In Colombia, a mission for peace
By Steve Salisbury
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 10, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20021210-85797464.htm
VILLA DE LA PAZ, Colombia - With prospects for peace in Colombia as remote as at any time during the nation's 38-year-old civil war, hope is being kept alive by a most unusual mediator - an American missionary who has known the Marxist rebels since they kidnapped him almost two decades ago.
Russell Martin Stendal, 47, a Protestant missionary from Minneapolis, had been working in Colombia as a rancher and operating a two-Cessna flying service for about eight years when he was taken captive by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in August 1983.
He was released five months later, making him more fortunate than some of the 120 Americans who have been kidnapped in Colombia, mostly by guerrillas. In 1999, FARC rebels kidnapped and killed three American activists who were building a school for an Indian tribe. The FARC later called the slayings a "misunderstanding."
Instead of fleeing Colombia, Mr. Stendal, his Colombian wife, Marina, and their four children continue to live in the country. They spend much of their time at a countryside home on the edge of the grounds of the defunct Lomalinda Translation Center, near Puerto Lleras in Meta province.
Despite a State Department warning that the FARC extorts from, kidnaps and kills U.S. citizens in Colombia, Mr. Stendal and his younger brother, "Chaddy," have acted as an informal "back channel" and sometimes as mediators in Meta among the FARC, the vigilante United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), local communities and the Colombian army. The brothers do this as part of their efforts to evangelize all the warring parties.
"Divine providence put us in the situations where we have had trajectories for many years with both sides that has led to the trust that there is now," Mr. Stendal said.
In 1964, the year the FARC was founded, the Stendal family moved from Minnesota to Colombia. Russell Stendal was 8. His father, Chad Stendal Sr., a civil engineer, was among the founders of the Lomalinda Translation Center of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) in Meta.
SIL was set up by Wycliffe Bible Translators to translate the New Testament into Colombia's Indian languages. According to Russell Stendal, the Lomalinda center grew to have nearly 100 households and 300 volunteers - mostly Americans.
But in the mid-1970s, SIL became the target of unsubstantiated rumors that it was a U.S. government entity, and in 1981, one of its members, Chester Bitterman, was kidnapped and killed by guerrillas of the now-disarmed and legalized April 19 Movement. Another American missionary was kidnapped by the FARC in the mid-1990s, and SIL's Lomalinda center closed about a year later, Russell Stendal said.
"It is astonishing we are all still alive," his father said. "Of the 23 closest personal friends of Chaddy, 20 were killed and three fled the country." Russell Stendal and his brother bought five small houses at Lomalinda, and there Russell Stendal started his first radio station in Colombia, Marfil Stereo at 88.8 FM. That was nearly four years ago.
Eighty percent of the station's broadcast content is secular, and 20 percent religious, Russell Stendal said. He later added Radio Alcaravan, 1530 AM , and a short-wave station, the Voice of Your Conscience at 6010 on the 49-meter band, which can be heard in the evening in North America and Europe. These two stations are primarily religious.
"Our programming isn't typical Christian programming. It is not trying to get people into our church and not into somebody else's church," Russell Stendal said.
"We are trying to bring people into a personal relationship with God, no matter to what group they belong," said his mother, Patricia Stendal.
"We produce programs that have solid values, and that deal with attitude and a change of heart, of being tolerant of other people's views and ideas," Russell Stendal said.
Mr. Stendal's broadcasting career grew out of his writing his first book, "Rescue the Captors," which he began while a captive of the FARC. The Stendal family said it paid $55,000 for Russell Stendal's freedom, down from the $500,000 ransom demand. The Stendals say they also "donated" a year later more than 80 percent of Chad Stendal Sr.'s 74,000-acre cattle ranch in Meta to landless Indians and peasants - an action that gained the family good will from the guerrillas.
Russell Stendal's story reached President Reagan, and he was invited to the White House. Mr. Reagan's director for domestic drug abuse policy met with him and opened doors for Mr. Stendal to make an anti-drug documentary and a two-year speaking tour of American high schools and colleges.
In the 1980s and early '90s, the late Rev. Rafael Garcia Herreros, a Colombian priest and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, enlisted Russell Stendal in joint Protestant-Catholic outreach efforts toward outlawed groups. Mr. Stendal tells of driving Father Garcia to secret meetings with the late Medellin cocaine cartel leader Pablo Escobar, where the priest persuaded Escobar to surrender.
Except for rustling Stendal cattle in the past two decades, the FARC and the AUC have not bothered the family, Russell Stendal said.
That's "because they see we are not political," said Chad Stendal Sr., who lives with his wife in Bogota. "And they also see that we physically help a lot of people, no matter who they are. We have helped a lot of wounded while they were dying."
Last month, Villa de la Paz, a community of about 600 people nearly 50 miles south of Lomalinda in an area dominated by the FARC, held a "Forum for Peace." Villager Hilberto Saenz says the Stendal brothers agreed to help organize it.
Residents complained of a deteriorating situation. Some accused the AUC and soldiers of collaborating in a campaign of killings against FARC sympathizers in nearby towns, and they feared it would reach Villa de la Paz.
"We cannot deny that there are guerrillas here," said the village treasurer, a 58-year-old man who asked not to be named. "But we are not guerrillas. So, we would like the government to allow the food, medicine and things necessary to live to enter town."
Some observers question the need for such a lightly inhabited area, where coca is heavily cultivated, to receive frequent, large deliveries of gasoline, which can be used to extract unrefined cocaine. One villager said the gasoline tankers also smuggle out the coca alkaloid in liquid form.
Villa de la Paz was founded in 1986 by peasants and coca growers, under the watch of the FARC - Colombia's largest guerrilla group, with an estimated 14,000 to 17,000 troops - and this has put its residents in the FARC-AUC-and-army cross fire.
In May, say villagers, laundress Luz Dari Caiceido was killed by government helicopter gunfire on the edge of Puerto Toledo, 18 miles south of Villa de la Paz.
Three guerrillas were said to be on the outskirts, but "bullets were hitting the town," said Edilma Marin, who was working at Puerto Toledo's communal pharmacy that day and says she saw Miss Caiceido's bullet-riddled body. Mrs. Marin said the victim was a destitute single mother who left five young children and a tar-paper shack.
Perhaps 5,000 people came to Villa de la Paz during the Nov. 23 peace forum, including truckloads of unarmed FARC guerrillas in civilian clothes. It was a hot, sunny day just north of the equator. About 400 people packed a tin-roofed village hall, and hundreds more filled the nearby streets. The smell of veal roasting on spits filled the air.
The hall's pink concrete walls were adorned with anti-government and anti-Plan Colombia banners. Speaker after speaker denounced abuses by the army and the vigilantes, but not by the guerrillas.
After one old man criticized the United States as the greatest human rights violator in history, a village leader close to the FARC took the microphone to reply. "The United States has two classes," he said, "the exploiters and the exploited. We have Americans with us here, and we honor them."
Russell Stendal, who was introduced as one of "the exploited," then took the mike.
"Someone told me, 'If our enemies are fearsome, then we are going to be more evil,'" he said. "Instead of being a contest of who can be the worst, why not see who can do the most good?"
His listeners applauded when Russell Stendal mentioned his belief that the FARC's 43rd Front, which controls the area, didn't have a policy of kidnapping during the past five years - unlike the FARC in general.
After the forum, people crowded around the American's red Chevy Suburban, where assistants passed out some of the 7,000 religious books and Bibles given away that day. Marxism is atheist, but many of the FARC's rank and file were raised as Catholics or Protestants.
Nacho, 27, an officer of the FARC's 43rd Front, received Russell Stendal and others just outside Villa de la Paz two hours after the peace forum. He sat with the visitors in plastic chairs under a thatched roof near a small wooden house. Trucks occasionally roared by, raising dust from an adjacent dirt road.
Accompanied by about 10 armed guerrillas in camouflage fatigues, Nacho said the idea of a regional peace forum was something to be considered. Three years of virtually fruitless national peace talks between the FARC and the previous Colombian president, Andres Pastrana, collapsed 10 months ago.
But Nacho, who said he is a 10-year FARC veteran, dismissed Russell Stendal's idea that each warring group give up 150 rifles to be melted into a peace monument. "We need the rifles," he replied, laughing.
