Balance

Balance is an important thing
to have in my life.

I need to have a balance between work (any difficult
task) and play. I need to know when it’s time to stop working and enjoy myself,
or when it’s time to stop having fun and get down to business.

As I learn balance, I may want
to make a schedule for myself to see how I spend my time. Helpful tools like
this will guide me toward achieving balance in my life.

Ex-NRA member now proud tree-hugger

Editor, This is in regards to Ron Baker’s letter on Sept. 5.
  At one time, I was a proud member of the NRA. It was a first-class organization.
  Then the unexpected occurred. It was taken over by a bunch of right-wing looney tunes. I, and several other members in this area, along with thousands of members nationwide, bid farewell to the NRA, formed our own gun clubs, or joined others. The NRA today is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the crazies.
  I received letters from them, “Bill Clinton will take your guns – send money” “Ted Kennedy will take your guns,” send money, “the United Nations will take your guns,” send money, etc. It never stops.
  The people running the NRA with these kinds of tactics, reminds me of Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler’s minister of propaganda, who used to say “report a lie often enough and soon people will start believing it.” Well my son, not I.
  Ron, you speak of Americans and the almighty dollar. I tell you now, today’s NRA is nothing more than an organization of professional con artists.
  I wrote a letter to LA Wayne Pierre stating that while Bill Clinton was president for eight years, I did not have one gun taken away, and in fact during his presidency I even bought a few, and I went on to ask him how many of his guns were taken away. That letter was sent a long time ago.
  I’m still waiting for an answer.
  And I always said that if our founding fathers considered the Second Amendment so important, they would have put it at the top of the list and made it the First Amendment instead.
  And, I might add, I’m a tree hugger, I like to think I’m the world’s best. My trees not only take in our carbon dioxide that we exhale, but they in turn emit life saving oxygen. My oak trees drop acorns which feed deer, bear, turkeys, grouse, squirrels, etc.
  They not only nourish, but give protection to the fauna. If you’re a hunter you probably pursue them. My hemlock trees overhang my streams and help keep the water cool, so cold water fish like trout can survive.
  My trees provide cover for our avian bretheren to build nests and raise their young.
  The roots of my trees aerate the soil, and most importantly store water and prevent erosion.
  My home is surrounded by trees, they keep me cool during the hot days of summer and protect me from the cold wind of winter. But nothing lives forever, my diseased and dying trees provide fuel to heat my home with my wood furnace, while millions of other people are sending their money to the foreign despots, for heating oil.
  Yes Ron, I am a tree hugger extraordinaire, and proud of it, and I have 25 acres of them to snuggle up to. I am also a hunter. And of course, we must remember maple syrup, aspirin, which is made from the bark of weeping willows. (I have one in my backyard) and lumber for homes and furniture, charcoal for your barbecue and hundreds of other uses. What kind of world would we have without trees.
 Robert A. Foose, Nuremberg

