To kill an American

There was alleged to have been a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper, an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is . So they would know when they found one.

"An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.

An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.

An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.

The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.

When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!

As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than an y other nation to the poor in Afghanistan Americans welcome the best of everything...the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least.

The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty, welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America.

Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself . Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

Stuck on the toilet with no toilet paper

Once the looting is done and the administration literally has all the money in the world, they can buy a military from anywhere. The US will be become the WE, and we will be FUBAR. The new nation of Dubai will patriate many familiar names, formerly known as US citizens. But they will no longer belong to US. WE will be ass out… literally. The US we were sold is a lie, not a democracy but a republic. The difference…?

A soldier from WWII remarked that it was strange coming home and looking at all the citizens walking around rushing to do things that they thought were important. When what really mattered was seemingly irrelevant. Many soldiers probably feel the same way after experiencing intense and overwhelming situations coming back to a world where people were preoccupied with convenience, pleasure and trivialities.

Who would go to hell if it weren’t paved with candy coated bon-bons and what would heaven be worth if everybody got in easy? Some say it would be nice if things were the other way around – if good people got good things and bad people got bad things.

From a Chinese perspective the wise are in rural settings. People seek them out for wisdom and enlightenment; they don’t go to the urban centers to convert the populace. The people don’t have to stay in the cities, they can go to the rural areas and be free of the sticky mess of congestion – but there is a trade off – being responsible for your own survival. The bue pill or the red pill?

How can you pick among candidates living a lie? Bush took the election and indicated the electoral system was broken or at least could be successfully hacked. And now you have people running to endorse a broken system instead of trying to rehab it? What’s wrong with the concept of Obama and Hillary as running mates? Ego? And if it is ego, why endorse either of them?

We still have people who won’t seriously engage the conversation about 911, let alone what this war on terror is really about. No one wants to talk about the creation of the central bank and its impact on the future of the country, the reasons JFK was assassinated, the role of Rockefeller, the Bushes and others.

When I was young I heard of 10 and 15 year plans. When I got older, I heard of 50 and 100 year plans. I heard of think tanks and research and development departments. Interesting how technology has accelerated with keeping up with the joneses. The advent of add. Attention spans are so short that the planners are safe from not only being discovered but out-planned.

Are there those who are spiritually attuned with what is right? As certainly as there are those attuned to what is evil. Maybe though its not about saving that which will inevitably die, but rather buying a little more time before the whole thing goes belly up so that a few more can survive. An interesting notion considering the global economy and the fiasco with interest rates, loans and sub prime markets.

The global economy was only a ruse to hold off the inevitable – the total collapse of the American economy. Those responsible in every aspect are guilty of treason.

Listen to the world leaders we are supposed to hate. Listen to them out of the context of American interests and listen carefully. What are they saying that isn’t true? Isn’t the CIA a terrorist organization. Is it okay though because it works for American interests? Does it?

Is Bush a false prophet who has illegally usurped the throne of America? Doe she not preach religion but behave anti-christianly?

A history lesson

She rushed into the room and dramatically stumbled through the doorway wearing her best interpretation of shock on her face. I was annoyed. I was in the middle of typing up a paper and she just stood there looking like a bad actor waiting for applause.

"What is it?" I asked with the best tone of patience I could muster under the circumstances; the paper I was writing required a lot of concentration.

"I just found out about the holocaust in World War II!" she exclaimed.

I frowned. I had to remember that she was only thirteen years old and that the scope of her thirteen year old mind was constrained to an orbit determined by the gravity of her more immediate interests - socializing with her friends.

"Okay..." slipped out of my mouth with a hint of impatience.

"They killed people! LOTS of people! And did horrible things to them!" she educated me.

"The trans-atlantic slave trade was worse." I offered.

"Did they burn people alive?" she challenged.

"Worse." I answered matter-of-factly. "Not only did they burn people alive, but crowds of people brought lunches to the events and made it a family outing. And they wouldn't just burn people. They'd beat them, humiliate them, torture them, mutilate them... and then burn them. Sometimes they cut off pieces of the person's body to keep as souvenirs or to send to their friends and acquaintances."

