Let’s Learn From the Past and Stop Spending the Future

Remember the BP oil spill? We can still learn a few things from that experience.

In the constantly multiplying days since the BP oil spill all we have received from President Obama are many nuanced, vetted, and parsed versions of Bart Simpson’s famous dodge, “I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, there's no way you can prove anything!”  Not exactly the change those who voted for the only honest politician from Chicago had hoped for is it?  It makes me wonder, is there a sign on the President’s desk that says, “The Buck Stops Over There.”  More than three years into a national calamity and only six months away from what we hope will be change in 2013 and Mr. Obama still thinks his fingerprints aren’t on anything except the levers of imperial power and a big arrow that points to Crawford, Texas.

In his first address to the nation from the Oval Office President Obama sounded like a professor lecturing his self-indulgent students as to why they failed their test because they didn’t study, “It’s a bad result but it’s your fault.”  BP was responsible for the leaking oil because they are greedy capitalists, but America was responsible because we use more oil than we possess or are allowed to produce parroting the falsehood, "We consume more than 20% of the world's oil, but have less than 2% of the world's oil reserve.”   Mr. Obama went so far as to blame Mother Nature falsely saying “And that's part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean -- because we're running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water."  

The safest place to drill for oil is on land and we have proven reserves in ANWAR a region that was specifically set aside for drilling, but the Green Police who now rule the nation won’t allow it.  There are also proven reserves in shallow water but the Green Police once again wag their petulant finger in denial.  We are drilling in the most dangerous places almost asking for a disaster because our ineffectual unrealistic leader and his fellow travelers would rather invest billions more on green technology in the hopes of creating green jobs.

Acting as Venture Socialists, the Progressives our President represents have been investing billions of our tax dollars for decades in windmills and solar panels, and they still aren’t viable.  And if Spain, the world’s leader in creating Green Jobs is any indication for every green job produced 2.5 private sector jobs are lost and most green jobs are either non-producing government jobs or temporary.  Where’s the leadership?  Our government has told us for forty years that they have been trying to achieve energy independence.  Now we know we have the reserves to make that a reality and what has our leader led us to?   President Obama has managed to lead us from a recession into The Great Recession.  Which at least qualifies as following the advice of a cartoon characters or as Hank Hill said to his near-do-well son, “Bobby, if you're gonna do something wrong, do it right!”

Everyday drip, drip, drip another assault on American traditions another insult to the American people as our President bows to foreign potentates or apologizes for our history.  His poll numbers show this is wearing thin.  Even the shills over at MSNBC have begun to question the leadership of President Obama, “What are we trying to do in this administration?  Why does he want a second term? Would he tell us? What’s he going to do in his second term, more of this? Is this it? Is this as good as it gets? Where are we going?”  If this is leadership, as Dilbert once observed, don’t step in it.

Having spent the better part of two decades teaching, I thought I had heard every excuse ever to grace the mind of an evasion artist.  I’ve heard everything from “I know its plagiarized but I didn’t have time to check over the work of the guy I hired to write my paper,” to  “I didn’t know that no late submissions accepted meant I couldn’t turn in work after the due date.”  And in the comedy series category I have heard 8,000 versions of “Bill Gates ate my homework.” However, as creative as some of those have been President Obama’s endless variations of “George Bush did it” has now become the all-time longest running excuse.  Evasion isn’t leadership just as saying something doesn’t make it true.

Now Mr. Obama is telling us he is a fiscal conservative and a budget cutting tightfisted economically conservative red white and blue deficit hawk.  After three years of FDR on steroids we are supposed to believe he is really Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan, and scrooge McDuck all rolled up in one.  Then again it isn’t class warfare; it is making sure everyone pays their fair share except of course for his supporters who pay nothing.  It isn’t helping establish Islamist regimes throughout the Middle East; it is supporting democracy.  And, oh yes, it isn’t out-of-control spending; it is investing in our future.  I guess since we’re investing in the future it makes sense to spend the incomes of our great great grandchildren.  Can anyone say taxation without representation?