Better Gas mileage

Weatherly man’s collection may hold key to future

■ Willard Turnerhasaguide published in 1980 that claims to have the secret to creating a 200-mpgcarburetor. ByJOSEPHKRINGER Staff Writer Some may consider Willard Turn­er a pack rat. ScatteredthroughouthisWeather­ly home are all sorts of antiques he has collected throughout his 78 years. But somewhere in his clutter of old car headlights, letters and speeches written by former United States presidents, lies a key to the future. A manual written by Allan Wallce and published in 1980 tells of a car­buretor that— he claims— would allow a car to travel 200 miles on a gallon of gas. Turner said the manu­al was created with the help of the Ford Motor Co. in the 1970s. Tweaking the part At age 25, Turner in 1955 was hired on the spot by the Ford Motor Co. at its plant in Mahwah, N.J. He started out in the commercial department where he “handled everything.”Theplantemployed thousands of people who worked 12­hour days, six days a week. They assembled large-scale pick-up trucks and mass dump trucks. “We made everything there right fromscratch,” Turnersaid.“The assembly line would put out between 45 and 50 vehicles per hour. ” Turner worked the assembly line from one end to the other during his 15 years with Ford. After becoming closefriendswithplantManager Ernie Poley, Turner began helping out in the shop and would go on the road for the company to play the “mediator.” A few years later he found himself stepping up yet another rung on the company ladder. With no college education, but much experience, Turner soon found himself working right alongside the engineers at Ford. “Imodifiedcarburetors,”he explained. Constantly experimenting with the different parts of the machine, Turner says he discovered a secret togettingbettergasmileage. “By cutting the weight off of the ball jack, it increased the mileage. The more you shaved off, the more gas mileage you would get.” The research continued over the years, as did several alterations in order to create a more fuel-efficient carburetor. When it was near com­pletion, Turner said, Ford had its revolutionary pro ject patented. But why, 30 years after its cre­ation, are there still hardly no vehi­cles on the market that can get 50 miles per gallon, let alone 200? According to Turner, not long after the carburetor was patented, the five maj or oil companies at the time got together and purchased all the patent rights to the carburetor and similar pro jects. “These carburetors aren’ t in cars today for the simple reason that the gas companies bought the patents andkeptitfrombeingpubliciz ed,” he said. Numerous phone calls by the Standard-Speaker to ExxonMobil, Tex aco and Shell seeking comment were not returned. A few miles farther In the early 1970s, the Ford plant closed its doors because of a tax dis­pute with the town of Mahwah. “Thousands of people lost their jobs,somewerewillingtorelocate,” Turner said. With a son to take care of, he decided to stay in the area and found work in other places. No matter what kind of other work he took part in, Turner always continued to tamper with car parts, tryingtogetbettergasmileage. “I’ve always been involved in this typeof thing,” hesaid.“Them things are like a challenge to me. ” To this day, Turner does any­thing he can to push his vehicle a few miles farther. With a 1996 GMC Jimmy, which originally got 18 miles to the gallon, Turner bought a $180 part and made some adj ust­ments. Testing the modification was the nex t step, so he drove it to Florida, blasting the air condition­ing alltheway.Hesaidheaveraged 26 miles per gallon for the trip. Similar modifications can bring big savings today, Turner said. “The gas prices today impact everybody. I’ve done everything I could on my cars to get better gas mileage,”hesaid.“Itsoneof those things that really makes me mad withthegascompanies.” A big reason Turner gets so frus­trated with the oil situation is because he says there are many solutions that could fix the prob­lem. “There are things that could be taken off these cars to get better fuel efficiency that would also meet pol­lution standards,”hesaid. Alternative energy sources are another option, he said. One, which is not usually associated with cars, is solar energy. According to Turner, it is possible for a car to run entirely off of solar power. “I don’ t know why they don’ t go to solar, heat could even be generated atnightfromthemoon,” hesaid. Politics also play a role in what kind of changes are made within the industry. “To make a change, it’ s got to go through Congress. Politicians have to act and push to have these things released,” Turnersaid.If thepublic wants to try to get these things out, they should write or put in calls to congressmen and state senators to apply pressure to begin resolving some of these issues, Turner sug­gested. editorial@standardspeaker.com
ELLEN O’CONNELL/ Staff Photographer James Willard Turner, an employee for Ford Motor Co. in Mahwah, N.J., from 1955 to 1970, holds a magazine copy written by Allan Wallace in 1980 showingblueprintsfora200-mpgcarburetor.

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Gypy Moth Program

Attention Weston Villagers

Luzerne County’s Gypsy Moth Task Force will accept information from county residents for possible inclusion in next year’s gypsy moth suppression program starting Aug. 1.
Eligibility in the spraying program is based on egg mass count, oak tress population and number of dwellings on the proposed site.
Residents who believe they are experiencing a gypsy moth problem are asked to call the Environmental Special Projects Office at 331-7052, 331-7053 or 331-7054 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Residences wishing to have their properties considered for the 2009 Gypsy Moth Suppression Program call between weekdays starting Aug. 1, through Aug. 18.. This program is being conducted for gypsy moths only. Pests such as elm span worm, fall webwormor tent catepillars are not included.

When doctors breach the public trust

LETTE RS TO THE EDITO R When doctors breach the public trust Editor, If you teach a rat to nego­tiate a maze to get its food you don’t get a new and improved ethical or moral rat, you just get an educated rat. Recent doings at the Luzerne County Court­house indicate that if that same rat also successfully negotiates the maze of law school and bar exams, the result is still the same, so I can understand the concern Dr. Greco has about the rat ethos negatively affecting the state of medicine. But since the American Rat Association is an equal opportunity weed; it chal­lenges the wheat of medi­cine as severely as it does law and most other human endeavors. In his Oct. 2004 newsletter under the headline “Public Enemy No. 1,” Dr. Julian Whitaker in part has this to say about conventional med­icine: “Conventional medi­cine is the most dangerous industry in the world.” In an excellent analysis of the dangers of conventional medicine intervention, Gary Null Ph.D. and col­leagues show that adverse drug reactions, medical errorsandotherdoctor­induced events are the lead­ing cause of death in this country, responsible for 783,936 fatalities every year. Why don’t we recognize this? This astounding figure, meticulously researched and documented, outpaces heart disease (pegged as our number one killer) by almost 100,000 deaths per year and cancer by 200,000. It means that every single day, more than 2,000 deaths are caused by the profession to which we entrust our health. Every decade, more Americans are killed by conventional medical prac­tices than have died in all the wars our country has ever fought. Dr. Greco, it seems, has sufficient weed­ing in his own garden to do before he gains enough credibility to be in a posi­tion to advise alternate medicine on the disposition oftheirs. While the weeds of medi­cine pay lip service to the tenets of science, in prac­tice what they consider to be “unscientific” is any­thing that actually or poten­tially negatively impacts them financially. Prescrib­ing statin drugs and moni­toring those who take them is a multi-billion dollar cash cow for both doctors and drug companies who are of the “cholesterol is bad” reli­gion. Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling was not exactly a scientific lightweight. A successor of his has written a book titled “Stop Ameri­ca’s No. 1 Killer!,” the prem­ise of which is that athero­sclerosis is actually scurvy of the arteries that can suc­cessfully be reversed with high doses of vitamin C. Though there are 50 pages of scientific references in this 320 page book in sup­port of his thesis, I don’t think Barnes & Noble has to worry about being over run by doctors abandoning the very lucrative “cholesterol is bad” religion in favor of exponentially cheaper orthomolecular vitamin C therapy as outlined in Dr. Levy’s book. Statin drugs have a list of insidious side­effects, like actually weak­ening the heart because of CoQ10 depletion, memory loss and muscle weakness, but not satisfied with the billions they get from work­ing this scam on adults, drug companies want to expand their horizons and start chemically abusing children as young as 8 years old. While the abuses of the legal profession in the pur­suit of individualmalprac­tice awards are real, their sins of omission in not pur­suing thesystemicmalprac­tice drug companies, allo­pathic doctors and amalgam placing dentists engage in is a greater breach of social trust. Martin Husovich, WhiteHaven

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The F…..it’s

This morning I a woke and had this thought in my head about how I handle
things that I don’t like to do, like choirs, uncomfortable situations,
and plain work. Here is what I came up with , it’s probably not unique .
But it makes sense to me. Write and let me know what you think.
George, Dad, PapaG

The f..it’s

When I go to start a Project I’m not in favor of doing I
always go though certain reactions .I will call them my f……..it’s

1. I fuss over it trying not to do it.
2. When I start doing it I fight with it and everyone
   around me about it.
3. I fear it, that it will fail or it will not be perfect.
4. I fart around it sometimes procrastinating or wasting
   time.
5. Finally I get to where I see that all that trouble I
   put myself though is getting me nowhere and I start to
   finish it.

Moral:
Don’t take so long at all the reactions. Feel them and
acknowledge them and forge on.
George Hasker©

Protecting your computers

I’m going to add some sites starting with Yahoo’s site to learn how to protect computers of our members. The site is : http://antispam.yahoo.com/virustips .

VIRUS TIPS

Antivirus software does 99%. Here’s how to handle the
other 1%.

You can minimize your exposure to viruses by following these
simple guidelines*:

Never send, click, open, save, or
run email attachments that you weren’t expecting. (Be particularly
cautious of executable files, which end with the extensions .exe, .com, .vbs,
.lnk, .pif, .scr, .bat.)

Back up important files on your
computer, just in case originals become corrupted.

If you receive an email attachment
from someone you don’t trust, delete the message immediately without opening the
attachment. If you know and trust the sender, email the person to verify
that they meant to send the attachment.

Make sure any attachments you send
are virus-free. Fortunately, Yahoo! Mail automatically scans your
outgoing attachments for viruses. Including a description of any attachment you
send in the body of your message will let the recipients know the email and the
attachments are from you.

* Remember, not all viruses can be detected and cleaned.
There’s a risk involved whenever you download email attachments to your computer
or send email attachments to others. As stated in our Terms of Service, neither
Yahoo! nor its licensors are responsible for any damages caused by your decision
to download email

CLEANING

Hey, keep it clean! — double protection with free virus
cleaning.

With Yahoo! Mail you’re doubly safe. We not only automatically scan your incoming and outgoing email attachments
(using Norton AntiVirus software), we also clean infected attachments whenever
possible.*

If we find a known virus, we’ll remove it from the
attachment and give you clear instructions on what to do next.

* Remember, not all viruses can be detected and cleaned.
There’s a risk involved whenever you download email attachments to your computer
or send email attachments to others. As stated in our Terms of Service, neither
Yahoo! nor its licensors are responsible for any damages caused by your decision
to download email attachments.

SCANNING

Virus? Worms? Trojans? Them’s fightin’ words.

A malicious virus can bring your computer to a standstill
(or worse). Much worse. That’s why Yahoo! is constantly on the lookout for new
viruses and ways to stop them.*

Yahoo! Mail automatically scans all incoming and outgoing
email attachments for known viruses. We use industry-leading Norton AntiVirus
software, so you don’t have to do a thing. Download the attachment and wait for
that reassuring message “No Virus Threat Detected.” If a virus is detected, it
will be cleaned if possible, and you’ll be given further
instructions.

* Remember, not all viruses can be detected and cleaned.
There’s a risk involved whenever you download email attachments to your computer
or send email attachments to others. As stated in our Terms of Service, neither
Yahoo! nor its licensors are responsible for any damages caused by your decision
to download email attachments.

I know we are little lax about add things to our blog, but it’s because we are all so busy. For now stay safe and happy.
George.

Febuary 2008

I just thought I would start putting some new posts on the site , simply because noone else wants too. I’ll try to find new things on the web for us to look at in our share time.
new site:

http://www.firebrand.com/watch/VLKSWGN-GENE-60/225

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Today’s thought from Hazelden

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to someone else.
– Will Rogers

We laugh when others do something silly. We’re amused when something funny happens to them. But if the same happens to us and people laugh, we might give them the evil eye.

Yet, when others laugh, it can free us. It frees us to see the world through new eyes. Likewise, when we laugh at ourselves, we’re free to see ourselves with new eyes. Instead of trying to be perfect, we accept we’re human. To laugh at ourselves is to accept ourselves. There’s no room for shame when we laugh. We enjoy ourselves just as we are. Can I accept the fact I’m human and I have limits?

Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, when I refuse to accept that I’m only human, be gentle with me. I know that, when I least expect it, you will remind me that I’m only human.

Action for the Day

I will share with a friend one or two stories about funny mistakes I’ve made.

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Further you wisdom

An Introduction to Platonic Philosophy*

©Pierre Grimes Ph.D.

Man is a curious creature. There appears to be nothng he will not try if it offers the slightest chance of overcoming his sense of alienation. He will go to war, use drugs, get married, and even play golf. Even if it has only the slimmest chance of ending his sense of futility, he will gamble on it. The sense of being incomplete has driven many into psychotherapy, it can lead one to search the heavens for some clue to one’s destiny, it can awaken a need to meditate in Zen, it can draw one into the priesthood or to coaching little league, and for some it can motivate them to exchange their talent and life’s energies to enrich a corporation in return for a vague promise of financial gain and, possibly, retirement. But, while nearly anything will be tried, there is one thing that nearly everyone rules out, something that they are sure will never work and that is relying upon one’s own reason to lead to resolvement of their conflicts and their dissatisfaction with life. For, life is lived through the mind, conflicts are only resolved through the mind, and through that solution the unity of life and the mind is recognized. The realization of the profound unity of our existence is the foundation for a deeper understanding of the mystery of our existence. The way to that realization and understanding is the ancient path of philosophy.

However, the idea of philosophy most people are acquainted with is derived from a European tradition that is hostile, or indifferent, to spiritual goals and metaphysics. Philosophy in the European tradition is an attempt to discover a place for knowledge in history, language, science, and even common sense but not in the quest to know thyself. Those that have turned to the most profound of Eastern philosophies have discovered in their very quest for the Self that reason and intellect do not play a primary role there either. In our own educational institutions the idea of pursuing a philosophy that is centered around the quest for wisdom would be regarded by most as not only unscientific but irrelevant if not heretical to the direction of contemporary thought and philosophy. It has been argued by some that in our society that there is a pervasive skepticism and distrust of reason; clearly, it is not that reason has failed, for the truth is that we have ignored our past, not rejected it; our culture has not kept alive the profound traditions of our past. Thus, the claim that philosophy can reach meaning and can explain the dynamics of mind is something most people would find hard to understand.

The ancient Greeks, in contrast with European tradition, had cultivated a philosophy and traditions that centered around the quest for wisdom that had granted them profound spiritual goals. An adaptation of this philosophy has disclosed that we are in the grip of a strange kind of problem, one that we hadn’t suspected we have. It has been demonstrated that any false belief about oneself and the nature of reality has sufficient force to block one from the attainment of one’s highest aspirations and most meaningful goals. A further difficulty: They are virtually invisible to the believer. Since they are not identified by the believer as something they themselves believe, they cannot recall it nor reflect upon it. Curiously, then, these false beliefs are accepted as intuitively certain yet are not recognized as being believed by the believer. Clearly, this is the worst of ignorance, to believe one is intelligent and good enough without realizing the depth of our ignorance and just how far we have slipped from realizing our ideals; while the need for understanding oneself and reality is desperate, we remain indifferent to our plight.

It might be asked, if we are ignorant, how can philosophy offer an approach to the problem of ignorance? The practice of philosophy starts with ignorance, or not knowing, and charts a journey through the intellectual domain to right opinion to understanding and to knowledge or wisdom; it moves as if by a flight of stairs, until one reaches that perfect learning called wisdom. Being ignorant is the state of mind when one’s false beliefs about oneself and reality block one’s own development. It has been demonstrated that since these false beliefs are irreconcilable with one’s highest goals and aspirations that they are the inevitable cause of our failures and dissillusionment with our lives. When you learn the right opinion you have the right answer without understanding the reasons why it is a right opinion. The way to discover these reasons is, of course, the excercise of reason. Again, someone may ask what kind of reasoning and practice is this that can eliminate those beliefs that you never knew you believed?

Well, reason is what it is, whenever the conditions allow it to be, then it naturally emerges. The way reason functions in philosophy is no different than the way it functions in the sciences. Consider, do we not say that reason allows us to discover the causes of the patterns we observe? The patterns can be in our behavior, in our dreams, or into the sub-atomic world of quarks and superstrings. When we search into the causes of the patterns discovered in the heavens, it is called cosmology; when it is into the causes of our believing false beliefs, into the processes of reaching understanding, and into the nature of mind, it is called philosophy. If what is found to lie at the root of man’s irrational behavior are false beliefs, then the discipline that identifies and resolves these false beliefs through the exercise of understanding is what should be cultivated. The struggle to reach understanding develops the understanding; the struggle to get out of problems is the cultivation of understanding.

Surely, now, if this is true there should be a way to lead another to an exploration of their particular problem. There should be a way to find the false beliefs that underlie each problem. Each problem has its own unique roots but since the general form of all problems is much the same, then, a set of questions should be designed to serve this need. Indeed, a set of questions has been developed to meet this very need. These questions have introduced people into self reflection and many people to the art of delivering oneself of false beliefs. They were designed to be part of a program to teach this art. It was called “A Guide For Your Reflections: A Journey into Philosophical Midiwifery” and we have adapted them for your reflections. These questions will bring to the surface the nature of a person’s problem, either your own problem or someone you might care to share them with. It does take some skill to fully understand the material brought up by the questions, but when they are reflected upon again and again, the mind is brought to see distinctions and connections in the material and that network of connections found in the material becomes the basis of a new understanding of oneself and reality. It is like the polishing of a gem – it can gain luster by repeated polishing. Let us start, then, with the signs of a problem in PART II in the next issue of New Persepctives.

The art that assists men in bringing to birth their ideas was called by Socrates, Philosophical Midiwifery. Pierre Grimes has adapted this Socratic art and applied it to a new member in the class of belief that we call the pathologos. And, you, by practicing this method are becoming philosophical yourself. Philosophy does go beyond this level of belief and passes into the realm of understanding and knowledge, but to discuss that aspect of this ancient art of Philosophical Midiwifery will require another article. Those who can pass through these stages can be called philosophical midwifes and they become members of a new profession whose goal is to demonstrate that reason and understanding can free men from their own oppressive ignorance. Those who can participate in this activity become a part of a profound tradition that was interrupted when Emperor Justinian prohibited the teaching of philosophy and closed Plato’s Academy in 529 A.D.

*Reprinted with permission from New Perspectives, July 1994 and Nov/Dec 1994.

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