the T-shirt deal.

Thank you for your support.



--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

Friendship and Good Cooking

I met Peter Roberge, the new Executive Chef at Skagit Valley Hospital. He is masterminding a culinary revolution at the hospital, and I am more than thrilled to see this happening.

The hospital, until recently, served typical institutional cooking -- instant mashed potatoes, industrial-strength gravy and overcooked frozen vegetables.

They didn't cook. They defrosted. I know. I worked at the hospital these past two years. The salad bar was a little bit decent, I must admit, but a large portion of the staff avoided the cafeteria and brought takeout or food from home.

Comes now Peter Roberge, representing Thomas Cuisine, a company that has been awarded a contract for the hospital kitchen.

Roberge said, "We make everything from scratch." I could not believe my ears, but I went to the cafeteria yesterday to check it out --- fresh string beans! Tasty, al dente. Red cabbage shredded and served in a mound. I like cabbage to be cooked until tender, so Roberge did it just right for me. I figure if you want raw cabbage you can have coleslaw.

Anyway, the meal included pork tenderloins -- not overcooked until they were dry as a bone, but still juicy, served with a lightly-herbed mustard sauce.

I no longer work at the hospital, but I dreamed of this day. You can eat at the cafeteria now -- the food is good.

Local Produce. I met Roberge at the Farm-to-Table conference on Monday -- a meeting of local growers and those who would buy from them -- like the Food Co-op, some of the area restaurants, and people who organize farmers markets.

Roberge was there because he wants to buy the best of the local produce -- and he will find it, from potatoes to leeks to endive to mushrooms.

I challenged him. Isn't it more expensive to buy fresh produce, plus the extra labor in preparing it for the table? He said, "I don't care what it costs."

Roberge was not being glib, but quite practical. In fact, he has raised prices at the hospital cafeteria, but, because the food is so much better, more people are eating there. In other words, the fresh local produce is paying for itself. Isn't that good news? People will pay for quality.

It ties into the great health care debate. Americans spend 10 percent of their money on food, and 17 percent of their money on health care. The proportions are exactly backward. If we spent more money on good food, we would get sick less often and our health care costs would decline.


Friendship: an excerpt from the Frog Hospital book, to be published this summer

Much has been said about the American family -- the family is the strength of our nation, the values of a family are so very important, and we need to keep and cherish those values.

Not to defend or define those values here, but to mention something equally important -- friendship.

Friendship is not unique to America, but we might compare our society to the undeveloped world where the extended family is the norm, in Latin America or Africa where a man counts his relatives in the dozens -- large families that depend on and care for each other. In countries where the government is often rapacious and confiscatory, where social services are nonexistent, the extended family is the sole tool for survival. Care of the elderly falls on the children and grandchildren -- there is no choice in that, and less virtue because there is no choice.

The extended family, this large and warm unit, is also the main source of corruption in poorer countries. If you have a government post, and your cousin needs a job, you will take care of him. If your business prospers, all your relatives will line up with their hands out. It is your duty to care for them above others.

It’s not merit, but relation, that allocates the rewards of society in those countries.

America is different. We send our cousins Christmas cards, but we don’t expect to feed them. Even a brother, applying for a position, would be subject to close scrutiny. “Sure, if he’s qualified,” we would say, but not for a favor.

Blood is thicker than water, and many of us would make a great sacrifice for our close kin, but the sense of fairness, and of equality for all, is so strong here, that the corruption of family ties is at a minimum.

What we have instead is friendship -- smaller, nuclear families and a web of friendship that unites and levels the country. Friendship is freedom. You choose your friends. Friendship is responsibility, because the friends you choose are a reflection on your character. Friendship is voluntary, even a long-standing friendship must be earned from time to time in small or large ways.

We might do a favor for a friend, or even surrender our lives, we might support them in illness, or go their bail, but it is always because we choose to. That’s freedom in America.
The family is good and essential, but it has never been enough.

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

It's Time for Obama to go Home

It's time for President Obama to go home to that place which gives him the strength and spirit to be our leader. He needs to go back to the South Side of Chicago. He needs to go back to the Trinity Church and join in the choir singing -- being there with Michele, with his two girls by his side.

