Pamphlets

What is reality?

2010-06-29T08:28:00.001-07:00

Sure, we all know what reality is, right? Reality is what is… well …REAL.

But what is it?

Wikipedia tells us: Reality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist." Literally, the term denotes what is real; in its widest sense, this includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible.

It’s simple enough to confirm that the chair we sit in is real. The ground, the cat, the roof over our head, the food we eat. These are solidities.

What about ideas? Are they real? Is death real? You can experience it, sure, but are you really extinguished for eternity? Is there a heaven or hell? Will you sing with the angels or roast in everlasting fire?

These are “realities” which are debatable.

There is such a thing as personal certainty, and that may or may not be real. Certainly, when we find someone claiming that the Martians are out to get him and wearing funny hats made of aluminum foil, we are quick to reject his “reality.” We even shut him up in a sanitarium if he appears dangerous.

So maybe “reality” has something to do with agreement. If many people in America are told with enough “authority” that terrorists are out to get us, is that real? Well, it’s real enough until debunked. (Some say, in fact, that we create terrorists by creating conditions which are unbearable.)

For many years most of us thought that the USSR was a viable threat, until it fell apart and we discovered that its people were living in poverty so that some politicians could divert all the resources of the country and its satellites to maintain a posture of success.

Well, if I tell you that you are basically good and that you are an immortal being, is that real? I believe it, so it’s real to me. A number of people I know “understand” it as a personal truth. But if you haven’t personally experienced it, it won’t be real to you. This is an area of ideas, and reality is subject to our agreement.

And wouldn’t it be nice if it were true? What I would like is for you to look for yourself. Can you really imagine a world without you in it? Check out Scientology.

Are you there?

2010-06-12T05:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was thinking how nice people are — in general, you know.

The owner of Greenberries coffee shop provided a nice cool place to sit while I updated my notes. The art director at the Reston Community Center was supportive of my efforts to start a class in Herndon. Someone — a complete stranger — smiled at me. A driver waved me to cross the street. A construction worker noticed my eating a Dairy Queen soft cone and remarked how nice it looked in this hot weather we're having.

How nice they are, all of them.

I look around and I see that each one, each person, each spark of life (really) has his own memory and purpose and concept of past and future. I want to know more about each one.

Communication is a two-way street. It's not words. It's perception, recognition. The person who doesn't recognize other life leads a very lonely existence.

Let's communicate, my friend.

Bio-remediation

2010-06-01T04:52:00.001-07:00

This is an interesting possible natural solution to the current BP drilling spill.

Do you have to have an opinion?

2010-05-26T05:02:00.000-07:00

Seems like everybody has an opinion about everything. Except me. There are lots of things I don't have a clear opinion on. Why? If I don't know enough about something, I don't have an opinion about it. I dread telephone surveys about the "local issues" or the "local politician" who is up for election. I cringe, because I usually really don't know enough about the issues. I know. this is my failure. That is, in part. It's difficult to get the truth sometimes in a PR world.

Sometimes, on the other hand, I have clear opinions that are later proven to be spurious. They are arrogant. Here's what I mean. I'm an artist, I paint a certain way. I paint that way because I like the style of certain artists. Now, when I was young (I'm old as the hills now), I used to reject most art that didn't conform to my style.

But art is a communication. It can be of many kinds. It can be of many qualities and at various proficiency levels. I am charmed, often, by the paintings produced by my students — efforts which they reject as not coming up to their standards for proficiency. They reject because of an opinion.

Well, it's an opinion. Opinions are free. Here, have some!

Remember when it was fun to drive a car?

2010-05-14T04:57:00.000-07:00

In the early 1970's, my mother sold me her Mercury Cougar. It was a long sleek car, V8 engine, dark green, and boy could it go. And it had a dial that showed RPMs which fascinated me. It was a great car to drive.

After a while, it got a bit too much for me. It had carburetor problems and I didn't have much money for fixing. So, when it wouldn't start, I'd get out, lift the hood, take off the distributor cap, hold it open with a screw driver and mist some sort of fluid some male acquaintance told me about into the distributor. Worked like a dream . . . until the next time.

