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Good Mountain Press Presents DIGESTWORLD ISSUE#123
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~ In Memoriam: Anne Teachworth (1937-2011) ~~~~
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WELCOME TO   DIGESTWORLD ISSUE#123   March, 2012
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Quote for the Blustery Month of March:

In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume it is true and try to imagine what it might be true of.
George Miller, (American Pyschologist in Thirteen Maxims for the Mind)

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DIGESTWORLD

GOOD MOUNTAIN PRESS Presents ISSUE#123 for March 2012
                  Archived DIGESTWORLD Issues

             Table of Contents

1. March's Violet-n-Joey Cartoon
2. Honored Readers for March
3. On a Personal Note
       Featured Reviews
       Movie Blurbs

4. Cajun Story
5. Recipe of the Month from Bobby Jeaux’s Kitchen: Cinnamon & Honey Toast
6. Poem from Flight to Arras:"A Density in Silence"
7. Reviews and Articles Added for March:

8. Commentary on the World
      1. Padre Filius Cartoon
      2. Comments from Readers
      3. Freedom on the Half Shell Poem
      4. SURVIVING ONSLAUGHT OF PRESUPPOSITIONS

9. Closing Notes — our mailing list, locating books, subscribing/unsubscribing to DIGESTWORLD
10. Gratitude



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DIGESTWORLD ISSUE#123
== == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == ARCHIVED DIGESTWORLD ISSUES ON THE WEB  
~ ARCHIVED DIGESTWORLD ISSUES ~
2000: INAUGURAL YEAR: Jun  
#1 Jul  #2, Aug  #3, Sept  #4, Oct  #5, Nov  #6, Dec  #7
2001: Jan  #8,  Feb  #9,  Mar #10, Apr #11, May #12, Jun #13, Jul #14, Aug #15, Sep #16, Oct #17, Nov #18, Dec #19
2002: Jan #20, Feb #21, Mar #22, Apr #23, May #24, Jun #25, Jul #26, Aug #27, Sep #28, Oct #29, Nov #30, Dec #31
2003: Jan #32, Feb #33, Mar #34, Apr #35, May #36, Jun #37, Jul #38, Aug #39, Sep #40, Oct #41, Nov #42, Dec #43
2004: Jan #44, Feb #45, Mar #46, Apr #47, May #48, Jun #49, Jul #50, Aug #51, Sep #52, Oct #53, Nov #54, Dec #55
2005: Jan#051,Feb#052,Mar#053,Apr#054,May#055,Jun#056,Jul#057,Aug#058,Sep#059,Oct#05a,Nov#05b,Dec#05c
2006: Jan#061,Feb#062,Mar#063,Apr#064,May#065,Jun#066,Jul#067,Aug#068,Sep#069,Oct#06a,Nov#06b,Dec#06c
2007: Jan#071,Feb#072,Mar#073,Apr#074,May#075,Jun#076,Jul#077,Aug#078,Sep#079,Oct#07a,Nov#07b,Dec#07c
2008: Jan#081,Feb#082,Mar#083,Apr#084,May#085,Jun#086,Jul#087,Aug#088,Sep#089,Oct#08a,Nov#08b,Dec#08c
2009: Jan#091,Feb#092,Mar#093,Apr#094,May#095,Jun#096,Jul#097,Aug#098,Sep#099,Oct#09a,Nov#09b,Dec#09c
2010: Jan#101,Feb#102,Mar#103,Apr#104,May#105,Jun#106,Jul#107,Aug#108,Sep#109,Oct#10a,Nov#10b,Dec#10c
2011: Jan#111,Feb#112,Mar#113,Apr#114,May#115,Jun#116,Jul#117,Aug#118,Sep#119,Oct#11a,Nov#11b,Dec#11c
2012: Jan#121,Feb#122,Mar#123,Apr#124,May#125,Jun#126,Jul#127,Aug#128,Sep#129,Oct#12a,Nov#12b,Dec#12c
2013: Jan#131,Feb#132,Mar#133,Apr#134,May#135,Jun#136,Jul#137,Aug#138,Sep#139,Oct#13a,Nov#13b,Dec#13c
2014: Jan#141,Feb#142,Mar#143,Apr#144,May#145,Jun#146,Jul#147,Aug#148,Sep#149,Oct#14a,Nov#14b,Dec#14c
2015: Jan#151,Feb#152,Mar#153,Apr#154,May#155,Jun#156,Jul#157,Aug#158,Sep#159,Oct#15a,Nov#15b,Dec#15c
2016: Jan#161,Feb#162,Mar#163,Apr#164,May#165,Jun#166,Jul#167,Aug#168,Sep#169,Oct#16a,Nov#16b,Dec#16c
2017: Jan#171,Feb#172,Mar#173,Apr#174,May#175,Jun#176,Jul#177,Aug#178,Sep#179,Oct#17a,Nov#17b,Dec#17c
2018: Jan#181,Feb#182,Mar#183,Apr#184,May#185,Jun#186,Jul#187,Aug#188,Sep#189,Oct#18a,Nov#18b,Dec#18c
2019: Jan#191,Feb#192,Mar#193,Apr#194,May#195,Jun#196,Jul#197,Aug#198,Sep#199,Oct#19a

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1. March Violet-n-Joey CARTOON:
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For newcomers to DIGESTWORLD, 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 about Glomming.

#1 "Glomming" at http://www.doyletics.com/images/022512vj.gif

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2. HONORED READERS FOR March:
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Each month we choose to honor two Good Readers of our DIGESTWORLD from those all over the World. Here are the two worthy Honored Readers for March, 2012:

JoAnn Estay Walker from Louisiana

Ginger Thiele in Florida

Congratulations, JoAnn and Ginger!


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3. ON A PERSONAL NOTE:


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Out Our Way:

SUPER BOWL SUNDAY WITH SAINTS AND SINNERS

Who can one pull for when one wants both teams to lose? Would have liked to see the Patriots exact some revenge from the last time they met the Giants in a Super Bowl and had their unbeaten streak brought to a crashing end, and but for a lucky long pass with time expiring, the Patriots would have won.

Del and I enjoyed an otherwise quiet Super Bowl Sunday as we followed the game with Masterpiece Theater's "Downton Abbey", watching three episodes which finally got us caught up on what we missed of the shenanigans of the saints and sinners of upstairs and downstairs while on our Panama Cruise . The rest of the episodes were excellent, and by the end of the month, we had seen them all. We were left hoping for follow up episodes so we could learn how Matthew and Mary would become Master and Mistress of Downton Abbey, Bates would be freed from his conviction for murdering his wife, and see Tom finally doing an honorable job as butler, perhaps replacing Carson. If you missed them live, get them on DVD as soon as you can. Incredible sets, top quality actors and actresses, and a compelling story will hold your attention late into the night as we found out on that long Super Bowl Sunday.

ROAMING CHARGES FOR CRUISING

We've been on seven cruises but the one through the Panama Canal was the first one where our cell phones worked while on the cruise ship thanks to cell carrier Verizon's recent innovation. Our Blackberry phones were active and able to get and receive calls. We were advised that Roaming charges would be high, but I was reluctant to turn off the roaming until I knew what the effect was on our ability to get and receive phone calls. When we got home my bill for roaming charges was $124 for the cruise, about 10 dollars a day. Text messages were reasonable, but need to find a way to stop emails while on board. The data rate is expensive and just deleting them is just as bad as not opening them. Plus with Internet connections aboard ship, the cell emails are unnecessary. This is what I found out when I called Verizon, and it may help others of you when you go on a cruise.

You can turn off Mobile and Roaming and not get the $10 a day (5 mb) average charging while on the cruise ship which provides the Verizon service. You will still be able to make phone calls for $2.49/min while on ship and $.50 to send a text and $.05 to receive a text. For International calls in certain ports, you can get International Dialing added. There is no charge except for the above rates and you will be able to make calls in certain ports. You must add the I-Dialing before you start the cruise. You will need to call Verizon, tell the name of your cruise ship, and what countries you will be in to get details for your cruise.

We checked with Verizon, and, for our next cruise, we will be able to place calls from our cells while in Venice and Italy for three days post-cruise. We will be able to receive and place calls for the 2.49 a minute which is handy for emergencies, but the most useful feature is the texting to coordinate our activities with each other aboard ship.

TWO FUNERALS AND TWO VALENTINE DINNERS

Our good friend of eleven years, Nat Chesnut, died during this month at age 89. Del and I attended his funeral service at Lakelawn. It was a lovely and caring service and our love and prayers go out to Nat's widow Lita and their son Stephen. Having lost our two remaining parents in 2011, we realize what a tough time and adjustment it can be. After the service for Nat, we wanted some time alone together. I invited Del for a Valentine's Day dinner at Ristorante Filippo in Metairie. Del had eaten there recently and enjoyed it. We arrived about 2 PM and the restaurant was empty, closing at 2:30 PM but Troy the waiter said they could serve us. Del ordered the special Speckled Trout over spinach instead of pasta. I had it over pasta and it was delicious. A light sauce with large pieces of artichoke hearts. Really good and light. The food, ambience, and service made us feel as if we were back on the Serenity in the Crystal Dining room again.

