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In Voices from the Past, a daring group of five independent novels, acclaimed author Paul Alexander Bartlett accomplishes a tour de force of historical fiction, allowing the reader to enter for the first time into the private worlds of five remarkable people: Sappho of Lesbos, the famous Greek poet; Jesus; Leonardo da Vinci; Shakespeare; and Abraham Lincoln. Each novel appears here in its entirety within a single unique volume of 644 pages beautifully illustrated by the author-artist....

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PREFACE by Steven James Bartlett xiii SAPPHO’S JOURNAL FOREWORD by Willis Barnstone 3 SAPPHO’S JOURNAL 5 CHRIST’S JOURNAL 155 LEONARDO DA VINCI’S JOURNAL 221 SHAKESPEARE’S JOURNAL 343 LINCOLN’S JOURNAL 511 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 621 COLOPHON 625...

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In Sappho’s Journal, the author brings the famous Greek poet Sappho back to life in a finely crafted novel that reveals her sense of beauty, her loves, her reflections, her inner world. Based on a careful study of ancient Greece and Sappho’s surviving fragments of poetry, Bartlett recreates Sappho in a lyrical account of the life, passion, fears, and faith of this remarkable woman whose intimate journal takes us back to 642 B.C. The book includes a Foreword by the well-known Sappho scholar and translator Willis Barnstone....

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FOREWORD by Willis Barnstone xi PREFACE by Steven James Bartlett xiii SAPPHO’S JOURNAL 1 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 151 COLOPHON 153

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Where Men and Gods Fear to Tread lays out the intertwined nature of all major world religions and even shows the religion from which they are all descended (the Urreligion). It also incorporates discussion of every major world's religions basic practices, philosophies, and shortcomings....

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The moment that you have finished reading this book, you will be able to know whether the years just ahead are good or bad for you, and how long this season will last. You will be able thus to act accordingly: if there is a storm on the horizon, you will be able to take shelter in time; if sunny days loom ahead, you will take advantage before the opportunity pass. The seasons of our lives alternate from good to bad ones - and vise versa - according to a certain pattern, which George Kouloukis, a Greek attorney-at-law, explains in this book, based on the way the good and bad seasons have alternated in the lives of lots of famous men and women, whose the biographies he cites in the book. This knowledge radically transforms the way we all live today, and helps us to live a much better life....

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- Chapter 1. The Astonishing Discovery - Chapter 2. Ludwig van Beethoven - Chapter 3. Giuseppe Verdi - Chapter 4. Pablo Picasso - Chapter 5. Napoléon I - Chapter 6. Victor Hugo - Chapter 7. Winston Churchill - Chapter 8. The Complete Picture - Chapter 9. The Advantages - Chapter 10. Mikhail Gorbachev - Chapter 11. Nelson Mandela - Chapter 12. Christopher Columbus - Chapter 13. King Henry VIII of England - Chapter 14. Margaret Thatcher - Chapter 15. Queen Elizabeth I of England - Chapter 16. Aristotle Onassis - Chapter 17. John Glenn - Chapter 18. Elizabeth Taylor - Chapter 19. Maria Callas - Chapter 20. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis - Chapter 21. The Dalai Lama of Tibet - Chapter 22. Jimmy Carter - Chapter 23. Sarah Bernhardt - Chapter 24. Auguste Rodin - Chapter 25. Josephine, Napoléon I’s Wife - Chapter 26. The Confirmation - Chapter 27. The Practical Use - END NOTES - Sources...

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Poetry collection featuring poems of empathy