Eventually, several old car fanatics saw it in the parking lot and began bidding against each other and I sold it for more than I paid (but certainly less than it was worth as a classic.) I bought a new VW Rabbit which didn't have a carburator. I loved the Rabbit too, but for a different reason. With the Cougar, you could go up an on ramp to the highway with minimal merge space and spring forward, sure of adequate acceleration.

But here's the thing: yes, the Cougar was exceptional. But there was something more. I had an attitude. I was young and life was fine and interesting. Yesterday, driving my Toyota minivan, which is now 7 years old but still performs well, I remembered that Cougar. And that memory was a fine wine. Oh, that Cougar! What fun it is to drive a fast car.

Simple and natural solution to the oil spill in the Gulf

2010-05-12T04:48:00.000-07:00

You should all check out this proposal. If anyone viewing this has connections and could get this looked at by politicos, please pass it on!
A Cool Solution to the Oil Spill

Antidepressants don't work

2010-04-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

"Here's some depressing recent medical news: Antidepressants don't work. What's even more depressing is that the pharmaceutical industry and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have deliberately deceived us into believing that they DO work. As a physician, this is frightening to me. Depression is among the most common problems seen in primary-care medicine and soon will be the second leading cause of disability in this country." -- From Mark Hyman for The Huffington Post

What's depressing is that a large number of people still think that the psychiatric profession knows what it's talking about and that the Drug Industry is carefully developing drugs that will let us lead better lives.

Find out more about "the Marketing of Madness" at CCHR.org. You can watch it online for free. Brilliant expose!

I have nothing to say and no one to say it to

2010-04-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

This blog was supposed to be for my opinions and thoughts on life and the nature of the world and being. Often I don't have a strong opinion. I rather like this world and wish that more people were doing art and less people were doing war. What follows is a poem I wrote after we were "buried" in snow (2 feet of it -- ok, laugh you northerners) in February.

Wrong Season
(after the deep snowfall, February 2010)

I am not a fox, says the fox.
The wind colors me red and the snow
makes me deep and silent.
The quality of light is hunger.
There will be no warm respite.
Everything has gone to ground.
I can move, the falling white
bounding my wooded world.
But I can’t escape.

I am not a bird, says the sparrow.
The light frames me brown and still.
I am cold, not flight. I am caught
in the wrong season. Where
are my friends? Where is my food?

I am not a deer, says the doe.
What can I do in this white world?
I am ghost, fading into the woods,
looking for shelter. I am surprise,
the quality of waiting.

I am not future or past,
say the fox, the sparrow, the doe.
I am now. I am sight, I am hearing.
The quality of light is hunger.
I am caught in the wrong season.
I am ghost.

Big Lies Are Big Truths With Small Lies

2010-04-16T06:50:00.001-07:00

by Dean Blehert

When we attack the big lies that move people to vicious acts, we commonly underrate humanity. Most people are decent. They want to survive; they want others to survive. They are not moved merely by stupidity and viciousness. If we are not to fall once again into old lies, we must understand the power of those lies. To understand Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and the lies that hold our own society, at best, stagnant, we must understand that it is truth that moves people. A big lie consists of great truths warped by small lies, hooks in the rich bait of truth. To understand the big lie, we must unthread its small lies from its great truths.

It is easy to look at the results of such lies with contempt for those who were taken in by them. How many of us have sneered self-righteously at people who were willing to sacrifice liberty to have the trains run on time? And how many of us would not, caught in the endless creep of rush-hour exhaust, sell our souls for an efficient transportation system? It is easy to be outraged by death camps after daily instruction by the media on which groups are "cults" and, therefore, not worthy of concern, somehow subhuman.

It is not my purpose here to say that unlike things are alike, to say that the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers in a recent war was, for example, the ethical equivalent of the Holocaust — only to point out that if we were now at the beginning of a period of boundless viciousness, constructed of our own dearest assumptions, perhaps we would not now know it. Certainly few virtuous anti-Communist Americans of the 50's knew how nearly their own agreements came to wiping out the entire population of this planet in nuclear holocaust, vastly more destructive than anything the Nazis conceived. We know this now, looking at the documents of the Cuban missile crisis in 1963.

