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Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.

Summer Reading 2011

You are asking what I am reading this year in Maine. As we are staying here much shorter than usual, I did not bring too many books. I wanted to read some French classics which mostly eluded me so far: Balzac and Flaubert. But I had been "working" a German novel on and off for a year, in turn fascinated and repelled at the same time, and had difficulties making up my mind what to think about it. The novel wasn't translated into English until recently. Its English title is "Indian Summer", which is not totally getting the meaning of the German "Nachsommer", which means a summer after the summer. It was first published in 1857. The author Adalbert Stifter hardly recommends himself - he slit his throat later, and seemed to have been a petty Austrian school superintendent, exactly the kind of guy young people would abhor, who thought that everything old is better than everything new, and that young people should learn from the older generation, without asking and without arguing - not exactly my ideal of education. But then again, so much could be said for the fields he educates his young hero Heinrich in: gardening, rocks and minerals, art, music, sculpture and painting, and so on. This is heavy fare, but worthwhile if you have time and want to think deeply about what matters. Friedrich Nietzsche counted it among the only four books he let stand of the nineteenth century. I began reading "Cousin Bette" by Honoré de Balzac. For two nights it gave me nightmares - so I avoid now reading it at night. The people are so incredibly mean to each other! I haven't finished, and this is only a tiny puzzle piece of Balzac's huge oeuvre "Comédie Humaine" - I should defer judgement. But I was close to throwing it away. I expect books to show me the good in people, and like to think that the good will prevail in life - as idealistic that is. - Balzac and Flaubert are not called "realists" for no reason. From that summer I was reading all Dickens, I still have left over "Hard Times". Not sure if I will not elope with Dickens soon ... The two books by Gustave Flaubert I brought with me are "Madame Bovary" and "A Sentimental Education". - You will hear about them from me - probably later in the fall because there is no way that I finish reading them here. And, I forgot: In the bathroom we always have lying open Henry David Thoreau's "The Maine Woods". Tell me what you are reading! Read More 
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Anonymous = Venomous

We have enough of vitamin discussion for a while. The other thing on my mind lately is how hate recently has grown. This is not a new phenomenon. It always happens in economically bad times: Politicians play out one group against another to curry favors to one group. We know how it ends: It ends in scape-goating and fascism. In the Thirties, in Germany, the targets were Jews; now it is immigrants. Not that I am against a reasonable law to curb illegal immigration. But there is no reason to hate the unfortunates who want to make a better life for themselves and their families. We need rules, but if we start hating, the hate will come to haunt us more than the ones for which it was intended. As an aside: The illegal immigrants fill usually two kinds of jobs: the ones Americans don’t want like cleaning houses and picking tomatoes, and the ones that Americans can’t do because education has been going downhill in this country for a while. - Let’s make better rules – but let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater! (and let’s make education a priority!). The Internet surely is spewing with hate mails – usually anonymous hate mail. Anonymous equals venomous all too often. I propose that we all are always signing with our full name – I think we would reconsider writing hateful contributions if those could be tracked back to the writer for many years to come. Here are some questions: 1. Are you writing anonymous Internet contributions? Do you want to make the Earth a better place? Hate will not make it a better place. – Interestingly, no newspaper will publish a letter if it doesn’t have the full name (exceptions are intended to shield vulnerable parties – but even then the newspaper knows the name). 2. Are you following gossip and crime stories on TV and on the Internet with glee? Do you take sides – and don’t know the participants. Once, a long time ago, I worked in a medical prison situation. The people whom I met there, looked, talked, acted like you and me. But they all were murderers. Ever since then I wonder what makes a person a murderer – and I shun easy answers and prejudice. 3. Do you know any people of the group that is targeted for scape-goating? Get to know some – because you have to walk in somebody’s moccasins to understand their predicament. Compassion and forgiveness are required in these difficult times. If you are a hating person (and we all have traits of hate – don’t think there are exceptions!) the hate will mark you face and will mar your life. My New-Age friends would say that, by the Law of Attraction, hat will attract hate into your life. You deserve better! Read More 
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Bringing Home The Truth?

You who have followed this blog notice that I do change my mind. For instance, I was a great supporter of the Five Tibetans – and to a degree, I still am. But then my lower back spoke up against the practice, and now I do modified exercises. I let you know. Was my first opinion untrue? Not really. Different people have different needs, and plenty of people come back to me and tell me that I once recommended the Five Tibetans to them – and they are still doing them daily, and happily. Spending time on the Internet and blogging about health sometimes feels to me as if I hit a wall: We health nuts are discussing minor improvements in our diets, when the majority of people are eating junk food, don’t know how to even cook rice (forget BROWN rice!), and spending every free minute in front of TV that carries them into fake worlds while stealing innumerable hours of their lives and their powers away. That might apply to my blogs, too: Somebody reading this, is not walking right now, not playing an instrument, not gardening, not repairing a bike, not cooking stinging nettle greens, not making love, not painting the lilac in bloom now, not taking a cold shower. And my blog (or all the other health blogs) doesn’t reach that majority. I have started worrying about this. The other worry is that we bloggers seem to disperse truths – but we don’t seem to change minds. Or do we? I have been in too many online discussion where opinions about, say, homeopathy, clash, and the divides are never bridged. We can say that most health improvements came at the beginning of the twentieth century with advancement of hygiene (better water supply, better sewage systems). Much less with antibiotics and vaccinations - as much as doctors want to exploit those tales. Then came our downfall in the fifties - the widespread automobile use let people walk less. And also in the fifties, housewives succumbed to advertisement that "helped" them spend less time in the kitchen: canned food, microwaves, ready-made dinners, take-out food, supplements, and what not. And in the seventies, HFCS, sealing our fates (or coffins). So, this is my question of today? How do we make up our minds about what is healthy? Do we believe every published research study - some good, some shotty - or the myriad of business interests that pipe up on all occasions? For me, after all the years of studying, health has become simple: Follow what Nature intended, and you will be all right. For all the little details: Hard to get at the truth. Besides, the truth might be manifold. And, as before, health changes on a grander scale might come from societal forces rather than from our little opinions here: From environmental clean-up, water preservation, governmental responsibility, better education, greater justice, less poverty.  Read More 
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