The Toll Men

Allergies affect approximately 60 million Americans, which means
one in every five adults or children suffer from them, and are
common in men as well as in women. Thirty-five million people
have upper respiratory symptoms, which are allergic reactions to
airborne pollen. Around 10 million Americans have allergies to
cats and two million present severe reactions to various insect
stings.

Food allergies are less common in the family of allergies. About
one out of three people pretend to have a food allergy and only
about three to eight percent of children younger than three
years old, and only one percent of adults really have an
allergic reactions to food. Unfortunately, food allergies are
blamed for close to 200 deaths every year. Scientists say that
allergies have to do with genetics. If one parent has allergies,
there are 33% chances that each child will suffer from a form of
allergy. If both parents are allergic, it is very much possible
(seven cases out of 10) that their children will be allergic,
too. If we are to discuss about allergies, we should have in
view the fact that allergies usually stay with adults, while
children sometimes outgrow them.

An allergy is in fact the response of your body to something
that it perceives as a threat. Your body fights the allergen in
the same way it would fight a virus or a bacterial infection. We
can take as an example the pollens of some plants that are small
and light and can be taken away by the winds for miles. Ragweed
pollen has been found 400 miles out at sea and two miles up in
the atmosphere.

During the last few decades telephone communication, and especially telemarketing, have gotten a bad rap, resulting in the establishment of The Do Not Call Registry, and the seeking out of alternative marketing media, such as email and the Internet.

But there is no medium as direct and effective as reaching out and selling someone by phone. This hasn’t changed, despite the black eye that telemarketing has earned because of a few bad practitioners.

Frankly, I believe there are few media that are as empowering as the phone.

Let me tell you why I say this.

Just this week I visited a very successful financial services firm. It uses a number of means to market, including direct mailings, retail displays, seminars, and personal visitations.

But to round out its marketing mix, every salesperson has to put in a minimum of phone time, and there are numerous cubicles reserved for this purpose in the middle of the agency.

When you inspect these work areas you’ll see they are Spartan.

A chair, a writing surface, a few pages of letter sized listsno computersand of course, a presentation and a single line telephone.

This is the stuff of magic, this bare bones assortment of items.

These few, inexpensive tools produce a ton of business with buyers who are, after all is said and done, grateful they were called about a vital product.

The phone may have “gone underground” during the past several years, but it will rise again, especially in the esteem of marketers who will see once more, that reaching out and selling someone is the best and cheapest way of earning new business!

Many companies that specialize in credit repair or offer to clean bad credit reports up will offer a free consultation. Some call this a free credit check. The companies that specialize in bad credit repair generally focus on removing inaccurate, obsolete or unverifiable information from you credit reports. Do you have this type of information on your credit report? Practically everyone does. The credit bureaus make mistakes, creditors that report information make mistakes and if you do not review your credit report occasionally for inaccurate information, then your credit scores may be suffering.

Before you can attempt to clean bad credit, you need to know why you have bad credit. Visit http://www.annualcreditreport.com This truly is a free credit check, as long as you click “no thanks” on the offers presented by the credit bureaus that created the site. And be sure that you spell it correctly, because there are impostor sites selling all kinds of information often using the term “free credit check” or “free credit report” to lure you in. You may be disappointed to learn that you will not receive a “credit score” at this site. You do have to pay for this information.

Occasionally Fair Isaac runs a special at myfico.com offering consumers a free credit check. Fair Isaac invented the current credit scoring process used in the United States. When you hear a creditor refer to your FICO score, they are talking about Fair Isaac. Fair Isaac also makes suggestions about how you can improve your FICO score, clean bad credit or establish good credit, if you are lacking in that department. Many creditors only look at the FICO score when deciding whether or not to approve your credit application. When you review the information on your credit report (that was the free credit check) and have negative information removed, your FICO score will improve.