Our assumptions about ourselves and the Russians were in place — a very elaborate set of unchallengeable assumptions. The game was about to play itself out. The inevitable was narrowly averted — largely because individuals on both sides violated the rules, opened up live communications with "monsters" on the other side - and also because one of the monsters backed down, despite the overwhelming big truth that it is disastrous to back down.

There's an example of a "big truth" — it is disastrous to back down. The little lie is what is omitted: That sometimes it is worse NOT to back down.

Nazi Germany lives on as the favorite example of scholars, the almost universally accepted exemplar of pure evil. But Hitler's vision had the power to sweep tens of millions of people into the storm of World War II. What great truths did Hitler bring to the German people to move them so?

First, there's emotional truth. To people living in fear, rage comes as truth, just as joy is truth to the conservative and stoic conservatism moves the bored and lightly antagonistic — just as the outpouring of grief reaches one in stone apathy. Hitler's rage and pain were real to Germans who were below rage. It promised the possibility of action, of asserted rightness.

Apathy is nearer to death than grief, grief than fear, fear than anger. If a cheerful person is overwhelmed and becomes, briefly, apathetic, he will, as part of his recovery, pass through anger. Anger is, then, on the road to life and recovery for those below anger and nearer to death. The rolling boil is greeted with vast relief by a people long simmering.

The little lie is in giving anger incorrect targets. When anger fixes on wrong targets, it will be rebuffed, overwhelmed, knocked back down to apathy, like Don Quixote tilting at windmills or the drunk crashing through the barroom mirror and taking a swing at the cops when they arrive.

The big truth is that where a nation is fragmented, each alienated from all others, it is necessary to give people something they can agree about - and also, that a nation must be a nation to survive, must be united, must have agreed-upon goals upon which it can act, that people who move together toward a shared purpose have great power and love for each other.

The little lie is in the agreements themselves— for example, the agreement that the Jews were responsible for all of Germany's problems.

That's obvious stupidity, you say? But see what a LITTLE lie it is. What are a few Jews to a great nation's survival? We sacrifice the rights of a few individuals to achieve a great universal truth, the unity of a nation. The truth is of a higher order than the lie.

Not so, for the lie invalidates a higher truth, the unity of mankind. It says that mankind is made up of true men and monsters. It says that there shall be no unity among men, only endless war of true men against monsters. Surely what holds for a nation holds for mankind: We, like all people, achieve power and love for each other by acting together toward shared goals. Surely the survival of mankind is a higher-order concept than the survival of one nation, for if mankind perished, all nations would perish. And by the end of World War II, with the emergence of nuclear weapons, we knew that a failure to achieve a unity of all people would lead to the destruction of all people.

Of course, Hitler's rationale was that the Jews were a plague upon the entire planet and that eventually all nations would join Germany in eliminating them. He knew he needed to stretch his lie that far to uphold, at least outwardly, the truth that a whole world is greater than any of its nations, a truth he, himself, could not believe.

The little lies that barb great truths are, themselves, loose threads of even greater truths. Tug on the little lies, and the universe begins to unravel.

It is more difficult to disentangle the great truths of Karl Marx from its little lies — or Freud's ball of thread — or hardest of all, one's own, the great truths and big lies by which each of us lives. But one cannot live a lie. The lies give the illusion of supporting life because they are wound like vines about the truths that keep us going, truths that are strangled by the lies that pretend to support them.

Each has his own dearest lies: They don't understand me. It doesn't matter. You can't have everything. What I don't know won't hurt me. It's not my problem. Nobody cares. I need to be loved. It's a dangerous world. What's the use. They wouldn't get it. If I once slow down, I'm finished. All blondes are horse radishes who live in door knobs.

Pervasive generalities based on old painful decisions persist to color all our truths and slant them subtly - even the craziest lies lacquered in plausible rationales. We use them as a stay against chaos, something to hang onto when the winds of space would sweep us away. But often it is only the need to grow that threatens our stability. Rather than confront what is before us and learn to handle it, we cling to our computations. Thus, the little lies that hide within our great truths keep us from growing, hold us fixed in one place.