"They would rape people, sick vicious dogs on them to tear 'em to pieces, practice every unimaginable cruelty upon people, even cut mother's wombs open to let the child fall to the ground where it would be stomped and bludgeoned and pitchforked until it stopped screaming."

"And there was more..." I said, sounding as if I were rolling up my sleeves and just getting started.

"I don’t want to know anymore history." she refused.

"You need to know your history to know what you are up against." I informed her. "There are people in this world who do not want you to grow up to be a threat,
so they keep you distracted with fashion, the latest gadgets and sparkling things.
That’s why your education is so important; not the education you receive in school, but how you educate yourself about history, how you educate yourself about God -
so you can build your relationship with God and become powerful enough to make a difference in this world..."

"Whether you like it or not you were born into a war. Call it a war for minds or souls, but it's still a war. And you are fighting against demonic forces. Yes, there are demons in this world; not with horns and sharp teeth and glowing eyes, but people who look just like you and me, people who have decided to work against God."

"I’m scared." she confessed, though I wasn't sure if it was because of the wild look in my eyes or the information I was watering her mind with.

I wanted to tell her that she should be, but I didn't.

"Doesn’t matter what goes on, you know who will win in the end. You just need to decide which side your going to be on." I cajoled her.

"Can I move to Jupiter?" she asked.

"Not now, maybe your great great grandchildren..." I joked, laughing lightly at her response.

"What about mars?" she almost begged.

"Maybe your grandchildren." I smiled. "But you don’t have to worry about that.
You know those so called aliens and UFOs people talk about? They are not creatures from another world. They are humans who have left earth in the future to find a better home after thinking they ruined earth. And they did, in the future. But everyone in the universe knows that earth is a paradise! And one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day; so after a few days, earth will heal and you will be the ancestor of who remains behind to inherit the earth. Those UFOs are from the future - literally having come back from hell to either warn us to change our ways or to try and stack the deck in their favor. The experiment, though, from that point of view always fails - like in the movie, Terminator."

"I'm going to go read." she said, her mind overloaded and depressed.

"Do that." I said, and turned back to the paper I had been interrupted from working on.

The boogerman's touch

James would sit, self-absorbed, and pick his nose, completely disinterested in what was going on around him. A police officer, repulsed by what he saw, told James to stop, though he had no right or authority to do so. James didn’t stop; he was very intent on extracting a particularly difficult smidgeon from his nostril, and so ignored the police officer entirely. The sound of the police officer’s voice had the weight of authority, to the tune that everyone sitting around James stopped what they were doing and looked up at the officer… and then at James. The sound of the policeman’s voice seemed to have an affect on the officer as well, for right after he told James to stop, the officer seemed to be propelled toward James by the momentum of his command. James didn’t seem to notice any of this and continued to determinedly pick his nose. I was embarrassed for the police officer for having issued such an authoritative demand only to be ignored by as simple a person as James. The police officer must have felt embarrassed as well because he did something that wasn’t correct for a police officer to do. He took out his night stick and forced James’ hand away from his nose saying, “I said stop!”

When the police officer withdrew his stick, everyone looked at James, and then the police officer, and then back at James. James looked up at the police officer with an innocence so frightening, it compelled the police officer to justify his actions.

“Nobody wants to see you digging in your nose! It’s disgusting!” The police officer said, while the people who could hear his voice looked at his stick, his badge, or his shoes, or even his mouth – but not in his eyes. James, though, did look in the police officer’s eyes, with an innocence that was terrible and piercing.

An old man in a dark, heavy wool coat and wearing a hat, who was sitting at the end of the bench, said in a strong but quiet voice, “In as much as ye do to the least of men, so ye also do unto me.”

And everybody heard those words – even clearer than they heard the words of the police officer. And everybody looked at the police officer, along with James, who had never stopped. And the police officer grunted and walked away, all eyes following him – except for James, who was once again self-absorbed and digging purposefully up his nostril.