Joan Rivers and the Hypocrisy of America

Joan Rivers is considered a beloved comedian by many Americans.  Early on the name Joan Rivers became a worldwide sensation.  Obviously in the world of modern social media any death of a celebrity becomes exponentially inflated in a very short time.  In our pursuit of self actualization, I ask what good will it do to pay reverent homage and vigil for a celebrity when real people die every day right in your community?

I was on the treadmill the other day down at the fitness center.  Low and behold on my news channel they were talking about an investigation into the outpatient care Joan Rivers was getting.  This is crap and I wanted to wretch all over the treadmill!  How low and pathetic to inflate a celebrity death into some kind of martyr ritual or cause for kind and compassionate care.  It was inconceivable to me that the reporters and guests continued without shame or hesitation in the name of "reporting the news".

The woman is dead!  Yet, because of her money we now raise her to a more worthy status.  Thereby, invoking sainthood upon this woman will bring validity and authenticity to the sufferings of millions in similar outpatient care.

It's just crap the direction we've taken.  Just crap!

ISIS in Iraq, US Southern Border, George Washington and Ferguson, Missouri

The American journalist and war reporter for GlobalPost James Foley was beheaded this week by the cowardice of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in the Middle East.  Instead of being an epic calamity of proportions of moral superiority it is carpeted on relatively subdued action.  In fact there is much more attention given to the local issue in Ferguson, Missouri than there is in atrocities committed against Americans abroad.  How is it that we've become numb and indifferent to such graphic murders that in President Ronald Reagan's time would've caused a decisive and quick end to such a terrorist organization?  What is there to learn from this?

Since 9/11 Americans have been inundated with images of beheadings and Hitler-like barbaric acts against human beings that defy belief and the very nature of our species.  No doubt it is also a part of human nature to be lessened in outrage with consistent examples of atrocious behavior from extremists before our eyes.  Perhaps Americans need to reacquaint themselves with that part of the innate American spirit that would never allow such things to happen to not only Americans themselves but also the truly oppressed abroad. 

We are Americans and we are better than what we've become.

We human beings are very slow to learn.  One would think that especially after the Jewish Holocaust in the 20th century we would've learned how to prevent or at least not tolerate such actions again.  Now we have Syrian video of people purposely being enslaved and starved in camps.  We now have ISIS in Iraq exterminating and exiling Iraqi Christians to the mountains.  With the induction of the Internet, social media and portable communication devices we are now seeing in real time the ruthless nature of man going on around the world.  

Do we need another George Washington to morally and militarily lead us back to humility and the purity of our American endowed power and authority - and responsibility?

Though domestic events such as the recent Michael Brown in Ferguson are important, it is ever crucial for any sitting President to discern what his level of mantle should address and not address in domestic issues.  His mantle should be last in the line of recognition and spoken disdain.  Unless there is a natural or economic calamity within our borders that affects the whole of this country, the President should resign himself from public statements unless all other channels such as state and local authorities have broken down.  This is key in maintaining order in the United States of America.  This is key in tempering the passions of the people who do not have all the facts in the matter.  The focus of the President of the United States should foremost be on the sovereign protection and prosperity of the United States and the guarding of the Constitution of the United States.  

Briefly getting back to foreign policy, diplomacy can work and can be good in dispelling further killings of our people abroad.  Yet, is there not a point when action must precede diplomacy?  As we've heard in recent years of that imaginary "red line" in the sand being crossed, is not public beheadings and happily admitted murders qualify as such lines?  In response we wait for the rest of the world to act.  They won't - at least not in large part as has been historically proven.  It is our duty to avalanche the murderous from their oppression of the innocent.  Not in pockets of action, but in a decisive move the world cannot deny.  A nation must take a leadership role in instances that are truly black and white - good and evil.

Administration puppets boost votes and approval ratings by turning attention to domestic issues.  They spend millions sending legions of federal agents to investigate into a local case.  This is not to suggest the sustaining of suppressing an important issue, but rather enhancing the justice of it.  Preying on the passions of the people corrupt the nature of any investigation.  Even if an investigation and/or jury finds in defense of Officer Darren Wilson, in the local and broader public eye he will be marked and convicted simply because the highest of authority clear down to the lowest denominator of activists such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have prematurely stuck their nose where is shouldn't be.  This isn't order and serving the greater good of the United States.  This is being paid to prey on the passions of the people whether monetarily, politically or in proxy of someone else and their agenda.