I wish he was back there now, instead of in the White House, where he gets paler and weaker every day. Washington DC is just sucking the life out of that man. Those people aren't his true friends.

Go home, Mr. President. Go home to the South Side of Chicago.

I've been talking with a woman who comes from the South Side. She's a white woman, from the far, far South Side, but that doesn't matter. I recognize the energy that she has -- a kind of energy that comes from what may be America's largest and most powerful neighborhood.

Mayor Daley, father and son, are from the South Side. It's real.

The most important decision Barack Obama ever made was to choose that neighborhood as his home. He had a rootless childhood and then earned a law degree from Harvard. He could have lived anywhere in the country and made a very handsome living. He could have lived in San Francisco, or Manhattan, or Honolulu -- the world was at his feet.

But he choose Chicago, and he chose the South Side, and that's why he's the President.

He could have had a good and prosperous life in San Francisco or Manhattan, but he would not have become President.

I know, and he knows, it was that neighborhood that got him where he is today. That neighborhood and his remarkable wife Michelle who is rooted on those streets.

And that "reviled" church, that wonderful, soulful, gospel-truth church, where he sat in the pews every Sunday morning for so many years -- appearing diffident, appearing detached. That doesn't matter. He heard the singing and the preaching, and those words gave him the power to become President.

Go back home, Mr. President. Go back to your church and your barber shop and your streets of gold. Yes, they are streets of gold, if you have the eyes to see that.

Big City Values. I support President Obama because he represents big city values. The vast majority of Americans live in the big cities and their suburbs. This is who we really are, and this is where we will solve our problems and make our future.

I think this small town talk is all nonsense. I have lived most of my adult life in a very small town, LaConner, with less than one thousand people. I love it here. It's a great place to live and raise a family.

But to say that a small town is the embodiment of civic virtue -- that's a joke. We are no more honest, no more courageous, no more generous, and no more patriotic than our friends in the big city.

The people of small towns have no more virtue, and no fewer vices, than those who live in the big cities.

LaConner is my home and my source of strength, but our President needs to spend more time in his home and find his strength again, and that's in the South Side of Chicago.

The Frog Hospital T-shirt. The spring subscription drive will be underway soon. And this year we have something new and special -- a Frog Hospital T-shirt. As soon as we get it finished and ready to ship, we can make this offer -- when you a buy a srubscription you will receive a free T-shirt. This is going to really awesome.

The Frog Hospital Book. Sometime after the T-shirt extravaganza, the Frog Hospital book will be published, probably this summer. I got the manuscript back from the editor and I am making revisions. I have read the manuscript numerous times, and I still like it, so I think it will be a pretty good book.

When I'm finished revising, the manuscript will to to a proofreader and then to the book designer, and then to the printers. I'm working with a great group people on this.

J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger died last week. I always wondered about these people who read Catcher in the Rye and then figured that Salinger owed them an explanation.

Why did anybody pester him? I took him at face value. He wanted to be left alone. Then you don't get to ask why, you just leave him alone.

Or he was supposed to write more books. Didn't Salinger know, better than anyone else, if he had another book to write? Again, take Salinger at face value. He wrote one American classic, Catcher in the Rye, and another very good book, Franny and Zooey, and a few short stories.

That's all he wrote. He gave us something wonderful, so who are these people saying they didn't get enough? Geez!

Catcher in the Rye was wonderful, but the book I really loved was Franny and Zooey. I loved their warm, over-stuffed apartment in Manhattan in the 1950s. It was such a nice family.

The oldest brother had committed suicide, which was a tragedy that can strike anyone's family. And the story in the book, is about how Franny Glass, the youngest child, was having a nervous breakdown.

But she had a home to come to, that large, wonderful, boisterous apartment, and she collapsed on the living room couch and slept all day. Her mother kept bringing her food and tried to get her to talk, but Franny would just turn her face to the wall and cry.

Her older brother Zooey, who still lived at home, was able to help Franny deal with her crisis, and that's the story of the book.

I've heard critics say that the Glass family was dysfunctional. No, they weren't. They were about average. They were more like everybody's else's family. They had crisis and tragedy, but it felt like such a good home when you read the book.

This is my favorite scene. It has one very long sentence, which is triumph of writing in the English language.