One man with a great truth (for example, that freedom is proportional to responsibility or that an economy prospers from fair exchange or that we hate those we have injured) can create a civilization, an economy, a relationship, but when sufficiently rebuffed and confused by those who would counter him, falls back upon his little lies, the limiters of his creativity, the still point of a spinning world where he can stand still being right and making others wrong.

The spokesman for responsibility confuses responsibility with blame; the pursuer of fair exchange becomes infatuated with vengeance; the guru of relationships insists we must love everyone. Each becomes a parody of truth, frozen in an awkward posture.

Strip away the little lies from a big grotesque lie, and you will find a great truth. Each of us is a great truth.

Essay by Dean Blehert

Free e-book on Scientology

2010-04-09T06:23:00.000-07:00

Did you know that you can get a free e-book about some aspect of Scientology that will allow you to use Scientology to see that it works? I just now discovered this website and I'm excited to introduce it to you. You can use the link that says "Choose a different ebook" to select the area that interests you.

Is the World a Dangerous Place?

2010-04-09T06:08:00.000-07:00

I think we've had a decrease in the general level of manners in our "modern" society. Some might say this is good, that it reflects more honesty. I don't think it is good. And I don't think it reflects more honesty. In the fifties, when TV was young and I was just growing up, the shows we saw often seem antiquated today. Today shows are often more brutal and more graphic. Take, for instance, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. It focuses on victims of rape, abuse, child molestation. It pictures a world that is brutal and dangerous. But if you look around at your life, there is more calm than brutality. (And if there isn't, then maybe something is wrong with the picture.)

I myself believe in a sort of Karma. We used to say "Do onto others what you would have them do unto you." Later it became fashionable to mock that attitude with "Do unto others before they do unto you." But manners have a great deal to do with treating others the way you want to be treated. And, interestingly enough, it calms the waters.

You can be a force for good just by being a cheerful, caring person.
In the essay on "The Dangerous Environment" L. Ron Hubbard says more eloquently what I've been trying to say here. I recommend it.

Fat and sweeteners

2010-03-30T08:33:00.001-07:00

Dr. Mercola has a fascinating article on the dangers of Agave syrup which I believe to be true based on my limited exposure to the product.

At the very end of the article, he says:

“If you have insulin issues, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, or if you’re overweight, I suggest you avoid all sweeteners, including stevia, since any sweetener can decrease your insulin sensitivity.”

If you have time, read the article. If not, here’s my take: we are flooding our bodies with a lot of sugar. In response to our “addicted” sugar-cravings, manufacturers look for ways to increase the sweetness of their products. Just try looking over the labels of the packaged foods you buy.

A book by Dr. Sears explains in a technical way what is happening to your endocrine system when you overdose your body with sugar.

Vale Schoolhouse Painting

2010-03-09T04:49:00.001-08:00

I've been so busy I've been neglecting to promote. Well, no promotion means no one knows about what I've been doing. So here's a little update:

I continue to teach an "Oil and Acrylics workshop" at the Reston Community Center. The painting shown here was a demo of oil painting completed during a recent class. It's a view of a small schoolhouse called "Vale School" on Vale Road in Oakton, Virginia. It is 16 x 20, the sides are painted (so it can be hung without framing) and it already has wiring on the back.

I will be including this painting in may ebay store. http://stores.ebay.com/Pam-Coulter-Art

After the 2 foot snow: February 2010

2010-02-25T07:30:00.001-08:00

I am not a fox

I am not a fox, says the fox.
The wind colors me red and the snow
makes me deep and silent.
The quality of light is hunger.
There will be no warm respite.
Everything has gone to ground.
I can move, the falling white
bounding my wooded world.
But I can’t escape.

I am not a bird, says the sparrow.
The light frames me brown and still.
I am cold, not flight. I am caught
in the wrong season. Where
are my friends? Where is my food?

