A little . . .

for your pleasure . . .

AMBIENCE & WINE, a digital-download release of new music will be available at http://www.cdbaby.com on APRIL 3, 2012. AMBIENCE & WINE contains a palette of aromas and flavours which complement any dish or occasion.  

 Some say. . .
". . .  His playing is technically outstanding and highly imaginative; I am always amazed that he manages to get back to resolve each piece without bursting out to infinity and beyond!"  Rod Deacey, Board Member of the Frederick Acoustic Musicians Enterprise (FAME), Musician, Performer, Writer, Poet, Organizer, Emcee, Bluesman (11/20/11)

". . . consistently creates aural pictures intelligently, pleasantly, and whimsically, and that's just within one song"  (Ron Goad, SAW, FAME, BMI)

". . . conjures the spirits of Thelonious Monk and a host of stride pianists" (John Lewis, Baltimore Magazine)

"His sense and choice of rhythm is always appropriate and interesting. . . "  (Jim Nash, Music Monthly)

". . . one can hear little snippets of this and that running throughout his work, just enough to put you in the mind of a long forgotten favorite before he turns it inside out or upside down. . . "  (Joe Hartlaub, Music-reviewer.com)


from AMBIENCE & WINE
©2011 Raymond M. Jozwiak



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Somebody . . .

. . . knows the truth. . . 

(From Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen Special to msnbc.com)

". . . Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress’ Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has seen two classified FBI documents that he says are at odds with the bureau’s public statements that there was no connection between the hijackers and Saudis then living in Sarasota, Fla. 

“There are significant inconsistencies between the public statements of the FBI in September and what I read in the classified documents,” Graham said. “One document adds to the evidence that the investigation was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI,” Graham said. “An important investigative lead was not pursued and unsubstantiated statements were accepted as truth.”
 
Whether the 9/11 hijackers acted alone, or whether they had support within the U.S., remains an unanswered question -- one that began to be asked as soon as it became known that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. It was underlined when Congress’s bipartisan inquiry released its public report in July 2003. The final 28 pages, regarding possible foreign support for the terrorists, were censored in their entirety -- on President George W. Bush’s instructions.Graham said the two classified FBI documents that he saw, dated 2002 and 2003, were prepared by an agent who participated in the Sarasota investigation. He said the agent suggested that another federal agency be asked to join the investigation, but that the idea was “rejected."

Graham attempted in recent weeks to contact the agent, he said, only to find the man had been instructed by FBI headquarters not to talk. . . "

There's a lot more here than meets the eye.  A golden opportunity for some enterprising reporter(s), without a doubt. 

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Prayer and government. . .

. . . ???    I don't think so. . .

by John Shelby Spong
from http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9036126688324230916#editor/target=post;postID=6807412664444233283

"The intervening God who answers our intercessory prayers is a comfortable

fiction that is no longer worthy of our worship. This kind of honesty
scares people who want security not truth. I still think intercessory prayer
has a place in the Christian life but it would take a book just to unload
the distortions of the past and then to chart new definitions for the
future. Suffice it now to say that the God who is the Source of Life, the
Source of Love and the Ground of Being can only work through the life, the
love and the being of people like you and me. So you and I must intervene
wherever we can as God bearers. Our lives become our prayers. Prayer is not
quite like saying, "Now I lay me down to sleep."

I am amazed, for example, that Christian prayers seem to assume that God
enjoys being flattered. So we call God by a variety of titles: 'Almighty,'
'Most Gracious,' 'All Loving,' 'Most Merciful,' 'Creator of all things,'
etc. We also tell God in our prayers what we hope is true about God! "You
are more ready to hear than we to pray," or "You are more eager to forgive
than we deserve." This, we need to be reminded, is our human language, it is
not God's language. It is created out of our needs not out of God's needs.
The questions that we never ask are: "What does this language say about us?"
That is where our inquiry ought to focus. We are not describing God, even in
our prayers, we are defining our needs and giving voice to what we believe
are our experiences.

Does prayer do any good? Once again, that assumes that you want your prayers
to accomplish your will. Since that is not the purpose of prayer, I don't
see how one can proceed to answer such a question. I pray daily. I claim
nothing for it. I believe it opens me to God. There is nothing more than I
can say with confidence. Those who presume that they have answers are simply
delusional."