Obviously this post jumped between foreign policy and domestic issues primarily Ferguson, Missouri.  The purpose and intent of this post was to bring awareness to a quiet yet larger problem of proper leadership.  A unique leadership that the United States needs in these perilous times is in likeness of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and even Ronald Reagan.  We are in desperate need of a leader who is willing to stand up and seal the border to Mexico allowing only proper channels for freedom-minded and happiness-minded immigrants.  That should be among the primary duties of the President, especially since the commencing of vocal threats from ISIS to create havoc on U.S. soil and their involvement with the drug cartels in Mexico.  

We have a moral, economic and military responsibility to the world.  It starts by securing the home front first.  When will we receive an exceptional leader that will have the likeness of some of the above-mentioned former Presidents manifested in their speech?  When will we receive a man who will awaken the pure spirit of what an American is in each of us?  

When will we be worthy to receive?

Will Border Collapse be Prelude to American Dissolution

The border crisis along the Mexico/United States line has similarities with the conflict along the line between Israel and the West Bank.  The southern border of the United States of America is one of those topics and has become explosive in many corners of the nation.  Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants stream across the border from the south.  A bulk of which are children.  Many of these children are sick with Chicken Pox and even Tuberculosis.  The health risk grows in children and adults from many countries.  Not only do we have Mexican, but also Nicaraguan, Honduran, Guatemalan, Costa Rican and even further south.

Many demand to send them back immediately south of the border.  Others say be compassionate and welcome them in.  The politicians opine according to the voter block.  I believe we are making this issue more difficult than it is.  There is a way we can use reason as well as compassion.  In any event, order can only be restored first by securing the border.

History is filled with examples of borders and lines not to be crossed.  It is how peace and order is maintained.  It is how empires govern their peoples.  It determines taxes and social services.  Borders organize the human mind into workable lifestyles.  It is my own personal belief that we all existed with God before our birth.  I believe that Lucifer and his minions were cast out for rebellion thus becoming Satan.  It is also my belief that he and the fallen worked hard to tempt and influence us to follow them.  I believe that those who chose to remain strong with the Father formed lines which couldn't be crossed.  It was the barrier which continues today.  That membrane, those borders we recognize every day protect us and our happiness.

It was recently illustrated in the media that the Statue of Liberty stands as a beacon that welcomes all who wish to enter.  The United States has welcomed people with dreams from all parts of the world among all walks of life.  Yet, in concert and companionship to the Statue of Liberty stands Ellis Island.  This is the place equally famed among people near and far as the gateway into prosperity into the New World.  This is where immigrants penned their name in registration and began the process of becoming new citizens of the United States of America.

Ellis Island

It is a miracle!  It is truly a miracle that the United States hasn't been attacked by individuals and groups who may have pre-planned crossing the southern border.  In many ways we actually have.  It doesn't have to be in style of 9/11 or even Oklahoma City.  We've been suffering an incursion of drugs and gangs as well as an unprecedented taking advantage of the American tax payer in health benefits and welfare.  The United States actually rewards people for illegally entering the most promising nation in the world.  Will this all cause a collapse in social services under the guise of laws deceitfully passed to pacify certain voters?  Yep!

One of the prime objectives of Israel, and by extension the IDF (Israel Defense Force) is the destruction of all tunnels leading underground from the West Bank or Gaza Strip into Israel.  These tunnels are used by Palestinian Hamas supporters to smuggle weapons and to launch ambush attacks on Israel.  This infringement on the sovereignty of Israel is not too unlike what the United States is experiencing with it's Mexican border:

1. Yes, there is bloodshed though not to the extend taking place in Gaza and along the 1950 Armistice Line.  Border Patrol Agents as well as illegals are dying in skirmishes and violence outbreaks.
2. Drugs and weapons are being smuggled from Mexico into parts of Texas, California and New Mexico.  Heroine, cocaine, marijuana and other exotic toxins are being funneled into the United States in frightening quantities.
3. Gangs and criminals commit incursion into the United States for the express purpose of harm toward it's citizens.  Our prisons are overrun!  Lighter sentences and even arrests without incarceration is exercised throughout the U.S.  
4. Though it may not be the case in Israel, tunnels from the Mexican border are also used for prostituting and slaving young females and males to U.S. buyers.  This is a billion dollar industry and many poor and destitute families are willing to sacrifice a young child for the few dollars or rations to feed the family.
5. Illegal immigration and unlawful crossing of the borders pose an imminent threat against the United States just as in Israel.  To deny a clear danger or imminent threat to American lives from the collapse of the border is to have literal closed eyes.  It is to say it is dark when the sun is at noonday.  

The character, or lack of, of our elected officials in Washington is completely un-American.  They've chosen not to work for the greater interest of the American public.  They've chosen not to listen to their constituents and the outcries of their posterity.  Here we have all 5 points listed above taking place on southern border and the Senate elects to take a hiatus.  This is wrong!

