Articles Books

I have suffered with Leaky Gut Syndrome for years, off and on. This was, I believe, caused by a reckless lifestyle in the 60's and 70's. I'm now paying for my wild and crazy days. This product has helped more than anything else I have tried. I still have to watch my diet - I developed multiple food sensitivities - but it is getting tangibly better!

I can now eat corn (couldn't for years), drink a little high quality red wine, and I accidentally had some wheat last week with no rash.

I recommend this product.

Don't waste you money. It's a one page overview. Better info can be found online elsewhere. And you can't get you money back if you don't like it!!

This is an excellent, factual source concerning the issue of the creation of FYROM. The reader will get a clearer understanding of the controversy surrounding this new state and the tension it created with neighboring Greece.
This is not some history-revisionist babble one finds within other writings but a clear representation of the issues, both political and legal, which the Balkans are now facing.

The most important thing to remember about the "Macedonian conflict" is that the Greek position has changed dramatically over the past decade. Official Greek government policy was that Macedonia did not exist. When Greece took over Aegean Macedonia in 1913, they killed, tortured and ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Macedonians. They changed the names of people, villages, and landmarks from Macedonian to Greek in their attempts to eradicate the Macedonian name. Two things to remember:

1. It is ironic that Greeks now "love Macedonia" when they tried to eradicate its very existence.

2. If Macedonia has always been Greek, why did the Greek government deny its existence until the 1980's?

This is an excellent (and rare) exploration of the Smalcald Articles of the Lutheran Confessions. The author makes the case that these articles offer key insight into the mind of Luther because Luther thought his death might be imminent and the Smalcald Articles reveal what was most important to him. For example, Luther's thoughts on the Lord's Supper indicate that he was not close to the Reformed camp on communion but remained convinced of the "Real Presence" doctrine to the end. Mr. Russell deserves credit for an interesting work on this key neglected Lutheran Confessional document.

