pianogonzology

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Heard Somebody . . .

. . . say, "Play Third-Hand Intelligence". . .

Heard somebody say
They overheard you
Just the other day
A simple word
About the way we get along
If only I were sure
Of the semantics
Having doubts 'cause I'm
One hopeless romantic
Could it be
You're slipping away from me
What will I do
If what I'm thinking is true
And you want to be
Really free of me
I won't last very long
Very far from your heart

And this third-hand intelligence
Might be the way that it starts.

Heard somebody say
They thought they saw you
Walking in their way
You were not alone
They said he didn't look like
Thinking to myself
Must be mistaken
Try not to believe
but still badly shaken
Why would you
Deceive me in things you do
So many years
Sharing our laughter and tears
Lasted very long
Maybe I was wrong
Not to ask you
Why you feel
We've drifted apart

And this third-hand intelligence
Might be the way that it starts

Are my sources reliable
Wait and see
Wait and see
Is my psyche too pliable
It could be
It could be

If somebody said
The sky was falling
Would you believe it's true
And change your direction
From spinning round
When it hits the ground
That's just not true
Any believers are few
When you've seen it all
It could never fall
Any more than
I think you could
Tear us apart

And this third-hand intelligence
Might be the way that it starts

Third-Hand Intelligence
OHO rehearsal recording, August 2015

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html or at
http://www.ohomusic.com

OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com

My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Monday, August 10, 2015

Just Tryin' . . .

. . . to be honest . . .

Mother always told us it's not nice to hate
She'd been practicing that golden rule for years
If we'd only treat each other how we want to be ourselves
God will love us
God will love us

When I first met you I was quite impressed
So much more than pretty face among the crowd
And it didn't happen overnight but the curtain slowly fell
And the colors of your rainbow were revealed

You are the tribis hippocriticus
You are the tribis hippocriticus
You are the tribis hippocriticus
We don't like you
Just trying to be honest

From your position of authority
You looked down and not across our great divide
With a smile upon your face and hands placed firm on the controls
You're so artistic
You're so artistic

Expertise portrayed for all appearances
Pure professional facade to face the crowd
But just beneath that thick veneer reside reality
The truth is evident and there for

You are the tribis hippocriticus
You are the tribis hippocriticus
You are the tribis hippocriticus
We don't like you
Just trying to be honest

'Cause that's the way we all should be
We're not islands
We're not stones
And just what will it take
To make you see this truth

Let me make it crystal clear how strongly that I feel
'Bout the way you take advantage for yourself
If you took the power devoted to your cold conniving ways
And you turned it
And you turned it totally around
Direct it to another place
Try to do what you have done unto yourself
Just a little understanding there are others here with you
This revolving's not designed for only you

Tribis Hippocriticus
from Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak ©2014 Raymond M. Jozwiak

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html or at
http://www.ohomusic.com

OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com

My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Unfortunately . . .

The media . . .

. . . is (still) the message . . .

(from http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/01/30/hillary-clinton-is-the-biggest-frontrunner-for-the-democratic-presidential-nomination-ever-yes-ever/)
". . . Hillary Rodham Clinton's 61-point edge over Joe Biden in new Washington Post-ABC News polling makes her the single biggest frontrunner for a Democratic presidential nomination . . . "

(http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-hillary-clinton-early-2016-frontrunner-barely-n269601)
". . . half of American voters - 50 percent - saying they could see themselves supporting her if she runs for the White House in 2016, while 48 percent oppose her. . . "

(from http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-hillary-clinton-2016-analysis-20150410-story.html)
". . . Clinton will enter the 2016 Democratic presidential race — finally, officially — as the most commanding front-runner in generations.

(http://observer.com/2015/06/berniemania-why-socialist-bernie-sanders-is-the-sensation-of-the-presidential-race/)
YET, . . . IN SPITE OF THE FACTS:
". . . Yet Mr. (Bernie) Sanders, with his slight stoop and cloud of white hair flaring off his ruddy scalp, sometimes suffers on the stump. Later that day in a rec hall across the border in Keene, N.H., packed with about 700 people, some wearing homemade T-shirts Magic Markered with “Bernie 2016,” he lamented the plight of a young teacher he had just met. “Obviously in our society we desperately need teachers,” Mr. Sanders said to his audience. “And her crime for wanting to get a master’s degree was that she is now $200,000 in debt and paying interest rates between 6 and 9 percent. … All of this stuff is crazy stuff.” If the country does not reform its environmental policies, he said a grim fate awaits: “more drought, more famine, more rising sea levels, more floods, more ocean acidification, more extreme weather disturbances, more disease and more human suffering.” . . . "

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html or at
http://www.ohomusic.com

OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com

My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Demand . . .

. . . a recount?

(from Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann, translation by John E. Woods)
". . . They set out with seventy souls - which is to say: they regarded themselves as seventy in all; this was no numbered count, but more an emotional count by considered agreement-that is, determined by a moonlit accuracy that, as we well know, is no longer suitable for our own era, but was perfectly justifiable and held to be correct in theirs. Seventy was the number of nations of the world listed in God's tables, and therefore as the number of progeny to emerge from patriarchal loins it was subject to no recount by the light of day. But since it is Jacob's loins we are dealing with here, the wives of his sons should not have been included in the count, should they? But they weren't. If there's no counting to begin with, nothing can be included in the count, and given a result based on the lovely bias of sacred foregone conclusions, the question of what is or is not included in the count is moot. It is not even certain whether Jacob himself was counted, whether the others included him as part of their number, that is seventy, or excluded him as the seventy-first. We must simply accept the fact that this era allowed for both possibilities at once. . ."

