​A watcher sat on a high rock at the entrance to the valley waiting for the S’TOs to return with the new schoolmaster.  When he saw the party of men in the distance, he grabbed his drum and beat out a message that sent the encampment of prospective students into action. 
 
The community possessed two wheelbarrows.  These, they quickly decorated with soggy leaves and vines and sloshed out in the falling drizzle to bring their new schoolmaster home in style. 
 
Rue couldn’t have been more relieved to see his neighbors come out pushing the barrows.  His papa had walked a long way in four days and now leaned heavily on his stick and heavier on his son.  The schoolmaster Gervung limped. 
 
Treevung hid behind his brother Gervung and Rue for fear that the crowd would beat him or at least throw sticks at him.  The returning travelers met their welcoming party.  Old Man S’TO was lifted high while the crowd cheered and thanked him for bringing the valley a new teacher.  Gervung also was lifted high then placed in the second barrow to ride in style into the valley.
 
“Look we have brought two teachers.  This is Treevung.  He can read and write and do numbers too.”  Rue pulled the young lad forward to meet the cheering crowd.  Men lifted Treevung up and set him on their shoulders as the crowd clapped and cheered while they processed to the newly build schoolhouse which was little more than a roof over a large flat rock.
 
Rue kept an eye on Treevung as the lad sat half-terrified on Trek’s shoulders.  Rue could not read or write.  He didn’t remember the names of all the letters, but he knew the hearts of other men.  He knew Treevung’s heart did not know love.  He would watch the lad to see that he did not become a bully.  He hoped that being treated with respect and honored as a teacher would help the lad’s heart grow before his head became puffed up with vanity.
 
After the schoolhouse had been inspected and Old Man S’TO made a speech and Gervung made a speech, the tired travelers were allowed to climb the hill to the S’TO house where Marina and Sabrina served the men dinner while trying to tell Gervung and Treevung everything they needed to know about the school. 
 
“These are the books we use.”  Sabrina handed Gervung the two alphabet books that had started to look dog eared and a bit dirty from grubby hands holding them. 
 
“While school has been out, we have been making clay tablets for the students to write on.   We have charcoal for writing.”  Marina displayed the supplies. 
 
“We decided that tomorrow morning, I will come with you and help sort the students into classes.  In the afternoon, Sabrina will bring more tablets, and I will come home.”  Marina thought she might miss socializing with her neighbors at school, but she knew she would not miss teaching.  As it turned out, neither Marina nor Sabrina had the opportunity to miss teaching as the number of students swelled beyond the ability of the two men to handle. 
 
On the morning of the first day of school, Marina and Gervung set off down the hill toward the school with Treevung behind them carrying tablets and complaining that he wasn’t a teacher.
 
“That’s okay.  Your brother will need help until planting time, then most of the students will go to work in the fields.  You can find yourself a home and some land then.  I’ll help you learn to teach.”
 
Treevung felt slightly comforted by the young woman’s assurances and had no idea that she knew less than he did. 
 
Gervung felt a little overwhelmed when confronted with students ranging in age from five to a very old man with long greasy gray hair and a filthy beard. 
 
Marina quickly sorted the students into classes, passed out tablets and charcoal to the best students, and set Gervung to teaching them.  She introduced Treevung to the next class of students and told him to help them with their numbers.
 
She took the largest class that still had no idea what a school, education, reading and writing involved.  She soon had them singing and playing alphabet games.  Gervung narrowed his eyes and grew impressed at how even the very old man followed what the pretty young teacher told him to do.
 
Treevung had no idea what to do with his class, but he managed by asking the students what they knew about numbers.  He found one middle-aged man who could count the number of goats on the hillside at a glance.  Most of his students could write their numbers and count on their fingers up to ten.  He began to tell them how to write the numbers up to twenty.  The man who counted the goats quickly caught the concept of tens and took over showing the others how many sets of ten each number represented.   Treevung left him to work with the more advanced students while he helped the rest of his class write their numbers.  He didn’t know what to make of the young girl holding a two year old on her lap and showing the baby how to write the numbers.  Marina hadn’t sent anybody home, so he guessed this girl could stay.
 
