Fallbrook Shutters - 4th Annual Photographic Exhibition

Pocket Thunderbird

Pocket Thunderbird from randyman on Vimeo.

Blast member in great standing Randy Walters shot this video for his ailing father with his new Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera and a 10mm f/1.6 Kern Paillard Switar lens.  GREAT JOB, RANDY!

I shot 99% of this piece over about an hour on the evening of 9.11.13, using the wonderful Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera and a 10mm f/1.6 Kern Paillard Switar lens.
I had no plans for the footage while I was shooting, but when I realized how well it would go with Marc Cohn's song "Silver Thunderbird", I immediately knew what I had to do.
My nearly 90-year-old father is dying of cancer, and it's very unlikely he'll see his next birthday. So this is my early birthday present to him, with gratitude for all he's done for me.
Graded in DaVinci 9/10 and edited in Final Cut Pro. Just a couple shots - the sky, a cornfield - used a Kern Paillard Switar 25mm f/1.4 lens. One bokeh shot used the "bokeh monster" Meyer-Optik Orestor 135mm f/2.8 lens.
The 10mm Switar is full of character, and vignettes just a touch. Sometimes it's visible, sometimes it isn't - but I like it a lot.
The Pocket Cinema Camera is a joy to use, though I'm still investigating stabilization techniques that will enable greater handheld freedom, for less static shots. It's still in the early days... this little camera has a big future in store.

Mike Bloomfield

Recorded live at the Old Waldorf in 1974. The late Roger Troy on vocals, my pal Barry Goldberg on the organ. Bloomfield shows his incredible touch.

The Prisoner - Fall Out

NSA Skullbuggery

How Doth The Little Crocodile

by Lewis Carroll

How doth the little crocodile

    Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

    On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,

    How neatly spreads his claws,

And welcomes little fishes in,

    With gently smiling jaws!

There was one moment last week when I was tempted to break my literary fast and blog away but finally thought better of it and decided to instead just chill and relax. It was something I read regarding a classic recent moment in governmental doublespeak. I can't find my original source material but here is a synopsis from EFF.

In a March 2, 2009 FISA court opinion, the Court noted that the program collects "communication of U.S. person who are not the subject of an FBI investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, and are data that otherwise could not be legally captured in bulk by the government." (first emphasis by the court, second ours).  "Ordinarily, this alone would provide sufficient grounds for a FISC judge to deny the application."
The Court noted that, nevertheless, the spying was approved, based on the Court's confidence in the NSA's assurances of a good process and strict controls. By March 2009, however, "The Court no longer has such confidence." The Court's particularly scathing statement about its distrust in the NSA can be found on page 12 here.What happened was that the FISC required the NSA have a "reasonable articulable suspicion" before conducting a search on a phone number.  The NSA decided, independently, that it could run searches on the database to develop the basis for the reasonable articulable suspicion.  Hence, the NSA was conducting suspicion less searches for information to obtain the court-required basis to search for that information.

So let me try to get this straight, the court says you have to have a reasonable suspicion in order to search the data of the normal american citizen so the government says well, if we institute a search, maybe we can find a reason to search. Get it? Ouch, my head hurts...

From Forbes:

"...From 2006 to 2009, the NSA was found by its judicial regulators in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to be illegally surveilling thousands of phone numbers both inside and outside the United States without reasonable suspicion, according to documents released Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. On a daily basis, NSA analysts searched massive records of phone call metadata for matches with a so-called “Alert List” of 17,835 numbers, of which only 1,935 met the legal requirement of “reasonable articulable suspicion” necessary to track those numbers."

The Forbes article is very interesting. What a percentage we are batting. By my calculations we only get it wrong 89.9 percent of the time. Not bad.

It appears to me that we have some highly ranked muckety mucks telling some very big, and very convenient lies. And of course the bullshit doesn't stop at the Oval Office's door. Obama says that he disclosed released these documents because of a desire for transparency and that big open debate thingy he likes to talk about. The reality is that he was forced to disclose the material by a judge's ruling. Clapper basically says that this whole brouhaha shows you how well the oversight system works and its merely a complex data issue. The big new tech review panel sounds like a total joke, the spooks refusing to break bread with the civil libertarians. Politicians, they have no shame. And they don't give two shits for the rights of normal Americans.

Franz Kafka

Fred Neil

Fred Neil and Gram Parsons

Device Day

Today was device day, for me and much of the country.

The Apple flagship, the iphone 5s, became available today and apple sycophants and fanboys everywhere were eagerly lining up by the millions for their stylish technofix.