The continual fog of political spin and deception is poisoning the already fractured dialog between America’s citizens and their perpetually re-elected representatives.   This lead from behind, managing the decline transformation of America has got to stop.  Just as no one ever gets to step into the same river twice no one gets to live in the country they grew up in because the times they are a changing. But what we are experiencing today is not normal change. This is a top down revolution that is designed to transform America into a social democracy.

Evading the problems will not make them go away.  We have got to face up to the hard choices that need to be made.  Are we all going to silently follow as we are led over a cliff?  Or are we going to stand for something before we fall for nothing.  What we need is someone who will tell us the truth: “We’re broke.”  We need someone who will stand for limited government, personal liberty, and economic opportunity.  We need someone who will stand up and be counted not someone who counts on others standing up to do the job so they can buy votes by expropriating the hard-earned fruit of their labor to pass the wealth around.

We don’t need another four years of evasion and trickery. We need to take a long hard look at the dire situation these Progressives have created, and then we need to plan ahead, put our nose to the grindstone, and work our way out of this hole.  Or as Hank Hill said, “If you plan ahead, then when things happen, you're prepared for them.”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

The No Growth Zero Sum Pie

Has America reached the stage where we all stand in a circle and take turns holding a constantly shrinking dollar?

If our Dear Leader and the Daley led Outfit wins re-election next year perhaps a few more people will see the hand writing on the wall.  Though the Constitution is undeniably the greatest work to come from the hand of man, though it provided the safe haven of freedom for generations it is today a dead letter.  If after the coming November election the Democrats tax storm sweeps us down the economic drain and inflation kicks in those dazed by the success of the Chicago system in re-electing the first anti-American president then the silent majority will be ready to hear the watchmen on the walls. 

We have sold our birthright for a bowl of entitlements.  We have stood silently by while corrupt politicians have looted our posterity of opportunity and hope.  We have allowed our Federal Government to assume powers never delegated to them by the Constitution.  We have spent the revenues of the future for a present that no longer resembles the last best hope of mankind.  We have followed the pipers from the Land of the free and the home of the brave onto the road to serfdom and we are about to learn that he who pays the piper calls the tune.

While our nation wallows in the Great Recession which our Progressive leaders and their water boys in the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media keep trying to tell us is over China keeps eating our lunch.  Starting with NAFTA both Democrats and Republicans have agreed to free trade deals that aren’t free and have suppressed our trade.  For these economic geniuses who think they can centrally plan the largest economy in the history of the world let me spell this out slowly and clearly:

·         If you buy more than you sell you have a negative balance of trade

·         If you spend more than you make you eventually go bankrupt

AND…..

·         Everyone else except you seems to know these two simple truths.

Maybe our economic geniuses should try Economics 101.  They want us to accept that America has become a no growth zero sum pie.  It doesn’t fit their game plan to take their foot off the throat of the economy.  If they did it would roar to life as the liberty and opportunity which is our heritage, and once again prove that free people making free choices is the best way to grow the pie and enrich the people.

A new book calls President Obama an amateur, and at first glance he may appear to be one.  However he does not stand alone.  He is the front man for a triumphant Progressive Movement which has successfully implemented a strategy that has taken more than a century to mature.  Starting in the 1890s they set their sights on education capturing the universities and then training generations of teachers, journalists, and lawyers.  These people have infiltrated every aspect of our lives dumbing down successive generations while Progressive politicians have worked at getting a majority of the voters addicted to government handouts.  Then in the1960s the Cloward and Piven Strategy was embraced as a way to spend the country into oblivion so that it could be remade in a Progressive image.  Step by step, inch by inch, line upon line these webs have been woven, and as the average American twists and turns trying to find some avenue of escape from the shabby future these want to be commissars have planned, all they see is the party line on the major networks telling them everything is coming up roses. 