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Introduction 9 Empathy Rising 11 When First, My Love, We Meet 13 Darkness and Light 14 For Debi, My Bride 15 Dave 16 The Black Girl to the Jehovah's Witness 17 Listen 18 Then and Now 19 Chance Reunion 20 Resurrection 21 A Memory 22 Eulogy for us, because 23 Father 24 The Idealist Who Wouldn’t Let Go 25 Youth’s Revenge 27 The Masquerade 28 Baby Grand Piano 29 Faces 31 New Glasses 33 Passing By 35 The Waiter 37 Hopelessly Lost 38 Last Dream 40 To One Who Has Deemed Me an Enemy 43 The Businessman 44 The Janitor 45 Shy Attack 46 The Fisherman Views Creation 48 The Drunkard Views Creation 49 Street Scene 50 Still Life 52 Numbers 53 Words 54 Janet 56 Richard Bradley 57 Weather-Beaten and Truth-Seasoned 58 What to Say to the Next Messiah on Your Doorstep or TV 60 Moses 61 The Murderer’s Confession 63 For Us (With Love) 65 Prayer of the Good Consumer 67 Evergreen 69 The Rape of a Dream 71 Yours to Use If You Choose 73 Flimsy Excuses 74 The Hunters 77 Melrose Minnesota 78 Song of the Last Animal 80 To His Former Psychologist 82 To His Future Psychologist 85 Joe “the grinner” (megalomaniac in...

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The story of how the founder of the Famous Amos Cookie Company lost everything, including his name----and turned adversity into opportunity. This revealing book chronicles Wally's loss of the cookie empire that he had built, to the opening of The Uncle Noname Cookie Company, and his journey towards learning how to turn lemons into lemonade. Wally imparts his belief that crises can turn out to be glorious benefits if we draw on universal wisdom to handle them -- that challenges are simply part of every human being's journey; they are valuable catalysts for our personal growth....

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THE period covered by the inception, the publication, and the completion of the Sacred Books of the East exactly coincides with the thirty-four years that I have spent in Oxford. When I matriculated, Professor Max Muller, the editor of the series, was about to begin work on the first volume, which appeared while I was still an undergraduate. I lost no time in making his acquaintance, for it was the influence of one of his works that had stimulated me to begin under Professor Benfey the study of Sanskrit at the University of Gbttingen, when I left school nearly two years before. During my undergraduate days and later lowed much to Professor Max Muller's advice and encouragement in regard to my studies, which have ever since followed, as far as Sanskrit is concerned, much the same lines as his. I consequently always took a lively interest in the Sacred Books edited by him as they successively appeared during the course of a quarter of a century, no fewer than thirty-six volumes having a more or less direct bearing on my own work, and fourteen of the translators being personally known to me. Professor Max Mi.iller lived to see all...

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Habeltt sua lata libelli-not only after they have been published, but sometimes even before they are printed. It was in the spring of 1894 that the late Professor Max Muller first suggested to me that I should compile a General Index of the names and subject-matter for the complete series of the Sacred Books of the East. Such an Index, he thought, would be a great help to all students of the Sacred Books of tile East, and of the greatest value for the study of the history of religions....

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Collections of original poetry in the mainstream European tradition.

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Cool Dawn Light The End Of History Under Clumps Of Pine What To Be? White Cloud Drifts Beyond the City The Real Makers Into Quiet Air Sleeping, Waking Listening In The Clearing Empty Mirror Form Is Void Just As It Is Dawn World Nothing There Washing All Grass Mountain Zen Trust In The Heart In The Space Inside Direct Pointing Night Magic Not Our Place Backwater Old-Time Sages Logic, Compassion Power Failure Among Dark Leaves Seen/Unseen No Transmission The Guarantee Gazing At The Pattern Still Clinging Go With The Fixity No Fuss The Empty Stream Phantom Grass Voice Let Go Not Natural Always In The Realm Of The Spirit At That Moment Empty Shores A Deeper Mood Credo Black City Echoes It Doesn’t Come From Nowhere Tiny Spaces Are Gigantic The Trackless Track Values In The Grass Dawn, Bamboo, Freedom Dolphin Simple Firelight Forces Inside Plenty Of Time Little Knots Nature Keeps Writing On The Rock-Face Don’t Believe No Ought In Nature Lost Empires Beautiful Freedom, Shining Hills World Of Forces A Concert We Were There, Wherever There Was Leaf-Fall Earth In Her Elements Do...

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A new collection of the author's original poetry.