Friday, August 7, 2015

Notably . . .

. . . wise

(from http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/08/19/7-lessons-from-socrates-on-wisdom-wealth-and-the-g.aspx. . . totally out of the original context but genuinely appreciated)
"Those who are already wise no longer love wisdom – whether they are gods or men. Similarly, those whose own ignorance has made them bad, rotten, evil, do not strive for wisdom either. For no evil or ignorant person ever strives for wisdom. What remains are those who suffer from ignorance, but still retain some sense and understanding. They are conscious of knowing what they don't know."

"Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know."

"Oh my friend, why do you, who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this?"

"For I go about doing nothing else than urging you, young and old, not to care for your persons or your property more than for the perfection of your souls, or even so much; and I tell you that virtue does not come from money, but from virtue comes money and all other good things to man, both the individual and to the state."

"Fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrape every stone to gather wealth, and, yet, take so little care of your own children, to whom one day you must relinquish all."

"In truth, the fear of death is nothing but thinking you're wise when you are not, for you think you know what you don't. For no one knows whether death happens to be the greatest of all goods for humanity, but people fear it because they're completely convinced it is the greatest of evils. And isn't this ignorance, after all, the most shameful kind: thinking you know what you don't."

"At the time, I made it clear once again, not by talk but by action, that I didn't care at all about death – if I'm not being too blunt to say it – but it mattered everything that I do nothing unjust or impious, which matters very much to me. For though it had plenty of power, that government didn't frighten me into doing anything that's wrong."

Developing Wisdom
©2015 Raymond M. Jozwiak

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html or at
http://www.ohomusic.com

OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com

My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Plagiarists . . .

. . . we all know and love . . .

Jayson Blair, a reporter for the New York Times, was a rising star in journalsim until someone noticed similarities between one of his articles one by one of their reporters Macarena Hernandez. The Times eventually discovered that at least 36 of his 73 articles contained plagiarism, fabrication or other unethical behavior. Blair resigned from the New York Times.

Kaavya Viswanathan was a Harvard student who got a book deal rumored to be worth $1 million and her first work had reached number 32 on the New York Times bestseller list. Talk of movie deals and more books was abound. Allegations surfaced that she copied portions of her book from other authors.

Lloyd Brown was the editorial page editor for the Florida Times-Union when allegations arose that he had used plagiarized material in some of his editorials prompting an investigation. Brown later resigned amidst incidents of plagiarism and other instances of lack of complete attribution dating back to 1996.

Nada Behziz was a reporter at The Bakersfield Californian focusing on health issues later fired when editors discovered a plagiarized quotation from a 1995 story in the San Francisco Examiner. Additional investigation revealed 29 other pieces she had written contained plagiarized material representing more than a third of the work.

Veteran Baltimore Sun columnist Michael Olesker was dismissed over several instances where he plagiarized wording of other journalists without proper attribution. Olesker was a Baltimore columnist for nearly three decades and said he did not intentionally engage in plagiarism. He said, "I screwed up. I made mistakes. Would I do it intentionally? My God, no. That would be professional suicide, unethical and immoral. I'm sick over what happened."

(sources: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR2006010402179.html & https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2012/08/21/5-famous-plagiarists-where-are-they-now/)

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Why You Dirty . . .

. . . rat

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APOPO)
". . . Bart Weetjens, the founder of APOPO, loved playing with his pet rats when he was a young boy. Years later, as a student at University of Antwerp, Bart applied the idea of using rodents for mine detection as an outcome of his analysis of the global mine detection problem.

Due to his childhood experience, he knew that rats, with their strong sense of smell and trainability, could provide a cheaper, more efficient, and locally available means to detect landmines. Early research into this technology began in Belgium, with initial financial support from the Belgian Directorate for International Co-operation (DGIS) in 1997 to develop the concept. In 2000, APOPO moved its headquarters to Morogoro, Tanzania, following partnerships with the Sokoine University of Agriculture and the Tanzanian People’s Defence Force. Now housed by the University, APOPO trains the rats – termed HeroRATs because of their life-saving capabilities – in near-to-real conditions.

In 2003, APOPO began operations in Mozambique, with its first mine detection rats achieving official accreditation according to International Mine Action Standards in 2004. Fully integrated mine-clearance operations began in Mozambique in 2006.

In 2003, APOPO won the World Bank Development Marketplace Global Competition, which provided seed funding to commence research into another application of detection rats technology: Tuberculosis (TB) detection. In 2008, APOPO provided proof of principle for the utilization of trained rats in detecting pulmonary tuberculosis in human sputum samples. In 2010, APOPO launched a three-year research plan to closely examine the effectiveness of detection rats in diagnosing tuberculosis, in comparison to other diagnostic technologies, and to focus on future implementation models. . . "