I need a new phone. Well, maybe I do? I guess I do. Does it reflect personally on me when peers see that the glass on my ancient Motorola Bionic is cracked into five pieces?

Does my low tech device make me a phone untouchable compared to all of those brahmin techies rocking the newest invention?

I have been considering this purchase for many months, my sights set on the gorgeous HTC One. Carved out of a single piece of aluminum and clothed in a magical schwinn blue exterior, twice the memory of the iphone 5s, quadcore snapdragon chip, fast, not too big like the Galaxy 4, great BIG screen, decent camera, sweet sounds, a ferrari built by an underdog. This phone is pretty sexy.  My kind of phone. Plus I like Google's voice recognition.

I have been on the horn with tech guru big dave for months, sending him every comparison report and pleading for guidance in my selection. But there is no denying it, Dave is an Apple guy. I am as well, but not the phone. The thumbprint is a seductive way to tempt people into instant purchases, with a fair percent of income stream surely finding its way back to Apple. I hate itunes. How soon until some wiseacre cracks the thumbprint database or more likely the gmen are pouring through it? Anyway Dave says to not be a sissy and to buy the newest fruit to fall off of the Apple tree.

We citizenry are pawns trapped in an enormous battle between the titans google and apple. The former reads and strains all your emails and then targets ads at you, the other makes things so damn seductively enticing that you end up just opening your wallet up for them, like your first googoo eyed crush.

It took forever for Verizon to release the HTC One, five months after ATT. In phone terms it means the phone is in it's twenties or thirties right now, plodding forward into middle age. We waited and waited and waited and it is now here. But maybe I should wait and check out the 5s? I was in a quandary for sure.

Today was the day. I trucked over to BestBuy not knowing what kinds of lines to expect.

The lines weren't long but the people took forever. Casino wealthy native americans spending thousands in front of me. Bags of them. I waited and waited. Picked up the iphone, they only had black 16gb units, boy that screen looks small. My eyes ain't so good you know. I signed up for it.

A guy walks up, wants to know if they have any gold ones, went into a tizzy when they said that they did not. And I thought how weird, the accoutrement' of the champagne colored handset reminding me of people who must put gold ornaments on their entry level Mercedes. It just seems a bit tawdry to me. Did I really want to be associated with that fake prada vibe?

Did I want to be associated with that? I changed my mind, told the clerk to grab the blue HTC and to forget the iphone. Forty nine bucks and then they upgraded to wifipak too, making the whole deal practically free. Got home, easy information transfer, fairly intuitive android operating system. In blue! I'll never get the blue Ferrari I always wanted but for 49 bucks, I can have the phone.

Hit a snag when the phone book initially wouldn't transfer to the UConnect system on the Dodge. Called Dodge and HTC and they said it wouldn't pair and that I was out of luck. Oh, shit I thought. Looks like I will have to get the iphone after all. I decided to go back and tinker with it one more time. Voila. Bluetooth paired, phone book downloaded, all systems go, the kid is now back in action.

Million Miles

© Robert Sommers 2013

Nina Simone

Girls Don't Poop - PooPourri.com

Sandy Denny

Nature Improved

Trailer Trash - © Carol Lindemulder 2013

One of the artists that I represent, Carol Lindemulder, has been invited to exhibit at a very prestigious show this year.

Carol is showing at the dual San Diego History Center/Oceanside Museum of Art show called Nature Improved, 26 contemporary San Diego artists interpret our regional landscapes.

The show runs at the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park from September 20, 2013 through January 26, 2014 and from October 27, 2013 through February 23, 2014. Local art historian and collector Bram Dykstra is curating the exhibition.

Lindemulder has a quixotic and idiosyncratic style, a great eye for color and composition. I am proud of Carol and can't wait to see all of the fine pieces in the show.

Laughing

Flora, fauna, food and whatever else fits...

Lady Sommers in the garden

Kalihiwai may not be heaven but you can sure see it from there.

Sweet smoked marlin, sweet apple bananas, sweet potato pie, wasabi cream. Delicious and need I say, very sweet... Awesome hot pickled cucumbers too! The old Chinese market down the street in Koloa pioneered the coconut turnover in the 1920's and luckily it caught on. Yum!

We only had one meal at the Hyatt but the beautiful swans sailing by the restaurant are definitely a lovely visual treat.

On prior trips to Kauai we always made it a point to visit the elderly woman who lived in the old green house on the corner in Koloa.