His coppery face frowned in evident disagreement when Hamilton Castro, president of the private Pro-Colombia Foundation, said: "Sincerely, if the FARC commits terrorist acts, then it is terrorist. If the state commits terrorist acts, then it is terrorist."
Nacho responded that it is a time of war, and that the FARC has a right to act against its enemies, through means such as bombings and executions. "We are not terrorists," he said. "We are fighting for the people."
He said it would be hard to renew peace negotiations as long as the FARC was designated as "terrorist" and U.S. extradition orders were pending against its leaders.
Getting into the driver's seat of a green sport utility vehicle, Nacho smiled and shook hands, saying he enjoyed the visit. Mr. Stendal handed him a camouflage-covered Bible.
The next day, Russell Stendal's team left Villa de la Paz. At an army checkpoint en route to Puerto Lleras, a soldier snatched a small peace pennant affixed to Mr. Stendal's side mirror. When Mr. Stendal complained, a sergeant ordered the soldier to give it back.
Later, among the riverside ruins of Puerto Lleras, a soldier named Alex searched Mr. Stendal in a routine security check and recognized his ID card.
Alex pulled out a well-worn copy of Mr. Stendal's book - "The Beatitudes, God's Plan for Battle" - and asked him to autograph it.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
In Colombia, a mission for peace
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Livin' on a Prayer
Livin' on a Prayer
At Least That's What One Much-Maligned Scientific Study Would Seem to Show
William S. Harris, a cardiologist at the Mid America Heart Institute at St. Luke°s Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, made medical headlines in 1999 with a study of remote intercessory prayer. The study, described as a randomized, controlled, double-blind, prospective, parallel-group trial, reported that 466 prayed-for coronary-care patients had easier recoveries than 524 controls. They were prayed for by anonymous Christian intercessors from a variety of denominations who knew nothing beyond the first names of the patients. The conclusion, published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, was that "prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care.”
In the view of some practitioners, that was a conclusion begging for refutation. If gullible people want to pray for the sick . . . well, maybe there shouldn°t be a law against it, but no one should study their efforts. By definition, prayer can°t have any effect, and if it seems to, the facts are wrong.
Pages and pages of critical letters appeared in the journal°s subsequent issue. Several broad groups of complaints predominated, among which nitpicking and don°t-bother-me-with-facts skepticism were to be expected. But by far the most interesting group was the "medical God squad.”
The study was, in their view, "offensive” and "blasphemous,” "putting God to the test.” After all, "faith is not a matter of scientific proof” and thinking otherwise is "arrogance.” And "will those who believe in God°s existence want to see God°s will put to the test? What message, if any, will such a study have for those who firmly believe in only the theory of evolution?”
It became quite clear that some physicians professed a God whose existence and actions can—in principle—never be observed. Indeed, for this group, the strongest demonstration of one°s faith is to joyously plead guilty to the atheist°s accusation that one believes without any evidence at all.
In a recent discussion with me, Harris mused on the hyperactive nitpicking, particularly the claim that patient assignments to either the prayer or the control group were not random. He recalled:
Each morning, the secretary to the chaplain—a woman who did not even know where the CCU [coronary care unit] was located in the hospital—turned on her computer to find the day°s list of new admissions to each unit, including the CCU. At the CCU page, she would look at the medical record number of each new patient—if they were even, they were assigned to the prayer group, odd, to the control group.
If that wasn°t random, then a higher power must have manipulated it.
What is most striking about the allegation of non-random assignment, along with other allegations from critics, is that the authors could have obtained this and other information by contacting Harris, as I did. They chose instead to publicize their unsupported suspicions in the journal.
A masterful response by internist Larry Dossey appeared in the same issue, noting that the more scientifically focused detractors resembled Isaac Newton°s critics. Just as some prayer-study detractors refused to accept the results because no mechanism was proposed for the action of prayer, Newton°s critics denounced the theory of universal gravitation because no mechanism was proposed for the action of gravity. In the end, Newton°s theory was favored because it correctly predicted events. Shouldn°t the same rule apply to prayer studies? If not, why not?
Dossey also quoted UCSF medical school°s David Grimes°s observation that "a double standard is perhaps being applied to prayer research, according to which levels of proof are demanded that may not be required of conventional therapies—the ´rubber ruler,° the raising of the bar, the ever-lengthening playing field.”
After his brush with infamy, Harris did no more prayer research. He went on to a rewarding career studying the linkages between fish oils and heart health. When I asked him recently whether the multi-pronged attack had discouraged him, he replied diplomatically, "Not really.”
What dissuaded me were: (1) the lack of funds for such research; (2) a boss who was less than supportive of these types of studies; and (3) a long and productive track record in the area of fish oils and heart disease research that I did not want to relegate to the back burner.
He then added, "Others are continuing this research . . . it will not go away.”
No, it will not. But neither will the detractors. And their goal is as unified as their viewpoints are disparate—to discredit prayer studies as a matter of principle. •
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Mixing Asset Classes can help to moderate risk
Investment Profiles
| Domestic Stock | Foreign Stock | Bonds | Short-Term | Highest 12-mo return | Lowest 12-mo return | Historical Average Annual Return | |
| Conservative | 20% | - | 50 % | 30 % | 31.06 % | -17.67 % | 6.16 % |
| Balanced | 45% | 5% | 40 % | 10 % | 76.57 % | -40.64 % | 8.18 % |
| Growth | 60% | 10% | 25 % | 5 % | 109.55 % | -52.92 % | 9.23 % |
| Aggressive Growth | 70% | 15% | 15 % | - | 136.07 % | -60.78 % | 9.94 % |
Source: Fidelity's Stages magazine
For students: 529 college savings plans
- Any earnings are accumulated on a tax-deferred basis
- As long as the money is used for qualified higher education expenses, you don't pay federal income tax when you withdraw the money.
- Better than a savings account, Coverdell Education Savings Account (ESA), UTMA (uniform transfers to minors account) and UGMA (uniform gift to minors account) in most cases.
- You can go to college in any state that offers the plan.
- Up to $300,000 can be contributed (as opposed to just $2,000 for a Coverdell ESA).
Recommended sources:
http://www.savingforcollege.com
Joseph Hurley's books
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Zen and the Art of Coping With Alzheimer's
Zen and the Art of Coping With Alzheimer's
Matt Rourke/Associated Press
John Eckert holds hands with wife Dorothy, who has Alzheimer's disease, at their home in Norristown, Pa. The incidence of Alzheimer's will greatly increase in the coming years, experts say.
In Brief:
The number of Alzheimer's patients is expected to increase dramatically in coming years, straining the health care system.
Scientists have not discovered the cause nor devised effective treatments. Even diagnosis is difficult.
In the absence of therapies, attention has turned to teaching the skills necessary to cope with demented patients.
Increasingly caregivers are encouraged to validate the feelings and perceptions of the person with Alzheimer's.
During the YouTube forum with the Democratic presidential candidates in July, the first question about health care came from two middle-age brothers in Iowa, who faced the camera with their elderly mother. Not everybody with Alzheimer’s disease has two loving sons to take care of them, they said, adding that a boom in dementia is expected in the next few decades.
“What are you prepared to do to fight this disease now?” they asked.
The politicians mouthed generalities about health care, larded with poignant anecdotes. None of them answered the question about Alzheimer’s.
Science hasn’t done much better. There is no cure for Alzheimer’s and no way to prevent it. Scientists haven’t even stopped arguing about whether the gunk that builds up in the Alzheimer’s brain is a cause or an effect of the disease. Alzheimer’s is roaring down — a train wreck to come — on societies all over the world.
People in this country spend more than a $1 billion a year on prescription drugs marketed to treat it, but for most patients the pills have only marginal effects, if any, on symptoms and do nothing to stop the underlying disease process that eats away at the brain. Pressed for answers, most researchers say no breakthrough is around the corner, and it could easily be a decade or more before anything comes along that makes a real difference for patients.
Meanwhile, the numbers are staggering: 4.5 million people in the United States have Alzheimer’s, 1 in 10 over 65 and nearly half of those over 85. Taking care of them costs $100 billion a year, and the number of patients is expected to reach 11 million to 16 million by 2050. Experts say the disease will swamp the health system.
It’s already swamping millions of families, who suffer the anguish of seeing a loved one’s mind and personality disintegrate, and who struggle with caregiving and try to postpone the wrenching decision about whether they can keep the patient at home as helplessness increases, incontinence sets in and things are only going to get worse.
