Editor's Page
"The Sound of Five Fingers Pointing" - by Frank Thomas Smith
My
uncle Tom was my hero back during “the” war, when I was a
kid. He landed at Normandy as a private in the infantry . Seeing
“Saving Private Ryan” gave us a better idea –
feeling I should say – of what that was like. He'd fought all
the way to Berlin and left the army three years later as a buck
sergeant. When he finally came home and lived for a while at his
parent's – my grandparent's – apartment in Brooklyn, I
went there at every opportunity to listen to his war stories and,
well, just to be with him...
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Fiction
"Palabras de siempre" por R. Ariel Gómez
Cuando
volvió de cirugía, mi padre tenía la cara
plácida, iluminada. Sonreía tranquilo, como cuando todo
estaba en orden. Entre sueños, murmuraba un diálogo
que no entendí. Creo que todavía no se daba cuenta de
mi presencia; así que me quedé quieto, sentado al lado
de su cama tratando de comprender qué nos había pasado.
Hacía
más de treinta años que mi padre tenia cálculos
en la vesícula y nunca había querido operarse, hasta
que un buen día, como desde la nada, decidió que sí,
que se la sacaran, que esas batallas legendarias con sus médicos
se acabarían de una vez por todas...Read more
"Words to Keep" by R. Ariel Gómez
When my
father returned from surgery his face was placid, illuminated. He smiled
calmly, like when everything was in order. In his dreams, he had murmured a
dialogue that I did not understand. He wasn’t aware of my presence, so I
remained quiet, sitting by the side of his bed, trying to understand what had
happened to us.
For more
than thirty years my father had gall bladder stones, cleverly dodging surgeons
until one day, as if from nowhere, he decided that yes, the stones would be
removed, that those legendary battles with his doctors would stop once and for
all. ...Read more
"Across the Back of the Wide Aegean" by Paul Holler
I love
the Aegean. I love her unending sky and sapphire depths, her warm breezes and
terrible winds. I have sailed her broad back for more years than I know.
Still, I can stand on a beach at Samos and let her waves curl warmly around my
ankles and forget where my feet end and the sea begins. She bears me on her
back and carries me to places no man has ever beheld. Even when the winds are
still and the crew and I must take up oars, I am happy. Still, there have
been times when she treated me so cruelly that I thought I would walk away from
her forever. I have seen her throw men to their deaths with no more regard
than a child flicking an ant from his arm. I have seen her lure ships with the
promise of fair winds only to smash them to pieces far from land. But, as many
times as I walked away, I came back loving her all the more. It is my fate...Read more
Current Events
"Bradley Manning's Trials - a Defense" by Chase Madar
Bradley Manning, a 23-year-old from Crescent, Oklahoma,
enlisted in the U.S. military in 2007 to give something back to his
country and, he hoped, the world. For the past seven months, Army Private First Class
Manning has been held in solitary confinement in the Marine Corps
brig in Quantico, Virginia. Twenty-five
thousand other Americans are also in prolonged solitary
confinement, but the conditions of Manning’s pre-trial
detention have been sufficiently
brutal for the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on
Torture to announce
an investigation.
Pfc. Manning is alleged to have obtained documents, both
classified and unclassified, from the Department of Defense and the
State Department via the Internet and provided them to WikiLeaks.
...Read more
"Cow Most Sacred - Why Military Spending Remains Untouchable" by Andrew J. Bacevich
In defense
circles, “cutting” the Pentagon budget has once again
become a topic of conversation. Americans should not confuse
that talk with reality. Any cuts exacted will at most reduce
the rate of growth. The essential facts remain: U.S. military
outlays today equal that of every other nation on the planet
combined, a situation without precedent in modern history. The Pentagon
presently spends more in constant dollars than it did at any time
during the Cold War -- this despite the absence of anything
remotely approximating what national security experts like to call
a “peer competitor...Read more
Features
"Fascinated by the Mediterranean World" by Gaither Stewart
When as a young man I moved to Italy it was an act of love for this
Mediterranean land where lemon trees bloom. The original attraction
for me however was not only the Bel
Paese,
as Italians like to call this truly beautiful peninsula jutting out
southwards into the Mediterranean Sea and nearly reaching Tunisia. I
also wanted the whole Mar Nostrum, the sea around which our Western
civilization developed; I set for myself the secret goal of knowing
all the lands surrounding the great sea. The attraction I felt was
perhaps the same allure for the succession of peoples and
civilizations, which have sought to both control and unite this
beautiful and unique world. Though my original love for Italy has
faded and waned in the vulgarity of contemporary Italy, not so the
magical lure of the Mediterranean World as such...Read more
"In the Crosshairs - Tucson-Kabul" by Tom Engelhardt
Slowly a humped
shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to
flicker out from it. Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a
bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered
group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon
them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were
suddenly and momentarily turned to fire. Then, by the light of their
own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, and their
supporters turning to run.
That, as H.G. Wells imagined
it in 1898, was first contact with a technologically superior and
implacable alien race from space, five
years before humanity took to the air in anything but balloons... Read more
Science
"What Do Organisms Mean?" by Steve Talbott
If a single problem has vexed biologists for the past couple of
hundred years, surely it concerns the relation between biology and
physics. Many have struggled to show that biology is, in one sense or
another, no more than an elaboration of physics, while others have
yearned to identify a "something more" that, as a matter of
fundamental principle, differentiates a tiger, or an amoeba,
from a stone. The former, reductionist aim can easily seem to ignore
what is special about living creatures — and above all to
ignore the way meaningful human experience seems to transcend the
kind of lawfulness we observe in a merely physical object. But, on
the other hand, scientists who attempt to articulate a principle
differentiating the living from the non-living have all too often
posited some kind of special matter or vital force that no one ever
seems able to identify... Read more
Anthroposophy
"The History and Actuality of Imperialism" - Lecture 3 of 3 by Rudolf Steiner
When
you consider what has been said here during the past two days you
will see that what belongs to the essence of imperialism is that in
an imperialistic community something that was felt to be part of a
mission – not necessarily justified, but understandable –
later continued on as an automatism, so to speak. In the history of
human development things are retained – simply due to indolence
– which were once justified or explicable, but no longer are. If
a community is obliged to defend itself for a period of time, then it
is surely justified to create certain professions for that purpose:
police and military professions. But when the danger against which
defense was necessary no longer exists, the professions continue to
exist.... Read more
Karmic Relations, Volume 1, Lecture 8 by Rudolf Steiner
I
said yesterday that although it is a somewhat hazardous
venture to speak of individual karmic connections, I intended
to do so, and that I would take as examples the personalities
of whom I gave you certain biographical details. Later on we
shall also be able to study the karma of less representative
personalities, but I have chosen, in the first place,
examples which show clearly how in the karmic course of
repeated phases of existence, the evolution of mankind as a
whole goes forward. In modern civilisation we speak of
history as if it were one continuous stream of happenings:
events of the 20th century are related to events of the 19th
century, these again to events of the 18th century, and so
on. That it is people themselves who carry over things from
one epoch of history to another, that the people now living
have themselves carried over from earlier epochs what is to
be found in the world and in life at the present time —
this knowledge alone brings reality to light and reveals the
true, inner connections in the historical life of mankind...Read more
Poetry
"Kubla Kahn" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
In
Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With
walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright
with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing
tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding
sunny spots of greenery...Read more
"Fear No More" by william Shakespeare
Fear
no more the heat o' the sun;
Nor the furious winter's rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en
thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney
sweepers come to dust....Read more
"The Expatriate" and more light verse by Frank Thomas Smith
The
problem with most foreign lands
is
that they're far, too far away,
like
the bleachers in Ebbett's used to be
before
the debacle of technology.
Also,
either they're terribly bland,
foggy,
windy and damp, or,
if
southerly, downright dangerous,
where
bullets fly and sunscreen 21
can't
ward off the assassin sun...Read more
"Jardines Lejanos/Distant Gardens" by Juan Ramón Jiménez
...I
have seen in the fountain's
water deep, a woman
naked... I
have seen in the frond
another
woman... I wanted to see
how the
rose bushes looked
in the splendor of the moon,
and found
carnal roses.... |
...He
visto en el agua honda
de la
fuente, una mujer
desnuda...
He visto en la fronda
otra
mujer... Quise ver
cómo
estaban los rosales
a la
lumbre de la luna,
y encontré
rosas carnales
....
|
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Letters to the Editor
I
always enjoy stories about the three kings. But there is something special
about this one, involving town politics, local color and a careful dose of
wisdom. I love the Dad's answer about the southern cross. And what a gift those
Las Chacras' magi brought to the children! The story didn't fail to transport
me to the Argentina of my childhood and left me thinking, savoring the images.
Someone said that the best stories keep coming back after you read them. Yours
does that. Thank you for such a refreshing take on Los reyes magos...
Read more
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You can find us under the
Southern Cross constellation in the Traslasierra Valley, Province of
Córdoba, Argentina. Visitors always welcome. Just follow the sign that
reads: La Cruz del Sur.
Frank Thomas Smith, Editor
JoAnn Schwarz, Associate Editor
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