I Am Your Flag

I AM YOUR FLAG.
I was born June 14, 1777.
I am more than just cloth shaped into a design.
I am the refuge
of the world's oppressed people.
I am the silent sentinel of Freedom.
I am the emblem
of the greatest sovereign nation on earth.
I am the inspiration
for which American Patriots
gave their lives and fortunes.
I have led your sons into battle
from Valley Forge
to the bloody ridges of Korea.
I walk in silence
with each of your Honored Dead
to their final resting place
beneath the silent white crosses,
row upon row.
I have flown through peace and war,
Strife and prosperity,
and amidst it all, I have been respected.

I AM YOUR FLAG.
My Red Stripes
symbolize the blood spilled
in defense of this Glorious Nation.
My White Stripes
signify the burning tears
shed by Americans who lost their sons.
My Blue Field
is indicative of God's heaven,
under which I fly.
My stars, clustered together,
unify 50 states as one
for God and Country.
"Old Glory" is my nickname,
and proudly I wave on high,
Honor me, respect me, defend me
with your lives
and your fortunes.
Never let my enemies tear me down
from my lofty position,
lest I never return.
Keep alight
the fires of patriotism,
Strive earnestly
for the spirit of democracy.
Worship Eternal God,
and Keep His Commandments,
And I shall remain the bulwark
of peace
and freedom
for all mankind.

I AM YOUR FLAG.

By Thomas E. Wicks Sr.

No Clergy At 9/11 Commemorative Ceremony

In a little over two weeks, citizens across America will remember
the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and in western
Pennsylvania. For many Americans, that beautiful, crisp September
morning ten years ago, which suddenly turned into a scene of
unprecedented horror, will long remain a painful memory. On that
terrible day, many Americans, myself included, turned to God for
comfort and guidance. The churches and synagogues in our area and
around the nation were filled with shocked and frightened people
seeking answers to the senseless evil that we witnessed take thousands
of innocent American lives. Even people who were not normally
religious were coming to church or seeking out spiritual guidance to
help deal with their own bewilderment and grief.
Now New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to exclude clergy
from the city's upcoming 9/11 commemorative service. Why? His answer
was, "there is not enough room."
Former deputy mayor of New York, Rudy Washington, who served in
former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration, expressed outrage at
the current mayor's decision.
"This is America, and to have a memorial service where there's no
prayer, this appears to be insanity to me," he said, "I feel like
America has lost its way."
Although he suffered injuries during his time spent near Ground Zero,
Mr. Washington successfully organized the "Prayer For America"
service at Yankee Stadium in 2001. On that day, leaders from all the
major religions-Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Protestants,
Sikhs, Greek Orthodox-peacefully assembled to address the crowd and an
even larger television audience as the service was broadcast across
America.
"I brought every major religion to this event in Yankee Stadium," said
Mr. Washington, who is considering holding a news conference on Sept.
11 to object to the exclusion of clergy. "I'm very upset about it.
This is crazy."
I agree with Mr. Washington.
This is America. We are a nation which was founded on the
Judeo-Christian principles of the Holy Bible. And although many of our
citizens are not Christian or Jewish, it is because our Constitution
guarantees freedom of worship, that they have been able to immigrate
here from all over the world and practice their religion in relative
safety and peace. There is no country on the face of this earth with
the religious tolerance of America.
However, speaking at a recent dinner celebrating the end of Ramadan,
an Islamic time of required fasting, invited guest Mayor Bloomberg
addressed the attendees, saying, "We are all Muslims now."
Who are "we" Mr. Bloomberg? Do you mean "we" as in "America is all
Muslim now?".
Who are you trying to ingratiate yourself with, Mr. Bloomberg, that
you would make such an outrageous, if telling statement?
After all, since you are such an unabashed supporter of the proposed
mosque, or "Islamic Center" being built only blocks from Ground Zero,
could it possibly be Iman Rauf and the Muslim Brotherhood?
For those of you who are not familiar with Rauf, he is not only the
mastermind behind the construction of the much protested against
mosque being built near Ground Zero, but he is actively involved in
attempting to ban freedom of speech in America, and promoting the
implementation of Sharia Law here.
Although Rauf was born in Kuwait, his father, Dr. Muhammad Abdul
Rauf, was Egyptian, and a contemporary of the founder of the
Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna. Rauf has
been well schooled in the long tradition of radical Wahhabism, which
is the principle religion of the Muslim Brotherhood, that he acquired
at the controversial Al-Azhar University in Cairo. You might recall
that fifteen of the nineteen hijackers on 9/11 were also practicing
Wahhabis. This particularly virulent sect of Islam, which origins
come from Saudi Arabia, and not Egypt, as erroneously reported in the
American mainstream media, opposes all practices not sanctioned by the
Koran, which includes non-participation in any inter-religious
dialogues/ceremonies with infidel Christians and Jews and others.
Could this be the real reasons behind Bloomberg's decision to ban
clergy from the upcoming 9/11 commemorative ceremony? Is he afraid of
"offending" radical Muslim sensitivities?
Fortunately, there is going to be another commemorative event, the
second annual Freedom Rally, to be held at Ground Zero on 9/11, and
sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a human rights
organization.
It will be hosted by Pamela Geller, Executive Director of AFDI and
publisher of the acclaimed website, Atlas Shrugs.
“It is crucial to stand for freedom on this tenth anniversary of the
heinous 9/11 jihad attacks,” said Ms. Geller. “We must show the
jihadists we are unbowed in the defense of freedom. As a judge
yesterday dismissed a suit by a New York firefighter challenging the
construction of the mosque, the last legal hurdle blocking it has been
removed. But we are not giving up. It is time for free citizens to
make a stand.”
The Freedom Rally will also feature a number of guest speakers
including 9/11 family members Alexander and Maureen Santora, who lost
their firefighter son, Christopher; Sally Regenhard, whose son,
Christian, was killed on 9/11; Nelly Braginsky, who lost her son,
Alexander, and others.