Drug companies are placing big bets on Alzheimer’s. Wyeth, for instance, has 23 separate projects aimed at developing new treatments. Hundreds of theories are under study at other companies large and small. Why not? People with Alzheimer’s and their families are so desperate that they will buy any drug that offers even a shred of hope, and many will keep using the drug even if the symptoms don’t get better, because they can easily be convinced that the patient would be even worse off without it.
It is telling, maybe a tacit admission of defeat, that a caregiving industry has sprung up around Alzheimer’s. Books, conferences and Web sites abound — how to deal with the anger, the wandering, the sleeping all day and staying up all night, the person who asks the same question 15 times in 15 minutes, wants to wear the same blouse every day and no longer recognizes her own children or knows what a toilet is for.
The advice is painfully and ironically reminiscent of the 1960s and ’70s, the literal and figurative high point for many of the people who are now coping with demented parents. The theme is, essentially, go with the flow. People with Alzheimer’s aren’t being stubborn or nasty on purpose; they can’t help it. Arguing and correcting will not only not help, but they will ratchet up the hostility level and make things worse. The person with dementia has been transported into a strange, confusing new world and the best other people can do is to try to imagine the view from there and get with the program.
If a patient asks for her mother, for instance, instead of pointing out that her mother has been dead for 40 years, it is better to say something like, “I wish your mother were here, too,” and then maybe redirect the conversation to something else, like what’s for lunch.
If Dad wants to polish off the duck sauce in a Chinese restaurant like it’s a bowl of soup, why not? If Grandma wants to help out by washing the dishes but makes a mess of it, leave her to it and just rewash them later when she’s not looking. Pull out old family pictures to give the patient something to talk about. Learn the art of fragmented, irrational conversation and follow the patient’s lead instead of trying to control the dialogue.
Basically, just tango on. And hope somebody will do the same for you when your time comes. Unless the big breakthrough happens first.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The New Power Generation
ARTICLE DATE: 05.03.06
Sure, shopping for electronics is no picnic. You drive to a store so large it's visible from space and wander the maze-like aisles until you find what you need. But at least there's a clerk or two there to help you—often poorly informed and commission-motivated, but it's help nonetheless.
Shop for batteries, though, and you're on your own. People usually buy batteries from grocery or drugstore racks. Asking a clerk which battery is best for your digital camera will probably earn you only a glazed look and a shrug.
This lack of information is really too bad, because given the way battery lines have been expanding in recent months consumers could use some direction. Suddenly, each of the big three battery makers—Duracell, Energizer, and Panasonic—is touting long-life batteries tailor-made for electronics.
Do they really perform better? Do they deliver enough extra juice to justify their higher price tags? And are they easy to find at the corner drugstore? With cash in hand, I set out to survey several local stores and scoop up their best batteries, then put them to the test during days of sightseeing and shooting on a conveniently timed trip to San Francisco. Once back home, I put them through further paces with an additional high-drain device (a battery-sucking portable television) and a low-drain test using a cheap flashlight.
Bucks for Batteries
First things first: If I was going to test the crème de la crème of long-life batteries, I needed to know what average batteries could do. I picked up some basic Duracell and Energizer alkalines, as well as RadioShack and IKEA store brands.
I bought four-packs of Duracell CopperTops and Energizer Maxes for $3.99 apiece, and I paid $8.99 for a 12-pack of RadioShack's Enercell store-brand double-As. The cheery yellow IKEA batteries seemed an even bigger bargain at $2.99 for a 10-pack (and I've seen them on sale for $2), but I suspected that they wouldn't stand a chance against the forefront of battery technology.
Today's phalanx of new batteries is actually a broad array of new and old tech. One of the three superbatteries I looked at, the Energizer e2 Lithium, has been around since the 1990s but found a real purpose only with today's digital devices. The Duracell PowerPix and Panasonic Oxyride are more recent releases designed to meet the needs of high-drain devices.
Buying the high-performance batteries proved more of a challenge than expected. The first drugstore I tried, a Walgreens, offered a large rack of mostly Duracells that included some of the company's Ultra line but none of its PowerPix batteries. There were no Energizer e2 Lithium or Panasonic Oxyride batteries to be found. Only as I was checking out did I notice the rack of high-performance batteries behind the counter.
That proved the rule in nearly every store. Common alkaline and store-brand batteries were easy to find, but the high-performance batteries were hidden away. In one Rite Aid, alkalines were located in a large, easy-to-spot aisle rack, photo batteries and a few long-life batteries sat on a countertop display, and the other long-life batteries were hanging on a wall behind the photo counter. That's the first place you'd look, right?
Theft deterrence is likely the reason for the separate racks. PowerPixes cost about $7, and e2 Lithiums are quite pricey—almost $10. Although theft is no doubt a problem, separate racks create another issue: Before deciding which batteries are best for their cameras and remote-control Lamborghinis, customers need to be able to find all the choices. I have a feeling many people buy lower-performing alkalines simply because they can grab them easily on their way to the checkout counter.
Shooting Spree
To put these batteries through their paces in some realistic conditions, I picked up a Kodak Easy-Share C360 and first tested the control batteries around New York City. Having strong batteries is important, I discovered, since they not only determine how many pictures you can take, but they also affect the camera's refresh rate. Nobody wants to lose out on a great shot because the digital camera is still processing the last image. I took most shots without a flash, and because I was shooting rapidly, my numbers are quite a bit higher than the battery companies' claims.
The IKEA batteries fared the worst, with only 209 shots; the Energizer Maxes got 309, Duracell CopperTops 327, and RadioShack Enercells a big 374. Taking that many photos on a pair of double-As might sound like a lot, but it's chump change compared with the powerhouses to come.
Next up were the long-life batteries, which I used while shooting like a crazed tourist on my trip to San Francisco.
First up was the Duracell Ultra, which is simply an alkaline battery created with an improved manufacturing process. Duracell also makes a line called PowerPix, which is recommended for heavy shooters, but I stuck with the Ultra line, which was easier to find, to see what a high-performance alkaline battery could do. The Ultras lasted for 522 pictures (about half a cent per shot), giving me more than enough power to shoot every monument, museum, and arresting view in the downtown area.
My next contestant was the Panasonic Oxyride. The Oxyride is similar to a standard alkaline, but it uses an oxy-nickel hydroxide chemical process to generate more power, and it's made with a vacuum process that also enables more power. It produces a 1.7-volt discharge, rather than the 1.5-volt discharge of typical double-As, and this yielded noticeably shorter camera refresh times. Oxyrides typically cost more than alkaline batteries, but they live up to Panasonic's performance claims. I squeezed 989 shots out of a pair of double-As (that's one-fourth of a cent per shot), which capably carried me through Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf.
Last up was the heavy hitter, the Energizer e2 Lithium. The e2 is made differently from traditional batteries (see
I didn't have to wonder for long. The e2 simply didn't stop, taking me through the Haight-Ashbury and every inch of Golden Gate Park, and even into a local dive for a little Sonoma white at the end of the day. In the end, I took 2,676 shots using two e2 batteries (one-fifth of a cent per shot), which makes them the best choice both for skinflints and for people who don't want to change batteries often. But they aren't without flaws. The e2s deliver only 1.3 volts, which causes noticeably slower refresh times. That's a nuisance when you're trying to shoot quickly.
See the
TV, Timed
With better refresh rates and good value, the Panasonic Oxyride was my favorite for digital photography. I was surprised when it didn't do as well in a second test, powering the biggest battery vampire I could think of: an RCA portable television running off three double-A batteries. The IKEAs worked for 4 hours, the Duracell CopperTops for 4 hours 4 minutes, the Energizer Maxes for 4 hours 7 minutes, and the RadioShack Enercells for 4 hours 8 minutes. As for the high-performance batteries, the Duracell Ultras ran for 4 hours 45 minutes and the Energizer e2 batteries for 6 hours 15 minutes, but the Panasonic Oxyrides lasted only 3 hours 40 minutes. That's worse than any of the control batteries. What gives?
Then, just for kicks, I ran a battery test with a low-drain device, a flashlight, and the results were surprising. The low-end batteries all (except the slightly shorter-lasting IKEAs) powered the flashlight for more than 5 hours of constant use, while the high-performance batteries all burned out the flashlight's bulb long before they were drained. The Energizer e2s lasted an hour and a half, the Oxyrides 45 minutes, and the Duracell Ultras a scant 8 minutes. See the
The lesson is simple: Buy the right battery for the job. Long-life batteries deliver too much power for low-drain devices. Looks like there's some truth to the marketing hype after all.