The next friend we lost was Anne Teachworth, whom Del and I have known for over 35 years. Del was in a women's group learning therapy together with her back in the mid-1970s. Anne was running the Gestalt Center in New Orleans when I met her in 1977 and she was responsible for bringing Richard Bandler and John Grinder to the Center, among many other nationally known therapists whom I trained with. Del was unable to make the funeral, but we shared with each other our early experiences with Anne and how she influenced our lives. A few days later was Valentine's Day and Del invited me to the special Valentine's Dinner at the Timberlane Country Club. The room was all decorated and every table was filled for the early seating. Gulf Snapper en papilotte was our choice, complete with salad. We met and talked with many of our friends before and after dinner, plus the nicest part was the short drive home afterwards.

UPGRADES AND REPAIRS

My upgrade to allow my ancient (aka 20th century) HP Laserjet 4+Duplex printer to work wirelessly to our two mainframe and three Laptops had come in before Christmas, but I was unable to get connected to any printer. I called Mike at Bell Office Machines who had helped me order the wireless printer connector and he came over to install it. One of the major problems was this: HP no longer lists HP 4+ in available printers, but you can get a Windows Update from the Add Printers page and then you can select it. A few days after my call, I was removing a thorn from Del's index finger when Mike from Bell came by to get my new Wireless Print Server working. By the time he left, the Color and 4+ printers were working on all five of our computers. It's almost cheaper to buy a new printer than to get an older one converted, but that HP 4+Duplex allows me to print both sides automatically which is very useful to reduce the amount of paper when printing and is essential for the publication of books and booklets which I do from time to time.

The first bit of repair was getting a tube added to my Snapper Riding Mower's front tire. The leak was so bad it needed to be pumped up twice during one cutting of the lawn. The tubeless tire was not making a tight seal due to a bit of corrosion on the inside of the metal wheel and adding an old-fashioned inner tube solved the problem for about 20 bucks at West Bank Lawnmower.

Our flag with the DO DAT AGAIN wording has been replaced till next football season with the original monogram M flag that our son John gave us. On a daily basis, I would have to unwind it as it wrapped itself all twisted in the wind. I finally took a stainless chip clip (about 3 inches long") and clipped the vertical edge of the hanging flag to its vertical post. Now occasionally I rotate it 180 degrees if the wind switches from North to South, but otherwise it hangs quite nicely untangled.

Another long standing problem was the inaccessible nature of an electrical outlet in the kitchen due to the preferred position of the chopping board cart. I keep the wheels locked on the cart and it is difficult to move it and replace it every time I need to plug in a mixer. I found a three outlet plug adapter which rotates toward the side, so that it is now easy to plug and unplug two prong electrical plugs without having to move the cart.

CARNIVAL BALL, PARADES, AND COMPANY

In February when the Super Bowl is over, there's not much activity going on in other parts of the USA, but in New Orleans things are hopping with two or three Carnival Balls every night, Parades for the three week runup to Fat Tuesday, and guests from out-of-town coming in to enjoy the festivities. This year two of our daughters, Kim from Alexandria, LA and Carla from Beaumont, TX, reserved a spot at Chateau Matherne for Mardi Gras weekend and brought along assorted family and friends. Grandson Thomas brought his friend from Alexandria, Michael Doggett. Carla brought her beau Patrick and her two kids, Molly and Garret. Kim and Thomas brought a new game called Qwirkle which they hoped to win, but Molly seemed to have it figured out quickly and won several of the games. It's a simple Mix-n-Match of six colors and six simple designs, but trying to get six of these lined up in a row for a Qwirkle is quite a trick and learning moves that keep others from getting a Qwirkle is almost as tough as getting one oneself.

The kids came in the night of our annual Carnival Ball and they were waiting up for us when we arrived home about midnight.

The next morning Granpa was making buckwheat pancakes for the crowd before they set off for a Saturday of parades. Unfortunately a huge rainstorm threatened and all the day parades were cancelled, and the evening parade was moved two hours later. Even then our kids had to huddle in Warren Easton High School, Del's alma mater, waiting out the rain until the large parade of Endymion rolled past. They rushed to the soggy median of Canal Street and quickly loaded up on beads, doubloons, and various lighted trinkets (necklaces, light sabers, etc.) because there were very few brave souls who had come to the parade. Del and I stayed home and enjoyed a quiet respite after the busy previous day and night of our Ball.

For me the annual Ball includes a long lunch at Galatoire's on Bourbon Street. As my friend Guntis and I walked from our parking spot that morning past the Royal Sonesta Hotel, we saw they were having their annual Mardi Gras Greased Pole Celebration. With brass bands, Mardi Gras Indians, celebrities, and a large crowd, the hotel employees apply a liberal coating of Vaseline Petroleum Jelly designed to keep Mardi Gras revelers from attempting to climb to the Hotel's second floor gallery which is a prime people watching spot. Name one other city which celebrates the greasing of a pole with a party!

It was only the Friday before Mardi Gras and Bourbon Street was filled shoulder to shoulder with people in various stages of costumes and inebriation. Some were in spontaneous parades and others were simply wide-eyed in wonder at the spectacle. The music, the ground-shaking beat of the drums, the colors, the tumult would continue unabated, 24 hours a day for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday! It would come to an end promptly at Midnight when the New Orleans Police would make a sweep down Bourbon Street and send revelers home to rest up for next year.

After a fabulous lunch in the company of colorfully dressed nubile and inebriated young ladies, it was time to head for home, a quick nap, and a change into white tie, top hat, and tails for the evening Ball. It's the same drill every year, but it never grows old, is always fresh and fun; few who have experienced it don't fall in love with it.

The next day was the late-starting Endymion Parade and the day after that we watched four parades from our spot on 1st Street and St. Charles Avenue. The Iris Parade had been postponed from the night before and she led off the long day of parades for us. Following her was Okeanos, an old-time Uptown Krewe, then came Mid-City with its signature colored foil covered floats, and finally the jewel of the day, the Parade of the Egyptian God Thoth with marvelous floats, doubloons, beads, bands, and lots of pageantry. Everyone was fully exhausted by the end of the day and we returned home to rest and hit the bed early. Kim and her boys went downtown for the Bacchus parade starring Will Ferrell.

This is the guy from whom you never know what to expect and he was quoted when asked what he thought about being Bacchus, and said, "I don't know what to expect!" Well, ask not for whom the cow bells toll! Few expected he'd be providing "MORE COWBELLS" to the parade goers without Christopher Walken to egg him on, but he did and threw out cowbells to the parade goers as his signature throw!

Our kids all left the next morning and we gave the two vans full of people and Carnival treasures the long goodbye as they headed toward Belle Chasse Highway. Once they turned toward home, Del and I went back inside to wait for the house to stop vibrating. It was a dull Monday everywhere else in the country, but for us it was Lundi Gras (Fat Monday) and another full day of celebration downtown. Our friends John and Sandra had invited us to their home on Burgundy Street in the French Quarter for a brunch and party to celebrate the day before Mardi Gras. We left there in the early afternoon, planning to go home, rest, and return for the Proteus and Orpheus parades that night, but when we saw the traffic backing up going into the city from the West Bank, we decided to rest out the night and get ready for a busy Mardi Gras Day.

As usual the costuming started when we arrived at the Canal Street ferry landing in Algiers Point. Batman and Robin were waiting in line next to us and several hundred other folks. We discovered that the previous ferry had broken down as it departed the landing with a full load and had to return and let off the passengers and we were now waiting behind them for the remaining ferry to return from the East Bank side of the Mississippi River. We had never seen a line this long in 20-plus years of going to Mardi Gras this way. But we all made it across on the first ferry so far as I know, although the passenger counter was rapidly clicking his meter as we boarded, trying to count everyone to decide whether to shut the gate. With the tolls on the downtown New Orleans bridge over the river, which fund the ferries, expiring at the end of this year, the free ride on the ferry may disappear. It seems much better to me to charge tolls for the ferry users than the bridge users. Charging tolls will not slow down ferry riders due to long wait between trips, but they've been slowing down bridge crossers for decades. Let the tolls which were badly misused disappear into the sunset of bureaucratic oblivion.

We walked through Harrah's Casino which sits next to the ferry landing and provides a clean rest rooms and a place to grab a bite to eat or sit and rest when we enter the city and leave it. The LSU Band buses which had just dropped off the band members at the start of the parade route, came down with police escorts and detoured our planned approach to the French Quarter, causing Del and I to walk down the neutral ground (median strip) for an extra block, and a lucky walk it was as our nephew Mark Matherne was there with his wife Becky and their two girls, Abbey and Ella. This was their first time coming to Canal Street for Mardi Gras and they were delighted so far. They had picked a great place to watch the parades and we told them we'd be back to see the start of the Rex Parade because Del's niece , Allison Stewart, is an LSU Golden Girl and we wanted to see her march.

