Art Suit in LaConner

Art Suit worked for years at the New England Fish Company underneath the Rainbow Bridge in LaConner.

Art retired and the fish company went bankrupt at about the same time.

He lived with his wife in a modest home on Maple Street. We moved in across the street in 1980, into the double-wide, which was still there last time I looked.

So Art was my neighbor -- him and his happy wife. My kids were pre-school age then and they could wander over to visit with Mr. Art in his garage workshop.

Elaine Dubuque was our other neighbor and Herb Cram, the Cookie Man, lived down the street.

Eugene, being 4 or 5 years old, used to run away from home and when we couldn't find him anywhere, we would walk down to Herb's house, and there was Eugene sitting in front of the TV eating cookies.

Getting back to Art, he had his retirement and his workshop. He owned every tool that I ever dreamed of owning. It was like he walked into the hardware store and said yes, I'll take it. Not that he bought it all at once, but he built up his shop one tool at a time.

He reached the point where most of us only dream, and he had the time and the good health to take on any project from welding, to carpentry, to garden-growing, to electric and plumbing repairs.

He had a few good years like that after he retired.

Art is not with us anymore but he's a was a kind man and a very good neighbor.
The Weather. We had the Greek Festival in Santa Barbara this week and I had the lamb dinner. It was wonderful.

Naturally I called John Kagouras to tell him about the fun we had. He's Greek. He said he was glad I had a good time.

John grew up in Colorado Springs. I didn't know they had such a large Greek community in that town, but John said he did not learn to speak English until he went to school.

John is a retired architect in LaConner. I asked him about the weather. He said it's been warm this summer.

I told him that I was coming to LaConner in a few weeks with my girl friend Laurie and I might see him at La Crema, the coffee shop.

Then I called Jim Smith and Janet Saunders, also in LaConner. Janet answered the phone, she agreed -- it has been pretty warm this summer, with lots of sunny days.

She put Jim on the phone. Jim is recovering from a serious illness, but he sounded a lot snappier than when I called him a month ago. He said he felt much better and he was getting around more. That was good news.

On Facebook I saw a lot of photos of Swinomish people in the tribal canoe journeys. It is a colorful and meaningful annual journey. Try not to get too wet!

Young People. Here in Santa Barbara I share a house with people who are less than half my age. But they're not ready for Frog Hospital so you won't hear about them here.
Egypt. I am studying Arabic and watching the news from Egypt and Syria -- The language is beautiful and the Arabic-speaking people I know seem very good and happy in their ways, and yet the whole place is a bloody mess. I can't explain it. I guess it's not my job to explain it, but I know it's good to pay attention and learning a few words in their language is a way to help.

In Cairo many thousands of angry young men are rampaging through the streets -- educated and unemployed. There are no jobs, there never will be jobs. They must learn to create opportunity. The government can only give them bread, exported from the US and paid for by Saudi Arabia and Qatar....... I would tell them kindly, someone raised you, some one taught you, now the rest is up to you. Your ancestors built the pyramids, what about you? ...... "create opportunity" -- you start by picking up sticks, you start by looking around at what you have, and what you can do and what somebody else needs...... The Arab Spring was started by an educated young man in Tunisia who was selling fruit because he couldn't get a job.......so that's what you do -- sell fruit -- what's wrong with selling fruit? I've done it, it's fun and you can make money..... But jobs, forget it, there will never be enough jobs.
The Nanofabrication Facility at the University of California at Santa Barbara. This week I'm taking a tour and writing a story about the clean room at UCSB where researchers attempt to discover a more efficient way to produce LED lights. I have been studying in preparation for the interview. Learning about Gallium Nitride, which is a wide-band gap semi-conducter, and how the researchers "dope" the GaN with Indium or Aluminum in an attempt get it to work more efficiently. I love science. To make the effort to understand the research, to have the opportunity to see people make discoveries about the nature of things -- this is such a good thing.

Research, finding a way to build a better light bulb, is not about learning. It's about learning how to learn. We know how to do that here and they don't know how to do that in Egypt. That's the problem.
Otherwise I spend my spare time at the beach reading and swimming.



--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

Mesa Harmony Garden

We are harvesting nectarines and plums at Mesa Harmony Garden. The Mesa neighborhood gets the cool ocean breeze and the morning fog. Not the best place for growing tomatoes because of the cool breeze, but it’s awfully nice for garden volunteers working among the fruit trees.

That's what we planted on this one-acre plot -- about 100 fruit trees -- plums, peaches, nectarines, apples, and pears mainly, plus a small banana plantation. What people are realizing is that you can grow bananas in Santa Barbara -- this one variety that tolerates our warm and dry but not tropical climate. It will grow little bananas with orange-flavored sweetness, really excellent and toothsome, and banana trees are no trouble -- except they need water and plenty of room.

At Mesa Harmony Garden, we say that "Labor is Free, but Water is Expensive." It's all volunteer work and nobody gets paid, but the water bill comes every month and we are determined to get that monkey off our backs. We spread large quantities of leaf mulch under the trees to delay evaporation and save water. The city gives this leaf mulch away -- the end-product from the green waste containers. You can pick it up free at several locations. Mesa Harmony Garden, because we are a non-profit, can ask for a truckload -- 10 to 15 yards of mulch, and we can use it all.

Also, the mulch smothers weeds, then breaks down and becomes an organic soil amendment. Good gardeners love mulch.

The other thing we do for water conservation is collect water off the parking lot and the roof of the Parish Hall. I need to backtrack and explain "Parish Hall." The garden occupies a one-acre fenced lot, property of the Holy Cross Catholic Church, but the Mesa Harmony Garden is a separate organization, a formally organized non-profit corporation with a 15-year lease on the premises, which gives us the freedom and time necessary for planting an orchard.

The parking lot, almost as big as the garden itself, is slightly uphill from the garden, so we capture all the runoff at the lower end and channel the water into a biological swale that will clean it up a bit before it flows onto the fruit trees.

Rain falls on the gutters of the Parish Hall and then flows into an above ground tank and that water gets piped downhill to the garden. Rain water is free and why waste it.


We do not rent plots to individuals as many community gardens do. The prime directive for this orchard is growing fresh fruit for the Santa Barbara Food Bank. We planted the orchard three years ago and this is the first season we are getting a decent harvest. Last week we picked 50 pounds of white-fleshed nectarines and plums. Next week we can begin harvesting peaches.

The trees are young and the fruit is small, but by next year we might be harvesting quite a volume of produce.

And we have gophers -- it's a constant battle. You know what the trick is for dealing with gophers? There is no trick. The only thing I can say is Never Give Up. This is nature in the raw, an endless struggle.

But I always want to believe what I hear about gophers, like someone said they never bother with the pepper plants, so when someone donated some habanero pepper bushes we planted them without gopher cages, and so far the gophers haven't touched them. That makes sense -- would you munch on habanero roots?

Mesa Harmony Garden has volunteer days twice a month. Go to the website and find out how you can help.
Too Much Empathy

What I have noticed about the Middle East is that they are in a time and place of complete empathy. Everything hurts. It is a culture that is all poetry and utterly lacking in science, industry and technology. It's totally out of balance. No wonder we say it's our oil underneath their sand. They didn't even know the oil was there, and when it was discovered they did not know what to do with it.
Now they are using imported smart phones to foment a revolution. But I would say, instead of waving the bloody flag, they might put up posters of the medieval Arabic scholars who had a balanced stance of poetry and reason and who guided our European ancestors toward this balanced vision.
I continue to study Arabic and find it very revealing. Here is my practice sheet for today. It says "the beautiful city" and I mean that to refer to Cairo -- may the beautiful side of this great city come to flourish. This is a two-word poem, and it is an act of empathy, but I would wish for those young fellow fighting in the street that they would go home or to the cafe and study chemistry and physics and mathematics, and devise state-of-the-art solar energy projects and construct highly efficient desalinization plants.Inline image 1
This practice sheet has not been corrected by my tutor and may contain mistakes.

If I were a Rich Man. I have no desk, no place to work. We saw Fiddler on the Roof last weekend, an outdoor summer theater production -- just a lovely old thing. At the end of the play, Tevya and his family have to leave their village and head for a new home. Gotta keep moving.

But, seeing the play, it made sense that I had studied Torah at Beth Shalom for three years. Participating in this Boston-area Jewish community was like living in Anatevka. So when I saw Fiddler on the Roof, I said to my girlfriend, yeah, I used to live there. Pictured here is Rev Moshe Holcer, who grew up in a place like Anatevka and who taught me so much.
Fred Owens's photo.

So I said to Rev Moshe one morning, "I don't have a place to work, a place to stay, a place to live, it never lasts, I can't even unpack." So Rev Moshe said to me just a few words. "Keep your hat on."

Subscriptions. Thank you --- Subscriptions can be paid at PayPal on the Frog Hospital blog for $25. Or you can mail a check to the address below,

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

The Coyote Ate the Cat

Got a phone call from a friend in Nebraska, he said, "Retirement is like being unemployed until you're dead."
The guy got retired by his firm of long-standing -- shown the door.

"It really hit me last week. I had my tires rotated. I never did that before, never had the time. And I don't have hobbies. I hate hobbies."
You could travel.

"I might travel. My wife wants to go to India. I want to go someplace with good plumbing."

What are you going to do otherwise?

"I'm going to start feeding stray cats until I get 2 or 3 dozen crawling all over the place. Then I'm going to sit on the front porch and glare at people walking by."
Sounds like you have a vision.

"Just a way to pass the time. I enjoy pissing people off."

Edward Snowden. "I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker," Obama said, giving new meaning to the phrase "feigned indifference."