Zooey Glass, age 25 or so, is taking a bath in his parents' large, over-furnished old apartment in Manhattan. The Glass family is Jewish-Irish. His mother walks into the bathroom. The year is 1955. The passage begins:



Zooey's voice suddenly and suspiciously spoke up: "MOTHER? What in Christ's name are you doing out there?"

Mrs. Glass undressed the package and now stood reading the fine print on the back of a carton of toothpaste. "Just kindly button that lip of yours," she said, rather absently. She went over to the medicine cabinet. It was stationed above the washbowl, against the wall. She opened it's mirror-faced drawer and surveyed the congested shelves with an eye—or rather the masterly squint—of a dedicated medicine-cabinet gardener. Before her, in overly luxuriant rows, was a host, so to speak, of golden pharmaceuticals, plus a few technically less indigenous whatnots. The shelves bore iodine, Mercurochrome, vitamin capsules, dental floss, aspirin, Anacin, Bufferin, Argyrol, Musterole, Ex-Lax, Milk of Magnesia, Sal Hepatica, Aspergum, two Gilette razors, one Shick injector razor, two tubes of shaving cream, a bent and somewhat torn snapshot of a fat black-and-white cat asleep on a porch railing, three combs, two hairbrushes, a bottle of Wildroot hair ointment, a bottle of Fitch Dandruff Remover, a small, unlabelled box of glycerine suppositories, Vicks Nose Drops, Vicks VapoRub, six bars of Castile soap, the stubs of three tickets to a 1946 musical comedy ("Call Me Mister"), a tube of depilatory cream, a box of Kleenex, two seashells, an assortment of used-looking emery boards, two jars of cleansing cream, three pairs of scissors, a nail file, an unclouded blue marble (known to marble shooters, at least in the twenties, as a "purey"), a cream for contracting enlarged pores, a pair of tweezers, the strapless chassis of a girl's or woman's gold wristwatch, a box of bicarbonate of soda, a girl's boarding-school class ring with a chipped onyx stone, a bottle of Stopette—and inconceivably or no, quite a good deal more.

J.D. Salinger. May he rest in peace.

Man dies in torch fire accident on farm

ELTOPIA, Wash. (AP) -- A man was killed in an accident on a farm near Eltopia.

The Franklin County sheriff's office says 75-year-old Everett D. Monk was cutting scrap metal in a field with a torch Saturday when his clothes caught fire. The Tri-City Herald reports he apparently died of burns.

A friend found the body.

I read this story in a farming newspaper. Eltopia is only a stop on the highway, way out in Eastern Washington in the sagebrush country.
The accident happened last November. Something about this very short news story struck a chord with me, and I began to imagine this man's life. Everett Monk, 75, cutting scrap metal with a torch, working out in a field. Then his clothes caught on fire and the fire killed him.

Age 75, working out in the field his whole life. He was always careful, but you know you can catch it anytime, and he did. I wondered, his family must have wondered, how much he suffered, how long the flames tormented him, how long he laid on the ground before they found him.

Maybe a younger man could have rolled quickly on the ground and put out the flames. But Everett Monk was 75 and he kept working because that's what he knew how to do. He was not being careless, but these things can happen.

He lived his whole life until it ended. That's the feeling I got when I read this very short story, and I admired Everett Monk for the kind of man he was.

Two Deaths. Two deaths in this issue of Frog Hospital. Two men, one famous and one not. It's February now and the light is coming back to the Skagit Valley. People are coming out of their caves and starting to smile again. The weather has been very mild. The daffodils are coming up early.

I like living in 2010 so far. I like that number -- how it sounds and how it looks on the page, so I'm hoping we all have a very good year.


--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

send mail to:

Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257

I am not ranting

Scott Brown reminds me of John Edwards -- two very good-looking haircuts. Pick 'em.

But I am not ranting today. I did that on Friday, a wicked rant, and I posted it right below this one -- called "What a Bunch of Scaredy Cats.

You can't be in politics if you don't have a sense of humor. I don't associate with angry people. They're boring me. Their fervor and their intensity -- for what good?

They get mad at the government for paying too much in taxes. Maybe they should be mad at their accountants instead.

