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Good Mountain Press Monthly Digest #064
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~ In Memoriam: Anne Bancroft (1931-2005) ~~~~
~~~~~~~~ [ Mrs. Robinsion in "The Graduate" ] ~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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~~~ GOOD MOUNTAIN PRESS DIGEST #064 Published April 1, 2006 ~~~
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Quote for the Easter Month of April:

What frenzy has of late posssess'd the brain
Though few can write, yet fewer can refrain.

Samuel Garth, ( 17th-century US writer, physician, and poet )

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THE GOOD MOUNTAIN PRESS DIGEST #064, April 2006
Archived Digests
Table of Contents

1. April's Violet-n-Joey Cartoon
2. Honored Readers for April
3. On a Personal Note
4. Cajun Story
5. Recipe of the Month from Bobby Jeaux’s Kitchen: Boiled Shrimp, Blue Crab, and Crawfish, Cajun Style
6. Poem by Bobby:"Karma Spins"
7. Reviews and Articles Added for April:

8. Commentary on the World
9. Closing Notes - our mailing list, locating books, unsubscribing to Digest
10. Gratitude

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THE GOOD MOUNTAIN PRESS DIGEST #064
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ARCHIVED DIGESTWORLD ISSUES ON THE WEB
 
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1. April Violet-n-Joey CARTOON:
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For newcomers to the Digest, we have created a webpage of all the Violet-n-Joey cartoons! Check it out at: http://www.doyletics.com/vjtoons.htm Also note the rotating calendar and clock that follows just to the right of your mouse pointer as you scroll down the page. You'll also see the clock on the 404 Error page if you make a mistake typing a URL while on the doyletics.com website.

The Violet-n-Joey Cartoon page is been divided into two pages: one low-speed and one high-speed access. If you have Do NOT Have High-Speed Access, you may try this Link which will load much faster and will allow you to load one cartoon at a time. Use this one for High-Speed Access.

This month Violet and Joey learn to Like It.

#1 "Like It" at http://www.doyletics.com/images/11110502.gif

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2. HONORED READERS FOR April:
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Each month we take time to thank two of our good readers of Good Mountain Press Digest, books and reviews. Here's our two worthy Honored Readers for this month. One of their names will be in the TO: address line of your email Digest notification. Our Honored Readers for April are:

Laurie Kramer in Charlotte, SC

Mike Gambino in Dallas, TX

Congratulations, Laurie and Mike!


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3. ON A PERSONAL NOTE:


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Out Our Way:
The month started off with a visit from Del’s brother, Dan Richards. This is the first time he’s stayed with us on a visit. Usually he’s stayed with his mother, Doris, or in her riverfront condo, but she’s living in Woldenberg Retirement Village now and her condo is being refurbished and all of the furniture is being moved out. Some of the furniture came to Timberlane, but most of it has gone to Doris’s grandchildren, her long-time housekeeper, Noemi, and friends of ours who have lost furniture due to the hurricanes last year.

Del's mom, Doris, is doing well in her new apartment — her only complaint is that it’s too small, but the reality of the situation is that she needs everything a short distance away because she moves slowly and it lessens the chance of her falling and hurting her back again. She’s receiving two procedures to lessen the pain of her back. The last ones she had received about 8 months ago, and they seemed to have worked well. She is in good health and good spirits most of the time, but has taken to calling Del every other night or so asking where she is. Seems to happen after she’s watched a long movie. We prepared a digital frame with photos of her family and residence which scrolls automatically to help her during these times. When she calls to ask where she is, Del will call her back at her home phone number and when Doris answers, Del knows that Doris is in her Woldenberg apartment. Once a week, Del takes Doris with her and they get their hair done at the pretty parlor, and occasionally, such as when Dan visited, she joines the us for an elegant dinner at the Red Maple or elsewhere.

We got the rearview mirror replaced on the Cadillac and two new tires put on the front end in preparation for our week at our condo in Hot Springs Village overlooking Lake DeSoto. We decided not leave right after CODOFIL breakfast on Saturday for Arkansas since our Alexandria crew had colds, etc, and wait till Sunday morning to leave and drive straight there, stopping in Alexandria on the way back. The CODOFIL breakfast was fun as usual and three unexpected guests showed up, two fellow 1958 Hahnville grads: Jo Ann Estay and Marie Matis (maiden names I knew them by) and Cordell Louviere, an old friend. After the breakfast filled with Cajuns talking and singing, Paul, Joyce, Buster, and Emily came over to play Pay Me! with me and Del, and I finally got to say the words “Pay Me!” enough times to win both minimum score hands of the first and third game. First time I’ve had a winning hand — it disabused me of the notion that the purpose of the game was to be frustrated the whole time. After everyone left, I got to watch LSU play Ole Miss in basketball on TV.

We arrived at Los Lagos condo to find that new plastic cards had replaced the old metal keys and that COX broadband had been installed. This was my first chance to use my COX broadband away from home, and guess what? It not only worked easily, just plug and go, but I was able to use my regular Email Program for sending and receiving emails away from home! First time ever that’s been available and I didn’t know for sure whether it would work or not. I hate using the COX WebMail function, so I was glad about that. We also found out that the telephone system was apparently also on COX cable because we had a storm pass through Thursday which knocked both the cable and the phone (lost all dial tone) and they both returned only at the end of the day, about 10 hours later at exactly the same time.