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Burning:1 Burning 2 Un-Meaning Answering Stones Architectures No Track One Leaf Direction The Seas It Doesn’t Last Tangled History, Futures Programme Singing In The Silence Human Gatherers Of Light Powerless Directions Mind Through You I See Make Riding The Earth Orbits The Silent Fire Arrow-flights Turnover Beyond Specifics Night Music Experience Not By Naming Getting There Looking Back One Pure Mindless Flow Why We Are Here Between Layers All That Freedom Go Through Later The Same River Chinese Lanterns Angular Branching Fir The Force Between Not An Inch Brush Cityscape ‘Master of Heights And Distance’ Transparent Sideways On Revealing Mind All One Mind-Dance Neither/Nor Moving Earth The Secret Earthshine Good And Empty Sacred Purposeless Ease Quieter Siva On The Wall Classics Heritage Flotsam Stone Age Unreal City Deep Alba White Silk All Movement Fragile Give, Resist Love The Peace of Dark Getting Naked Star-Bound Chinese Wisdom: Very Ancient Thousands Flaw Elsewhere Power Not Alone Index of First Lines...

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Martin Luther goes through the seven sacraments of the medieval Catholic Church with his interpretation of the Bible. He teaches his opinions on the different pratices taken place within the Catholic Church and what they should or do represent. The book is seemingly set in an "angry tone" as this was the first time he accused the pope of being the Antichrist. Luther's book was further published in German by his opponent Franciscan Thomas Murner, in hopes that he would make people aware of the foolishness of supporting Luther....

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“Rise up then, you popish flatterers, one and all! Get busy and defend yourselves against the charges of impiety, tyranny, and lèse-majesté against the gospel, and of the crime of slandering your brethren. You decry as heretics those who refuse to contravene such plain and powerful words of Scripture in order to acknowledge the mere dreams of your brains! If any are to be called heretics and schismatics, it is not the Bohemians or the Greeks,47 for they take their stand upon the Gospels. It is you Romans who are the heretics and godless schismatics, for you presume upon your figments alone against the clear Scriptures of God. Wash yourself of that, men!”...

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This book was developed from a paper I wrote for Russian and Baltic country psychologists. They had come to Italy to the Institute in Ascoli Piceno, which is a member of the Sophia University of Rome, to participate in a seminar on Sophia- Art and Cosmo-Art. The same paper was expanded and presented at the Second Ulyssiads of the Sophia University of Rome, organized by the Institute in Tempio Pausania and held in Alghero, Sardinia, in the summer of 2005. This book is a synthesis of my ideas, which include Sophia-Analysis, Sophia-Art, Cosmo-Art and Existential Personalistic Anthropology. Reading it can be useful to anyone who wants to discover new ways of thinking and acting, and who wants to transform him or herself as well as human history....

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Taking an unusual approach to its topic, “Principles of Anarchism” applies classical logic and deductive reasoning to the subject of human interactions and rights. Beginning with the assumption that all human beings are equal, a concept which is termed the human equality axiom, the author goes on to draw a number of conclusions from this postulate in the manner of a Euclidean proof. These include the surprising contention that no such thing as human rights can exist, the assertion that anarchism is essentially intellectual rather than activist, and the uncomfortable suggestion that historical developments such as cities and industries are harmful to the human race rather than helpful. More centrally, though, the pamphlet argues very simply that any form of authority or government is logically incompatible with the existence of humanity. And it is the implications of this theory, rejection of which requires rejection of the equality axiom as well, which make the argument offered both novel and exceptionally relevant....

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One Man. Ten days. No talking. One Centre. 102 meditators. No eye-contact. One Course. 105 hours of meditation. No gestures. One Law. One Truth. One Universe. This story isn't about me, it's about you. It may read as if it's about me, but if you've ever sought the Truth, then it's about you too. Surrender; it's the only way to win the war, the one being fought within, deep down in the trenches of your mind. Wherever that may be . . . Can I do it? And if so, what then?...

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Dialogue format between three great philosophers. Two German and one Buddhist monk from 200 AD India.