I don't pay too much in taxes, because I'm smart. And so I'm not mad at the government. I receive many benefits from the government. So it's simple -- taxes go in, benefits come out. Just try to stay even with it, and you won't get mad.

There is the hypocrisy of people complaining about "government handouts" but keeping pretty quiet about various programs that subsidize their own little cottage industry.

But I am not going to rant today. I did that Friday and it was very satisfying.

And I lost my last election bet, so maybe I'm foolish to make another prediction, but here goes:

A Prediction. It seems that President Obama would rather govern than campaign, and him thinking he was elected to govern, but realizing now that he has get out there and stir it up. That is something Obama knows how to do very well when he sets his mind to it.

I admire Obama because he doesn't live for the adulation of the crowd, but he can do it when it suits him, and he will be doing it, like the master conductor of a symphony orchestra. That's why he got elected by a majority of American voters.

Obama, and the Founders, and most Americans, believe in representative government. So we elect these people, and then we're stuck with them.

But the alternative is government by initiative which is a proven disaster in California, or government-by-radio-talk-shows, which would be even worse.

The Future. I believe in the future of our country. My faith was confirmed Friday night when I attended a play at the LaConner High School. The students actors were marvelous. It's take a lot of work to do that well. I was impressed by their freshness and determination.

These students will become good men and women, and we will be turning responsibilities over to them, and they will do all right, and they will fix some of the messes we have made for them.

The Past. History is a comfort. The times seem terrible because we live in them, but little of what we suffer is new. It's happened many times before and we are still here, and I see a beautiful sunrise outside the breakfast window.

Earthquakes tumble mud-brick homes in poor villages and thousands die.

Do you remember the earthquake in Bam? Bam is a poor and ancient city of 43,000 in the mountains of Iran. Nobody ever heard of it. Then the earth trembled in 2003, and more than 25,000 people died in the rubble. More than half the population died.

Isn't that the most important tragedy of our times? Yes, it is a date seared in memory, December 26, 2003, for those citizens of Bam who survived it.

Has Bam been rebuilt with higher earthquake-proof standards? I hope so, but I don't know. We don't go to Iran with aid missions, and we don't need to because we should be paying all our attention to disaster in Haiti, right now, right nearby.

I don't know why I remember the earthquake in Bam, but I do remember it.

What a Bunch of Scaredy Cats

The Democrats are engaged in a massive, nationwide Pity Party, following the victory of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. Fifty-nine Democratic Senators are cowering under their desks -- scared of those mean Republicans.

"But Mom, they're not being nice to us."

Aw, poor Democratic Senators, are those mean, nasty Republicans bothering you? Well, you just come inside now and I'll fix you a nice, warm glass of milk and you can have some of your favorite cookies. I won't let those mean, nasty Republican Senators come inside and scare you anymore.

Let me just tuck you in the bed with your favorite Teddy Bear -- poor little Democratic Senators -- don't you be ascared anymore. Momma is watching over you now, and your fairy godmother too.

Fifty-nine Democratic Senators -- cowards, wusses, and weenies. If you're not up to the job, why don't you just go home and let someone else do it.

Scaredy cats! na-na-na-na! Chicken, Chicken -- Bock! Bock! Bock! -- Chicken, Chicken.

Losers! Phonies! You guys have lots of excuses, because you only out number the other team by 59 to 41. Boy, that's sounds really rough.

The Frightful Specter of Glenn Beck -- Satan! Sauron! The Evil One! No! No! Dare we say his name!

Glenn Beck is such a scary guy. We better not do anything that will make him mad. We should try to work out some kind of consensus with him -- have our people talk with his people.

Fox News! Fox News! Oh God, the nightmate continues! Please, please turn it off. Yes, you fifty-nine Democratic Senators, you must surrender, you will now be under our complete control. Because if you do not bow to our wishes, you will be forced to listen to Rush Limbaugh over and over again until you beg for mercy.

No, No, the horror! the horror!

Perhaps the "59" have been subjected to a mass hypnosis or they could have been administered a drug -- something that would explain their extremely passive behavior.

Maybe we should take a more compassionate and understanding attitude to those 59 snivelling cowards with pensions, and travel budgets and far better health insurance than you and I will ever have.

But I don't feel any pity. I feel scorn and contempt. Useless!