Truth For A Change with Joe Friendly Truth For A Change with Joe Friendly
When President Fidel Castro announced on July 31, 2006 that he felt so weakened by illness and overwork that he was going to step down, at least temporarily, it occurred to me that what I had written in 1973 in my not well published manuscript, The Birthdate Phenomenon, would be of considerable importance to him. [In the 70's I published myself in Xerox of 300 copies, submitting a copy to my alma mater Caltech's library, for example, and trying to sell it in Berkeley, California in a couple bookstores, but giving away lots of copies.]

In particular, I had discovered that people tend to over-react on the day 2 weeks before their birthday and also the day 2 weeks before their half birthday, feeling a surprising weakness indicating a permanent deterioration of their physical and/or mental condition. Typically 2 weeks later the symptoms abate and in retrospect it is apparent there was over-reaction.

I have taken the preliminary steps to get this writing to the attention to Fidel and will keep you informed of my progress. My big wish is for Fidel to publicly announce that he has discovered this new Copernicus in the US and introduce me and my writings to the world, including my birthday theory and my plan for peaceful, but total revolution. Just the idea of his reading out loud my plan for revolution would be a huge step in that direction, the idea that for the people to be able to really control their economic system they should be owners of the corporations, and that they should wake up to the fact that our foreign policy has not been promoting democracy and freedom but the opposite.

The book I had chosen in my plan for revolution, for the entire US public to read to wake up, Killing Hope by William Blum, was similar to the choice of Osama Bin Laden announced January 2006 for waking up the American people, by the same author, Rogue Nation. Turns out Osama and me share the same birthday, March 10. William Blum's is March 6. Here is the 1973 article:

The Birthdate Phenomenon: Applications (page 145 of 1974 book manuscript)

An Important Discovery

Here's a simple but extremely important and useful discovery to come of studying the Birthdate Phenomenon.

IT TURNS OUT that people tend to go through a surprising period of unusual weakness, confusion, and anxiety for about a two week period right before their half-birthdate, that is, about two weeks before the point six months from their birthdate. There is also to be noted a similar period of weakness and anxiety right before the birthdate.

Without being aware of this birthdate effect people, and their doctors, tend to over-react to the puzzling symptoms, fearing that the sudden and inexplicable downturn in physical and/or mental.state signals some ominous deterioration of the body or mind. Often there is feared the beginnings of a nervous breakdown or other mental disorder.

It is common in such instances for the individual to be hospitalized or committed
to a mental institution. An example is Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s wife entering a mental hospital at the beginning of September 1973 because of sudden attacks of unexplainable anxiety just about two weeks before her birthdate and then released about two weeks after her birthday. Another example was the concern in China and the rest of the world in mid-December 1973 that Chairman Mao (December 26) was dying which turned out to be a false alarm.

Typically, the symptoms disappear by the birthdate or half-birthdate whether treated or not. So being aware of the birthdate effect can be quite helpful both to the individual and doctors and psychologists. Especially in cases of anxiety, once the individual is assured it will pass in two weeks the treatment need only be to take it easy for the two weeks, get plenty of sleep and rest, and to see lots of entertaining movies.

Now, to be complete, there may be some serious physical breakdown in the period of weakness and vulnerability that does require treatment, but even where surgery is required as, for example, to open a constricted artery, it is often decided to wait a couple weeks for the patient to get stronger so as to better endure the trauma of surgery.

I have come across several hundred cases of this surprising period of anxiety and confusion. Typically, in asking people their birthdate I will recognize a recently passed half-birthdate and ask if the individual went through a rough time of mental anguish, say, three or four weeks ago. “Oh yes, I sure did, it was strange, how did you know that?" is a very common kind of reply.

Exactly why there is this effect I can only speculate. Since we are dealing with a sine wave phenomenon, we would expect the effect greatest and most observable at the
180 degree and 360 degree points, corresponding to the half-birthdate and birthdate.

By analogy to other physical systems involving sine curves, the two week periods immediately before these points correspond to times of maximum dissonance, like the grating disharmony of playing two musical notes right next to each other.
Finally, I would point out that with our country in many ways having come to move backwards, things getting worse each day rather than better, and people reaching into the past for memories of better times rather than reaching into the future with plans and hope, I've begun to observe cases of weakness immediately after the birthday and half-birthdate. The cure is to get our country moving forward again, of course.

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End of Article

In the 33 years since that writing, I have come to see this phenomenal period of weakness 2 weeks before the birthday and half-birthday a very large number of times, confirming what I had written way back. I would explain it a little better now, that there is apparently a 28-day sinusoidal biorhythm with birthday as the point between the below zero half of the sine wave and the positive half. That makes the point 2 weeks before the birthday the beginning of the descent into negativity, and 7 days later the lowest point. Birthday thus marks the ascent into positive, with the highest point 7 days later. Sorry I don't have a diagram to show you. That would make it so much easier for lots of folks to understand what I am trying to explain.

So, time will tell whether Fidel is actually provided with the above words to consider in deciding whether he over-reacted and is now feeling so much better that he can resume his presidential duties, or at least embark on some ambitious new path like promoting revolution in the US and appreciation of birthday's importance worldwide.  ¶ 12:29 PM