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. . . HEAVEN see "DEATH" for related links see "RELIGION" for related links The loss of a beloved connection awakens an interest in heaven before unfelt. --Christian Nestell Bovee (18201904) American writer. If there's another world, he lives in bliss; If there is none, he made the best of this. --Robert Burns (17591796) Scottish poet and songwriter. - In 1952, when I was only forty-two, my mother was dying. I held her frail hand in mine for hours, looking at the pale face of my ma. That's what I always called her not Mum, not Momma, not Mother just Ma. . . . Her startling last words still echo somewhere deep inside of me. My mother, in her last moments, was concerned about me. She was a real mother who took care of me till the very end of her life. Now, lying in my hospital bed, I wondered: What happens when you die? Could I see my mother again? I would like that. But maybe, after death, you come before that mythical Man with a long beard, sitting on a throne. You stand before Him, puny and timid. Then you ask, "Is this heaven?" And He roars back, "Heaven! You just came from there!" And as your eyes widen, He continues, "Ingrate! Didn't you like the sunrise, the sunset, the moon, and the stars? Weren't you pleased with the mountains, forests, rivers, and streams that I gave you?" I remain silent as the voice roars. "Didn't you like the fragrant flowers and fruits and vegetables I gave you? And when I nurtured those plants with rain, you complained because you couldn't play golf. Ingrate! That was heaven!" --Kirk Douglas [Issur Danielovitch] (1916 ) American film actor and producer. _My Stroke of Luck_ [2002], "Death Takes a Holiday" - May your glass be ever full. May the roof over your head be always strong, And may you be in heaven Half an hour before the devil knows you're dead. --Irish toast Of all the inventions of man I doubt whether any was more easily accomplished than that of a Heaven. --Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (17421799) German scientist and drama critic. _Aphorisms_ [1765-1799], "Notebook L", Aphorism 34 [Clouds] are fair resting-places For the dear weary dead on their way up to heaven. --Joaquin Miller [Cincinnatus Hiner Miller] (18371913) American poet and journalist. 'But is all this *true*?' said Brutha. Didactylos shrugged. 'Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends toward guesswork.' --Terry Pratchett (1948 ) English science fiction writer. _Small Gods_ [1992] ...to emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on Heaven is to create hell. In their desperate longing to transcend the disorderliness, friction, and unpredictability that pesters life; in their desire for a fresh start in a tidy habitat, germ-free and secured by angels, religious multitudes are gambling the only life they may ever have on a dark horse in a race that has no finish line. --Tom Robbins (1936 ) American author. _Skinny Legs and All_ [1990], p.305 My idea of heaven is eating pβtι de foie gras to the sound of trumpets. (The view of Smith's friend Henry Luttrell.) --Sydney Smith (17711845) English clergyman and essayist, in 1802 cofounded "The Edinburgh Review." In H. Pearson _The Smith of Smith's_ [1934]. Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. _Walden_ [1854], ch.16 "The Pond in Winter" Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. Paradise is where I am. --Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (16941778) French writer and philosopher. _Le Mondain_ [1736] -- Little Willie asked one day, "Mamma, don't men ever go to heaven?" His mother answered, "Of course , they do! What makes you ask?" Willie answered, "Because I never saw any pictures of angels with whiskers." The quick-witted mother answered, "Oh, that's because most men who go to heaven get there by a close shave." ----- empyrean [em-py-REE-uhn; -PEER-ee-], noun: 1. The highest heaven, in ancient belief usually thought to be a realm of pure fire or light. 2. Heaven; paradise. 3. The heavens; the sky. supernal [soo-PUR-nuhl], adjective: 1. Being in or coming from the heavens or a higher place or region. 2. Relating or belonging to things above; celestial; heavenly.  . . see "DEATH" for related links see "RELIGION" for related links Hell, madam, is to love no more. --Georges Bernanos (18881948) French novelist and esssayist. _Journal d'un curι de campagne_ [1936] Hell is full of good intentions or desires. --St. Bernard of Clairvaux (10901153) Cistercian monk and mystic; the founder and abbot of the abbey of Clairvaux. If there be a hell upon earth, it is to be found in a melancholy man's heart. --Robert Burton (15771640) English scholar, cleric, and author. _The Anatomy of Melacholy_ [1621-1651] ], "Democritus to the Reader" A material resurrection seems strange and even absurd except for purposes of punishment, and all punishment which is to revenge rather than correct must be morally wrong, and when the World is at an end, what moral or warning purpose can eternal tortures answer? --Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (17881824) English Romantic poet and satirist. _Detached Thoughts_ [1821-1822], # 96 The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding. --Albert Camus (19131960) French novelist, dramatist, and essayist who won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. 