Editor's Page
Beware
of Greek Euros and Argentine Dollars – or –
Beware
of Germans Bearing Euro-Gifts by Frank Thomas Smith
Back
in 1990 the Argentine government instituted “convertibility”,
according to which the Argentine peso was equal in value to the US
dollar – by law, and therefore would, theoretically at least,
be convertible in the world at large, just like the dollar. The main
reason for this was the fact that Argentina had been plagued by
hyper-inflationary waves for many decades, the result of massive
government spending via the monetary printing press with nothing to
back up all those pesos flooding the market. Ergo, if the peso were
always equal to the dollar, to the extent that if you held a peso you
could freely exchange it for a dollar, there would be no inflation
and Argentina would enter the first-world club with a swish of the
magic money-wand... Read more
It's the Exchange Rate, Stupid by Frank Thomas Smith
The reason I accepted Larry Lawrence's offer to teach English to the Chief of Police was that I was broke. After a period of hyperinflation that toppled an honest but hopelessly inept President, the new one (not so honest but equally inept) appointed Harvard educated Robindo Quemado to the economy portfolio. The first thing he did was peg the peso to the U.S. dollar at a one-to-one exchange rate -- for eternity according to him -- thus confounding my plans for a comfortable early retirement in a country where the dollar had been king since General San Martín crossed the Andes and the women were as lovely as a September morn. Hyper-inflation was licked, the dollar dethroned and, despite the Economy Minister's promises to the contrary, everyone except the rich woke up poorer, especially the poor. My purchasing power was reduced to roughly that of a peon's. No one, however, dared question the fixed exchange rate for fear of being thought unpatriotic and in favor of inflation... Read more
Fiction
Parallel IMF Universes by Francis ArrowSmith
Pierremot
lies naked on the king-sized bed in Manhat-tan's Luxury-Pus Hotel with
a king-size erection. He gazes at it with admiration. After all, at
62 very few men had such spontaneous ones. He glances at his
Blackberry: twelve noon, he has an hour before checking out and going
to KFJ Intercosmos Airport for the Air FrenchFry flight to Sirap.
Pierremot is the DirecDG of the FMI – Filthy Monitoring Fund –
and as such one of the most powerful men in the Parallel Universe.
His roadmap also includes the presidency of FrenchKissistan...but not
until next year. He thinks of the meeting he is to have with the
Queen of Germany, the ex-unisex world wrestling champion, and his
erection wilts...Read more
Paul the Octopus Retires by R. Ariel Gómez
Who
would have thought that an octopus would change my life?
Picture
this: my friend Ray called me to talk about Paul the octopus.
"Yeah",
I said, "and to which branch of the Gambino family does he
belong?"
"I
am serious," he said. "Can I see you Saturday
mid-morning?"
"Sure,
Ray. What’s going on?"
Ray’s
voice sounded strained. "I’ll tell you everything when I
see you," he said, and hung up, no time to ask anything...
Read more
Current Events
Worlds Collide in a Luxury Hotel by Rebecca Solnit
How
can I tell a story we already know too well? Her name was Africa.
His was France. He colonized her, exploited her, silenced her,
and even decades after it was supposed to have ended, still acted
with a high hand in resolving her affairs in places like Côte
d’Ivoire, a name she had been given because of her export
products, not her own identity. Her
name was Asia. His was Europe. Her name was silence. His was
power. Her name was poverty. His was wealth. Her name was Her,
but what was hers? His name was His, and he presumed everything
was his, including her, and he thought he could take her without
asking and without consequences. It was a very old story, though
its outcome had been changing a little in recent decades. And
this time around the consequences are shaking a lot of
foundations, all of which clearly needed shaking...Read more
The Unwisdom of Elites by Paul Krugman
The past three years have been a disaster for most Western
economies. The United States has mass long-term unemployment for the
first time since the 1930s. Meanwhile, Europe’s single currency
is coming apart at the seams. How did it all go so wrong?
Well, what I’ve been hearing with growing frequency from
members of the policy elite — self-appointed wise men,
officials, and pundits in good standing — is the claim that
it’s mostly the public’s fault. The idea is that we got
into this mess because voters wanted something for nothing, and
weak-minded politicians catered to the electorate’s
foolishness...
Read more
On the Mend - America Comes to its Senses by Andrew W. Bacevich
At
periodic intervals, the American body politic has shown a marked
susceptibility to messianic fevers. Whenever an especially acute
attack occurs, a sort of delirium ensues, manifesting itself in
delusions of grandeur and demented behavior. By the time the condition
passes and a semblance of health is restored, recollection of what occurred during the illness tends
to be hazy. What happened? How’d we get here? Most
Americans prefer not to know. No sense dwelling on what’s
behind us. Feeling much better now! Thanks!
Read more
Features
Zora
Neale Hurston and the African American Odyssey by Helen Lock
The
Odyssey
has always had a reverberating presence in African American arts:
Romare Bearden, for instance, arguably the most important African
American artist of the twentieth century, who began exhibiting in
1945, produced a series called The
Odysseus Collages.
In his foreword to the gallery’s catalogue, Calvin Tomkins
describes the appropriateness of Bearden’s technique to his
theme: collage is, he says, “[A]n act of necromancy, requiring
cunning, grace, nerve, intelligence and luck (defined as the ability
to take good advantage of chance—or the gods),” and
Tomkins quotes psychologist Julian Jaynes’s description of
Homer’s theme: “an odyssey toward subjective identity and
its triumphant acknowledgment out of the hallucinatory enslavements
of the past
... Read more
Science
Goetheanism in Science by Konrad Rudnicki
There is a widespread belief that
a sharp distinction must be made between thinking (something entirely
subjective) and perception (something having an objective origin but thoroughly
contingent upon man's physiological and psychological constitution). It is
through the interaction of perception and thinking that a gradual development
of the process of the cognition of reality (Immanuel Kant called this a thing-in-itself
inaccessible in any direct way) comes about. The subjective character of
thinking is usually taken as an axiom. The conditioning of perception by
physiology (it is electromagnetic waves that are really there, and we perceive
them as colors, heat etc.) is supported with evidence from the natural
sciences. Various theories of knowledge lead to various, even diametrically
opposed conclusions - from the belief that the thing-in-itself is
absolutely beyond any cognition to the assumption that there are ways of obtaining
some knowledge of it
... Read more
Anthroposophy
Freedom and the Catholic Church - Lecture 2 of 3 by Rudolf Steiner
It is my intention today to continue with the subject we began
here last Sunday, and I should like first to go back to the few
words I then said concerning the Anti-Modernist Oath. I described
its nature by saying that since the time of its inauguration
anyone who holds a teaching office in the Roman Catholic Church,
whether as theologian or preacher, has to take this oath which
forbids anyone engaged in Catholic teaching to deviate from what
is recognized as dogmatic truth by the Roman Catholic Church;
which means, in fact, what is recognized as dogma by the Roman
Curia...
Read more
La Libertad y la Iglesia Católica - Conferencia 2 de 3 por Rudolf Steiner
Es
mi intención hoy continuar con el tema que comenzamos aquí
el domingo pasado y me gustaría, en primer lugar, volver sobre
las palabras que dije en esa oportunidad con respecto al Juramento
anti modernista. Me referí a su naturaleza diciendo que, desde
que fue instituido, cualquiera que desempeñe una función
docente dentro de la Iglesia Católica Romana, ya sea como
teólogo o predicador, tiene que hacer este juramento que
prohíbe a cualquiera que se dedique a la enseñanza del
catolicismo desviarse de lo que la Iglesia Católica Romana
reconoce como verdad dogmática –esto significa, en
realidad, lo que la Curia Romana reconoce como dogma... Read more
The Foundation Stone Meditation by Rudolf Steiner
Soul of man!
You live in the limbs
That carry you through the world of space
Into the sea of spirit-being:
Practice spirit remembrance
In the depths of soul,
Where in the reigning
Cosmic creator-being... Read more / Español / Deutsch
Karmic Relations, Volume 1, Lecture 10 by Rudolf Steiner
In
our study of karmic connections I have hitherto followed
the practice of starting from personalities in more
recent times and then going back to their previous lives
on earth. Today, in order to amplify the actual examples
of karmic connections, I propose to go the other way,
starting from certain personalities of the past and
following them into later times, either into some later
epoch of history, or right into the life of the present
day. What I want to do is to give you a picture of
certain historic connections, presenting it in such a way
that at every point some light is shed on the workings of
karma...Read more
Poetry
The Tiger, The Lamb and other poems by William Blake
TIGER,
tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What
immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In
what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On
what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
...Read more
Renascence and The Suicide by Edna St. Vincent Millay
All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.
Over these things I could not see;
...Read more
Letters to the Editor
Regarding
your 'Intelligence Analyst': If this isn't true, its a damned good lie!
What
a wonderful one paragraph portrait of the awakening of a modern initiate - a
Dostojevskij devotee; fortunately there are many Jim Tates coming and going.
You
publish two grumbling and critical remarks on your apparent use of nudes to
adorn or bracket issues of Southern Cross Review. As a new reader I have only
managed to sample the two most recent issues (please provide prominent links in
each issue to still available previous editions), but I find the depictions
wonderful...
Read more
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reads: La Cruz del Sur.
Frank Thomas Smith, Editor
JoAnn Schwarz, Associate Editor
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