If you have lots of negative items on your credit report and you do not know where to begin. You can hire a professional to help you clean bad credit, but all professionals are not the same. Many will entice you with offers of a free credit check and sometimes you will end up paying for something that you do not need or want. Some so-called credit repair specialists will recommend that you apply for an employer identification number or EIN and use this number when you are applying for credit. Making false statements on a credit application is illegal. You may want to clean bad credit, but you do not want to create more problems for yourself.

Law firms offering options that will legally clean bad credit reports will never recommend that you do anything illegal. They may offer a free consultation, but they will not disguise it as a free credit check. You may think that a law firm will charge more than another credit repair professional, but often this is not the case and you get what you are paying for. You get to clean bad credit effectively and legally. For more information about how to clean bad credit legally, visit Credit Fix Solutions.

Strolling Magic is so versatile it can be performed anywhere and
everywhere. Imagine booking Josh to come to your next corporate
function to mingle around with your guests before the dinner,
and during the cocktail hour to get everyone in the right “mood”
for the evening.

Clients often hire Josh for the atmosphere. With Josh’s
exceptional sleight-of-hand magic with cards and coins your
guests will literally be enthralled for hours. There is no need
for a table or any special lighting, so Strolling Magic is
perfect for any venue in the world!

On top of that, recently, Josh was asked to perform at The
Magic Castle in Hollywood, CA, a very, very exclusive society
for magicians. You need to be very good to perform at the Castle
and Josh had the honor of being asked to perform there. Most
magicians never get that opportunity to experience that.

It would be in your best interest to book Josh right now for
his Strolling Magic, before the likes of Lexmark, Toshiba, Sony,
or some other big Fortune 500 Company does.

The Goat and the Rope

where there were devils I saw none.
nothing. the air is hot. milky substance.
I am and we are looking at this deep.
souls lost. we are looking at this terrain.
the moon is dead. over my head. like
a shadowy curtain. hanging. most of
the kings in westminister abbey are
here. all the rest of us are on the hill.
no ice-cream down here. we are the
discarded. the seduced. most of us slept
through our earthly lives. they’re still
sleeping through the whole thing. like
a fat cat rolling over for mama. pass out
the beer. slide one under the door. Use
the bible for wrapping paper. once you’re
dead, you’re dead. woooo. here comes
the torture. give me chloroform. quick.
I am dead. but something tells me I’ll still
feel it. there are no carcasses down here.
only the feathered weird. they move their
wings like crippled wasps. they sweat
like a bull snorts. they seem satisfied.
they’ve been in the dark way too long.

they walk noble. naked. like jungle
rats. civilized with stench. a black hawk
is over head. it’s turned about. looks
like an albino now. I wish I wish I had a
helicopter. here comes the torture. give
me chloroform. a shot of whisky will do.
crippled wasps get out of my way. slide
one under the door. please. first time I
ever said that. cat rolling over. where
there were devils I saw none. wish I had
a helicopter. I wonder if sex is part of
the dead program. I think I lost the goat
and the rope.

#816 8/27/2005

In Spanish
Translated by Nancy Penaloza

La soga y la Cabra

Donde all hubo diablos yo no vi ninguno.

Nada. El aire est caliente. Sustancia lechosa.
Yo estoy y estamos mirando esto profundo.

El alma perdida. Estamos mirando a este terreno.

La luna est muerta. Sobre mi cabeza. Como
Una cortina vaga. Colgando. La mayor parte

De los reyes en la abada de los ministros del oeste

Estn aqu. Todo el resto de nosotros est sobre la colina.

Ningn helado aqu abajo. Somos los desechados.

Los seducidos. La mayor parte de nosotros dormidos
A través de nuestras vidas terrenales. Ellos todava
Duermen a través de todo esto. Como un pez gordo

Dando vueltas por mam muerta.

La cerveza. Deslice una bajo la puerta. Use
La Biblia para el papel de envolver. Una vez que usted
Esté muerto, usted est muerto. Woooo. Aqu viene

La tortura. Déme el cloroformo. Rpido.
Estoy muerto. Pero algo me dice que todava
Lo sentiré. No hay ningn cuidado aqu abajo
Slo, el con plumas extrao. Ellos mueven sus
Alas como avispas tullidas. Ellos sudan
Como un resoplido de toro. Ellos parecen satisfechos.