We have got to wake up.  There is no way a prosperous moral nation can survive with open borders without any accountability or registration process.  It is physically impossible!  The risks are not only too great but - inevitable.

On a final note there is a generational danger in undocumented illegals.  We are in the midst of an unprecedented awakening of family history.  Searching for family members and family lines are among the top related searches on the Internet.  People want to know who they are and the scores of whom they are the culmination of.  Hundreds of thousands donate untold numbers of hours without monetary compensation to index names.  What is indexing?  Indexing is the process by which physical records, whether paper or microfiche, is interpreted and arbitrated through a second hand before it is permanently loaded searchable on the Internet.  These records are census, war and a host of other kinds of records including immigration.  

Identifying your family line is imperative.  It can help you understand your own medical history.  It gives you access to photos and stories that contribute to who you are.  Especially with these kids being sent over the border, don't you think they may someday want to search for their roots in their own inevitable journey of self identification?  There is a deeper and more meaningful reason behind being documented than just being able to be taxed.  

To be documented is to be opportuned to acquire that integrity that enables one to thrive nobly in society, and to invoke fond dignity from their ancestors as one magnifies their own family lines.  It isn't inhumane to enforce documentation of immigrants.  It is a service which we have cannot comprehend the full benefits of.

Islam Established Caliphate Iraq and Middle East

It is a dangerous excursion into genocide, holocaust and outright extermination that mankind has taken over the past 100 years.  Whether Jew or Gentile, the threat is and has been real dependent on which year it is.  The 20th century on into the 21 have proven wondrous by way of medicine and technology yet grotesque in the treatment of other races and faiths.  The Jewish Holocaust was a gruesome display of what man can do to another.  Though as of yet not as brutal, Christians around the globe are being targeted for expulsion and death - especially in Iraq and the Middle East.

Download short story from Amazon of Nazis in Czechoslovakia based on true account.

Islamic extremists have been dealt with far too much as fellow diplomats.  Those with only hatred in their hearts cannot be reasoned with or trusted.  They cannot be relied on to promote and represent the common good of the people.  They will kill, and they will do it in belief of going to heaven if they do it.  It is truly a mutilation of basic human reasoning that has become a severe handicap over the past 100 years.

These extremists want to erect a caliphate state or a state ruled under an Islamic religious and political leader.  They are producing such with a foundation of terror, death, intolerance and ethnic cleansing.  Sure..... that's a great way to ensure a prosperous and happy future for the people of that state.  These extremists are so terminally short-sighted that I only ask one thing.  What then after you've established a bonafied "caliphate" state?

There are no productive plans.  In all reality, when the land has been purged of all faiths other than their own they will end up sitting on their thumbs not knowing what to do or how to prosper their people.

It is amazing how with all our human "progress" we are still Neanderthals in our treatment with each other.

Israel and Palestinian Cease Fire

The land of Israel is a turbulent one.  The Palestinians in Gaza have a much different take on the future of Jerusalem and the entire region than does the Israelis.  At least this is true for the Hamas which has taken control of the Palestinian authority.  How else should the Jewish land of Israel react to decades of threats and violence?

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We can argue Middle East history till dawn and beyond but what cannot be disputed is the fact that the Jewish people have been under constant threat of annihilation for thousands of years.  It is true that the nations have converged against Israel.  If you were a trapped animal wouldn't your survival instincts take over?  It's the same here only the Israeli people still put their faith in that Higher Power to sustain them and to justify them in the end.

There is a point of "enough is enough" and the pursuit of engaging the enemy must and should progress till the end.  In any conflict there will be innocent casualties.  HOWEVER, let us not forget which side uses their own people as shields not only to protect their own weapons but also to gain global sympathy.  Let's not forget that as the world readily condemns Israel for the massive amounts of innocent dead.  Let us not forget!

Being of the tribe of Manasseh I am proud to have the association of Israel.  The Palestinian people are blessed as well but the world needs to understand that we all have the right to survive as long as we covenant to coexist in peace.  Being all our planet, those who cannot sustain the foundation of coexistence should be suppressed in their expansion of terrorism and moral decay.

The Hamas tunnels are an imminent threat toward Israel.  The operation of Israel's offensive is to render mute these tunnels.  It is my belief that Israel has the right, and obligation to it's people, to expand their offensive until the mission is declared finished.

I am all for the cease fires that have and continue to take place.  It should be used by both sides as an opportunity to reflect on the right course of action not for the present but rather for the long term.  It is to bury the dead with dignity and tend to the lame and infirm.  It is to assess the future of both peoples.  Will the cease fire hold in the end.  Probably not any time soon.  The religious extreme and anti-Semitism is strong and has a foundation on many people.  To learn to coexist is to have a personal conversion to a light they've never known.