The Significance Of Israel

During the time of the biblical patriarchs, the nation that we know today as Israel was called Canaan. After the conquests led by Moses and later, Joshua, the land became Israel. The name was still used in the New Testament (Matthew 2:20) though by that time it was a province of the Roman Empire.
The name, Palestine, translates to mean, "land of the Philistines". First used by the Greeks and later the Romans, the area retained this name under other subsequent Gentile rulers which included Great Britain. When the British Mandate expired in 1948, the region known as Palestine was divided into two states, Israel and Jordan.
In the geography of the Near East, the setting of the Bible is in the land of Israel. The Bible is the recorded history of the Jewish people. It is the story of the patriarch, Abraham, who as Abram, was called by God out of the land of Ur, of the Chaldees (present day Iraq) and the pagan moon-god worship of his father's house, and into the land called Canaan, where God promised through covenant, "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you with abundant increase of favors, and make your name famous and distinguished, and you will be a blessing, dispensing good to others." (Genesis 12:2 Amplified Bible).

This covenant later extended to include Abraham's son, Isaac, and his descendants, and Isaac's son, Jacob, and his descendants. However, before the birth of his son, Isaac, Abraham sired another son, Ishmael, with his wife Sarah's Egyptian handmaid, Hagar. Although God promised Hagar that He would multiply the descendants of her son exceedingly, "...so that they shall not be numbered for multitude" (Genesis 16:10) and later, twelve princes (nations) descended from Ishmael, (Genesis 25:12-18), the land covenant given to Abraham, "And I will give to you and to your posterity after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God" (Genesis 17:8) remained with Isaac and Jacob and their descendants.
This has been a deep source of contention over the centuries between the children of Abraham, who are the Jews, and the children of Ishmael, described in Genesis 16:12, "as a wild ass among men; his hand will be against every man and every man's hands against him, and he will live to the east and on the borders of all his kinsmen" who are the Arabs.
Adam Clarke's Commentary concludes, "Nothing can be more descriptive of the wandering, lawless, freebooting life of the Arabs than this."
Although God blessed the descendants of Ishmael, unfortunately many of them have turned away from Him to bow their knee to the satanic counterfeit god, Allah, and the religion of Islam. The Muslims claim that their god is really the God of the Old Testament. Here inlies a twisted truth. As I stated above, Abram was called out of the pagan culture of his father, the land of Ur of the Chaldees, which was the center of Babylonian moon-god worship in the ancient world. "Allah" the god of Islam, is one of the 265 moon dieties inscribed on the Kabbah in Mecca in Saudi Arabia. I think what the Muslims are attempting to say is that Abram first worshipped the moon-gods which possibly included Allah, before being called by the One True God into the land of Canaan. Talk about the devil in the details! There is no evidence that Abram worshipped at the altars of the moon-gods. The mere fact that God called him to come out of this evil place and into Canaan leads me to the conclusion that Abram was essentially a righteous man, and like Noah, was living amid a culture of abominable sin. God looked with mercy upon him and saved him from suffering in the pits of hell by calling him out of that land. Christians believe that because of this one man's obedience to the call of God, we have not only been blessed with the nation known today as Israel, but we have been given the glorious gift of God's Son, the Messiah Y'Shua.