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Nāgārjuna talks directly to Martin Heidegger. Martin, you had Parmenides and impossibility of thinking of non-Being. Supposedly, he wrote: “neither could you know what is not nor could you declare it”. Indeed, the rest of the western philosophical history is: Plato’s dialogue the Sophist and stranger’s position about non-Being and the simple discussion of the semantics of non-Being; or Hegel’s view of non-Being in the Science of Logic which is only thought in the general context of progress of the methodology of the “circles of circles”. No wonder your remarks that “nothing nothings” (Das Nichts nichtet) is often thought of as your confusions. You started off with a chair with only one leg and that was unbalanced – this is the western approach which you had to deal with metaphysically. You got stuck too....

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Dramatis personas: Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) owner of the ‘Die Hütte’. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) Archaya Nagarjuna 2-3th century AD Buddhist author of Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamakakarika). Mādhyamaka Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha (563-483 BC). Socrates (Greek philosopher, 469 BC to 399 BC). Plato (424BC - 348 BC), Greek philosopher who re-wrote the Republic seven time over. Narrator...

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Collections of original poetry in the mainstream European tradition.

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White Birch Life’s Irony Chauvet Far East Getting to Grips with Myth Words For A Western Scroll Be Not Afraid Simply Complex At The Edge Scanning Deeper The Path By The Field The Reality Inside Which We Imagine Quartering We’re Getting There, Back When Not Laughing, Gloating Fire Outside, Fire Within Higher, Deeper Such Stuff The Finding Understanding Mind Old-World Path Anthropocene For the Rest… Threnody Veils and Crowns Every Constellation Only a Pattern of Mind The Folded Thing Pollen In The Air Not There Until You Made It There The Purple Flower Can A Polar Bear Stare Upward? The Word A Hurricane Deeper Sound Not Bamboo Time Slipping For A Moment Bearing In Our Hands: Bearing In Their Hands Indiscretion Abstracted At the Back of the Eye, the Whole Universe, All TimeSomething Under The Stars Motes In The Eye of Noon The River Bird, Flight, Moon Moving Pictures A Diamond in Every Pebble Saying Goodbye at the Edge of the Road Singing On The Shore The Lark Ascending Immersed In Time How We See Form Time To Come Tiny Manifesto The Place He Built The Pure And The Impure Meadow Medi...

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Buddhist - Christian Dialogue The Parliament of the World’s Religions, December 2-9, Melbourne, Australia Sunday, December 6, 2009, 11:30am–1:00pm The program of the Parliament paraphrased this workshop in such words as those below. Its four papers stimulated much interest and flowed together in a productive manner that elicited a lively interaction. For that reason, the essence of these papers has been reproduced here for wider appreciation. The program included four parts and aimed to fosters a spirit of enquiry and openness: • Participants were offered examples from the Canonical gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, as well as writings from Meister Eckhart, Thomas Merton, and others. • The workshop presented approaches to objectless meditation, and explored its vital place in uncovering wisdom. • Presenters showed how issues raised by dialogue in contexts of pluralism could be explored collaboratively by Buddhists and Christians by retrieving strands of tradition such as compassion, empathy, care and forgiveness. • A recently released book was introduced, ‘Dharma as Man’, which is an ancient story read each eve...

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Contents Dharma as Man: The Gospel Story in Buddhist Terms Lindsay Falvey 1 Towards ‘Collaborative Theology’ – Buddhist and Christian John D’Arcy May 18 Dying Buddha, Dying Christ: An Inter-Spiritual Response to the Amelioration of Suffering through Contemplative Silence Vincent Pizzuto 31 Transformative Dialogue and Contemplative Traditions: A Buddhist Perspective Padmasiri de Silva 37 ...

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THE CONTEXT: A DIFFERENT MIND-SET . . . . . 1 The Mind-Set in World War I . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Post-World War I Posture . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2 GIULIO DOUHET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 A Continental Theorist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Organization for War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3 HUGH TRENCHARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 British Empire Theorist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Organization for War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 4 WILLIAM MITCHELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 New World Theorist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Organization for War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 5 JOHN WARDEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Theorist or Throwback? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Organization for War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 6...

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DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . xi INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 AIRPOWER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 WAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 OUTCOMES AND ARGUMENTS . . . . . . 97 TECHNOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 PRINCIPLES OF WAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 COMMAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 DOCTRINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 TWENTY GOOD BOOKS . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 SOURCE INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 TOPICAL INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259...