We had plans to visit our friends, Evan Soulé, Neil and Sheila Taylor, and George and Annette Dorco while we were in Arkansas, but we got a bonus thrown in when I called Evan to find that he had received an impromptu visit by Eric Szuter and they were looking at property for Eric who is considering moving from the New Orleans area to the Hot Springs area. Neither Eric nor Evan had been through Hot Springs Village, so I invited them to join me and Del for lunch and then took them on a tour of the village. Over 25 square miles, Hot Springs Village is the largest gated community in the world. It has no public property anywhere, and only owners and their guests are allowed inside the village. Public areas have no litter, no graffiti, and are pristine and clean. Our condo overlooks one of the many lakes in the village. After Eric and Evan left, I set up my “Ticket to the Moon” parachute silk hammock a few steps out the back of our condo overlooking Lake Desoto and took a long vacation nap. It was the warmest we can recall of our twenty years plus of visiting the village — shirt sleeve weather most of the week. We also got a lot of use out of the large jacuzzi tub in the atrium bathroom off our master bedroom.

On Tuesday we drove to Mena using Hwy 298 and then 88. Two lane roads, but vacant of traffic until we got to Mena. Never had to follow, pass, or allow to pass a car or a truck. One logging truck came at us from a bend behind us while I was shooting a flower, and I quickly got back in and took off before he reached us. Along the way we stopped for a visit at Lum-n-Abner's Museum where Del had a couple of outhouse experiences. While in the shop, she had seen this model outhouse which had a sign on it, "Musical Outhouse, Place a Nickel in It", so she did, and the outhouse sprang apart with pieces flying all over the counter and the floor. She later asked for a Rest Room, and a little old man took her to the back door and pointed to a outhouse in the distance. Del said it was with some trepidation that she cautiously opened the door to the outhouse, half-expecting it to fly apart also. But it was a comfortable and sanitary outhouse of the type designed First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1940s. Has a concrete base and a ventilator pipe which keep it smelling clean and fresh. The outhouse is called an Eleanor after its designer.

Took about two hours total to reach Mena. We ate at the Skyline Café and then drove to the skyline drive along the ridge of Queen Wilhelmina’s state park overlooking Mena and Oklahoma. Came back down and headed up to Ft. Smith for our rendezvous with Neil and Sheila Taylor at the Red Lobster. We were early and shopped at a large department — a treat since we have no large department stores currently open near our home, and won’t be any until the Fall of 2006. Bought some trousers plus a summer outfit. Then we sat outside the Red Lobster till we heard from Sheila, and we went to our table for four. We ordered appetizers when she called to say they were turning onto the exit ramp nearby.

We had a great visit with those two — met them on a cruise, and we would go on another cruise with them anytime. Neil shared with us his thrice broken leg which he finally borrowed a cast from a friend to hold it in place till it set! First two times, he just walked on it gingerly while it was healing, then forgot at one point and put weight on it and broke it again. Then about how he sewed up his arm a couple of times, etc. Reminds me of my ole buddy Don Topping of Foxborough, Massachusetts, who had a motorcycle accident and refused to go to the hospital one time. We talked from 6:30 to 8:30 and then said goodbye to begin our three and a half hour drive back home. During the drive, I got to listen an LSU win over Tulane on WWL 870 AM radio. 8th inning, score tied in bottom of 8th. Waguespack batting. On the eleventh pitch he hit a long drive to center field and Sprowl came in from third base. Tigers never had to bat again.

On Wednesday we took our hot baths at the Buckstaff in Bath Row in downtown Hot Springs. As soon as the hot spring water began filling the tub, I felt tingles all over my body as if every cell were yelling in tiny voices, “Yeah! Wow!.” After our baths and massages we were mellowed out and decided to check the Rolando’s restaurant which replaced the New Orleans Café. The food came out looking like an artistic creation — my quesadillos resembled a large colorful butterfly — and best of all, everything was absolutely stay alive delicious!Thanks to Patrick the masseur who recommended the place to me as he was doing my massage. I told the waitress at one point that “This is the Mexican food I’ve ever had,” and she seemed insulted, “This is not Mexican food; it is Neuva Latino food.” Well, I thought to myself, it is better than any Mexican food I’ve ever had, which is saying a lot, but probably too much to bother telling her.

After the hail and windstorm Thursday morning, we drove out in the evening to meet Evan Soulé, his parents Evan Sr and Joan, and Susan Harris, all folks who have moved recently from New Orleans to the Hot Springs area. We had dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf, a nice seafood restaurant on Hwy 7 below Lake Hamilton. We had seen the billboard for it in previous years, but never saw the restaurant because it’s located on the water abutting the bridge and not visible from the bridge or even its own parking lot. The food and service was great and we enjoyed spending time with Susie and the Soulés.

Friday was March 10, and our daughter Carla’s birthday. I called and told her that 42 is the answer to the question, “What is the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything?” in the third episode of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Afterward we took another trek out west to Norman, Arkansas, stopping for a big breakfast at the IHOP on the way out of town. Then we went to the FEMA apartment George and Annette are in while waiting for their doublewide to be finished inside and out.

Annette had a serious accident in 2003 from which she has been recovering. First thing I noticed was not that she was walking with a cane, but that had her old spunk back. I don’t think she realizes how far back to normal she has come. We were backing out the parking lot to go to their 15 acres and another pickup truck came in and blocked George and Annette's pickup truck. George said for us to follow them, he was going to pick up some hay. We followed the two trucks speeding down the highway. Pulled into a shed where the guy, Benny, threw three bales of hay into Dorko’s pickup bed. We then drove to N. Polk Creek Rd where their double-wide home was standing on its pad, the two halves connected together, but the exterior and interior walls not finished over yet. We went inside. It was cool within. The kitchen was huge, with a big island in the middle. Granite tops and glass-top electric range like ours. I explained to George that I’ve learned to like ours, especially its fast clean-up aspects. Then we walked outside, up the ridge to look over the property and the view of the distant mountains. We looked over Polk Creek and then walked down to the other side. George is still trying to locate all his property’s boundary markers, but hasn’t found them yet. Then we drove down the road to Ron’s BBQ near Glenwood. The place wouldn’t pass as a restaurant in most places I know of, just a house on a hill alongside Hwy 8, but we enjoyed some old-fashioned turkey, brisket, salad, baked beans and potato salad. We were the only customers in the place run by a woman and her husband. George and Annette told us about a metal-welding artist who has a pink flamingo they are coveting for their front yard and we found it along the highway, so I took a photo of the flamingo and below is my idea of how it will look in front of their double-wide. I heard from them later that my taking a photo of it caused them to rush their plans and they ran down and bought their flamingo and installed on the drive running up to their house. I can just hear the locals giving directions to the Dorko Estate, "You want the couple from New Orleans? It's the house with the Pink Flamingo in the yard over on North Polk Creek Road!"