I am not a deer, says the doe.
What can I do in this white world?
I am ghost, fading into the woods,
looking for shelter. I am surprise,
the quality of waiting.

I am not future or past,
say the fox, the sparrow, the doe.
I am now. I am sight, I am hearing.
The quality of light is hunger.
I am caught in the wrong season.
I am ghost.

by Pam Blehert

How to Lock Your Car and Why

2009-03-31T04:53:00.000-07:00

The following information came to me by email and I feel it is important enough to blog and forward. This is the newest wave of criminal behavior. Theft of security codes on remote car locking devices. You can prevent theft by locking manual from the inside when you leave your car. Read on:

I locked my car --- as I walked away I heard my car door unlock I went back and locked my car again three times. I looked around and there were two guys sitting in a car in the fire lane next to the store. When I looked straight at them they did not unlock my car again.

How to lock your car safely -

While traveling, my son stopped at a roadside park. He came out to his car less than 4-5 minutes later and found someone had gotten into his car, and stolen his cell phone, laptop computer, GPS navigator briefcase....you name it....

He called the police and since there were no signs of his car being broken into - the police told him that there is a device that robbers are using now to clone your security code when you lock your doors on your car using your key-chain locking device..

They sit a distance away and watch for their next victim. They know you are going inside of the store, restaurant, or bathroom and have a few minutes to steal and run. The police officer said to manually lock your car door-by hitting the lock button inside the car, that way if there is someone siting in a parking lot watching for their next victim it will not be you.

When you hit the lock button on your car upon exiting...it does not send the security code, but if you walk away and use the door lock on your key chain - it sends the code through the airwaves where it can be stolen. Something totally new to us...and real.

Be aware of this and please pass this note on...look how many times we all lock our doors with our remote...just to be sure we remembered to lock them.....and bingo someone has our code...and whatever was in the car...can be stolen.

Snopes Approved.Please share with everyone you know... Good information!!!

The Credit Crisis visually explained

2009-03-29T06:48:00.000-07:00

I found the following video very simple to follow and thought that others might like to view it. It's very well done. (If you are getting this by email, go to my blog at www.pam-phlets.blogspot.com because I don't think that the email downloads the actual video.)

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

I want my Bailout Money - very funny rap song

2009-03-28T06:24:00.000-07:00

The Rape of Money

2009-03-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

Extraordinary article at realitysandwich.com/ which I will excerpt from here:

Our cultural treasury of songs and stories, images and icons, has been looted and copyrighted. Any clever phrase you can think of is already a trademarked slogan. Our very human relationships and abilities have been taken away from us and sold back, so that we are now dependent on strangers, and therefore on money, for things few humans ever paid for until recently: food, shelter, clothing, entertainment, child care, cooking. Life itself has become a consumer item. Today we sell away the last vestiges of our divine bequeathment: our health, the biosphere and genome, even our own minds. This is the process that is culminating in our age. It is almost complete, especially in America and the "developed" world. In the developing world there still remain people who live substantially in gift cultures, where natural and social wealth is not yet the subject of property. Globalization is the process of stripping away these assets, to feed the money machine's insatiable, existential need to grow. Yet this stripmining of other lands is running up against its limits too, both because there is almost nothing left to take, and because of growing pockets of effective resistance.

REad the whole article here: realitysandwich.com/

Why we must STOP the MOTHERS ACT

2009-02-01T18:02:00.001-08:00

There is no language in the bill that would assure mothers are given non-drug options or accurate information about the subjectivity of the diagnoses (a checklist of questions) or the documented risks of psychiatric drugs. This violates informed consent and puts new mothers and their infants at risk.

One person can make a difference

2009-02-01T12:10:00.000-08:00

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

The Death of Psychiatry

2009-01-30T08:11:00.000-08:00

I'm blogging the following article carried on the blog "The Side Effects of Antidepressants..."

Antipsychotics: History - Then and Now
January 29, 2009 — Your Friend
The Times-News
Modern mind medicines begin to lose luster
January 27, 2009

Hundreds of years ago, people with mental illness might be burned at the stake or locked away in a dungeon. In the early 20th century, some patients with schizophrenia were lobotomized with an ice pick to blunt emotions and reduce agitation.

