Lady Gaga has become the biggest star on the planet, is it me, or did her meteoric rise come from know where.  Stefani Germanotta was a struggling burlesque dancer and small time piano player and singer trying to find her way seemingly not being noticed in the small bars of New York City.  How did it happen, and what can she teach all of us about building an affiliate marketing empire.
Something clicked in her head one night when she was playing, as she looked out across the smoke filled bar she noticed everyone not noticing her back, and definitely not listening.  She decided to take a chance.  She decided to take her clothes off.  She started to play her set in her underwear. 
From that simple decision, everything changed.  The bar patrons put there drinks down and pulled themselves away from how they were going to not go home alone tonight strategies to who is this person singing to us.  „Was she even there when we walked in?” „That is a great question, I didn’t notice her.  I thought they were playing elevator music.”
Lady Gaga was born on that night and a new music entertainment standard was about to be set.  There are five, maybe more but I have limited them to 5 huge take a ways that we as affiliate marketers can pull and implement right now to either help launch our businesses or repair our broken ones. 
The questions that I have asked myself in analyzing Lady Gaga how did she become the top Twitter celebrity with over 6 million followers.  What makes her the icon that she is reaching the heights of superstardom that took others years and years to create?  She not only is a great singer, performer, but she is a master business woman who had a marketing and branding strategy unlike anyone before.
Please visit my blog for my top 5 affiliate marketing Lady Gaga take a ways.
Lady Gaga has become the biggest star on the planet, is it me, or did her meteoric rise come from know where.  Stefani Germanotta was a struggling burlesque dancer and small time piano player and singer trying to find her way seemingly not being noticed in the small bars of New York City.  How did it happen, and what can she teach all of us about building an affiliate marketing empire.
Something clicked in her head one night when Psycholog Wrocław she was playing, as she looked out across the smoke filled bar she noticed everyone not noticing her back, and definitely not listening.  She decided to take a chance.  She decided to take her clothes off.  She started to play her set in her underwear. 
From that simple decision, everything changed.  The bar patrons put there drinks down and pulled themselves away from how they were going to not go home alone tonight strategies to who is this person singing to us.  „Was she even there when we walked in?” „That is a great question, I didn’t notice her.  I thought they were playing elevator music.”
Lady Gaga was born on that night and a new music entertainment standard was about to be set.  There are five, maybe more but I have limited them to 5 huge take a ways that we as affiliate marketers can pull and implement right now to either help launch our businesses or repair our broken ones. 
The questions that I have asked myself in analyzing Lady Gaga how did she become the top Twitter celebrity with over 6 million followers.  What makes her the icon that she is reaching the heights of superstardom that took others years and years to create?  She not only is a great singer, performer, but she is a master business woman who had a marketing and branding strategy unlike anyone before.
Please visit my blog for my top 5 affiliate marketing Lady Gaga take a ways.

Is your prom party schedule marked on the calendar yet ? Prom dress, shoes, jewelry, hairstyle can be the major concerns for girls who want to be the focus in the party. And, proper make-up matching with the prom dress and hairstyle will bring you to a perfect note on the prom night.
Although the prom night is an important event for girls in their high school life, it is not necessary to create too outstanding look. All you have to do is to get the prom dress, prom accessories and make-up that matching with your character, and most important – be yourself, in your own style.
Nowadays, young girls are more independent and have their own ideas, but most girls tend to follow the hairstyles, dresses and make-up from the celebrities. It is not a bad idea to follow the styles of Jessica Simpson, Rihanna, Rachel MaAdams, or you may find something else in the ELLE Magazine, At 17, etc., etc. But don’t be a copycat, show your personality, in your own style.
Smokey eyes always give us a mysteries and darling look. They are quite matching with prom dresses in dark colors like black, royal blue, purple, scarlet and charcoal greys. The bold shades of purple, navy blue, brown or black color exude your striking confidence. Adding an overall lining in the upper and lower lids plus a think coating of mascara will bring the whole focus onto the eyes. To complete the overall boldness, use a peach cheek flush and nude color or pink lipstick.
Bright and simple look is for the girls who own a sweet and smilingly face. The peach, light pink, light blue color eye shadow matching with brown or bronze color eyeliner and one coat of black mascara enhance the charming look on the eyes. To finish off the whole bright and sweet look, use sweet, subtle colors flush on the cheek, glossy pink or shimmering peach lip color is the perfect match.
Is your prom party schedule marked on the calendar yet ? Prom dress, shoes, jewelry, hairstyle can be the major concerns for girls who want to be the focus in the party. And, proper make-up matching with the prom dress and hairstyle will bring you to a perfect note on the prom night.
Although the prom night is an important event for girls in their high school life, it is not necessary to create too outstanding look. All you have to do is to get the prom dress, prom accessories and make-up that matching with your character, and most important – be yourself, in your own style.
Nowadays, young girls are more independent and have their own ideas, but most girls tend to follow the hairstyles, dresses and make-up from the celebrities. It is not a bad idea to follow the styles of Jessica Simpson, Rihanna, Rachel MaAdams, or you may find something else in the ELLE Magazine, At 17, etc., etc. But don’t be a copycat, show your personality, in your own style.
Smokey eyes always give us a mysteries and darling look. They are quite matching with prom dresses in dark sklep z grami colors like black, royal blue, purple, scarlet and charcoal greys. The bold shades of purple, navy blue, brown or black color exude your striking confidence. Adding an overall lining in the upper and lower lids plus a think coating of mascara will bring the whole focus onto the eyes. To complete the overall boldness, use a peach cheek flush and nude color or pink lipstick.
Bright and simple look is for the girls who own a sweet and smilingly face. The peach, light pink, light blue color eye shadow matching with brown or bronze color eyeliner and one coat of black mascara enhance the charming look on the eyes. To finish off the whole bright and sweet look, use sweet, subtle colors flush on the cheek, glossy pink or shimmering peach lip color is the perfect match.

Conferences and business conferences can be said to be successful if and only if the host or presenters could convey the intended messages in an effective manner. Powerful power point design templates are the way to go while it comes to giving a booming experience of attentiveness to your guests. I had first hand experience in the effectiveness of power point design templates. It was a three day conference that I attended with my business manager. It was so attractive that I could never drag my thoughts away from the message being conveyed by the presenter. It was really tiring to attend different sessions – even then I was able to genuinely listen to the presenters that used themed backgrounds in their power point design templates.
One of my coworkers met me for dine and drinks after the training sessions of the opening day. She had a presentation prepared for the next day, which I have seen at an in house presentation. I know her presentation was jam packed with useful information. I noticed a weakness in the design background of the presentation. She was all ears while I described the feelings I had during the day sitting at various training sessions and the differences that power point design templates made. She too was really looking for ways to spice up her presentation. Thus after having our dinner we searched online for power point design templates and were amused to find the variety of templates that would dress up her presentation for that killing effect.
Since the presentation she had to give was related to medical profession, she chose a colorful medicine themed template and run it on her laptop. To our amusement it was stunning. She now started worrying about its appearance on a bigger screen. Will it give the same impression as it did on a 14″ monitor? And we had only one night before making the presentation. It was kind on part of the hosts to provide us with an access to the conference room, where she has to make the presentation. My coworker was literally jumping up and down when she saw the visual details that were carried over to the large screen. Her presentation was already packed with useful information, now she can ensure the information can be transferred in the most effective manner possible.
As we were leaving the conference room, excited about the changes we have made to the presentation material, another coworker bumped against us and he learned from us what we have found about PowerPoint design templates. He voiced his concerns about royalty restrictions and fees – no wonder he is a star in our legal department. We had him checked the website from where we downloaded the power point design templates and themes. He checked the website thoroughly and we could see his smile bigger wider as he found the no-restrictions, no-royalty usage license of the templates.
The next we had to face was our business manager who had seen the presentation two weeks back, and the present professional quality presentation that caught the attention of every one of the attendants. He was so impressed that we burned midnight oil to give that extra punch to our presentation. Later he told us that he has found some animated power point design templates that we can use in a different presentation on a different subject.
