What? . . .

. . . in the world is really important?. . .

It must be time to sleep because I can't find anything to write about that seems important enough (thanks to our glorious media who have Mitt, Snooky, naked princes and hurricanes on their minds) or things other than those about which I am thoroughly disgusted (like inept home services providers, death, illness, smallmindedness and . . . hurricanes). . . maybe there is something here.

NAHHH!!!!

What do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

You can NOW download your
very own copy of Ray Jozwiak's
newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE

Please visit
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

O. . .

Ho. . . .Wow. . . See You There. . .

OHO
Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
(with special guest Matt Graboski)
Friday, August 31, 2012@ 9:00PM On The Patio at
Bread & Circuses Bistro
27 E. Chesapeake Avenue
Towson, MD  21286
410-337-5282
 http://bandcbistro.com/
http://www.ohomusic.com


Please visit http://www.ohomusic.com
LIMOUSINE
(from BRICOLAGE by Oho)
© Copyright-OHO Music
Record Label: OHO Music




What do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

You can NOW download your
very own copy of Ray Jozwiak's
newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE

Please visit
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

Is this the real life. . .

. . . is this just fantasy?. . .

 (from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/todd-akin-republicans_b_1826617.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false)
". . . Or as it's known on Capitol Hill, supply-side economics. Remember that magic beans theory? That you actually bring in more revenue by bringing in less? Ronald Reagan believed it. But at least back in the '80s it was new. The thing is, we tried it, and it doesn't work. Yet, Paul Ryan, who every shit-for-brains pundit in America keeps telling us is a "serious" guy, still believes in the supply-side theory. All the Republicans do. They all believe in something that both science and history have shown to be pure fantasy. The symbol for their party shouldn't be an elephant -- it should be a unicorn. . . "

". . . The grown-up answer is: identify problems scientifically, prioritize and solve. The Republican answer is: there isn't a problem. And anyone who tells you different is a liar who hates America. . . "

". . . Next week in Tampa the Republicans must admit that the difference between a GOP convention and Comic-Con is that the people at Comic-Con have a much firmer grasp of reality.. . "

What do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

You can NOW download your
very own copy of Ray Jozwiak's
newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE

Please visit
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

Drama . . .

. . . is not my forte . . .

. . . but in addition to sorrow, grief and concern, I have experienced much of it recently. 

Not only has mortality made its point clear to me once again, but the notion of imperfection has been reinforced. 

I knew that I had become a 'grownup' the day I realized that my heroes had faults.  They were real people who offered me something that I required but did not possess myself.  And although each one was, in my eyes, a master in his individual field, he was merely a human being complete with imperfections, just like me.  Since it is beyond my capability to change that fact and since I most certainly do not possess the ability to make him (nor myself, for that matter) perfect,  I, myself choose to continue to appreciate him for his redeeming abilities or disassociate myself from him for his flaws.  It is my choice.  I must make it and I must live with it. 

Isn't this what we all do?

What do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

You can NOW download your
very own copy of Ray Jozwiak's
newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE

Please visit
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

Thinking. . .

 ". . . how did Todd Akin get nominated for the Senate in the first place? How did Christine O’Donnell in Delaware? How did Donald Trump surge to the top of the early presidential polls after his birther blather became public? Why do so many Republicans have so much trouble with evolution? Climate change? The non-difference between forcible and statutory rape?

This is not to say that Republicans are, by natural bent, stupid. Indeed, many of the smartest, most erudite, most creative policy thinkers I’ve encountered over the past 40 years are Republicans or conservatives. They’ve been the source of some of the best policy proposals I’ve seen–including the individual mandate for health care, cap and trade (to limit sodium sulfur-dioxide), school choice, work requirements for welfare recipients. In foreign policy, they’ve been well-represented by realists like Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Bob Zoellick and their boss, George H.W. Bush.

(MORE: Best Tweets About Todd Akin’s ‘Legitimate Rape’ Comment)

But the Republican Party that produced such thinkers is, as we all know, gone now. And what we have is a party that too often acquiesces–with rolled eyes and grimaces, to be sure–in the know-nothing idiocy of a plurality of its base. There was a period when the Democrats suffered from a similar malady–the days of racial quotas, overweening sociological tolerance of criminality and the belief that the U.S. is almost always wrong when it uses force overseas. The Democrats still have some outliers who believe such things. But Bill Clinton showed that Democrats could reform themselves; Barack Obama’s reliance on ideas that were originally Republican or bipartisan in much of his domestic agenda is a reflection of the permanence of that change. . . "

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2012/08/21/why-akin-matters/?iid=obnetwork#ixzz24QhQyxWi

What do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

You can NOW download your
very own copy of Ray Jozwiak's
newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE

Please visit
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

The man. . .

in Black. . .

Johnny Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, the fourth of seven children to Ray Cash (May 13, 1897, Kingsland, Arkansas – December 23, 1985, Hendersonville, Tennessee) and Carrie Cloveree Rivers (March 13, 1904, Rison, Arkansas – March 11, 1991, Hendersonville, Tennessee). Cash was named J. R. Cash because his parents couldn't think of a name. When Cash enlisted in the Air Force, they wouldn't let him use initials as his name, so he started to use the legal name John R. Cash. In 1955, when signing with Sun Records, he took Johnny Cash as his stage name.