This is a classic Obama head fake. I suspect his minions are striving with great effort to secure Snowden, but until Snowden gets caught Obama pretends he doesn't care.

Likewise, Putin denies having his agents debrief Snowden at the Moscow airport -- sure.

Snowden makes a case that the USA operates an oppressive surveillance regime, but his case was weakened, to say the least, when he fled to China and Russia...... Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Feelings. Men don't express their emotions -- women say that. Actually men express their emotions to each other, which is why I know how other men feel about things....... But you didn't talk, the woman said, I didn't hear it...... Well, that could be that men express their emotions to each other, but not to you, dear sister. We have our own ways of communicating...... But you didn't say anything, the woman said, I don't see your point.....And he said, Exactly, that was my point.........

Men express the emotions they have, not the emotions they don't have. Men don't have the same emotions that women have. A man might be expressing a feeling, and a woman might not understand that or even hear that because she has never had that feeling.

Men express their feelings to other men who have had that same feeling. They understand each other.

Women have feelings that men don't have. Men understand that. That's why men say, without embarrassment, "we don't understand you."

When a men has an emotion that is similar to a woman's emotion, then he can tell her about that, and she will understand.

When a man has an emotion different than what a woman has, she will not understand it.

I think that pretty much explains it. Did I leave anything out?

Master Gardener. A well-meaning relative suggested I take the Master Gardener Training Course. This confused me. "You think I should take the course? Gosh, I think I should be teaching the course."

I am a Master Gardener. I have had my hands in the dirt as long as I can remember. And I do things strictly by the book -- because I wrote the book.

And you can read it and you can learn from me. But it occurs to me that if my own relative thinks I need to take a course, then I must be presenting myself poorly. I need to receive a certificate at some kind of ceremonial conclave. The American Society of Horticulturists with the Best of Intentions awards Fred Owens with their Gold Medal, then I will be acknowledged as a Master Gardener.

More like Old Gardener. I'm an Old Gardener. But still learning. I can say I'm a gardener in Arabic. انا فلاح Ana Fellah -- when I get to the Middle East I will say that, and they will invite me to their homes and we will discuss the growing of things.

Laughing. I think this Frog Hospital essay is very funny. It makes me smile. Have a good weekend.

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

Garden News

But first a comment that few people will appreciate.

Woman walks in coffee shop, slathered head to toe in hideous tattoos. Not much point in saying anything. Lovely skin, too bad she smeared ink all over it....... Land of a thousand dragons...... They always do dragons and butterflies..... Or else they try to be different, by inking a 1947 Packard or something odd, so then they will be the only guy/girl in Southern California with a 1947 Packard tattooed on their posterior....... Occasionally I see a tattoo that is mildly interesting, but most of them are gross and the despoiling of a beautiful body raised by loving parents. You put 18 years into raising a kid, and then they want to scribble on your masterpiece and rub your face in it...... It's a way of registering adult freedom, of course, but there are better ways to do that.

Write or call me for a list of better ways to establish adult freedom in your life -- I will be glad to help.

Tattoos are popular among people who are looking for permanence and security. A tattoo is something you can keep forever. No one can ever take it away from you, and in this changing and frightening world, it is understandable that people want something of their own that will stay with them. You can lose your teddy bear, or somebody might steal it, but the swan tat on your shoulder blade -- you can always have that, a friend forever who will never change or betray you. A flower that will never fade.
So there I was, sitting in the coffee shop, minding my own business, when the woman walks in with so many tattoos that it was LOUD, like she was wearing a dozen chipmunks on her shoulder and had a small alligator wrapped around her waist, and a banyan tree twining up her left leg, and perched on the tree was a flaming-red salamander. Kinda hard not to notice. But that's my annual tattoo rant, so, until next time, think before you ink.
Now We Have the Garden News. I'm going to harvest the red onions today. I planted them last fall and they should have gotten big by now, but I'm tired of waiting. Just dig them up and plant something else.
I will check this bag of seed packets and think about what to plant in place of where the onions were -- more cilantro maybe -- except we're coming into hot season, and it doesn't seem like a good time to plant anything.
The front yard sweet corn will be knee high soon. This is a lovely 5 by 12 patch right in back of the mailbox. It's an advertisement for the splendor of home gardening. "Grow Local, Eat Local" it says in a bright neon-green message to cars driving by. We will harvest the corn sometime in August and have a BBQ party, إن شاء الله (that's Arabic, "Insha'-Allah" which means God Willing, not strictly a Moslem saying but used by most Arabic speakers).
Next I will check the gopher trap I set early this morning. I have been serious about this lately. I go out first thing and look for fresh sign of the little dirt mounds they make. Then I dig it up and look for the tunnel and place the trap in it. I don't bother to bait it, or wear gloves to disguise human scent, or cover it to keep out the dark.
What I do is get 'em mad. Dig up their holes and let them know whose garden it is. Often enough they'll come right back to plug up the hole where I set the trap. Then they get caught.

I don't hate gophers -- All God's creatures have to make a living after all. But they can't eat my tomatoes.
Meanwhile we are harvesting nectarines and plums over at Mesa Harmony Garden. This is in a Santa Barbara neighborhood called the Mesa because it sits on a mesa -- a table top hill right near the beach that gets the cool ocean breeze and the morning fog. Not the best place for growing tomatoes because of the cool breeze, but awfully nice for garden workers among the fruit trees.

That's what we planted on this one-acre plot -- about 100 fruit trees -- plums, peaches, nectarines, apples, pears mainly, plus a small banana plantation. What people are realizing is that you can grow bananas in Santa Barbara -- using a variety that tolerates our warm and dry but not tropical climate. It will grow little bananas with orange-flavored sweetness, really excellent and toothsome, and banana trees are no trouble -- except they need water and plenty of room.
Water. At Mesa Harmony Garden, we say that "Labor is Free, but Water is Dear." It's all volunteer work and nobody gets paid, but the water bill comes every month and we are determined to get that monkey off our backs. We spread large quantities of leaf mulch. The city gives this leaf mulch away -- the end-product from the green waste containers. You can pick it up free at several locations. Mesa Harmony Garden, because we are a non-profit, can ask for a truckload -- 10 to 15 yards of mulch, and we can use it all.
Spreading mulch thickly under the trees delays evaporation and saves water. Also, the mulch smothers weeds, then breaks down and becomes an organic soil amendment. Good gardeners love mulch.

The other thing we do for water conservation is collect water off the parking lot and the roof of the Parish Hall. I need to backtrack and explain "Parish Hall." The garden occupies a one-acre fenced lot, property of the Holy Cross Catholic Church, but Mesa Harmony Garden is a separate organization, a formally organized non-profit corporation with a 15-year lease on the premises, which gives us the freedom and time necessary for planting an orchard.
The parking lot, almost as big as the garden itself, is slightly uphill from the garden, so we will capture all the runoff at the lower end and channel the water into a biological swale that will clean it up a bit before it flows onto the fruit trees.

Rain falls on the gutters of the Parish Hall and then flows into an above ground tank and that water gets piped downhill to the garden Rain water is free and why waste it.

We do not rent plots to individuals as many community gardens do. The prime directive for this orchard is growing fresh fruit for the Santa Barbara Food Bank. The harvest is not for sale or for trade, but we do get to munch on quite a few ripe nectarines as we pick them -- and this can be rationalized. A lusciously ripe and juicy peach may just as well be eaten on the spot, because it will never get to the Food Bank warehouse in time. Instead we aim to pick and deliver the firmer fruit to get a little shelf-life and allow for handling.
And we have gophers -- don't get me started. It's a constant battle. You know what the trick is for dealing with gophers? There is no trick. The only thing I can say is Never Give Up, because those little buggers will never give up either. This is nature in the raw, an endless struggle.
But I always want to believe what I hear about gophers, like someone said they never bother with the pepper plants, so when someone donated some habanero pepper bushes we planted them without gopher cages, and so far the gophers haven't touched them. Makes sense -- would you munch on habanero roots if you were a gopher?

Happy Summer,

Fred





--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

The Class of 6T8

The Class of 6T8. At St. Michael's College at the University Toronto, alumni gathered to celebrate their 45th reunion. I wish I could have come. Classmates sent me photos after the party. I can pass those photos on to whomever.
At another time I might tell stories of old times, but I have only a small taste for nostalgia. Better to share a tune. Joan Baez had such a sweet voice. The lyrics live in our souls. One Too Many Mornings.
And farewell to Fr. Madden, CSB, he made us a family.

That's enough, on with the news.

Riding to Damascus. Paul was riding to Damascus when God struck him down and made him a preacher..... Those were Roman times, then came the Byzantines, the Arabian tribes, the Mongols, the Ottomans, the French and the British.
Always riding to Damascus, but will we ever get there?

The war rages, but the writer of this letter cautions us to not so easily describe it as Sunni versus Shia. We want to take a side, we want to help -- our intentions are good. But it's an ancient puzzle and we are not ancient people.
Read this Letter to Damascus

Learning Arabic. I have begun to study and learn the Arabic language, spoken by 240,000,000 people. To speak it, read it and write it. I have so far learned the 28 letters and their pronunciation. My teacher is a college student at UC Santa Barbara. She is Chaldean -- you have to look that up. Her home language is Aramaic, plus the Arabic.
I believe that one hour studying the language is equal to 20 hours of reading the history and the news about Syria.

I say a few words, I recognize a few letters, and it feels like my head will explode (in a good way).
Being able to communicate with people -- that takes effort, but it is rewarding.

Below is Syria spelled out in Arabic letters. Five letters starting from the right -- sinn, waw, ra, ya, alif -- those are the names of those five letters.