'The Plague' Hell has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned. --William Congreve (16701729) English dramatist. "The Mourning Bride" [1697] - The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality. --Dante Alighieri (12651321) Italian poet, literary theorist, and moral philosopher. Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate! (All hope abandon, ye who enter here!) --Dante Alighieri (12651321) Italian poet, literary theorist, and moral philosopher. _La dinina commedia_ (The Divine Comedy) [c. 1310-1321] canto 3, l. 9 [Words written over the entrance to Hell.] - No sin to cheat the devil. --Daniel Defoe (16601731) English novelist and journalist. _History of the Devil_, pt. II, ch. 10. To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. In "Journal" [20 December 1822]. Religious contention is the devil's harvest. --Jean de La Fontaine (16211695) French poet. Demons do not exist any more than gods do, being only the products of the psychic activity of man. --Sigmund Freud (18561939) Austrian psychiatrist. In _New York Times Magazine_ [6 May 1956]. - Hell's broken loose. --Robert Greene (15581592) English playwright. _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_ [acted 1594] & note: All Hell broke loose. --John Milton (16081674) English poet. _Paradise Lost_ [1667], bk. 4, l. 917 - Hell is full of good meanings and wishings. --George Herbert (15931633) English religious poet. Maybe this world is another planet's Hell. --Aldous Huxley (18941963) English novelist {grandson of T.H. Huxley}. May the grass grow long on the road to hell for want of use. --Irish toast - About Hell. All I have ever said is that the N.T. [New Testament] plainly implies the possibility of some being finally left in "the outer darkness." Whether this means (horror of horror) being left to a purely mental existence, left with nothing at all but one's own envy, prurience, resentment, loneliness and self-conceit, or whether this is still some sort of environment, something you could call a world or a reality, I would never pretend to know. But I wouldn't put the question in the form "do I believe in an actual Hell." One's own mind is actual enough. If it doesn't seem fully actual now that is because you can always escape from it a bit into the physical worldlook out of the window, smoke a cigarette, go to sleep. But when there is nothing for you but your own mind (no body to go to sleep, no books or landscape, nor sounds, no drugs) it will be as actual asaswell, as a coffin is actual to a man buried alive. --C.S. [Clive Staples] Lewis (18981963) British scholar and novelist. _The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves_ [1986], "13 May 1946" - If the devil take a less hateful shape to us than to our fathers, he is as busy with us as with them. --James Russell Lowell (18191891) American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat. I desire to go to Hell, not to Heaven. In Hell I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and princes, but in Heaven are only beggars, monks, hermits and apostles. --Niccolς Machiavelli (14691527) Florentine statesman and political philosopher. Hell is paved with good intentions. --John Ray (16271705) English naturalist and botanist. He will give the devil his due. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Henry IV_ [1597] The basic reason why moderns disbelieve in hell is because they really disbelieve in freedom and responsibility. To believe in hell is to assert that the consequences of good and bad acts are not indifferent. --Fulton John Sheen (18951979) Roman Catholic bishop; the first popular preacher to appear on television. _Preface To Religion_ [1946] Hell is the highest reward that the devil can offer you for being a servant of his. --Billy Sunday [William Ashley Sunday] (18621935) American evangelist. - At the Superbowl, three rowdy young men, sat in their seats guzzling beer when three nuns dressed in their habits sat down in front of them. The first rowdy poked the one on his right and said in a carrying voice, "I'm going to move to South Dakota. I hear there are only about 100 Catholics living there." The second laughed and said, "No, I'm going to move to Texas. There are only 50 Catholics living in Texas." "Not me," the third said. "I'm moving to Montana. There are only 2 Catholics in Montana." The smallest of the three nuns turned around and smiled sweetly. "Why