Conferences and business conferences can be said to be successful if and only if the host or presenters could convey the intended messages in an effective manner. Powerful power point design templates are the way to go while it comes to giving a booming experience of attentiveness to your guests. I had first hand experience in the effectiveness of power point design templates. It was a three day conference rzecznik patentowy that I attended with my business manager. It was so attractive that I could never drag my thoughts away from the message being conveyed by the presenter. It was really tiring to attend different sessions – even then I was able to genuinely listen to the presenters that used themed backgrounds in their power point design templates.
One of my coworkers met me for dine and drinks after the training sessions of the opening day. She had a presentation prepared for the next day, which I have seen at an in house presentation. I know her presentation was jam packed with useful information. I noticed a weakness in the design background of the presentation. She was all ears while I described the feelings I had during the day sitting at various training sessions and the differences that power point design templates made. She too was really looking for ways to spice up her presentation. Thus after having our dinner we searched online for power point design templates and were amused to find the variety of templates that would dress up her presentation for that killing effect.
Since the presentation she had to give was related to medical profession, she chose a colorful medicine themed template and run it on her laptop. To our amusement it was stunning. She now started worrying about its appearance on a bigger screen. Will it give the same impression as it did on a 14″ monitor? And we had only one night before making the presentation. It was kind on part of the hosts to provide us with an access to the conference room, where she has to make the presentation. My coworker was literally jumping up and down when she saw the visual details that were carried over to the large screen. Her presentation was already packed with useful information, now she can ensure the information can be transferred in the most effective manner possible.
As we were leaving the conference room, excited about the changes we have made to the presentation material, another coworker bumped against us and he learned from us what we have found about PowerPoint design templates. He voiced his concerns about royalty restrictions and fees – no wonder he is a star in our legal department. We had him checked the website from where we downloaded the power point design templates and themes. He checked the website thoroughly and we could see his smile bigger wider as he found the no-restrictions, no-royalty usage license of the templates.
The next we had to face was our business manager who had seen the presentation two weeks back, and the present professional quality presentation that caught the attention of every one of the attendants. He was so impressed that we burned midnight oil to give that extra punch to our presentation. Later he told us that he has found some animated power point design templates that we can use in a different presentation on a different subject.

Social media is quickly becoming one of the fastest and most effective ways to get in touch with your targeted audience and get your message across. Better yet, it’s FREE! That being said, some thought needs to be put into things like your Twitter and Facebook backgrounds, especially if they are accounts used for business purposes. Today let’s take a look at Twitter.
Why a Custom Twitter Background?
Before we get into the how, you should understand a little bit about the why of a custom Twitter background. We’ve all seen the original blue background that all users get upon signing up for an account. It’s not a bad design, the problem with it is that it isn’t original and doesn’t give your potential followers any idea about your brand or company, which is important on Twitter when millions of accounts have the same blue Twitter background including many spammers. A Twitter background should be considered a marketing tool just as much as say your company website, as many potential customers will view it. To get some mileage out of your Twitter background it needs to be customized to showcase your brand and company.
DIY Twitter Background
This brings us to DIY Twitter backgrounds. Anyone can create a simple Twitter background. It’s all about uploading an image and changing the color of your background. Here is step by step on how to change your background:
To start, go to www.twitter.com/account/settings. You will need to be signed in for this.
Select the „Design” tab in the top tool bar.
Now you can select either a generic theme or if you look at the bottom you can „Change Background Image” or „Change Background Colors”.
To change your image simply click on that option and browse your computer for the image you want to use. The image must be 800k or smaller in either GIF, JPG or PNG.
To change your colors, simply click on that option and select the color you want for each option: background, text, links, sidebar and sidebar border.
If you want to get more creative, there are plenty of free backgrounds online from different services that you can use. Of course, the downfall to these is that they aren’t custom made for your Twitter page and everyone else has access to them too.
When trying to design a custom Twitter background, there are certain design elements that can ruin a background. If your image isn’t sized to proper dimensions then parts of it may be covered by your profile or it could start to tile. There are also badges and other little images you may want to add to you Twitter page that you can do yourself, but ultimately take time and research into the programs you need to use. Many design elements for Twitter also use Photoshop or other design programs which you may not have access to. Basically, unless you’re a professional designer or you really know Twitter, your DIY Twitter background will most likely take you a while to set up and may not yield you the results you are looking for.