She made and sold three different kinds of taro chips, best you have ever tasted. Sadly, she has now passed away and her taro chips remain a mere memory.

The Grand Hyatt has a stunning assortment of macaws and cockatoos in the center courtyard.

Nene

This handsome palm is from Nuka Hiva in the Marquesas. It is called a Vahanna palm (pelogodoxa henreyana) and may already be extinct in its native forest. Now it lives at the NTBG.

A beautiful native flower.

Koloa was the site of the first Hawaiian sugar mill back in 1835. To hear some of the oral history from the people of the area, link here.

Leslie and Ted

We found a lookout off of a jeep road with a beautiful view of Nihau in the distance, which by the way, you can't see in this shot. You will just have to trust me. I rarely use HDR but this is from a new tool in the kit from Nik and I think it has a rather cool, fairy tale, R. Atkinson Fox quality to it.

I believe that Ted said that this flower was a native hibiscus ancestor, not easy to find blooming. Obviously the ants love it too.

I used to fancy myself something of a rare palm expert. I lent Shawn my Palm books years ago and truth is, there were many varieties I couldn't identify from memory. I saw the finest bismarckia nobilis specimen I have ever see, mauka side of Kilaeua and some lovely travelers palms. My father had a great travelers palm outside his townhouses in La Mesa but it was unfortunately stolen and you rarely see them on the mainland. Ravenala madagascariensis is technically not a palm but instead a member of the strelitzia (bird of paradise) family.

There are two principal regions in Kauai, the more tropical and wet north side, which includes Hanalei, Kilaeua and Princeville and the dryer south and west side, with little towns like Poipu, Koloa, Hanapepe and Waimea.

When I was young I tended to stay in the north but have found that I am now much more comfortable planting myself in the south. My island friends call anything north of Lihue Haolewood.

The truth is that there are no bad parts in a place like Kauai, it is all a matter of personal preference.

One of the nicest things that we did on our last trip to Kauai was to tour the ancient buddhist cemetery in Lawai, with its old stupa shrines embedded in a steep cliffside.

We were told that it is now closed to the public but found out that it will have occasional visiting hours. Click this link for the Lawai International Center. You want to visit it if you can.

Napali trip

We decided to do something rather uncharacteristic and touristy and took the 65' luxury catamaran Southern Star into the Kalalau from Port Allan. Although the guide books claim that the boats that leave from the north are better, certain people we talked to said that it was more environmentally sensitive to leave from the west and so we did. It was a great trip and wonderful adventure. Food was good, fellow passengers were great and the crew was outstanding. Aloha spirit is not just a saying around here, the people are very genuine.

On the way out we ran into a small pod of spinner dolphins.

I had hiked into and camped in the Kalalau many years ago with my friend Ronnie but had never visited it from the water. Leslie had never seen it before. It was a beautiful day although the whole island needs rain, even the wettest spot on earth.

It was nice to see the caves and waterfalls situated farther down the coast where I had once played and stayed. We stopped at a sparkly clear cove and snorkeled around for a while. Saw a turtle and lots of beautiful native fish. We came back under sail, much faster and wetter. Those that dared lay down on the cat's trampoline got tossed and thoroughly soaked but they didn't seem to mind too much.

A very nice trip. Highly recommended.

Kipu Rd.

When you get off the plane in Lihue and head south towards Poipu you probably pass a beautiful quite area that I, for want of a better title, call Kipu Rd. You blink your eye and its gone and you make a note to someday discover its charms.This area with its large umbrella like trees that just might be called kiave, reminds me very much of some of the lands in northern Kenya that I have visited.

The mountains behind are supremely sculpted and the area feels very sacred to me. It is funny to watch the white birds stand on the backs of the cows in these fields. Cowbird!

This is the nearby Alekoko Fishpond, also known as the Menehune Fishpond. In ancient Hawaii, this was a royal fishpond, although common people were allowed certain types of fish.

A type of hawaiian  sacred magic called kapa was used to protect the area. Folklore holds that the pond was protected by guardian spirits, royal children who possessed mystical, otherworldly powers. The sister Kalalehua took the form of a lizard while her brother 'Alekoko transformed into a shark.

One of the great things about hawaii is these little brazilian cardinals. This guy is trucking like the doo dah man.

Kauai no ka oi

We arrived in Los Angeles at 4:45 this morning, pretty dead after a red eye flight from Kauai. The Sommers family likes to take one nice vacation a year and this was the trip, in celebration of Leslie's recent birthday.