Sabrina arrived with lunch and more tablets for the teachers.  Marina greeted her twin happily then ran to the edge of the creek to vomit for the first time since Papa had promised to find another teacher for the school.  Marina explained to her sister where she’d left off and limped home rubbing her aching back. 
 
Treevung watched Marina rub her back and remembered how kind and cheerful she’d been all morning when her back must have hurt.  He knew he had something to think about.  He watched Sabrina take over the lowest class with a new song.  He looked at Gervung and saw him watching Sabrina and shaking his head.  Treevung and Gervung traded classes for an hour before Sabrina asked to include their classes in the games.  “The nuns spent much of the time in games.  Sister Mary Esther said that students learn better when they play games and help each other.” Sister Mary Esther hadn’t really mentioned students.  Her comments had been about scullery maids working better.
 
Gervung nodded as if he knew this to be true.  Treevung stood with his mouth hanging open as he gazed upon the vast knowledge and wisdom Sabrina displayed.  In his heart, he knew that Sabrina was correct. 
 
The students had noticed that both Marina and Sabrina had told the schoolmaster how to do his job, and he obeyed them.  Their awe over the young women’s knowledge and wisdom grew.  They nodded and winked to each other saying that it took two educated men to replace one of their very own young S’TO women. 
 
The secret of Marina and Sabrina’s total illiteracy remained intact.  Even Gervung did not suspect for many years.  

Earlier this fall, a joke on Facebook circulated saying NASA predicted the sun would not shine for fifteen days between Nov. 15 and Nov. 29.  It wasn’t particularly a funny joke.  I live in Seattle.  We are about the 48th parallel.  We have cloud cover.  The sun doesn’t shine for about three months this time of year.
 
The sun just doesn’t get that far above the horizon then the clouds move in. To make matters worse, hundred and fifty foot fir trees that do their best to block the sun in mid-summer surround me like prison walls.  I know why early settlers wanted to cut them all down.  Still, those trees breathe in CO2 and exhale oxygen.  I will cope.
 
I understand in ways that people who live further south will never understand why people hang up lights to decorate during winter.  I know many might like to argue that winter lights have a religious meaning. No. Winter lights are an act of desperation made by people who hate living in the dark all the time.  I hung my Halloween lights, and they won’t come down until Lent.  I’m adding more lights to the display.
 
To be sure, we have trolls who embrace the darkness, hunker down and spend three months of their lives being generally nasty until the sun comes back.  They complain about their neighbor’s lights, street lights, shop lights and anything that threatens to awaken them from their dark mood. 
 
Now of course there are people who live further north, and I have great compassion for them.  I once asked a friend who had trouble with winter darkness how she could tolerate living in Anchorage Alaska.  She replied brightly, “Oh it snows and the snow reflects light, so it is really much brighter than Seattle.” 
 
Ah, snow reflects light making what is available seem brighter.  That is why more northerly regions are not barren wastes where the population routinely kills each other on January first.
 
We do have snowbirds, people who move south for four or five months of the year.  Being a snowbird requires money.  Even taking a two-week vacation mid-winter takes money.  Not many of us do have that kind of time and money.  People in earlier generations did embrace the snowbird life.  I’m not certain that baby boomers will have the financial resources to do so. 
 
So here we sit.  Actually hubby should be hanging more lights.  Today, we are seriously fogged in.  I’ve warned my daughter from California to sit under the SAD light especially when it is foggy. 
 
So who are these curmudgeons one hears about who live further south and complain about Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Valentine and Lent lights?  Do they ever come north?  Do they know that New York City is way south of Seattle?  (Look at a globe.)
 