Ellos han estado en el camino oscuro demasiado tiempo.

Ellos andan nobles. Desnudos. Como ratas
De la selva. Civilizados con hedor. Un halcn negro
Esta sobre la cabeza. Este esta dando vuelta. Parece a
Un albino ahora. Deseo, deseo que yo tuviera un
Helicptero. Aqu viene la tortura. Déme
El cloroformo. Un tiro de gisqui lo har.
Avispas tullidas fuera de mi camino. Deslcese
Una bajo la puerta. Por favor. La primera vez
Alguna vez dije esto. Gato dando vueltas. Donde

Haba diablos yo no vi ninguno. Deseo que yo tuviera
Un helicptero. Me pregunto si el sexo es parte del
Programa muerto. Pienso que perd la soga y la cabra.

*816 8/27/2005

See Mr. Siluk’s books at http://www.amazon.com

No matter which decade you went to college you probably took econ. As David Brooks of The New York Times writes, “economics was the queen of the social sciences.” Psychology, sociology, history and anthropology were “easier”, not quite so solid. No longer.

Economic theorists used to assume that people everywhere were natural “profit-maximizing creatures trending toward reasonableness.” They believed that as people throughout the world became better educated and richer, tribalism and nationalism would be replaced by global institutions maintained by advanced means of communication.

It was a good idea at the time. Now we know that:

1. Education has not made people more moderate. In the U.S. highly educated voters are more polarized than less educated ones. In the Arab world some of the most educated are the most fanatical.

2. Humans are not “profit-maximizing creatures trending toward reasonableness”, but “socially embedded products of family and group”. People use the limbic and reptile portions of their brains to make economic decisions, not the neo-cortex.

David Brooks writes, “Alan Greenspan said that he once assumed that capitalism was ‘human nature’. But after watching the collapse of the Russian economy, he had come to consider it ‘was not human nature at all, but culture.’ During our first few years of life, parents, communities and societies unconsciously impart ways of being and of perceiving reality that we are only subliminally aware of.”

3. Perceiving reality. The value of truth is absolute, its nature subjective. What we think is real and true and right is not what someone else thinks is real and true and right. I refer you to quantum mechanics. Imagine everything, including yourself, as a field of energy arranging and re-arranging depending on your focus on it.

Recognizing this fact might put some milk back in our economists’ sacred cow.

Instead of putting money into education where there is no cultural support for the kind of education we’re financing, why not realize, study, and act on specific cultural perceptions of reality. I entered a student’s home once, invited by his mother because he needed help passing 8tth grade English. English was their native language. There were three television sets in the home, but no books and no dictionary. I could not change the culture of the home in one visit.

Instead of imposing our systems in other countries and then wondering why they didn’t work, why not find out their cultural realities? David Brooks points out that East Asians and Jews thrive commercially wherever they settle. And no matter how much we have invested in Africa to build factories for economic development, none of it has worked.

Instead of assuming that we are reasonable most of the time, admit that we are rarely reasonable across the board. Admitting to the miracles and mishaps of the human mind is the first step, albeit a big one. Understanding that early childhood cultural influences have a powerful effect on adult behavior at a subconscious level is a major step.

Understanding often precedes forgiving.

I’ve been sick lately. I try to force getting well faster than my body agrees to. I ended up injuring myself more. That forced some digging into the old limbic brain. I stirred up some guilt feelings for being sick in the first place. Now that I understand my impatience, I’ve made it onto the next step. Whew!

May you understand yourself today.

Copyright 2006 Cole’s Poetic License

© Evelyn Cole, MA, MFA, The Whole-mind Writer
http://www.write-for-wealth.com

evycole@direcway.com

Cole’s chief aim in life is to convince everyone to understand the power of the subconscious mind and synchronize it with goals of the conscious mind. Along with “Mind Nudges” and “Brainsweep”, she has published three novels and several poems that dramatize subconscious power.

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