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Philo used philisophical representations to fuse and harmonize Jewish traditions and Greek philosophy. It interprets both Jewish and historic Greek philosophies....

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“It is a melancholy reflection upon the history of the Jews that they have failed to pay due honor to their two greatest philosophers. Spinoza was rejected by his contemporaries from the congregation of Israel; Philo Judaeus was neglected by the generations that followed him.”...

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The Jewish Community At Alexandria. 13 – The Life And Times Of Philo. 44 – Philo’s Works And Method. 74 – Philo And The Torah. 104 – Philo’s Theology. 132 – Philo As A Philosopher. 167 – Philo And Jewish Tradition. 199 – The Influence Of Philo. 242 – Bibliography. 263 – Abbreviations Used For The References. 266 – Index. 269 --...

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This so-called “globalization” is called on Internet in the following ways: global totalitarianism, neo-totalitarianism, new world order, global fascist order, neo-fascism, today’s new fascism, semi-colonialism, neocolonialism, global cyber hegemony (global control and manipulation of the Internet), global dictatorship, etc. where a few elites from some power countries try to take over the whole globe, which would become a prison planet. These unscrupulous, immoral, corrupted, genocidal, power-hungry elites will exercise an apartheid policy against the whole world, controlling people’s soul through their totalitarian regulation coercions....

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Dark Strategies in Politics. Various ideas, hints, possible methods These ideas are compiled from various readings. They are unethical, immoral, unfair, and devilish. They are unfortunately examples of bad behavior and intentions of some powerful elites and other malignant people. IN CONCLUSION, THIS IS A DO-NOT-DO LIST!... • Corruption, deception, betray to reach your goal; • To take someone’s property; • In nature it doesn’t exist equality, nor liberty; • Real instincts; • Being sincere and honest you loose for sure;...

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Preface: The Wolf Dressed in Sheepskin : 4 Global Totalitarianism and the Working Animals: 6 International Injustice in Science, Arts, and Letters: 23 Dark Strategies in Politics: 29 Extracts from Machiavelli’s leading “Prince”: 52 Extracts from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”: 55 ADDENDA: More References on (Anti)Globalization: 63...

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Our struggles in this society constrict the flow of our natural thoughts that have led us far away from our divine principles in life as human beings. Our struggles are from within ourselves and in our mind, taunted by social deviations that involve the rules of life in our society today. Facing these struggles are just part of our daily burden to find contentment and self worth in order to be happily accepted in the society that we live on. It is a battle against our mind from within our consciousness to find “contentment” rather that pursue the fabricated joys of social living. This e-book will guide you on how to achieve weight loss without using any kind of supplement whether that be natural or synthetic, but, it does recommend the use of natural organic health supplements to help you in dealing with psychological downsides or mood swings which frequently occur when undergoing a diet program. Remember dear readers, it is all in the mind on how we perceive our understanding of the concept of fulfillment, happiness and contentedness from a simple point of view....

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We always question life and it's purpose and despite of all that we think we have achieved to understand the meaning and purpose of it, we still find it rather hard to contemplate the dynamics and struggle to find a singularity as to how to be content with the never ending chaos that we created in pursuing acceptable answers in why life goes the way it does. Ever since we learned to think and started to question things that concern our existence, we have looked for answers around and within our minds in why we live life with such turmoil despite advancement in improving our selves as human beings. Most important of all, why we behave so irrational when it comes to understanding our fellow human beings. With the dawning of the Age of Reason, human society has been brutalized with war and conflict within the foundation of it's culture. It seems that human beings are easily intimidated by its own kind despite coming from one gene pool. No matter how hard we try to understand ourselves in this society we still lack rationality and may have overlooked the simple meaning of “peace” despite devising ways to fully utilize our mental facu...

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Chapter I Need or Want p4 Chapter II Natural Organic Health Supplements p6 Chapter III The Natural Way to Loose Fats p9 Chapter IV The G.M.O. (Genetically Modified Organisms) Syndrome p11 Chapter V Who We Really Are p13 Chapter VI The Zen of Life p15 Chapter VII Your Health is You're Only Wealth p17 Chapter VIII Things to Come p19 Chapter IX The Ugly Truth p22 Chapter X The Rise and Fall of Two Empires ...