Though the overall winner isn't clear-cut, it is clear that long-life batteries designed for digital gear offer good value and convenience—for digital cameras. They're more expensive, but they'll last forever—particularly the Energizer e2. Buying strictly based on cost? If you can find the IKEAs at $2 per 10-pack, don't hesitate to buy. When they're that inexpensive, the cost per shot matches that of the long-life Oxyride, and they outperformed everything else on our extreme TV run-down test, at just 19¢ for an hour of viewing. And one other thing I learned: If you're going to shoot thousands of photos while walking around all day, wear comfortable shoes.
Cost per hour
RCA Portable TV
Batteries needed: 3 AA
Cost - Battery - Life span (hr:mm)
$.60 Panasonic Oxyride 3:40
.19 IKEA 4:00
.74 Duracell CopperTop 4:04
.73 Energizer Max 4:07
.54 RadioShack Enercell 4:08
.94 Duracell Ultra 4:45
2.03 Energizer e2 Lithium 6:15
Ultra Hardware Heavy-Duty Flashlight
Batteries Needed: 2 AA
$18.75 Duracell Ultra 0:08 (Blown blubs throw off price)
3.33 Panasonic Oxyride 0:45 (Blown blubs throw off price)
3.23 Energizer e2 Lithium 1:33 (Blown blubs throw off price)
.15 IKEA 4:04
.36 Energizer Max 5:31
.27 RadioShack Enercell 5:37
.36 Duracell CopperTop 5:45
Digital Camera Tests
Name - Cost per 2 batteries - Number of Shots - Pictures per penny
Duracell CopperTop $2.00 327 1.6
Duracell Ultra $2.50 522 2.0
Energizer e2 Lithium $5.00 2,676 5.4
Energizer Max $2.00 309 1.5
IKEA $0.60 209 3.5
Panasonic Oxyride $2.50 989 4.0
RadioShack Enercell $1.50 374 2.5
Why doctors give out antibiotics you don't need
The Pink-Bubble-Gum-Flavored Dilemma
Why doctors give out antibiotics you don't need.
Posted Wednesday, May 21, 2008, at 3:21 PM ET
While working a busy night shift in the ER recently, I evaluated a 13-month-old girl. On her chart, the triage nurse had written: "Infant with fever and runny nose. Mother here for antibiotics." The baby was fussy but probably more tired than uncomfortable. Between her squirms, she cooed and smiled at me. Her anxious and upset mother, however, was in far worse shape, repeatedly sticking a rubber bulb syringe up her infant's nostrils in a futile attempt to suck out an endless stream of snot. The mom was also really mad: She had been waiting for more than three hours for a doctor to see her daughter. Now she wanted antibiotics: specifically, a prescription for bubble-gum-flavored amoxicillin.
By my assessment, the child was not acutely ill: She'd had a low-grade fever for two days, her mother said, and a mild cough, but she had clear lungs and appeared well-hydrated. Her eardrum may have had some fluid behind it but wasn't red or bulging. Just as the baby was trying to put my stethoscope in her mouth, paramedics pushed through the ambulance doors with a patient who was having an acute stroke. I had to decide right then if I was going to give this mother the antibiotics she wanted, even though I thought her daughter probably didn't need them.
The profligate prescription of antibiotics—for children and adults with upper respiratory infections, sinus infections, and even middle-ear infections—is a problem because most of these illnesses are caused by viruses, not bacteria, which are what conventional antibiotics attack. Of more concern is the direct connection between antibiotic use and the emergence of drug-resistant "superbugs": As the medicine eliminates germs that are sensitive to it, drug-resistant mutant strains prosper. The result is a major public-health problem. Antibiotic-resistant infections such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus may cause more deaths in the United States than AIDS does.
So once doctors absorb the result of this study and similar investigations, will they write fewer prescriptions? I bet not. To give out fewer antibiotics, the doctors will have to believe that their patients won't benefit from them. If you look closely at the ER study, 73 percent of the patients who received antibiotics for acute bronchitis had illnesses that were either deemed by their doctors to have likely been caused by a bacteria or to have origins that were in that gray toss-up area between a bacteria and a virus. If the doctors were right, and these were bacterial infections, they would, in fact, warrant antibiotics. Also, in many of these cases, the doctors gave other persuasive reasons for choosing antibiotics, including "ill appearance of the patient" and "concern about follow-up."
In my ER world, these factors, if intangible, are understood to be really important in helping us decide how to treat patients. The real dilemma of antibiotic prescriptions is that the most serious consequence for writing them unnecessarily is not a risk to the individual patient but the emergence of the superbugs that pose a risk to public health in general.
Nowhere is this tension between individual care and public health greater than in the ER. Office-based cultures for bacterial infections, which take days to turn around, are not feasible in what we call "the trenches." And because follow-up can never be assured, it's hard to follow recommendations such as those of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which advocates "watch and wait" for 48 to 72 hours for children with middle-ear infections rather than an immediate dose of antibiotics. If we overprescribe antibiotics in the ER, that's because in the trenches the care of one patient often trumps the care of the public. Maybe that's myopic, but there you have it. And it is why efforts to reduce antibiotic use by giving out more information about resistant infections or teaching doctors how to manage patient expectations may ultimately fall flat.
In the end, I did not prescribe antibiotics for the 13-month-old baby. Instead, I took the time to explain thoroughly why I didn't think she needed them (while my colleague took care of the stroke patient). But no matter what that study says, that mother left in a huff— highly dissatisfied, I can assure you. I'm not sure what I'll do the next time I see a similar case. Perhaps I will refuse to write the prescription again, notching another victory for public health. But, for all I know, something intangible will be different: Perhaps the kid just won't look right, or maybe the mother or father will seem too disorganized to be relied on to return if the kid worsens. And that may persuade me to send them home with a bottle of pink-bubble-gum-flavored amoxicillin. It's likely that the fussy kid and his parents won't sleep any better that night. But I will.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
What the heck is a Pinchot Plan?
I've been receiving various emails plugging a "retirement plan" called the Pinchot Plan. If you sign up you could collect thousands of dollars in checks every year, or so the article says. Sound intriguing? Read on.
Who is this mysterious Pinchot and what is this plan? Gifford Bryce Pinchot was born in 1865 and was the first chief of the United States Forest Service, as well as twice being Republican Governor of Pennsylvania.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Palestina?
Palestina ... alguém sabe ...
2) Quais eram suas fronteiras ?
3) Qual era a sua capital ?
4) Quais eram suas grandes cidades ?
5) Qual era a base de sua economia ?
6) Qual era a sua forma de governo ?
7) Vcs podem citar um lider palestino antes de Arafat ?
8) A Palestina foi reconhecida por algum país cuja existência, em algum tempo, não deixe margem para más interpretações ?
9) Qual era a lingua falada ?
10) Qual a religião que prevalecia ?
11) Qual era o nome da sua moeda ?
Escolha uma data qualquer e responda qual era a taxa de câmbio da moeda palestina frente ao dólar, yen, franco etc. ?
Desde que tal país não existe hoje, explique por que deixou de existir ?
Se vc se lamenta pelo destino da pobre Palestina, responda em que época este país foi orgulhoso e independente ?
Se o povo que vc, por engano, chama de palestinos, é algo além de uma coleção de gente saída dos países árabes, e se eles têm realmente uma identidade étnica definida que lhes asseguram o direito da autodeterminação, por que eles não trataram de ser um país árabe independente até a derrota devastadora na guerra dos Seis Dias ?
Por que desdenharam a oportunidade de estabelecer um Estado Palestino, baseado então na Resolução das Nações Unidas em 1947, que estabeleceu simultaneamente o direito do povo judeu a ter seu próprio Estado que, atualmente, é o Estado de Israel ?
Espero que vcs não confundam palestinos com filisteus. Trocar etnologia por história não funciona.
É curioso que os palestinos querem hoje o que recusaram em 1947, e continuam em insistir na eliminação de Israel, legitimamente criado pelas Nações Unidas e da qual é membro integral.
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The current conflict in the Middle East is not just about land; it's about Israel's right to exist as a nation. The land has never belonged to the people who now call themselves Palestinians. The area was named Palestine by the Romans, but there has never been a nation called Palestine, and there is no Palestinian language. Before 1948 these people were Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis, and citizens of other Arab nations who had moved to the region. They were displaced by the war of 1948, but Israel is not occupying their territory.
Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority clearly do not want peace. During the Clinton Administration they were offered a Palestinian State with part of Jerusalem as its capital, along with control of 97 percent of the West Bank-everything their own negotiators had said was requisite for peace. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak agreed to the deal, but Yasser Arafat turned it down flat. He walked away from peace, sending a tacit message to the terrorists, who continue their slaughter of innocent lives in their pursuit of destruction of the Jewish State.
---
Geopoliticamente falando, nós devemos apoiar Israel, porque é a única e verdadeira democracia no Oriente Médio. A minúscula democracia de Israel é cercada por Estados feudais e ditaduras brutais que controlam vastas regiões de terra e dos recursos petrolíferos. A presença das Forças Armadas de Israel traz a estabilidade para essa parte do mundo.
O atual conflito no Oriente Médio não é apenas acerca de terras: é sobre o direito de Israel existir como uma nação. A terra nunca pertenceu ao povo que agora se diz 'palestino'. A área foi nomeada Palestina pelos romanos, mas nunca houve um povo chamado Palestina, e não há qualquer idioma palestino. Antes de 1948 essas pessoas eram os egípcios, sírios, jordanenses, iraquianos e os cidadãos de outras nações árabes que tinham se deslocado para a região. Elas foram deslocadas pela guerra de 1948, mas Israel não está ocupando o seu território.
Yasser Arafat e a Autoridade Palestina claramente não querem (queriam) a paz. Durante a administração Clinton foi oferecido um Estado palestino, com parte de Jerusalém como sua capital, juntamente com o controle de 97% da Cisjordânia. Seus próprios negociadores haviam dito que isso era necessário para a paz. O Primeiro-Ministro israelense Ehud Barak concordou com o negócio, mas Yasser Arafat não. Ele caminhou longe da paz, enviando uma mensagem tácita para os terroristas, os quais continuam a abater vidas inocentes em busca da destruição do Estado judaico.
Yogis and Jewboys - Traditionalism
March 9
old boy network: yogis and jewboys
that was a hit before your mother was born
and though she was born a long, long time ago
your mother should know...
your mother should know...
~ beatles
| Settle back, strap in. Roll up for the mystery tour... This quote is from an article on vedanta.org titled Vedanta in America: Where We've Been and Where We Are. The author is Pravrajika Vrajaprana, a nun of the Sarada Convent at the Vedanta Society of Southern California in Santa Barbara. The article originally appeared in the February, 2000 issue of Prabuddha Bharata. "A distinguished literary work" is how Time magazine characterized the Prabhavananda-Isherwood Bhagavad-Gita which has sold over one million copies since its 1944 publication. It is the only Prabhavananda-Isherwood title still available in the mass-market edition; today the book is still widely used as a college text and -- unlike most other Vedanta books -- remains available in general-audience bookstores.The full article contains more background on the adoption of Vedanta in the United States via the mediation of Henry Miller (in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare) as well as through various works by Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood and Gerald Heard. The Wikipedia page on Heard, who has been largely forgotten today, informs us that... Heard is also responsible for introducing the then unknown Huston Smith to Huxley. Smith became one of the preeminent religious studies scholars in the United States. His book The World's Religions is a classic in the field, sold over two million copies and is considered a particularly useful introduction to comparative religion. The meeting with Huxley led eventually to Smith's connection to Timothy Leary.Huston Smith's Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World's Religions (1976) updates the same sort of ideas Aldous Huxley presented in The Perennial Philosophy (1945). These ideas about sophia perennis -- the purported perennial wisdom -- overlap considerably with those that emerged under the rubric of capital-T Traditionalism, as presented by Réne Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, and Ananda Coomaraswamy. The best book on the subject to date is Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century by Mark Sedgwick. Here's a wonderfully contextualizing clip, which -- though its density may confound more than enlighten -- is definitely well worth its weight in Transcendentalists. [Ralph Waldo] Emerson also subscribed to a form of perennialism, writing in his diary in 1839 that for him "Bible" meant "the Ethical Revelations considered generally, including, that is, the Vedas, the Sacred Writings of every nation, and not of the Hebrews alone." In this, and in his emphasis on the East as a source of wisdom ("Europe has always owed to oriental genius it's divine impulses," as he said in 1838 in his celebrated address to the Harvard Divinity School). Emerson prefigures Olcott [Madame Blavatsky's sidekick], and so also Encausse and Guénon. Perennialism as understood by Emerson and Cousin continued independently during the twentieth century, perhaps most famously in Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy.Not incidentally or inconsequentially, Traditionalism also included among its major professors and promoters the "esotericist" and outrageous capital-F Fascist, Julius Evola. But back to Huston "World Religions" Smith, who recounts his acid trip with Tim Leary in his considerably less-bestselling Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals. The nod to Huxley's Doors of Perception is of course no accident. Heard, Huxley, Isherwood, Huston Smith and Leary were all doing psychedelics together in various combinations at one time or another in the '50s and early '60s. And further back yet to Christopher Isherwood, who, among other things, was a voluminous diarist. In the published versions, he writes quite a bit about his devotion to Vedanta. But it's not those bits I quote below. The two clips immediately following are from Lost Years: A Memoir 1945-1951, the first on page 220: ...and they started what was to be an on-and-off but longish affair. Michael was then about eighteen; a Jewboy with thinning hair, a high forehead, spectacles (his sight was very poor), a cute cheerful face (resembling Anne Francis...And so on. To understand the next part (p. 262), you need to know that Isherwood often wrote about himself in the third person (who knows why), so this is in fact him making the following observations... That first evening in bed together, Barry said, "How extraordinary this is! Here am I, a Russian Jew, making love with Christopher Isherwood!" His remark jarred on Christopher; it seemed indecent, masochistic, sexually off-putting. But, as Christopher got to know Barry better, he found a different significance in it. When Barry thus called attention to his Jewishness, he wasn't really demeaning himself. He wasn't at all a humble person. Indeed, he had that Jewish tactlessness, argumentativeness and aggressiveness which always aroused Christopher's anti-Semitic feelings. Only, in Barry's case, Christopher's anti-Semitism quickly became erotic. It made him hot to mate Barry's aggressiveness with his own, in wrestling duels which were both sexual and racial, Briton against Jew. Barry's aggressiveness became beautiful and lovable when it was expressed physically by his strong lithe body grappling naked with Christopher's. As they struggled, Christopher loved him because he was a pushy arrogant Jewboy. But he never talked to Barry about his feelings. They were too private.*Note that Isherwood's first take is that Barry Taxman's identifying himself as a Jew would necessarily be self-demeaning. That asterisk at the end has a corresponding note at the bottom of the page stating: Taxman finds this passage to be apocryphal and extremely offensive and distasteful to him.Isherwood clearly had these reactions in hand before the book went to press, but didn't see fit to modify or remove the passage. The following is from isherwood's Diaries: Volume 1, 1939-1960, June 2, 1958 (p. 756): Waiting to get the Sunbeam-Talbot fixed the other day, I was accosted by a round-faced little Jewboy of about twenty. "Gee, Mr. Isherwood," he said. "I hope when I'm your age I'll be as famous as you..."Three days and as many paragraphs later, Isherwood notes on the same page: I feel a great urge to pull myself together, stop being fat and sedentary, and get on with the Ramakrishna book... |
The Jung-Eliade School - Traditionalism
Friday, October 14
the jung-eliade school
The historian of religions is in a better position than anyone to promote the knowledge of symbols... It is in the history of religions that we meet with the "archetypes," of which only approximate variants are dealt with by psychologists and literary critics.~ Mircea Eliade
quoted in Religion after Religion
In the opening pages of the book quoted above, the author begins to unpack what he refers to as the "Jung-Eliade school of thought." He refers to "an 'illuminist' sense of scholarship as theosophy" that characterizes the work of Gershom Sholem (Judaic studies), Henry Corbin (Islamic studies), and our old pal Mircea Eliade (covering the entire mythic waterfront). Immediately following that, the author writes... This radical approach to the academy was (literally) underwritten by a Yale graduate, the philanthropist Paul Mellon.