سوريا

My teacher, after three lessons, said, "Which kind of Arabic do you want to learn, Classic or Levantine?" I was on the spot. Classic Arabic is the language of the Koran, of educated folk, of Al-Jazeera broadcast TV, and is widely understood, but it is the formal version of things. How people actually talk is the Levantine dialect in Syria -- quite different from how they talk in Egypt or the Gulf States or the Saharan countries, all of which have their own dialects. I choose to be thrilled by this complexity.

Farm News. In addition to delving into the Syrian mystery, I will get back to reporting the farm news from California. Here's the egg story.
Prop. 2, passed in 2008, requires California egg producers to make bigger cages for their hens. And here's my opinion -- well-intentioned consumers who want to be nice to chickens have passed a law that requires real chicken people to act in a good way. This is ignorance, but it's also typical of California voters to pass judgment on issues about which they know nothing.
Instead, I tell my fellow Californians -- you should get your own chickens and spoil them rotten if you wish to, build them palaces, fix them gourmet snacks. I'm not kidding -- that's a good thing to do. Or buy your eggs from people who spoil their chickens like you think they should be spoiled. Spread your poultry gospel of good will across the land.
But don't pass a law. We have far more regulations than anyone can even remember.

Set a good example -- you will accomplish so much more than attempting to control the behavior of other people.

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Fred Owens

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Boston is Important

Boston is an important city. You might think it's not important, but it is. Although Boston is nowhere nearly as important as New York City. Chicago is important, being the center of the farm belt and the heartland. Texas is important -- that's just the way it is. And California is important. Here's a few reasons.

California is the number one farm state -- They grow more food here than anywhere else.

California has the most people.

And the most immigrants --- California will rise or fall on the strength of immigration -- but they all want to come here.

California is number one in baseball -- with five major league teams, the Padres, Dodgers, Angels, Athletes and Giants.

California has the best-looking women.

Texas is a close second overall -- they have Ted Cruz.

For countries, Mexico is important, but Canada is not important. Canada is a very nice country, but it's not important.

Other nice places -- Seattle, Minneapolis, Denver, for example -- are good places to live, but they are not important.

But for some reason, Boston, not an especially large city, is important.

What is important?

“No, I’m not angry at anyone. No human being can do anything important enough for that. You get angry at people when you feel that their actions are important. I don’t feel that way any longer.”

–The Teachings of Don Juan

I need to point out what is obvious.

Being important is not really important.

Coming to Seattle and the Skagit in mid-August

Laurie and I are coming to Seattle and the Skagit in mid-August for about a week. We will need to bring sweaters and socks, I guess. Climate change! Culture shock! But it will be fun to see friends and family.

Figuring two nights in Seattle, two nights in Anacortes, two nights in Victoria, and then one more night in Seattle. We hope to see Butchart Gardens among other things, but don't want to over-plan this, just pay for the plane tickets and bring money.

My daughter lives in Ballard -- we will stay with her. We'll stay with friends in Anacortes. We'll book a lodge in Victoria -- anybody know a good place to stay in that town?

See ya,

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

Enjoying Wealth

There are two ways to enjoy wealth. The good way is the simple pleasure of owning something, whether it be a comfortable chair or a cattle ranch or a fountain pen. These material items can add pleasure to our lives.

The bad way to enjoy wealth is to relish the power it gives you over other people. You get to go to the head of the line. Other people have to get out of your way. You can brag about what you have and excite the envy of people who don't have what you have..

Here's how it works for me. When I encounter a man, let's say he's very wealthy, and I see him enjoying the simple pleasure of a fine piece of woodwork, then I don't resent him, I'm happy for him.

But if his wealth gives him an attitude like he can get something over on me, no, no, I hate that attitude. And I despise that man.

The enjoyment of wealth is like any other activity, it can be done well or done poorly.

Now we discuss the attainment of prosperity. The simplest way to acquire wealth is to take it from somebody else. Robbing a bank comes to mind. You grab a hold of somebody else's money and now it's yours. By force or by guile. You can cheat in a game of cards. You can make and sell a faulty product. You can deliver half of the promised service, but charge the full price. That's the bad way to make money.

The good way to attain wealth is by adding to the value of what already exists, by creating a better pizza, by devising a swifter delivery of same, or by dry cleaning clothes in a less expensive and more environmentally-friendly manner.

We applaud this kind of wealth creation because every one benefits. We condemn the "taking" of wealth from other people. What we don't do is agree on what is the taking and what is the making -- that's politics, and I'm not getting into that today.

Don't Be a Fool. David Karp sold Tumblr to Yahoo and made $275,000,000 on the deal..... He's 26 and he invented a clever app, so he on his way to a billion dollars, while the rest of you 25-year-old chumps are struggling as unpaid interns with $50,000 in student loan debt and no way in hell you will ever pay it off.

The youth of America -- all idiots! Look around, one of you makes a billion dollars, and the rest of you get to "explore your creative potential" and collect food stamps.....

Comforter-in-Chief. The news anchor described Pres. Obama as comforter-in-chief as he addressed the nation with concern for the people of Oklahoma after the tornado disaster. This is a waste of time. The people of Oklahoma have the resources --- material and spiritual -- to recover from this disaster. They don't need a flyover from Air Force One as if in benediction.

Pres. Obama needs to deal with the situation in Syria -- that is his unique responsibility, that is where he should apply all his effort.

We can fix the mess here at home, and Obama should take care of the trouble overseas.

I am not sure what Obama can do in Syria, to intervene or to wait and see, to back the rebels with economic or military aid, to forge a better alliance with Turkey -- these are tough decisions. He should be working on it as his top priority, but we don't need him to fix Oklahoma.

Barbara Cram Was Bored

Barbara Cram died in 2009, but this story is about a few years earlier in her life --- those few years after she retired from her part-time job at a women's homeless shelter in downtown Seattle.
She had been working at the shelter for several years and loving it, not being in charge of anything, just being useful. Then she retired with no pension at age 70, just her social security check. She had worked at Nordstrom's many years ago, and been a social worker for some years. She had long experience as the founder and director of Friendship House, the homeless shelter in Mount Vernon, but she scarcely got paid for that work, and nothing went into her social security account.
All that was past when she retired in 2005 -- I think that was the year. Just a SS check every month and glad for it too. She had a lovely home in the Mount Baker neighborhood. She and Pat Simpson lived together there, along with Pat's two daughters who were almost grown.
But she was bored. She didn't like being retired, not enough to do. She watched the baseball game every day -- she loved her Mariners. And she was always reading a book.
Her principle activity was making an old-fashioned sit-down meat-and-potatoes dinner every night. It was awesome. Barbara did better cooking in those few years than anyone in Seattle. I can't even describe the gravy, from a pork roast, ladled over garlic mashed potatoes, with a side of fresh cooked green beans, then a glass of wine or the beer of your choice, and baked apples for dessert. My O My.
I should mention that I was a frequent overnight guest during those years. I did the yard work under Barbara's direction, and I got the sit-down dinner for a daily reward.

In the garden, Barb was her total bossy self. She never actually went in the garden, she just leaned over the rail of the deck and barked orders at me while I pruned the grape vines. "That branch, no, no, the one higher up, that branch."
Time for another cigarette. Barb was a ferocious smoker. You didn't dare tell her otherwise. She and Pat had the last house in Seattle with ash trays where you could just light up at the dinner table, after the dishes were cleared.
Barb was happy during those years but she was a little bored. The trouble was she didn't have any money, just enough for the groceries and household expenses and gas for the car. Not enough for traveling. Not enough for eating out at any decent restaurant, or for clothes. She said she disdained fashion, but I wonder -- she had all those years at Nordstrom's and she surely had a good eye for a fine line in a dress, and might have wanted to shop, to buy, to own .... something.

My Religion Is Better Than Your Religion

My religion is better than your religion. You should join my religion, you'll be glad if you do.

That's terrible. All religions are equally good. One religion cannot possibly be better than the others.

Says who? You just made up a rule that all religions are equally valid, but they're not. My religion is true and the other religions are not.

Whatever, I don't want to argue.

Me neither.


Florida Orange Juice is Juicier

Coca-Cola will spend $2 billion to support the planting of 25,000 acres of oranges groves in Florida. Coca-Cola owns Minute Maid and other juice brands. It's not the evil empire and their orange juice is good for you.
I bought a carton of fresh Florida orange juice at the supermarket in California.

California grows oranges for eating and Florida grows oranges for juice. That drives the locavores crazy. Orange juice from concentrate probably comes from Brazil which is the world's largest juice producer..

There's a reason behind all this. Florida's climate is far more humid than the Central Valley in California, so Florida oranges are juicier. On top of that Florida oranges are hard to peel and they don't look pretty, so they're better for juice.

California oranges look better. Actually, we are all just prettier in California, but especially the oranges. And easier to peel.

Add in the economy of large-scale production and you end up with a freight train speeding across the continent carrying fresh California navel oranges to Atlanta, while another train brings the juice from Florida to San Diego.

Food miles! Carbon emissions! Agribusiness!

Calm down, take it easy. We can change it.

It might be better if we could grow some juice oranges right here in California, ya think?

Heck, we have orange trees growing in the back yard here in Santa Barbara, ripe and ready to eat or to make juice with.

Orange Buying Tips. Don't buy oranges or any other fruit just by appearance. Sometimes the funny-looking guys are the best-tasting. And only buy Ruby Red grapefruits from Texas.
Thank you --- Subscriptions can be paid at PayPal on the Frog Hospital blog for $25.


Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

What’s the use?

What’s the use?

I invented a religion in 1971,

I called it the Church of the Holy Dawn.