Being a relatively poor and debatably humble person who normally tries to avoid ostentation and largesse, we tend to always avoid expensive hotels. Bed and a biffy, you know? We buck the rule in Kauai, our preferred pied a terre being the regal Grand Hyatt in Poipu. Once you have sampled its sumptuous treats, everything else sort of dims in the background. A true guilty pleasure. There are times when one must throw caution to the wind.

black tailed tropicbird

I assume that everybody has a special place that makes them feel magic and alive, mine are Kauai and the Hopi and Navajo reservations. I have been going to Hawaii for over 40 years and love all the other islands that I have visited, but always find myself really wishing I was on the garden isle. Think I must have connected with a jungle deity on some youthful shroom trip up to Hanakapia or something. I am truly at home there. Especially the south and the west parts of the island.

I took the week off from writing, even dialed back my photography a notch, well I did shoot about 2000 pictures. Left the big lens at home and just went off to play and enjoy life and each other. As my wife pointed out, your best pictures are the ones you keep in your head and close to your heart. If you are constantly recording you just might be missing the moment. I decided not to do that.

We squeezed every gram of life out of this mini vacation, left nothing on the table. Nary an experience left untapped. Had a ball. Great weather. Great fun. Got back and found out that the 51 year old lady at the yarn store across the street upped and died from a heart attack suddenly this week. Nice lady. You never know about this life business, you wake up one day and discover that you are now in the past tense. Go for it. Put it on my grave stone.

I won't belabor this, but want to give you a little trip journal from memory, which by its thrift and tired state will necessarily be abbreviate. Pardon the mistakes.

The first day we woke up and had a swim. The Grand Hyatt has an amazing labyrinth of pools, canals, hot tubs, waterfalls, even a water slide which we had a ball sliding down. Never too old. Towards the ocean there is a large salt water pool network as well.

Afterwards we decided to tour the island and get our bearings again. One of my excesses when I am Hawaii is that I always try to spend the considerably extra money and rent the four by four jeep. It fits our style of fun, always pays off in spades and it sure did this time. We actually had a compact reserved but it was red. Leslie has a thing about red rent a cars being bad juju so I got my way this time.

We popped over to Spouting Horn and then drove to Lihue and saw that our favorite barbecue joint, Scotty's was now closed and turning into something else. We drove up to the gorgeous Wailua and Opaekaa Falls and watched the phoenix like tropicbirds cavort on the jetstreams. We found a back road that led nowhere and got on a dirt 4 x 4 mountain up the mountain past the Powerline trail. Really freeing to have the jeep, we were seeing things that most muggles would never see. When you get into Hawaii's untouched parts is where much of the magic resides.

We stopped at Bubba's Burger, a mistake, in Hanalei and had a greasy and forgettable lunch before driving up to Ke'e beach at the point near Haena and having our first dip in the warm hawaiian ocean. Scoped out Anini Beach on the way back. Timed the return poorly, got caught in Lihue traffic. When we finally got back we had a sunset walk.

For dinner we went to the local supermarket Big Save and got snacks. We live at Big Save and the Koloa Fish Market when we are on Kauai. We feast on all styles of ahi poke, shoyu, avocado, spicy, king crab and langoustine salad. We try to never eat expensive meals in Hawaii. Way more fun to go cheap for us, especially if you know where to get the native fare.

The next day we had a sunrise walk to the phenomenally beautiful lithified cliffs and then a small breakfast, we met our friend Ted at the Kalaheo Cafe. Ted is an ex Fallbrookian, like most of his siblings, he moved to Kauai many years ago. Ted used to be a tour guide, loves to take photographs, sold me my first phone or last pager, I forget. Great guy, he now works at a store in Hanapepe selling old polynesian maps and prints. Ted took us for a ride, up a dead end road to see these goats, and then over to an old japanese cemetery, something the island has many of. We both like walking in old cemeteries.

Ted directed our ride up Waimea Canyon, took us to a few of his secret spots. Really great walks and views. Unfortunately the Kokee, Na Pali lookouts were completely clouded in that day. We drove mauki and dropped Ted off and went to Tomkats in Koloa for fish and chips and a hawaiian kalua pork plate. Living on a round rock necessitates a whole new lexicon, mauku, towards the mountain, and mauki, hawaiian for towards the sea.

The next day we drove to the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Lawai. The McBryde Garden is a research garden as opposed to its more manicured sister garden, the elegant Allerton Gardens. We did the self guided tour and it was wonderful, saw many rare palms from extremely remote atolls and archipelagos, many of which no longer exist in their native space. Orchids, gingers and this quirky monkey pod tree.