But why is it interesting -- maybe even important -- that Jung and Eliade form a "school of thought"? Because it is on this base that the brave new world of NewAge++ has been quietly, while we were sleeping, built. And it's a special world. For special people. In a word: elites. And why is that interesting? Allow me to quote from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders:
And why is that interesting? Because it's one of the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder -- a special affliction of the spiritually arrogant and politically intolerant precursors and founders of the twisted NewAge++ madness that -- far from being hidden in little pockets of cute and harmless weirdness here and there -- is being broadcast via cable, movies, newspapers, bookstores, you name it, all over the planet. The New Colonialism. The New Manifest Destiny. Mircea Eliade -- the darling of sensitive New Age religiosity everywhere; and it is everywhere; look around -- was a Fascist. Not in a manner of speaking; with a capital F. The Poles' resistance in Warsaw is a Jewish resistance. Only yids are capable of the blackmail of putting women and children in the front line, to take advantage of the Germans' sense of scruple. The Germans have no interest in the destruction of Romania. Only a pro-German government can save us.... What is happening on the frontier with Bukovina is a scandal, because new waves of Jews are flooding into the country. Rather than a Romania again invaded by kikes, it would be better to have a German protectorate.
the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being -- the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the Perennial Philosophy may be found among the traditionary lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions.But it goes back further than Huxley... ...the teachings, however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, belong neither to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian religion, neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various religious schemes are now made to merge back into their original element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become materialised. [NOTE: Both the above quotes are cited in "The Perennial Philosophy" by W.T.S. Thackara, Sunrise magazine, April/May 1984, Theosophical University Press]
from the back cover of The Betrayal of Tradition: Essays on the Spiritual Crisis of Modernity (Library of Perennial Philosophy)  To hazard an off-the-cuff answer to that last question, above, oh I dunno... freedom from irrational fear and superstition, the boot heel of spiritually rationalized entitlement, elitism and religious terrorism? Just guesses. Sound a bit too extreme? Let me introduce you to Harry Oldmeadow, a writer who has done much to promote awareness of Traditionalism. He's a major proponent, not a detractor, so the following passage carries a lot more weight than if someone like oh say myself were saying the same things (which, nota bene, I am)... Orientalism, Racial Theory and the Allure of FascismAfter naming several more names today associated with New Age "spirituality," Oldmeadow continues... Let us consider two of these figures, Evola and Eliade, in a little more detail. Julius Evola, painter, philosopher, "disciple" of René Guénon, colleague of Mircea Eliade, orientalist and fascist ideologue, translated into Italian The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a poisonous anti-Semitic work whose authors included the racial ideologue of Nazism, Alfred Rosenberg. Evola claimed that this document, whether true or not, fitted the facts. (p. 376) So OK, forget Schuon and Guénon for now. Chances are a lot better that you have heard of a guy named Huston Smith, whose book The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions has sold well over two and a half million copies. Note the nod to Tradition there. It's no accident. In a sort of sequel titled Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World's Religions, Smith rails against science and related modern evils including "Darwinism."
 In Rational Mysticism, author John Horgan begins the book with a chapter on "Huston Smith's Perennial Philosophy." In April 1999, I traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to attend a meeting named, misleadingly, "Science and Consciousness." Held in a hotel modeled after a Mayan pyramid, the five-day conference was actually a New Age bazaar, serving up diverse products for boosting physical, mental, and spiritual energy.... I came to this meeting in part to steep myself in mysticism, New Age style. But a more important goal was meeting Huston Smith... a walking, talking embodiment of the perennial philosophy. (p.15) A few pages later, Horgan writes: ...Smith clearly cherishes his entheogenic experiences. His first took place on New Year's Day, 1961, in Newton, Massachusetts, at the home of Timothy Leary, then a Harvard psychology professor just beginning to investigate psychedelics. Leary gave Smith two capsules of mescaline. A few hours later Smith felt he was witnessing the reality described in the ancient Hindu Vedas and other mystical texts. He was seeing through the mundane reality around him to the ground of being, the clear light of the void underlying all things. No, he was stoned. He was tripping, dude. Now, let me be clear on this, as Nixon would say. In answer to Hendrix's quintessential queries -- are you experienced? have you ever been experienced? -- I can safely answer with a resounding yes. More times than I can count. It's been well over 20 years since I dropped, but I was there, yeah. I know what it feels like to be one of the beautiful people. And without taking anything away from that experience, without any attempt to reduce or belittle it, I can also say with some confidence that it is not something fundamentally removed from "mundane reality." The inherently gnostic aversion to "this world" is what brought these motherfuckers down. It was their way of making the psychedelic experience conceptually safe, colonizing it with "oriental" conceptualizations that tamed it, domesticated it, "spiritualized" it. My objection to these perennialist ex-hippie faux filosofers is not that they did drugs -- oh yeah, how shocking! -- but that, after doing all those drugs, they missed the boat. The perennialists hold that religious traditions differ only in their outer doctrinal, legal, liturgical, and institutional manifestations, which constitute the mere surface levels of religious and ethical experience. Hence, they maximize the similarities between the mystical and ethical cores of the world's religions. As a corollary, they minimize the importance of the differences and historical-cultural specificities of particular religious traditions. For instance, Horgan writes (in Rational Mysticism p. 46) that "some perennialists have been dismissive or even hostile to Judaism. Joseph Campbell, the celebrated mythologist, is a case in point." And Oldmeadow (in Journeys to the East p. 111) goes into far more detail on America's favorite PBS myth monger, preceding his remarks with this quote from Religion after Religion (p. 142): It is not an accident that a certain sort of post-Christianity, so-called New Age Religion, emerged during the Cold War. Religious intellectuals like the Historians of Religions [Eliade, Gershom Sholem, Henry Corbin] spearheaded a notion of religion that seemed to transcend denominational boundaries even as it presumed some kind of transcendent unity to world religions. The geopolitical antagonism of the Cold War, seemingly so constitutive of the age, stimulated at the same time what seemed like a planetary ecumenicism. This Eranos kind of public gnosis, popularized by Jung, Campbell, and Eliade, could espouse its identity, seriatim, with alchemy, shamanism, yoga, Templarism. Such a secularized esoterism, of course, is now familiar in its subsequent popularized forms as (tellingly) New Age Religion. Their characteristically promiscuous application of correspondences, often claimed as a Hermetic principle, underwrote a riot of analogies.Immediately following this quote, Oldmeadow writes -- and you might want to strap on your seat-belt for this last bit of today's ride: There is much in Campbell's work which is unattractive: a deep-seated animus towards and dismissal of the great Occidental monotheisms and more generally a hostility to institutionalized religion which is often treated in simplistic terms and in strident tone; a facile and tedious diffusionism often asserted with little or no scholarly support; a tendency to surrender to glib dichotomies which did little to mask his own prejudices; an inability to understand the ways in which his own American background limited his intellectual horizons; a sometimes sentimental and psychologistic reading of Vedantic monism (a common failing amongst self-styled American Vedantins!); an appropriation of mythic materials which, from one vantage point, might be seen as a form of cultural imperialism; an oscillation between the extremes of Orientalist romanticism and a recoil into Western prejudices (most clearly evidenced in his wildly fluctuating perceptions of Indian society -- his stereotypical misunderstanding of the caste system, for instance); the reduction of metaphysics to a purely psychic realm (a reduction more severe and more facile than we find in Jung, Zimmer or Eliade); a covert strain of anti-Semitism (more openly expressed in his personal life). One can see something of Campbell's simultaneous insight and myopia in a characteristic claim such as "religion is a misinterpretation of mythology." Then, too, there is something offensive in Campbell's collusion in the popular perception of him as a jnanin -- and here one is reminded of another highly talented popularizer who was all too often mistaken for a sage, Alan Watts.Other than that, one could argue in Campbell's favor that, well, at least Bill Moyers liked him.
NOTE: I'm carving off the the still unfinished extra 2000+ words of this for a follow-on post. Otherwise it feels as if I'll never be done with this monster that I've been whittling away at for a month now. The second half will mostly be concerned with Carl Jung. Stay tuned... |
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Every man should be able to save his own life
"Every man should be able to save his own life. He should be able to swim far enough, run fast and long enough to save his life in case of emergency and necessity."
- Earle E. Liederman, fitness pioneer
He wrote that everyone should:
- Be able to swim at least half a mile or more;
- Be able to run at top speed two hundred yards or more;
- Be able to jump over obstacles higher than your waist;
- Be in condition to pull your body upward by the strength of your arms, until your chin touches your hands, at least 15 to 20 times;
- Be able to dip between parallel bars or between two chairs at least 25 times or more.
"If a man can accomplish these things," Liederman said, "he need have no fear concerning the safety of his life should he be forced into an emergency from which he alone may be able to save himself."
Source: Matt Furey's newsletter
Jean Borella - Breve y necesaria aclaración acerca deLa Gnosis
por Jean Borella.
La palabra “gnosis” está tan cargada de negatividad, tanto en los ambientes de izquierda como en los de derecha, que resulta imposible usarla sin suscitar un incoercible movimiento de sospecha y de condenación. Y este rechazo no cesa de amplificarse. Se califica de gnosis a todo: basta con pronunciar la palabra para tachar de infamia a un libro, a una tesis, a un pensamiento. Hay una excepción: el Padre Louis Bouyer, que ha escrito un excelente libro intitulado Gnosis. Mas no todo el mundo tiene el coraje y el saber del Padre Bouyer. En cuanto a mí, me he encontrado como blanco de críticas tanto de parte de los guenonianos de estricta obediencia cuanto de parte de los católicos barrulianos [referencia al Monasterio Benedictino de Le Barroux). Me habría gustado que ambos afinasen sus violines. Pero esto parece poco probable.
Con todo -y es un hecho incontestable- San Pablo con toda certeza, y tal vez San Lucas, han recurrido al uso de la palabra gnosis en un sentido muy preciso, y la tradición patrística los ha seguido. Resulta más fácil ignorar este dato y repartir virtuosas invectivas que refutarlo y extraer las consecuencias. Es que de otro modo, la Encarnación no sería plena ni total y se caería en el docetismo. O bien el mundo, el cosmos, es lisa y llanamente aquello que nos dice el científico materialista y entonces los milagros de la vida de Cristo son imposibles (la Ascensión, por ejemplo); o bien, por el contrario, hay que admitir que en la naturaleza misma del cosmos existe una potencia sacral actualizada por la venida de Cristo. Es cierto que uno puede contentarse con afirmar que aquellos milagros son efecto exclusivo de la potencia divina -lo que resulta incontestable; pero con eso no podemos sino ir a parar a un sobrenaturalismo que se nutre de fideismo. Más tarde o más temprano, estas actitudes conducen a la negación de la Encarnación - cosa que se ve en ciertas sectas del luteranismo. Tal el primer interés que tiene este asunto, teológico, de un conocimiento de las diversas manifestaciones de los sagrado.
El segundo interés estriba en lo relativo a la liturgia, o, dicho de otro modo, al arte sacro. Admitir que el cosmos posee una objetiva potencialidad sagrada equivale a afirmar que existen en el mundo, en los seres, ciertas relaciones, ciertas cualidades cósmicas más apropiadas que otras para incorporar al proceso de sacralización -y por tanto más apropiados para expresar las realidades divinas y comunicar su virtud mientras que otros resultan menos apropiados para eso, cuando no por completo inadecuados. El arte sacro (del cual la liturgia es el centro), esto es, la reglamentación con recurso a los elementos del mundo de las realidades supra-formales y supra-mundanas, en una palabra, “sobrenaturales”, el arte sacro, digo, implica por tanto la posesión de una ciencia objetiva, perfectamente rigurosa, que debería llamarse la ciencia sagrada del simbolismo. No existe hoy en día una ciencia más desconocida. Todo el mundo está persuadido de que las formas litúrgicas son cuestión de sensibilidad y talento. Nada más falso. En realidad, la producción de formas litúrgicas obedece a leyes rigurosas cuyo conocimiento parece haberse perdido. Basta con comparar una catedral gótica o un aleluya gregoriano a una iglesia moderna (incluso una “genial”), o a un alelulya moderno, incluso uno mozartiano, para darse cuenta. En el lenguaje neo-testamentario y en la patrística, la gnosis designa un modo particular de conocimiento, aquel en el que la fe se profundiza, comienza a convertirse en una intelectualidad sagrada, una fruición mística, y por tanto otra cosa que no una simple especulación racional. Consiste- por lo menos en ciertos aspectos -en una cualidad contemplativa de la intelección teológica, esto es, en una capacidad que tiene la inteligencia vivificada por el amor para contemplar los conceptos teológicos que nos traen al espíritu Realidades trascendentales y superinteligibles. Puesto que son símbolos, estos conceptos también deben ser superados y así la gnosis positiva debe convertirse en gnosis negativa, “nesciencia”: ahora bien, incluso esta superación ha de hacerse bajo la guía del símbolo conceptual.
La palabra “gnosis” puede también entenderse no en sentido activo, sino pasivo u objetivo: aquello que se conoce. Por tanto puede designar a la ciencia o doctrina que contiene los objetos más o menos misteriosos que la gnosis alcanza en acto. De tal modo que se podría dar el caso de hablar de aquello que en realidad se ignora: he allí la “gnosis que infla” y que no significa nada al lado de la mirada de la caridad. Y ha sido el caso, por fin, de muchos soberbios y herejes, que fascinados por el aura misterioso que rodeaba este modo de conocimiento, llegaron a usurpar su uso y se llamaron a sí mismo “gnósticos”. En efecto, he demostrado en un estudio sobre “La gnosis verdadera” que este adjetivo jamás ha calificado a una secta, un movimiento, o una escuela, si no que refiere a un estado espiritual que se pretende poseer y en nombre del cual se pretende una dispensación de las reglas morales y la ley común. Resultaba sin duda imprudente emplear un término tan comprometedor cuanto comprometido.
Pero no me arrepiento. No soy yo, es toda la Tradición cristiana que ha designado con el término gnosis a la inteligencia de la fe, particularmente a aquella que mana, bajo la gracia del Espíritu Santo, de la lectura de las Escrituras. Y antes que nadie San Pablo que todo lo tiene por nada “comparado con la suprema gnosis de Jesucristo, mi Señor” (Fil. II:8). Hará falta pues que este conocimiento sea algo más que un conocimiento común; y el hecho de que sea distinto no sólo en lo que se refiere a su objeto, lo que resulta evidente, sino también en su modo, esto es, en cuanto conocimiento. De otro modo, cuando hacen teología, no habría ninguna diferencia intrínseca entre la inteligencia de un ateo y la de un creyente. El cristiano moderno ignora esta distinción de modos. Dice bien que la fe es un conocimiento, mas, aunque se profese tradicionalista de hecho es un luterano y en el fondo no cree en esta dimensión cognitiva de la fe, del acto propio del intelecto en la fe. En el fondo, concibe a la fe como alimentándose exclusivamente de la voluntad y de la gracia, no de la inteligencia- y así la palabra “conocimiento” no tiene, en tal contexto, más que una dimensión metafórica. La fe nos revela la existencia de realidades sobrenaturales que aceptamos (o rechazamos si la fe desfallece)- mas en este caso no hay ninguna experiencia cognitiva. Semejante preconcepto implícito de la fe no se corresponde con la verdad de las cosas, sino que refleja los hábitos epistemológicos del mundo moderno para el cual no hay más conocimiento que el empírico y el científico. En tal concepción de las cosas, lo que excede esto equivale a ingresar en los resbalosos dominios de las creencias. No es éste el parecer de San Pablo, de los Padres y de los Doctores. Más allá del conocimiento empírico y científico hay lugar para un conocimiento metafísico, y más arriba todavía, para un conocimiento sacral o místico. Esta posibilidad de un conocimiento sobrenatural no se actualiza más que cuando actúa la gracia de la recepción del objeto de la fe. Por tanto es negada por aquellos que rechazan este objeto. Por lo demás, la concepción epistemológica moderna- la concepción dominante- en realidad equivale a una verdadera mutilación de la posibilidad cognitiva. Aquí tocamos un punto fundamental, el de la capacidad naturalmente sobrenatural de la inteligencia, y esto ha hecho correr ríos de tinta. Me contentaré pues con hacer tres muy breves observaciones. Solamente diré que la inteligencia, en su esencia pura, supera el orden de la naturaleza, por más que en el acto cognitivo ordinario dependa de la experiencia de las creaturas. Pero la inteligencia está, en sí misma, ordenada a lo Trascendente; está hecha para horizontes divinos e infinitos toda vez que en sí misma, en tanto desprovista de forma, es capaz de recibirlas todas porque es incircunscriptible. Ninguna creatura podría actualizar la potencia propia del intelecto. Sólo el conocimiento de la fe está en condiciones de actualizar su capacidad sobrenatural, o, por lo menos, de conducir a la inteligencia hacia la producción de un acto cognitivo que empiece a revelarle a la propia inteligencia su propia naturaleza deiforme. Un conocimiento tal es un conocimiento intermedio entre el conocimiento natural y el conocimiento beatífico del intelecto deificado. En relación con el conocimiento natural, al principio éste parece oscuro y tenebroso y da la impresión de que se nutre más bien del amor y de la voluntad y no de una clara visión. Y sin embargo se trata de un verdadero conocimiento dotado de una verdadera inteligibilidad a poco que esta inteligencia se habitúe a vivir, por la oración, los sacramentos y la lectura de las Escrituras, en el universo de las realidades reveladas. Y esto no puede carecer de relación con aquello que se ha dado en llamar “contemplación adquirida”. Porque ocurre que la verdadera gnosis, este conocimiento en la fe, no debe ser concebido como una infusión de una gracia particular, como un acontecimiento místico extraordinario y que sólo el alma podría realmente recibir. Fuera así y no se podría hablar de “conocimiento” en el sentido propio y activo del término. No es por súbita y efímera “iluminación”- aunque la gnosis puede incluir relámpagos intelectuales- de ese tenor, ya que el Espíritu sopla cuando y donde quiere. Mas aquellos relámpagos no constituyen “visiones”, sino que son como “rendiciones ante la evidencia”, “comprensiones”, “tomas de conciencia”. Seguramente que comparado con el conocimiento beatífico la “gnosis en la fe” no es más que oscuridad e ignorancia. Y sin embargo, desde otro punto de vista, bien puede decirse que en la fe se nos otorga el Cielo entero, aunque no lo sepamos.
