Those hippos actually look cute, but I wouldn’t want to swim with them.
I am tired. Crammed too much into the kinder day and am already making plans not to do that again. We took a practice test on the computers. It was awful and this was the easy practice test. One little girl had so much trouble using the mouse that she was crying. I am asking if my aide can click where the girl points to spare her the pain.
I did go with Joan to the Teen Centre tonight. Everyone went. And it was the 7th birthday of the quints. It took well over an hour and a half to place our orders and get our food.
Good morning. Here at the racetrack watching the ponies exercise
Will be able to see them better when the sun comes up. We were slammed at the ED again last night. No time to get my regular stuff done. Maybe tonight.
Hippos. I remember when we would go to the zoo and all you could see of the hippos was their noses. Now, at the St. Louis Zoo (and at others, I suppose) they built a pool with a below surface viewing area. We can watch the hippos swim around. But I agree with Jo, I wouldn’t want to swim with them. The water is filthy.
Mumsee, the mosquito wins in terms of most deaths. That’s not a decent comparison, though, since it is the disease that kills, and the mosquito thus kills indirectly. In terms of which non-insect animal is most likely to attack a human who draws too close, my understanding is the hippo is #1. Specific species of snakes may beat it, but snakes overall don’t, since the vast majority of snakes (even venomous ones) will retreat if they have an opportunity to do so.
But if you have a source for your order, I will read it.
Yes, for territorial attacking, hippos win. For killing people they are high on the list.
When husband lived in South Africa, he learned that the unemployment rate of South Africa (40 % at the time), was low enough that people would leave their home country of Zimbabwe (80% unemployment) and risk crossing Krueger National Park and hippo attacks, to get to South Africa in hope of a job.
I’m with Mumsee; I think hippos are the most dangerous animals in South Africa. A friend has camped along the Zambezi River and their tent was mounted on the roof of their car for safety reasons!
Church friends own a winery and we’re off to taste wine there this afternoon–along with a cheese pairing that I bought at a silent auction to send the youth group to camp.
Two of us don’t drink; but the views are spectacular.
They cannot be leviathan, however, not by the description that depicts a scaled (Job 41:15-17), fire-breathing (41:19-21) creature that swims in deep water (41:31-32). Hippos do not have scales (they stay in water to keep their skin cool), do not breath fire, and cannot swim (they glide, pushing themselves off objects in the water).
Interesting, I looked up leviathan, and realized it not only is in Job and two Psalms (17:14 & 104:26), but also in Isaiah 27:1: “In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.”
Isaiah is obviously making a reference to the Adversary, who is elsewhere also depicted as a dragon (Revelation 12), as the context of Isaiah 27 is the Day of the Lord, the day of judgement. But Psalm 104:26 is not a reference to a spiritual being, but speaking of an actual physical creature that was created, on the fifth day with the rest of the sea creatures, to swim in the sea: “There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.”
Psalm 74:14 is intriguing, as it seems to be referring to the Flood in Noah’s day from verses 12-17 (the last line is a clear reference to Genesis 8:22)
“God my King is from ancient times,
performing saving acts on the earth.
You divided the sea with Your strength;
You smashed the heads of the sea monsters in the waters;
You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
You fed him to the creatures of the desert.
You opened up springs and streams;
You dried up ever-flowing rivers.
The day is Yours, also the night;
You established the moon and the sun.
You set all the boundaries of the earth;
You made summer and winter.”
Since Nightingale now has a permanent position at the nursing home, that makes her the charge nurse for that wing when she is on duty. She was telling me this morning that that means there are more details involved that the “floaters” don’t usually deal with. And her wing is the fullest and busiest. She sometimes feels like she is drowning as she tries to adjust to the added duties and busyness. I’m sure that, in time, she will adjust and get into a groove, as she is a highly competent woman.
I remember when I started working for Martin-Brower, the company that provides McDonald’s restaurants with most of their needs (from burgers to cleaning supplies). At the time, before the system was computerized, we would take the order from the manager (over the phone), and as we wrote down on the order sheet (the size of two normal sheets of paper put together, with items on front and back) the number of cases for each item, we also needed to quickly put in the number of cases on an adding machine.
The people who’d been doing this job for a while would have their fingers flying over the adding machine, not even looking at it. I thought, “I’ll never be able to do that!” But with time, I, too, had my fingers flying over the adding machine as I took the fast-paced orders.
(The reason we added the number of cases as we went along was so that at the end of taking the order, I would say what number I came up with, and if it was different than their number, we’d have to go over the order again.)
Roscuro – The idea of dragons is intriguing. From what I understand, many cultures have legends of dragons. Some people think the creatures in those legends were really dinosaurs.
Kizzie, I incline to that idea. Dinosaurs did exist, and since everything was created together in the fifth and sixth days, then humans would have seen dinosaurs. Behemoth, mentioned in the chapter before Leviathan, does seem like a pretty clear reference to a large reptile like the brontosaurus – the tail that “moves like a cedar” is certainly not referring to an elephant’s tail. There are cases in the Bible when the word dragon is clearly referring to reptile-like creatures – the Hebrew word translated dragon is tanniyn, and it is used:
– In Genesis 1:21 on the fifth day when God created great tanniyn to dwell in the sea (Leviathin is a transliteration of another Hebrew word that seems to refer to a specific sea tanniyn, like the English concept of reptiles in general versus a specific reptile like the crocodile)
– In Exodus 7 when Aaron’s rod becomes a tanniyn and then swallows the tanniyn from the magicians’ rods
– In both the Isaiah 27:1 and the Psalm 74:13 passages that I quoted where it says dragon, the word is tanniyn
– In references to waste land, a habitat for owls and tanniyn (Isaiah 34:14, 35:7; Jeremiah 9:11, 49:33, etc.)
Yes, I too think that dragons (the older term) really existed, what we know today as dinosaurs. It’s not impossible that some breathed fire or seemed to do so, but anyway we do know that human beings lived alongside dinosaurs. I saw somewhere that all the Chinese signs of the Zodiac are real, not imaginary, animals, so the inclusion of the dragon would seem to show an ancient cultural origin. Also that some cave art (or ancient art of some form) depicted dragons, and depicted them in ways it took scientists many years to understand that dinosaurs would have held themselves–they were drawn from life.
Chas, so do they not have common sense or are they weighing the consequences? My family is starving, there is possible work in South Africa. I have friends who made it but Charlie did not. Or: I need to get water to cook with. The only water is in the river. Hippos live in the river. I do this every day and have not been killed in ten years, will I survive one more trip?
The same thinking could apply to those crossing our southern border or those crossing the Mediterranean from Africa or crossing out of Iraq to Greece, etc.
Good point Mumsee.
When you are at the end, you get desperate; You do what you have to do.
I understand the problems of people trying to get into the US. If I were one of them, I would be trying too.
Problem is> The Us can’t take in the world. A if we did, America would soon be like the place they left. I fear that it may soon be that way anyhow. The seeds of our downfall were planted by FDR years ago. I fear for our/your future.
The people crossing the Mediterranean have made Paris off limits to most French.
A race of people, with the blessings of God, have created unique culture on Earth.
We are quickly losing that blessing and our culture and our nation.
No, we cannot, not and maintain what we have. But I have no problem offering opportunity to those who want to pursue the American dream. My problem is in offering it to those who hate this country and want to make it like their homeland. Currently, we have a country that can help a lot of others. Kind of like killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Or biting the hand that feeds you. Or a bunch of other interesting adages.
Every time we go near those people, we learn a little bit more. This time, at the psychiatrist office, we learned that to hang oneself, one needs to get up on something. Initially, she thought the curved part of a coat hangar in her mouth would do it. Then learned rope was needed. She uses string or yarn or, now, rope. Then she learned it needed to be around her neck. Then she missed the clue that it needed to be tied to something. Next, it needed to go over something (the swingset). Now she knows to step up on the swing. She is getting closer. She was much safer when they removed the chairs from the room for suicide watch and concluded she could by lying under the chair. Only God can protect her from herself.
Chas, every city has its high crime neighbourhoods – Americans have long been familiar with the seedier sections of New York, Chicago, L.A., etc. – but the American news organizations which claimed that Paris had no-go zones were forced by the French to apologize for claiming that there were areas where French law enforcement could not go (https://www.france24.com/en/20150120-insulted-paris-mayor-sue-fox-news-over-no-go-zones-slur). Paris is not off limits to the French.