As I sit here wrapped in fog with every light in the house and those in the yard turned on, I have a grumpy proposal.  You know the economy isn’t all that good for seniors and working people.  I propose to satisfy the inner exhausted grump and save on the food bill by starting a new tradition.  We will declare that all those who are offended by light displays during the dark months shall be required to wear a black headband.  This way we can easily identify them.  It is necessary to identify those who condemn the light starved because in my tradition we’ll celebrate Epiphany by eating everybody wearing black headbands.
 
Do I hear any questions, complaints or denial of the problems of light deprivation?  

Over the past weekend, I helped my daughter and her cat move from Los Angeles to the Seattle area.  We drove I-5 in a Hyundai Accent.  If anybody ever asks you to drive I-5 from Los Angeles to Seattle in a Hyundai Accent, reconsider.  I did it for my daughter.  I am a mother.  I gave birth to her.  Driving from LA to Seattle in the Hyundai felt about like giving birth in the same regions of my body.
 
Daughter was practical and businesslike in her approach to the problem of moving.  However, she needed to bring her cat.  Lady Jane Grey is a great lover of food and a hater of exercise, which combined with her main coon ancestry has produced a large animal.  She long ago outgrew her cat carrier, so I offered to let her use our medium sized dog carrier.  Have you ever tried to get an empty pet carrier through the airport?  At least six people stopped me and inspected the crate, then revoked my usual TSA pre-check status. 
 
Eventually, I arrived safely in Burbank and retrieved the dog crate from luggage.  We prepared to set off early Friday morning.  First step was to put the cat in the dog carrier.  My daughter actually did this quite well.  She didn’t cuddle or stroke the beast in a manner that would alert Lady Jane to impending imprisonment.  She picked her up and said, “Okay, time for you to go into the box.”  What genius!  She called the crate a box.  The cat was inside the crate and the door was secured before Lady Jane could discover that the fiberglass crate was not in fact a cardboard box.  Score one point for the human.
 
We decided that we could secure the crate in the car with the seatbelt.  This process required that two women break their fingernails holding the seatbelt at its maximum stretch while maneuvering the lap belt over a lip in the crate.  Once secure, we headed out of LA making good time. 
 
We’d been on the road about a half hour when I started to get chilled. I thought this would be a nice toasty trip riding with someone accustomed to sunny California temperatures.  Nope, Lady Jane wore her heavy fur coat.  We must keep the car somewhere near the freezing point of alcohol so Lady Jane would be comfortable confined in a crate in the back seat of the car.  My daughter drove the first stretch, and for reasons I couldn’t quite fathom the warm sun, which came up in the southeast was always on her side of the car while we drove I-5 north.  I huddled wrapped my wool coat and a blanket and froze.
 
 
When the sun started to set, I took over the driving.  Traffic still rolled along at eighty miles per hour.  The poor Hyndai screamed to keep up with the traffic.  I have to admit that the valiant little car shuddered and bumped over the rough road, but it kept up with traffic without too much trouble.  The cat slept. 
 
We finally hit what I consider normal I-5 traffic outside Sacramento.  We slowed to a stop then crept along at five miles an hour just like in Seattle.  That didn’t last long though, soon we were sailing along at a speedy twenty miles per hour.  This is the point at which I realized my bum was in serious trouble.  Sharp stabbing needles pricked at the tender parts and cramps ran up and down my legs.  Being cold didn’t numb the sensitive parts.
 
Eventually we arrived at our hotel. I gratefully emerged from the Hyundai to discover that I couldn’t stand up straight and walking became a stiff legged shuffle with my legs far apart as if I’d just dismounted a horse-a rough riding horse with gait issues.
 
Once we fed the cat and gave her a litter box, I gratefully turned out the light and went to bed early with the needles still stabbing the backs of my legs and bum.  Now was Lady Jane’s turn for revenge for being confined.  She jumped on the bed.  She ran over the top of me.  She stood on me with all her considerable weight on one foot in my tender parts.  She played hot lava as she jumped from bed to table to the other bed and back to my bed. 
 