Other treatments included padded cells, straitjackets, cold wet sheets and electroshock therapy. Mental institutions in the first part of the 20th century were sometimes referred to as “snake pits.”

It was in this barbaric context that the first antipsychotic drugs were developed. In 1952, when Thorazine (chlorpromazine) was first introduced, it was hailed as a breakthrough.

Other drugs such as Stelazine (trifluoperazine), Mellaril (thioridazine) and Haldol (haloperidol) followed. Although these antipsychotic medications were popular with psychiatrists, patients often thought of them as chemical straitjackets.

Such drugs helped reduce hallucinations and agitation. But there was a high price to pay for the apparent benefits. The drugs made people feel sedated and slowed them down, resulting in a zombielike shuffle.

Other side effects included dizziness, slurred speech, seizures and a variety of movement disorders such as severe neck muscle spasms causing head twitches or uncontrollable rhythmic movements such as sticking out the tongue. Urinary retention, constipation and sexual difficulties also contributed to the drugs’ unpopularity with patients, who often discontinued their medicines as soon as they were discharged.

A newer generation of schizophrenia drugs was introduced in the early 1990s with great fanfare. Drugs like Clozaril (clozapine), Risperdal (risperidone), Zyprexa (olanzapine), Seroquel (quetiapine), Geodon (ziprasidone) and Abilify (aripiprazole) are known as atypical antipsychotics.

Psychiatrists hoped that these medications would be better tolerated and much more effective than older antipsychotics. Some even believed the new drugs would help schizophrenic patients return to normal.

More than $13 billion is spent on antipsychotic medications each year. They are prescribed for a range of conditions beyond schizophrenia, including Alzheimer’s and dementia, bipolar disorder, insomnia, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, ADHD and major depression.

Despite the initial enthusiasm, there is growing consternation about the safety and effectiveness of these powerful mind medicines. A few years ago, a study found that the newer and far pricier drugs were no more effective or less likely to cause troublesome side effects than an older antipsychotic (New England Journal of Medicine, Sept. 22, 2005). A new study in the same journal (Jan. 15, 2009) reported an alarming rate of sudden cardiac death linked to the newer drugs.

It’s no wonder that patients and families are nervous about these medicines, especially when you consider that they can cause other complications such as dramatic weight gain, diabetes, strokes and irregular heart rhythms. Children and older people may be particularly vulnerable.

People with mental illness deserve much better treatment than they have received to date. Although lobotomies and straitjackets are no longer used, modern medications leave a lot to be desired.

Joe Graedon is a pharmacologist. Teresa Graedon holds a doctorate in medical anthropology and is a nutrition expert.

Source: http://www.blueridgenow.com

Time leaps

2009-01-29T06:23:00.000-08:00

Wednesday leapt at me and devoured me. Now it is Thursday. I have scarcely been awake and here it is 9:30.

Time is an interesting concept. You realize, if you can grasp it, that there is no past, really. We create it out of stuff which we keep around, either paper (such as that which must be collected for the tax man), posessions, or memories (good and bad).

Long ago when I was young, I thought you never escaped your past. But you do, constantly, you know. Time is a concept.

For instance, we assume that we have barriers beyond which we can't reach. One is space, another time. And yet, the Internet, the phone, the TV, the webcam -- all are defeating space. And time -- ha! I've sometimes been in better communication with the author of a good book than with my neighbors.

There are those who believe we are dust unto dust. I am quite sure (myself) that I am apart from the physical universe and can transcend it, even so simply as in the reading of a book. And when I write, I am reaching out to you. Do you hear me?

Here's more on the relationship of spirit and the world.

Networking

2009-01-27T18:01:00.000-08:00

When I was a child, I would meet people -- on buses, trains, at camp . . . And I always thought I would meet them again.

As I got older, I felt a bit guilty that I hadn't "written," "kept up with..." etc. Took me a while to realize that the other party hadn't either.

I believed (still do) that if you like someone, you are inevitably going to run into them again. Although now I think that it may be next lifetime.