Drove through Texarkana and down I-49 to Alexandria and with good planning arrived just in time to miss our grandson Thomas’ soccer game and just in time to watch an LSU basketball game on TV. The Tigers are looking like a possible Final Four team this year and every game shows it more and more. Wes, my son-in-law got home in time to watch some of it with me. Then we drove out to visit Oday who has installed an outdoor wood-burning oven next to his swimming pool. I noted the large octagonal tree house he had built for his kids which he calls the most underused building he ever had constructed. Wes, Oday, and I sat out on the “Bitchin’ Porch” in front of his house and we shared stories for a long afternoon before Wes and I left to get some boiled crawfish. The store was a mom and pop store very much like Ron’s BBQ in Arkansas and the food was just as good.

The next morning, our daughter, Kim, mentioned her new digital camera was broken, so I took a look at it. It’s a Canon, and its memory card resembles computer memory chips of old: two rows of holes for tiny gold-plated pins to fit into. The slightest out-of-alignment and you can push a couple of pins to the side and be unable to seat the memory and the camera is useless. I found the bent pin and in straightening it, it broke off (which is not unexpected), but luckily it seemed to be going to a dead spot on the memory chip and therefore caused no problem with the photos. Kim’s camera was apparently good as new when we left.

On the way back home, we stopped at Prejean’s Restaurant for lunch. What a surprise! No white tablecloths and fancy dining, just down-home-good Cajun cooking in an open beam dining area with great tasting and unique recipes. Sorry we had passed by it for 15 years without stopping, up until now. I had three Oysters Rockefeller and three Oysters Bienville and they were super! Del’s eggplant pirogue was to live for! We then called Joyce and she directed us to Paul (my brother) and her new house on the inside corner of Rue Chelsea and Rue Christina off the Exit 15 to end of road and right on 82 about a half mile. Took photos of new house and later popped them into Shutterfly.com so Paul can see the progress made since last they had been there.

Our week in the Smoky Mountains last October was scuttled due our lady visitors, Katrina and Rita, but we have since rescheduled ourselves at a better place for this coming October. There is no finer place to be in the first week of October than New Orleans for weather and the Smokies for fall color.

One morning I took off on a productive tangent spurred by Leonard Read’s 1961 lecture to the Foundation for Economic Education published in the latest “NOTES from FEE”. Used quotes from Read’s lecture as a launching pad for additions to two Freedom on the Half Shell poems, namely, Poll Tax and Story of the First Thanksgiving as well as Commentary #4 for this Digest and a Commentary for a future Digest in preparation for upcoming Thanksgiving Day.

One morning Del asked if I would “babysit” the Lipps Door Company folks who were fixing the door which blew in during Katrina at Doris’s riverfront condo. It was Bill Lipps and his helper who did such a good job on repairing our sliding doors at Timberlane. They did a great job on tearing out and installing a new and much sturdier door in the condo. While waiting for them to complete the job, I was reading A Room With a View by E. M. Forster, which is about Lucy who wanted a room in Florence with a view of the Arno River, as I sat in a room with a view of the Mississippi River.

One morning Del asked me to accompany her to a tree dedication by her Twilight Gardeners Club in Mel Ott park near Timberlane in Gretna. The oak tree was being dedicated to Kate Ward, a deceased member of the club. We picked up Rosie Harris who is recovering nicely from a recent gall bladder operation.

As I think over the many blessings which Hurricane Katrina brought into our lives, the new tenants at our fourplex, the new roof on Timberlane, the assisted living quarters for Doris, to name a few, I must include discovering Jeff’s Haberdashery in Aurora Village Shopping Center as a result of my favorite PJ’s Coffee Shop being out of commission these past 6 months. I had been admiring this sports coat as I walked past the window of Jeff’s each day, so one night I showered and shaved and put on my blue blazer and Del and I drove to Jeff’s Haberdashery for me to try on the sports coat. Fernando Chacon was my salesman and he put a 40 Reg coat on me which fit marvelously in the shoulders. He will let out the sides and take up the sleeves. The coat looks incredible — the sheen in the material is elegant, but the best part is the fit – never had a coat fit in theshoulders so well before. First sports coat I’ve bought for myself since we left Metairie 17 years ago! Best of all Fernando can get replacement buttons if necessary. My other blue blazer had its button clipped off by the awkward seat belt in the Cadillac and it disappeared into the maw of the seat mechanism, never to be seen again. I call it the Cadillac who ate my button.

This pretty much wraps up the month of March for us. As I’m typing these words on March 27, I note that my brother Paul, who celebrates his 64th birthday today had one of his eyes operated to fix a problem in the retina and he’s spending a lot of time looking down as the bubble in his eye goes away. I asked how he felt to be 64 and he said, “You should know, you’ve been there.” Del’s brother Dan also celebrates his birthday today, so a big Happy Birthday, Brothers! goes out from me and Del. Our next brother’s birthday is my brother Steve on April Fool’s Day, so let’s extend the birthday across into next month to include him.

For Dan's birthday Del had selected a red azalea in a pot to send him in Charlotte, NC. On the afternoon of his big day, Dan had planted two crepe myrtle trees in his front yard and was sitting down looking at them and imagining a red azalea in between them. Just at that moment, a truck drove up and a lady got out carrying a red azalea to him for his birthday!