Of the various confessional documents contained in the Book of Concord, the Smalcald Articles has been the most neglected in scholarly studies. William Russell, campus pastor at North Dakota State University, offers the first book-length study of the SA available in English. Russell's central thesis is that the SA represents Luther at his most essential. Russell provides ample evidence, both from internal and external sources, that Luther considered the SA to be an extremely important statement of his theology. Luther wrote this document at a time when he was convinced that his death was near. He was having severe problems with kidney stones and apparently also had experienced heart attacks. Elector John Frederick, who ordered the preparation of this document, was also aware of Luther's poor health and wrote: "It will be highly necessary for Dr. Mar-tin to prepare his basis and opinion with the divine scriptures, indicating all the articles upon which he has written, preached and taught. He should do this for the sake of the council, but also in view of his final departure from this world to the almighty judg-ment of God. He should indicate what he thinks, maintains, and where he remains in order not to offend the divine majesty-the points we must maintain without regard to body or possessions, peace or conflict" (p. 36-37). The Elector was anxious to have something for the church council that was ex-pected to be held in Mantua in 1537. As we know, a church council did not meet until the year 1545, in Trent, and lasted until 1564. As far as Luther himself was concerned, the council was fast approaching and the Lutherans needed something to take with them, upon which they could stand, and from which they could argue their case be-fore the Pope and the Roman Catholic theologians. Luther therefore prepared this document for a meeting of the German estates in the city of Smalcald that was held in February of 1537. In light of the above, it is interesting to note that the SA was not adopted by the various German estates that had gathered in Smalcald. Russell offers three reasons why this was so. First, Luther's health prevented him from attending the meeting and thus he was unable to present the document himself. Russell speculates that had Luther at-tended, the articles would have been discussed. Second, Elector John Frederick consid-ered the SA to be a theological statement, not a statement of political rulers, as was the AC which was presented to the Emperor at the meeting of the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire in 1530. Third, Russell feels that since the Smalcald gathering decided not to attend a church council, they did not consider the SA necessary to take up. However, Luther it seems was totally unaware that his articles had not been adopted, for in 1538 he was still operating under the incorrect assumption that the SA had been formally adopted by the political states in Smalcald. Russell sides with Friedrich Bente who as-serts in his historical introduction that the SA was adopted de facto since the majority of the theologians gathered at Smalcald did subscribe to the SA, and the SA did reflect the views of the majority of the political rulers at Smalcald. The SA was not actually published until the Spring of 1538 after Luther had prepared a longer preface, and made some changes to the text proper. It was incorporated into the 1563 Brunswick Corpus Doctrinae, and then later made a part of the Book of Concord in 1580. Russell provides an ongoing dialogue with Volz's and Ulbrich's Urkunden und Aktenstücke zur Geschichte von Martin Luthers Schmalkaldischen Artikeln and in many respects this book is a reaction, both in agreement and disagreement, to this work. The footnotes reveal that Russell has engaged in a thorough study of pertinent secondary sources, impressing the reader with Russell's desire to anchor his comments within the stream of scholarship on the various issues that are raised in the SA. He walks through the SA, noting the key theological concepts Luther raises and providing appropriate references from secondary sources that illuminate the points he is making. Russell's discussion of Luther's assertion in the SA that the pope is the anti-Christ is objective, and therefore useful. Russell refrains from grinding an ecumenical ax at this point, and thus permits Luther's position on this matter to stand without intrusive editorial commentary. Russell disagrees with the commonly expressed view that the SA merely reflects Luther in a pugnacious mood. Of course, the state of Lu-ther's health can be used to support the position that his polemical tone in the SA is not to be taken too seriously. Russell however states that even if the harsh remarks made by Luther about the pope do reflect some personal emotional frustrations with the progress of the German Reformation, simply to dismiss Luther's comments about the pope as anti-Christ "risks missing what Luther (and those closest to him) thought to be the main issue at stake in their efforts to reform the church. For Luther, the gos-pel of the forgiveness of sin by grace alone, apart from works of the law, is the distinc-tive feature of the Christian proclamation. Any theology (be it Roman Catholic, Ana-baptist, Reformed, or Evangelical) that violated this sine qua non of the church's mes-sage was open to the charge of being labeled by Luther as "anti-Christian" (p. 95). Russell is careful to observe that Luther's discussion on the Lord's Supper was purposefully concrete. Luther's realistic description that "the bread and wine in the supper are the true body and blood of Christ" was controversial (p. 104). By doing this, Luther moved a step beyond the language of the Wittenberg Concord of 1536, an agreement that had been signed by representatives from both southern and northern Germany. Russell indicates that the WC was meant to be a compromise statement, noting that the WC was "rather ambiguous at the very point it was supposed to clarify" (p. 105). Luther purposefully avoids the slippery word "with" when discussing the bread/wine and body/blood connection in the Lord's Supper, choosing instead to re-main with the much stronger copulative verb "is" - our Lord's language. Luther's wording apparently did not please Melanchthon, who was afraid that this matter would cause controversy at Smalcald. He went so far as to recommend that the estates pledge themselves to "the Augsburg Confession and the Wittenberg Concord" (p. 106). We see here a clear foreshadowing of Melanchthon's later compromising position on the Lord's Supper, which took full form only after Luther's death. In light of the impending ecumenical agreements between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and a number of Reformed churches, Luther's position in the SA are all more relevant to our present day and age. Will Luther have the last word in the largest Lu-theran church in America on the subject of our Lord's presence in the eucharistic bread wine, or will Melanchthon and his heirs? Russell's book is actually quite brief, with the text proper taking up only 116 pages. The rest of the book is devoted to three appendices. Appendix A is Russell's translation of the Smalcald Articles. This reviewer is given to understand that Russell's translation, with editorial modifications, will be used in the new Book of Concord translation now in progress. Appendix B is a list of names and terms from the age of the Lutheran Reformation. Appendix C is a topical index to Luther's Works and Lu-theran Confessional writings, indicating where an interested reader might find other Luther documents on a wide range of theological topics. In light of the fact that this book is the only one in English devoted to the SA, one hesitates to be critical. But it needs to be said that the book is somewhat disjointed and repetitive. Key themes and concepts are repeated within a short amount of space. This is probably due in part to the genesis of the book as a series of lectures to students at Luther Northwestern Seminary as part of a regular gathering called, "Friends of the Lutheran Confessions." It is unclear if this book is

Arthur L. Finkle

Rashi's Daughters is an important work for many reasons. Rashi, himself, was a philological genius about which the novel relates his sacrifice and the family's sacrifice for his training/teaching. The novel puts a face of this medieval scholar. It also relates the hard times, the many deaths at childbirth, the superstitions and Jewish practices during the European 11th century in Jewish life.