We had dogma, scripture, liturgy and abuse,

But after a while I said what's the use.

I can't make promises,

I don't know the truth.

Worse and Worse. As of today, the war in Syria is getting worse.

Firefighting Skills Improve. The Springs fire in Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, consumed 28,000 acres of brush with no loss of life or destruction of homes.

They're getting smarter about handling these blazes. Somehow a spark got it started on Thursday morning, a day of strong winds, high temperatures and very low humidity.

The fire quickly built up and began a race across the Santa Monica Mountains to the sea, twenty miles away.

It was that hot desert wind blowing off shore and pushing the flames -- it couldn't be stopped.

That's where the firefighters got smart -- they didn't try to head it off with a frontal assault. That only endangers and exhausts the fire crews and it rarely works.

Instead they dropped back and worked the sides of the fire to keep it on a narrower path -- steer it a little bit rather than try to put it out. They also ran defensive lines around a few housing developments.

The brush fire raged for two days. Then the weather changed. The wind died down, it got cooler, the humidity increased and the flames abated. With these more favorable conditions, crews were able to contain and extinguish the blaze.

It's just brush up there, it will all grow back. It's amazing how empty that country is and so near to Los Angeles. But you see why it's not a good place to live -- because of these brush fires, among other hazards.

Tampering with Nature. I support most human efforts to tamper with nature. It's just that once you start "fixing" things, you gotta keep fixing things.

When it comes to environmental issues, my belief is that every solution creates another problem.

So I favor whatever you propose as a mean of combating climate change. But I know your solution will create more problems, and the work will never be done.

This is not a discouraging message, not at all. It's just that we're always going to have work to do and we need to keep making adjustments. We can certainly control some of it, but never all of it.

Thank you --- Subscriptions can be paid at PayPal on the Frog Hospital blog for $25.

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

Robert Sund, Charlie Berg, Tom Robbins

Passages from the Fishtown Blues book -- soon to be published

Charlie Berg -- if you remember him -- lived in South LaConner and may have said something like this in 1982.

“Yes,” Charlie said. “We live under a volcano and we’re all going to die. That’s why I keep these lawn chairs in the front yard. This is how I figure it – when she blows, the mud and ice come racing down the valley, first Concrete, then Lyman, Hamilton, Sedro-Woolley, one town after another all swallowed up, cows flung about like matchsticks, sirens blasting, people racing around, but not me – when I see that mud flow coming at LaConner I just sets me down in this lawn chair and watch the show. The End. We go out with a bang. It will be like the last surfer riding the biggest wave.”

Robert Sund's poem -- Himself, making a bold statement of his art

“I am the heir of Walt Whitman and a first cousin to Gandalf.
I row the marsh and the sweet yellow iris calls my name.
I sing the tide and work the wind up the river,
To Disappearing Lake, around Bald Island,
Returning on the ebb tide and through Hole-in-the-Wall.
Aflame with thirst, I drive my oared skiff to the LaConner Tavern,
To shoot pool and quaff pitchers of Olympic beer.”


Tom Robbins makes a brief appearance in the Fishtown Blues.

He says, to his African girlfriend, while sitting on the bench on the landing of the Benton Street stairs:

“Hold on a minute,” Tom said. “Let me tell you something. I want to live forever. I never want to die. Even if I died in my sleep with no pain or memory, I wouldn’t like it. I would like to get out of my body if it rots, but where could I go? That’s why I came to Zimbabwe, to find you, because you don’t fear death. I don’t fear death either, but the idea of it really pisses me off."


Then I wrote this poem

Moses, Calling for Old Moses, He Ain't What He Used to Be

She was climbing trees,
Eating black-eyed peas,
Dusting the credenza on her knees.

She was watering the roses,
Talking trash with her poses
Of triumph over Moses.

She said, "Moses, who you kiddin?
Your madness isn't hidden,
You lost us in the desert,
And you're sins are not forgiven."

Teenagers Arrested for Sexual Assault

Teenagers Arrested for Sexual Assault

This story is so wrong, and on so many levels, that I must write about it.

The young woman was sexually assaulted having passed out from drink. The assailants took photos of this crime and broadcast them on social media. Subsequently, the young woman committed suicide.

Can it be proven that her suicide directly resulted from the shame she felt about having these awful images displayed? That's a legal question.

But I would say very likely. If the photos had not been broadcast around her high school, she would not have taken her life.

This is what the news story seems to emphasize -- and this is a very wrong story, very wrong.

The crime was the assault. That was the harm, the evil thing. The photos made it worse, but the crime was the assault.

The story says it was sexual assault. The story says she fell asleep. It doesn't say she passed out -- but I'm thinking she passed out from too much booze and was unconscious and was unaware that she was being assaulted.

What else do I know? The story says the assailants were three 16-year-old-old boys. And what do we know about 16-year-old boys? They are dumber than a cow, and they are about four to five times hornier than the average adult male who is reading this newsletter. They are plug stupid and they easily go out of control.

Did anyone ever tell these boys that it was wrong, that you are not supposed to touch, disrobe, or fondle a female friend (let's assume they were friends) if she is passed-out drunk? And not take photos while you're doing this, and not share these photos on Facebook. Did anybody tell them anything?

I'm going to dig into this a little further -- to discuss the matter that didn't seem to get into the news story about this crime and death.

The girl was drunk. She was 15 and she was drunk. Can that ever be a good thing? It happens, but it can't be a good thing.

Not just drunk, but passed-out drunk.

The story does not say whether the three assailants were drunk, but I'm thinking they were also drunk, although clearly not passed-out drunk, but conscious enough to commit the crime, conscious enough to know it was wrong (assuming someone told them it was wrong).

Three 16-year-old boys, dumb as a cow when they're cold sober, extravagantly horny -- if you can remember how you felt when you were that age -- and then fueled up with booze, in the company of pretty women similarly fueled up.

I can think of numerous bad and dangerous outcomes in this scenario. Suicide by Facebook photo is only one horrible possibility, but there are many ways this party ends badly.

You know what I'm thinking -- if they hadn't been drunk they wouldn't have assaulted the girl, and if she hadn't been drunk, she wouldn't have let them.

Is my thinking clear here? You take away the booze and there's no assault, no photos, and no suicide.

Teenagers are capable of hurting themselves and others even under ideal circumstances.

But still, we should strive to keep them and guard them and protect them.

We need to be watching over them. We need to not only tell them what to do and not do, we need to be present, and not leave them alone in large groups for long periods of time.

Being watched and being instructed, they are less likely to get drunk and commit the crime of sexual assault.

To me, the sexting, the photos and the social media angle is secondary, yes, worse, but let's focus on the crime -- which was the sexual assault, and what led up to it and how to prevent it from happening again.

So I'm saying -- tell the boys this short message -- 1. respect women 2. no means no and 3. keep your hands to yourself. ....... You might need to repeat this.

If your No means No and your Yes means Yes, then they will get the idea about what No means. But if your No means kinda, sorta, maybe, then they will learn that No doesn't really mean No, so make it plain and clear.

I recommend hypocrisy. It doesn't matter what you did when you were that age. If it's wrong, tell them it's wrong.

And finally, we should all realize that adolescence is a dangerous age and always will be.

Too Serious. I'm not going to be getting too serious on you. The next issue promises to be completely off the wall -- a testimony to the anarchy of springtime, an ode to James Joyce and all the Irish tenors.

Ted Talks. I expect to be giving a TED talk pretty soon. I haven't made the deal yet, but it seems like the right venue. I considered the MOTH for telling stories, but I actually don't care for that format.

Purging the Mailing Newsletter. If you have received this week's newsletter, you have survived the purge -- 75 other people were deleted.... My hope is to send the letter only to people who actually want to read it. The typical Frog Hospital reader does not read every word of every issue -- that's not required -- but they do seem to enjoy the mix.

Most of you do not pay for a subscription. But some of you do pay and that makes it work for everyone.

After you pay the rent or the mortgage, after you've bought the groceries, after you've put a little money away for your children's and grandchildren's education -- after taking care of these necessaries -- then why not send a $25 check to Frog Hospital.

Subscriptions. Your subscription money keeps the editor from getting cranky and self-righteous. Your check for $25 helps me maintain a degree of detachment. I do not support a cause on these pages. And I am truly grateful. Please go to PayPal at the Frog Hospital blog and contribute $25.

Or mail your check for $25 to

Fred Owens
35 West Main ST
Suite B #391
Ventura, CA 93001

Thank you very much,

Fred Owens

Facebook. Some of best stuff is on Facebook. Go to my page, Fred Owens, and friend me

Underwater

Wilmette Beach on Lake Michigan, some miles north of Chicago. It's a very big lake -- you can't see the other side, 60 miles away. Here you see the faint colors of sunrise, and it's so wonderfully calm. No tides, no currents -- but still, deep waters, and very clean as well. For drinking water in Chicago, they just run a large pipe out into the middle of the lake and bring it in for drinking -- doesn't need much in the way of filtrating or cleaning...... Sweet, fresh water....... Lots of fish too -- whitefish, lake trout, smelt, salmon, bass, crappies, and perch......Sea gulls too.

We used to go to the beach every day in the summer when we were kids. Hot skies, hot sand, cold water. Diving underwater, swimming in the lake. No finer beach anywhere.

Underwater, eyes wide open, looking at minnows.

three gay stories

By Fred Owens

Three Gay Stories

A Gay Teenager in Wilmette, Illinois, 1963

Cary Ross killed himself with a shotgun at his home out by Indian Hill. He was 17. He was my good friend in grade school when he lived across the alley. We lived on Forest Ave, and I would cross Forest Avenue, go through the Tuttles' yard, cross that alley, through O'Rourkes' yard, and over to Cary's house.