There is something that North Americans fail to understand regarding the migrants to Europe. The UK has high numbers of Indian and Pakistani immigrants, which makes sense because India and Pakistan, then know as India, were part of the British Empire – the same with several West, Central, East, and South African countries. Eritreans setting out from North Africa across the Mediterannean are seeking passage to Italy, the former colonizer of the Eritrean coast, then a part of Ethiopia. France’s Foreign Legion is still a presence in their former colony of Algeria, and many Algerians have come to live in France. Even the Turkish immigrants to Germany have historical connections, as Germany was very involved in the former Ottoman Empire around the time of World War I.
The thing is, there has long been such a reverse migration of the colonized coming to the colonizers. Reading the literature of Victorian England, it becomes evident that there were Indians, Africans, and Chinese, already present in England, especially in London, from the British colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia (Hong Kong). The immigrants were on the margins of society, as England was unabashedly racist in those days, but they were there. There was even certain stereotypes of associating them with crime. For example, in the Sherlock Holmes’ story ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, Holmes is investigating a crime connected to an opium den in a London slum:
‘”Briefly, Watson, I am in the midst of a very remarkable inquiry, and I have hoped to find a clew in the incoherent ramblings of these sots, as I have done before now. Had I been recognised in that den my life would not have been worth an hour’s purchase; for I have used it before now for my own purposes, and the rascally Lascar who runs it has sworn to have vengeance upon me.”‘ [Note: Lascar was a term for a sailor from the Indian subcontinent.]
The difference between then and now is a matter of population. Europeans made a third of the world population in the late 1800s, they are now about a sixth. But, that is hardly the fault of the immigrants from Asia and Africa. There are some who would say that Europe is getting no more than her own back. She pillaged Asia and Africa for her own benefit and is receiving payment in kind. Certainly, the situation which is displacing so many out of the Middle East into Europe is a direct result of the policies of Europe in the Middle East before, during, and after World War I. Modern day Syria was formed by France in the years between the World Wars, and France emphasized the religious divisions of Syrian, separating the Alawites (a gnostic Shia sect) from the Sunni in administrative areas – Assad is an Alawite, while most of the rebel Syrian groups are Sunni. Actions have consequences. Breaking one’s word, stealing, and murdering are all things that both individuals and nations will have to pay for eventually, according to the laws of God (II Samuel 21:1-9). To quote a Canadian judge, Chief Justice Sevigny, “Rien n’echappe a la justice de Dieu!” (nothing escapes the justice of God).
That being said, the Canaanite Gibeonites whom the Israelites preserved by a hasty oath (Joshua 9) , the oath which King Saul tried to break and God punished Israel for breaking, were, in the long run, a blessing to Israel. As the Nethinim, they not only performed the menial tasks for the service of the temple, they also helped to rebuild after the exile (Ezra 2:43-54). Welcoming the stranger is something that is always attended by blessing in the Bible and oppressing the stranger accompanied by cursing (Deuteronomy 24:17, 27:19; Matthew 25:34-46). The churches in Europe who are listening to the commands of their Lord are being blessed: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/05/european-churches-growing-flock-muslim-refugees-converting-christianity.
Mumsee, and they all have eventually paid for doing so. Assyria and Babylon were both used to punish Israel’s sins by taking the land of Israel, and both were punished afterwards for their own sins by losing their own land, Assyria to Babylon, Babylon to Persia, Persia to Greece, and Greece to Rome. Rien n’echappe a la justice de Dieu.
I know. That is why we are so dismayed when people give her more clues. And it is all innocent questioning which comes back to “know your audience”. Those words slip out and they are not retrievable.
Mumsee – I cannot figure out in what kind of context those details would be told. Why would anybody do that? (Unless it is other patients giving these details?)
Another factor that I have read about, regarding the troubles with immigrants in Europe, is that European nations are more homogeneous than the U.S., so immigrants and migrants tend to be more isolated and have a harder time acclimating and finding work than they do here.
Something else I have read is that most immigrants do indeed appreciate and respect what we refer to as American values. They don’t want to change the country; they just want to be a part of it. Despite the fact that many legal Hispanic citizens seem to vote for Democrats, they tend to be socially conservative and family-oriented.
