Critical Madness

In 1974, I was in Athens, Greece for New Years. A group of tourists from the King George Palace hotel went as a group to a large Athens restaurant and night club. Of course, they wanted me to go along and I still enjoy eating and being around people who are enjoying life. The food was good, the entertainment better, but at midnight, all of a sudden at the strike of 12 they went to throwing all the dishes on the floor, threw glasses at the walls, and all the employees danced on the tables. As a blind person, you can imagine how that scared me and I dove under the table, where a very frighted Japanese man also sought shelter. He had evidently lived through WWII and thought the place was being bombed. This is the type of madness, critical madness, some people enjoy just as some enjoy weird movies and books.

Again, New Years, Malaga, Spain; I was visiting a doctor and his wife, a couple I had met in Boston. At midnight New Years, everyone went to throw their glasses into the fireplace. For someone who doesn't throw away anything, I have seen too many hungry people in the world to throw away one spoon or food. I considered it critical madness to destroy perfectly good glasses.

This week, Copenhagen, Denmark we are seeing critical madness of a type heretofore never experienced by human beings. To think that a few disreputable scientists have actually bought this hoax and scam of global warming, temperature change, a perfectly normal geological, anthropological, astronomical change in the world just to make a few people rich (Al Gore, Barack Obama, etc.) and hopefully to improve the lives of some people in some countries. Promises, Promises. The same critical madness that has kept Democrats in control and now the effort to control the world and bring additional taxation. Promises, but never any changes.

In 1971 in Darvaza, Turkmenistan (a part of Russia) scientists exploring for natural gas, the natural gas began to burn much like a release from hell, and has burned since (almost 40 years) releasing much gas and deposits into the atmosphere. The area is as now as large as a canyon and the Earth keep on falling into the large pit. At Papa New Guinea I saw the volcano Mount Lamington which last erupted in 1951 killing 3,000. In Java, I witnessed the Kelut volcano which still spurts out gases and lava and has done so for many years. Through out Asia, there are erupting volcanoes, just last week one erupted in the Philippines. With all the smoke stacks in China, and Chinese scientists know the foolishness of trying to control global climate, man-made carbon pollution has almost no effect when considering global God-determining pollutants. At this critical madness in Copenhagen, it has become a debate about a ½ inch change in ocean level.

At the harbor in Hong Kong where ocean levels are very important to ferries, tunnels, and a huge population, the change over hundreds of years is measured in millimeters. It is the critical madness of hacked computers, quackery in science, and an embarrassment of politicians determining this critical madness. The hardworking, sweating, God-fearing, taxpaying citizen who does not travel the world in polluting jets and limousines. Pockets have been picked enough by the tax assessors of the county, state, and federal governments. Now the United Nations wants to inflict the working people of the world with a world tax.

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For many years, I owned a co-op apartment at 12 Beekman Place (this is a street in which Auntie Mame lived, and 2 blocks from the UN secretary). I got full exposure to the United Nations types. I do know how to stay quiet and just listen, and did know how to get invited to all the great receptions. The United Nations is the sorcery of Manhattan; the most vindictive, promiscuous, self-embellishing, belligerent bureaucrats you could ever meet. It is grandeur on an international scale and the UN can hardly wait to completely control the wealth of the world. This attempt at global climate control is the key which they believe will unlock the door.

In the great and exciting city of Hong Kong, I found that when a new business opens, there is madness beyond compare...great banners, much animation, and fireworks beyond description. The Asians consider critical madness of this sort as an essential in getting started well in business. But, it only influences a small area of the city. In America, millions are paid for television exposure, especially on New Year's Day. This year during the Super Bowl, a 30-second advertisement will cost $2.6 million.

I have traveled to Benin, Africa twice. On lake Ganvie, a tribe of 30,000 Tafinu people living in huts built on pylons 2 feet above the water. They move about place to place on boats. Can you even imagine the filth and sludge? This much human activity contributes to the lake which is little more than a sewer. I have had my passport stamped in 157 different countries in the world. There are many needs in the world, such as the one described. Children raised in absolute filth, always hungry. The 100 billion which these limousine liberals-radical politicians are seeking to extract from the pockets of concerned world citizens should be spent on Earthly needs not fakery in the stratosphere.

Comets

In my many world travels (eight round-the-world trips, passport stamped in 157 countries) I crossed Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Around the city of Irkutsk and Lake Baikal I noticed that most of the older houses appeared to have been partially burned and that the trees had a most unusual appearance. I later researched that this was the location of the only comet activity which has come close to the earth to our historical knowledge.