The Cash children were, in order: Roy, Margaret Louise, Jack, J. R., Reba, Joanne and Tommy. His younger brother, Tommy Cash, also became a successful country artist.

In March 1935, when Cash was three years old, the family settled in Dyess, Arkansas. He started working in cotton fields at age five, singing along with his family simultaneously while working. The family farm was flooded on at least two occasions, which later inspired him to write the song "Five Feet High and Rising". His family's economic and personal struggles during the Great Depression inspired many of his songs, especially those about other people facing similar difficulties.

Cash was very close to his older brother, Jack. In May 1944, Jack was pulled into a whirling head saw in the mill where he worked and was almost cut in two. He suffered for over a week before he died on May 20, 1944, at age 15. Cash often spoke of the horrible guilt he felt over this incident. According to Cash: The Autobiography, his father was away that morning, but he and his mother, and Jack himself, all had premonitions or a sense of foreboding about that day, causing his mother to urge Jack to skip work and go fishing with his brother. Jack insisted on working, as the family needed the money. On his deathbed, Jack said he had visions of heaven and angels. Decades later, Cash spoke of looking forward to meeting his brother in heaven.

Cash's early memories were dominated by gospel music and radio. Taught by his mother and a childhood friend, Cash began playing guitar and writing songs as a young boy. In high school he sang on a local radio station; decades later he released an album of traditional gospel songs, called My Mother's Hymn Book. He was also significantly influenced by traditional Irish music that he heard performed weekly by Dennis Day on the Jack Benny radio program.

Cash enlisted in the United States Air Force on July 7, 1950. After basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and technical training at Brooks Air Force Base, both in San Antonio, Texas, Cash was assigned to a U.S. Air Force Security Service unit, assigned as a Morse Code Intercept Operator for Soviet Army transmissions at Landsberg, Germany "where he created his first band named The Landsberg Barbarians." He was the first radio operator to pick up the news of the death of Joseph Stalin.] After he was honorably discharged as a Staff Sergeant on July 3, 1954, he returned to Texas.

What do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

You can NOW download your
very own copy of Ray Jozwiak's
newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE

Please visit
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

Lately. . .

. . . I find the most gratifying way to react to the antics of our elected officials, is to use profanity

Ignoring the sad idiot who thinks the word 'rape' requires qualifiers, how about our 'friends' of the 'right' persuasion who, in 'their daily greed', are at it again, or are still at it, or who appear to always be at it. . . (forever and ever amen). . .

(from AlterNet / By Lynn Parramore)
"Ever since the Richmonder blog  posted a story last weekend pointing to suspicious-looking stock trades made by Paul Ryan on September 18, 2008 – the day Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson met with Congressional leaders to warn of an economic collapse and the need for a giant bailout – the press has been at sixes and sevens. Was it insider trading? Wasn't it? First the story circulated rapidly. Then, when the Romney/Ryan campaign quickly issued denials, some journalists, most notably Benjy Sarlin of Talking Points Memo , leapt to “debunk” the story. Matt Yglesias of Slate , who first credited the story, apologized and backed off.

Earlier this week, I posted an article challenging the denials made by the Romney/Ryan campaign.

John Carney, a senior editor at CNBC.com has responded to my piece on Paul Ryan’s insider stock trades in September 2008. Unlike the Romney campaign, he does not try to claim that Congressman Ryan did not have time to do the trades before markets closed at 4pm. (There is, of course, the possibility that Ryan traded afterhours; that was no part of my story.) Nor does he take refuge in the pathetic argument that some anonymous trustee did it. His objection is that Congressman Ryan’s trading that day followed a larger pattern evident in other transactions that year.

Carney writes:

    He did trade in and out of two financial names in 2008: Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. He sold shares in Citi in January, March, June, August, September and December. He bought Citi in February, April, July and October. In other words, Ryan was following a pattern of alternating between buying and selling shares of Citi throughout the year...

    Ryan sold shares in Goldman in February, August, October, November and December. He bought shares in Goldman in January, March, June and September.

    Notice a pattern here? Each of Ryan’s purchases of Goldman shares coincides with the sale of a share of Citi.

    Ryan follows this pattern of going long Goldman when he sold Citi on September 18. That day, Ryan also took part in a meeting where Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke met with Congressional leaders to make their case that the situation in the financial sector had turned so dire as to threaten the entire economy.

Teasing out meaningful patterns from stock market data is a tricky business. It has a tendency to turn researchers into numerologists – they are constantly tempted to find all kinds of significance in some selection of numbers. But look closely at the qualification with which Carney introduced his discussion of the Goldman purchases:

    “The only breaks in this pattern were (a) when he neither bought nor sold any stocks in his portfolio in May, (b) skipping November’s sale of Citi and selling in December instead, and (c) selling shares in Citi in both August and September .” [emphasis added]

In other words, Congressman Ryan followed a pattern, except when he didn’t. And in what month does Ryan depart from the pattern? Why, by marvelous coincidence, September, of course.

Perhaps half a loaf is better than none, but Carney began his piece suggesting that those who credit the Ryan insider trading story have fallen under the influence of “liberal fantasies.” Yes, he bought Goldman while selling Citi, but the quick second Citi sale was anomalous.  Congressman Ryan, by Carney’s own admission, plainly broke from his routine on September 18, 2008. . . "

What do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

You can NOW download your
very own copy of Ray Jozwiak's
newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE

Please visit
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet