mistic.flame

There once was a maid from Madras
Who had a magnificent ass.
Not rounded and pink,
as you’d possibly think;
It was gray, had long ears, and ate grass.
- limerickdb.com

So I was writing this big long post about everything I did last weekend, but it was boring so I trashed it and started over.

Here’s the highlights:

I went to Illinois with Mike.
Mike’s friends and family in Ilinois rock. Hardcore.
I have a new landspeed record: 115mph.
Illinois cops are not as nice as Ohio cops.
The previous two points are, suprisingly, unrelated.
The last quarter of the superbowl was good.
The last second of the superbowl was funny.
I <3 Nikki.

There we go, much more concise than yesterdays (scrapped) post.

Here’s an interesting note to leave you. Count how many people are in the picture. Then watch them move. Then count again. It’s like seeing a bakers dozen in action, only with people not cupcakes.

This one came to me in an email from Rick Rohl. I should probably also mention that yesterdays post came from Francis; he got it in an email from someone I don’t know.

——

Six Boys And Thirteen Hands

Each year I am hired to go to Washington, DC, with the eighth grade class from Clinton, WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation’s capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall’s trip was especially memorable.

On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history — that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during WW II.

http://www.iwo.com/memorial.htm

Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, “Where are you guys from?”

I told him that we were from Wisconsin “Hey, I’m a cheese head, too! Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story.”

(James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night to his dad, who had passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington, D.C., but it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night.)

When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.)

“My name is James Bradley and I’m from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called “Flags of Our Fathers” which is 5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me. http://www.amazon.com/Flags-Our-Fathers-James-Bradley/dp/0553111337

“Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game: A game called “War.” But it didn’t turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don’t say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old and it was so hard that the ones who did make it home never even would talk to their families about it.

(He pointed to the statue) “You see this next guy? That’s Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene’s helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph… a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. It was just boys who won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys. Not old men.

“The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the “old man” because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn’t say, ‘Let’s go kill some Japanese’ or ‘Let’s die for our country.’ He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, ‘You do what I say, and I’ll get you home to your mothers.’

“The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes was one who walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, ‘You’re a hero.’ He told reporters, ‘How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?’ So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes carried the pain home with him and eventually died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32. (ten years after this picture was taken). “The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky. A fun-lovin’ hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, ‘Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn’t get down.

Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.’ Yes, he was a fun-lovin’ hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19.

When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother’s farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. Those neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

“The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite’s producers or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say “No, I’m sorry, sir, my dad’s not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don’t know when he is coming back.”

My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell’s soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn’t want to talk to the press.

“You see, like Ira Hayes, my dad didn’t see himself as a hero.
Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, ’cause they are in a photo and on a monument.

My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died.

And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed, without any medication or help with the pain.

“When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, ‘I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. Did NOT come back.’

“So that’s the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time.”

Suddenly, the monument wasn’t just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero nonetheless.

We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice.

Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for our freedom.

Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those still in murderous unrest around the world.

God Bless You and God Bless America

REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up free, it’s going to be a great day.

PS . One thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is not mentioned here is that if you look at the statue very closely and count the number of “hands” raising the flag, there are 13. When the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply said the 13th hand was the hand of God.

This is awesome.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

- Sir Winston Churchill

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Proof of Red Sea Crossing

Pharaoh’s Drowned Army

Confirmation of the actual Exodus route has come from divers finding coral-encrusted bones and chariot remains in the Gulf of Aqaba.

ONE of the most dramatic records of Divine intervention in history is the account of the Hebrews’ exodus from Egypt .

The subsequent drowning of the entire Egyptian army in the Red Sea was not an insignificant event, and confirmation of this event is compelling evidence that the Biblical narrative is truly authentic.

Over the years, many divers have searched the Gulf of Suez in vain for artifacts to verify the Biblical account. But carefully following the Biblical and historical records of the Exodus brings you to Nuweiba, a large beach in th e Gulf of Aqaba , as Ron Wyatt discovered in 1978.

Repeated dives in depths ranging from 60 to 200 feet deep (18m to 60m), over a stretch of almost 2.5 km, has shown that the chariot parts are scattered across the sea bed.

Artifacts found include wheels, chariot bodies as well as human and horse bones. Divers have located wreckage on the Saudi coastline opposite Nuweiba as well.

Since 1987, Ron Wyatt found three 4-spoke gilded chariot wheels. Coral does not grow on gold, hence the shape has remained very distinct, although the wood inside the gold veneer has disintegrated making them too fragile to move.

The hope for future expeditions is to explore the deeper waters with remote cameras or mini-subs.

(ABOVE GILDED CHARIOT WHEEL - Mute witness to the miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea by the Hebrews 3,500 years ago. Found with metal detector. *Coral will not grow on gold)

1. Coral-encrusted chariot wheel, filmed off the Saudi coastline, matches chariot wheels found in Tutankhamen’s tomb

2. Mineralized Bone - One of many found at the crossing site (above center). This one Tested by the Dept. of Osteology at Stockholm University , was found to be a human femur, from the right leg of a 165-170cm tall man. It is essentially ‘fossilized’ i.e. replaced by minerals and coral, hence cannot be dated by radiocarbon methods, although this specimen was obviously from antiquity.

3. Chariot wheel and axle covered with coral and up-ended. Exodus 14:25 “And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily:…..”

Solomon’s memorial pillars

WHEN Ron Wyatt first visited Nuweiba in 1978, he found a Phoenician style column lying in the water. Unfortunately the inscriptions had been eroded away, hence the column’s importance was not understood until 1984, when a second granite column was found on the Saudi coastline opposite — identical to the
first, except on this one the inscription was still intact.

In Phoenician letters (Archaic Hebrew), it contained the words: Mizraim (Egypt); Solomon; Edom; death; Pharaoh; Moses; and Yahweh, indicating that King Solomon had set up these columns as a memorial to the miracle of the crossing of the sea. Saudi Arabia does not admit tourists, and perhaps fearing unauthorized visitors, the Saudi Authorities have since remov ed this column, and replaced it with a flag marker where it once stood.

How deep is the water?

THE Gulf of Aqaba is very deep, in places over a mile (1,600m) deep. Even with the sea dried up, walking across would be difficult due to the steep grade down the sides. But there is one spot where if the water were removed, it would be an easy descent for people and animals. This is the line between Nuweiba and the opposite shore in Saudi Arabia .

Depth-sounding expeditions have revealed a smooth, gentle slope descending from Nuweiba out into the Gulf. This shows up almost like a pathway on depth-recording equipment, confirming it’s Biblical description “…a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters.” (Isaiah 43:16)

The Bible writers frequently refer to the miracle of the Red Sea crossing, for it was an event which finds no equal in history.

The Hebrew prophets describe the sea at the crossing site as “…the waters of the great deep …the depths of the sea…” (Isaiah 51:10).

Knowing the exact spot to which the Bible writers were referring, what is the depth there? The distance between Nuweiba and where artifacts have been found on Saudi coast is about 18km (11 miles).
Along this line the deepest point is about 800m (2,600 feet).

No wonder that Inspired writers of the Bible described it as the mighty waters. And no wonder that not a single Egyptian survived when the water collapsed in upon them.

NUWEIBA BEACH - The spot where the crossing began. The Saudi side also has a beach area of a similar size (See approximate path.)

Model of depths at crossing site.

THE EXODUS ROUTE - With the correct crossing site in the Gulf of Aqaba

I watched Juno the other night and it was somewhere inbetween good and amazing. Not my normal type of movie, but I fell in love with the song from the opening credits:

…
If you were a wink, I’d be a nod
If you were a seed, well I’d be a pod.
If you were the floor, I’d wanna be the rug
And if you were a kiss, I know I’d be a hug

[Chorus]
All I want is you, will you be my bride?
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were the wood, I’d be the fire.
If you were the love, I’d be the desire.
If you were a castle, I’d be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I’d learn to float.
…

That’s just a clip from the middle, here’s the rest. The songs called All I want is you. It was recorded by Barry Louis Polisar in 1977.

If I was a flower growing wild and free, All I’d want is you to be my sweet honey bee…

Bright Ideas By Nathan Friedly episode 8: When to end a meeting.

So I sort-of promoted myself to manger. “Sort-of” as in without the title, pay raise, or authority. Still it’s not that bad. We already made one policy decision: nobody puts their last names on the website anymore. (One of our clients didn’t read our notices and instead opted to look up Charley on yellowpages.com and leave his mom a voicemail. Bad.)

But anyways, I’ve been doing 5-minute-meetings and, with meetings in general, you want to officially end it at or before the time it unofficially ends. And half of the department playing footsie is a good sign that it just unofficially ended.

Go see Shoot ‘Em Up. Now.

You know how Die Hard 4 didn’t have enough action? Shoot ‘Em Up makes up for it.

Seriously, this movie approaches boondocks saints in levels of awesomeness. It’s so bad-assed, the baby likes metal. He kills a dude with a carrot. Multiple dudes. The safehouse is a tank. It’s just the most bad-assed movie ever.

I would rather stumble a thousand times
Attempting to reach a goal,
Than to sit in a crowd
In my weather-proof shroud
A shriveled and self-satisfied soul.
I would rather be doing and daring
All of my error filled days,
Than watching, and waiting, and dying
Smug in my perfect ways.
I would rather wonder and blunder,
Stumbling blindly ahead,
Than for safety’s sake
Lest I make a mistake
Be sure, be safe, be dead.

- Author unknown

I fuond this in the cff Newsletter