Editor's Page
Toward Social Transformation - an Outline by Frank Thomas Smith
The
objective of any conscious changes in society's structures, if they are to be positive, must be to provide a social environment in which humanity is able to realize its potential in freedom
–
with respect for each other, the creatures and nature. In
order to provide the conditions within which this objective can
be achieved, a structural transformation is necessary. Those
who own and/or control the means of production have created the myth
that their system of private ownership is the only
alternative to totalitarianism and the only road to well-being
(“the pursuit of happiness”).
...Read more
Note: My wife and I would like to rent an apartment for two weeks in New York City this spring. Please let me know if you can help: [email protected]. Thanks.
Hacia la Transformación Social - un Bosquejo por Frank Thomas Smith
El
objetivo de cualquier cambio consciente de las estructuras de la
sociedad, si es que ha de ser positivo, debe consistir en
proporcionar un medio social en el que la humanidad sea capaz de
realizar su potencial en libertad –con respeto por los demás
seres humanos y otras criaturas, y por la naturaleza. Para crear las
condiciones dentro de las cuales este objetivo pueda ser logrado, es
necesaria una transformación estructural. Quienes poseen y/o
controlan los medios de producción han creado el mito de que
su sistema de propiedad privada es la única alternativa al
totalitarismo y el único camino hacia el bienestar (“la
búsqueda de la felicidad”)
...Read more
Nota: Mi esposa y yo quisiéramos alquilar un departamento en Nueva York por dos semanas esta primavera. Por favor avísenme si saben de alguno:
[email protected]. Gracias.
Features
O
Americano, Outra Vez! by Richard Feynman
Cornell
had some foreign language classes which followed a method used during
the war, in which small groups of about ten students and one native
speaker speak only the foreign language-nothing else. Since I was a
rather young-looking professor there at Cornell, I decided to take
the class as if I were a regular student. And since I didn't know yet
where I was going to end up in South America, I decided to take
Spanish, because the great majority of the countries there speak
Spanish. So
when it was time to register for the class, we were standing
outside, ready to go into the classroom, when this pneumatic blonde
came along. You know how once in a while you get this feeling, WOW?
She looked terrific. I said to myself, "Maybe she's going to be
in the Spanish class - that'll be great!" But no, she walked
into the Portuguese class. So I figured, What the hell - I might as
well learn Portuguese
... Read more
The Crash and Burn Future of Robot Warfare by Nick Turse
American fighter
jets screamed over the Iraqi countryside heading for the MQ-1
Predator drone, while its crew in California stood by helplessly.
What had begun as an ordinary reconnaissance mission was now taking a
ruinous turn. In an instant, the jets attacked and then it was
all over. The Predator, one of the Air Force’s workhorse
hunter/killer robots, had been obliterated
... Read more
Children's Corner
My Cat is a Magician by Frank Thomas Smith
One morning
when my mother woke me up I saw her looking at the foot of my bed. I followed
her gaze and saw a beautiful white cat observing me with its yellow eyes. The
cat yawned and walked lightly over the bed towards me. I didn't dare touch it
until it reached my hand and rubbed against it with its delicate head. Then I
stroked it. Daddy came into my room and asked me if I liked Merlin the cat...Oh yes, very
much, I said. Daddy said that Merlin
was mine and if I gave him a lot of love and affection he would be happy with
us. I was also very happy and I thanked my parents... But why is his name Merlin? I asked...Read more
Fiction
A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J. D. Salinger
THERE
WERE ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel, and, the way
they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had
to wait from noon till almost two-thirty to get her call through. She
used the time, though. She read an article in a women's pocket-size
magazine, called "Sex Is Fun-or Hell." She washed her comb
and brush. She took the spot out of the skirt of her beige suit. She
moved the button on her Saks blouse. She tweezed out two freshly
surfaced hairs in her mole. When the operator finally rang her room,
she was sitting on the window seat and had almost finished putting
lacquer on the nails of her left hand....
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Anthroposophy
Esoteric
Lessons for the First Class of the School for Spiritual Science at
the Goetheanum -
Lesson Three by Rudolf Steiner
Introduction:
During the
re-founding of the Anthroposophical Society at Christmas 1923, Rudolf
Steiner also reconstituted the “Esoteric School” which
had originally functioned in Germany from 1904 until 1914, when the
outset of the First World War made it's continuance impossible. However,
the original school was only for a relatively few selected
individuals, whereas the new school was incorporated into the School
for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum in
Dornach, Switzerland. Lesson Three
Karmic Relations, Volume II, Lecture 2 by Rudolf Steiner
In
recent lectures we have been speaking of definite karmic
relationships — not with the object of finding anything
sensational in the successive earthly lives we have studied, but
in order to arrive step by step at a really concrete
understanding of the connections of destiny in human life. I
have described successive earthly lives of certain historic
figures, in order to give an idea of how one earthly life works
on into the next — and that is not an easy matter...
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Poetry
Christ Comes to Skopelos by Frank Thomas Smith
Christ
consents to be called
To
Skopelos
One
Easter Sunday
Several
years before his year
Two-thousand.
They've
been calling him continually
In
all their white-walled
Icon-laden churches,
Never expecting he'd hear their songs.
...Read more
A German Requiem by James Fenton
It is not what they
built. It is what they knocked down.
It is not the houses. It
is the spaces in between the houses.
It is not the streets that
exist. It is the streets that no longer exist.
It is not your
memories which haunt you.
It is not what you have written
down.
It is what you have forgotten, what you must forget.
What
you must go on forgetting all your life.
...
Read more
The Touchstone by John Salter
The
Hunter valley is depressing,
especially that part just east of
Muswellbrook.
Or at least that's how I found it.
Yet when you
come to that place, up through the Hawksbury valley, there are
so
many traces of what this place must have once been like.
But
that was before large mining companies set about digging large holes
- usually ignored by the people's news media - as a by-product of
our ever-growing need for energy
...
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Letters to the Editor
Dear
Frank,
The title of your opening story [The Imposter Magi] so captivated my attention that I stopped working
on my next book and cleaning my office to read it. THANK YOU SO MUCH! I'm
still laughing—what a marvelous gift for January 2nd - - and of course for
January 5th. I've already read it now 3 times!!! I'm sure I'm not the first to post a comments, but I hope we get to read others...
Read more
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SCR E-book Library
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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