Don't Drink the Water . . .

. . . or, in this case, don't eat the burgers. . . 
Can't, in any good conscience, endorse the food they serve at that Scottish restaurant on the the clown commercials.  But I can say that the Ronald McDonald House is a breath of fresh air in world where many seem to place continuously decreasing value on the lives of their fellow human beings.  I had the opportunity to provide some Gonzo Piano music at mealtime at one such house and found it a wonderful experience.


(from http://www.rmhc.org/ronald-mcdonald-house)
Many families travel far from home and spend several weeks or months to get treatment for their seriously ill or injured children – a long time to be away or to divide a family. And, for children facing a serious medical crisis, nothing seems scarier than not having mom and dad close by for love and support. A Ronald McDonald House is that “home-away-from-home” for families so they can stay close by their hospitalized child at little or no cost.

Our Houses are built on the simple idea that nothing else should matter when a family is focused on the health of their child – not where they can afford to stay, where they will get their next meal or where they will lay their head at night to rest. We believe that when a child is hospitalized the love and support of family is as powerful as the strongest medicine prescribed.

. . .Families are stronger when they are together, which helps in the healing process. By staying at a Ronald McDonald House, parents also can better communicate with their child’s medical team and keep up with complicated treatment plans when needed. They can also focus on the health of their child, rather than grocery shopping, cleaning or cooking meals.

. . . When your child is sick, you want the best care possible – even if it is hundreds or thousands of miles away. The Ronald McDonald House allows families to access specialized medical treatment by providing a place to stay at little or sometimes no cost. . .

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Looks Like . . .

. . . Bernie's right. . .


(from bernie@bernie.org)
It is not acceptable that a handful of right-wing extremists in the House have shut down the government and are now pushing for the United States, for the first time in our history, to not pay its bills -- precipitating a likely international financial crisis.  It is widely believed that there now exists in the House a majority of members (virtually all Democrats and some moderate Republicans) who are prepared to vote for a clean continuing budget resolution which would immediately re-open the government.  House Speaker Boehner must allow the House to have that vote.

It is also important that people understand that the real issue here is not just the desire of Republicans to defund Obamacare. At a time when the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing, these right-wing ideologues want to repeal virtually every piece of legislation passed in the last 80 years which protects the elderly, the children, the sick, the poor and the environment.  The truth is that ending Obamacare is just a small part of the right-wing extremist agenda, which is heavily funded by the Koch brothers and other very wealthy and powerful special interests.  Their full agenda includes privatizing Social Security, ending Medicare as we know it, slashing Medicaid funding, eliminating the EPA and the Department of Energy and abolishing the concept of the minimum wage.  Needless to say, they also want more tax breaks for the rich and large corporations.  It should be clear to everyone that their long-term goal is to move this country into an oligarchic form of society in which billionaires completely control the economic and political life of this nation.

(from wikipedia.com)
Bernard "Bernie" Sanders is an American politician and the junior United States Senator from Vermont. Before serving in the Senate, he represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives and served as Mayor of Burlington.

(Can't help but mention that one of the comments on YouTube about this video, "It's a bad time when satire does a better job of reporting the story than the actual news reporters" hits it right on the head.)

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Fall Like. . .

. . . a house of cards

(thanks to http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/19/20580271-pope-francis-says-church-cannot-focus-only-on-abortion-and-gay-marriage?lite)
I'm no holdout rooting for the preservation of the Catholic Church, but it can only be good news that the organization now has a man in charge who appears to be logical, reasonable and totally human.  His latest comments about the church's preoccupation with abortion, contraception and gay marriage being revisited further drives home this point.

The Pope spoke of finding a 'new balance' adding that "Otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards. . . " He also said, quite eloquently I might add, “A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: When God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person.”


TUMBLING DOWN
©1994 Raymond M. Jozwiak





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Extreme. . .

. . . me? . . .

. . . maybe. . .


I'm glad you're down there working on your applique. . . fabric spread all over the floor, scissors in hand. We're both tired from a busy weekend and probably should go to bed early but if you don't make time for your handiwork, you may not get any done at all tonight and wind up feeling frustration later.  Do it now while you can because once the Shirk Brothers (Yeah, I've met Mr. Shirk.  Nice enough guy.  Firm handshake.  Sincere smile.  Called me by name.  But you wait.  You'll see. He's gonna destroy the lower level of the house and make my life miserable for gawd knows how long.) get in here and tear up the basement, which they say will take "two weeks" to put back together, you won't have a place to do this.  Yes, you thought I was extreme in my fear of having the house in a shambles for an interminable amount of time, but you just wait. We'll have to take down a plate of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, possibly several consecutive Thanksgivings.  I can see it now.  I'm feeling nauseous. 

You may think I'm extreme, but. . . I'm just sayin'. . . 

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American. . .

. . . dream. . .

"You're throwing away your money," she would sometimes say.  "Buy a house."  In her eyes, paying rent was throwing away money.  It was the prevailing logic of her generation, the children of immigrants who arrived in this country with very little, worked hard and carved out a well-deserved place in the American landscape.

I, unlike most of my, and successive generations, left my parents' home when I got married, and did live in a rented apartment at that time.  It was a wonderful place in a lush, wooded area within the city itself and within minutes downtown.