LATE BREAKING REPORT: Those of you who know Don Caserta know his ability to make you laugh. Which Del did as she had lunch with Don on 3/31 and listened to him report this story of what happened to him and his wife Betty during hurricane Katrina. Don and Betty's house was near the beach on the Mississippi Coast and it was wiped away during the storm. Lucky for them a friend was out of state during the runup to the storm and allowed them to stay at his place in Diamondhead. "It's 29 feet above sealevel," he told them. Unfortunately the storm surge through Diamondhead was about 35 feet and Don and Betty found themselves sitting on a chair on a table watching the water rise. After the storm was over, Betty turned to Don and said, "Isn't that grass I'm seeing outside through the sliding glass door?" Don got down from the table and waded in water up to his mid-chest to the door and opened it. The water began pouring out the door. The storm surge had already completely subsided! They finally made it to safety and are rebuilding their life, but they will never forget the day they spend sitting on a chair on top of a table watching the water rise and not knowing if they'd have to swim for safety or not.

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New Quotes Added to quotes.htm this month:

The first one will call FEMA to mind, and the second one is resonant with the first.
  • Nothing is as terrible to see as ignorance in action.
    Goethe

  • Unionism seldom, if ever, uses such power as it has to insure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguarding bad work.
    Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

  • New Stuff about Website:

  • Five of the most popular Reviews, Year to Date:

          1. The Cry and the Covenant by Morton Thompson
          2. Anam Cara — A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O'Donohue
          3. Memory's Ghost — The Nature of Memory and the Strange Tale of Mr. M. by Philip J. Hilts
          4. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
          5. The Archangel Michael His Mission and Ours by Rudolf Steiner l
    • New Stuff on the Internet:

    • Here is a reference to my essay: Art Is The Process of Destruction Posted Here by Gary on March 8, 2004 at 11:09 AM:

      From the unlikely quarter of general semantics, some inspirations for artists thinking outside the mainstream box: Bobby Matherne's essay Art Is The Process of Destruction:

      Was there a ready market for Van Gogh's art in his own time? No. His brother Theo sold many of his paintings for just a few francs to keep Vincent in oils and food. Sameness sells: it is comfortable, it comes with established opinions, set prices and canned expectations. Art is the process of destruction — it does not sell, it is uncomfortable, it flies in the face of established opinions, it comes with no set prices, no canned expectations. Art destroys sameness the way a single stroke of the brush destroys the whiteness of the empty sheet of paper.


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    Movies we watched this past month:

    Notes about our movies: Many of the movies we watch are foreign movies with subtitles. After years of watching movies in foreign languages, Arabic, French, Swedish, German, British English, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and many other languages, sometimes two or three languages in the same movie, the subtitles have disappeared for us. If the movie is dubbed in English we go for the subtitles instead because we enjoy the live action and sounds of the real voices so much more than the dubbed. If you wonder where we get all these foreign movies from, the answer is simple: NetFlix. For a fixed price a month they mail us DVD movies from our on-line Queue, we watch them, pop them into a pre-paid mailer, and the postman effectively replaces all our gas-consuming and time-consuming trips to Blockbuster. To sign up for NetFlix, simply go to http://www.netflix.com/ and start adding all your requests for movies into your personal queue. If you've seen some in these movie blurbs, simply copy the name, click open your queue, and paste the name in the Search box on NetFlix and Select Add. Buy some popcorn and you're ready to Go to the Movies, 21st Century Style. You get to see your movies as the Director created them — NOT-edited for TV, in full-screen width, your own choice of subtitles, and all of the original dialogue.
    P. S. Look for HD/DVD format movies which are now available from NetFlix.
    Hits (Watch as soon as you can. A Don't Miss Hit is one you might otherwise ignore.):
    “The Golden Bowl” (2000) A romance in which two couples find themselves in the best of company two a time: the two girls friends, the two men, each woman with either man, and so they marry, apparently happily, but one of the women is secretly in love with the other girl’s husband, who happens to be her son-in-law. Is the Golden Bowl, carved out of a single crystal and decorated with gold, perfect or does it have a hidden flaw like the two marriages? Can either the bowl or the two marriages survive the revealing of the flaw? Henry James wove a compelling tale and this movie tells it equally compelling. A Don't Miss Hit!
    “Walk the Line” (2005) — An excellent biopic of the early life and times of Johnny Cash as he found his voice in the tumultuous Rock and Roll era and his wife in the pickin’ and singin’ country music era. A long look at what went on between John and June off-mike and on-mike in their intimate “Ring of Fire”.
    “Talk to Her” (2002) is the advice to those men who have a loved one in a coma, as do the two men in this movie. This is poignant look at two caregivers who must each deal with a one-way relationship and help each other in the process. The silent movie inside the movie is a metaphor that all men will relate to.
    “In Her Shoes” (2005) A shallow but beautiful gal imposes on her sister, steals her clothes and money and boyfriend, and finally discovers a hidden grandmother in Miami to escape to, Shirley MacLaine. She rebuilds her life in a retirement village while her sister Rose rebuilds her in Philadelphia running up and down the “Rocky” steps. Could be titled “My Little Jewish Wedding.”
    “Artemisia” (1998) is the daughter of the famous Italian painter Gentileschi and dares to be an artist, a painter, and even to sketch male nudes in an age when only men were artists. Shunned by the academy, this woman “who painted like a man” found a tutor and a lover in Tassi, another famous painter. On her canvas of life Artemisia paints the future for female artists.
    “Wild Orchid” (1990) A girl from Kansas is lifted up in a whirlwind and dropped into a strange world, not OZ, but Brazil, in the Emerald City of Rio with Sambas, Masked Balls, Masked Balling, Naked Bodies, and Libidoed Billionaires. She meets the Wizard, Wheeler, who shows her the wonders of Oz, but won’t touch her all the while he moves her to love him.