Kizzie, those are the ones I would welcome. It is the ones who clearly do not like it here and want to change it to something else. Change is not necessarily bad, of course, but when it is working so all people have opportunity, why take that away.
And Kizzie, an emergency services person (deputy, nurse, doctor, ambulance attendant, psychologist, etc) might ask:
I understand you were cutting your arm and wanting to be dead. Did you intend to cut the vein?
(She had heard of cutting to kill oneself but would have no idea what to cut but now has a better idea)
I see you had a rope around your neck, what did you have it over?
(She knew to put it around her neck but would just walk around the house, saying she was hanging herself. Now she knows it goes over something)
You are here for suicide watch so we have to remove everything from the room that is dangerous for you.
(they took out my chair so chairs must be a route to suicide. What can I do? Hmm, I think if I lie down under it, it will work)
And I know, I mentioned that all people have an opportunity and some people will argue that But in reality, they do. What they do with that opportunity is up to them of course. Which is why we periodically hear from some individual in the “marginalized” group saying, “Don’t make me a victim. I left home with nothing and now I own such and such and employ so many people.”
Mumsee, the laws of leaving gleanings to make provision for the poor, the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger (Leviticus 19:10, 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:19-21) demonstrate that certain groups are more vulnerable, do not have equal opportunities, and thus require help to survive.
Wandering Views 
WHAT KINKD CRITTER IS THAT!
Good morning everyone but JO.
I hope your Friday was good Jo.
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Hippos, and the little fish that eat something off of their bodies. I didn’t ask what. Some things are best not known. 🙂
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Those hippos actually look cute, but I wouldn’t want to swim with them.
I am tired. Crammed too much into the kinder day and am already making plans not to do that again. We took a practice test on the computers. It was awful and this was the easy practice test. One little girl had so much trouble using the mouse that she was crying. I am asking if my aide can click where the girl points to spare her the pain.
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I did go with Joan to the Teen Centre tonight. Everyone went. And it was the 7th birthday of the quints. It took well over an hour and a half to place our orders and get our food.
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Good morning. Here at the racetrack watching the ponies exercise
Will be able to see them better when the sun comes up. We were slammed at the ED again last night. No time to get my regular stuff done. Maybe tonight.
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Hippos. I remember when we would go to the zoo and all you could see of the hippos was their noses. Now, at the St. Louis Zoo (and at others, I suppose) they built a pool with a below surface viewing area. We can watch the hippos swim around. But I agree with Jo, I wouldn’t want to swim with them. The water is filthy.
Oh, well. It’s time to read the funnies.
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Hippos are also perhaps the most dangerous animals in the world. They look cute and slow, but they are dangerous with huge teeth.
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Thanx for the funnies.
Not so funny.
I, also, have heard that hippos are very dangerous.
Mostly because they don’t look so.
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That was Chas.
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Actually, the mosquito wins. Followed by snakes, dogs, tsetse flies, and crocodiles.
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Mumsee, the mosquito wins in terms of most deaths. That’s not a decent comparison, though, since it is the disease that kills, and the mosquito thus kills indirectly. In terms of which non-insect animal is most likely to attack a human who draws too close, my understanding is the hippo is #1. Specific species of snakes may beat it, but snakes overall don’t, since the vast majority of snakes (even venomous ones) will retreat if they have an opportunity to do so.
But if you have a source for your order, I will read it.
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bbc most dangerous animals.
Yes, for territorial attacking, hippos win. For killing people they are high on the list.
When husband lived in South Africa, he learned that the unemployment rate of South Africa (40 % at the time), was low enough that people would leave their home country of Zimbabwe (80% unemployment) and risk crossing Krueger National Park and hippo attacks, to get to South Africa in hope of a job.
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Oh my, leviathan is a scary beast!
I’m with Mumsee; I think hippos are the most dangerous animals in South Africa. A friend has camped along the Zambezi River and their tent was mounted on the roof of their car for safety reasons!
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Relatives visiting!
Church friends own a winery and we’re off to taste wine there this afternoon–along with a cheese pairing that I bought at a silent auction to send the youth group to camp.
Two of us don’t drink; but the views are spectacular.
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Hippos are the most dangerous large land mammal, killing about 500 people in the continent of Africa each year: https://www.livescience.com/27339-hippos.html
They cannot be leviathan, however, not by the description that depicts a scaled (Job 41:15-17), fire-breathing (41:19-21) creature that swims in deep water (41:31-32). Hippos do not have scales (they stay in water to keep their skin cool), do not breath fire, and cannot swim (they glide, pushing themselves off objects in the water).
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Mumsee is correct. A hippopotamus is no threat at all to me nor to anyone else with good sense.
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Interesting, I looked up leviathan, and realized it not only is in Job and two Psalms (17:14 & 104:26), but also in Isaiah 27:1: “In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.”
Isaiah is obviously making a reference to the Adversary, who is elsewhere also depicted as a dragon (Revelation 12), as the context of Isaiah 27 is the Day of the Lord, the day of judgement. But Psalm 104:26 is not a reference to a spiritual being, but speaking of an actual physical creature that was created, on the fifth day with the rest of the sea creatures, to swim in the sea: “There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.”
Psalm 74:14 is intriguing, as it seems to be referring to the Flood in Noah’s day from verses 12-17 (the last line is a clear reference to Genesis 8:22)
“God my King is from ancient times,
performing saving acts on the earth.
You divided the sea with Your strength;
You smashed the heads of the sea monsters in the waters;
You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
You fed him to the creatures of the desert.
You opened up springs and streams;
You dried up ever-flowing rivers.
The day is Yours, also the night;
You established the moon and the sun.
You set all the boundaries of the earth;
You made summer and winter.”
LikeLike
Since Nightingale now has a permanent position at the nursing home, that makes her the charge nurse for that wing when she is on duty. She was telling me this morning that that means there are more details involved that the “floaters” don’t usually deal with. And her wing is the fullest and busiest. She sometimes feels like she is drowning as she tries to adjust to the added duties and busyness. I’m sure that, in time, she will adjust and get into a groove, as she is a highly competent woman.
I remember when I started working for Martin-Brower, the company that provides McDonald’s restaurants with most of their needs (from burgers to cleaning supplies). At the time, before the system was computerized, we would take the order from the manager (over the phone), and as we wrote down on the order sheet (the size of two normal sheets of paper put together, with items on front and back) the number of cases for each item, we also needed to quickly put in the number of cases on an adding machine.
The people who’d been doing this job for a while would have their fingers flying over the adding machine, not even looking at it. I thought, “I’ll never be able to do that!” But with time, I, too, had my fingers flying over the adding machine as I took the fast-paced orders.
(The reason we added the number of cases as we went along was so that at the end of taking the order, I would say what number I came up with, and if it was different than their number, we’d have to go over the order again.)
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Roscuro – The idea of dragons is intriguing. From what I understand, many cultures have legends of dragons. Some people think the creatures in those legends were really dinosaurs.
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Kizzie, I incline to that idea. Dinosaurs did exist, and since everything was created together in the fifth and sixth days, then humans would have seen dinosaurs. Behemoth, mentioned in the chapter before Leviathan, does seem like a pretty clear reference to a large reptile like the brontosaurus – the tail that “moves like a cedar” is certainly not referring to an elephant’s tail. There are cases in the Bible when the word dragon is clearly referring to reptile-like creatures – the Hebrew word translated dragon is tanniyn, and it is used:
– In Genesis 1:21 on the fifth day when God created great tanniyn to dwell in the sea (Leviathin is a transliteration of another Hebrew word that seems to refer to a specific sea tanniyn, like the English concept of reptiles in general versus a specific reptile like the crocodile)
– In Exodus 7 when Aaron’s rod becomes a tanniyn and then swallows the tanniyn from the magicians’ rods
– In both the Isaiah 27:1 and the Psalm 74:13 passages that I quoted where it says dragon, the word is tanniyn
– In references to waste land, a habitat for owls and tanniyn (Isaiah 34:14, 35:7; Jeremiah 9:11, 49:33, etc.)
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Interesting interview: https://world.wng.org/2019/08/a_higher_purpose
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Yes, I too think that dragons (the older term) really existed, what we know today as dinosaurs. It’s not impossible that some breathed fire or seemed to do so, but anyway we do know that human beings lived alongside dinosaurs. I saw somewhere that all the Chinese signs of the Zodiac are real, not imaginary, animals, so the inclusion of the dragon would seem to show an ancient cultural origin. Also that some cave art (or ancient art of some form) depicted dragons, and depicted them in ways it took scientists many years to understand that dinosaurs would have held themselves–they were drawn from life.
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Did anyone else ever listen to D James Kennedy and his series on the stars?
Every primitive culture has the exact same figures for the constellations, so the surely must have been more distinct in earlier times.
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Chas, so do they not have common sense or are they weighing the consequences? My family is starving, there is possible work in South Africa. I have friends who made it but Charlie did not. Or: I need to get water to cook with. The only water is in the river. Hippos live in the river. I do this every day and have not been killed in ten years, will I survive one more trip?
The same thinking could apply to those crossing our southern border or those crossing the Mediterranean from Africa or crossing out of Iraq to Greece, etc.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good point Mumsee.
When you are at the end, you get desperate; You do what you have to do.
I understand the problems of people trying to get into the US. If I were one of them, I would be trying too.
Problem is> The Us can’t take in the world. A if we did, America would soon be like the place they left. I fear that it may soon be that way anyhow. The seeds of our downfall were planted by FDR years ago. I fear for our/your future.
The people crossing the Mediterranean have made Paris off limits to most French.
A race of people, with the blessings of God, have created unique culture on Earth.
We are quickly losing that blessing and our culture and our nation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No, we cannot, not and maintain what we have. But I have no problem offering opportunity to those who want to pursue the American dream. My problem is in offering it to those who hate this country and want to make it like their homeland. Currently, we have a country that can help a lot of others. Kind of like killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Or biting the hand that feeds you. Or a bunch of other interesting adages.
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Every time we go near those people, we learn a little bit more. This time, at the psychiatrist office, we learned that to hang oneself, one needs to get up on something. Initially, she thought the curved part of a coat hangar in her mouth would do it. Then learned rope was needed. She uses string or yarn or, now, rope. Then she learned it needed to be around her neck. Then she missed the clue that it needed to be tied to something. Next, it needed to go over something (the swingset). Now she knows to step up on the swing. She is getting closer. She was much safer when they removed the chairs from the room for suicide watch and concluded she could by lying under the chair. Only God can protect her from herself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Chas, every city has its high crime neighbourhoods – Americans have long been familiar with the seedier sections of New York, Chicago, L.A., etc. – but the American news organizations which claimed that Paris had no-go zones were forced by the French to apologize for claiming that there were areas where French law enforcement could not go (https://www.france24.com/en/20150120-insulted-paris-mayor-sue-fox-news-over-no-go-zones-slur). Paris is not off limits to the French.
There is something that North Americans fail to understand regarding the migrants to Europe. The UK has high numbers of Indian and Pakistani immigrants, which makes sense because India and Pakistan, then know as India, were part of the British Empire – the same with several West, Central, East, and South African countries. Eritreans setting out from North Africa across the Mediterannean are seeking passage to Italy, the former colonizer of the Eritrean coast, then a part of Ethiopia. France’s Foreign Legion is still a presence in their former colony of Algeria, and many Algerians have come to live in France. Even the Turkish immigrants to Germany have historical connections, as Germany was very involved in the former Ottoman Empire around the time of World War I.
The thing is, there has long been such a reverse migration of the colonized coming to the colonizers. Reading the literature of Victorian England, it becomes evident that there were Indians, Africans, and Chinese, already present in England, especially in London, from the British colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia (Hong Kong). The immigrants were on the margins of society, as England was unabashedly racist in those days, but they were there. There was even certain stereotypes of associating them with crime. For example, in the Sherlock Holmes’ story ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, Holmes is investigating a crime connected to an opium den in a London slum:
‘”Briefly, Watson, I am in the midst of a very remarkable inquiry, and I have hoped to find a clew in the incoherent ramblings of these sots, as I have done before now. Had I been recognised in that den my life would not have been worth an hour’s purchase; for I have used it before now for my own purposes, and the rascally Lascar who runs it has sworn to have vengeance upon me.”‘ [Note: Lascar was a term for a sailor from the Indian subcontinent.]
The difference between then and now is a matter of population. Europeans made a third of the world population in the late 1800s, they are now about a sixth. But, that is hardly the fault of the immigrants from Asia and Africa. There are some who would say that Europe is getting no more than her own back. She pillaged Asia and Africa for her own benefit and is receiving payment in kind. Certainly, the situation which is displacing so many out of the Middle East into Europe is a direct result of the policies of Europe in the Middle East before, during, and after World War I. Modern day Syria was formed by France in the years between the World Wars, and France emphasized the religious divisions of Syrian, separating the Alawites (a gnostic Shia sect) from the Sunni in administrative areas – Assad is an Alawite, while most of the rebel Syrian groups are Sunni. Actions have consequences. Breaking one’s word, stealing, and murdering are all things that both individuals and nations will have to pay for eventually, according to the laws of God (II Samuel 21:1-9). To quote a Canadian judge, Chief Justice Sevigny, “Rien n’echappe a la justice de Dieu!” (nothing escapes the justice of God).
LikeLiked by 1 person
That being said, the Canaanite Gibeonites whom the Israelites preserved by a hasty oath (Joshua 9) , the oath which King Saul tried to break and God punished Israel for breaking, were, in the long run, a blessing to Israel. As the Nethinim, they not only performed the menial tasks for the service of the temple, they also helped to rebuild after the exile (Ezra 2:43-54). Welcoming the stranger is something that is always attended by blessing in the Bible and oppressing the stranger accompanied by cursing (Deuteronomy 24:17, 27:19; Matthew 25:34-46). The churches in Europe who are listening to the commands of their Lord are being blessed: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/05/european-churches-growing-flock-muslim-refugees-converting-christianity.
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Seems to me, people have been fighting over land from shortly after Cain and Abel.
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Mumsee, and they all have eventually paid for doing so. Assyria and Babylon were both used to punish Israel’s sins by taking the land of Israel, and both were punished afterwards for their own sins by losing their own land, Assyria to Babylon, Babylon to Persia, Persia to Greece, and Greece to Rome. Rien n’echappe a la justice de Dieu.
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Mumsee, I am concerned to hear about seventeen year old. The more detailed the plan, the greater the risk for carrying it out. Praying.
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I know. That is why we are so dismayed when people give her more clues. And it is all innocent questioning which comes back to “know your audience”. Those words slip out and they are not retrievable.
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Mumsee – I cannot figure out in what kind of context those details would be told. Why would anybody do that? (Unless it is other patients giving these details?)
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Another factor that I have read about, regarding the troubles with immigrants in Europe, is that European nations are more homogeneous than the U.S., so immigrants and migrants tend to be more isolated and have a harder time acclimating and finding work than they do here.
Something else I have read is that most immigrants do indeed appreciate and respect what we refer to as American values. They don’t want to change the country; they just want to be a part of it. Despite the fact that many legal Hispanic citizens seem to vote for Democrats, they tend to be socially conservative and family-oriented.
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Kizzie, those are the ones I would welcome. It is the ones who clearly do not like it here and want to change it to something else. Change is not necessarily bad, of course, but when it is working so all people have opportunity, why take that away.
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And Kizzie, an emergency services person (deputy, nurse, doctor, ambulance attendant, psychologist, etc) might ask:
I understand you were cutting your arm and wanting to be dead. Did you intend to cut the vein?
(She had heard of cutting to kill oneself but would have no idea what to cut but now has a better idea)
I see you had a rope around your neck, what did you have it over?
(She knew to put it around her neck but would just walk around the house, saying she was hanging herself. Now she knows it goes over something)
You are here for suicide watch so we have to remove everything from the room that is dangerous for you.
(they took out my chair so chairs must be a route to suicide. What can I do? Hmm, I think if I lie down under it, it will work)
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And I know, I mentioned that all people have an opportunity and some people will argue that But in reality, they do. What they do with that opportunity is up to them of course. Which is why we periodically hear from some individual in the “marginalized” group saying, “Don’t make me a victim. I left home with nothing and now I own such and such and employ so many people.”
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Mumsee, the laws of leaving gleanings to make provision for the poor, the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger (Leviticus 19:10, 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:19-21) demonstrate that certain groups are more vulnerable, do not have equal opportunities, and thus require help to survive.
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