News Notes

Zip Dobyns

The November 1999 issue of Fate Magazine has two interesting reports on NASA activity. A gigantic 60-story balloon from Manitoba with a 5,000-pound Japanese instrument went looking for traces of antimatter in earth’s upper atmosphere. Fate says that NASA’s biggest balloon came home with a sizable chunk of antimatter and antigalaxies might be discovered in time.

The same issue of Fate quotes a Wired News report that NASA is considering a project conceived at the University of Washington. The concept involves a plasma-powered spaceship that would travel at 180,000 miles per hour, about 10 times the speed of a space shuttle. Theoretically, the system would use solenoids to generate an electromagnetic field 24 miles across with the spacecraft at its center. The field would be filled with a cloud of magnetized plasma, or ionized gas, generated by a small plasma chamber about the size of a pickle jar. Once inflated, the plasma field would harness the solar wind to “sail” across space.

The November 1999 issue of Alternatives, the health newsletter of Dr. David Williams, has a comprehensive article about the thyroid gland, describing its role in heart disease, poor circulation, susceptibility to infections, and depression and mental confusion. Williams includes an impressive list of additional symptoms that may be associated with the inadequate functioning of this important gland. Possible symptoms include “decreased heart rate and cardiac output, increased weight (pot belly), pain where the ribs meet the sternum, memory loss, unexplained crying, morning headaches and dizziness, loss of hair, especially outside of eyebrows, constipation, ringing in the ears, allergies, a frog-like, husky voice, muscular sluggishness and weakness.

Heart disease is still the number one cause of death in the U.S., and high levels of homocysteine in the blood are being increasingly recognized as a major key to heart problems. Vitamins B6, B12, and folic acid are being prescribed to bring down the homocysteine levels, but Williams cites research at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation which demonstrated that correcting an underactive thyroid can normalize homocysteine without the need of taking more B vitamins. Correcting the thyroid corrected the vitamin deficiency.

Astrology connects the thyroid, along with its management of the metabolism or energy level, with the Mars principle. Mars, and its sign and house, signify our feeling that we have the right and the power to do what we want. When we lack this self-confidence, we may inhibit our thyroid functioning and consequently our energy, and we may manifest any of the variety of possible symptoms associated with hypothyroidism.

Williams mentions a new book by Dr. Ann Tracy from Cassia Publications which is called Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? Dr. Tracy connects the use of prescription antidepressant drugs (Prozac, Paxil, Luvox, Zoloft, Serzone) with the increased wave of violence in recent years, especially the school shootings. She discovered that many of the shooting incidents were carried out by individuals taking these drugs for depression. The increasing prescription of these drugs to combat depression may be contributing to the increasing level of violence, along with the availability of guns, the violent video games and rap music, and the alienation of kids from their families.

A lack of iodine and selenium and exposure to estrogen-like chemicals may contribute to the increasing hypothyroidism in our country. Williams also blames inadequate thyroid tests which mislead doctors into thinking the thyroid is ok. He recommends taking one’s temperature for several successive days before starting daily activity. In a case of synchronicity, Dr. Atkins also wrote about the thyroid in his current November 1999 newsletter, Health Revelations. He also recommends using one’s temperature as the best test for thyroid functioning, but he suggests taking it several times during the day for at least 3 days and then averaging the results. The daytime temperature normally is higher than the result when first waking up, so the two men give different figures to indicate hypothyroidism. Atkins adds zinc and tyrosine to the nutrients needed for the body to make the thyroid hormones. Atkins writes that he avoids prescription drugs in most of his medical practice, but he does find thyroid helpful for many patients. He prefers the products Armour Thyroid and Nature Throid to the synthetic drug Synthroid. Unless the thyroid is almost totally non-functional, Williams prefers to give it the nutrients so the body can make its own. He likes a product called Iosol, but warns against taking antiseptic or topical iodine. If 4 drops of Iosol in water per day for two weeks do not help, Williams suggests adding 3 tablets of Thytrophin along with one drop of Iosol per day. You may need a doctor’s prescription for the Thytrophin.

I would also suggest that you look for something you want to do and can do to build your self-confidence and sense of personal power. Exercise which builds your muscles can help. Muscles, iron in the blood, as well as one’s energy level are part of the Mars principle.

The October 30, 1999 issue of Science News has an interesting article called “The Mental Butler Did It”. A wide variety of psychological experiments are described which show how individuals unconsciously changed their responses under different circumstances without knowing they had done it. Changes were connected to unconscious stereotypes, to words flashed on a screen too briefly to be consciously recognized, to the activity of other participants in the experiments, etc. I was impressed by the variety of ingenious techniques the researchers invented to spot the unconscious at work. As one example, after university students completed a language test, the individuals who had been presented with words connected to aging, like wrinkles and Florida, acted older, walking more slowly down the hall, in contrast to students working with a different set of words. One of the researchers called the unconscious a “mental butler,” suggesting that it carried out our tendencies and preferences automatically, leaving less work for the conscious mind. As researcher Bargh says, “Conscious direction of behavior is important, but it takes place a small minority of the time.”

The December 11, 1999 issue of Science News described additional research supporting the reality and power of the subconscious mind. Phillip Wong of the New School for Social Research in New York showed pictures of a series of frowning faces which were seen too quickly to be consciously identified. Then a new set of frowning faces were shown for long enough periods to be consciously recognized, and they were followed by an electric shock to a finger of the subjects. Lastly, the faces associated with the shocks were shown too quickly to be consciously recognized, without a shock following them. A half second before the time when a shock had previously been delivered, the subjects’ brain waves showed a characteristic change, indicating that the subconscious anticipated danger.

