Whole Life Times: Warming Our Hearts

June 2006 | Letters from Readers

Warming Our Hearts

As a longtime reader I want to say a special thank you. “Loving and Dying” by Bill Strubbe (5/06) was of such depth and beauty! Thank you for including it—the human spirit needs the nourishment. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I enclose a saying a friend sent to me, translated from German:
(A friend is someone who hears the melody of your heart and sings it to you when you have forgotten it. —Anonymous.)

I thought you might like it too. Bless you.
—Johanna Amschl (age 83), Santa Monica

WLT’s May 2006 Issue was the best! I called friends to tell them to pick it up. No other magazine has the information yours contains. Your articles on “Beauty’s More Than Bloom Deep,” “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” “Reel Power: The Peaceful Warrior” and more kept my interest all the way.

Just one suggestion. When you opt to use Spanish, please follow it with a translation. I didn’t know the meaning of the word Oprima (el numero uno) in the From the Editor column. Thanks for a very enlightening issue.
—Barbara Charis, North Hollywood

Thanks for the “heads-up” on green beers (“Drink to Your Health,” 3/06).

In this booming age of microbrews, I think it would be a great idea to report on more conscious [business practices] by breweries and maybe even wineries too. Long live green beer.
—Todd Black, via e-mail

I am a regular reader of your wonderful publication. The global warming issue has me worried. I use hybrid city busses and my bike for transportation. I am vegan, make my own clothes, use very little gas (utility) and water and meditate. Is there any e-mail club that you know of that would allow me to help get the word out about the 10 year count-down to total devastation? I think that if people knew that their world was going to end in 10 years they might make some changes. Even the most destructive Americans might listen if they knew the facts. Do you know of any e-mail clubs who would participate in such an effort? I work 57 hours per week but would be willing to e-mail people in spare hours.

In my experience most Americans live in a fog of television and non-stop-motion. The culture is built on speed and a false concept of time that has everyone chasing an illusory carrot at the end of their nose. If American media is 95 percent fluff or unsubstantial mindless palaver, WLT is part of the 5 percent of critical nutrition without which our bodies and minds would perish.
—Sabina Stewart, via e-mail

Ed. reply: Congratulations on being part of the solution! Globalgreen.org and stopglobalwarming.org are both great organizations that can point you in the right direction. If readers have other suggestions, we welcome them.

Across the Great Divide

A few comments on the editorial “Looking Out for Numero Uno.” Perhaps it’s the parents who taught the students—not to think, but to protest. The students in Oceanside complained to their parents that the US flag was “racist” and “disruptive,” so the US flag had to be removed from flying outside a US school. Huh?

Are these students thinking about the Iranians, Iraqis, El Salvadorians and others that immigrated legally, due to wars and strife in their countries? Are they considering the Puerto Ricans that come and pay taxes, due to Puerto Rico’s poor economy? Are they considering the shortage of clean water supplies in California? Before they “cut school” to protest, are they aware that Puerto Rico has declared bankruptcy? Do they condone the MS-13 gangs and other drug traffic cartels crossing the borders illegally?

It doesn’t seem to me that student protesters that break into closed government offices, stabbing a guard with the stem from the Mexican flags (Vista) should be given credit for doing community service. How many of them have been fed by taxpayers via the food stamp program? Are these students thinking about the low cost clinics—serving seniors on fixed incomes, homeless US Vets, poor Americans—that are closing because of lack of funding? Places like these can no longer pay the cost to do business, because they are also, by law, required to give free health care to illegal immigrants. Are these “thinking” students thinking about any of that? Or just parroting what their parents told them?

Your title was an apt one; they are looking out for Numero Uno—themselves. They have little regard or concern for born and naturalized citizens. These students have no experience of putting a roof over their heads, feeding families and all of that, as adults do. Taught to think? I think not.
—Ma Mariano, via e-mail

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