The electronic age, however, has caught up. Networking on the Internet is all the rage. I've just succumbed to the 3rd invitation by someone to join facebook. I entered my address book as a *.csv (comma separated value) file. Suddenly, hundreds of names and emails and pictures popped up and I was asked if I wanted to add some as "friends" or just select all. Well, I went through and selected some 50-100 names that I recognized.

What will this lead to? I am breathless. Could there be too much of a good thing?

Depression

2009-01-26T06:14:00.000-08:00

Depression seems to be the newest "mental illness" buzzword. It's useful, because who hasn't been depressed at one time or another. When I was young, we called it "the blues" and to get rid of the blues, you got busy, or sang the blues, or had a piece of cinnamon toast. Do you remember cinnamon toast? And home-made waffles? Or, pancakes, made not from a package mix but from scratch, with lots of butter and real maple syrup. We have a lot of really useful things now (early 21st century) but we did then too (when I was young — late-mid-20th). For instance, we had to be at home to answer the phone, and it was connected to the location by a cord. And when it rang, it was usually someone we wanted to talk to. None of those annoying electronic ads. Well, times change. As the Zen master said to his impatient companion when they were traveling, "Here too is good." Make friends. If you get depressed, think of something even worse and consider yourself lucky! Help others. Love.

Here's a site that has some useful advice.

What tests support the existence of Mental Illness

2009-01-24T08:59:00.001-08:00

We hear about the extraordinary worldwide collapse of national economies. At the same time, the psychiatrists are making hay with their diagnoses and prescriptions. Are you depressed? Stressed? Well, they have the solution. Or do they? The video I've blogged here is very enlightening. (By the way, the crimes of psychiatrists are beginning to come to light. We need a concerted effort by all of us to expose this fraud.)

Oh, and, by the way, maybe you should be depressed!

A new year

2009-01-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

Life has gotten very busy. On Christmas day, my husband and I went to TWO movies: Valkyrie and Slumdog Millionaire. Both were excellent. Valkyrie was historical and factual and paints a better picture of Germans during the Third Reich than has been held by many. (Not all were willing subjects of Hitler -- it was a pretty suppressive regime). Slumdog Millionaire was pure fun! Set in India, it allowed us to see some of the richness of the culture and architecture and a little bit of Ballywood.

The Lives of Others

2008-06-25T06:30:00.001-07:00

We just watched an award-winning film titled: The Lives of Others and I whole-heartedly recommend it.

It is a story about a man, trained to be a German spy (Stasi) who is very good at it. He has no life of his own.

It shows his path and eventual conflict.

People can be good people and misled. Good people who are misled can work out thier own salvation by learning the truth.

This is a remarkable movie, based on fact. If you take the DVD out of a video store (or purchase) you find the commentary of the director enlightening as well. For a summary of the truth contained in the film, read the overview in Wikipedia.

The Truth about Anonymous

2008-05-13T08:04:00.000-07:00

As a Washington DC Scientologist, I have been treated to occasional "protests" in front of our Church by "members" of an internet group calling themselves: "Anonymous." I'm not scared of this group, but I think that you should be aware that this not just something "cute." The link I've embedded at the bottom of this post goes to a video that details some of the hate messages that this group has aimed at the Church of Scientology. I think it is worth viewing. You may think, "what could generate such hate? Could it be there is some truth in their allegations?" Frankly, as a Scientologist for over 41 years, I categorically state that the positions that they are taking and the hate that they are expressing are purely and simply expressions of insanity. Look for yourself: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4oz45_anonymous-hate-crimes-terrorism-dir_school

Viewpoints on evaluation

2007-07-17T07:03:00.000-07:00

The following, you understand, is merely my opinion. It is evaluation.

It has occurred to me that if you don't know enough about some subject, you can't truly evaluate. Sure, you can have an opinion, but what is the value of it? It's kind of like answering a multiple-choice test by answering A, B, C, or D randomly.

So why do many people have such hard-core opinions about things that they really know nothing about? I take as an example, opinions I have encountered about my religion, Scientology. I have encountered some people who are quite certain that they know all about it and it is something that they don't want to know anything more about, and this without ever having read a book, attended a lecture, or talked to a Scientologist. It's a puzzle. Almost as if they were saying "Get thee behind me, Satan!"