Switching gears, the September 1999 issue of an economic newsletter by Kenneth Coleman called Investment Tracker offers a theory I have not seen previously. Most financial newsletters that I have seen are playing on human greed and fear, presenting a very limited and usually quite biased perspective on the world in order to promote products or information they are trying to sell. Coleman may be wrong, but his theories make sense and help to explain the actions of the top power people in our government. He suggests that the European Union (EU) will soon start the transition from holding dollar reserves to holding Euro (the EU money) reserves. As many nations and individuals follow suit, U.S. Treasuries will be sold, replaced by Euro bonds, and the value of the U.S. dollar will fall. Coleman suggests that the “real” reason the FED is raising interest rates and Clinton is talking about paying down the U.S. debt is to prepare for this coming shift to Euros. The EU may eventually expand to over 30 countries, making it the most powerful global economic power. Coleman describes the use of social security surplus income to pay current government expenses as a “Ponzi” scheme, and says the government needs to make it work until after the final transition of the EU in 2002. He hopes that by then, the U.S. will have reduced its debt burden, so the sale of our bonds will not force up our interest rates and bring on a depression.

As this is written in early December 1999, the value of the EU has dropped below the value of the U.S. dollar, and the EU economy is not doing very well. If this weakness persists, along with the continuing strength in the U.S. economy, the threat to U.S. bonds may be postponed and we might escape the negative consequences of our Ponzi financing.

The August-September 1999 issue of the Memberletter of the National Council for Geocosmic Research includes an article by Nick Campion, editor of The Book of World Horoscopes. Nick’s book is the most valuable one in print for mundane astrologers who work with the horoscopes of countries, and in the NCGR article he presents data that became available after the latest edition of his book. The Euro came into legal existence at 12:01 A.M. on January 1, 1999. Nick suggests calculating the chart for Brussels, Belgium, which is the political center of the European Union, but Frankfurt, Germany can also be used as an economic power center. Trading in the new currency was scheduled to begin on January 4, at 7 A.M. local time in Auckland, New Zealand, and, hours later, at 7 A.M. local time in Frankfurt, Germany. However, the first trade took place in Tokyo between two Japanese banks at 5:11 P.M. GMT on January 3 according to BBC TV. That would be 2:11 A.M. on January 4 using local time in Tokyo. Since the value of a currency and its bonds is determined by what the market is willing to pay, and since astrology uses charts for the beginning of anything, that first trade chart might provide clues to the accuracy of Coleman’s theory.

I’ve recently started a subscription to a small and very liberal newsletter called the Hightower Lowdown. Its primary author is Jim Hightower, though Phillip Frazer is also an editor and Molly Ivins sometimes writes for it. Molly is both sharp and very funny, though I’m sure her targets have other reactions. She calls George W Bush “Shrub” as a take-off on his name, and her latest book is called Shrub, The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush. George’s other popular name is Dubya, the Texas pronunciation of his middle initial.

Ivins justifies her statement that Dubya has shown no ability to govern by explaining that Texas has a "weak-governor system" like all the Southern states. It is a holdover from the Reconstruction following the Civil War, with the power of the governor limited by the state constitution. Ivins claims that the lieutenant governor usually has more power than the governor. "Until this year, the Lite Guv was Bob Bullock, a wily old trout, and Shrub was just smart enough to do whatever Bullock told him to."

Ivins writes that when someone comes to see Bush about a complex subject, he responds that he does not know anything about it, but that someone on his staff can deal with it. "In our more optimistic moments, we consider this evidence that he knows how to delegate."

I can’t hope to cover Ivins’ critique of Bush, but a few points include: Texas is number 50 in per capita spending in the U.S. When highways are omitted, which Ivins says the state does well, Texas ranks behind Puerto Rico and Guam. But Bush got the property tax reduced, since few poor people own property, while not supporting the introduction of kindergartens. Bush courted the Hispanic vote by attending their social events, but Ivins writes that “the Texas Republican Party is now run by the Christian Right: chair, vice-chairs, grassroots, lock stock and barrel.”

The same November issue of the Lowdown also has an expose of Bill Bradley, who is running as an outsider to the left of Al Gore. Of his campaign contributors, the top six were all big brokerage firms or banks: Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and J P Morgan. After Bradley left the Senate in 1996, he joined J P Morgan as “vice chairman of the international council” and was hired as a consultant to Morgan Guaranty Trust, receiving $300,000 for his services. His other “community” in America is the big drug companies. In his last senate campaign, Bradley took more money from the drug companies than any other candidate in the country. He paid them back by standing firm for a tax loophole that gave them deductions for moving jobs to Puerto Rico. This was a double bonus, letting them hire local workers for $12,000 a year and deduct all profits. Tax experts figure this cost U.S. taxpayers a subsidy of about $70,000 a year for each pill-making job that the drug companies moved to the island.

There were some progressive laws which Bradley supported during his 18 years in the senate, but he also strongly backed Reagan in the dirty war against Nicaragua in the 1980s, enthusiastically backed Reagan’s voodoo tax of 1986 which slashed the tax bill for corporations and the wealthy and raised it for ordinary workers, and he was a cheerleader for the passage of NAFTA, the WTO, and every other legislation to extend the global reach of corporate power.

Copyright © 1999 Los Angeles Community Church of Religious Science, Inc.

back to top