The following paragraph is from a February 7, 2010 post...seven and one half years ago. Kim Jong-il was North Korea's leader. He would live another year and ten months. The 'deja vu' in the title refers to Iran's nuclear weapons program mentioned in the rest of the post. We sat back and let our enemy North Korea get nuclear weapons.....would we sit back and let another enemy Iran get nuclear weapons.....well we did just that. We long ago made a Faustian pact but now there may be the devil to pay. Following the 2010 post is a post from a few weeks ago:
"Deja Vu All Over Again"
The headline across the top of the New York Times on October 9th 2006 proclaimed North Korea's first test of a nuclear device. They had entered the exclusive club of nations with nuclear weapons. The Times had continuing stories for the next few days and every other day for a little more than two weeks. On May 25th 2009, two and a half years later, the same newspaper gave only the far right column to North Korea's second and more powerful nuclear test. Judge Sotomayor's nomination took over the headlines two days later. The North Korean situation did not make the front page the rest of May, but there were seven pictures of Barack Obama on the May 31st front page along with, what else, an article on how the president's pictures were dominating the web.
"...But The Rebellious Dwell In A Parched Land"
I remember a conversation that I had with a pretty young Vietnamese girl in a restaurant owned by her father. She asked what Pittsburgh was like. I described snow to her and then asked her if she had ever seen snow. She informed me that she was schooled in Switzerland. Oh well.
No one really knows for sure but it seems quite likely that North Korea's Kim Jong-un went to school of some sort....at some time or other....in Switzerland. ...reports from one British newspaper are that he was shy, liked professional basketball and was always drawing basketball figures. There may be only one verified picture of him before he turned 30 years old. Such is life in what the Kim dynasty of North Korea has become.
His father...Kim Jong-il...the Dear Leader....had at least three sons and two daughters. His death in 2011 was shrouded in secrecy. It appears that he had a stroke and died as a result of it. Kim Jong-un was the youngest son....why he was chosen as a successor is also shrouded in secrecy. Maybe the generals liked him? His estranged half-brother Kim Jong-nam was assassinated in Malaysia earlier this year.
Kim Jong-il's father was Kim ll-sung....the Great leader....and was North Korea's leader from the beginning in 1948. His past never has been cleared up. He was at one time a major in the Soviet Red Army and before that served under Chinese communists. He was given a new name and then a third which is what he is known as today.
We do know this...Kim ll-sung was raised in a Presbyterian home and his maternal grandfather is said to have been a Presbyterian minister. He was once photographed warmly greeting Billy Graham and invited him twice to speak in North Korea! He died of a heart attack in 1994...the year of Reverend Graham's second visit. Billy's wife Ruth attended school in Pyongyang in the 1930s as her father was a missionary surgeon in China for 25 years...she visited North Korea in 1997. According to Reverend Graham, Kim Jong-il told him that his mother used to take him to church and tell him Bible stories. Communism destroyed North Korea and it destroyed this family also.
North Korea has nuclear capabilities and is ruled by a man....the Supreme Leader...the Glorious Leader...whatever....who says that he scored a 38 under par 34 on his first round of golf...with five holes-in one. His father's hero....Kim Jong-il's hero....was probably Elvis because he was obsessed with Elvis Presley. Maybe you remember his Elvis shades? The son...Kim Jong-un... was born in 1984 on Elvis's birthday. Usually the Kim dynasty had a few billion dollars in European banks just in case they were overthrown and had to go somewhere else. Would China or Russia take in Kim Jong-un if necessary?
We are past the point of no return with North Korea. There was a time when Kim Jong-un could just choose to stop attempting to build an ICBM....but no more. It appears that another missile test may be imminent. Why would he do this? He probably could have gotten season tickets to the Lakers if he wanted them. On the one hand North Korea is a pain to both China and Russia....particularly China, but on the other hand, having a nuclear capable ally to use as a patsy could come in handy some day.
Billy Graham conducted 417 crusades in 185 countries around the world from 1947 to 2005. Chicago's Soldier's Field once sardined 110,000 people in on a day that was 110 degrees on the field! A crowd of 150,000 welcomed him in Timisoara, Romania. 150,000 filled a stadium in Budapest...and in none of these did the crowd shout...USA...USA...USA. It seems that every major media personality interviewed Billy Graham and always with great respect. The world no longer has this stabilizing force. The Hour of Decision radio program that began in 1950 finally shut down operations in 2016 upon the death of Cliff Barrows. The last three or four hotels that I was in did not have a Gideon's Bible in a desk or bed table drawer. We have practically no Christian bookstores anymore. Ah but we've got Facebook...and the new gospel is pretty much....Friend me and be saved.
"Deja Vu All Over Again"
The headline across the top of the New York Times on October 9th 2006 proclaimed North Korea's first test of a nuclear device. They had entered the exclusive club of nations with nuclear weapons. The Times had continuing stories for the next few days and every other day for a little more than two weeks. On May 25th 2009, two and a half years later, the same newspaper gave only the far right column to North Korea's second and more powerful nuclear test. Judge Sotomayor's nomination took over the headlines two days later. The North Korean situation did not make the front page the rest of May, but there were seven pictures of Barack Obama on the May 31st front page along with, what else, an article on how the president's pictures were dominating the web.
"...But The Rebellious Dwell In A Parched Land"
I remember a conversation that I had with a pretty young Vietnamese girl in a restaurant owned by her father. She asked what Pittsburgh was like. I described snow to her and then asked her if she had ever seen snow. She informed me that she was schooled in Switzerland. Oh well.
No one really knows for sure but it seems quite likely that North Korea's Kim Jong-un went to school of some sort....at some time or other....in Switzerland. ...reports from one British newspaper are that he was shy, liked professional basketball and was always drawing basketball figures. There may be only one verified picture of him before he turned 30 years old. Such is life in what the Kim dynasty of North Korea has become.
His father...Kim Jong-il...the Dear Leader....had at least three sons and two daughters. His death in 2011 was shrouded in secrecy. It appears that he had a stroke and died as a result of it. Kim Jong-un was the youngest son....why he was chosen as a successor is also shrouded in secrecy. Maybe the generals liked him? His estranged half-brother Kim Jong-nam was assassinated in Malaysia earlier this year.
Kim Jong-il's father was Kim ll-sung....the Great leader....and was North Korea's leader from the beginning in 1948. His past never has been cleared up. He was at one time a major in the Soviet Red Army and before that served under Chinese communists. He was given a new name and then a third which is what he is known as today.
We do know this...Kim ll-sung was raised in a Presbyterian home and his maternal grandfather is said to have been a Presbyterian minister. He was once photographed warmly greeting Billy Graham and invited him twice to speak in North Korea! He died of a heart attack in 1994...the year of Reverend Graham's second visit. Billy's wife Ruth attended school in Pyongyang in the 1930s as her father was a missionary surgeon in China for 25 years...she visited North Korea in 1997. According to Reverend Graham, Kim Jong-il told him that his mother used to take him to church and tell him Bible stories. Communism destroyed North Korea and it destroyed this family also.
North Korea has nuclear capabilities and is ruled by a man....the Supreme Leader...the Glorious Leader...whatever....who says that he scored a 38 under par 34 on his first round of golf...with five holes-in one. His father's hero....Kim Jong-il's hero....was probably Elvis because he was obsessed with Elvis Presley. Maybe you remember his Elvis shades? The son...Kim Jong-un... was born in 1984 on Elvis's birthday. Usually the Kim dynasty had a few billion dollars in European banks just in case they were overthrown and had to go somewhere else. Would China or Russia take in Kim Jong-un if necessary?
We are past the point of no return with North Korea. There was a time when Kim Jong-un could just choose to stop attempting to build an ICBM....but no more. It appears that another missile test may be imminent. Why would he do this? He probably could have gotten season tickets to the Lakers if he wanted them. On the one hand North Korea is a pain to both China and Russia....particularly China, but on the other hand, having a nuclear capable ally to use as a patsy could come in handy some day.
Billy Graham conducted 417 crusades in 185 countries around the world from 1947 to 2005. Chicago's Soldier's Field once sardined 110,000 people in on a day that was 110 degrees on the field! A crowd of 150,000 welcomed him in Timisoara, Romania. 150,000 filled a stadium in Budapest...and in none of these did the crowd shout...USA...USA...USA. It seems that every major media personality interviewed Billy Graham and always with great respect. The world no longer has this stabilizing force. The Hour of Decision radio program that began in 1950 finally shut down operations in 2016 upon the death of Cliff Barrows. The last three or four hotels that I was in did not have a Gideon's Bible in a desk or bed table drawer. We have practically no Christian bookstores anymore. Ah but we've got Facebook...and the new gospel is pretty much....Friend me and be saved.
The world has gone cold and dark. There is a cacophony of silence in this maddening world....almost as the calm that precedes the storm.