The book gives us either gratuitous initial sexual intercourse among the very observant Jews or the genuine article. It all depends on your perspective. It seemd very unusual to be exposed to a sexual aspect of this intellectual family.

This writer was looking for the men these daughters married whose children became the Tosafot (Great commentators on Rashi, himeself). It would have been a great incite into the inter-workings of this hard-working family which produced so many scholars, both male and female.

Rashi's Daughters is an important work for many reasons. Rashi, himself, was a philological genius about which the novel relates his sacrifice and the family's sacrifice for his training/teaching. The novel puts a face of this medieval scholar. It also relates the hard times, the many deaths at childbirth, the superstitions and Jewish practices during the European 11th century in Jewish life.

The book gives us either gratuitous initial sexual intercourse among the very observant Jews or the genuine article. It all depends on your perspective. It seemd very unusual to be exposed to a sexual aspect of this intellectual family.

This writer was looking for the men these daughters married whose children became the Tosafot (Great commentators on Rashi, himeself). It would have been a great incite into the inter-workings of this hard-working family which produced so many scholars, both male and female.

George Jonas has plenty to say about Israel in this interesting essay.

Jonas was nine years old in 1944, when he lived in Nazi-occupied Budapest. And the question arose: what should Jews do if they survived the war? Should they remain in Europe or move to Israel?

Of course, back then, Jews were being killed en masse just for being Jews. Today does not resemble 1944 in that respect. But the author says that it does resemble 1935, the year he was born. We see a book by Jimmy Carter called "Peace not Apartheid." We see lectures by pro-Israeli scholars or politicians being disrupted or cancelled. And much more.

Jonas makes an interesting point. Suppose we were to agree with the argument that Jews, using cunning and brute force, simply stole all their land from innocent Arabs. And suppose that caused these Arabs to become either homeless refugees in other lands or oppressed second-class citizens in their former homeland, which was now occupied by Jews. Would that justify terrorism against civilians? Jonas says no. I think we could go further than saying that such crimes are unjustified. After all, once we applaud such acts in one case, we'll applaud them in other cases. Sometimes, the terrorists will have had their land stolen and will have been "driven" to terror. Other times the terrorists will just be having fun. But my point is that the precedent will have been set.

The author also explains that Israel has doubled the standard of living for Arabs and been thanked for this with terrorist attacks, rioters, stones, and bad press. Jonas says that Israel ought to have expected such treatment. But I think this misses the obvious point that it is wrong, really wrong, to help people who offer you nothing but vicious attacks in return. And it also misses the more subtle point that many Arabs ought to think about changing some of their behavior.

Would it be a good idea for Israel to give away land for peace? Jonas suggests that the answer is no, and that giving away land would probably be detrimental for peace. And he points out that even if Israel ceased to exist, that would not bring peace to the region. Jonas continues by saying that the idea of a peace deal is that each side gets something. The Oslo accords violated this concept, as Israel gave things away and got nothing in return.

I would add that the Arabs, while they got many of their demands, such as land and autonomy, may not have gotten anything either: just as all Israel wanted was peace, all the Arabs wanted was Israel's destruction.

There is a discussion of the movie "Munich" which is similar to Jonas' book, "Vengeance." As Jonas says, "the movie can't tell the cops from the robbers because they both carry guns." He's right. The Arab terrorists have been just that: terrorists. They have been busy murdering all sorts of civilians, as primary targets. And terrorism has not been peripheral to their cause. It has defined their cause. Trying to "humanize" these terrorists, according to Jonas, "is itself a moral error."

We see a discussion of the claim, by Dr. Judea Pearl, that anti-Zionism is a form of racism. Jonas is not sure this is completely correct, but I think Pearl has a point here. Pearl says that "Anti-Zionism earns its racist character from denying what it gives to other collectives." Jonas partially agrees, saying "anti-Zionism, whatever it may have been sixty years ago, does have a racist tinge today. The current climate considers all national aspirations legitimate, except that of the Jews." The author says this makes anti-Zionism worse than anti-Semitism, given that its consequences are more dire and that it is less likely to be rejected. Jonas says that Pearl believes in dialog, but that Pearl does not use the word "dialog" as a substitute for "surrender."