His mom, Betty, and my mom were pretty good friends. Anyway, Cary was gay from the gate -- talk about wired from birth! This kid was SO very interested in everyone's penis, and this was when we were 11-years-old and the only fun thing we did with our dicks was make yellow patterns in the snow... But Cary was different, we kind of laughed at him, but nobody really cared. Otherwise we had Boy Scout camping and ice-skating after school -- just regular kid stuff.

Fast forward. Cary's family moved out to Indian Hill, then he went to the public high school and the rest of us went to Catholic high school. We didn't see him much, but we heard things about who he was spending time with and it didn't sound good. It didn't sound bad either -- but strange. So he killed himself, and what I remember most was the look on his mother's face at the funeral.

A Gay Newspaper Publisher in Rural Texas

Bastrop, a small town in central Texas, the summer of 1986. I was working as a reporter for the Bastrop Advertiser, the local newspaper. My boss was Jack Fraser. He was gay. Jerry Appel, the business manager at the paper, was his partner.

Everybody in Bastrop knew Jack and Jerry were gay. This was the heyday of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, so it was all right as long as nobody said anything about it. Also Jack did not live in Bastrop, but lived in the next town over, closer to Austin. Jerry maintained a separate, probably fictional, residence in that same town, but it was likely that they actually lived together.

The Bastrop Advertiser was one of the best newspapers in Texas. Jack Fraser was a hard-hitting, outspoken liberal and he took on all the powers that be in that very conservative small town. Fearless, I called him. But he had a very courteous manner about him, so some outraged reader would storm into the office, and Jack would hear him out but hold his ground, and so he was respected.

But far worse than being liberal, and even worse than being gay, Jack and Jerry came from California. Can you imagine that? Two gay men from California, with liberal politics, move to a small town in Texas, buy the newspaper, make a good living, and nobody really cared. Except, you know, not talking about it.

A Gay Barber in Zimbabwe

So if a gay barber gives you a haircut and you don't mind, does that make you gay?

No, its doesn't mean you're gay, it just means you don't mind.

In 1997 I was living in Zimbabwe, in Bulawayo the regional capital of Matebeleland, a city of 500,000 people -- all black, but with maybe 5,000 white people here and there. I used to walk down the street, hundreds of people, all black, and I would look around -- I'm the only white guy!.... But I got used to it and no one molested me.

After I'm living in Bulawayo for a while I need to get a hair cut, and this is a problem because you can say anything you want about black people, but they have different hair -- totally different hair and I was not going to chance it -- having a black barber touch my head.

So I asked around, with a direct question, "Where do the white guys go to get their hair cut?" Well, everybody knew where that shop was, so I went over to get my hair cut by a white man, and he was gay. You know, like the way you can tell these things, telling me about his interests in theater and pornography, and just general demeanor. He kind of hinted about things, as if I might be interested, but I wasn't. I mean, he was a nice guy, and he gave me a good haircut, but that was all.

In1997, there were hardly any white men in Bulawayo, and far fewer gay white men, so this barber probably had about three friends in the whole town.

Notes.

Obituary. Cary P. Ross, 17, a senior at New Trier High School, died last week in his home at 216 Summerfield road, Northbrook. He was the son of Carleton P. and Roberta Schilbach Ross, both Wilmette natives. Other survivors are two brothers, Jeffery and Ward; a sister, Linda; and a grandmother, Mrs. Clyde P. Ross of Evanston, formerly of Wilmette. Published in Wilmette Life, a weekly newspaper, in November, 1963.

Jack Fraser. Jack Fraser sold the Bastrop Advertiser a few years later and moved back to California.

The Gay Barber in Zimbabwe. Being Gay in Zimbabwe is not easy. Excerpt from this Wikipedia entry: Homosexuality is highly taboo in this socially conservative country and Mugabe's anti-gay stance resonates with many Zimbabweans.

Life is hard for gay people in Zimbabwe. Life is hard for everyone now.
Purging the Mailing Newsletter. If you have received this week's newsletter, you have survived the purge -- 75 other people were deleted.... My hope is to send the letter only to people who actually want to read it. The typical Frog Hospital reader does not read every word of every issue -- that's not required -- but they do seem to enjoy the mix.
Most of you do not pay for a subscription. But some of you do pay and that makes it work for everyone.

After you pay the rent or the mortgage, after you've bought the groceries, after you've put a little money away for your children's and grandchildren's education -- after taking care of these necessaries -- then why not send a $25 check to Frog Hospital.

Subscriptions. Your subscription money keeps the editor from getting cranky and self-righteous. Your check for $25 helps me maintain a degree of detachment. I do not support a cause on these pages. And I am truly grateful. Please go to PayPal at the Frog Hospital blog and contribute $25.

Or mail your check for $25 to

Fred Owens
35 West Main ST
Suite B #391
Ventura, CA 93001

Thank you very much,

Fred Owens

Facebook. Some of best stuff is on Facebook. Go to my page, Fred Owens, and friend me.

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001



--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

We are all artists now.

We are all artists now.

Unfortunately we all get paid like artists.

Marshall McLuhan said all this would happen. He said that in the 1960s. I knew him personally because I went to St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto, where McLuhan taught on the English faculty.

McLuhan described the future -- "we won't have jobs anymore, we will play roles, we will all be artists and actors, not wage earners" -- so he said.

Incredibly, that happened, There are no jobs anymore, jobs went out with objectivity. Now we play roles according to our body types and habits. The horror is that's how we get paid. When we had jobs we all got paid, some more than others, but we all got paid. But now we are all artists, so we are paid like artists -- one-tenth of one percent makes millions, and the 99 make close to nothing.

McLuhan saw this coming. He was detached. He said, "I see the future, that doesn't mean I welcome it personally. I would prefer to have lived in the time of the Middle Ages." -- Really, he said that.

I shoulda never went to his class. McLuhan had tenure, he kept HIS job all along. But role playing? McLuhan famously played himself in a cameo appearance in Annie Hall, predating Steven Colbert by 30 or 40 years. But who the hell is going to pay you for playing yourself?

The jobs are gone, my friend. They're not coming back. You're on your own, like a rolling stone (Help! I'm having flashbacks!)

No jobs, unless you move to Midland, Texas, where the shale oil economy is booming and Wal-Mart is hiring warm bodies at $17 per hour.

Back to McLuhan. He described the global village, he didn't say he wanted to live in it.

I was his student, I didn't say I understood him. Nobody understood McLuhan, not even McLuhan. I am also good friends with his biographer Philip Marchand....... McLuhan, in his personal habits, was quite conventional and conservative -- as well as being a fairly traditional Catholic.

A friend of mine in his class submitted a paper in a multi-media format, partly taped recorded and partly illustrated -- thinking McLuhan would like that, but McLuhan rejected the submission --- stick to the standard format he told my friend.

The lecture I remember the best was McLuhan on TS Eliot the Wasteland. This was given in the Elmsley Lounge as part of an overall celebration and bounteous sherry was served to students and faculty alike. I don't actually remember anything he said, but we drank a lot of sherry and had a wonderful time.

After that lecture they stopped serving unlimited free sherry to undergraduates.

..........................................................................

President Obama recently visited Israel and Jordan, while John Kerry was in Iraq. Here is my reaction:

I found this poem in a drawer,
Labelled 1954.

"No breathing allowed," said the Iranian priest.
"Israel does not have a right to exist."

But we grew these oranges, we built Tel Aviv,
Our children were born here, we're not going to leave.

"You can go back to Europe, to Spain or Morocco,
Go back to the shtetl, the shul, and the ghetto.

We don't want you here......"

But this song, can't you hear?

Jerusalem is golden, isn't that true?
The color of our flag is white and blue,

We welcome the green of your Islamic faith,
We will live together until our last breath,

Breathing is living, we breath and exist,
We are you, and you are all there is.

Jerusalem of Gold

This uplifting song ends Schindler's List. Spielberg's film and this song have the flavor of 1954 -- the rhythm of Golda Meir, Abba Eban, and Herman Wouk, with notes of triumph and hope. Imagine the shining look in Sal Mineo's eyes in the 1960 movie Exodus.

Israel

I'm not a big fan of anyone's historic claims, but I do recognize existence when I see it. Israel -- there it is. It gets quickly complicated after that. Do people who exist have a right to continue to exist? You could tell them that they have no right to exist, and yet they are still there.

This analogy may not spring to your mind, but I think of plants -- weeds, native species, invasive species, plants growing where you want them to, plants you wish were not growing there.

But it really helps if you first acknowledge the existence of same. You can't get rid of something by saying it doesn't exist. Unless it doesn't exist, in which case you don't have to do anything.

Excuse me, Martin Buber just called collect, gotta run.

Baby Boomers.

We are a generation distinguished by the fact that we exist -- going to the grave and still celebrated for our collective birth -- you can't brag on that.

Our numbers cause a bulge in the American population. We are in that human age which is naturally conservative -- old -- so the whole country is old right now.

We out-sourced pregnancy and child-rearing to Mexico and points south. Those young brown men and women are the babies we didn't want to bear, and the children we didn't want to raise, so we hired it out, and then they grew up and were mystically drawn to the US.


I Wish

I wish I was John Steinbeck,
With his mice, his men and his truck.

I wish I was Ernest Hemingway,
He had all the luck.

He made his days in the sun,
Then he killed himself with a shotgun.

I wish I was TS Eliot,
He came from St. Louis , you know,
Then he worked in a bank,
And became Anglican,
Writing poems with his elbows and toes.

I wish I was a Buddhist or a monk,
Or an acolyte,
If that's all right,
Anyway to escape this funk.

