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I think there is much truth to the idea that when you deal with a Nazi, an unregenerate Nazi, reasoning, persuasion, common sense and pleading count for nothing. After all the movies you and I have seen, all the documentaries about the Holocaust over the decades you realize that the Nazi mind is unrecoverable, for it is forever lethally conditioned. That man can be psychologically eviscerated and be implanted by the state’s doctrine and dogma has been seen throughout world history. Men voluntary at times choose to be slaves, for freedom is frightening and one has to be responsible –and…

After forty-two years I decided to return to psychotherapy. It was not a decision, says the cliché, that was easily arrived at. I can share, which is my nature, some of what motivated me to do so. Some feelings I will keep to myself where they mostly belong. Last year was one of medical awareness, pronounced at risk by one doctor which was not sensitively rendered.  A series of physical maladies befell me, a bone spur impinging on my spine was the severest and required a cortisone shot into the spinal area for relief; the agony was bordering 8 on the Richter scale. So one…

If all goes well, I will be teaching a course in writing in spring 2014. Through some self-promoting and hustling what I can offer as a writer, I got the go ahead from an administrator. If there are enough registrants for the course, it is on. So I have been giving it a good deal of thought, looking through old workshop formats I had conducted many years ago; exercises I have used in these workshops; essays I might use as formats or models for writing, et al. The prior post on this log, Why I Write, was an attempt to clear my…

The blurb “About OLLI” reads: “The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas…is a member-led, vibrant learning community of more than 1,300 retired and semi-retired adults…Our classes are purely for enjoyment — there are no tests, grades, or credits. Prior college experience is not required, only a desire to join our peers in the joy of learning. Each of our study groups is led by OLLI members who bring a lifetime of personal and professional experience to their classrooms….” And so as much as an attempt to get out of the house and form new relationships, I…