Design Service Twitter Background.
A better option that many companies are beginning to take is to hire a design service to design a custom Twitter background. This will cost you some money, but is not too pricey and will save you a lot of time and hassle fiddling with Twitter. Not to mention your end result will be clean, professional and will be a proper representation of your brand and company.
Social media is quickly becoming one of the fastest and most effective schody ways to get in touch with your targeted audience and get your message across. Better yet, it’s FREE! That being said, some thought needs to be put into things like your Twitter and Facebook backgrounds, especially if they are accounts used for business purposes. Today let’s take a look at Twitter.
Why a Custom Twitter Background?
Before we get into the how, you should understand a little bit about the why of a custom Twitter background. We’ve all seen the original blue background that all users get upon signing up for an account. It’s not a bad design, the problem with it is that it isn’t original and doesn’t give your potential followers any idea about your brand or company, which is important on Twitter when millions of accounts have the same blue Twitter background including many spammers. A Twitter background should be considered a marketing tool just as much as say your company website, as many potential customers will view it. To get some mileage out of your Twitter background it needs to be customized to showcase your brand and company.
DIY Twitter Background
This brings us to DIY Twitter backgrounds. Anyone can create a simple Twitter background. It’s all about uploading an image and changing the color of your background. Here is step by step on how to change your background:
To start, go to www.twitter.com/account/settings. You will need to be signed in for this.
Select the „Design” tab in the top tool bar.
Now you can select either a generic theme or if you look at the bottom you can „Change Background Image” or „Change Background Colors”.
To change your image simply click on that option and browse your computer for the image you want to use. The image must be 800k or smaller in either GIF, JPG or PNG.
To change your colors, simply click on that option and select the color you want for each option: background, text, links, sidebar and sidebar border.
If you want to get more creative, there are plenty of free backgrounds online from different services that you can use. Of course, the downfall to these is that they aren’t custom made for your Twitter page and everyone else has access to them too.
When trying to design a custom Twitter background, there are certain design elements that can ruin a background. If your image isn’t sized to proper dimensions then parts of it may be covered by your profile or it could start to tile. There are also badges and other little images you may want to add to you Twitter page that you can do yourself, but ultimately take time and research into the programs you need to use. Many design elements for Twitter also use Photoshop or other design programs which you may not have access to. Basically, unless you’re a professional designer or you really know Twitter, your DIY Twitter background will most likely take you a while to set up and may not yield you the results you are looking for.
Design Service Twitter Background.
A better option that many companies are beginning to take is to hire a design service to design a custom Twitter background. This will cost you some money, but is not too pricey and will save you a lot of time and hassle fiddling with Twitter. Not to mention your end result will be clean, professional and will be a proper representation of your brand and company.

According to an article in Wikipedia 78.5 % of Americans consider themselves Christian. To be a Christian in my understanding would mean that one embraces the Christian faith. Meaning that each has by faith both admitted his/her sins before God, turning from them seeking to do what is right and just, and receiving the forgiveness that the Bible teaches is only available through the Lord Jesus Christ. At which time the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit enters the life and body of the person who is calling on the name of Jesus. Thus, that person is born again. The spirit of that person is regenerated, in that the life of God has touched their spirit, and a „new man” has been created. This new person is created after the image of Christ, who by the Holy Spirit entered them, and now resides within them. This new Christian, this new Believer, is both expected and exhorted to then in all the everyday aspects of his or her life to begin to (as they are provided understanding) conform all the practices and attitudes of his/her life to mimic the Lord Jesus. The Lord never expects any soul of man to conform his/her life to the image of Jesus other than by the power of the Holy Spirit, which begun to dwell in them when they surrender their life to Jesus. For it is impossible for an unredeemed soul of man to conform itself to the image of Jesus. For such a person is carnal in nature, and the power of God to offer life and change does not live in such a person. He is both a sinner and a slave to sin.