The following morning, Lady Jane was not about to be fooled by the word box.  She hid under one of the beds.  We coaxed and called.  We talked baby talk.  Lady Jane remained unmoved until both humans slid under the bed.  I blocked her exit on my side while my daughter secured the sharp bits and pulled.  The cat managed to wrap herself around the bed frame.  With her cheek smashed into the carpet daughter slid further under the bed to extract the cat who appeared to be making an attempt to crawl inside the box spring through some loose fabric.  I don’t want to know how the fabric got loose.
 
At last, daughter was successful at dragging the cat out from under the bed. Next came the project of getting the cat into the crate.  Did you know that cats have the same movement as an accordion? Daughter put the head and front legs into the front of the crate and shoved on the back end.  The head and front legs didn’t move as the accordion collapsed.  Thus, daughter needed to stretch the head and front legs to the back of the crate before shoving the back end into the crate.  For a few seconds, I debated which one would end up in the crate, but daughter eventually emerged red-faced, triumphant and too exhausted to drive. 
 
We set forth for a second day much like the first except for forcing the poor Hyundai over a series of mountain passes at eighty miles an hour.  The car performed remarkably well, the sun was on my side of the car, and my bum grew numb after the first hour on the road.  All was well except for the occasional complaint from the pet carrier.  Lady Jane convinced my daughter that she was dying of constipation.  Poor daughter became worried and started an internet search about traveling with a cat.  She learned that a cat could indeed spend seven hours in a crate without dying of urinary tract infections or constipation.  One experienced traveler warned readers to not let the cat crawl under the hotel beds. 
 
At the end of three long bum deadening days and two nights of the lively cat playing hot lava all night, we arrived home.  Lady Jane once released from her imprisonment looked around her new surroundings, remembered she’d been here before and settled down to watch birds out the window.  The humans might take longer to recover.  My bum is no longer numb, but that is not an improvement.
 
  
 

 The way I see it, perhaps the world's worst corporate crime, of which I have just became aware, probably offers humanity its best, and maybe last, chance to prevent our children and/or grandchildren from experiencing enormous pain and suffering.
 
What is the unifying connection between Roundup, the cover-up of 911, CPGS, the militarization of local police forces across the nation, the cover up of global warming, and the end of every citizen's right to privacy, free speech, and a fair trial if one is ever accused of wrongdoing? 
 
Answer:  The uniting theme is that there are people we depend on, who put their lust for power, wealth, and personal security above the health and well-being of even their own children and/or grandchildren,... and ours too.
 
With the revelation by scientist Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D. of MIT and others, that glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's product Roundup, has a direct long term correlation with the incidence of autism in children, as well as a host of other modern diseases, including Alzheimer's, Celiac disease, depression, ADHD, inflammatory bowel disease, liver failure, kidney failure, high serum LDL, pancreatic cancer and more, we discover that the supposed financial well-being of some people is more important to them than acknowledging the simple truth when it is made available to them.
 
The greatest corporate crime I speak of is Monsanto's deceit in spreading the use of Roundup knowing or suspecting full well that it has put our food supply, our families, and eventually most world citizens at risk.  And the reason that Monsanto's deceit can be our last hope in avoiding our eventual extinction is this:  that every citizen in the world and their families eat food, including the employees who work for the NSA, Monsanto, the media, and our government.  And the  hope I speak of is that when these ordinary citizen/employees, who are unknowingly engaged in helping to cover up the lies and deceit of an elite few, find out that they are harming their own children, and all children by doing so, they might decide to withdraw their support from those elite few (i.e., those who are paying their salaries) and instead align themselves with the survival of humanity instead.  Maybe they will decide that life itself on this planet is more important than their current job is, even though that's not a pleasant decision to confront or make.
I'm saying that Roundup by itself could eventually be the cause of human extinction.  I'm saying that the state of consciousness in which such deceit can come into being and flourish, is pointing to that result.  Whether it comes to that or not, glyphosate is causing and will, apparently, cause a lot of suffering and death.
 