Hoy en día la idea misma de gnosis, de conocimiento sagrado, resulta completamente ignorado o violentamente combatido. Y sin género de duda es combatido por razón de una ignorancia acerca de su verdadera naturaleza. No pensaban así- y de allí que usaban otro lenguaje- los Apóstoles, los Padres y los Doctores. Ninguna historiador serio y objetivo puede negar que la Tradición cristiana reservó la palabra “gnosis” para designar este conocimiento específico, obra del Espíritu que, por el “don de la gnosis” (o “don de ciencia”) realiza el “don de la inteligencia”, esto es, que al otorgar la gnosis, rinde la inteligencia a sí misma, para que la actualiza y por tanto la revela su propia capacidad sobrenatural. En mi libro, “La Profanación de la Caridad” he dado en llamar esta operación como “la neumatización del intelecto”. San Pablo le pedía a sus discípulos que se llenaran de este conocimiento (Rom. XV:14) y el mismísimo Cristo le reprocha a los Doctores de la Ley haber robado “la llave de la gnosis”:
“¡Ay de vosotros!, hombres de la Ley, porque vosotros os habéis apoderado de la llave del conocimiento; vosotros mismos no entrasteis, y a los que iban a entrar, vosotros se lo habéis impedido” (Lc. XI:52).
Reconocer a la gnosis, suministrar la llave de la gnosis, consiste antes que nada en creer en su existencia y creer en la inteligencia y su capacidad sobrenatural. Reducir la gnosis a una exclusiva designación de herejía como se hace hoy en día equivale a ratificar la victoria del diablo sobre la más alta posibilidad del espíritu humano; equivale a darle la razón a los falsificadores e impostores del conocimiento sacral. La respuesta a la proliferación de sectas puede reducirse a dos palabras: restaurar el orden litúrgico y la belleza de su misterio; y reabrir, en la inteligencia de la fe, la puerta de la gnosis.
Traducción de Jack Tollers de la última parte de una entrevista
concedida a Jean Borella, cuyo original se hallará en
http://jean.borella.neuf.fr/intelligencesets.htm.
Estimado Wanderer, gracias por la publicación de lo de Borella. Con todo, me veo urgido a corregir un error que descubrí luego. Los católicos "barruliens" a los que se refiere el A. no son los del Monasterio Le Barroux como erróneamente supuse. Refiere a los "Cahiers Barrulien", una revista fundada por Jean Vaquié y (el gran tonto de) Etienne Couvertes para "denunciar la infiltración de los gnósticos en los medios católicos". Y arrancaron con un sesudo ataque a "La Charité Profanée", el libro de Borella sobre Vaticano II.
Saludos,
J.T.
Estimado Jack Tollers:
Los "Cahiers" son los "Cahiers Barruel", en honor del Abbé Barruel, padre de la historiografía conspiracionista con su "Memoires pour servir à l'histoire du Jacobinisme" y publicados por el
"Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur la penetration et le developpement de la Revolution dans l'Église Chirstianisme" con sede en Lyon.
La polémica sobre la gnosis alcanzó altos grados de temperatura en el 2006-2007 dentro de la FSSPX.
En la red se pueden encontrar muchos textos de esa polémica, con intervenciones del Abbé de Tänouarn, del Abbé Cellier, de los monjes de Avrillé y así...
Si bien comparto la opinión crítica que subyace en la mención al "gran tonto" de Couvert, autor que simplifica demasiado las cosas, no es menos verdadero que la vía borelliana tiene sus aristas complejas.
Un abrazo
Me parece mal llamar a Etienne Couvert "el gran tonto" porque no esté de acuerdo con lo que dice.
En buena lógica eso es una falacia
Estimado anónimo de las 12:16: Suponiendo la buena fe del autoerigido inquisidor Couvert, ¿cómo llamaría Ud. a uno que desecha como "Gnósticos" a Clemente de Alejandría, Orígenes y a Dionisio Seudoareopagita? Contra toda la Tradición de la Iglesia que pretende custodiar!! Sin entrar en el fondo de su alma, que no se nos alcanza, ¿no es un poco tonto?
El anónimo normando
Estimado Wanderer y amigos
En relación con la primera parte del texto, que menciona que el cosmos excede aquello que nos dice el científico materialista, lamento que el autor no se haya explayado un poco más. Solamente remata diciendo que este asunto es de interés en torno a un conocimiento teológico de las diversas manifestaciones de lo sagrado. Interin se menciona en este texto que los milagros, por ejemplo, tal vez no ocurrirían por la sola potencia Divina (cosa que no se pretende poner en duda, por supuesto) sino que se da a entender que también son por alguna otra propiedad del cosmos (la llama "potencia sacral actualizada por la venida de Cristo") en sintonía con la Encarnación.
Siempre me quedó este tema en el tintero desde que, tiempo atrás, leí en el catecismo de San Cirilo de Jerusalém cosas asombrosas como, por ejemplo, que el eclipse que tuvo lugar cuando Cristo moría en la Cruz fue porque el Sol no podía contemplar a Dios en agonía. También dijo en otra parte que la roca que sellaba el Santo Sepulcro, que fue removida por ángeles -según las escrituras-, dice San Cirilo de Jerusalém que en realidad esta roca saltó (como consecuencia del sobresalto que les causó la resurrección de Cristo). En el contexto, ninguna de estas expresiones parecía ser figurada ni literaria sino literal.
¿Alguien se anima a ayudarme con este tema?
En mi comentario a JT se deslizó un error. El nombre del "Centro" es "Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur la penetration et le developpement de la Revolution dans le Chirstianisme".
Quien quiera bajar los números 1 a 26 de los Cahiers lo puede hacer en el sitio de Louis-Hubert Remy:
http://www.a-c-r-f.com/
Sobre Couvert se pueden decir muchas cosas. He leído los tres volúmenes - irregulares - sobre la Gnosis y a mi entender si bien peca de simplista, hay elementos intersantes para comenzar estudios más serios, como ser el caso de los temas "Gnosis y Tradición", donde trata las influencias gnósticas en los autores ultramontanos, y el titulado "Gnosis y pensamiento ruso", donde hace una aproximación al desarrollo de la teología en Rusia.
No son textos definitivos, acabados, pero pueden ser útiles como punto de partida.
Saludos
Para los "no iniciados", hay un articulo de divulgación escrito por Lucas F. Mateo Seco, con la diferencia entre gnosis ortodoxa y heterodoxa en http://www.encuentra.com/documento.php?f_doc=5211&f_tipo_doc=9.
Con alguna reserva, me parece que vale la pena leerlo
Xavier de Bouillon