don't you just go straight to Hell? There are NO Catholics living there." . . see: "COOPERATION" see: "TEAMWORK" see: "UNITY" see "KINDNESS" for other related links I cannot describe to you the despairing sensation of trying to do something for a man who seems incapable or unwilling to do anything further for himself. --Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (17881824) English Romantic poet and satirist. Letter to Thomas Moore. When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep? No--here's to the pilot that weathered the storm. --George Canning (17701827) British statesman; prime minister [1827]. Song for the inauguration of the Pitt Club [25 May 1802]. If you want happiness for a day go fishing. If you want happiness for a month get married. If you want happiness for a year inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime help someone else. --Chinese Proverb If you can, help others. If you can't, at least don't hurt others. --Dalai Lama [Lhama Thondup or Lhama Dhondrub] (1935 ) spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism. {Dalai Lama is Mongolian for "Ocean of Wisdom") To remind a man of the good turns you have done him is very much like a reproach. --Demosthenes (c.364c.322 B.C.) Athenian orator and statesman. If I can stop one Heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one Life the aching, Or cool one Pain Or help one fainting Robin Unto his Nest again I shall not live in Vain. --Emily Dickinson (18301886) American poet. "If I can stop one Heart from breaking" [1864] You can't be of help to everybody! say the narrow-minded, and help nobody. --Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (18301916) Austrian writer. _Aphorisms_ [1880-1905], tr. David Scrase and Wolfgang Mieder [1994] Treat people as if they were what they should be, and you help them become what they are capable of becoming. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. Try to be of some use to others. --Joseph Hall (15741656) English bishop, moral philosopher, and satirist. Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. --Sydney J. Harris (19171986) American journalist. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. --John Fitzgerald Kennedy (19171963) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [19611963]. Inaugural Address [20 January 1961]. The goal was scored a little bit by the hand of God, another bit by the head of Maradona. (On his controversial goal against England in the 1986 World Cup.) --Diego Maradona (1960 ) Argentine football player. In "Guardian" [1 July 1986]. What is wrong with the old Adam Smith philosophy and what should be completely unacceptable to any American (and I would say this particularly to my fellow Republicans) is the idea of the survival of the fittest. Let's put it this way: The fittest should survive, and also the fit should survive. Those who are 'unfit' you have to have a social conscience about, to take care of them. The 'survival of the fittest' assumes 'the hell with the rest of them.' This is wrong, morally and socially, apart from being completely wrong politically. --Richard Nixon (19131994) American Republican statesman, President [19691974]. Quoted in Earl Mazo, _Richard Nixon: A Political and Personal Portrait_ [1959]. Often the most loving thing we can do when a friend is in pain is to share the pain to be there even when we have nothing to offer except our presence and even when being there is painful to ourselves. --Scott Peck (19362005) American author. _The Different Drum_, p.97 [1987] Our words should aim not to please, but to help. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. 65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. "On the Diseases of the Soul" _Moral Letters to Lucilius_ tr. Richard M. Gummere [1918] Help someone in distress and you lighten your own burden; the very joy of alleviating the sorrow of another is the lessening of one's own. --Fulton John Sheen (18951979) Roman Catholic bishop; the first popular preacher to appear on television. _On Being Human_ [1982] Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down. --Paul Simon (1941 ) American singer and songwriter. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" [1969 song] Friends, I have lost a day. (On reflecting that he had done nothing to help anybody all day.) --Titus (3981) Roman emperor from A.D. 79. In Suetonius _Lives of the Caesars_ "Titus." ----- altruism (noun) ['ζl-tru-iz-κm] The impulse to help others, ignoring oneself; doing good without selfish motivation. auspice (noun) ['a(w)-spis] 1. Patronage, support or propitious influence on behalf of someone else. 2. A positive omen, especially from a flock of birds. supererogation (noun) [su-pκ-'rer-κ-gey-shκn] The act of performing beyond the call of duty; the act of doing more than is necessary. . . see "CHARACTER" for related links see "WAR & PEACE" for related links ANDREA: Unhappy the land that has no heroes. . . GALILEO: No, Unhappy the land that needs heroes. --Bertolt Brecht (18981956) German dramatist. _The Life of Galileo_ [1939] - No man is a hero to his valet. --Mme. A.M. Bigot de Cornuel (16051694) French society hostess. _Lettres de Mlle Aοssι ΰ Madame C_ [1787] Letter 13 "De Paris, 1728" & see: To a valet no man is a hero. [Ger., Es gibt fur den Kammerdiener keiner Helden.] --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. - ^ Winston Churchill (18741965) British statesman and prime minister. In the summer of 1941 Sergeant James Allen Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross for climbing out onto the wing of his Wellington bomber, 13,000 feet above the Zuider Zee, to extinguish a fire in the starboard engine. Secured only by a rope around his waist, he managed not only to smother the fire but also to return along the wing to the aircraft's cabin. Churchill, an admirer as well as a performer of swashbuckling exploits, summoned the shy New Zealander to 10 Downing Street. Ward, struck dumb with awe in Churchill's presence, was unable to answer the prime minister's questions. Churchill surveyed the unhappy hero with some compassion. 'You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence,' he said. 'Yes, sir,' managed Ward. 'Then you can imagine how humble and awkward I feel in yours,' said Churchill. --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ The cult of the hero is the absolutely necessary complement of the massification of society. We see the automatic creation of this cult in connection with champion athletes [and] movie stars. . . . The individual who is prevented by circumstances from becoming a real person, who can no longer express himself through personal thought or action, who finds his aspirations frustrated, projects onto the hero all he would wish to be. He lives vicariously and experiences the athletic or amorous or military exploits of the god with whom he lives in spiritual symbiosis. --Jacques Ellul (19121994) French author and educator. _Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes_ [1962] Heroism feels and never reasons and therefore is always right. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. _Essays_ [1841] "Heroism" That's what it takes to be a hero, a little gem of innocence inside you that makes you want to believe that there still exists a right and wrong, that decency will somehow triumph in the end. --Lise Hand Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields which have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes. --Victor Hugo (18021885) French poet, dramatist, and novelist. _Les Miserables_ [1862], "Marius" More books have been written about Napoleon than about any other human being. The fact is deeply and alarmingly significant. What must be the daydreams of people for whom the world's most agile social climber and ablest bandit is the hero they most desire to hear about? Duces and Fuehrers will cease to plague the world only when the majority of its inhabitants regard such adventurers with the same disgust as they now bestow on swindlers and pimps. So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable. --Aldous Huxley (18941963) English novelist (grandson of T.H. Huxley.) "Decentralization and Self-Government" in _End and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the Methods Employed for Their Realization_ [1937] It was involuntary. They sank my boat. --John Fitzgerald Kennedy (19171963) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [19611963]. In Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. _A Thousand Days_ [1965]. (When asked how he became a war hero.) Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance. --Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (16131680) French classical author. It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested. --James Russell Lowell (18191891) American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat. - "Hal Smith's Home Run" October 17, 2006 _The Wall Street Journal_ Reader Neil Houston isn't totally accurate in his memory of the Pittsburgh Pirates' home runs in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series ("A Big Hit of Yesteryear in Game 7 of 2001 Series," Letters, Oct. 12). He has Mazeroski's homer exactly right, but not Hal Smith's. In the last half of the eighth inning, the Yankees led 7-6. The Pirates had already scored twice, there were two outs and two men on base. Mr. Smith's home run scored three runs, not two, and put the Pirates ahead 9-7. The Yankees tied the game in the ninth, thus setting the stage for Mr. Mazeroski. Hal Smith, who comes to Bradenton for Pirates events occasionally, has said, "I was just not meant to be a hero." Robert McFarlin Longboat Key, Fla. - See, the conquering hero comes! Sound the trumphets, beat the drums! --Thomas Morell (17031784) English clergyman. Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words and suffer noble sorrows. --Charles Reade (18141884) English novelist and playwright. _The Cloister and the Hearth_ [1861] We don't have to turn to our history books for heroes. They're all around us. Don't let anyone tell that America's best days are behind her that the American spirit has been vanquished. We've seen it triumph too often in our lives to stop believing in it now. --Ronald Reagan (19112004) American President [19811989] and former Hollywood actor. When you talk to young girls these days about their role models, very few mention a chemist like Madame Curie, or an astrophysicist and astronaut like Sally Ride, or a zoologist like Jane Goodall. Instead, they look to someone like Madonna, whose inspiring achievement in life is to parade around in her underwear while proclaiming herself to be a "material girl." And people wonder why the country's in trouble. --Wynetka Ann Reynolds (1937 ) We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by. --Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (18791935) American humorist and actor. A hero is a man who does what he can. --Romain Rolland In this world I would rather live two days like a tiger, than two hundred years like a sheep. --Tipu Sultan [byname Tiger of Mysore] (1749-53?1799) Indian sultan of Mysore who won fame in the wars of the late 18th century in southern India. In Alexander Beatson, _A View of the Origin and Conduct of the War with Tippoo Sultaun_ [1800]. - To say that there is a case for heroes is not to say that there is a case for hero-worship. The surrender of decision, the unquestioning submission to leadership, the prostration of the average man before the Great Man these are the diseases of heroism, and they are fatal to human dignity. . . . History amply shows that it is possible to have heroes without turning them into gods. And history shows, too, that when a society, in flight from hero-worship, decides to do without great men at all, it gets into troubles of its own. --Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (19172007) American historian. "The Decline of Greatness" in _Saturday Evening Post_ [1 November 1958] - Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. --Paul Simon (1941 ) American singer and songwriter. "Mrs. Robinson" {song from the 1967 film _The Graduate_.} - Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman! --George Lother, program intro for Superman radio show, first broadcast [12 February 1940] Superman was created in 1934 by Jerry Siegel, a graduate of Glenville HS in Cleveland who had little luck with the girls. The fantasy character was also luckless but only as Clark Kent. Siegel's partner was Joe Shuster, who improved the character with tights, a cape, and a handsome face. They moved to NYC, faced hard times there, so they sold the character to DC Comics for $130. In June, the first Superman comic appeared and the popularity of it was so high that both men realized what a disastrous mistake they had made. Neither of them ever gained a share of Superman's earnings. Siegel, a clerk-typist, died in 1996. Shuster, a messenger, died in 1992. - Who is a hero? He who turns his enemy into a friend. --Talmud (A.D. 1st-6th cent.) Rabbinical writings in Louis I. Newman, comp. _The Talmudic Anthology_ [1945] True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason. --Alfred North Whitehead (18611947) British philosopher and mathematician. TOPICAL "It's stuff you hear about in boot camp, about World War II and Tarawa Marines who won the Medal of Honor," Lance Corporal Rob Rogers of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment told the Army Times. Corporal Rogers was describing the actions of his fellow Marine, Sgt. Rafael Peralta, a Mexican immigrant who enlisted in the Marine Corps the day he received his green card. [...] On the morning of November 15, 2004, the men of 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines awoke before sunrise and continued what they had been doing for seven days previously cleansing the city of Fallujah of terrorists house by house. At the fourth house they encountered that morning the Marines kicked in the door and "cleared" the front rooms, but then noticed a locked door off to the side that required inspection. Sgt. Rafael Peralta threw open the closed door, but behind it were three terrorists with AK-47s. Peralta was hit in the head and chest with multiple shots at close range. Peralta's fellow Marines had to step over his body to continue the shootout with the terrorists. As the firefight raged on, a "yellow, foreign-made, oval-shaped grenade," as Lance Corporal Travis Kaemmerer described it, rolled into the room where they were all standing and came to a stop near Peralta's body. But Sgt. Rafael Peralta wasn't dead yet. This young immigrant of 25 