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The answers cover such topics as: - why livestock are critical to food security - why free trade and markets can't solve food shortages - why aid shouldn't insist poor countries follow our model - how to reconcile science and commerce with popular ideals - how grass domestic happiness can be a serious topic - how more food can be produced with less land and fertilizer - why labels like Buddhist and vegetarian confuse life - what traditional wisdom is critical to development - how misrepresentation fuels fears about climate change - why small farmers and foreign agribusiness must coexist...

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Question and Answer How to reprise lost paradise, where clansmen were always content? On this we ever ask advice, not noting our command’s contempt. Replies arise if we ask right, as sages’ sayings still console, except when wished as black or white, thus missing their integral whole. Each answer’s angst makes us ask more – thus are our suspect lives sustained, supremely sure if we spark war, for our ideals are deep ingrained. We’re punished by our primal rites, wedding hubris with hoarded wealth, monopolizing basic rights, and molding ethics in our stealth. Blinded by our biased questions, we trust faith as truth we squander, never knowing our great fortune – blind in paradise we wander. ...

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Question and Answer Acknowledgements Author’s Preface The 10 Questions Chapter 1 Introducing Food Security Seeing Livestock Correctly Who is Food Insecure? Animal Products in Food Security Animal Production in a Food-insecure World Animal Production Systems Future Animal Production in Food Security Answering the Question Chapter 2 The West is not the Context Defining ‘Food Insecurity’ Food Security Planning National Policy Implications for Food Security Regulations on Sustainability and Climate Change How Government Meets the Challenge Answering the Question Chapter 3 The Success of the West Balancing the Bias Aid to Do What? Facing Some Facts Famine in the West 20th Century Famine in Europe Answering the Question Chapter 4 What are we Feeding? Language in Religion, Science and Spirit Feeding the Spirit Scientia and Sapientia Answering the Question Chapter 5 The Nebulous Concept of GDH Global Fears and Small Farmers Smallholder Self-Sufficiency What is Wellbeing? Explaining the Sufficiency Economy Idea Implementing Wellbeing Answering the Question Chapter 6 ‘Sustainin...

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The writings listed here represent books about Soren Kierkegaard. A fragment of his work, On the Dedication to That Single Individual, has made it to the public domain. Who was Soren Kierkegaard? He was a Danish philosopher and religious author; b. Copenhagen May 6, 1813; d. there Nov. 11, 1855. His father, Michael, a clothing merchant, once cursed God when he was young. This one incident caused him so much distress that it affected him with a deep melancholy, which he transferred to poor Soren. Michael was an evil man. He tricked Soren into thinking that the whole world existed in his own living room by taking him for imaginary walks about the neighborhood, or anywhere Soren wanted to go, as long as it existed in his imagination only. Later in life, when Soren was on his own, he rarely left Copenhagen, but he did walk about the streets and greet passersby, discussing events of the day. After 6 years of “splendid inactivity” he obtained his degree in Theology from the University of Copenhagen with the submission of his thesis paper in 1841, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates. Just before graduation he fell ...

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Philosophy, Religion

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The introduction to Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of world history is often used to introduce students to Hegel's philosophy, in part because Hegel's sometimes difficult style is muted in the lectures, and he discourses on accessible themes such as world events in order to explain his philosophy. Much of the work is spent defining and characterizing Geist or spirit. Geist is similar to the culture of people, and is constantly reworking itself to keep up with the changes of society, while at the same time working to produce those changes through what Hegel called the cunning of reason. Another important theme of the text is the focus on world history, rather than regional or state history. The obscure writings of Jakob Böhme had a strong effect on Hegel. Böhme had written that the Fall of Man was a necessary stage in the evolution of the universe. This evolution was, itself, the result of God's desire for complete self-awareness. Hegel was fascinated by the works of Spinoza, Kant, Rousseau, and Goethe, and by the French Revolution. Modern philosophy, culture, and society seemed to Hegel fraught with contradictions and tensions, ...

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Philosophy, History