Hoorah Israel is my take, but hoorah true peace is my hope and prayer.

Slovakia Eastern Europe: Destruction or Destiny

Parts of Eastern Slovakia suffered a devastating forestry loss during a storm in the first part of 2014.  Its estimated that 40% of the landmass of Slovakia is forest.  As evidence, the economy suffered and recovery is slow.  Two separate storms within a week both wreaked havoc with extremely rare wind velocities.  Slovakia borders Ukraine on the east, Poland on the north and Hungary on the south.  All the media attention was centered on Vladimir Putin and the Russian aggression into Crimea and the Eastern Ukraine.  Death and destruction there in Ukraine paled the natural events in Slovakia's weather.

Surprisingly less damage was placed in the lower valleys of the former Czechoslovakia.  The economic and natural disaster occurred in the higher elevations of the hills and mountains.  Hundreds of thousands of trees blown over dot the view in huge swaths of land.  A delegation from Shenandoah, Iowa observed the devastation to the landscape in Tisovec, Slovakia.  There will be no facts and figures in this post but an interesting thought to be shared.  This thought derives and is inspired by the scenes viewed of entire acreages laid waste that was once lush with green vegetation.

In a couple of heavy duty vehicles we set out on a trek up the mountainside with a local Forestry Director as our guide.  We stopped on the road not long into our journey.  In awe we pulled out our cameras and captured the ruin by the roadside.  It was easy to empathize with the feelings and concerns of the local residents.  One may think, as I did, that this event would be good for the department.  My thinking was that the trees are now brought down that eventually would need to be.  The Forestry controls the wood supply to the community and promotes future growth in a rotation schedule just as many farmers in the States do with corn, wheat and soybeans.  Instead of being a good thing this wound up a calamity in logistics.  This storm further upset the rotation and blocked important roadways for their work.  The storm had an adverse affect on an already troubled forest.

Trees uprooted straight from the ground and laid over.

When we had an up close look I marveled how the trees were wholly uprooted and laid over.  So much so that I asked if the trees were mechanically pulled up for safety reasons from the crippling affect of the storm.  No, the trees went straight over without any help from man.  It wasn't until the next day that I learned an important truth about the trees here in the Tisovec area and about man in general.  A parable if you will.

The next day a couple of us went out with another gentleman whose livelihood deals in trees and forestry as well.  He explained further the problems facing the forestry here and the infestation taking place.  Many of these trees are being plagued with dangerous insects like bark beetles and diseases.  It was explained that up until a hundred years ago the native Birch tree was used in all wood purposes whether it be heating or building.  Around that time the Spruce was introduced.  The Spruce grew just as tall as the Birch and provided an added resource.  However, nature seems to have fought back.  The Spruce roots do not go deep in the rocky ground of Slovakia.  Though tall this also makes the tree very unstable.  This is part of the reason why so many trees seemed to be uprooted  from the storm.  Their roots didn't go deep and were susceptible to the wind.  Unlike the native Birch the Spruce doesn't provide the elasticity to sway with the Slovakian winds.  Evidently, this intrusive introduction of the Spruce has brought the modern problems of insects and disease.

This learning experience brought me to reflection.  In pondering this parable of life it was clear that I was supposed to come at this particular time to learn and bring back certain lessons to the United States.  We have a growing problem in the United States and that is in personal identity and moral decay.  Too many are mutilating their minds and bodies in an outcry effort to have an identity.  Lost in the crowd and the grays of confusion many of our young and middle age seek out artificial individuality.  Regardless of popular belief I know this to be evident in the spike of body piercings, tattoos and other activities that enslave the mind like Internet gaming.  What we lack is a firm foundation that provides man stability and a lasting happiness.

Every generation has its own unique opposing problems to conquer.  This generation doesn't suffer the pains of physical labor like our ancestors or the engineering skills to map out a nuclear bomb shelter.  This generation's obstacles suppress and fog those activities and principles that generations past have utilized to gain a firm footing in life.  Our fathers and mothers, authors of our lineage, used family traditions, religious values and honesty as their compass.  If they were without wisdom they at least knew how to seek it.

Our people today thirst after that which matters most to their inner being.  Yet, they fail to find the will to search for it.  To fill this vast void, unhappiness finds alternate Band-aid quick fixes to satisfy their self worth.  It is true that this is folly because they have no comprehension of what these permanent "fixes" will do to them in the long term.  Adverse powers tell the mind to seek immediate satisfaction.

