Salem-News.com Authors articles

The Healing Power of Meditation

Transcendental Meditation produces mental and physical rest that is twice as deep as in sleep.

(OLDENBURG, Germany) - I suffered a brain injury at birth. An EEG test showed chaotic, abnormal brain waves, and in school I had attention deficit disorder. I couldn't concentrate and my thoughts were cloudy. My grades were mediocre, and I flunked out of my first university.

Then I started Transcendental Meditation. My thoughts became clearer, and I didn't want drugs anymore. I could concentrate. And I could write.

``The Dead Can Play a Powerful Political Role Only if the Living Allow Them to Speak``

Dr. Alison Des Forges was the world's leading expert on the 1994 Rwanda genocide and its aftermath.

(WASHINGTON DC) - Dr. Alison Des Forges, born in Schenectady, New York, in 1942, began studying Rwanda as a student and dedicated her life and work to understanding the country as well as exposing the serial abuses suffered by its people with the goal of helping to bring about change in the country. Tragically, she died in the crash of Flight 3407 from Newark to Buffalo on February 12, 2009 and the age of 66.

Des Forges was a senior adviser to Human Rights Watch's Africa division for almost two decades and she dedicated her life to working on Rwanda.

Russell Kirk`s `Conservative Mind` at 60

Russell Kirk's notion of conservatism rejects the ideological purity of some present practitioners. It stands for the concept of moral order and confidence expressed in the U.S. Constitution...

(ALEXANDRIA, VA) - Russell Kirk's landmark book, The Conservative Mind: From Burke To Eliot, was published 60 years ago.

TIME magazine devoted its entire book section to The Conservative Mind, which Kirk had originally written in 1952 as his doctoral dissertation at the University of St. Andrew's in Scotland. Gordon Keith Chalmers, president of Kenyon College, reviewed the book in The New York Times and called it ³brilliant, even eloquent.²

Middle, Rich, Poor: Why Inequality Matters

The talk is organized by the Oregon Center for Public Policy and co-sponsored by the Salem Progressive Film Series.

(SALEM) - Come listen to one of the nation's foremost experts on income inequality, David Cay Johnston, on May 3 in Salem. This event is free and open to the public.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author has just published Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality. Johnston edited and contributed to this collection of essays by leading scholars and political figures, including President Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman.

Transcending Death

The divine energy of transcendental consciousness heals our nervous system of stresses, or karma, that we've accumulated in the past.

(OLDENBURG, Germany) - Death. The very word casts a pall of doom. Why is it so upsetting to us?

Perhaps because it conflicts with two different ways in which we know the world. We know intuitively we are immortal beings, an essence deep within us is eternal. Our sense perceptions, though, tell us we die and cease to exist. We see that the person we knew is gone. The body lying there is not them at all.

Duty to Warn: RIP Whistle-Blower Michael Ruppert (Who Committed Suicide on 4-13-14)

Rest In Peace Michael Ruppert, Whistle-Blower Par Excellence

(DULUTH, MN) - A couple of years ago I was the only person in Duluth’s Zinema theater watching Michael Ruppert’s powerful feature-length documentary film “Collapse”.

At the time, the Zinema was still early in its history and very few people even showed up to watch the afternoon video versions of DemocracyNow! that were being screened for free every week day.

Pulitzer Prize-Winner David Cay Johnston to Discuss Income Inequality at Salem Library Event

The talk is being organized by the Oregon Center for Public Policy and is being co-sponsored by the Salem Progressive Film Series.

(SALEM) - One of the nation's foremost experts on income inequality, David Cay Johnston, is coming to Salem in May to discuss what many are calling the defining challenge of our times.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and noted author will speak on Saturday, May 3 from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. at the Salem Public Library. Johnston's talk, "Middle, Rich, Poor-- Why Inequality Matters," is free and open to the public.

Museum by Moonlight Seuss Edition- A Sneak Preview of ``The Art of Dr. Seuss`` Exhibit

Celebrating the life and art of Theodor Seuss Geisel, "The Art of Dr. Seuss" exhibit chronicles his life and career with a focus on the common artistic links throughout his nearly 70 years of creativity.

(PORTLAND) - Join the World Forestry Center Discovery Museum for a sneak preview of "The Art of Dr. Seuss" exhibit before it opens to the public at Museum by Moonlight on Thursday, May 22.

This rare glimpse into the arti stic life of Theodor Seuss Geisel features rare and never-before-seen works from the 1920's to 1990's.

Older Women and Younger Men: an Appreciation

Wellsprings, my new novel, is in part an ode to the joys of older women, demonstrating that age is no barrier to love.

(OLDENBURG, Germany) - An older woman can satisfy a younger man in very special ways. Her accumulated wisdom and emotional steadiness are needed qualities for him.

Her personality has fully blossomed, in contrast to the tightly wrapped bud of youth full of inhibitions and uncertainties. In addition, an older woman has developed a seasoned sensuousness, a lush appeal. Fading roses smell the sweetest -- petals open soft and fragrant, exposing inner delicacies, gradually yielding to time and gravity.

Slow Writers

I never saw a city boy yet who was worth a damn. - Ernest Hemingway

(DAYTONA BEACH) - William Styron was a great novelist and there he has the advantage over me. But he wrote only four books, and there I have the advantage over him.

In a touch less than fourscore years and ten, I've written a guidebook to Inuit cuisine, a puff piece on Alaska seiners' purloining of the Prince Rupert salmon fishery, an apologia for the Gulf oil spill, two anthologies of G.I. pornography and a novel banned both in Boston and the Campfire Girls' reading list.