To my simple mind, it was the ideal living situation.  We put furniture in the place, hung pictures and lived.  If anything broke, leaked, stopped heating or cooling, made too much noise, cracked or otherwise caused a problem within our 'home', we called maintenance.  When we got home from work the next day, the problem was solved.  All we had to do was pay our rent, preferably on time.
And we did.

But oh how Mom thought that 'owning' a place was what young adults were supposed to do.  It meant staking out one's own turf.  It was putting money into something that was your own;  and investment in the future.  And of course she was correct.

Only now. . . there is no 'maintenance' to call.

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Two hour aloe baths . . .

. . . run by James . . .

 . . . HE ANSWERS THE TELEPHONE WHEN IT RINGS
DINNER AND CAVIAR
IN THE SUN OR RAIN
THE GLASS AND MIMOSA TREES
MAKE IT ALL THE SAME

FOUR VINTAGE AUTOS
SUMMER HOUSE
AND A PRIVATE PLANE
SO MUCH TO DESIRE
WOULD BE NICE
BUT YOU WON’T HEAR ME COMPLAIN
I’LL KEEP ON WORKING
WORKING THAT’S HOW MY LIFE HAS GOT TO BE
I’LL KEEP ON WORKING
THAT’S HOW IT MUST BE FOR ME
I’LL KEEP ON WORKING
WORKING UNTIL MY WORK’S ALL THROUGH
TO BE WITH YOU
TO BE WITH YOU

IT’S OFF TO IBIZA NOW
FOR A WEEKEND FLING
TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO DO THESE THINGS
ITALIAN DESIGNER NAMES
IN MY SLEEVES AND CUFFS
IN SPITE OF SUCH EASY MEANS
LIFE CAN BE SO TOUGH


FOUR VINTAGE AUTOS
SUMMER HOUSE
AND A PRIVATE PLANE
SO MUCH TO DESIRE
WOULD BE NICE
BUT YOU WON’T HEAR ME COMPLAIN
I’LL KEEP ON WORKING
WORKING THAT’S HOW MY LIFE HAS GOT TO BE
I’LL KEEP ON WORKING
THAT’S HOW IT MUST BE FOR ME
I’LL KEEP ON WORKING
WORKING UNTIL MY WORK’S ALL THROUGH
TO BE WITH YOU
TO BE WITH YOU

BUT ONE MAN’S TREASURE
IS NOT TO ALL THE SAME
THESE THINGS OF VALUE
LIKE PRIZES IN SOME GAME

DO YOU THINK THE MEASURE OF
ANY MAN SHOULD BE
HOW MUCH AND HOW MANY THINGS
HE HAS MATERIALLY
WHAT PRICE FOR YOUR SANITY
HOW MUCH WILL YOU PAY
WILL THESE THINGS BE HERE AWHILE
WILL THEY FADE AWAY

FOUR VINTAGE AUTOS
SUMMER HOUSE
AND A PRIVATE PLANE
SO MUCH TO DESIRE
WOULD BE NICE
BUT YOU WON’T HEAR ME COMPLAIN
I’LL KEEP ON WORKING
WORKING THAT’S HOW MY LIFE HAS GOT TO BE
I’LL KEEP ON WORKING
THAT’S HOW IT MUST BE FOR ME
I’LL KEEP ON WORKING
WORKING UNTIL MY WORK’S ALL THROUGH
TO BE WITH YOU
TO BE WITH YOU


WORKING
©1998 Raymond M. Jozwiak





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This town's like the one . . .

. . . sang about in 'The Green Green Grass of Home'

This photo of Gingerbread House is courtesy of TripAdvisor

All the perfect picket fences
And gingerbread cottages in a row
Brightly colored walls on every house
And if figure on the lawn
Peace and calm
I found where I belong
Til the murder in our Avalon

You could hear the children laugh and play
All their games on any day
Pretty Moms and Handsome Daddies
Would walk hand-in-hand down the street
Any summer night
You could never find another place
Where your life would be so good
I considered this my jackpot won
Til the murder in our Avalon

Now and air of uneasiness
Pervades everything
I can't seem to get any rest anymore
Might have been a heaven on earth
A place we could be
Safe from all the rest of the world and humanity
There was no stranger
No homicide
You killed our love
It was clearly a job from the inside

Now the trees are greener than before
But a chill is in the air
People go about their business
And everyone acts like I'm not even there
I've been told it's time to move along
And that life continues on
I've described your heinous crime in song
It was murder in our Avalon

AVALON
© 1997 Raymond M. Jozwiak




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Real fusion. . .

 . . . (from http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p168988). . .

 One of the few producers to pursue a real fusion of jazz and house music, Frenchman Ludovic Navarre began recording in the early '90s using various aliases (Subsystem, Modus Vivendi, Deepside) for a range of French imprints. St. Germain debuted in 1994 for Laurent Garnier's F Communications label and Navarre released his first album, Boulevard, in 1996. Featuring trumpeter Pascal Ohse, the album worked as a hybrid of American R&B and jazz with the growing French house scene exemplified by Garnier, la Funk Mob, and Dimitri From Paris. Tourist took the concept further with Navarre working post-production on a fuller complement of musicians and earned release on Blue Note. Navarre has also remixed such varying artists as Björk, Pierre Henry, and the Suburban Knight.

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