We walked down to Café du Monde and Del wanted to skip the café au lait and beignets (ban-yahs') till later and get a solid breakfast at Muriel's across the street from St. Louis Cathedral. It was closed for the holiday, but I remembered Pere Antoine's restaurant behind the Cathedral a block away and when we got there the party was on! Boom box music blaring Carnival songs from a second floor balcony on the crowd below. The high open windows of the restaurant began at table height and sitting next to one as we did gave us the view and feeling of being outside and definitely a part of the celebration. Plus a prime spot for photography of the passing maskers. At the window seat next to us were Alvin and Sandra dressed appropriately as a Scholar and his Lady. At the abutting interior table we met Michael and Dawn Ivory from Santa Rosa, California who were here for their first Mardi Gras. As we left the restaurant, Pete Fountain's Half-Fast Marching club was passing, so, knowing Michael and Dawn might miss the spectacle entirely, I caught a doubloon and 50th Anniversary string of beads from a guy in bright yellow and rushed over to give the doubloon to Dawn and throw the beads to Michael.

This Pete Fountain is the famous jazz clarinetist who once played for Lawrence Welk's orchestra before returning to set up his own club on Bourbon Street for many years. Fifty years ago he formed his "half-fast" marching krewe whose job was to march from bar to bar on St. Charles Avenue and wend its drinking and music-playing way into the French Quarter at random, finally ending up at the Monteleone Hotel. Due to the non-specific route, some Mardi Gras Days we occasionally missed Pete's Krewe en route, but often we located him at the Hotel. This year their theme was "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" and the bright canary yellow matching suits and fedoras made for a spectacular presentation as they marched past sharing doubloons (See Doubloon's Two Sides At Top of this Issue, Click to View Reverse Side) and beads and garnering a kiss from the ladies they graced with their largesse. Pete usually sits in the front of the Streetcar on rubber wheels which heads the parade in recent years, not able to walk the long distances any more, but unfortunately he wasn't present this year, having gotten a bit hot and tired. We missed him. This was one of the nicest and warmest Mardi Gras days in the past ten years or so.

We saw the Fun Ship Wreck Krewe where the Captain says, "Women and Children First IN THE WATER!" among too many other maskers and groups to mention. The scene changes every year and it's always fun. Gone this year seemed to be the folks carrying large signs with JESUS and REPENT bright colors and blasting the crowd's ears with bullhorns. We did notice a skywriter who wrote JESUS LOVES U in the sky over our house a few days earlier (Top Banner). For Mardi Gras Day, another sign of the good weather was another skywriter who created a large REX in sky over the Canal Street revelers. Del and I stopped to have our photo taken by a passerby in front of the LUCKY DOG stand because being able to spend another Mardi Gras in downtown New Orleans, we consider ourselves to be lucky dogs.

We caught the beginning of the Rex Parade and the Golden Girls leading the LSU band as they played their last song before turning away from Canal Street at the end of the parade. That song was "Hey, Fightin' Tigers" whose melody was from "Wildcat" a Broadway play starring Lucille Ball from the mid-1950s. You can hear Lucy singing the original version here: CLICK When I entered LSU in 1958, that song had new lyrics written and the LSU band song made it a favorite LSU fight song. We caught some Rex beads and doubloons and decided to rest at Harrah's for awhile. As we approached the base of the large casino, we met our grandson Chris Bayhi and his girl, Sara Upton and Chris's work buddy.

We had heard about Sara and were delighted to meet her for the first time. When we reached the ferry we had just missed it. We watched them close the gate at the end of the passageway, but two ferries were running again and another arrived within a few minutes. This time we went to sit on the top deck, feeling as we did, a bit tired, but on top of the world. To other people it might just be another Tuesday, but for us, it was Mardi Gras.

The rest of the month slowed down a bit and allowed me time to get hundreds of photos processed and readied for this DIGESTWORLD Issue. One particularly busy day for me came in the afternoon when I had my first look at this season's LSU Baseball team on the Geaux Zone. The game against McNeese State was broadcast and LSU won. As soon as it was over I was able to watch the New Orleans Hornets win a game at 6 PM on Cox Sports Television and an hour later LSU's basketball team beat Georgia on Channel WUPL.

While the basketball games were on, the Republican Debate was being broadcast on CNN. Two basketball games and a debate is primo multi-tasking, but I was able to watch all three events in my five TV Screening Room with two screens to spare.

Everywhere else in the country it may a dreary February, but for us New Orleanians, it is the best time of the year!

EVERY GOOD THING MUST COME TO A NEW BEGINNING, SO UNTIL NEXT MONTH

The past 29 days of this Leap Year February has been a month of Mardi Gras celebrations of Carnival Balls, parades of floats, family, and friends, of early Spring flowering shrubs and trees in New Orleans. Enjoy the upcoming blustery days of March with its warmer and longer days of sunshine. God Willing and the River Don't Rise, whatever you do, wherever in the world you and yours reside, be it ever-returning Spring or Winter, warm or chilly, Remember our slogan:


Take Care of Yourself
 In Twenty-Twelve ! ! !

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Five Flowers of Shanidar Poems, One from each Chapter:

These poems are from Bobby Matherne’s 1990 book of poetry, Flowers of Shanidar. and have never been published on the Internet before. Each month this section will have five poems, one from each Chapter of the book. (Flowers drawn by Artist Maureen Grace Matherne)

1. Chapter: Hollyhocks

         A Disappointing Antidote

"You have to plan carefully ahead
      in order to be disappointed,"
       Richard Bandler once said.

Your illusion of the way things are
Doesn't match your illusion
       of the way things ought to be,
             and you feel bad.

And it happens that way every time,
             up until now.
      What's so disappointing about that?

2. Chapter: Hyacinths

            Adrift In A Stream

An owl, a gator, and a possum went to sea
In a boat called "Consensus Reality"
In a world created by Walt Kelly,
Who held a mirror to insanity.

Adrift in a stream of conversation,
Pogo was the conscience of our nation.
He'd say with prejudice unencumbered
"The minority got us outnumbered."

Or a simple thing that'd make us giggle,
"You is innocent until caught, Miggle."
Or profound statements that would make us cuss,
"We has met the enemy, and he is us."

He taught us to dig the public clammer
And hit their roisterer with a hammer.
When we felt the blind was leading the blind,
Said, the seeing got us so far behind.

So when someone asks me my favorite line,
It's that famous campaign slogan, "Jes' Fine."

3. Chapter: Rose Mallow

        Ariadne's Ball

I am lost until I see
Her roll the ball of Ariadne.

I must confront that part of me
That roams the labyrinthine halls
To slay my masculine aggressiveness
With the help of her thread of
             Relatedness.

That this is me and that that is not me
       is a lot of bull,

The thread weaves in and out
And knits us into unity,

Follow the thread within
      and slay the minotaur.

The way within
      will lead you out again.

4. Chapter: Shamrocks

            Dancing Eyes


In that long silent moment
Their eyes danced the dance
            of no movement.

He saw in her the place where
       when she was in that place in her
       and when he was in that place in him
       They were in the same place

Looking into the depths of forever
      in the middle of Nowhere.



5. Chapter: Violets

             Already Answered

If the unconscious mind is not wiser
       than the conscious,
       why bother to consult it?
If it is wiser,
       then the answer to our request will require
       some time for the conscious mind to
             recognize it.
This period of time we call patience.

It always happens before we know it
       as it necessarily must.

The unconscious creates
       the requested event or capability
       and before we know it, we recognize
       that the event has already happened
       or that we are already using the capability.

The occurrence of the event
       or the using of a capability,
       if it's new, may be disorienting,
             confusing, or a surprise
       and we may know not whence it came or why.

Only by repetition and contemplation
       do we come to recognize that the event
       or capability proceeded
       from our original petition.

Until and unless
       we recognize the origin in ourselves
We may wait in dismay for that day
       when our prayers will be answered
             in just the way
       that the conscious mind,
       in its finite wisdom,
       has requested.

Instead we must postulate
       our unconscious as a wise Father,
       Who, in His Infinite Wisdom
       answers our prayers unfailingly
But with a wisdom, that by virtue
       of its exceeding our own, prompts us
             to have faith
       that the answer to our prayers is given
       immediately as it is asked.

Thus when praying give thanks to the Father
       that your prayer is already answered and
       wait expectantly but for the day
       when you will so increase your wisdom
       as to recognize that the answer comes
       as quickly as the prayer.