It is time to WAKE UP!  It is time to prepare as if the world we have known will end and expect major dislocations in every aspect of life.  Even an overwhelming defeat for President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the rest of their fellow travelers will only mean this train wreck is slowing down.  The so-called draconian Ryan Budget never gets to a balanced budget for 40 or 50 years.  More than 30 years out the national debt is still growing.  Projections show that by 2025 the interest on the debt alone will begin to consume any hope of getting out of the trick bag they have spent us in to.  Our elected leaders have no plan to reverse the decline. They merely want to manage it in a more orderly fashion.

Each of us must decide what is most important.  Each of us must either prepare for the coming contraction or hit the wall like a crash dummy. 

Personally I have decided that family is more important than career, food is more important than convenience, and honor is more important than status.   I have left the tenured halls and headed for the hills.  I have abandoned friends of many years to be surrounded by family.  I have embraced the soil to grow my own food. In other words, I believe I have been to the top of the mountain, I have seen what is coming, and I have taken my own advice.

When I was the Dean of a School of Christian Ministries I used to tell my students to prepare as if there was no Holy Spirit and preach as if there were no notes.  Today I advise my readers, prepare as if the America we have known and loved is about to be transformed before our eyes into a social democracy of European proportions, and live as if there is still hope.

For as long as we believe there is still hope we will not be hopeless. 

So we come to the ultimate message: hope in Christ and you will never be disappointed.  All things must pass and only those things done in Christ will last.  All empires fall.  It is our place in History to watch the slow motion fall of a mighty empire: Western Civilization. But if we hold on to what is true, if we stand for what we believe, though a thousand fall on our right and ten thousand fall on our left it will not come upon us.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

What’s Mine is Mine What’ s Yours is Negotiable

The economy is scheduled to plunge off a cliff in January. 

Back in the first two years after the Progressive’s November Revolution of 2008, the big government party enacted tax increases not scheduled to take place until after the 2012 elections. They also passed Obamacare which carries within it multiple tax increases, which are also scheduled to take affect after the 2012 election.  Combine these with previous tax rollbacks scheduled to expire in January 2013 and we are looking at the major economic crisis the progressives have worked so hard to create so they can then work so hard to solve. 

In 2010 the voters got a chance to let the central planners know what they thought of what had been done with the power entrusted to them in 2008.  However, with only one house of Congress in Republican hands they were unable to reverse any of the changes made in the first two years of the Obama administration, so come January we hit the wall.

This manufactured economic crisis will be used by the triumphant Progressives as proof that capitalism doesn’t work.  Then following their play book, since too much government wrecked the economy we need more government to fix the economy.  They will tighten the already strangulating regulatory straight jacket.  If Obamacare is upheld and implemented, within a few years it will kill the private insurance industry as company after company figures out it is cheaper to pay the fines imposed than purchase the insurance required.  The flight of paying customers from the private insurance companies will force them into bankruptcy.  Remember even if they used deceptive language at the moment of passing the bill President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid were on the record many times saying what they were aiming at was a single payer European type healthcare system.  And we can all see how well that is working out for the Europeans.

They will also use the failure of the insurance industry as more proof that capitalism doesn’t work.

As President Obama travels around the country inciting class warfare with his constant attacks on the millionaires and billionaires which he tells us aren’t paying their fair share he continues to accept vast amounts of money from those same millionaires and billionaires.  While his administration imposes regulation after regulation that every day makes it harder to start new businesses, maintain or expand small businesses he turns a blind eye to the continued casino like atmosphere at the largest banks: the ones that are too big to fail and which should be too big to bail.

The largest bank in the country, J. P. Morgan Chase just lost another couple of billions in risky credit derivatives that their own chairman says were ill-conceived, poorly executed, and not managed very well.  This is the same bank that President Obama says is one the best run banks in America and the same chairman who has visited the Whitehouse at least 18 times since 2009..  The Chairman of the Board Jamie Diamom, the one in charge when all the poor execution was going on was just voted 23 million dollars in compensation while the stockholders take it in the wallet. 

