May 2004
With the March winds and April showers behind us, all the excuses for not
getting out and doing things are void (also null). If you’re around Hancock
back roads at the right time of day you’ll see me combining a couple miles
of fast walking with a rapture caused by enjoying the beauty of the fields
of bluets, violets, and mustard blossoms. If you’re not including some exercise
in your daily schedule, know that, like your mind, your body is a use it
or lose it proposition. You can help keep your mind sharp and ward off Alzheimer’s
by reading, writing, playing board games, and doing crossword puzzles. That
mess beside my bed is the pile of magazines and books I’m reading, plus I
whip off a couple of N.Y. Times crosswords and a cryptogram every day.
Long Life
Just after I’d finished taping my weekly TV show for Manchester Community
Television I met Norm, who was there to tape his show (Sat. 7pm, Sun. 9am).
He’s a psychic. If you’ve done much reading you know there are some psychics
who are the real thing. Like my friend Uri Geller. Norm looked at me and
said I would live to 110. That was reassuring, particularly since there are
so many powerful vested interests that are rooting for my early demise.
Like the oil companies and my publishing a Cold Fusion Journal. We could
have unlimited totally non-polluting energy at less than a tenth the cost
of oil or coal if the oil companies didn’t control Congress and the Administration.
Like my Secret Guide to Health, which, if the news ever got around, could
destroy the shamaceutical industry, along with the AMA and FDA. Like the
NEA, if I’m able to totally revolutionize education via a new technology.
With me poking sticks in so many hornets nests, I figured I’d be fortunate
to live out 2004. On the other hand, since all the mammals except man live
between ten and seventeen times their age at puberty, I figure that if we
actually made an informed effort to be healthy we’d be living between 120
and 200 years. Fat chance, right? If you’d like to know more about any of
the above, drop me a line (Wayne Green, Box 360, Hancock, NH 03449) or w2nsd@aol.com.
Improving New Hampshire
Writing about Senator Judd Gregg, which I was just about to do, please drop
him a line expressing your extreme indignation at his torpedoing the low
power FM station authorization. So far, he’s only heard from the broadcast
industry through lobbyist money and this is a service our towns really need.
393 Russell Blg, Washington DC 20510. Anyway, back in 1990, when Judd was
governor and NH was suffering seriously from the recession, he asked me to
serve on an Economics Development Commission. Not understanding the Commission
was a façade to give the appearance that something was being done,
I volunteered and spent a year attending meetings.
My first question was obvious: What is New Hampshire’s biggest industry?
Tourism. By a long shot. Okay, then what can we do to increase tourism? Heck,
we have more fun things to do here in New Hampshire than there is in the
rest of New England combined, so let’s get busy and promote them. How? With
a magazine, of course. One devoted to getting the word out on what’s doing
in New Hampshire. I named the it New Hampshire To Do. With over 20 million
families within driving distance, we needed to get the word out. That would
get more small businesses started, generating the badly needed jobs and bring
money into the state. I offered solutions to our problems in education, sickness
care, prison reform, college tuition, generating new small businesses, drugs,
cutting government expenses, baby and child care, welfare, and so on. When
the Commission died of natural causes, I put my proposed solutions in writing
in a 360-page book, published in 1992.
Cut to ten years later and Craig Benson, the new governor, asking for ideas.
A year ago I sent a series of letters to Governor Benson proposing 44 ways
our state could be improved. I called it my GREEN-PRINT for New Hampshire
2020. I got a form postcard of thanks. Period. So, what did I propose? How
about an Aspen East in our North Country to bring in millions of visitors?
Or making New Hampshire the core for developing three new technologies into
trillion-dollar industries? Or a tuition-free University of New Hampshire?
Or a way to spawn thousands of new entrepreneurial businesses? How about
a new farmland crop that can net over $150,000 a year per acre, and costs
nothing to get started? I’ve reprinted the 44 letters in a 104-page booklet,
if you’re interested. (See www.waynegreen.com).
New Hampshire is a great state to visit on vacations and extended weekend
mini-vacations. It’s also a great place, considering how empty our North
Country is, to buy a small plot for a vacation retreat. And, with today’s
communications via the Web, more and more people are working from home. So
why not have that home out in the woods or near a lake somewhere? A few years
back I had a house halfway up Mt. Monadnock. The view was spectacular and
it was wonderfully remote. It was a great place to do my research and write.
But, when I wanted company, all I had to do was turn on the switch on my
ham radio set and I could sit and talk with friends anywhere in the world.
These days, knowing what I do, I’d opt for building my retreat mostly underground.
It costs a lot less to build and a huge amount less to heat and cool.
Plus, if any of those threatened super storms materialize, we’ll be safe.
Check out The $50 & Up Underground House Book by Mike Oehler, $17, ISBN
0-442-27311-8. Another good one is The Underground House Book by Stu Campbell,
$11, ISBN 0-88266-166-3. This sure beats the heck out of those million-dollar
houses in California. I’d build mine on the south face of a hill, with a
big picture window for the living room looking out over the valley and the
rest of the house built back into the hill. I really don’t need outside windows
for my bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, library, TV room, office, garage, and
so on.
If you’re going to enjoy a home in the mountains more than on weekends you’ll
have to join the growing number of people who are working mostly from home.