This journey into the perils of the Slovak forest was a visual parable depiction of the storms of life.  If we lose hope and fail to provide strong roots for our being we will be at the mercy of the smallest of change in the wind.  We will not have the better chance to stand like the native Birch, but one-by-one we will fall because our small roots did not provide a sure foundation in the rocky terrain of life.

The gentleman on this second day in the forest said that its not destruction what took place here but destiny.  Storms will come and go, and what we have done to ourselves and the land provide the destiny that storm gives us.  There will always be clean-up and moving on.  Those activities are a part of life, yet equally as important is learning the lessons from the tempests that plague us.

When you have acquired your foundation and after the storm passes then you can ask yourself - is it destruction or destiny?

Holocaust from Budapest: A Journal Entry From Their Footsteps

Have you lived through the Holocaust?  Have you been schooled in what its all about?  Have you visited a Holocaust memorial or museum?  Do you know of the atrocious nature of the Nazis and the Russians at the time?  Your answer to these questions are an accurate gauge of your true understanding of the plight of the Jewish experience during World War ll and even thereafter.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Tisovec, Slovakia on City business.  Our plane came in and out of Budapest, Hungary.  We stayed the last couple days prior to our departure plane in Budapest.  I had the grand and somber occasion to visit two separate Holocaust memorials.  I hold to the fact that one cannot leave either building with smiles or even happy thoughts.

The first building we visited is the Terror Haza or commonly termed the House of Terror.  It is the actual building where Nazi and later Russian fascists interrogated, tortured and even murdered Jewish citizens whom they purposely deemed and framed as vagrants and resistors.  It was first used in 1944 by the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party.  Each floor deepened the empathy in each visitor for those souls who suffered cruel indignity and death.  It's interesting that the curriculum we are taught elsewhere in the world including the United States pales in thorough information that is only known through going to those places.  I did not know the depth of the twisted nature of the evil regimes of the Nazis, Russians and factions such as the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party.  In fact, to learn of history from a different land can only bond you to the actual event only so far.  But, to walk the very city, to walk the very footsteps of millions of doomed men, women and children is most humbling indeed.  Doing so cannot be compared to.

House of Terror

As with all dictatorships and rise of liberty-stripped populations the empires start with small seemingly insignificant events.  The Jewish community was industrious, happy and included many business leaders.  Out of hate and fear the Arrow Cross restricted their prosperity, and eventually instituted policies regarding the very nature of man including procreation between a Jew and a non-Jew.  Then this now isolated people had to wear the Yellow Star of David.  The categorization of this people had already begun.

Officers at the House of Terror quickly became known as masters of life and death.  In infamy the address 60 Andrassy Boulevard became.  The knot in the noose of fear and terror housed the horrors of what men can possibly do to another from 1944 through 1957.

The other building was the Holocaust Memorial Center.  It also was very somber.  It listed several torture techniques that is unconscionable to even fair minded human beings.  There are reports of crushing a man's testicles and crushing a woman's uterus as a token and an assurance that a Jew cannot procreate.  My Holy God!  The dredging feeling in the heart is wrenching.  Also disturbing was individual life stories being told.  Many stories of couples and families happy and prosperous one day and in the camps the next.  You see pictures of happy couples smiling and in love.  It was difficult to see such happiness and to already know their demise in such short few days, months or years.  The lasting symbol tribute to the Holocaust victims was the Tree of Life outside the Holocaust Memorial Center.

The Tree of Life

It was difficult indeed to comprehend especially with the connection I personally have with the departed.  The experience forces the organization of the mind into deep reflection.  I left the building and returned to a fast-paced busy world of Budapest.  I watched as people walked to and fro and drove like mad men (as is custom in Budapest) to their respective destinations.  Many are used to the Holocaust memorials in their midst.  Many are oblivious to them and express their disinterest.  I marvel how we as a people can forget and fail to humble ourselves to such events that took place literally not even 60 years ago.

As far as God and human events are concerned I believe two things.  God allows things to happen or God invokes or causes things to happen.  It is clear that those dark years were allowed to happen.  If something is allowed to happen then we are to learn from it.  Right?  As I reflect as people went about their business I have to ask myself - are we or have we learned?

History marks the way.  That which is failed to be learned is doomed to happen again.  9.75 out of every 10 persons would say that such things can never happen again.  It is impossible with our modern sense of morality and technology.  Yet, I bet the populous thought the very same thing in 1935.

I am here to tell you that it can happen again.  With our technology and might I foresee such an event happening swift, quick and on such a widespread scale that will shadow even the fiery chambers of the death camps.  May we ever learn the lessons of the Holocaust and hold sway the adverse forces that seek it.