    “The Swimming Pool” (2003) A murder mystery writer takes her vacation in France at her publisher’s summer home and the publisher’s daughter shows up to block the peace and quiet of her working vacation. Another movie about the writing of the book the movie is make from. Wrap your mind around this one by the poolside.
    “Europa, Europa” (1990) True story of a Jewish boy who gets mistaken for a Nazi hero and has to deal with Nazi training.

    Misses (Avoid At All Costs): We attempted to watch these this month, but didn't make it all the way through on most of them. Awhile back when three AAAC horrors hit us in one night, I decided to add a sub-category to "Avoid at All Costs", namely, A DVD STOMPER. These are movies so bad, you don't want anyone else to get stuck watching them, so you want to stomp on the disks. That way, if everyone else who gets burnt by the movie does the same, soon no copies of the awful movie will be extant and the world will be better off.


    “The Brothers Grimm” (2005) is a Movie Grim — a Monty Pythonesque takeoff on the two esteemed brothers who collected fairy tales and recorded them for posterity. Stomp this one before taking it out of the box to view — you’ll be glad you saved the time of watching this drek. A DVD Stomper!
    “The Village” (2004) proves that what you try to hide from grows within you. A boring “slowie” — a movie that moves so slow, you want it to be over. A waste of William Hurt and Sigorney Weaver time and talents.

    Your call on these — your taste in movies may differ, but I liked them:

    Husbands and Wives” (1992) — Woody Allen’s look at the ins and outs of marriage. Lots of verbiage thrown at understanding and the lack of it in what should otherwise be the primary relationship of two best friends.
    “CSA: Confederate States of America” (2005) or one person’s illusion of what might have happened had the South got the support it requested from England and France and won the War of Northern Aggression. Had some funny bits in this docu-fiction, mostly in the TV commercials send-ups. Amazing thing is the country looked just as coercive in the movie as it is in reality. The idea that the South would have formed one country after winning is ludicrous — it misses the point that the South fought to be left alone to govern themselves, exactly as the original 13 colonies did against England. Also the point that slavery was already on the way out and would have disappeared after the War no matter who won. The Southerners fought to decide for themselves what was the best time to remove slavery. Instead they were treated like slaves by the North during Reconstruction.
    “La Dolce Vita” (1960) Marcello looked for the “sweet life” in wine, women, and song and found only shallowness in everything he did. Anita Ekberg , the Swedish actress who played an American actress in an Italian film, provides the cover image of the film when she dances in the fountain at the beginning of the movie.
    “Hot Spot” (1990) Don Johnson works a Used Car Dealer and his wife while he plans the kind of bank job Nash Bridges would be busting up.

    “Or: My Treasure” (2005) A seamy look at the undersides of prostitution in Israel in this story of a mother and daughter’s scraping by. How can Or, the daughter, get her mother, who won’t clean up her own life, to switch to working as a maid cleaning up someone else’s life?


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    4. CAJUN STORY:
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          (I don't recall where I heard this one, but it is likely based on a true story.)
    Boudreaux and his girl-friend Marie had been in the French Quarter all night, and in the early morning hours of Mardi Gras day, Boudreaux, having drunk too much, was wandering down Bourbon Street alone.He was weaving along the sidewalk holding his car keys out in front of him in his right hand, rotating them in mid-air as if trying to start his car.

    A New Orleans policeman noticed this unusual behavior and came over to him and asked, "Mr. Boudreaux, is there something wrong?"

    Boudreaux, "Mah car! Mah car!"

    The policeman asked, "Where did you last see your car?"

    Boudreaux wiggled the car keys in mid-air and said, "Right dere! On the end of dese!"

    The policeman gave Boudreaux the once over and said, "Well, Mr. Boudreaux, you have a bigger problem, I see. Your zipper is open and your manhood is hanging out!"

    Boudreaux looked down at his pants and exclaimed, "Marie! Marie!"

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    5. RECIPE of the MONTH for April, 2006 from Bobby Jeaux’s Kitchen:
    (click links to see photo of ingredients, preparation steps)
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    Boiled Shrimp, Blue Crab, and Crawfish, Cajun Style

    Background on Boiled Seafood, Cajun Style : The photo says it all. This is lunch for One. Boiled and seasoned Louisiana Seafood — Boiled and set out to eat Cajun Style. The newspaper, properly layered, catches the juices, hold the empty shells while you eat, and provides the wrapping to carry it to the garbage can. This meal is to Live For! It is the "tie that binds us to our home" of New Orleans and South Louisiana. It is the Cajun Trifecta !

    Preparation
    Buy this at your favorite seafood store, usually a small place with a boiling pot running in the back. I bought enough for four servings like the one above for about $40. Take it home, spread the morning newspaper, pour a cooling drink (those spices are tangy and create a big thirst), and begin eating. No muss, no fuss.

    Clean Up
    This part takes a few tries to get it right. It requires that you have carefully taken apart the newspaper sections, double page by double page, and layered it a half dozen sheets thick at least.There should be as much newspaper uncovered during eating as will be covered by the seafood. When you're finished eating, wrap the ends of the newspaper carefully and carry it to the garbage can. Keep can covered and out of the sun until the garbage collectors come to get it.



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    6. POETRY by BOBBY from his review of
    Three Lectures on the Mystery Dramas by Rudolf Steiner. See review for more details about meaning of poem.
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                                     Karma Spins

                               I.
           Karma spins in world becoming
           How our lives in one life lives.
           How we live and have our being
           In this one life that we live.
                               ~^~

                              II.
           Spinning knots from out of threads
           Forming lives from living circles
           Weaving one life where it leads
           To where this karma lives in us.
                               ~^~

                              III.
           On the shore the waves are lapping
          In my soul a tidal surging
          Overwhelms me from within
          Tossing threads of karma flying.
                               ~^~

                              IV.
           All my threads become as glimmer
          Beings — each one quite unique —
          Theodora as a seeress seeing
          Reveals to us what humans seek.
                               ~^~

                              V.
           With so much light upon the shore
          A light pours out from in my soul
          Kindling my own karma as it crosses
          With the karma of the world.
                               ~^~

                              VI.
           With the wings of love I journey
          On my way to higher worlds,
          With the morning star to lead me
          With the blazoned flag unfurled.
                               ~^~

                              VII.
           My spirit eyes which should awake
          Lay as a seed to grow in me
          And I this deed of heaven take
          As my awaited destiny.
                               ~^~

                              VIII.
           As a clever cat with eclat
          Spins endless tales of everyday
          Out of the dross from nighttime's hat;
          Reveals the truth of spirit's way.
                               ~^~

                              IX.
           To find that bridge that leads
          Along the spirit's hidden way
          From human thoughts to living deeds
          From nighttime dreams to light of day.
                               ~^~

                              X.
           In us abides at night a King
          Giving into the day our soul
          All that its roots are creating
          In life's phantasmagoric mold.
                               ~^~


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    7. REVIEWS and ARTICLES for April:
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    And for my Good Readers, here’s the new reviews and articles for this month. The ARJ2 ones are new additions to the top of A Reader’s Journal, Volume 2, Chronological List, and the ART ones to A Reader’s Treasury.

    1.) ARJ2: Guest Essay: The Third Sign in the Gospel of John by Kristina Kaine

    What is the “I Am”? Kristina Kaine identifies the “I Am” as our Real Self. It is the greatest sin for each of us to reject our “I Am” — our Real Self. What happens if we do this? We become paralyzed in our thinking and moving about in the world.

    Consider this: if you can’t stand up, if you need others to carry you, then you have rejected your I Am, and you are like the man lying on the pallet when Jesus came by. He was always that way and his forces of the past kept him lying on that pallet. Are your forces of the past keeping you that way? Do they seek to kill your I Am, to keep you from rising from your pallet of habit? These forces of the past are your habits, your habitual thoughts, your instinctive actions which resist anything new.

    The man in John 5:10 lying on his pallet which Jesus cures can be seen to represent our habitual thinking. Along comes our Real Self and says to our thinking, “Stop lying around, arise! Stop thinking from the same position all the time. See things from other points of view. Become mobile. Get up and walk freely about the world.”

    Here we can glimpse the prime cause of the anxious times we live in, especially the current rise in mental problems. These problems stem from the forces of the past struggling against the I Am. Unless we embrace this rising tide of consciousness of the I Am, we will be engulfed by its flood.

    Imagine how that would be for you if you had been thinking in the same way about the same things — day-in and day-out — and then something disrupts your thinking, turning it upside down! You don’t know what it is, all you know is that your thinking is now mobile, up on its own feet and moving around freely. What a dramatic end to the past! What a dramatic opening to the future!

    Kristina Kaine wrote me about the above two paragraphs, "I am struck by reading these words written in New Orleans post-Katrina." This is the charge she gives to each of us: “Heed the word of your individuality — your I Am — your Real Self. Take up your pallet and walk upright and freely into the world again.”

    To read this fine essay today, click on the link below.

    http://www.doyletics.com/arj/imachel.htm

    2.) ARJ2: The Riddles of Philosophy — Introduction by Fritz C. A. Koelln, GA#18 by Rudolf Steiner

    This book comprises over five hundred pages of dense philosophical discussions during which Steiner reviews every major facet of philosophy and every key philosopher from Aristotle to Einstein. He basically unravels the riddles of philosophy as he leads up to the dénouement, a presentation of how his spiritual science or anthroposophy resolves the key problems in most of the philosophical fields he covers. In his introduction to this 1973 edition, Fritz C. A. Koelln writes, “The Riddles of Philosophy may be considered as a bridge that can lead from Steiner’s early philosophical works into the study of anthroposophy.”

    How to review a book which is itself a review of many books and authors — a book which I plodded through for almost three years — this is the puzzle I faced and I hope you will enjoy reading the results as they unfold.

    Steiner wrote about the theme of this book:

    [page 12] In this book I intend to show those elements of world conceptions that appear historically and that move the contemporary observer of these riddles to experiences of greater depth of consciousness as he encounters the feelings with which they were experienced by the thinkers of the past.
    He clearly states that we are to expand our consciousness by encountering feelings. This is a mighty challenge to him: to present material in such a way that we can feel as those philosophical writers of the past two centuries felt and from that move our consciousness to a new level. If you, dear Reader, do not feel up to this challenge, stop reading now. But if you do, I hope you will be rewarded with enough of an overview that you will endeavor to read the entire book.

    http://www.doyletics.com/arj/trphrvw.htm

    3.) ARJ2: A Room With a View, A Novel by E. M. Forster

    What is one to do if one was expecting a room with a view overlooking the Arno River in Florence and instead you were placed overlooking a courtyard? If you’re a young lady from England, you would be upset and might like to mention it in public. Lucy did, only to have the two gentlemen with rooms with a view offer to exchange rooms with her and her traveling companion, Charlotte. Then what is one to do? Depend on the kindness of strangers?

    Lucy finally gives in when the older Emerson implores her to accept his and his son’s generosity and take their room with a view. A few days later the son, George, encounters her in the hills among some violets and embraces her with a kiss. What is an early twentieth-century girl to do? Such an effrontery it seems to Lucy for George to do something not in her life Baedeker. Lucy runs back to England and becomes engaged according to acceptable maps of society, but never reveals to anyone except Charlotte what transpired on the hill with George, swearing her to secrecy. Later her fiancé Cecil would bring George and his father to live in a villa near Lucy’s home. Lucy is in a conundrum — she has no one to confide in that might share with her how to deal with the secret she has kept so carefully hidden.

    We get one revealing clue as to Lucy and Cecil’s prospects for a long term relationship in a discussion in which Cecil thinks of Lucy as a view and she thinks of him as in a room with no view. Meantime Lucy maintains her secret about the kiss on the hill.

    Will Mr. Emerson once more take the initiative to provide Lucy with the eponymous “room with a view”? And once again will Lucy, under his urging, abandon a shuttered room with no view with Cecil for an open room with a view with George and obtain a view of an inner Arno that she will ever after happily bear with her? Read this classic work of literature to find out. You’ll find budding themes in Forster’s work which he will expand upon in his long classic, “A Passage to India.”

    http://www.doyletics.com/arj/roomview.htm

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    I hear often from my Good Readers that they have bought books after reading my book reviews. Keep reading, folks! As I like to remind you, to obtain more information on what's in these books, buy and read the books — for less information, read the reviews.


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    8. COMMENTARY:
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    In this section I like to comment on events in the world, in my life, and in my readings which have come up during the month. These are things I might have shared with you in person, if we had had the opportunity to converse during the month. If we did, then you may recognize my words. If I say some things here which upset you, rest assured that you may skip over these for the very reason that I would likely have not brought up the subject to spoil our time together in person.

    1. Padre Filius Reads the New Orleans Times-Picayune this Month:

    Padre Filius, the cartoon character created by your intrepid editor and would-be cartoonist, will appear from time to time in this Section of the Digest to share us on some amusing or enlightening aspect of the world he observes during his peregrinations.

    This month the good Padre wanders down a path in Hot Springs, Arkansas and reads a billboard.


    2.Comments from Readers:

    • Received in my Guestbook:
      > I really love your website. The graphics are outstanding.
      And I wrote back:

      Dear Katrina Taylor,
      Great meeting you. We in New Orleans didn't know that Katrina had a last name, up until now! See my Digest below for some pictures about your namesake. Thanks for your comments. In appreciation, I'm adding you to my Digest list. One short email a month to remind of latest Digest of news and reviews.
      warm regards, Bobby

    • Bobby,
      We were watching the Sopranos the other night and found ourselves telling Janice’s Anger Management Group to “Trace it out”. Here’s a little something for the website.
      Thanks, Chris and Carla Bryant, Texas

      [RJM: And much thanks to you two for your tangible expression of support and for proving that the speed trace of doyletics is something that can help an entire family improve their relationships with each other!]

    • Email: [From our New Orleans friends, George and Annette who lost their home in Lakeview due to Katrian and have relocated near Norman, Arkansas. We visited them on their 15 acres during our Hot Springs vacation this month.]
      Dear Bobby,

      I had such fun with you guys. Can't wait til you come to the Natural State again. As George told you, we will soon be no longer dispossessed and displace. What a relief. I read the Times-Picayune on-line from time to time. I have a very difficult time imagining us in FEMA trailer and waiting for the insurance company to stop dithering. Yikes.

      The flamingo is now ours. We'll put it on the crest of the hill going up the driveway. What a landmark....the house is behind the cemetery with a big pink flamingo on the drive.

      While George has been painting, I have been walking down by the creek. We must have two dozen redbuds blooming down there. It has been grey and wet and all of sudden the world turned fuchsia. Amazing.

      Give Del my best.
      Annette

    • Sad Note of Gerry Paolo's passing:

      Paulina Leonard wrote:

      Hi Bobby,

      Am writing to ask if anyone has written to you on Gerry Paolo's sudden crossing of the threshold? He died last Tuesday night in his sleep. In case you have not heard I thought you would want to know.

      [RJM Note: I remember Gerry well from several early Steiner lists and will keep in my prayers since he has been born into the spirit once more.]

    3. The Ugly Truth of Positive Atheism

    Dr. Robert H. Schuller writes the following story in his book, Tough-Minded Faith and Tender-Hearted People:
    Joshua Lightman tells of a colleague, a professed atheist. The young Jewish man, undergoing depth analysis to understand his subconscious feelings, recalled a long-forgotten experience. His mother had enrolled him, at the age of five, in a synagogue school to "learn about his heavenly Father." This little boy's earthly father was cruel; therefore, he believed all fathers were cruel. In a negative emotional reaction, he made a decision not to meet "another father" — God. When he discovered that his atheism was rooted in negative emotionalism, not healthy intellectualism, he was liberated and became a believer!
    No doubt each of those who proudly wear that oxymoronic label of "Positive Atheist" have some history of negligent parenting in their early childhood. Given that most memories are forgotten when one passes the age of five, no one can say for sure that they had no experience before five which created negative emotions connected to thoughts of the spiritual world as a reality. As a result these "positive atheists" go about ridiculing those who did not have the benefits of their negative emotional responses to spiritual world.

    "What we try to hide, we advertize." could be a Matherne's Rule, if it weren't that I heard it from someone else. Positive Atheists are good at hiding the source of their negative emotional bias towards the spiritual world from themselves, but advertize it to the world by their attacks on those who have no such negative responses to the idea and concepts of a spiritual world. But Matherne's Rule #45 "No ugliness comes armed with truth." does seem to apply to their ilk. One need only read this one quote from "Positive Atheism's Big List of Scary Quotes" to see the inherent ugliness in their position vis-à-vis anyone who speaks of the spiritual world as a reality. They quoted Rudolf Steiner as saying, "True art creates its own style, and true style can only come from men's supersensible experiences. Agnosticism robs us of the truths which must live in art." and then proved how little they know of truth or art by commenting:

    Rudolf Steiner, debauching agnosticism which, in its day (a la Ingersoll), was virtually indistinguishable from the popular expressions strong atheism of today, by using criticisms of that day's "agnosticism" that are essentially indistinguishable from certain theist's criticism of today's atheism, from Fruits of Anthroposophy: Lectures in Stuttgart August to November 1921, p. 7, quoted in Bobby Matherne's review in A Reader's Journal (2000)
    They lay bare the lack of truth in their position toward the spiritual world by their openly ugly attacks on the spiritual-minded among us. Their attacks, rightly understood, are thinly disguised calls for help.