At the end of the essay, the author suggests that Zionism is not some sort of luxury, or "a tourist destination for the Diaspora," but a lifeline. It's worth contemplating the points Jonas makes in this essay, and I recommend it.

This is another pro-Israeli article which totally ignores the Israeli violations. Many including some pro-Israelis found out that the main obstacles for peace in that region are two; 1. nonstop building of illegal settlements over Palestinian lands by the Israelis, and 2. Palestinians violence against Israel. Blaming one side is against the truth and is pure hypocrisy. No matter what, Israel is at fault, because they have been illegally occupying Palestinian lands for so long; which the American people do not understand because of the most powerful lobby in the world - the Jewish lobby and the biased (scared of Jewish lobby or being labeled as anti-semite) US media. The Arabs did not get any of their demands as one reviewer suggested. Only demands that they got so far are many UN resolutions all of which Israel flouted. And far less resolutions against Iraq (and few vicious lies by this neo-conservative Zionists), and look what happened to the whole country and its people. We live in a very hypocritical world.

...I cannot wait to see the term-life-only license in Canada.
On the other hand why there is no license for the cash-value-only agents?

Are you kidding me???? Does anyone get the picture of trash...oops sorry...cash value insurance. After reviewing several policies with clients I find over and over and over again...that #1. If something were to happen to a client with cash value insurance their loved ones would only get the face value of the policy...the cash within the policy is...ummm...SURRENDERED to the insurance company...(why shouldn't the client be told "upfront and personal" that they could buy a term policy...in which they still would only get the face value of the policy (same as cash value) and that they could invest their money ... hence, "buy term and invest the difference" (TERM is always cheaper that any cash policy) and earn MORE than the insurance company will pay for your "investment" within their policy??? #2. Why aren't clients told "upfront and personal" that generally the way a cash policy works is that the insurance agency will actually go purchase a term policy on their client for the face value of the policy, invest the difference in cost, pay the client on average 3-8% on "their" cash, while pocketing the other 12-17% themselves...and oh yeah #3. I love the part that they'll let you BORROW your cash anytime you need it...HELLO....thought that was MY cash...and now I can borrow it???? and pay it back with interest????...(Aren't they soooo generous...)oh yeah... it gets better...in some cases the client doesn't have to pay it back...The amount of THEIR CASH that is BORROWED...the insurance company will gladly just take the amount off of the face value when the client "checks out"...of course if the client sticks around long enough there will be enough interest tacked on that maybe, just MAYBE, there will be enough 'face value' left to bury them. PEOPLE>...wake up! Read your insurance policies!!!!!!!....I have actually sat down with one client that had recently came into some money...and went out to do what was best for his family...purchase INCOME PROTECTION (which is what life insurance is supposed to be about...NOT an investment). The agent told him that he could go ahead and put money inside the policy to start growing interest...that it would be a great retirement plan. Upon review it was found that should the client have died not only would any cash that had 'grown' within the policy be surrendered upon death...but so would the $10K he 'invested'...GREAT RETIREMENT PLAN huh? SOMEBODY HELP THESE PEOPLE...

The negative reviewer is a disgruntled former student of this author who apparently has so little to do that he can still nurse his grudge via Amazon's review feature. He has done this for every book by this author.
This book is in its 2nd edition, and has sold many, many copies to satisfied readers. It contains a comprehensive index that makes it a useful addition to the bookcase (and briefcase) of any commercial lawyer.
Another excellent product in this area is Forms under Revised Article 9. Forms Under Revised Article 9

If you are reading this chances are good that you are either:
1. An attorney; or,
2. A law student; or,
3. A paralegal; or,
4. A law professor; or,
5. Just interested in secured instruments under the new revision
to Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code.

This book is best suited to group 4. The editor, a former law professor, sister of the first female head of the American Bar Association and given to wearing mismatched earrings, has done as fine a job as any editor can do on the virtues of Article 9 of the UCC and still have a book to publish.