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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, no commercial interruptions, and all of the original dialogue. Often you get the Director's Cut Edition which adds back excellent footage that was cut from the theater releases. With a plasma TV and Blu-Ray DVD's and a great sound system, you have theater experience without someone next to you talking on a cell phone during a movie plus a Pause button for rest room trips.
P. S. Ask for Blu-Ray DVD movies from NetFlix.
Hits (Watch as soon as you can. A Don't Miss Hit is one you might otherwise ignore.):
“Mr. Popper’s Penguins” (2011) with Jim Carrey who receives six Gentoo Penguins as a gift who bonds with him and follow him around. As a Penguin Pied Piper with a polysyllabic professional perambulator of a personal persistent, was Mr. Popper was pursued by a profusion of popcorn-popping pronunciation? Yeah! Did he get his kids back? Yeah! Was the movie fun? Yeahbsolutely!
“Dolphin Tale” (2011) or a Winter’s Tail, as Winter the dolphin loses her tail and gains thousands of fans as she becomes attached to her new tail.
“Sanctum” (2011) Amazing movie of cave explorers on a Himalayan type expedition of a huge hole which leads a long distance to the sea through an intricate cave system. Can they survive their overweening ambition which trumps common sense over and over again? They made a movie of the true event, so someone survived, but who? A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! !
“Casino Jack” (2010) about how Hollywood tries to tar Bush with the same brush DeLay and Abramoff tarred each other while ripping off Indian tribes.
“No Strings Attached” (2011) Another in the genre of friends-first chick-flicks. Kutcher and Portman an unlikely and unlikeable couple.
“Friends with Benefits” (2011) A cut above "No Strings Attached". Justin Timberlake stars in this friends-first chick-flick. Patricia Clarkson a hoot as the friend girl’s mother. First time a flash mob integrated into plot of a movie and twice.
“Stay Cool” (2009) about a high school geek who became an author and is asked to give the commencement address some twenty years after his graduation. How can he face the gal in Chemistry class whose love he wrote so compelling about in his novel? Or the rest of now-grown kids in the small town who barely remember also? This is a fun movie which any now-grown socially-challenged teenager can relate to. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! !
“The Debt” (2010) with Helen Mirren playing the daughter of a woman killed at the hands of the Butcher of Birtenau and now part of a crew with two other Israelis to locate the doctor and take him to Israel for a public trial. Instead we got to watch the private trials of the crew and the doctor.

“The Change Up” (2011) is as gross as a stinky diaper, as puerile as over-indulgent parents, as cavalier as a carefree bachelor, as stultifying as an over-achieving lawyer, and still manages to be fun and interesting as two life styles cross over and neutralize the worst aspects of each.
“Bound for Glory” (1976) follows Woody Guthrie as he discovers that “this land is your land, this land is my land” for himself as he rides the rails “from California to the New York highlands to Gulf Stream waters” and into legendary folk singer- and hero-dom. David Carradine as the guitar picker and a very young Randy Quaid as the fruit picker.A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! !
“Harry Potter the Deathly Hallows: Part II” (2011) The deadliest episode of all, a fight to the death between Harry and Valdemort. The snake was the final hoar crux and who gets to do the heroic deed, none other than the klutz Nevile Longbottom whom everyone had laughed at during his Hogwarts years. A magnificent end to an incredible story which ends where it started, with a new generation of wannabe wizards, the children of Ron and Harry, heading off on the magical train to Hogwarts.A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! ! !
“Downton Abbey” (2012) in which Matthew regains his legs, Anna marries Bates, Bates goes to jail, Thomas becomes butler again while Carson is ill with Spanish Flu, which fells Lavinia, and frees Matthew to pursue Mary if he will. Baby Charles meets his grandparents who reject him. A regular Peyton Place contrasted to “Upstairs, Downstairs”! And a treat to watch all the plots and subplots as they develop. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! !
“The Winter’s Tale” (1998) by the Royal Shakespeare group, a filmed live stage production which was magnificently done and kept our attention all the way to the end after the lugubrious open scenes of death and exile. A DON’T MISS HIT ! !

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.
“In Istanbul” (2006) promotional videos for various places in Istanbul with emphasis on “bull”.

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

“Seven Days in Utopia” (2011) a golf Karate-Kid-Lite in Texas with a lot of stuff-kickers but no kick. Go ahead and watch it, you’re supposed to like it.

“Fireflies in the Garden” (2008) Willem Defoe as over-controlling husband and father whose wife gets swatted and smashed like a firefly in the garden with a squash racket.
“Higher Ground” (2011) provides a look at do-it-yourself religion through the eyes of a woman who is demonized for daring to preach to men.

“What’s Your Number?” (2011) is a silly quest by a single female to interview all the men she slept with as possible marriage material, all the while ignoring the best candidate who is helping her rambunctious shenanigans.
“Season of the Witch” (2011) with Nicholas Cage about a mediaeval witch who was to be taken to a castle for a special exorcism. The exorcism was successful but the trip itself cost several lives. Dark, lugubrious movie.
“A Good Old Fashioned Orgy” (2011) in the Hamptons by twenty-somethings looking for sexy somethings. Sure cure for anyone wanting to attend an orgy. Can love and friendship survive the ultimate test?


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4. STORY:
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Le Boudreaux Cajun Cottage, drawn by and Copyright 2011 by Paulette Purser, Used by Permission
NOTE: this joke came to me from mon frere, T-Paul, in Opelousas, who sent it to me by carrier poule-doux.

Boudreaux loved going sac-au-lait fishing with his ole buddy Broussard — even when the fish were not biting, they enjoyed themselves talking and smoking a good cigar. It was the only time Boudreaux got to smoke because Marie did not like him smoking in the house, so Boudreaux was the first one to pull out a cigar as they stopped the trolling motor and rested in the shade of a willow tree on the side of the bayou.

"Hey, Broussard, you got a light?"

"Mais, oui, Boo, jes' look in de tackle box over dere."

Boudreaux reached into the box, and pulled stuff out looking for a lighter. Finally he pulled out a foot-long object and asked Broussard, "Is dis it?" and after receiving a nod, he bit off the end of his cigar, put it in his mouth and began lighting the end with the big lighter, slowly rolling the cigar around to make sure it was evenly lit. Then he took a slow drag on the cigar, exhaled with an Aaah! and turned to Broussard saying, "Mais, where you got dis huge cigarette lighter?"

Broussard looked up from the lure he was putting a new skirt on and said, "Wahl, Boo, you not gonna believe dis, but last time Ah went fishing, remember, you worked overtime dat day, Ah climbed on the shore to take a pee and when Ah looked down, dere was an old lamp. So Ah picked it up, Ah tried to get the muck off it, and a Genie appeared and said, 'Ah'll give you one wish.' And dat's how Ah got dat maudits lighter wat takes up most of de tackle box. Look in dere, find de lamp, and make youself a wish, if you like."

Boudreaux found the tarnished old lamp and was very skeptical about his buddy's story, but he rubbed it and sure enough a Genie appeared and offered him one wish. Boudreaux said, "Ah wish for a million bucks!" The Genie disappeared immediately and Boudreaux asked Broussard, "Wahl, what happens next?"

Broussard said, "Mais, Ah don't know, me. Jes' wait and see." So they waited.

Suddenly a duck dropped into the bayou, then another one, and another, and soon it was raining ducks as far as the two Cajuns could see. Boudreaux was puzzled and suddenly he got an idea, "Hey, Broussard, you t'ink maybe dat genie is hard of hearing?"

"Humph, you don't t'ink dat Ah wished for dat 12-inch Bic, do you?"

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5. RECIPE of the MONTH for March, 2012 from Bobby Jeaux’s Kitchen:
(click links to see photo of ingredients, preparation steps)
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Cinnamon & Honey Toast

Background on Cinnamon & Honey Toast:

Facts on Honey and Cinnamon (From Tidbits):



       It is found that a mixture of honey and Cinnamon cures most diseases. Honey is produced in most of the countries of the world. Scientists of today also accept honey as a 'Ram Ban' (very effective) medicine for all kinds of diseases. Honey can be used without any side effects for any kind of diseases.
      Honey is the only food on the planet that will not spoil or rot. It will do what some call turning to sugar. In reality honey is always honey. However, when left in a cool dark place for a long time it will do what I rather call "crystallizing". When this happens I loosen the lid, boil some water, and sit the honey container in the hot water, turn off the heat and let it liquefy. It is then as good as it ever was. Never boil honey or put it in a microwave. To do so will kill the enzymes in the honey.
       Making this simple toast will provide you a daily boost of cinnamon and honey. Use Stone Ground Whole Wheat whenever you can. Groceries now carry Pepperige Farm's Bread as shown in Ingredients, so it will likely be available on your nearby supermarket shelves. It is tasty and good for you. Toasted and spread with a jam made of cinnamon and honey, it is a delicious and nutritious daily treat. For health benefits, see Tidbits Page: Cinnamon and Honey.

Ingredients
Pepperidge Farms Stone Ground Whole Wheat bread
Ground Cinnamon
Local Honey (collected as near as possible to where you live)

Preparation
Find a sturdy jam or preserves jar. We find that a Bon Maman jar works nicely. You must use a sturdy hand mixer with a soft plastic blade. ( A metal one will likely crack the glass jar as we've found.) Put a coffee filter or piece of paper towel over top of stirring blade to hold down cinnamon dust and splatter during stirring.

Cooking Instructions
Fill the empty jar halfway up with cinnamon powder. Then decant honey over the cinnamon powder, covering it completely, till the honey is a couple of cm's ( 1 inch) from the top. Stir slowly at first and then speed up as the mixing proceeds. Run stirring blades along the insides of the jar to ensure all the powedered cinnamon is stirred into the honey. Once the stirring is completed, rest the blades over the open jar for 15 minutes or so and the mixture on blades will drip into jar. The jam is now ready to use.

Serving Suggestion
It can be used as a medicine, one teaspoon at a time, but our favorite way to toast the stone-ground whole wheat bread and apply the jam and eat immediately. One slice a day will provide a light breakfast or lunch and is excellent for those attempting to lose weight or better yet to keep weight down on a sustaining basis. Eat it instead of lunch and have a light supper.

Other options
Other breads may be used, of course, but the health benefits from stone-ground bread are not widely known, so wheverver possible, use the stone-ground whole wheat bread. See our Inaugural Recipe for details on the benefits of stone-ground whole wheat bread



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6. POETRY by BOBBY from Flight to Arras:
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A Density in Silence

Saint-Exupéry was a pilot. He carried the mail for Aeropostale in its earliest years from France down the west coast of Africa and across the Atlantic along the coast of South America. In those days a compass and a radio were his only means of communication with the Earth below. As a result he spent hours at a time in deep contemplation and internal silence and he came to see deep into what constitutes humanness. He saw the silence that comes with being still in prayer, of being transfixed at one’s instruments, of being vibrantly alive. Here is how he wrote about moments of inner stillness and silence.

[page 113] There is a density of being in a Dominican at prayer. He is never so much alive as when prostrate and motionless before his God. In Pasteur, holding his breath over the microscope, there is a density of being. Pasteur is never more alive than in that moment of scrutiny. At that moment he is moving forward. He is hurrying. He is advancing in seven-league boots, exploring distance despite his immobility. Cezanne, mute and motionless before his sketch, is an inestimable presence. He is never more alive than when silent, when feeling and pondering. At that moment his canvas becomes for him something wider than the seas.

Saint-Exupéry gave me the idea that there is a density in silence, that there is a reverence in stillness, and led me to write this poem:

      A Density in Silence

There is a density in silence . . .
       — in the silence of a loving glance
       — in the silence of a prayer
       — in the silence of a caesura
       — in the silence of a long hug.

There is a density in the silence of a wake
and a density in the eternal silence of death.



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7. REVIEWS and ARTICLES for March:
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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. NOTE: these Blurbs are condensations of the Full Reviews sans footnotes and many quoted passages.

1.) ARJ2: Introducing Anthroposophical Medicine, GA#312, Lectures 3 to 7 by Rudolf Steiner

In the first lecture Steiner focused on the structure and inner functions of the bones and muscular systems and in the second on the key role played by the heart in balancing the upper and lower regions of the body. In the third lecture, he looks at "the overall possibility and general character of healing."

[page 34, 35] If you think about the character of modern medical education, you will find, for the most part, that therapy is taught parallel to pathology without any clearly understandable connection between the two. Especially with regard to therapy, a merely empirical methodology is often the only approach and totally dominates the scene, and we find almost no rational principles that could form the basis for practical therapeutic work. We know that in the course of the nineteenth century, these deficits in medical thinking even led to the nihilistic school of medical thought, which emphasized diagnosis almost exclusively. Its practitioners were actually content to identify illnesses and generally took a very skeptical view of any rational basis for healing. If we were to make purely rational demands on the medical profession, we would actually have to say that an indication of a cure ought to be inherent in the diagnosis. A mere outer connection between therapy and pathology cannot be allowed to prevail. Our understanding of the nature of an illness must be able to lead to insight into the process of curing it.

This will no doubt sound strange to many of you, as it did to me when I first read it. Steiner is claiming that modern doctors know all about pathology, but have only an empirical approach to therapy and healing.

I facetiously call medical doctors, "Wish Doctors", because of their well-known propensity for suggesting some course of drugs with the statement, "Let's see how this works," as if they were wishing for a positive outcome, but were otherwise unsure. This is the best indication that doctors are taking potshots at a cure, lacking a rational basis for the process of healing.

If doctors attempt to "pass the test of nature" as Paracelsus says is necessary, they will find that scientific methods of modern medicine will prevent them from even learning the test of nature, much less passing the test. (Page 35)

[page 35, 36] Current assumptions make it extremely difficult to go this route because — strange as it may seem — nineteenth-century materialistic tendencies have led to a complete misunderstanding of the functions of the nervous system, which is the next system I will discuss in addition to the skeletal, muscular, and cardiac systems.

In his book Riddles of the Soul, Steiner makes it clear that there are no motor nerves in the human body, only sensory nerves. He says that so-called a motor nerve is but "the bearer of nerve activity [and] it serves the inner perception of that metabolic process that underlies our willing." Willing is a soul activity and materialistic physiology which denies the existence of soul activity must create out of whole cloth "motor nerves"! In this next passage, he explains how motor nerves are a biological impossibility, and what are called motor nerves function to report muscle location and motion, i.e., proprioceptive information.

[page 36, 37] Everything I stated in Riddles of the Soul can definitely be confirmed by the relevant biological facts, whereas the opposing view that attributes psychological activity to the nervous system alone cannot be confirmed at all. It is possible for a so-called motor nerve to be severed and then allowed to grow back together into a single nerve. For once, I would like to see how healthy reason can connect this fact with the other assumption that there are nerves that serve both sensory and motor functions. Such nerves do not exist. What we call motor nerves are nothing other than sensory nerves, that perceive the movements of our limbs — that is, they perceive what is going on in the metabolism of our limbs during an act of will. Thus, in reality, motor nerves are sensory nerves that perceive only what is going on inside us [proprioception], while what we ordinarily call sensory nerves perceive the outer world.

What this really means is that we cannot move a leg, e. g., if we cannot feel its presence with our proprioceptive nerves. The famous neurologist Oliver Sacks discovered for himself that if he could not feel his leg, he didn't even believe he had a leg! This belief is a soul condition and not one that can be explained by a medical science which does not allow for a soul.

As I wrote in my review of Israel Rosenfield's book, The Strange, Familiar, and Forgotten, the loss of feeling in a leg "creates a paradoxical relationship to the leg that Sacks explains so cogently in his book [and it is ] a neuropathologist with a damaged leg who is experiencing this directly rather than hearing it reported from a patient. In Sack's account of his recovery we follow his trials and dilemmas as his direct sense of self is minus a leg, but his conscious mind can see the leg which all his other senses tell him is not there."

If you feel it necessary to use the phrase "motor neurons" it is best to understand they are simply sensory neurons which report what is happening inside of our body as our will creates movement in our limbs, e.g.

[page 38] The soul aspect cannot be linked to the human organism as a whole, except possibly by inventing motor nerves that do not exist and then expecting motor nerve functions to influence circulation, and so forth, all of which is hypothetical in the extreme.

Our human soul aspects are drawn from the same forces which are responsible for the ability of lower animals and plants to regenerate themselves, such as a frog embryo will replace a leg which is cut off with a well-formed new leg. We know that will not happen to human beings, but what Steiner reveals is that the same forces exist in human beings but they operate at the level of thinking and feeling.

[page 43, 44] Whenever I think or feel, I think and feel with the same forces that are sculpturally active in the plant kingdom or in lower animals . . . . [e. g.] Trains of thought that have escaped us can be finished with others, which we bring in from far away rather than from what is nearest at hand. This function is actually similar to the regrowth of necessary parts [of plants and lower animals].

What does all this mean? Rightly understood it means that this knowledge can lead us to a rational approach to healing, something truly effective to replace the scattershot efforts of most physicians today, who understand pathology and diseases well, but lack an organized approach to healing human beings, up until now.

[page 48] Here you can already see the dawning of what can be described as a healing process. We call on the help of forces in nature that we ourselves, as normal human beings, do not possess. We use them when we need to make an inner part of us stronger than it is in a normal human being.

Suppose someone has a breathing problem, we have a process for finding a way in nature to create a rational healing process.

[page 48] If we take one of our organs — the lungs, perhaps — as an example, just so we can talk about this matter in concrete terms, we will find that we have withdrawn formative principles from organs such as this in order to have them available for our soul and spirit. Suppose we discover, somewhere in the plant kingdom, these same forces that we have withdrawn from our lungs. If we then administer them to a person with a pulmonary disorder, we are coming to the aid of that person's pulmonary functions. You see, the question now arises, which forces in outer nonhuman nature are similar to the forces that underlie our human organs but have been withdrawn to serve soul-spiritual functions? This route leads away from merely experimental methods toward a rational approach to therapy.

This next passage will be of interest to people who watch a lot medical shows or enjoy gossiping with friends about various medical problems. The mere act of talking about certain body organs will modify the way they operate.

[page 58] The moment you have thoughts about a particular organ — or, to put it better, thoughts that are connected with any particular organ — the organ itself becomes active in a certain way. Once again, this is a promising field for future doctoral dissertations. Simply study the connection between certain thoughts that appear in the human being and salivation, for example, or mucus secretion in the intestines or the secretion of milk, urine, or semen; study how specific thoughts appear, paralleling these organic activities.

Certain thoughts can, e. g., stop a gland from secreting and create an imbalance which if unchecked will lead to a disease. Our thoughts can either stop a gland's secretion or allow it to secrete. Often the one thing that happens when someone gets ills is that they shut themselves off from other people. That seclusion can have the salubrious effect of allowing the non-secreting gland to begin secreting normally again. Taking medication for diseases is sometimes superfluous as the disease will remedy itself with quiet bed rest away from people and the thoughts they carry with them. "Go home and get some rest" is often the last words of a doctor to a sick patient, age-old advice that has proven its worth for thousands of years.

[page 58] This is a clearly visible example of how formative activity leaves our organs and enters our thoughts. You might say that if you had not been thinking in that way, your gland would not have secreted anything. You withdrew a force from the gland and transferred it to your soul life, and then the gland began secreting.

Flying birds do not have intestinal disorders for the simple reason that they eliminate while flying. I have myself noticed this happening on occasion when driving home along a swampy area and had a Great Egret flying alongside me. It was possible to see the bird eliminating as it flew. Why is this so? Probably because they could not fly unless they shed all excess body weight such as the refuse from their eating and drinking. Otherwise it would be like expecting a jet airliner to store all the excess products of its engines combustion inside the plane — that is not possible for jets or for flying birds.

[page 63] They have no opportunity to retain or store the remains of their food; if they were able to do so, they would immediately develop a fatal illness. . . . Birds do not need to become involved in mighty battles against their intestinal flora, because they do not have any. In contrast, this is necessary for higher animals and human beings.

In pages 61 through 63 Steiner discussed how certain flora cannot exist long in sunlight, such as the tubercular bacilli. We have an etheric system which converts light internally and if not enough light is present for conversion externally, such bacilli may flourish. This results in the age-old prescription of a move to a sunnier climate for a TB patient. What's important is that we humans are like birds in our conversion of light.

[page 62] We have a physical colon and a physical bladder, but with regard to our etheric body, we are birds as far as these organs are concerned. . . . We are dependent on immediately transforming the light we receive and eliminating the by-products. If any disturbance occurs in this process, it does not correspond to a specific organ and therefor cannot simply be tolerated without damaging our health.

Bird-brain is a phrase which builds from the tiny size of the brain of a bird, whose brain which matches the size of its almost non-existent colon. Human brains have grown in the course of evolution in locked step with the size of human bladders and colons. Let us see why this must be so.

[page 66] There is an intimate connection between the formation of intestines and the formation of the brain; if the colon and appendix had not appeared in the course of the evolution of animals, physical human beings who can think would also ultimately not have been able to appear, because humans have brains at the expense — at the very pronounced expense — of their intestinal organs.

I recall someone from an early Steiner discussion group joking about our brain being filled with manure because the product of our brain (thought) is like the product of our large intestine. Typical of jokes, an essential distinction was left out. In order to have time for thinking, we cannot be constantly on the move like flying birds and must have the storage capacity of a bladder and colon. Brain and colon are intimately connected like positive and negative electricity is connected (Steiner's analogy on Page 66) — you can't have one without the other, and even though they are drastically different, each grows as the other grows.

Allopathy refers to materialistic medical practices in which something is done to relieve directly the problem, e.g., if you cough, a cough suppressant is prescribed. Homeopathy, on the other hand, will prescribe something which in a minute quantity which stimulates the presenting problem which allows the body's defenses to overcome it. Contrary to the derision with which the term allopath is used by some people who push homeopathic procedures, Steiner says that, rightly understood, there are no true allopaths because homeopathic tendencies of the body are at work whatever medication is prescribed. Potentization simply refers to the process of homeopathic dilution mentioned in the passages from pages 32 and 33.

[page 72] It becomes apparent to spiritual science that there really are no allopaths because even a substance prescribed as an allopathic medication undergoes a process of potentization within the organism, and healing occurs only through this process. Thus, all allopathic physicians find their procedures supported by the body's homeopathic tendency, which brings about a transformation allopaths neglect — namely, breaking down the cohesion of the remedy's individual particles.

In my studies over decades I found a relationship between planets of our Solar System and common metallic elements. As a physicist I bought into the chronological snobbery(1) of my generation, and this relationship seemed strange and without reason. In Lecture 6, Steiner explains the connections and how these relationships are important for understanding how the planets in our cosmos influence life on Earth. To understand his usage of "undisturbed" in the following passage, one has to imagine that refers to influence of one planet when no other planets are near it in the heavens.

[page 96] We cannot avoid bringing earthly substances into connection with the forces that work on the Earth from its surroundings. Especially the study of metals, if carried out in ways that I will describe in these lectures, brings us to very specific connections, such that we must attribute lead first and foremost to the undisturbed effects of Saturn, tin to the undisturbed effects of Jupiter, iron to Mars, copper to Venus, and what chemistry now calls mercury to the planet of the same name. This is why the ancients gave the name Mercury to both the planet and the metal. We must also recognize the relationship of everything that is like silver in character — I very deliberately said like silver — to the undisturbed effects of the Moon. It is really amusing to read in modern scientific literature that silver's relationship to the Moon was suggested by the Moon's silvery sheen and that people thought only in terms of this outer characteristic. Anyone who knows how carefully the ancient studies of individual metals were conducted, in their own way, will not succumb to this sort of error.

The inner planets of the heliocentric view of our cosmos are Moon, Venus, and Mercury. The elements associated with these planets are the telluric ones, i. e., the ones which directly affect the root portions of plants, the living half of plants that lies below the surface of Earth. The extra-telluric elements affect the living portion of plants that lies above the surface of the soil of Earth. Elements other than those listed above came about from the interactions from the various planets of the cosmos.

[page 96, 97] You will see that there is also ample opportunity for other substances to develop, because the ones that I listed — lead, tin, iron, copper, mercury, and silver — are only the most outstanding examples. The fact that other planetary influences competed with those just mentioned — for example, the lines of influence of Mars and Saturn could have intersected — made it possible for other substances to arise. This is how the less representative metals came about. In any case, we must see the Earth's metals as resulting from the influence of extra-telluric forces.

At this point, however, what is expressed in the workings of metals merges with what we see in plant development, because if you take the active principles in lead, tin, or iron, these same principles must also be inherent in all aspects of the development of flowers and seeds, insofar as these processes take place outside the earthly element and above the surface of the Earth. Similarly, all aspects of plant root formation must be connected to everything that is coppery, mercurial, or silvery in character.

The Sun's element is gold and acts as the balance point between the inner and outer planets, between below and above the soil in plants, between gravity and light, between matter and spirit in our cosmos.

[page 97] At every point in the material element, even in the cosmos, the balance must be maintained between matter and the spirit. The nearest cosmic body that maintains this balance is the Sun itself. The Sun holds the balance between the spiritual and the material in the cosmos. For this reason the Sun, you might say, is a cosmic body that both maintains order in the solar system and brings order into the forces pervading our material system. Just as we can establish the connection of individual planets to the metals, as I described earlier, we can also establish that there is a connection between the Sun and gold. In this instance, too, the ancients valued gold for its connection to the balance between spirit and matter rather than for its ahrimanic value.

It might be said that our fondness for gold today is based on a spiritual value whose origin we have otherwise forgotten.

Our physical body fully develops from birth to age 7, the time during which baby teeth (developed while in one's mother's womb) are replaced by one's own teeth. The next body is the etheric body which fully develops during the next 7 year period which brings one to the onset of puberty. From 14 on, the next body, the astral body develops and while it develops, diseases may appear due to the difficulty the astral body has in balancing the physical and etheric bodies.

[page 103] If they do no work together, the astral body is often obliged to strengthen its forces, and if these forces remain inadequate, the disease symptoms that then appear will require outside intervention. This is why it is common to find disease symptoms in childhood that are discharged on the physical level, as in Sydenham's chorea, for instance. All illnesses leading to such syndromes, in which nervous of psychological disturbances occur in addition to what is happening on the organic level, are related to the somewhat unaccustomed work the astral body is being called upon to perform to balance the elasticity of the physical and etheric bodies.

Childhood diseases flare up all the time and often are not diagnosed because they disappear quickly and are expected as a normal course of growing up. Similarly to the advice Steiner gives elsewhere that one not suppress coughing when it occurs, he also recommends that diseases like pneumonia and pleurisy in small children not be suppressed too quickly(2). (Page 107)

[page 107] All of these childhood symptoms have counterpart processes in later life; that is, they return later, but as their polar opposites. Many people would be able to understand all of the processes played out in endocarditis, for example (even acute endocarditis), if they merely investigated the course of disease symptoms earlier in life connected with pneumonia or pleurisy. This should help us to ensure that pneumonia and pleuritic symptoms are not suppressed prematurely or too quickly in children. Parents and teachers naturally want to get rid of such symptoms as quickly as possible, but in these disease states in particular it is really very important to allow them their own destiny. As a physician, you should intervene only to divert conditions that would otherwise cause damage. Aside from this, you should allow the disease process to run its course to the very end. It is never more important than with the symptoms related to childhood pneumonia or pleurisy-and certain others as well-to implement some kind of physical (or, as it is now called, "naturopathic") treatment.

In other words, try to allow the disease process as much as possible to run its normal course without speeding it up or cutting it off prematurely. This is important, because such a disease process, if cut off too soon, leads relatively quickly to a predisposition to cardiac disease and related syndromes, and it leads especially to a predisposition to such conditions as polyarthritis. Consequently, it is particularly important to avoid disrupting the disease process in this realm. For many people, simply by not intervening in the intentions of pleurisy and pneumonia, we could eliminate predispositions to all kinds of illnesses that later manifest as cardiac irregularities. The cohesiveness of a person's entire course of development is evident here.

Young parents today seem to take their children to the doctor for all kinds of minor symptoms which we ourselves were never taken to the doctor for as children, nor did my wife and I take our eight children to the doctor for. Given the trend to provide very expensive free medical care for everyone, one can expect that we are creating adults who will remain sickly for much of their adult lives. Thus Steiner gives us a warning about too much curing.

[page 108] It can be very important to not do too much curing. There is nothing wrong with being cured, of course, but we must also consider the many individuals who, to their own way of thinking, have experienced all sorts of illness — those who have survived so many different medications and methods of treatment that when they are older (and they are always sick) it is difficult to find anything that reassures them. It would be better to help people understand that in most cases they are not as sick as they think they are. This approach, of course, also has its negative aspects, but it is certainly proper to mention it in this context.

Much of Lectures 3 through 7 Steiner devoted to building up in the listener a basic understanding of how the telluric and extra-telluric forces are related to the planets of the cosmos and how these act upon the human body, particularly on its organs. The heart is the dividing point between the upper or extra-telluric organs of the body and the lower telluric organs. Our heart acts like the Sun in the cosmos which separates the inner planets of Venus, Mercury, and Moon from the outer planets of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Each planet has an associated element which is telluric like Copper, Mercury, and Silver or extra-telluric like Iron, Tin, and Lead. The grace of Steiner's medicine is learning how to recognize polarities, e. g. the polarity of ossification and sclerosis which allows one to combat arteriosclerosis with the forces active in lead. In the remaining lectures 8 through 20 Steiner gives many helpful guidelines for health, e. g., the value of after-meal naps, how the gentle internal massage of the spleen by the organs of digestion overcomes the toxic effect of strong ideational processes. We will learn to understand how the future of a person's health is present as a potential in the current challenges as perceived by the person. And with that insight we can form an intuition for a diagnosis.



~^~
Links to All Lectures 1 through 20 of Introducing Anthroposophical Medicine, GA#312

To Read a Review of Specific Lecture, Click Below.

Lectures in Dornach, March 21, 22 of 1920:       Lectures 1 and 2
Lectures in Dornach, March 23 to 27 of 1920:    Lectures 3 to 7
Lectures Dornach, Mar 28 - April 9 of 1920:      Lectures 8 thru 20

---------------------------- Footnotes -----------------------------------------

Footnote 1.

Chronological snobbery is an expression coined by C. S. Lewis to refer to our modern disdain for the knowledge of earlier cultures which we no longer understand and thereby deem baseless and ignorant, but which attitude is only an expression of our own ignorance, up until now.

Return to text directly before Footnote 1.

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Footnote 2. Endocarditis is an inflammation of the inside of the heart; polyarthritis is any type of arthritis involving five or more joints at one time.

Return to text directly before Footnote 2.

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Read the Review at:
http://www.doyletics.com/arj/amedic37.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 Spots A Sign in Downtown Gretna this Month:

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

This month the good Padre spots some Real Men Working.


2. Comments from Readers:

  • EMAIL from Poet Larry A. Chrispyn in California re Barry Stevens:
    Bobby NOTE: Barry Stevens was a wonderful free spirit from the 1960s and 70s who wrote about her 3 month experiences with Fritz Perls in the memorable book “Don’t Push the River” which I acquired and read when I began studying Perls’ Gestalt Therapy in the 1970s. Look carefully at the book cover below if you want to understand Barry Stevens. First, Barry is a woman, her face is open with a great smile, her arms are open to hug the entire world, and her hands are ever moving like the River she asked us not to push. Why should one not push the river? “Because,” she said, “it flows by itself.” People like myself who went into Gestalt Therapy all tightly bundled up by cords of inhibitions and neuroses. We were dammed into small puddles and with the help of pioneers like Fritz and Barry we learned to breach our self-imposed levees and overflow into the real world of our formerly imprisoned true inner selves. No longer awed by the world’s expectations of us, we were free to just be ourselves, to flow with the river of life.
    Larry's EMAIL:
    I wrote a poem called "The Wooden Bowl" — it was a bowl given to me by Barry Stevens in about 1980, after meeting her a few times. I can send it to you if you wish. Do you have an email or any information about her son John Stevens? He was living in Utah in the late 1970's.
    Sincerely,
    Larry A. Chrispyn

    Bobby REPLY:
    Great meeting a fellow poet! As an admirer of Barry Stevens I would be delighted to receive a poem about a wooden bowl that she once owned and gave to you, and with your permission will gladly publish it. Sorry to hear it was lost with your luggage during a flight. Some lost items can never be replaced.

    As for Barry's son, John, I met him at the 1979 Association for Humanistic Psychology Conference in Berkeley during a lunch break and told him about the nascent field of Neurolinguistic Programming, after which he immediately began to study, transcribe, and edit an early NLP book called Frogs into Princes under the name John O. Stevens. Later wrote Change Your Mind and other NLP books with Connirae Andreas. He seemed to take her last name and became Steve Andreas, because that was the name he used in the NLP books they wrote together. Hope this helps clarify how John Stevens "disappeared". Don't know where he's been for the past twenty years or so.

    You can check this link for links to all the NLP books I reviewed: http://www.doyletics.com/artj/bnglinks.htm

    Warm regards,
    Bobby

    ~~~~~~~~~~~ Poem by and Copyright by Larry Chrispyn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                      The Wooden Bowl

    From the beginning she was like a guru to me
           Like The Prophet by Gibran
    People said speak to us of love — of wisdom

    At 82, Barry Stevens spun around the circle
           Like a Tai Chi master
           Her book Don't Push the River

    I wrote her a 13 page letter
           Let me sit at your feet — to learn
    Her 2-line answer put my letter to shame

    Moving pianos, I ran into her a few years later
           It was me moving pianos, not her

    My friend started driving her to acupuncture in Marin

    Barry Stevens gave me a lovely wooden bowl
          How did she know I was questing for one

    Years later the beautiful bowl was bereft
    I took it to Indiana to be restored

    My dad in retirement — the master wood worker —

    Stolen with all my luggage
    It never reached Indiana

    Of my 14 book shelves — one is special for
           Books of quotations — with quotes by me
           And books signed by the author

    I never thought of asking her to sign her books
           But I have placed them on that shelf anyway

  • ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    EMAIL REPLY from Otis Brown re Eye Doctors (OD's):
    Dear Bobby,

    I am 72 years old. I have no doubt that Kaisu is correct in all details. I certainly have no problem accepting my part of the "blame" for inducing a negatives state in my natural eyes — because of my own "habits".

    But it is these ODs who are not only no help, but are totally destructive in their over-prescription of a minus lens.

    I finally realized that I had to practice "self-optometry" on myself — in shear self-defense. I have my own Snellen set up and check for 1) Better than 20/40, and 2) in the range of 20/25 to 2/18.

    I also have my own low-cost trial lens kit — to confirm my refractive state myself — as you can see. I believe that in the future, if a preventive study were conducted with each pilot making the measurement of his refractive state — prevention would be possible.

    I have created a series of videos on how pilots should make these refractive state measurements. Just go to YouTube, and type, "OtisSumnerBrown" This is not "medicine", but self-protection with wisdom in science and facts.

    It would take a mature person (at 20/40 and -3/4 diopters) to take full responsibility to do prevention.

    I know there are "legal obstacles" but a strong will can face the science, and make prevention effective (but only at -3/4 diopters).

    I have read your other remarks, and am totally supportive of you and the wonderful Kaisu Viikari.

    If there is to be a preventive future, then we must lead it.

    Sincerely,
    Otis Brown www.myopiafree.com

    Bobby's earlier EMAIL:
    Dear Otis,

    Clearly your's and others' emails show why it is a waste of time to talk to an OD about myopia. At age 71, I have thrown away my minus lenses (-2.5D) and wear +1.0 D for book reading and +0.5 for computer screens. My eye sight is not perfect, but I can drive day and night without glasses. I can read most small print on strip shopping center stacked signs with ease — this is my daily Snellen test as I pass by such a place every morning on my morning coffee break.