    The ugly truth of Positive Atheism is that Positive Atheism is a lie.

    4. Exercise Your Right to Vote

    NEWS ITEM: While the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense both received failing grades for network security, the government as a whole only managed a D+ in its annual score card.

    In a “Notes from FEE” for January 2006, they celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) by abridging a 1961 lecture at FEE by Leonard E. Read (1898-1983).

    Leonard E. Read said:
    The first level of leadership requires an individual to achieve that degree of understanding which makes it utterly impossible for him to have any hand in supporting or giving encouragement to any form of socialism whatever misleading labels and nicknames it takes.

    This level of attainment requires no “original” thinking, writing or talking, but we should not underestimate the enormous influence set in motion by an individual who does absolutely no ideological wrong. His refusal to sanction or promote unsound actions and his faithfulness to free-market ideals — even if he is silent — has a radiating effect and sets high standards for others to follow.

    The “right to vote” is hurled as an epithet as if it were some God-given benison, but little voice is given to what happens when one votes for a coercive bureaucracy such as the one which rules this great land under the guise of a true government, up until now. Every time one walks into a polling booth, it is as if one votes to continue the “so-called government” which is in effect a coercive bureaucracy. One gives it freely one's support, no matter who one votes for. What is one to do?

    One can do “no ideological wrong” by only choosing to “vote” for proprietary organizations which provide one a service one wants quickly, conveniently, and without any coercion. Any fast-food establishment, for example, does that. Take their innovation of drive-up service. Can you find an example of any “government” office which provides drive-up service? Even the Department of Motor Vehicles requires to you get out of your car to apply for a license plate renewal, etc. You have to sit in an uncomfortable chair or stand in a long line in “government” offices, all the while people are waiting in short lines in their comfortable automobiles to buy food from fast-food outlets. What's the difference? The “government” offices force you to comply because they are all part of a “coercive bureaucracy” not a true government. A true government would operate volitionally and not coercively — just as any proprietary business does. And as a proprietary business the clerk across the counter would treat you as a valued customer. The clerk would have an incentive to be nice, or helpful, and accommodating, just as the clerks at the fast-food outlets. Instead we find all too often at our “government” offices, clerks who have no incentive to be nice, or helpful, or accommodating because they know we have nowhere else to go for their cherished “service.” Every time we voluntarily support a “government” office or program that we are not required to by dint of coercive law, we foster and perpetuate such behaviors.

    What are we to do? We can take Leonard Read's advice and refuse to take “any hand in supporting or giving encouragement to any form of socialism whatever misleading labels and nicknames it takes” and recognize that what passes for true government in this land is a form of socialism given a palatable name.

    We cannot achieve freedom by fighting for it — that only brings in its wake more fighting. We have to go the Dept. of Motor Vehicles for a license. We have to pay taxes. But we do not have to vote! It requires no fighting, it violates no laws to stay away from the polls. Americans in droves are already doing so. Those who favor a coercive form of bureaucracy in place of true government label as “apathetic voters” those who stay home from the polls. This is a “misleading label” which disguises the true motivations of those non-voting Americans who stay away from the polls. They are seeding a new birth of freedom in this great land, one which will eventually proclaim a true governement of the free, by the free, and for the free.

    Who are you going to vote for come next election? As I wrote in my poem in Freedom on the Half Shell, “Poll Tax”:

    How many would out the window toss
    The right to vote, if they knew its cost?

    So secure the blessing of our roots,
    Stay away from polling booths,
    With the voice of freedom sing,
    “Next election vote for Burger King.”

    5. The Psychic Steering Currents of Hurricanes and Other Mass Events

    Back in 1982 I read the following book The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, by Jane Roberts. In it she describes how she became aware that hurricanes are steered into areas in which the people have grown stagnant in some way in their lives either externally or internally. This stasis creates psychic currents which can draw some mass event, such as a hurricane, to the locale to shake things up and to get things moved again in the right direction. Last time such a mass event hit the New Orleans area was Hurricane Betsy forty years ago.

    Once I had understood the substance of Jane's book, I was no longer afraid of hurricanes every year. I began to notice that devastating hurricanes did not return to the same locale for many years. Was that just probabilities as materialistic scientists and weather forecasters would have us believe? If that were so, why has no hurricane returned to re-devastate a region in just a couple of years? It doesn't happen because it wasn't necessary is Jane Roberts's thesis in her book, and I agree.

    If you study the matter, you may come to agree also, but I warn you this will put you on a slippery slope. You may also come to understand that there are innocent victims, that your karma follows you wherever you go, and that Everything Allways Turns Out The Way It's Supposed To (EAT-O-TWIST). Don't complain to me if you don't have hurricanes (and other so-called "random events") to complain about any more. Here's an except from my review of Jane's book, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events:

    I recently encountered this passage in Joubert's Notebooks, "All cries and all complaints exhale a vapor, and from this vapor a cloud is formed, and from these heaped-up clouds come thunder, storms, the inclemencies that destroy everything." He wrote this about 200 years ago. Those invisible patterns that underlie the "cries and complaints" are vigorous mental patterns, Seth tells us, and:

    [page 41] Each person's thoughts flow into that formation, forming part of the earth's psychic atmosphere. From that atmosphere flows the natural earthly patterns from which your seasons emerge with all their variety and effects. You are never victims of natural disasters, though it may seem that you are, for you have your hand in forming them. You are creatively involved in the earth's cycles. No one can be born for you, or die for you, yet no birth or death is really an isolated event, but one in which the entire planet participates. In personal terms, again, each species is concerned not only with survival but with the quality of its life and experience.
    In those terms, natural disasters ultimately end up righting a condition that earlier blighted the desired quality of life, so that adjustments were made.

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    9. CLOSING NOTES:
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