I suggest that all groups but 4 read their state's implementation of the new Article 9 in their state statutes and avoid the commentary.

How does one argue that it is right for Middle Eastern Arabs to oppress Middle Eastern Jews? Especially when the Arabs have 5.5 million square miles in which Jews are not particularly welcome, while Jews are confined to less than 11,000 square miles in Israel, the Golan, and the West Bank?

The recent argument has been that there is a Special Levantine Arab people. And that if Jews live in the region, that Violates the Rights of this People!

This article praises Kathleen Christison for playing along with this argument. The author says that Christison is right to say that East Jerusalem is "occupied territory." Wilcox also agrees with Christison in deploring American vetoes of absurd and ridiculous one-sided United Nations resolutions against Israel.

What we need is truth. That is the true boldness and creativity that is required for there to be peace and prosperity in the region. One-sided propaganda such as Christison's is unhelpful. And so is Wilcox's praise of it.

This propaganda, which was written in 1999, is part of the problem. Propaganda such as this led the United States to make serious errors in trying to help the people of the Levant achieve peace.

How does one pursue peace in the middle east when there are Israelis who deny the existance of Palestinians and claim they have no right to live as equals in their own homes? That they should just be dumped in some other country in the region. What do you do with people so twisted up by hate that they can't even say the word "Palestinian"?

The article goes over the truth of the situation in the middle east. Gaza, the west bank and the Golan Heights are occupied territory. Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem has no international validity whatsoever. And that the final status of all the occupied territories can only be decided by negotiation and international recognition.

The article further deals with the negative consequences for both the US and Israel of the US vetos of UN resolutions against Israel. The damage is done to Israel when the resolution comes up for a vote. The US veto effectively does nothing but make a few manaics in Israel feel better and make the US look horrible in the rest of the world.

I think unfortunately that while Wilcox's message is needed, there will be few people who want to listen. There is no peace short of giving the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank independence and political rights. Bold solutions like transfer are not going to happen because the price would be destroying the Israeli economy and turning the country into an isolated backwater shunned by almost everyone. Further, given the situation in Iraq, the united states isn't going to be listening to the voices who want to re-make the governments of the middle east by force again anytime soon.

As the peace process now resumes, the content of this article provides a helpful background to what has gone before. The Israeli government and the united states now both recognize the mistake of abandoning the peace process for several years.

I have heard from a colleague that he has a version on CD that is 3 to 4 times longer than the paperback I received. A paperback which stops just prior to the arrival of the last two Bush appointees to the bench. Therefore, it (this book) falls way short of describing and/or exposing the extreme right-wing flavor of the court as it exists today. A court that is so blatantly political that it disgraces itself almost as much as the Bush Whitehouse does with alarming regularity. I expect Roe V. Wade to fall anytime now. How sad.

Excerpt from introduction: Our argument is organized in three parts. First, we examine the origin of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Since the regressive turn in current Supreme Court jurisprudence is usually carried out in the name of the Framers' "original intent," we look for what must have been the thinking of the Framers of the Constitution as they set up a tripartite government of checks and balances. We look especially at the role of the judicial branch and conclude that the Framers would applaud the expanded notion of religious liberty that emerged in twentieth-century jurisprudence.
Second, we look at the record of the judicial system from 1789 through the 1930s. We learn that the narrow understanding of the First Amendment advocated by today's regressive justices does not reflect the thinking or intentions of the eighteenth-century Framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights but rather reflects an understanding of church and state that emerged in the nineteenth century.
Third, we look closely at the last half century of U.S. Supreme Court decisions on church-state issues, seeing them as a critical battleground for progressives who would further expand religious liberty and for regressives who would subject that liberty to majority rule.
The resolution of these two issues in favor of an ever-expanding religious freedom-what Justice O'Connor calls "well-settled First Amendment jurisprudence"-is now under assault. Religious liberty or conscience is in jeopardy, threatened by those who in our view woefully misconstrue the course of religious freedom in America.

Excellent article. Pure energy, informative as well as inspirational. A must read for all program managers.

This is a work of the US government and the authors do not receive any compensation from the sale of this article.