For those in the world who are determine to continually refute Israel's right to the land, in 1946, one year before the British Mandate ended by vote of the UN, partitioning the region of Palestine into two independent states, one Jewish, one Arab, a young Bedouin Arab boy discovered a series of ancient Hebrew writings in a cave near Qumran. These text were later known as the famous Dead Sea Scrolls.

.http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/deadsea.html

On May 14, 1948 the modern state of Israel emerged to take her place among the nations of the world. This was the single greatest fulfillment of biblical prophecy since the coming of the Messiah Y'Shua.

"Who has ever heard of such a thing?
Who has ever seen such things?
Can a country be born in a day
Or a nation be brought forth in a moment?
Yet no sooner is Zion in labor
then she gives birth to her children." -Isaiah 66:8

In one single day, Israel was born as a complete nation, having its own government, armed forces, and all necessary offices of adminstration. Although hastily arranged, all the essential ingredients were incorporated to make Israel a fully sovereign nation.
Meanwhile, the Arabs rejected their half of the partitioned land, and on the day after Israel was declared a nation, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria attacked them. Like David vs. Goliath, tiny Israel emerged victorious against the giant of combined Arab armies. These same Arab countries attacked Israel again in the 1967 Six Day War and in 1973 during Yom Kippur, The Feast of Atonement. Terrorist organizations like the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Fatah, run by Yassir Arafat, Dr. George Habash's group, The Popular Front For The Liberation of Palestine, and later, Hamas, and Hezbollah, which is primarily backed by the Shia Islamic government of Iran, sprang up from the ashes of these conflicts with a determination to destroy Israel and her people through heinous acts of guerilla warfare and terrorism. It was not until November, 1977 when one Arab leader, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, decided to extend the olive branch to then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and made his historic trip across the border to Israel. For the first time, people in this troubled region of the world began to hold cautious hope that one day, the descendants of Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac might actually live side by side in peaceful co-existence. Although up until recently Israel and Egypt have maintained a tentative acknowledgement of each other, their truce did not come without a price. President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by members of an Islamic extremist group known as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas recently declared once again that he will never accept Israel’s right to exist. Furthermore, the PA, as well as Hamas and other terrorist groups have never been ordered by the United Nations, the United States of America, and any of the other nations involved in the one-sided "peace process" to change their charters calling for the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of the Jewish people. Iranian President Mahmoud "Mad Dog" Ahmadinejad is foaming at the mouth in anticipation of destroying Israel if and when his country’s nuclear program develops a successful long range missile. Meanwhile, President Obama seems more concerned with demanding that Israel stop building in Judea and Samaria and return to "the 1967 lines." What he is actually asking Israel is for them to sign their own death certificate.

"I will curse thee that curses or uses insolent language against you." Genesis 12:3

By the very words of his mouth, Obama has cursed Israel. Unfortunately, he has also cursed himself. And he has cursed America. God's judgment is inevitable upon this nation. However, believers must continue to stand and pray for our people and this land. Although our leader has incurred God's wrath through his disobedience, God is also a compassionate Father full of mercy and of love and He will never forsake his precious children here.

"If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, pray, seek, crave, and require of necessity My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land." II Chronicles 7:14

Happy Mother's Day!

The Reading Mother


I had a mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,
"Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath.


I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.


I had a Mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness blent with his final breath.


I had a Mother who read me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings--
Stories that stir with an upward touch,
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!


You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be--
I had a Mother who read to me.