Crony capitalism, where the public takes the risk and bears the loss while the cronies who contribute money to the politicians reap the benefits is alive and well.  Favored corporation such as GE whose chairman, Jeffrey R. Immelt serves on the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness makes billions in profit and often pays nothing in taxes.  Personally I believe there should be no corporate taxes since they are in reality double taxation but taxing some while exempting others is the worst kind of Corporatism and the President merely uses this system to reward donors and then turns around and attacks this pay-to-play system as an example of the rich not paying their fair share.

There is a con game going on.  Straw men are being set up only to be knocked down.  Our fellow Americans who get their news from Jay Leno and the Daily Show have no idea what is being done.  They swallow the party line as belched out by the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media and troop to the polls to vote for the same party their fathers and grandfathers voted for.  But the major parties today aren’t ideologically, organizationally, or in practice the same parties America has known.

Neither party stands for smaller government, individual freedom, and economic opportunity.  At one time they both stood for these fundamentally American concepts.  Operating like the twin heads of one bird of prey, both major parties expand the government and add to the regulatory burden which is changing America from the Land of the Free into a totalitarian morass that is stagnating its way from the first world to the second world. 

From the beginning of the primary process it was obvious that Romney was the anointed choice of the establishment Republicans and the media.  Now that he has been all but chosen it is time for the Democrats to scare up a third party somewhere somehow.  President Obama’s record of socialist accomplishments is so stunning it has even aroused enough of the politically comatose to push him back to the 40+% of the electorate who would vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for anyone except a Democrat.  He has lost the independents and the undecided.  His only chance for victory is a third party, so there will be a third party even if the Democrats have to invent it and pay for it themselves.

As the big day, the day when we as voters will get a chance to reverse the November Revolution of 2008, watch as a third party emerges, well-funded and well prepared.  This third party will say all the right things.  They will come across as conservative ideologically and economically.  They will probably even try to portray themselves as the organized expression of the thousands of independent Tea Parties across the country.

No third party has won a presidential election in America since 1860.  The rules have been rigged, and so many people vote instinctively for the party their fathers voted for the odds of a third party winning are close to the odds of winning the power ball.

If the progressives win one more election they will cement in their transformation of America from a land based on equal opportunity to a land of based on equal outcome.  Everyone gets the same thing except of course for those who divvy up the swag.  Those who divide what they take from the producers to give to the non-producers always seem to end up with everything while everyone else gets just enough to get by long enough to produce something else that can be expropriated by an all-powerful central government.

The Progressives who have taken control of America act as if all the money we earn is theirs and the only debate is about how much they will let us keep.  And they constantly remind us that the government can’t afford to leave us with too much money.  If they did we wouldn’t be dependent on them. 

Maybe we should change the motto from E Pluribus Unum to What’s Mine is Mine What’s Yours is Negotiable.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

America Lost in a Bubble

All bubbles burst.  This is a law of nature.  No matter from what material the bubble arises.  No matter what forces propel its expansion.  All bubbles burst. 

Actually the science of bursting bubbles has recently popped into the forefront of scientific discovery.  Conventional wisdom has taught since the beginning of time that when a bubble bursts it simply vanishes.  However, recent observations using high speed cameras has revealed that when a bubble bursts it leaves a circle of miniature daughter bubbles that pop so fast the eye cannot catch it.  There is even the thought that each daughter bubble leaves a ring and each daughter bubble leaves a ring ad infinitum.   All happening so fast it cannot be seen.  And yet, each succeeding bubble bursts.

The physics of bubbles tells us that the pressure on the inside works against the tension on the surface and a ratio between the two determines when the bubble will burst.  No matter how it bursts, no matter why or when it bursts one thing is certain: all bubbles burst.

In economics a bubble is the term commonly used for a cycle characterized by rapid expansion followed by rapid often dramatic contraction.  What causes economic bubbles is often a matter of dispute among economists.  Some believe they are a natural part of the economic cycle: everything goes up, and everything eventually comes back down. 

Others believe they are caused by inflation.  In this scenario everything has a natural price which is the intersection of cost and demand.  The Bubble is the artificial rise of price over the natural price.  Eventually the economy must correct itself and the inflated product will return to its natural price.