    Keep up the good work,

    Bobby

  • EMAIL from Kevin Dann in NYC:
    Bobby,

    I just digested the February digest and found it yummy as always. I loved the whole Steve Saint saga, and seeing the note from John Beck at the end.

    It looks unlikely that I'll be able to come south after all. My daughter has fallen in love and the last thing she's thinking about at the moment is a N'Olans junket with me.

    Peace,
    Kevin

    Bobby REPLY:

    Dear Kevin,

    I just listened to a lecture by Professor Dorsey Armstrong in which she quoted this droll poem by e. e. cummings and it reminded me immediately of you:

          anyone lived in a pretty how town
          (with up so floating and many bells down)
          spring summer autumn winter
          he sang his didn't and he danced his did.

    if anyone ever sang his didn't and danced his did it is you       
    e. e. must have known you in a previous lifetime

    from a pretty how town
    Bobby

3. Poem from Freedom on the Half Shell: "The Politician's Prayer "


The oyster never leaves his shell,
And does, therein, exceeding well;
He does not have to sweat and brood
To know the joys of oysterhood;
He deems the treasured pearl a fault,
And takes his world with ample salt.


Samuel Hoffenstein from
The Complete Poetry of Samuel Hoffenstein

Samuel Hoffenstein said it for me in his poem written in the 1930s. As you enter this book of poems before you, keep your salt shaker handy. "Taking something with a grain of salt" is an old fashioned idiom for "not believing everything you hear." In the realm of freedom with its polar opposite of coercion, one should take things with "ample salt" as Sam suggests in his poem.

In the D. C. Mole Station, the Plantation Master's home on the hill, as I call Washington, D. C. in some of the included poems, one hears a lot about freedom and hardly anything about coercion. Remove the "salt" and you find in reality the exact opposite ratios being placed into practice: a lot of coercion is promulgated into law and the last bastion of freedom, the Bill of Rights, is being undermined, saboteged, and extirpated, clause by clause, with each new law passed by the Supreme Court in its finite wisdom. (Doesn't the Constitution charge them with interpreting the Constitution, not modifying it for the sake of some fashionable cause? Doesn't anybody keep track of these things?)

How can freedom ever prove itself if it is treated as a fault, an irritant, and removed by the Plantation Master before it can improve into a pearl?

Please pass the salt and let's open a few oysters, whatdya say — and enjoy a poem from Freedom on the Half Shell:


The Politician's Prayer


The politician prays to God:
"Please preserve our force and fraud!

"We cannot coerce
      without judicious use of force
Nor can we tell the truth
      without getting the boot.

"Please hear our plea, O Deity,
      Our land with liberty endow,
With the boon of freedom bless
      But not just now."




4. SURVIVING ONSLAUGHT OF PRESUPPOSITIONS

About thirty years ago, in 1982, I read an amazing book by Jane Roberts called The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. Its subtitle is "A Seth Book" because Jane dictated the book while channeling the entity which called himself Seth. My 2003 review of this book has always been a popular read, but in 2011, it shot up to 14,000 readers, about four times the next nearest review. Since it has become so popular, I thought that I would call it to the Good Readers of DIGESTWORLD. Since I wrote the review, we have experienced the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, and have had many people ask us about the aftermath. Our answers universally surprise them, because we talk about the wonderful changes that our native city, New Orleans, has undergone and is continuing to experience since the storm. Schools are being vitalized, infrastructure improved, levees higher and stronger than ever before. We had a huge flood in 1871, 1927, 1968, and again in 2005, and each time the city has rebuilt stronger than ever before. After 1927 flood the Mississippi River levee was built so strong that there has been no river flooding in the city since then. After 2005, the weak levees along Lake Pontchartrain have been strengthened and shutoff gates built to keep wind-driven water from ever entering them again. These mass events seem to require two generations to pass before repeating themselves, i. e., a second generation who only heard about the event and allows the kind of stagnation to build up which requires another catastrophe to set the people right. No one can predict how the next catastrophe will occur, but we know the batting average of the city is 2.5 a century.

Those of you in other parts of the country and the world may have less frequent larger catastrophes or smaller scale but more frequent catastrophes. What you can learn from this book is how these catastrophes are attracted to a given region, large or small, by the human beings who live in the region. That is the message of this book, and I can only recommend that you read my review and obtain the book if you find the message useful to your own peace of mind.

5. TRUE GOVERNMENT, An Essay

While listening to a lecture about Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience where he said it was the duty of a citizen to resist government policies, I wrote down this thought, “Any government that can be resisted is not a true government because resistance necessarily implies coercion.”

We immediately know Syria does not have a true government as evinced by its large resistance movement. Neither did Egypt, Libya, Yemen and so many other troubled countries in the Middle East. Neither do the countries of Europe, e. g. Greece, which has met large resistance to its financial belt-tightening. Neither does any country ruled by a dictator who, like Saddam Hussein did, kills anyone who resists his policies. Neither does the United States of America who uses police force to counter any resistance to its coercive policies.

All these represent examples of false governments held in place by coercion and evoking resistance at various levels from time to time, sustaining a semblance of peace by the use of force. Does it matter much if the leaders of these so-called governments are dictators or elected by a democratic majority? Coercion is coercion no matter how it is arrived at.

What would be the attributes of a true government which governs without coercion and therefore evokes no resistance? Consider this: you decide which department store you buy from, do you not? You decide where to eat out, do you not? You decide what clothes to wear, do you not? You decide what books to read, do you not? None of these activities are coerced upon citizens of the USA, and therefore there is nothing to resist, no one to resist. These are simple everyday examples of true government.

In the 1980s, people stopped buying at Woolco and it disappeared. No one had to protest the existence of Woolco. Similarly for every other familiar department store which disappeared from this country in the past fifty years. Sears Roebuck grew to a huge retailer based on its early catalog sales and now is on the verge of disappearing. J. C. Penny has hired a new executive to help it surge to prominence.

True government, like a department store, adjusts to the needs of every consumer and if it does not, it disappears. True also, is that not everyone likes the services of one department store and along comes a new store which provides lower prices or better quality and the new store thrives and the other one fades away. WalMart has become a Sears Roebuck-like success story of the past 50 years while Sears has struggled to maintain its very existence. No one was forced to switch from their neighborhood retail store to WalMart. Mom and Pop corner groceries disappeared as their customers switched to the new local WalMart.

What if WalMart took over, used its security forces to close the competing stores and prevented by force any new competitors from springing up? Soon, an Anti-WalMart resistance movement would spring up to overthrow WalMart, would it not? Note how the appearance of force creates a resistance movement in any level of an endeavor.

Some will say it is unfair to call WalMart a government, but consider how the company adjusts its prices and choice of goods to match what consumers want. If consumers stop buying something, it is quickly replaced by something else consumers want. A true government adjusts its products and services to what its consumers want or it simply and peacefully goes out of business. Not resistance movement is required to do the job.

If it suddenly came about that only ten percent of the customers of the current WalMart approved of the products and services of WalMart, then the stores would have to shrink to ten percent of their current number, and WalMart would be in the same position that Woolco was and Sears is quickly becoming: on the verge of extinction. No resistance movement necessary. But if the same shrinkage to ten percent occurred with the coercive form of WalMart, customers have no other place to shop and WalMart only grows stronger, does it not?

Consider now what we call the American government. The latest poll shows that only ten percent of the American people approve of the job Congress is doing and yet the so-called government of the USA is getting larger and stronger every year. Like with a coercive WalMart, people have no other place to shop, so there is a strong resistance movement growing of both sides of the political spectrum. Does each side of the political spectrum want freedom from coercion? No, each side wants its own favorite form of coercion, and if successful their form of coercion will lead to even fiercer resistance movements over time.

What people really want is a government which governs instead of coerces, and yet lacking a general understanding of how to bring that situation about, they accept begrudgingly a so-called governing with coercion, instead of creating the reality they wish for themselves. Unless we understand that Americans live under a coercive bureaucracy instead of a true government, we will not even look in the right direction for a solution, accepting the popular adage that we live in the freest country in the world, and this is the best we can expect. In future essays we will begin a look in the right direction on this topic of true government.

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9. CLOSING NOTES:
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Thanks to all of you Good Readers for providing the Chemistry which has made this site a Glowing Success. — Especially those of you who have graciously allowed us to reprint your emails and show photos of you and by you on this website — you're looking good! As of June 1, 2019, it enters its 20th year of publication. The DIGESTWORLD Issues and the rest of the doyletics website pages have received over 21.6 MILLION VISITORS ! ! !

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My reviews are not intended to replace the purchasing and reading of the reviewed books, but rather to supplant a previous reading or to spur a new reading of your own copy. What I endeavor to do in most of my reviews is to impart a sufficient amount of information to get the reader comfortable with the book so that they will want to read it for themselves. My Rudolf Steiner reviews are more detailed and my intention is to bring his work to a new century of readers by converting his amazing insights into modern language and concepts.




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