years, who enlisted in the Marines when he received his green card, who volunteered for the front line duty in Fallujah, had one last act of heroism in him. As Sgt. Rafael Peralta lay near death on the floor of a Fallujah terrorist hideout, he spotted the yellow grenade that had rolled next to his near-lifeless body. Once detonated, it would take out the rest of Peralta's squad. To save his fellow Marines, Peralta reached out, grabbed the grenade, and tucked it under his abdomen where it exploded. "Most of the Marines in the house were in the immediate area of the grenade," Cpl. Kaemmerer said. "We will never forget the second chance at life that Sgt. Peralta gave us." --Oliver North, "Hero In Fallujah", Human Events Online [16 December 2004] - There is a famous Jewish legend that holds that at any given time, there are 36 tzadikim particularly good people living on earth. Thanks to them, the world does not self-destruct. If the number were to decline, the world would end. I have always wondered whether this belief is optimistic or pessimistic. From what I know about Pat Tillman, he sounds like he was one of the 36. He embodied goodness, idealism, strength and character in a way that is increasingly rare. First, he did something almost none of us would do. He voluntarily risked his life to fight evil and serve his country rather than become a multi-millionaire, deified pro-football player. Instead, he decided to forgo all that money, all that glory and all that fame, and fight for America in a remote corner of Afghanistan. Second, he made this decision and sought no credit for it. He refused to give interviews about his decision. Third, and perhaps most telling, the Washington Times reported that, "When in high school, Sgt. Tillman beat up someone who had assaulted his friend and ended up serving 30 days in a juvenile-detention facility." Apparently beating up bullies was a deep yearning in Tillman from his youth. That is, after all, exactly what he did and what America is doing in Afghanistan and Iraq beating up bullies. Pat Tillman hated evil. That alone puts him in a distinct minority in today's world. The ratio of books attempting to explain evil to books attempting to explain good is probably a thousand to one. Why? Because of our naive belief that goodness is normal, and that it is the abnormal evil ones who need to be explained. This is nonsense. The fact is that the truly good are abnormal. It is the Pat Tillmans, not the fanatical Muslims who killed him, who need to be studied. For if we do not figure out how to make more Pat Tillmans here in America and throughout the world, we and the world will self-destruct. There are only 36 of them. --Dennis Prager (1948 ) American talk-show host. "Pat Tillman, one of the 36" - I had the distinct honor and privilege of attending the memorial service for PO2 (SEAL) Michael Monsoor yesterday at the First Presbyterian Church in San Diego. Being in the presence of so many true warriors to celebrate the heroic death of one of our own was utterly humbling and poignant. Information about Mike's death in Ramadi on 29 Sep 06 has been sketchy in the media, but the story of this man's service and his death is one that deserves not only to be told, but to be celebrated and certainly never forgotten. [ . . . ] SEAL Team THREE deployed to Iraq last Spring and within a month of arriving, Mike had already distinguished himself. As one of the platoon machine gunners, Mike made quite an impression on the battlefield. On May 9, 2006 a teammate was shot in the legs, immobile, and exposed. Suppressing enemy fire with his M60, Mike fought his way to his wounded comrade's position and dragged him out of the line of fire while maintaining constant pressure on enemy insurgents with his weapon. That action earned him a Silver Star... in the first month of his first deployment. Fast forward to the final weeks of that deployment and Mike along with two fellow SEALs were occupying an overwatch position on a rooftop in the Mulab district of Ramadi which is basically the most dangerous neighborhood of the most dangerous city in Iraq. A hidden enemy managed to toss a grenade onto the rooftop near the three SEALs, and Mike without hesitation warned his comrades verbally before placing himself in a position to block the lethal blast of the grenade from killing his teammates. One of the SEALs he saved said that Mike's countenance was completely calm and he showed no fear only resolve. No short timer's disease infecting this man, he had only a couple of weeks remaining in the deployment and he did not flinch at the moment of truth. [ . . . ] Michael was a Christian man, raised in the Catholic Church and was often seen attending Mass before leaving the FOB on operations. His parents named him after the Archangel Michael- the great protector whose mission was to protect the world from the satanic forces of evil. Saint Michael's Day is celebrated on September 29, the day Mike gave his life for his friends. I will be meeting with my Congressman next week in order to advocate that Mike is nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor. --Froggy, "In the Presence of Greatness" ----- paladin [PAL-uh-din], noun: 1. A knight-errant; a distinguished champion of a medieval king or prince; as, the paladins of Charlemagne. 