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You'll shoot your eye out . . .

. . . RALPHIE!!!!

Not many fail to recognize the origin of that line.  I was reminded of it again today when the news presented me with the results of a study about the hazards of eating red meat.  Fortunately, my source for the story was NPR and they actually presented a balanced approach to the story.  That is, they presented a contrary point of view, which actually made good sense.  I fear my local television stations probably presented it as simply, "Red meat will kill you."  The end.

Regarding the study itself, one article stated,  ". . . Sure enough, Pan (the doctor conducting the research) and his colleagues found that the men and women in the study who ate the most red meat also tended to be heavier, less physically active, and more likely to smoke and drink alcohol than their peers. However, the researchers did take those and other factors into account in their analysis. . . "

So why did they bother me with this in the first place?

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What do I know. . .

. . . About happiness

 

Do I possess
Some kind of key
To things that
No one else can see

Just as far back
As my memory goes
Sometimes it seemed
I was alone
Only my point of view and me

As I reflect
Some disconnect
Must be affecting me
Am I just one
Under the sun
Or am I quite unique

Others speak out
Very easily
No fear about
Who may get hurt
By words so hastily dispensed

For some reason
I step back away
I hesitate
To be so cold
As to presume
Some insight gained

As I reflect
Some disconnect
Must be affecting me
Am I just one
Under the sun
Or am I quite unique

 UNIQUE
©2006 Raymond M. Jozwiak
(featuring vocalist Lisa Griffee)



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Greedy. . .

. . . you bet!

(from "GREEDY BASTARD$, How We can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters, and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry" by Dyland Ratigan, Simon & Schuster, New York, Copyright © 2012 by Dylan Ratigan)

". . . When it comes to influencing legislators; votes, nothing is more powerful than the threat of cutting off whatever resource an industry supplies to voters.  Brooksley Born, chair of the Commodity Futures Trade Commission from 1996 to 1999, a small agency charged with regulating futures markets, saw the danger of the "swaps" market long before the financial collapse of 2008 and warned the CTFC to regulate it before problems snowballed.  Michael Greenberger, former CFTC director of trading and markets told the 2009 PBS Frontline program "The Warning" that when Born proposed the new rules, which would have increased visibility and price integrity for the investment banks selling CDO monster bonds, then deputy secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers called to tell her to stop.  Summers had thirteen bankers in his office at that minute with a lot to lose if her rules were put into effect.  As Greenberger recollected, Summers told Born that all the bankers agreed that regulating "swaps" would "cause the worst financial crisis since the end of World War II."  Those bankers had the leverage to say: stop what you want to do, or the system will go down and the voters won't forgive your party for decades.

Ten years later, after a series of financial crises like those Born had warned about, banksters were still using the same threats to protect their profits.  Sheila Bair, chair of the FDIC from 2006 to 2011, to the New York Times Magazine as her term was ending, "They would say, 'You have to do this or the system will go down.'  If I heard that once, I heard it a thousand times.  'Citi is systemic, you have to do this.'  No analysis, no meaningful discussion.  It was very frustrating. . . "

". . . "If you don't give me what I want, I can meaningfully disrupt the flow of something that your constituents can't live without. . . "

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When I see that look. . .

. . . upon your face

I know that I've been dealt an
Ace of hearts
Something starts.
Pulse is pounding like a conga drum
The blood goes rushing to and from
My head
Turns my face to red

So ante-up and hit me once then hit me twice
The stakes are high you know I've got to keep as cool as ice
This game we're in together
Could end as quickly as it starts
But I'll just take my chances
I'll just take my chances
'Cause I know that I'm have you and you're my
Ace of hearts my Ace of hearts
I know that I have you and you're my ace of hearts

Deal me in I'm staying for the course
And if I lose don't feel remorse for me
You will always be
In my every breath and in my soul
When chips are down you take
Control and then
Bring me back again

So ante-up and hit me once then hit me twice
The stakes are high you know I've got to keep as cool as ice
This game we're in together
Could end as quickly as it starts
But I'll just take my chances
I'll just take my chances
'Cause I know that I'm have you and you're my
Ace of hearts my Ace of hearts
I know that I have you and you're my ace of hearts


ACE OF HEARTS
© 1992 Raymond M. Jozwiak




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