It was hot and you had to find shady regions to cool out, my skin as Jimi Hendrix might say, was turning a firey red. But it was a real highlight of the trip for me, the bus ride in being worth the price of admission, like a visit to Swiss Family Robinson. Our driver, Sam's, late father was instrumental in creating the park. The McBryde's were a sugar cane family. Now all the mills are gone.

Allerton and his adopted "son" are an entirely different story altogether, I understand pretty gatsbyish and quite revolutionary for their time. Would like to pony up the considerable entrance fee and see that garden next time.

The vacation honestly blurs but there was just a lot of great times. Swims, dips, walks, drinks, hikes, friends. Met Wicki at Kauai Pasta in Lihue, excellent dinner. Pleasure to talk to her, she filled us in on so much of the local dynamic, having lived in Hanalei for a very long time. We talked about the GMO fight, fiercely debated in Kauai because of the over 40 different genetic seed companies operating on the island and their commensurate power and political pull that employ a lot of people. Their presence and the effects of spraying glyphosates and excessive pesticide bothers many people. Topic to explore.

We learned that a woman growing normal corn was purportedly visited by seed company reps one day and told that she could not grow corn next to them, as their seed experiment was somehow sacrosanct. Very interesting issue, we saw many anti gmo signs outside people's homes in the north.

Matson Lines had a molasses pipeline rupture in hawaii last week, resulting in a horrible and unprecedented fish kill. Fish don't like molasses, it settles on the bottom and robs all the oxygen. The Matson representative said that they had never considered or prepared for such an incident. Sweet death.

I am tired, going to stop this thread until tomorrow, where I will pick things up again. Have things to share.

Aloha and mahalo!

Robert

Do It Again

Looking for Mickey Dora

Tom Shearer snapped this shot of a large scoop of pelicans at Malibu last week. I have never seen such a pod before, have you? He thinks that it was a smelt feed.

Fox guards henhouse

Anybody hungry for some contaminated meat?

We thought we we elected Julian Bond, instead we got Tony Blair.

Tiny Bubbles

The Brother sells out to Big Brother

From the WaPo. This is the kind of bullshit Americans are getting tired of from their government. The duplicitous, sleight of hand crap. Please read the linked page. I said over a year ago that Obama had shit all over his base, a base he would probably need one day. I believe that the chickens are finally coming home to roost.

Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011

The court in 2008 imposed a wholesale ban on such searches at the government’s request, said Alex Joel, civil liberties protection officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The government included this restriction “to remain consistent with NSA policies and procedures that NSA applied to other authorized collection activities,” he said.

But in 2011, to more rapidly and effectively identify relevant foreign intelligence communications, “we did ask the court” to lift the ban, ODNI general counsel Robert S. Litt said in an interview. “We wanted to be able to do it,” he said, referring to the searching of Americans’ communications without a warrant.

Great rationale. "We wanted to be able to do it." Fuck the constitution. Like who's going to stop us...

“The [surveillance] Court documents declassified recently show that in late 2011 the court authorized the NSA to conduct warrantless searches of individual Americans’ communications using an authority intended to target only foreigners,” Wyden said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Our intelligence agencies need the authority to target the communications of foreigners, but for government agencies to deliberately read the e-mails or listen to the phone calls of individual Americans, the Constitution requires a warrant.”

Senior administration officials disagree. “If we’re validly targeting foreigners and we happen to collect communications of Americans, we don’t have to close our eyes to that,” Litt said. “I’m not aware of other situations where once we have lawfully collected information, we have to go back and get a warrant to look at the information we’ve already collected.”

The "oops, what have we here" defense. Pretend to be looking for one thing while we vacuum up all this other stuff under the pretense of national security.

Grant Green - My Favorite Things

Album: Matador
Year: 1964
Label: Blue Note

Grant Green - guitar
McCoy Tyner - piano
Bob Cranshaw - bass
Elvin Jones - drums

Saturday Roundup

I have been a little lax going through my mail. Got this one a few days ago. Not sure I know you Sandy but thank you much for reading. People are getting rich off religion. Now, there's a newsflash.

Hey there,

I’m Sandy and I’ve been reading you for more than a year now. 