What we see exposed for all to see, is that large segments of the population have been trained to love money, power, and security more than they love truth, honor, dignity, compassion, courage and love.  And if the bulk of humanity cannot find a way to reverse those priorities, within themselves, the human race and maybe life itself on this planet will come to an end much sooner than any of us thought possible.
 
The hopeful truth is... if we can reverse these priorities, what we could learn in the process might open up a new age of decency and success for all humanity beyond anything we have ever dreamed or imagined. 
 
I personally can't prove to anyone else the truth of what I've said here, or said anywhere else for that matter.  Most of what I talk about is based on the contributions and sacrifices of other people who spoke up, refused to remain silent, making it possible for me to become educated.
 
We think we can leave the big picture to others... to other people we hope we can trust.  But being a responsible citizen means that some things we have to do for ourselves if we hope to get at the truth, and make a needed difference.
 
Regarding the work of Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., ... and the cover up of 911... and the lies, crimes and deceptions perpetrated by our government and the media...  here are a few links you can use to gain insight for yourself into what I am talking about:
Regarding glyphosate, Roundup,and the source of autism and more... Go to this website: http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff but first listen all the way through to the end of this podcast interview with Seneff titled:  The 900 pound gorilla at our dinner table, by clicking this link:  http://www.tonu.org/?powerpress_pinw=1528-podcast .
Note that Monsanto and others have a vested interest in you not doing this.  Billions of dollars are at stake, and they are prepared to spend a lot of money, and go to a lot of trouble, to dissuade you from looking into this further, i.e., reviewing the source documents yourself.  You don't have to be a bio-physicist to appreciate the work she and others have done.  At this site, she also references other people's work in addition to her own. e.g.,   Among others at her site, be sure to download and review this source document by Nancy Swanson, et. al., Genetically engineered crops, glyphosate and the deterioration of health in the United States, Journal of Organic Systems, 9(2), 2014:  http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/Swanson_et_al_2014.pdf 
You can also Google "Stephanie Seneff" and review her podcasts.


"...and if you haven't the courage to tell the truth, or the consciousness to honor the truth, or the love to love the truth, then one day you will not have the truth to tell, and soon thereafter you will not live in a place that will acknowledge the truth when it is told, and not long after that the truth will not be told, for it will no longer be allowed.  You cannot hope to be a traitor to life, and then expect to live in a free and just society."
From "The Answer"
By Mark A. Goldman

Links for discussion and information on 911:
 www.ae911truth.org and 
www.911truthseattle.org ​

 

​Dear Friends, Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunties and Cousins,
 
I have just made a move to help institute sensible gun control in this country.  I joined “Everytown for Gun Safety”.  It is a movement to work with state governments to pass sensible gun control laws.  The membership now is about 3.5 Million mothers and others.  It has the financial backing of all these concerned folks as well as Bloomberg, former mayor of NYC.  I read some impressive statistics recently about the drop in gun violence in the Big Apple, thanks to his and others efforts to reverse the deadly trend.
 
As a Montana native, I am very familiar with hunting rights and rights of gun use for sport.  I support hunting as a supplement to the dinner table and for sensible sport. I endorse those who use their guns for hunting and sport. However, the NRA has lost any respect I may have had for them by advocating every kind of weapon as permissible in any situation.  In a perfect world that might work……..but our world is far from perfect.  
 
Better records of gun purchases and ownership along with safe storage requirements would be a move to dampen the random shootings.  Improvement in our services to locate and treat mentally disturbed people would help to moderate the anger and/or twisted thinking that takes someone in to a crowd to open fire.
 
I am through clucking my tongue and weeping for the victims and their families.  It is time for me to step up and do something.  How about you?
 
You can check out this organization on the web.  This Sunday morning’s Tri-City Herald had a lead story on the organization and convinced me that it is an avenue that shows promise of making a difference. I have entered my name into membership and will be supporting the group financially. 
 
Sincerely,
Alta P. Thomas
Mother, grandmother, auntie, grandauntie, cousin and teacher/mentor to hundreds of high school aged kids