Southern Cross Review

"La Mujer y el Espejo", 1889)

Eduardo Sívori (October 13, 1847 – June 5, 1918) was an Argentine artist widely regarded as his country's first realist painter.

Editor's Page I am the Greatest by Frank Thomas Smith I dreamed of being the greatest at something. Why? In order not to be a second fiddle or, worse, nothing. Who do we read about in the newspapers and drool at on TV and talk about at parties? Those who are the best at their chosen endeavors. We may of course also admire someone who is second or even third best, but not with the same ardor. We just nod: yeah, nice try, but no banana. I wanted to be talked about, admired, famous, maybe even star in a movie as Captain America. ..Continue Soy lo máximo - traducido por María Teresa Gutiérrez Yo soñaba ser lo máximo en algo. ¿Por qué? Para no ser un segundón o, peor, un nadie. ¿Sobre quiénes leemos en los diarios, nos babeamos por televisión y hablamos en las fiestas? Sobre aquellos que son los mejores en la actividad que han elegido. Podemos también admirar a alguien que sea segundo o incluso tercero, pero no con el mismo fervor. Sí, asentimos con la cabeza, buen intento, pero no es la posta. Yo quería que se hablara de mí, ser admirado, famoso, quizás incluso estrella de alguna película en el rol de Capitán América. ...Continuar Features A Cruel and Unusual Record by Jimmy Carter THE United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights. That top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues. . .. Continue Mad, Bad, Sad - What’s Really Happened to America’s Soldiers by Nan Levinson "PTSD is going to color everything you write," came the warning from a stepmother of a Marine, a woman who keeps track of such things.  That was in 2005, when post-traumatic stress disorder, a.k.a. PTSD, wasn't getting much attention, but soon it was pretty much all anyone wrote about.  Story upon story about the damage done to our guys in uniform -- drinking, divorce, depression, destitution -- a laundry list of miseries and victimhood.  When it comes to veterans, it seems like the only response we can imagine is to feel sorry for them. . .. Continue A New View of Psychology by Christine Kaine Has Psychology really solved the riddle of the human being, or do we need a new view to fully understand who we are? The so-called science of mental life which we know as Psychology has become one of the most popular subjects of study today. The study of Psychology is said to have developed from the work of two key people on opposites sides of the globe, Wilhelm Wundt and William James, who, in their study of medicine, turned their attention to the effect of the mind on the body and vice versa. This happened relatively recently, in the middle of the Nineteenth Century... . .. Continue Education Computers in Education? Arguments For and Against the Use of Computers in Education by Valdemar Setzer In recent times, critical opinion has appeared concerning the use of computers by children and adolescents, especially in education at the primary and high school levels. This essay begins by citing and summarizing some of the arguments given in favor of the use of computers by children and in education. Then some reasons against them are given, using some non-standard opinions. ..Continue Science The Poverty of the Instructed Organism - Are you and your Cells Programmed? by Stephen L. Talbott For more than two centuries biologists have struggled to find an elusive pathway between the lifelessness of inanimate nature and what they feared as the supernatural, mystical, or vitalistic excess easily induced in weak, sentimental observers by an overly close, personal attention to actual living creatures. As a convinced materialist, the biologist prefers to model the organism as nothing more than an improbably differentiated and well-crafted mass of law-abiding physical substance. (The materials in the human body, as the old saying went, have a market value of about 97 cents — before adjusting for inflation.) Such a mass, of course, is receptive to all those “mechanistic explanations” we ceaselessly encounter in the technical literature. The only problem is that, however intricately assembled, a lump of earth is not very convincing at sustaining a pretense of life. .. Continue Fiction The Cuckoo Man by Philip K. Dick That night at the dinner table he brought it out and set it down beside her plate. Doris stared at it, her hand to her mouth. "My God, what is it?" She looked up at him, bright-eyed. "Well, open it." Doris tore the ribbon and paper from the square package with her sharp nails, her bosom rising and falling. Larry stood watching her as she lifted the lid. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall. "A cuckoo clock!" Doris cried. "A real old cuckoo clock like my mother had." She turned the clock over and over. "Just like my mother had, when Pete was still alive." Her eyes sparkled with tears... Continue Paternostro's Promise by Frank Thomas Smith The sky in the east is tinged with orange as the sun prepares to rise over the Argentine Pampa. Patches of light reach into a beehive set in the garden of an upper-middle class suburban Buenos Aires home, signaling the start of another furiously active day. The first hunters step out onto the hive’s porch and soar off in search of the blossoms opening to receive them. Birds begin to sing softly outside the bedroom window. A shrill scream wrenches Marcos and Alicia Paternostro from sleep – a persisting cry of rage and pain. Continue Anthroposophy Esoteric Lessons for the First Class of the School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum - Lesson Five by Rudolf Steiner    The First Goetheanum  We have seen the changes which take place in a person who encounters the Guardian of the Threshold. And whether he or she is able to approach and come to an understanding of the spiritual world in any form, depends upon understanding the essence of this Guardian. In particular we have seen how what constitutes man's inner self – thinking, feeling, willing – undergoes a substantial transformation in the Guardian of the Threshold's domain. Especially in the last lesson here, it became clear to us how in a certain respect thinking, feeling and willing go different ways upon entering the spiritual world, how they enter into different relationships than those which usually prevail for earthly consciousness... Continue Karmic Relations, Volume II, Lecture 4 by Rudolf Steiner    Henrik Ibsen Studies that are concerned with the karma of human beings must be undertaken with deep earnestness and inwardly assimilated. For it is not the mere knowledge of some particular karmic connection that is important. What is really important is that such studies should quicken the whole of man's nature, enabling him to find his bearings in life. Such studies will never be fruitful if they lead to greater indifference towards human beings than is otherwise the case; they will be fruitful only if they kindle deeper love and understanding than are possible when account is taken merely of the impressions of a single life... Continue The Bald Inquisitor by Shirly Lock Holms (as told to Frank Thomas Smith) No one knows where the woman came from, she just appears one day in the small Swiss town. It's springtime and she is dressed in a light, attractive frock reaching to just below her knees. As she passes the vegetarian restaurant on the corner the people eating lunch in the garden stare at her, then go to out to greet her, hesitantly at first, then in a rush: students carrying notebooks, old people wearing black berets, even the waitresses and the cook with a frying pan in his hand. She smiles warmly at them, then turns left up the hill towards the temple. They follow her. The few people who live in the house halfway between the restaurant and the temple join the throng, as do those who are in its small art gallery. The word spreads quickly and people run from all the houses on and near the hill to follow her. The strange thing is that they all, without being told or having seen her before, recognize her. Continue Poetry Refugee Blues by W. H. Auden Say this city has ten million souls, Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes: Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us. Once we had a country and we thought it fair, Look in the atlas and you'll find it there: We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now. ... Continue Waiting for the Barbarians by Constantine P. Cavafy What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are to arrive today. Why such inaction in the Senate? Why do the Senators sit and pass no laws? Because the barbarians are to arrive today. What laws can the Senators pass any more? When the barbarians come they will make the laws. ...Continue Letters to the Editor YES, IT SEEMS THAT THE LUNCHBOX WAS MEANT TO BE FOUND, and your article to be written, read and enjoyed by people who think the meaning of life is the evolution of a planet of Love. Thank you! ... continue Click on the donkey to browse in the 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 Contact us Authors' Guidelines Archives so we can advise you when the next issue is ready. Many people are switching to Gmail. If you do, please advise us so we can change your subscription address. For back issues, use the issue number, For example: http://southerncrossreview.org/79/index79.html will deliver SCR number 79. WWW Southern Cross Review Tell a friend: Click to join steiner12