Strickland Gillilan

Dame Elizabeth Rosemund Taylor, 1932-2011 Rest In Peace

Beautiful Elizabeth Taylor was a consummate actress and Hollywood legend with the most striking pair of violet blue eyes this side of heaven. She was also a compassionate humanitarian, known for her work helping victims of AIDS.
In 1985, Elizabeth founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research. However, what many people do not know about lovely Elizabeth is that at the height of her acting career, she became a Jewess.
After her conversion to Judaism in 1959 (this had nothing to do with her husband Eddie Fischer) Elizabeth took the Hebrew name, Elisheba Rachel. She began to support many Jewish causes, especially Israel's right to exist. Because of her generous purchases of Israel Bonds, Arab nations targeted Ms. Taylor and boycotted her films. In 1962, the Egyptian Government under President Gamal Abdul Nassar banned Elizabeth from entering Egypt to finish the filming of Cleopatra primarily due to her support for Israel. Egyptian officials declared, "Miss Taylor will not be allowed to come to Egypt because she has adopted the Jewish faith and supports Israeli causes." Elizabeth later canceled a trip to the Soviet Union after it's condemnation of Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.
In the 1970's her activism for the Jewish people and Israel continued with her signing a letter of protest against a UN Resolution which declared that Zionism was racism and a form of racial discrimination. But perhaps her most noblest gesture of support for the Jewish people was when Elizabeth offered herself as a replacement for the Israeli hostages being held by Arab hijackers in Entebbe, Uganda in July, 1976.

The Jew Factor

According to halakha, the collective body of Jewish law, a child is not Jewish if the child’s mother is not Jewish. This ruling is based in part from a passage in the Book of Ezra:

“And Shecaniah, the son of Jehiel of the sons of Elam said to Ezra:
We have broken faith and dealt treacherously against our God and married foreign women of the peoples of the land; yet there is still hope for Israel in spite of this thing.
Therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the foreign wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the command of our God; and let it be done according to the Law.” Ezra 10:2-3

Reform Judaism and progressive or liberal Jews have refuted this law and claim that anyone can be declared Jewish as long as one of their parents is Jewish.
Gabby Giffords mother is Christian Scientist, which under orthodox law would disqualify her as being Jewish.
It has only been since 2001 that Giffords solely identified herself with being Jewish. She is a member of the Congregation Chaverim, a Reform synagogue, in Tucson.
While Congresswoman Giffords seems very sincere in her commitment to Judaism, as well as her support for Israel,with most Democrats today, claiming to be Jewish has more to do with politics than with the tenets of faith. And while Giffords might support the Second Amendment and gun rights, like many of her more progressive-minded Jewish female politicians, she is fully pro-abortion, with a 100% rating from NARAL, or the National Abortion Rights Action League. In fact, this was mentioned several times by various media outlets in describing Congresswoman Giffords career in the Congress. She has also been described as very moderate in many other of her political views, even jokingly accused of really being a Republican. I suppose by mentioning her 100% rating with NARAL was the mainstream media’s way of reassuring their liberal viewing audience that Giffords “is still one of us.”
And while I thank God that she is recovering from her injuries, it would be nice to see her colleagues openly giving thanks and glory to Gabby's Creator too. Doctors are hailing her recovery as nothing short of a miracle.
Liberals, especially those in the political arena, seem only to focus on God and the need for prayer when it is convenient for them. Sort of like being a convenient Jew. Furthermore, this sudden call for camaraderie in the Congress in the wake of this shooting of one of their fellow members will probably dissipate once the collective shock and survivor’s guilt wears off.
America is literally drowning in a cesspool of deep spiritual darkness, something best reflected in several passages from II Timothy 3:1-5:
“But understand this, that in the last days will come perilous times of great stress and trouble.
For people will be lovers of self and utterly self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate, greedy desire for wealth, proud, and arrogant, and contemptuous boasters.
They will be abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, and profane.
They will be slanders, false accusers, troublemakers, intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good.
They will be lovers of sensual pleasures instead of lovers of God.
For although they hold a form of piety (true religion) they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it.”

Of Twain, Free Speech, And Censorship

The unreasonable decision to ban the "N" word from the classic works of author Mark Twain is not only a clear violation of freedom of speech and expression, but censorship. It is a denial of American History as Twain recorded it for his generation. "Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" reflect the mindset of a different time and different cultural practices. How are we suppose to teach our children to think for themselves if we deny them the right to freedom of thought and expression?
Freedom of Speech is guaranteed to every American citizen under the Constitution. Liberal politicians and the news media have sought to bend the rules of this right to speak one's mind freely and unhindered by imposing on our society the virulent institution of political correctness. This has emboldened those living among us who use their race and ethnic origin as a weapon to silence and intimidate their critics. These people, and you know who you are, have been allowed to get away with establishing a rather lucrative career stirring up the masses in order to uncover the alleged latent bigotry and racism lurking just beneath the surface of every white face in America.
Furthermore, if the dreaded "N" word is to be removed from Twain's works than it should be removed from all black rap songs, black movies, black literature, etc. It was black idiomatic speech that first coined this word in the first place. So, if it is deemed offensive for a white man to use it than it should be deemed offensive for a black man to use it too.