Well, read the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books and get your juices going for having
your own business. No more long, slow commute to and from work during the
so-called rush hours. Just the hop from the bedroom to the office and a day
with your computer, telephone, fax machine and a trip to the post office.
I research, write, print and bind my books from home. Oh, and I promote them
on talk radio from home, too. A place in the country puts you in easier reach
of the endless number of things we have to do here in New Hampshire. Popping
over to Conway for a steam railroad ride, or a Cog Railway ride up Mt. Washington
is no big deal. Or a fishing trip to Diamond Pond or the Connecticut Lakes.
Off Grid
Every summer there’s a tour of solar-powered New Hampshire homes that’s worth
the trouble. Until someone puts a small cold-fusion-powered home heater and
electric generator on the market, solar is the best way to go. It means installing
some heavy-duty batteries, a converter to change the 12-volts dc into 120
volts ac, and an array of solar cells. But, from then on the power company
can go fly a kite. If the power grid goes down, which even a third-rate group
of terrorists could manage, your computer and lights will still be perking.
This Summer
How about a canoe or kayak trip from Canada to Massachusetts, complete with
an article for us? I tried to get Dean Kamen interested in organizing a Segway
trip over that route as a way to get publicity for both his company and New
Hampshire. No response. Well, at least a bicycle trip? That would be a good
addition to your “done that” list. Maybe on a skateboard?
A few years ago a friend of mine rigged up his recumbent bicycle with a
computer and a ham radio set. He pedaled all around the country, talking
with the local hams as he went along, and writing articles for bicycle, ham
radio, and travel magazines on his computer.
Donor
The political requests for donations are coming faster and faster. Here’s
my response to the Bean, Berry, Bark, Bush and any other committees asking
for support for a Presidential, Senate, or House candidate. Please feel free
to steal this. Maybe, if we can get enough people to stop blindly signing
checks, we’ll force the parties (hey, that’s a good name!) to stop snickering
at our stupidity while we’re getting screwed.
YES! Put me down as a $1000 donor! But there are a few small caveats. Like
a campaign promise which would give me some sort of guarantee that I would
see some badly needed changes such as:
(1) Term limits for federal judges, plus some guidelines for them, such as
a return to the Constitution instead of leading the parade for social engineering
such as the school bussing debacle.
(2) Get the government the heck out of religious issues such as school prayer
and abortion, which represent still more social engineering. Why are we even
arguing about mixing church and state?
(3) The elimination of government confiscation of property through their
many agencies. For instance the property tax effectively makes the owner
of property a lessee, not an owner. If you stop paying, you lose your property.
If an informant tells the police that you have drugs on your property, the
police can (and do), without a warrant, break in and then confiscate your
property if drugs are found. If the IRS decides you owe for taxes they can
confiscate your property. I put my life on the line—on the front line in
the most dangerous of all the services and contributed significantly toward
our success—during WWII, but it wasn’t for the America I see today. The RICO
laws were, as usual, well intentioned. But government agencies have misused
them to confiscate property.
(4) The “war on drugs” has been a very expensive war and the government
has lost it. This has been an enormous government fiasco. Get the government
out of this mess and let the capitalist marketplace take over.
(5) Get the government out of supporting prices. Let the market control prices
and stop subsidies for tobacco, farmers, sugar, milk, power, and so on.
(6) The most expensive war in the history of the country is the “war on poverty.”
The government, both state and federal, should get out of this failed social
engineering project and let the market handle it. A number of people in government
seem not to have noticed that socialism has failed in every country where
it has been tried. They should be forced to visit some countries where it
has been implemented such as Russia, Yugoslavia, Sweden, China, etc. I’ve
visited ’em all. What a mess!
(7) Socialism has failed us in our school system. The law forcing kids to
go to school is tantamount to slavery. With government run schools costing
two and three times as much to run as private schools, it is time for the
government to get out of messing up the education business and let competitive
for-profit forces provide this service. Our country had a much higher literacy
rate before public schools were forced on us.
(8) It is federal and state regulations which have made such an incredible
mess of our so-called health care system, making it one of the most expensive
in the world, yet providing us with third-world grade health care. Get the
government out of this social engineering and let the market control our
medical industry.
(9) With lobbyists in every state capitol and Washington, I would like to
see an enforced law prohibiting any representative of the people from publicly
discussing or voting on any matter in which they have a pecuniary (conflicted)
interest. Thus, if they accept money or favors from any person or group,
they would be prohibited from being a paid agent of that person or group
toward initiating or changing any laws possibly affecting that person or
group.
(10) Illegal immigration is against the law. Either change the laws or enforce
them. Until the social engineering projects providing free food, housing,
money, education, and health care for illegal immigrants is ended our country
will continue to be a powerful magnet for illegal immigrants. If we want
more immigrants, then change the laws.
(11) Stop wasting our tax dollars on foreign aid. If Congress, the State
Department or the President have an uncontrollable urge to give our money
away, let’s instead insist that we get some usable land in exchange for it…land
which might be developed into business enterprise zones or military bases.
Or both.
(12) There’s more, but that will give you an idea of the platform
I will be delighted to support with my money, just as I believed I was supporting
these concepts when I put my life on the line in WWII.