I don’t usually do this, but I came across an outrageous infographic on the so called “megachurches” that I really needed to share with you:http://www.onlinechristiancolleges.com/megachurches/. Now I understand they have to fund themselves and thus the tremendous budgets, but how is it possible to have “megapastors” like Joel Olsteen living in $10.5 million mansions? Isn’t this a bit contradictory with what the Bible teaches us?

I’d really love the see your opinion on this and I hope you’ll share it further.

Thanks,

Sandy

*

Bush Press Secretary turned Fox Host Dana Perino found herself in a bit of hot water with the secularists yesterday when she opined that she was tired of the atheists. 

"I'm tired of them." She continued, "I remember working at the Justice Department years ago when I first started right after 9/11 and a lawsuit like this came through, and before the day had finished, the United States Senate and the House of Representatives had both passed resolutions saying that they were for keeping ‘under God’ in the pledge.""If these people really don't like it, they don't have to live here," she concluded.

Dana, it isn't your country, it's our country. Of course, Perino has never been anything more than a very dim bulb. If you remember correctly, she is the one who famously said that “we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term"and also admitted to not knowing what the cuban missile crisis was.

“It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I’m pretty sure.”

This is the woman who once asserted on The Five that women who are victims of violence should “make better decisions” to avoid being hurt.

The phrase "Under God" was not added to the pledge of allegiance until 1954 after prodding from the Catholic Knights of Columbus. The founding fathers took great pains to ensure that we lived in a free nation, not a theocracy. Prior to that time it was an oath and not a prayer and we all got along fine. Dana, the atheists have just as much right to live here as you do, if you don't like it, I suggest that you find a new country. It's people like you that give people like you a bad name.

*
Atheist parolee jailed for refusing to participate in a religious group as condition of his parole.

*
BigD took this video of a guy catching a fish off the Marin Headlands.

*
From Fox - Palestinian Authority takes $148M from US, doles out ‘grants’ to convicted terrorists. Got to love this country.

*
Shawn sent this along. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvaSzYcDXFw&feature=player_embedded

*
The local constabulary and fire chief were quick to blame the Yosemite fire on pot growers. Oops, guess they were wrong. Turns out it was probably a hunter. Say you're sorry?

*
Here's one for you:

Hello!

My name is Katie and I’m putting together some resources for an article I plan to write soon that will guide people through American anti-terrorism strategies in layman’s terms.  Right now I’m focusing my research on how this nation’s terrorism readiness compares to that of a few years ago.

I’m writing today for several reasons, and I really respect you and your time, so please send me an email here:katie@safesoundfamily.com if you would rather I not send you emails in the future. I completely understand!

The first reason is that I thought you’d like to know that there is a dead link on your site, on this page:http://www.blueheronblast.com/2010/03/liz-cheney-and-new-mccarthyism.html. The dead link is to Liz Cheney’s Keep America Safe page:  http://www.keepamericasafe.com/. The page does not redirect anymore as the site was shut down for Cheney’s senate campaign, but I think many of the same issues are addressed by this page: http://www.nationalterroralert.com/, if you’d like to replace the old link with one that keeps people abreast of these issues.

Finally, I wanted to pass along a few resources that I thought you might be interested in checking out, as they have helped me considerably with my research.  The first is something my colleagues put together, and the other two are just things I’ve collected as I’ve browsed.  If you think any of your visitors might find them useful, feel free to post them!

Keep Your Family Safe From Terrorist Attacks
http://safesoundfamily.com/p/family-safety-terrorist-attacks/

A Guide to Financial Recovery After a Disaster
http://www.redcross.org/find-help/disaster-recovery/recovering-financially

Free Disaster Recovery Training for Volunteers
http://etraintoday.com/about-us/disaster-recovery/

Terrorist Attacks and Children: Information for Caregivers
http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/pages/terrorist-attacks-children.asp

Thanks for your time!
-Katie

Katie Cook
katie@safesoundfamily.com
35 Bradford Road
Wellesley, Massachusetts 02481

P.S. because I do get paid to research and write for Safe Sound Family, this could be considered a “commercial” email. If you’d rather not receive emails from me in the future about other dead links on your site, please do not hesitate to let me know by replying to this email or sending a note to: katie@safesoundfamily.com.

P.P.S. also, would you be interested in participating in a short survey on family safety in the future? Please let me know that too! :)

Uh Katie, I was pillorying your organization and Liz Cheney. Did you even read my post? I consider your boss the lowest form of squishy excrement, the kind that sticks in vibram soles and tracks all over the shag carpeting. You sure you want me to freshen up that link?