No matter which theory you subscribe to, one thing is certain: all bubbles burst.

Remember the Clinton years?  Today the official History as dispensed constantly by the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media is that the wise and benevolent rule of the man from Hope was a time of plenty.  There was solid growth and balanced budgets.  As the Progressive narrative goes, President Clinton alone was responsible for the growth of the nineties which Bush the Younger proceeded to destroy leaving a mess for President Obama who has fought valiantly to restart the economy and save the day.  At least that’s the story as dispensed by the headlines and the talking heads.

The reality is approximately 180 degrees opposite of the spin.

President Clinton won a three way election with less than 50% of the vote (twice) and called it a mandate both times.  The policies he opposed for his entire career had recently won the Cold War, and President Clinton reaped the rewards.  He gutted the military and called it a Peace Dividend which he proceeded to spend on social engineering projects pumping up the economy with government spending.  Then the Dot-com Boom turned into the Dot-com Bubble and the economy was roaring.  Another plus for Clinton was the defeat of Hillarycare which would have torpedoed the economy just as Obamacare is now.  He also profited by the election of a Republican House in 1994 which kept the promises in the Contract With America and led the way in cutting spending and building a budget that at least appeared to be balanced. 

Everything was coming up roses. The economy was growing and so was the Dot-com Bubble, which everyone just knew would go on forever even though anyone older than the milk in the fridge should have known that all bubbles burst.

In 2000 George II won a contested election, and before he had time to change the drapes in the Oval Office the Dot-com Bubble burst.  This led to a short sharp recession; this was the one that Bush didn’t blame on Clinton.  He instead passed the now infamous Bush tax cuts and mailed out what he called rebates in the form of free money to spur the economy.  All the while behind the scenes the housing bubble was beginning to inflate to epic proportions.   Federal spending grew, the government grew, and the bubble grew.

During the go-go years people with no job, no money, and sometimes no ID were able to buy McMansions for no money down and walk out with cash in their hands.  How could this ever go wrong?  I remember hearing of people bidding on houses, offering 10% over the asking price and losing out to someone who offered more.  Prices went up and up and up and somehow even sane people apparently thought it would never end. 

Things looked good.  Things looked very good.  Following the recession which began seven weeks after President Bush took office, America had six years of uninterrupted economic growth.  There were fifty two straight months of job creation producing more than eight million new jobs, the unemployment averaged 5.3 %, after-tax income per capita increased by11%, from 2000 to 2007, and GDP grew by more than 17 % adding almost $2.1 trillion.  Exotic ways to paper over the fact that people with no money were buying houses fueling the boom kept everyone smiling and the bubble expanding.

The only problem was that eventually all bubbles burst.  And when it did John McCain suspended his presidential race to fly back to Washington and add his hearty, “Me Too” to the bailout and seal his fate. 

President Obama took office as the economy crashed into the deepest recession since World War Two.  He immediately began blaming President Bush and hasn’t stopped yet.  He passed the largest stimulus bill in American History, began a record expansion of the Federal government, and the largest spending binge since the beginning of time.  All in the name of cleaning up the mess from the bursting of the housing bubble. 

And what are all these trillions of dollars in reckless spending doing?  Are they inflating another bubble?  Change the words and you change the perception: spending becomes investment and responsibility becomes austerity.  Those who are manning the pumps aren’t blowing up a financial bubble they are showing compassion for their fellow man and investing for the future.  Anyone who warns of a coming crash or tries to slow the rate of spending is pushing grandma off the cliff for the benefit of millionaires and billionaires.

No matter how this mad dash to nowhere is spun one thing is certain: all bubbles burst

On the brighter side President Obama has perfected the cure for illegal immigration.  The economy has taken such a massive hit that the illegal immigrants are leaving looking for greener pastures.  And he has also brought the solution to a 10%+ unemployment rate.  So many people have become discouraged that they have dropped out of the labor market, and according to our current administration this is good news.  Perhaps we should take a cue from Mr. Obama’s favorite pastime and just consider his first term a mulligan.