Subscriptions. Your subscription money keeps the editor from getting cranky and self-righteous. Your check for $25 helps me maintain a degree of detachment. I do not support a cause on these pages. And I am truly grateful. Please go to PayPal at the Frog Hospital blog and contribute $25.

Or mail your check for $25 to

Fred Owens
35 West Main ST
Suite B #391
Ventura, CA 93001

Thank you very much,

Fred Owens

Facebook. Some of best stuff is on Facebook. Go to my page, Fred Owens, and friend me.


--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

Terrible Poems

"Gun Control." This is a meaningless term and it leads to the silly question of whether you are for it or against it. Consider my suggestion for better language. The debate focuses on gun ownership -- who may legally own a weapon, and what type of weapons might be legally owned.

That's ownership. Possession means you have it, whether legally or not. "Use" means firing the weapon, but it can mean displaying the weapon with an intent........ but "control" doesn't mean anything.

We can make better laws if we use better language.

If you own a weapon and you loan it to your friend, then he possesses it. If he then uses that weapon to commit a crime, are you responsible? To what degree?

We can make better laws to govern this behavior if we make the effort to speak clearly.

Charlie Krafft. Charlie is still in the news. Yesterday I was interviewed by The New Yorker, concerning my objection to his words, which I consider to be anti-Semitic. This story began with the Frog Hospital letter of January 11 and then spread to national media websites. It should be ending pretty soon, one hopes. Anti-Semitism is not only shocking and evil -- it also gets very boring.That's one of it's tell-tale signs -- the banality of it.

I have objected to Charlie's words, not his ceramic art. But I will say this -- displaying the swastika in art is not a good thing, it scares people. No, not now, but maybe a hundred years from now it might be all right to use this symbol.

The New Pope. We can dispose of one problem quickly. The media cries corruption and scandal at the mis-use of money and power within the Curia -- the governing body of the Catholic Church. Where is the Vatican located? In Rome, in Italy. So, like, duh, to use California jargon, the Church is not corrupt, it's Italian.

The sex abuse situation is another matter. It's not funny -- they have to do better.

Pope Francis says he will help the poor. I'm glad he said that, but how will he do that -- give out food stamps?

I like the Catholic Church and the ruling papacy. It is the largest and wealthiest organization on this planet without a standing army. The Pope may cast you into perdition, but he cannot invade your country. As such, this makes him more useful than the United Nations -- he might be able to persuade or influence national leaders in a good way.

You Can Thank Me. I got up at 5:30, drove to the beach and took a sunrise walk. The fog was thick, the sound of crashing waves was muted, the light emerged quietly. I had the sand to myself, except for one surf fisherman. During this 90 minute walk I composed the outline of a 5,000 word essay on culture and politics. When I got back to my car I realized that I would not have the time to write it. This depressed me until I realized that you wouldn't have time to read it either. So it is much better for everyone if I just give you two short poems.

A Short Poem is a Good Poem

A Baptist and a Buddhist walked into a bar,
But I haven't gotten very far,

In writing this poem
In yellow and chrome
In pale-green sea foam.

The Buddhist said Save Me,
I'm scared half to death.
The Baptist laughed and said
Save Your Breath,

Cause I'm going to visit the Dalai Lama,
And tell him that it's time to stop this drama.

This is an old story, it might not be true,
Of a Baptist, a Buddhist, a Catholic, a Jew

In the LaConner Tavern in 1982,
Sonia was making crab-burgers for a select few.

That was back in the day when you could run a tab.
You could get drunk and walk home, you didn't need a cab.

Dirty Biter was scrounging,
Clyde Sanborn was lounging,

Robert Sund was sponging,
While he chalked up his cue.
And tourists came in for the view

Of Swinomish Channel,
The log rafts, the sea gulls,
The herons, the eagles,
And derelict hulls.

(Dirty Biter was a well-known dog-about-town at that time)

The Lion of Cambridge

I saw Harvey Blume
Arise from his tomb.

I am not dead, he lamented,
Only pickled and somewhat demented.

Dill pickled? I asked.
No, bone-weary, bare naked, un-masked.

That was in Cambridge in Harvard Square
Where Harvey played chess with devils and bears,

Bears of uncertainty, wild and free,
While the Red Line rumbled underneath on its way to the sea.

Does a bear shit in the woods? Harvey joked.
No, the bear took the Red Line to Quincy and croaked.

You can Thank Me. Frog Hospital is still surprising after 15 years. You still don't know what to expect from one issue to the next. We only have two rules. Tell the truth and don't waste anyone's time. Please consider buying a subscription, and I thank you in return.

Subscriptions. Your subscription money keeps the editor from getting cranky and self-righteous. Your check for $25 helps me maintain a degree of detachment. I do not support a cause on these pages. And I am truly grateful. Please go to PayPal at the Frog Hospital blog and contribute $25.

Or mail your check for $25 to

Fred Owens
35 West Main ST
Suite B #391
Ventura, CA 93001

Thank you very much,

Fred Owens

Facebook. Some of best stuff is on Facebook. Go to my page, Fred Owens, and friend me.
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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

I Hope, The New Pope, Isn't a Dope

I Hope,
The New Pope,
Isn't a Dope

Let us pray,
He might be gay.

New red shoes,
For the man they choose.

They sit in pews,
And share their views,
Then send up smoke,
But not a toke.

Women are watching,
But they can't vote.
"We can't even send in a post-it note!"

The cardinals are celibate,
But just for the hell of it,
They watch women peeling,
On the Sistine ceiling.

But leave the boys alone,
Or we'll never atone,
Said the men in red
-- we'd be better off dead.

There was a papabili,
Who only spoke Swahili.
He said we need a man,
With an African plan,
But the Italians said don't be so silly.

The Argentine threw his red hat in,
but he could not speak medieval Latin.

You can't use a condom,
Non est disputandum.

We're catching up with modern times,
But slowly, slowly, let the bells chime.

Retrospective -- A letter to the Frog Hospital in 2006, from LaConner's Indomitable Mayor, Wayne Everton, regarding the future of the oil economy.

Dear Fred,

It's been my experience that we find solutions when we need to and not before. All of the various substitutes for petroleum will, I believe, be invented or found or discovered about 10 years before the crisis gets unmanageable.The fall out, of course, won't be the lack of oil but the lack of the money that oil produces. Will the new substitutes produce income for the plastics manufacturers? The tire manufacturers? The Middle East countries? The auto makers of the world? All the others who are dependent on the income?

I doubt the end of the oil age will be sudden and dramatic, as the film seems to predict. It will be slow and evolutionary, like the end of the steel age, or the iron age.

I assume we will not only find substitutes for petroleum but also for the by-products..... like war. There are so many other reasons for countries to annihilate each other I feel confident we will find one, or more, that fills the need. Non-existent weapons of mass destruction comes to mind but there must be others at least as imaginative. Mel Gibbson proved, I believe, in his great historical "Braveheart" that there is no need for massive weapons. Stones and arrows will probably be used in WW3 so oil won't be needed, either as a necessity or a pretence.

Revelations, I've found, work best in retrospect. It's easier to say "I knew that was going to happen" than to say "I know what's going to happen". Christians are like Republicans and Republicans are like the oil supply. Some day they'll all be gone.

You seem happy where you are, Fred, and I'm happy for you.

Wayne

FROG HOSPITAL REPLIES: Dear Wayne, it's been seven years since you wrote this and two things have happened. First, you are no longer with us, gone someplace in the spirit, and we miss you -- most of us do. Second, we haven't run out of oil yet -- the fracking technology has turned it all upside down and, ignoring the environmental problem, we seem to have a surplus rather than a scarcity.

But the best part of your letter is the opening sentence, and I repeat with emphasis your own words:

It's been my experience that we find solutions when we need to and not before.

That's actually a very hopeful statement.

If you've been fortunate, you may have known one or several beautiful women

I deny everything. I regret nothing.

The Astonishing Debbie Rosenblatt. I forgot the promise I made to myself. After I met Debbie Rosenblatt from a personals ad in the Boston Globe I said I would never, ever do that again – because she was such a winner.

It was like hitting the $10,000 jackpot on a slot machine. Take the money and never go back to that casino again – after giving everybody working there a nice tip, of course. But don't go back to the honey pot. Good luck is a moving target. Wherever you found it, it won't be there the next time.

I called her up after I read her ad. She lived in Framingham, an outer suburb. She was a widow. She told me her age – she was seven years older than me. Then she said, "I'm probably too old for you." But she was fun to talk to. I said let's meet. She suggested this old-fashioned watering hole in Wellesley. I thought – what the heck.

I got there a little early, to make sure she wouldn't have to wait for me. I am compulsively punctual anyway. But it was when I saw her walk into the room, making an entrance – that's when I called her astonishing.

She was five-foot ten and she had legs up to here, a long, elegant neck that would put Audrey Hepburn to shame, and longer arms that waved in the air like a flock of snow-white geese, and sparkled in the light with dozens of gold bracelets and scarlet red, red, red polish on her exquisite fingernails.

She just said hello and "you must be Fred," but to me it sounded like "How are you, handsome?" Such enthusiasm and zest, pitter pattering – she loved jazz and dancing and her precious daughter and those special, darling children of mine – she asked me about them, and was sure they would grow up to be famous and wealthy.

I took her dancing, to the rooftop of a Boston skyscraper, valet parking, Cole Porter, and she was lovely and smelled so good. We made love and we were so hot.

Debbie and I had a fling. Nothing as good as a widow – she loved her husband, but he was gone and buried. All she wanted to do was have a good time and enjoy herself again with her new lover.