Fred Wesley

NSA talk

At least in terms of civil liberties, it is evident that Barack Obama the candidate sold the American people a fake bill of goods. It is I suppose a debatable question if he is better or worse than the last vice president in regards to these policies. 

I wonder what would happen if we elected a President who vowed to truly pull back the massive spyweb on american citizens. Would a rogue spy apparatus allow him or her to effect any real change? Or has the surveillance state become totally institutionalized with no possibility of turning back? 

After all the uproar, nothing has really changed. We reserve the right to spy on every citizen, every sovereign country, anywhere in the world.

But you can trust us, take our word for it, we're the good guys. Of course, when we have to rely on the good faith and empty promises of our leaders to secure and safeguard our constitutional liberties, it is unfortunately usually too late. 

Anybody else wonder if we had to start a new war to take a little heat off all this NSA talk?

Ain't It Funky Now

Free my genes

I got this message from my DNA testing company today:

Hello, It's rare that I send 'blast emails', but if there was ever a time in my life that called for a broad based blast, now is that time. I want to share with you an important campaignwww.freemygenes.org that I have started, to raise awareness to an alarming situation.  About 10 weeks ago the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decided that“isolated human genes cannot be patented.”  That same day our DNA testing company launched a breast cancer test that was far more affordable than previous offered tests. Our precedent-setting reduction in price meant that millions of Americans who previously could not get the test--because their insurance company wouldn't pay, or because they lacked insurance--now had access to a high quality test for breast cancer risk.  Myriad Genetics sued us and others for offering this test and although we are not looking for a fight, we are now forced to defend ourselves and feel morally obligated to bring the world a more affordable test. As a child of the 60s, I can tell you that if there ever was a fight worth fighting, this is it.  I urge you to visit our site: www.freemygenes.org and familiarize yourself with the situation as it has unfolded and I urge you to share this information with others. Our actions are based on two key points: genetic testing should be affordable and available to everyone; and test providers should share data to enable better tests for consumers.  To help us promote the effort we ask that you LIKE our page and update your FB profile picture to reflect our cause. Details are on the website.  I am humbled by the volunteers who have stepped forward to help us with this case so far, including the ACLU, AARP, and the Breast Cancer Action. Now it's your turn. Please do so as soon as you have the opportunity to get online. Thank you very much for your support.  Best Regards,  Bennett Greenspan President Family Tree DNA www.familytreedna.com "History Unearthed Daily"

Frank Bowers

I picked up a couple of interesting consignments yesterday. A client of mine found these two Frank Bowers murals at a garage sale in Long Beach years ago, unfortunately leaving one canvas behind. Painted in 1951, they purportedly once hung in a long deceased Long Beach bar called the Ark. Now they are almost ready to move on. Need a cleaning.

The top mural portrays a bunch of randy libertines hooking up for a journey on the ark, the one below might be the Dionysian revelry to be found in the paradise on board. Each one is about 4 x 5'.

Who was Frank Bowers? A very good question. Here is his listing in Eden Hughes book of California artists:

Frank Howard Bowers - Born in California on Nov. 20, 1905. By the 1930s Bowers had settled in Los Angeles. During the Depression he painted murals for the Federal Art Project in the Fruit Growers Exchange (Orange Harvest) and the Ruth Home School in El Monte. He died in Long Beach, CA on Dec. 11, 1964.
Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Painting & Sculpture in Los Angeles, 1900-45; Death record.

I started hunting around and soon found a treasure trove on Bowers, at an online paean to polynesian pop called Tiki Room. At the Tiki Room website, Bowers is evidently something of a demigod. It turns out that somewhere along the way he developed a taste for the grog and became something of a specialist at painting murals in dive bars to pay off his bar tab. His paintings are the canvas equivalent of tattoo flash art, quite stylized in a manly sort of way. And who in the hell doesn't love devil girls?

Now I used to be a sign painter and unfortunately often got severe headaches from the chemicals and solvents. The only thing that could chelate the old painter's blood  from the preferred Ronin Ronan and One Shot brand lead paint happened to be alcohol. That is why so many old painters were rummies, at least why I think it is so, anyway.

Here is a Bowers watercolor I found for sale today on ebay.

There are a plethora of bar murals that Bowers, often assisted by fourth wife Vicki, painted at the Tiki Room site, really worth scrolling through their many pages. In fact it is a really cool website.

Bowers evidently painted saloons from Vegas to Ensenada and all points in between, many showing tropical temptresses showing off their wares to hulking alpha sailors and buccaneers.