On June 30, 1908 a comet near-strike on the earth hit in Siberia, known as the Tunguska Event, with the force of about 1000 times the force of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, which effected life in the area for 830 square miles, leveling trees, causing fires, and sent electromagnetic pulses that could be felt equivalent to a 5.0 earthquake. The area has never recovered from this 'close encounter' with this comet.


The other geographical catastrophe I have witnesses was the result of the Krakatoa

Volcano on the island of Sumatra in 1883. The unofficial death toll report was at least 120,000 and next to the recent tsunami, in approximately the same area, the deaths on these remote islands and the destruction of the villages is beyond description. Families die and families learn to smile again, but they never forget the pain and desolation of catastrophe.


I have gone into these two great disasters in order to emphasize the fact that life is a vapor which can very quickly vanish. (James 4:14) This past week, the Libyan man accused of bombing the Pan-America plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed a total of 270 people, was given a prison release because he is supposedly dying of cancer. Many in the USA and UK protested his release because in the Muslim world, he will be considered a hero and martyr. One never knows from one minute to the next in this world of high-risk just how quickly we will draw our last breath. And, our last breath here is our first breath there. For those of you who have not taken advantage of the redemption of our blessed Lord, an open grave is not the end of the road.


From our earliest years, we should learn that God created us to be completely dependent on Him. It is in God, and God alone, that we should place our trust. “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6


If we knew that we were going to live into our 80s and 90s and would have plenty of time to lounge around and fellowship with the sanctification of God, just awaiting His call, we would be prepared to set sail on our eternal departure. We could lounge in either our belief or unbelief until “castoff” but, like those eight who unexpectedly went down in the Hudson River last week, simply because someone on duty was busy talking on the telephone and not paying attention to his work, death can come quickly and unexpectedly. Be prepared, make sure there is oil in your lamp when the Bridegroom cometh. (Matthew 25) You do not have the warning ahead of time as to just how quickly death can come. Eternal life has already started for the believer; we already have the abundant life. (John 10:10) For the unbeliever, you face the second death because we are told that the unbeliever is already dead. (1 Timothy 5:6) Satan, the greatest swindler and scam artist, has sold the lie that life fulfillment comes in education, pleasure and money.


About the time one reaches middle age, we start making an evaluation of our life, what we have been able to accomplish, how many 'things' we own, how successful we have been, and often, we confuse possessions with success. Erma Bombeck said, “Don't confuse celebrity with success. Think of Madonna and Helen Keller.”


At about the same time, many of us start writing our obituary. We want to make sure that all the organizations to which we belong, our celebrity and notoriety will be mentioned, less someone forgets our hard-working efforts and accomplishments. I knew one newspaper editor who would write a nice editorial of any prominent person who died in the community and after the name, the letters “RIP” would always appear. I never knew him to give any credibility to a hard-working mother or father who, through impossible circumstances, had raised a large family of grateful children.


It is also at this time that many become dissatisfied with their life's accomplishments; the ups and downs that afflict all of us who live a normal life. Many, when the warts outnumber the pats on the back, resort to the final solution of suicide. Life is precious; God planned each life in its entirety before the very foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1:4) He is sovereign. In Him, our life is not our own. We are His, Him living in us. This is the reason that we are careful about our every action. I can still hear my mother say to us, “Remember who you are.” This was her way of telling us that we are different from other people. (1 Peter 2:11) Not only were we not to embarrass our blessed Lord, but we were not to embarrass the good name of our family.


During these middle age years, we try to recapture ambition by knowing the 'right' people on the golf course or at the country club. In an effort to “keep up with the Jones'” the middle-aged couple will be more likely to gamble instead of invest in the stock market. Where, in earlier years, they were content to 'get rich slow', they will now venture capital at great risk, the gamble to catch up rapidly. This is the fascination with the lottery and other satanic addictions. Remember the great hotels and casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City were built by losers.


The most blessed time in our short existence here on earth should be the sunset years; the so called 'golden years' when we bask in the memories of the challenge of rearing children. Finding the energy to do everything that young people are expected to do, many lose their health trying to gain wealth and then are forced to spend their wealth trying to regain their health. The golden years are spent exercising and trying every new mineral or vitamin compound, by which we are bombarded by advertisement every day. The orthopedist has gotten even richer with his many attempts to replace all aging joints. Gray power is not always complimentary because gray is dull, like caskets and bad days. During the golden years, it is all on velvet: plush and desirable. It is harder to wait than to work. The work is over; the best is yet to come.


The Russians are charging American billionaires $20 million for a ride into outer space. Relax, if you have taken care of your passport arrangement with our blessed Lord, you are about to take a free ride into outer space, into a place which God has prepared.


“But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9