2. A champion of a cause. ;void(0)) HIDING OUT . . A man can hide all things excepting twain that he is drunk, and that he is in love. --Antiphanes (fl. early 4th cent. B.C.) Greek comic poet. He looked as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food. --Raymond Chandler (18881959) American writer of detective fiction. Danger if you meet it promptly and without flinching you will reduce it by half. Never run away from anything. Never! --Winston Churchill (18711947) American novelist. Age is like love, it cannot be hid. --Thomas Dekker (c. 15721632) English dramatist and writter of prose pamphlets of London life. Tar-baby ain't sayin' nuthin', en Brer Fox, he lay low. --Joel Chandler Harris (18481908) American writer. _Uncle Remus and His Legends of the Old Plantation_ [1881] "The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story" You can't get away from yourself by going to a booze-bazaar. --Elbert Hubbard (18591915) American editor, publisher, and author who died in the sinking of the "Lusitania." _The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams_ [1923] Of all escape mechanisms, death is the most efficient. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. The best armor is to keep out of range. --Italian Proverb ----- abscond [ab-SKOND], intransitive verb: To depart secretly; to steal away and hide oneself -- used especially of persons who withdraw to avoid arrest or prosecution. hermitage [HUHR-muh-tij], noun: 1. The habitation of a hermit or group of hermits. 2. A monastery or abbey. 3. A secluded residence; a retreat; a hideaway. sanctum [SANK-tum], noun; plural sanctums or sancta:: 1. A sacred place. 2. A place of retreat where one is free from intrusion. skulk [SKUHLK], intransitive verb: 1. To hide, or get out of the way, in a sneaking manner; to lurk. 2. To move about in a stealthy way. 3. To avoid responsibilities and duties. noun: 1. One who skulks. 2. A group of foxes. . . see: "DRUGS" see: "SIXTIES (THE)" see "TIME" for other related links see "LIFESTYLE" for other related links There was talk in those days that the scraped interiors of banana skins, dried and smoked, would get you high: "Mellow Yellow," in the vernacular and the Donovan song immortalizing it. Just before the Chicago Be-In, I joked about organizing a group to pass out leaflets saying that "The Bananas You Smoke Were Picked by Men Earning So-Many Cents a Day and Whose Land Was Taken Away by United Fruit." --Todd Gitlin (1943 ) American political writer and professor of journalism. _The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage_ [1987], "Everybody Get Together" - All these hippies wandering about thinking the world was going to be different from that day on. As a cynical English arsehole, I walked through it all and felt like spitting on the lot of them, trying to make them realize that nothing had changed and nothing was going to change. Not only that, what they thought was an alternative society was basically a field full of six-foot-deep mud laced with LSD. If that was the world they wanted to live in, then f**k the lot of them. --Pete Townshend (1945 ) British rock musician and songwriter. (On Woodstock.) When you look back at the flower-power era, it all looks daft. --Pete Townshend (1945 ) British rock musician and songwriter. -  HIPPOS . . see "ANIMALS" for related links "Hippo Encore" by Flanders & Swann Musical duo who performed comic and satirical songs. --Michael Flanders (19221975) British actor and singer. --Donald Swann (19231994) British composer and linguist. The amorous Hippopotamus, whose love song we know, Is now married and father of ten. He murmers, "God rotamus!" as he watches them grow, And he longs to be single again. He'll gambol no more on the banks of the Nile Which Nasser is flooding next Spring. With hippopotamas in silken pajamas No more will he teach them to sing: Mud! Mud! Glorious mud! Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood. So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow, And there let us wallow in glorious mud. end page | HABIT - HANGOVER | HAPPINESS | HAPPY BIRTHDAY - HATE | HATS - HEAT | HEALTH | HEAVEN - HIPPOS | HISTORIANS & HISTORY | HITCHCOCK - HOLOCAUST | HOME - HOMETOWNS | HONESTY & HONOR | HOOVER - HOTELS | HOUSE - HUMAN NATURE | HUMAN RACE - HUMANITY | HUMILIATION - HURT | HUMOR | HURTING (SOMEONE) | HUSBANDS - HYPOCRISY | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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