For a season, not more than a month. Truth is, I couldn't afford it. I was the sole support of those two kids. Valet parking was something I couldn't keep up, and I only had one sport coat and a few good shirts.

Debbie was completely innocent in her needs, which were expensive. So we called the whole thing off. Oh, I forgot about the grand piano in her living room. She could be so ecstatic just to hear me stumble through a few chords of Gershwin. The room would have been garish with color and crystal, but it was so like Debbie, so completely true to her nature.

She had me over for a seder, with a few friends and relatives who enjoyed complaining about everything. I felt at home and smiled.

No, my life was too serious. But a woman so sexy and so virtuous and honest too. I can see her shining in the sky, and hot and grabbing my hair on her bed.

We called it off. We became friends – this was a new idea to her. Everything was new. She had lead a sheltered life and married her first boyfriend, and he was a good husband and all her needs were provided for. She never had a job, a merry widow she became and I was her first man. There were others after me. We talked on the phone sometimes.

But it's been years, I had forgotten. These computer dates are weird. The meetings are hollow and so un-fated. I have met several women this way, nice enough, but now that I remember Debbie, I know that I won't ever do that again.

Subscriptions. Your subscription money keeps the editor from getting cranky and self-righteous. Your check for $25 helps me maintain a degree of detachment. I do not support a cause on these pages. And I am truly grateful. Please go to PayPal at the Frog Hospital blog and contribute $25.

Or mail your check for $25 to

Fred Owens
35 West Main ST
Suite B #391
Ventura, CA 93001

Thank you very much,

Fred Owens

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Fred Owens
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My blog is Fred Owens

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Ventura CA 93001

Red Quinoa and Tofu

FROG HOSPITAL -- unsubscribe anytime

Feb. 25, 2013

Red Quinoa and Tofu

By Fred Owens


Red Quinoa and Tofu. Red quinoa has a nice nutty flavor and an earthy brick-red color. I made a stir fry to serve with red quinoa last night. Here's the recipe:

1-pound Firm Tofu, cubed and patted dry with a towel. Marinate with sesame oil, garlic powder, lemon-pepper salt and a dash of cayenne.

2-medium leeks. Slice and steam until tender -- if you put the leeks right in with the other veggies they won't get tender.

1-cup red quinoa. It cooks quickly with two cups of water. Set aside.

Heat the saute pan with generous oil. I used olive oil. Add the tofu on a high flame until it gets a little brown. Add -- but do not stir in, just add it on top of the tofu -- the leeks, some chopped green onions, a few broccoli florets and a bunch of chopped chard. Turn the heat down, let it cook for a while.

Then stir up the tofu amongst all the veggies, put a lid on the pan, and let it simmer for a bit longer.

Serve over the red quinoa.

We grew the broccoli in the winter garden. The chard was a gift from the carpenter's son. The leeks were bought at the Saturday farmers market in Santa Barbara.

I had a glass of Guinness Stout with this meal. Quite nice on a cold and windy night -- what passes for winter in Southern California.

Michele Obama Announces Best Picture Oscar Michele Obama will be the last First Lady. Changes in our marriage customs will make this role meaningless. The next President may or may not have a spouse, but that spouse will have a career in some non-political field -- an architect perhaps -- but will not play any social role at the White House.

The Next Pope. The next pope will come from Brazil or Argentina. He will be 60 years old, plus or minus. He will spend very little time in Rome, but will instead establish an informal second papal home in his own country...... The Italian cardinals will support this new Pope because he will not overthrow the status quo.

Girls go to College, Boys go to Prison.

Girls go to College, Boys go to Prison. This is not a good trend.

Young men are imprisoned at record rates because they do not know how to behave.

In the 1950s coherent and strong social controls compelled good behavior in young men leading to low crime rates at that time...... The social controls were abandoned in the 1960s and the crime rate soared. Since nobody could agree on what new social controls could be imposed on young men, the alternate solution was installed -- just lock them up.

There is no emerging consensus on what constitutes good behavior in our culture, so we cannot expect any choice but prison for our young men.

Other factors apply -- sentences are too long, non-violent drug offenders should not be jailed in the first place, and Private Prisons should not be allowed to infect justice with the profit motive -- but we still need to consider better social controls instead of prison.

First Class Mail. Conservatives believe that government is inherently oppressive and inefficient. I don't agree with that. I think government can do good things. First-class mail is a good thing. Rural residents -- many very conservative people -- have benefited for generations because of this subsidy. It costs more to deliver mail to out of the way places, and if Federal Express did this, they would simply charge more for rural delivery, but the Post Office charges the same whether it's across the street or down some distant gravel road out in the boondocks.

Same with power and electricity -- the big cities were wired for electric lights by private utilities, but it cost too much per customer to run power lines out into the country. So the government did that in the 1930s -- read about LBJ's early career in the Texas Hill country when he worked to get the lights on out on the farm.

But government is getting a bad name lately because they can't seem to do anything right. I don't want hear "our schools need more money because our kids are failing." I want to hear, "look at these wonderful children we taught." I want government to fix the roads before they build the bullet train. Why don't they do something that will impress the skeptics? -- do it on time and under budget -- that would get my attention.

In the future, society will be one-third celibate, one-third homosexual, and one-third pro-creative.

The first part -- one-third celibate -- is surprising but we're going to see a decline in Eros, or at least the genital variety. The root of Eros is the life instinct to reproduce. You cut that connection and first you have an outburst of wild sex, which is what we see now, but then sex diminishes -- because there's no need for it -- and celibacy becomes a voluntary and desirable status. Life is the root, Eros is the flower.

One-third celibate, one third homosexual, and one-third pro-creative.

St Mike's Mourns Fr. Robert J. Madden C.S.B., 1928~2013

Fr. Madden was my freshman English teacher at this small Catholic college -- part of the University of Toronto. After he retired from teaching he took over alumni affairs and he stayed in touch with me and a lot of my class mates.

After one class re-union, I came up with this much better idea --

What bothered me about alumni affairs, the fundraising, and the reunions, was that it was all about success -- achievements, milestones, things you brag about.

I thought we could do a little better at St. Mikes and make the events about failures. You were twenty pounds overweight, you just lost your job, your wife left you, your daughter is anorexic, your son is dealing drugs and you're clinically depressed. These things, at least some of them, have happened to all of us.

So you don't come to the reunion, and they don't put that sad news in the newsletter. And yet those moments are when you could really use a little backup from your classmates.

Success takes care of itself, but we ought to be there for each other during times of failure.

Those are my thoughts as they sent Bob Madden away to his celestial rest -- he was a very good man, and I miss him already.

My Old College Roommate. I might write a story about my old college room-mate. I knew him well, we roomed together for three years. We weren't friends in that sense -- we never did things together, but why would we? We slept in the same bedroom, or shared the same apartment for three years -- not much point in going out for a beer on top of all that.

So, anyhow, I have this story idea, only who would be interested? Nobody. They say a good writer can make anything interesting..... No, a good writer might discover that interesting bit, might reveal it, but you can't concoct it whole cloth. There's no make believe. Think of writers with fantastic imaginations -- Ray Bradbury and his sci-fi creations, but he was still working with human clay, picking up pieces of what he saw around him and molding them together into a story.

But that doesn't help. Even Ray Bradbury could not write an interesting story about my college room-mate. And Quentin Tarantino wouldn't even try....... Tarantino would find some violent and dramatic story and amplify it to extremes -- blowing up buildings, shooting people -- shock, speed, quiet shattered by screams of obscenity, relentless pressure .... he would ramp it up -- so what could Tarantino do with two boys on the farm in Nebraska? Picture this:

Tom Orent and his brother Dick, both sitting in recliners, watching TV on a hot evening in July in 1966 -- a away out in the middle of Nebraska, a few miles down a gravel road from a small town called North Loup -- called North Loup because it's situated on the North Loup River, a tributary of the Platte...... Tom and Dick out on the farm, got five hundred acres in corn, got a long-low super-modern high-tech barn that houses a pig-feeding operation with a few thousands hogs. They grow the corn, feed the hogs, sell the hogs, and grow more hogs again next year. Where's the story?..... The farm is pretty in places, some forested ravines run through it, where live a herd of deer that feast on the harvest corn, and provide venison for the winter freezer.

Pretty exciting -- Quentin Tarantino can eat his heart out, because I have the high-drama concept going here -- Tom and Dick on the farm, eating popcorn. You know what Michele Obama said, "you will grip your arm-rest a little tighter," with vivid scene likes this.

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

Charlie Krafft Story Stirs National Debate

..... I was waiting for somebody else to say this. It's an unpleasant topic, so it was easier to pretend it wasn't going on. Finally I just decided to call it bullshit and be done with it. What happened is that I was playing online chess with Harvey. He's Jewish. He lives in Boston. I told him about my friend Charlie Krafft and his anti-Semitic ravings on Facebook. Harvey said why do you even have such a friend?

Good point. So I blocked Charlie on Facebook, because it's not a debatable question. I wasn't initiating a dialog with him, I was ending it.

I also stated this clearly in a Frog Hospital newsletter, dated January 11. People emailed me after that, old friends of Charlie's, saying it's about time for this..... good for you ... yes, it needed to be said .....

But a dangerous path is fixing somebody's life, so I just forgot the whole thing. I'm living in Santa Barbara these days. The weather is nice down here and who needs trouble.

Meanwhile, my story stirred up a national debate on anti-Semitism -- read the story about Charlie Krafft in the Huffington Post -- I am interviewed at the end of it. And one other story about Charlie, also in the Huffington Post.