We call this a fixed opinion. It's based on false data. They haven't examined the subject themselves, but they are certain that they know about it. Why? Some source that they trust, whether a person, or book, or newspaper, has given them a position, or an opinion. They don't think about it anymore themselves. They have an opinion.

Now this is an interesting idea. Someone or something has evaluated for them, has sort of told them what to think.

It seems to me that you could say that evaluating for someone is sort of "placing" or "postioning" them, either physically or in terms of their opinion. (For example: "School is not fun," "Work is dull", "The US is good and has good intentions," "Someone knows what they are doing so it's all taken care of.")

You get evaluated for a lot as children. Your parents say "Go upstairs and do your homework now(physical positioning)." Your teachers say, "Study history. It's important to know the generals and battles of the Civil War (opinion positioning)." The child asks why. If he doesn't get answers, or can't work out his own reasons, he either accepts (and is a good child) or doesn't (and hangs out with the wrong crowd.)

I come to a fundamental conclusion: if I don't have enough knowledge in an area to have an opinion or idea of my own, I am easily evaluated for. In the case of the examples above, I happened to LIKE school. I liked learning. But oh, when asked as a child, could I parrot "don't like school." I knew from my contemporaries that that was the correct opinion. I had to learn to examine things for myself and come to my own conclusions.

I am still grappling with the subject of government and civic affairs. It seems to be an area where it's difficult to know the truth. For instance, one assumes that someone (the Government) has it all in hand. The City officials run the city. The County officials, etc. (I even admire that somehow we have all these roads that are maintained.) So this remains an area where I need more data. And it's not apparent that the newspapers and the talking heads are capable of providing a balanced view. After all, they may often present facts, but they get to choose which facts.

There's a booklet in Scientology called The Way to Happiness which has a chapter on Competence. I've distributed it for years to my art students because it seems to clearly and simply state a way to attain competence. It states: "The ingredients of competence include observation, study and practice." If you want a copy of the booklet for yourself, contact me. Give me your address or email address and I'll send you a copy.

Cancer in the family

2007-06-14T06:57:00.001-07:00

Recently, a sister-in-law was discovered to have cancer, and her siblings have been very concerned that she get the "proper treatment". My husband Dean (her older brother) doesn't live in Minnesota, so he has been trying to help from a distance. Dean and I are Scientologists and considered by the other siblings as being sort of "irrelevant" I think. It's not that we disbelieve in modern medicine, but we see it as having certain limited functions (like setting bones and sewing up gashes.)

The Scientology Handbook explains

"Today, medicine treats the body when there is something wrong with it. But it overlooks almost totally the relationship of the spiritual being to his body and the effect the former has on the latter." (See Helping Others Recover from Illness and Injuries.)

Lest you think that I'm advocating no physical treatment, let me assure you that is not the case. But some current "treatments" are pretty debilitating, including chemotherapy.

You are a spiritual being and you can help to heal the body. There are assists that re-establish your communication with the body and Scientology Auditing can move you to new awareness of your relationship to the body, others, and the physical universe. For more information on how to help yourself, visit the Scientology Handbook site.

Psychiatry: No Science, No Cures

2007-04-25T10:38:00.001-07:00

Psychiatry has no validated tests for "mental disease". This is a fraud! This is an important video to watch.

Recipe for a marinade

2007-04-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

There was a slight
oh so slight
Rent
in the fabric

I fell through.

From then on it was chaos:

Shooting stars
Rough voices
saying ominous things
memories of a long ride home
so much regret.

They will tell you that I was …

psychopath

What about the drugs?

Hey?
the drugs.
Messed up my mind.

“Round and round the mulberry bush
the monkey chased the weasel
the monkey thought ‘twas all in fun”

The man in the gun store says now:
I’m so sorry I sold him the gun.

POP

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Note: The above was written shortly after Cho shot 32 people on the VA Tech campus in an attempt to get inside the mind of a killer.