Somebody had to specialize in painting bar walls and Frank did it with both gusto and skillful craft.

Bowers portrait - ebay

Here is a link to the Hard Hat Lounge in Las Vegas, proud owners of a Bowers mural.

Bowers illustrated matchbooks and menus, "how to" books and ceramics. Here are a bunch of cool photos that I purloined from the tiki room site and elsewhere, much obliged, pardon the quality of the shots. Not necessarily great art, but that is in the eye of the beholder after all and you can see how these babies would appeal to the besotted.

Foc'sle - Wilmington

Buccaneer Bar - Sierra Madre

Embers, Whittier

Hard Hat Lounge - Las Vegas

Private collection - Indiana

"City Activities" - WPA mural - South Gate City Hall

Sunkist Mural

Restaurant, Virginia

Sierra Madre VFW

Here is a half mural, all that is left from a gambling scene Bowers did for the Sourdough bar in Ketchikan, Alaska. There must be a ton of his work extant, hanging around waiting to be discovered.

Zamboanga

Bohemia Cocktail Lounge

sold - Clark Cierlak auction

Sultana - First Dibs

Melody Colbert's painting

I found the following blurb at answerbag, written by a daughter, maybe explaining some of Frank's problems.

Vicky Bowers was the fourth wife of Frank Howard Bowers, a California local artist of the 30;s, 40's and 50's, with his last works being completed in 1964 in Serra Madre, California. Frank had three children, Jackson Bowers who drummed with Gene Krupa and disappeared somewhere in Florida around 1947 or 1948. His second child was Tommy Bowers a well known builder in the Belmont Shores area of So.Calif. His third wife was my mother Kathryn King Bowers, a writer and executive secretary to Henry Blanke at Warner Bros. Studios in 1944. Frank was a [story board man] on several motion pictures during the 40's . Of that marriage one child was born, Sydney Louise Bowers, [Female]. Frank went on to marry Vicky with whom he completed several large murals all over Calif as well as Mexico. Frank had a terrible accident in Mexico while painting a bull fight, the stands came down on him and he was never quite the same, but still painted just as well, but could not climb scaffolding so very few murals were done after that time. Frank Bowers died in 1964 in Los Angeles, Ca. , he had a short bout of Cancer that was to give him four short months, and was buried in Serra Madre, Ca. I still have a few pieces of his work, look at it every day. S.M.

Here is a comment a girl named Melody wrote on the website that fills in a few more dots on the artist:

Hi I was researching Frank Bowers and came across this discussion. I grew up under a Frank Bowers painting signed by Frank and dated '61 - it was hung over our mantle in Sierra Madre, where Frank and Vicki lived in the early sixties. My father was a carpenter, and the story is that Frank gave him the painting as payment for work my dad did for him. Vicki and Frank lived (and painted) in a store-front in downtown Sierra Madre. I recall mom talking about the fact that both Vicki and Frank had a fondness for the drink, and lived pretty poorly -- no stove or refrigerator, just a toilet and sink! I inherited the painting from my mother and it includes many of the Chinese figures shown in similar paintings here, although the female figure is fully clothed (no doubt because he knew our family consisted of five children). How can I post a picture of the painting here? I don't see any "attachment" button. I am also writing because I spent a lot of time at the VFW post (Veterans of Foreign Wars) bar in Sierra Madre (I was a kid, so they served me Shirley Temples). It was called "The Vets" by locals. I recall there were murals by Frank both upstairs in the bar, and downstairs in the meeting hall (where I had my wedding reception 25 years ago!) Then, the post sold the building, so I have no idea where the murals went (they may have been painted on the walls,perhaps still standing?) I moved away years ago, and most of dad's contemporaries have died, so I have no idea how to track this down.-Melody 
p.s. My dad BUILT the bar at the Buccaneer when he helped in its remodel many years ago.

You want to call it kitsch, pulp or pop, feel free. One man's kitsch is another man's chicken dinner. I'll take lowbrow over some slick New York hipster artist of the month any day. I think that this stuff is cool and it is a shame that Bowers never made more of a mark on the jetstream for his iconoclastic, testosterone driven style.

I dig painters like this. Come check the paintings out before they get cleaned. If you have any information on the artist to share, please do! I want to thank the Tiki Room for the wonderful job they have done researching and celebrating these wonderful artists.

First postscript: Got on ancestry.com - Frank married Vicki Vergez in 1950 in Orange. He was born in Alameda. There is an early 1935 photo of him sculpting but it is deemed private.  I will continue to hunt...