Maybe the slogan for President Obama’s second term shouldn’t be “Forward.” Perhaps it should be “I deserve a re-do.”

Just remember: all bubbles burst.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

When Will Enough Be Enough

When taxes become destructive they’ve surpassed the consent of the governed bending to the will of tyranny.  When regulations strangle competition instead of securing it from evil combinations they’ve become counterproductive and defeat the very purpose for which they were proposed.  When foreign entanglements bleed the nation but do not secure the peace or defeat the enemy they’ve become interventionist vehicles for vested interests.  When spending becomes a hemorrhaging of assists leading to national bankruptcy those who continue to pile debt upon debt seek not the good of the nation but instead its destruction.  When leaders selected to unite instead do all they can to divide they no longer advance the interest of the whole and are instead partisan leaders in a factional fight.

A social contract is one made between a people and their government.  It is an agreement whereby the people surrender certain aspects of their independence for the guarantee of corporate security and the enjoyment of a general welfare.  In the case of most countries this is an unwritten and unconscious arrangement built upon tradition and precedent as in the case of England.  However in the United States we have an actual contract, the Constitution.  This was ratified by the original states and the subsequent states were formed under it and admitted as full partners to it. 

All contracts may be legitimately changed over time as long as there are mechanisms either within the document or established by the document to do so.  Within our Constitution there is an amendment process and it has been amended 27 times so far.  Whether we agree with those amendments or not they have been legally ratified and accepted becoming part of the document.  However, over the years our government structure has been changed and our manner of life transformed more by the informal changes than by the formal.  Nowhere in the Constitution is the central government given the power to wage unending undeclared war.  Nowhere is the central government given the right to ignore the requirement to protect the states from invasion.  Nowhere is there found any basis for executive orders, signing statements or bureaucratic regulations to have the force of law without legislative action by Congress.

Well-connected rabble rousers now say equality will not be achieved until everything is equal in everybody’s house.  Leveling the playing field has finally thrown off its cloak of deceit and exposed itself as, “From each according to their ability to each according to their need.”  The professional civil rights entrepreneurs who’ve extorted vast amounts of personal wealth with threats of boycotts and demonstrations have been unmasked as the true purveyors of prejudice seeking to keep race and gender differences alive for their own benefit.  Union bosses build political empires using the legally forced dues of members with more money spent on political activity than on member service.  The union bosses ride in limousine comfort from board meetings to political rallies while their members lose jobs.  The pensions of the bosses are golden parachutes while the pensions of the members are underfunded.

The Land of the Free is held captive, locked in a two party system where both parties are merely two heads on the same bird of prey.  Both parties are dedicated to more spending and bigger government.  Both parties exploit gerrymandering of districts and overwhelming corporate donations to ensure a hierarchy of the perpetually re-elected using a system of seniority to enhance their power.  Legal barriers exist at every turn to stop any new parties from gaining the access that might deflect the central government from its ever increasing growth towards totalitarianism. 

When will enough be enough?  When will citizens rise in their righteous anger and demand not a New Deal, not a Great Society, a New Frontier or a Fundamentally Transformed America but instead their original deal.  The one we wrested from the hands of the tyrant King George.  The one we’ve fought to establish and defend from Yorktown to Kandahar and the right of a people to be free to live as they desire, to work for their own benefit and choose their own destiny.  Free from the smothering governmental control which has been the lot of most people in most places since the beginning of time.  When will the yoke of tyranny become too heavy to be borne?  What will be the spark that lights the torches and brings the incensed villagers to the gate of the castle demanding, “Bring the monster out!” so that a stake can be driven through the heart of tyranny and freedom can return to the land?

When that day comes what will we the people do?  Will we try to resurrect the government of old that ultimately brought us full circle or will we be bold enough to forge a new the social contract and design better ways to ensure that the beast of tyranny doesn’t once again break the chains of restraint.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens