30 September 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 141. (Dittmer 2006): 151 Quick Ideas to Manage Your Time

Letter from Lhasa, number 141. (Dittmer 2006): 151 Quick Ideas to Manage Your Time

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Dittmer, R. E., 151 Quick Ideas to Manage Your Time, Career Press, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA, 2006.

(Dittmer 2006).

Robert E. Dittmer

151 ideas are decidedly too many. However, this book has a decisive advantage. You read the table of contents and you find there the full list of the 151 ideas. If someone is too cryptic, it perhaps does not deserve your attention and your efforts. This means that, in a few minutes, you may have all the valuable ideas you’ll find listed there.

For well managing your time you should, perhaps, well manage the art of “immediately” and the art of “mañana” [tomorrow], and, obviously, the art of properly combining “immediately” and “mañana”. The implementing recipe?! I have not to write a book on that. Invent it by yourself!

Dittmer, R. E., 151 Quick Ideas to Manage Your Time, Career Press, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA, 2006.

Letter from Lhasa, number 140. (Galler 1972): Soviet Prison Camp Speech

Letter from Lhasa, number 140. (Galler 1972): Soviet Prison Camp Speech

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Galler, M., and H. E. Marquess, Soviet Prison Camp Speech. A Survivor's Glossary, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1972.

(Galler 1972).

Meyer Galler,

Harlan E. Marquess

It is a very interesting glossary. The work is in English. However, it is useless to read it, if one does not have some basics of Russian. At least, one needs to be able to decipher and pronounce the Russian words (also phrases, sentences or expressions) of the book, obviously written in Cyrillic alphabet.

The book is also a very useful insight into Soviet life.

The introduction deals with different aspects of the specificity but also permeability, and intersection and interconnection, of languages and jargons.

Galler, M., and H. E. Marquess, Soviet Prison Camp Speech. A Survivor's Glossary, The Un iversity of Wisconsin Press, 1972.

10 September 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 139. (O'Mara 1999): Which way to the Vomitorium?

Letter from Lhasa, number 139. (O'Mara 1999): Which way to the Vomitorium?

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

O'Mara, L., Which way to the Vomitorium? Vernacular Latin for All Occasions, Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin Press, New York, NY, USA, 1999.

(O'Mara 1999).

Lesley O'Mara

The subtitle explains what is. For some hours of enjoyment. You may read it indifferently from the first to the last sentence or from the last to the first. ...Not only for enjoyment... ...It is a good book for learning too, ...learning Latin, naturally!

Time to time, there are Latin language misspellings. It may be a good exercise to find them.

O'Mara, L., Which way to the Vomitorium? Vernacular Latin for All Occasions, Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin Press, New York, NY, USA, 1999.

Letter from Lhasa, number 138. (Mount 2006): Amo, Amas, Amat... and all that

Letter from Lhasa, number 138. (Mount 2006): Amo, Amas, Amat... and all that

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Mount, H., Amo, Amas, Amat... and all that. How to become a Latin Lover, Short Books, London, UK, 2006.

(Mount 2006).

Harry Mount

Perhaps, the right expression should have been Latin's Lover and not Latin Lover. It is a book about Latin. It is not about love.

De gustibus non est disputandum. In my opinion, it is a book to be read, better to be studied, from the last chapter to the first one. Quod erat demonstrandum.

...Although the grammar be not sufficiently concentrated. So, perhaps, it is a book to be read very fast for the interesting information it provides, while taking notes of the parts, tables frequently, needing to be studied, alias memorised.

Mount, H., Amo, Amas, Amat... and all that. How to become a Latin Lover, Short Books, London, UK, 2006.

09 September 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 137. (Bost 2005): The Hurried Woman Syndrome

Letter from Lhasa, number 137. (Bost 2005): The Hurried Woman Syndrome

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Bost, B. W., The Hurried Woman Syndrome. A Seven Step Program to Conquer Fatigue, Control Weight, and Restore Passion to Your Relationship, McGraw Hill, 2005.

(Bost 2005).

Brent W. Bost

Naturally, you have to be a woman for profiting from this magic book. Seven is its magic number, seven steps.

According the foreword, women are twice more depressed than men. Or, better, the number of depressed women is twice the number of depressed men.

Chromic stress is the syndrome: “Fatigue is the most common feature of Hurried Woman Syndrome, and it’s usually the first sign of it. However, a common variant is to be overly anxious instead.”.

Do not worry! There is the magic seven step plan of this book.

I. Create balance in your body.

Naturally, the recipe of this this Americanish book is too complicated. ...Not only complicated... Perhaps, rice and water would be too advantageous not only for your body but also for your pocket. ...Something, only something!, more if it is too radical for your survival. However, in this field, easier and cheaper is the best also for your health. Empty your refrigerator. Switch its electric power off. Unplug it. Stop to use it. Avoid shops, markets and supermarket. Follow your survival instinct but not your usual insane psychological desire of food. And you do not need a gym for some physical exercise. Anyway, first, stop your maniacal dependence from food and liquids.

II. Find the right caloric balance.

Again, too Americanish, too complicated. Boiled rice and tap water may be sufficient. Diets and “caloric studies” do not remove your fixation with food and drinks.

III. Exercise. No matter what.

Overall meditation and other mental exercises for moving your personality and body from “narcotic”-food and -drinks to freedom from such manias. Idem for “exercise programs”.

If you keep a food diary and you think you have to become an expert on calories, you keep your fixation on food and drinks.

IV. Rekindle the fire.

What a long recipe you'll find, in this book, also about sex! ...Common sense... May be you have not interest in it, or your partner(s) have not anymore ...with you. You may change yourself. You may change him/them with another one or other ones. You may change both. You may go on without worrying. Or you already have some current solution. ...Or whatever.

V. Identify your priorities and set reasonable limits.

Actually, if you want to break a self-destroying course of life, you have to simplify and to be radical, extremist. If you are “reasonable”, you simulate a change without actually changing anything.

VI. Get the best of stress.

Do immediately what is essential. And delete whatever other duty.

VII. Organize your world.

Or perhaps do not care “to organize”. Just suppress what is not essential. Also in expenditures.

Why to read this kind of books? Only if they are free, if you do not have to pay for them, ...and, actually, without wasting time for really reading them. Just, browse them, eventually. If there is something you need, your eyes surely will catch it.

Also to follow advices, too many advices, may make you more stressed, more hurried. ...The stress, the hurry, of fighting against hurry, against stress.

Bost, B. W., The Hurried Woman Syndrome. A Seven Step Program to Conquer Fatigue, Control Weight, and Restore Passion to Your Relationship, McGraw Hill, 2005.

Letter from Lhasa, number 136. (Bell 2006): Cold Terror

Letter from Lhasa, number 136. (Bell 2006): Cold Terror

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Bell, S., Cold Terror. How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism around the World, John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., Canada, 2006.

(Bell 2006).

Stewart Bell

This book is, objectively, a classical operation of secret police bureaux. News or supposed news are assembled, with the usual technique of conspiracy theorists, for unmasking, demonstrating and denouncing some hypothetical political weakness relatively to growing universal terrorist plots.

Actually, in Canada, all insane and criminal indigenous and foreigner subjects are recruited and used from Canadian secret police bureaux, eventually in coordination with foreign secret police bureaux, for government/State-organised insanities and crimes. I am a direct witness of these insanities, crimes and idiocies. They can tell these tales (the kind of “tales” there are in (Bell 2006)) to their idiotic subjects and to other naive subjects, for some “government”/State dirty goal. However, they remain tales for dirty purposes. ...Objectively... I do not know the author and he may be, personally, the best chap of the world. Nevertheless, these kinds of “intellectual” operations are what they are.

It is a sociological law. If you create a police, it needs to create criminals. If you create anti-terrorism agencies, they need to create terrorism. If you create secret police bureaux, they need to invent growing conspiracies. If you create armies the need to invent wars, eventually with connected narcotics’ traffics how frequently happened and it is happening (see Afghanistan but also Iraqi areas). Only in this way, they can claim growing funds and absolute impunity for their insanities and crimes.

Psychopathic and criminal subjects happily interact with the psychopaths and criminals of these “government”/State corps and bureaux. Also of this I am direct witness and analyst. Canadians, in Canada and around the world, seem particularly eager to cooperate with the crimes and insanities of Canadian and other “governments”’ secret police bureaux. And they become growingly insane and furious, when they fail. I have directly verified also that. A decided propensity to criminality and insanity mixes with an absolute idiocy. ...Such is reality!!!

(Bell 2006) sells the tale of a Canadian government unaware of international terrorist threats growing under its nose. ...Tales for other purposes...

Bell, S., Cold Terror. How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism around the World, John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., Canada, 2006.

08 September 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 135. (Hoffman 2007): The Way of Splendor

Letter from Lhasa, number 135. (Hoffman 2007): The Way of Splendor

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Hoffman, E., The Way of Splendor. Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

(Hoffman 2007).

Edward Hoffman

This book shows the multiple facets of Kabbalah, from self-cultivation and -elevation to advanced psychological techniques. There is no need to eventually borrow from other traditions what already belonged to Jewish practices and research since innumerable time.

Not casually, devekut (דְּבֵקוּת), cleaving, cleaving to God, is a key concept and practice in Judaism.

Hoffman, E., The Way of Splendor. Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

Letter from Lhasa, number 134. (Prigogine 2003): Is Future Given?

Letter from Lhasa, number 134. (Prigogine 2003): Is Future Given?

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Prigogine, I., Is Future Given?, World Scientific, 2003.

(Prigogine 2003).

Ilya Prigogine

This is one of the usual commercial books built around short essays and other materials of the personage Prigogine. However, the Prigogine materials are always interesting and useful.

His first essays here, Is Future Given? Changes in Our Description of Nature, is a Prigogine's lecture in Athens, on 26 May 2000. In it, he drives you to the new world, if you already did not know it, of non-integrable systems. It is a probabilistic world, different from the classical mechanics' one.

His second essay, with I. Antoniou, Laws of Nature and Time Symmetry Breaking, deals with irreversibility. In it, the authors drive the readers from a deterministic world to a probabilistic one, from being to becoming. It is useless to deal with it without some deep mathematical understanding in the required fields. Just for reading the conclusions... A probabilistic world is not better than a deterministic one. They are only two different dimensions, not even radically alternative. They are generally combined. Although, for formally dealing with a probabilistic world, one needs additional and different instruments sometimes to be invented or not yet fully available to the scientists’ world. Probability, in these fields, is inevitably an obliged exemplification of possible realities. Prigogine and similar authors have opened a door. Other tools, new languages, different from the ones used from them, would be necessary for fully dealing with a world where everything becomes possible.

Time in Non-equilibrium Physics is a discussion of Prigogine with Theodore Christidis. It is about the mystery of the distinction of earlier and later. Actually, it is not a mystery for common sense. However, in science, it is.

Time in the Epistemology of Complexity is a discussion of Prigogine with Ioannis Zisis. Prigogine wants again to appear as a philosopher, what certainly he is but not because he quotes Parmenides and Heraclitus. Far from equilibrium => bifurcations => appearing of newness: the arrow of time is this irreversible succession of events. It is interesting the underlying that gravitation is what disturbs equilibrium, what keeps far from equilibrium.

Life and the Internet is a discussion of Prigogine with Maria Adamidou. “How can there be order out of chaos” is a classic of the Prigogine research. Here there are only a few remarks.

There is another couple of pieces of writing.

If you want something “heavier” (by the same Prigogine), there is on internet, perhaps even free if you can find it.

Prigogine, I., Is Future Given?, World Scientific, 2003.