Both of these national stories were based on a similar story in the Seattle Stranger written by art critic Jen graves --- this story generated more than 200 comments. You might find it interesting to scroll through the comments, especially toward the end, when the white supremacists come out of their dark holes to defend Charlie. These people actually exist!

And the Stranger story was based on my Frog Hospital newsletter about Charlie's bad habit -- posted further down --

The sad thing is that Seattle's soft-headed "tolerant" climate has known and put up with Charlie's mad hatred for many years. It was really about time somewhat called it bullshit, which I did, and apparently it's sticking.

Charlie makes a modest living as an artist. He promotes himself very well. He thrives on controversy. He's verbally agile. But this stuff he's gotten into -- if that's how he needs to make a living, it would be more honorable to collect food stamps or sponge off your relatives.

From the January 11 Frog Hospital

A Message for Charlie Krafft

Charlie Krafft is a well-known and well-liked Seattle artist with a penchant for notoriety. Charlie's appearance is courtly and his manners are thoughtful. He can be quite good company at a dinner in Chinatown -- a part of Seattle that he knows very well.

Then of course there is history -- his sojourn in Fishtown back in the misty dawn of hippies days, when he lived his monk-life in a small cabin on the North Fork of the Skagit River.

But the problem with Charlie -- this is a recent development -- and why beat around the bush -- Charlie has become anti-Semitic. He doesn't yell or scream or say he hates Jews. No, not like that, much more quietly. He might say it's research or just following his curiosity to peer into various websites which preach the Holocaust denial and warn of the Zionist conspiracy.

Charlie has over 2,000 friends on Facebook -- a good place for him to promote his art. You can cruise his Facebook page and find links to all kind of websites. Just this morning, I found a link he had posted to a YouTube video about how the Jews had masterminded the opium trade in China at the end of the imperial age.

Why is that so important to Charlie? He wanted to investigate the behavior of Jewish merchants in the previous century who were doing something they shouldn't have been doing -- it being fairly easy to discover Jewish (i.e. human) transgressions against the common good.

But, Charlie, why are you so interested in Jewish behavior?

He has told me in person that he advocates a "genteel anti-Semitism" -- sort of a high-church Anglican snobbery, as if it were a harmless custom.

I don't think it's harmless. I think it's bad and wrong and nasty and a debasement of Charlie's own character.

He should stop doing this.

Here's another one -- Charlie just sent it to me yesterday, headlined "The Jewish Mafia and Their USA Bankers." How does Charlie find the time to do all this research?

This is nasty stuff. There is nothing good in it.

A lot of people know and like Charlie, including myself. We've been saying for years, "Oh Charlie, that's just the way he is." Why did we ever tolerate this?

I'm not in the habit of fixing someone's life, but here I make an exception. I want this to stop.

Charlie, give it up or be gone!


Onward.



--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

It's a Lover's Question

Does she love me, with all her heart?
Should I worry, when we're apart?
It's a lover's question, I'd like to know.

It's a lover's question. Clyde McPhatter sang these immortal lyrics. Of course you have doubts. Is love a sure thing? No.

La Donna e Mobile says the same thing. Are you sure she loves you? Maybe you shouldn't take her for granted. Pay attention, young man.

And, old man, it's not over, it's never over, you can still screw up, so keep on your toes.

The Weather. Strong rains in Santa Barbara, a huge blizzard bearing down on New England, and a rather large meteorite rushing by Planet Earth this weekend.

What can I do about this? I can plant more seeds. I have celery, cilantro and basil to get started in flats -- probably too soon for the basil, but I'll take a chance on that.

You Can't Eat the Label. In my last message I said to buy food if it tastes good and if it doesn't cost too much. Of course, you should read the label, and question the decisions of the Food and Drug Administration, and support your local farmer, and buy organic -- all that good stuff.

But you don't eat the label, you eat the food, and you need to trust your senses. Does it look good? Is the color all right? Does it smell tasty?

And the people at the store or the market ..... do you like them? Are they friendly? Are the clean? That's an unpleasant question ..... the world is full of germs and you can take precautions, but the best defense is a robust immune system and you keep up that defense by a limited exposure to pathogens. Seriously, you won't get through life being germ free -- you need to have a better attitude when you eat root beer Popsicles and Fritos, like, "This won't kill me. No. In fact, it will make me happy, and if I'm happy I will live longer and be more healthy."

Love is the Answer. Good food is all about love. Those quiet, stern farmers -- they grow so much food. Why do they work so hard to feed us? Because they love us.. You still have to pay for it -- the farmers need the money in order to keep on farming. But it's love that makes the harvest..

Food prepared and served with love will make you stronger and better-looking. And if you sit down at table with people you care about, you will dine well.

But if you eat in your car by yourself -- ugh! You could be eating the most purified organic toasty granola health bars, but if you gulp it down while you're stuck in traffic, it won't do you any good. Don't eat in your car, and don't buy food at the same place you buy gasoline. It smells bad. And remember, the reason they have the sign up in the bathroom that says "Employees must wash hands ...." -- is because they don't wash their hands.

Recipe -- this dish needs a name. I made this polenta dish last night based on what I found in the frig -- a hearty stew, good for a winter's night.

Take equal amounts of polenta, tofu, zucchini and baby portabella mushrooms. Cube the tofu, pat it dry on a towel, sprinkle with plenty of garlic powder and then add, more lightly, some lemon salt and tobasco or any other hot sauce. Cube the polenta into pieces a little bigger than the tofu. Similarly slice and dice the zucchini and mushrooms.

In a big pan, saute all four ingredients in a generous amount of olive oil. Add some soy sauce. Cook it for a while on a low heat. Then pour over the whole beautiful mess with a half a carton of Tomato and Roast Pepper soup from Trader Joe's -- let it simmer for a while. I needed to add a dash of water to keep it going. You can make it thinner or thicker, depending on taste.

It was delicious. It's the polenta that makes it so filling, which is what I wanted last night.

Happy Valentines .......

Buy the cookbook for only $15. That includes shipping. It's the Puget Sound Mail Cookbook, a love story with recipes. The story is simple. It's winter in Cambridge, Mass. A love affair ends and the man is broken-hearted, so he fixes nice meals for himself -- at least he has that pleasure. Time passes and the springtime comes and the sadness is gone --- that's the story in a nutshell, plus lots of good recipes here and there throughout the book.

For $15, which includes shipping, you can have this slim volume in a week or so. Go to my blog at Frog Hospital and hit the PayPal button. Or make out a check for Fred Owens and mail it to 35 W Main St, Suite B #391 Ventura CA 93001.

You will enjoy this book.


Puget Sound Mail Cookbook, a love story with recipes. Why is it called the Puget Sound Mail Cookbook when the story takes place in Cambridge, Massachusetts?

For only $15, which includes shipping.

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

It's Still Winter in California

It's Still Winter in California. Yesterday it was spring in Santa Barbara. I pruned the apple tree and the peach tree, working in warm, sunny weather, taking my outer shirt off. I harvested two heads of broccoli. I planted seeds for beets. I weeded out around the sweet peas. I took the weed whacker and cut down tall grass on the hillside. Then I hauled up several bins of green debris -- up 2 flights of stairs -- up from the garden to the curbside for morning pick up....

I planted three milkweeds to attract the butterflies -- planted them around the small pond, plus I planted what I call a sweet pea bush underneath the cape myrtle and next to the cement pelican statue.

We compost most greens on the property -- saving the bigger sticks for kindling. But some of the harsher euphorbia leaves will take about 100 years to break down, so we let the city haul them away -- they get run through a high-powered grinder and then turned to mulch.

Meanwhile, my horticultural partner, known as Ms. Lovely, was pruning her roses, 4 and 5 canes per plant on the hybrid tea roses, and upwards of ten canes on the floribundas.

We pronounced sentence on a tired old rose with a big knobby base, but just two skinny stems. No future, she said, hasn't bloomed in two years. I took my sharp spade and dug up the old bush -- that's a part of life and it happens to all of us -- tossed it in the bin without ceremony. Might buy a new one to fill the space although she said maybe just leave it open and give the other roses more room -- room for the wind to blow and keep diseases and bugs away.

Afterward, she put on dormant spray, on the roses, on the apricot and apple trees, and on the grape vines.

That was yesterday. Today the clouds have returned and the rain should come tomorrow. Southern California might be the only place in the country with normal weather, but we have had just about the right amount of rain this winter, interspersed with warmer, sunnier days. In late January we had night-time frosts for about 5 to 7 days -- but not too harsh, didn't seem to damage the local citrus trees, and the experts say a good frost kills bugs and hardens the grape vines nicely. So we have had good weather up til now and who knows how long that will last.

Issues and Opinions. I am being recruited to take a stand against GM foods (genetically modified) but I decline the offer. I don't even care about organic anymore, or local. I have scattered all these fads and dismissed them -- for the time being. For now, here's what I eat -- if it tastes good and it doesn't cost too much, then I buy it and prepare it. I avoid take out food and prepared and packaged food -- but I'm not doing this because of someone's righteous program, I'm just doing it because food I make myself tastes better and it costs less money.

In my lifetime I have kept a small carbon footprint and been doing that for many years before I ever heard the term "carbon foot print." Just think "cheap" and you will have a small footprint too. Or you could buy a book that tells you how to do this, and then take a class, but pretty soon you're trusting the experts and I advise against that.

I'm the kind of expert you can trust, because I would just tell you to go home and figure it out yourself.

I do recommend 19th century novels, however. Try anything by Thomas Hardy, or Chas. Dickens. Good books will simultaneously ease and stimulate your mind -- laying the groundwork for making good decisions, and your good decisions will make our happy earth a better place for everyone.

Che Gelida Manina -- and never despair, beauty and goodness are always present


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--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001