If these things that I have spoken are true, and they most assuredly are, than how is it that a nation where 78.5 % of its people boast the Christian faith also boasts an approximate 70% divorce rate of first time marriages, 40 million plus „legalized” abortions, an internet where a search engine states it can provide nearly one million porno sites, 8 out of 10 teenagers practicing sex out side of marriage, 50% of our young adults living together outside of the marriage covenant, a society where many of our people pay 50% of their income to taxes, where less than 50% of our youth have the opportunity to grow up with their natural father, and I would suppose nearly 98% of American people openly practice the abomination of adorning the male and the female the same, plus very many other violations of God’s laws? So I challenge your thinking mind. How can such a high percentage of people claim to belong to the Eternal God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and such a high percentage of practices that He would consider an an abomination exist together?
I will tell you the answer
We as western Christians in numerous way do not operate according to heavenly wisdom, (that wisdom that is from above) but rather we operate our lives according to worldly wisdom. (that wisdom that is from below) Heavenly wisdom is spiritual, and brings forth life because it does all things unto God’s glory, to fulfill His purposes in the earth. Worldly wisdom is from below, it is devilish. God’s purposes, or even the good of others are not first in its consideration, but rather „self” is preeminent. Heavenly wisdom is always firstly thoughtful of how God can be honored and how that His purposes, and the good of others can be accomplished. Worldly wisdom focuses on what „I” can do to promote my agenda, my desires, my promotions, my satisfaction, my will, my pleasure, „mine”, „mine”, „mine”, which equates to „I”, „I”, „I”, or what can be termed selfish living. In short terms, worldly wisdom does what is most expedient to further whatever interests or agendas I may have that revolves around my own self interests. The American Church is more and more becoming like unto the Church of Corinth, as spoken of in the Bible. We posses the faith of Jesus, but with much carnality. You might say it this way. Our salt has lost it savor! Therefore, sin is not restrained. Whether in our own lives, or in the fabric of our people.
Heavenly Wisdom Comes Forth From The Example Of Christ Our Lord
Jesus was the only truly completely „selfless” person. There is no example of Him ever acting or speaking in what was a self-centered manner. Rather, He always did that which pleased the Father. These words, as were recorded by the Apostle John are illustrative of this truth: Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but that which He seeth the Father do; for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. (John 5:19 KJV) What the Father did, that did Jesus. What the Father spoke, that spoke Jesus. Where the Father went, there went Jesus. So it is clear that the first and basic attribute of Christ our Lord was a submission to the will and purpose of the Father. Within the parameters of the Father’s will it is clear that the second greatest objective of the Christ was to serve man kind, both those immediately at hand, and to provide a general salvation for all man kind. For it is written of Him: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:28KJV) He taught His own to follow His example: As the Living Father sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. (John 6:57 KJV) Yet in another place:…as my Father hath sent me, even so I send you. (John 20:21b KJV) To follow the example of Christ our Lord, to pursue the will and honor of God first, and the good (according to God’s will) of our neighbor second, is the core of godly wisdom.
World Wisdom Comes Forth From the Example and Spirit Of The Wicked One.
The ancient prophet Isaiah testifies to us of the spirit of the Evil One in Isaiah 14: 12-14, which says, „How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into the heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” In these three verses the term „I will” is used 5 times. Thus expressing the core nature of godlessness, which is self-centered-ness. This self-centered-ness, or if you will allow me to refer to it as the spirit of „self”, dominated Lucifer, and from him was introduced into the human race at the beginning, and as since that time been the plague of mankind. The inclination to put self before God and His will, and the good of others is the core of worldly wisdom. Worldly wisdom is that thought process that promotes self before God’s will and glory, and the good of others, so that the „I” in any of us can remain dominant.
Can the spirit of worldliness or worldly wisdom take on different cloaks?
Yes, worldly wisdom can be adorned in many ways to make it look proper and respectable.

It often dresses very religiously. Remember it was a „religious” people who turned our Lord over to the Romans to be crucified. It has been „religious” people down through history that have been the death of many faithful servants of Jesus. It was a set of brothers from a „religious” family that sold Joseph of old into slavery. It is „religious” ministers to this day who „tickle” people’s ears, telling them what is easy to hear so that they can have their support, and with their support the people’s praise, and money.
It often dresses in Political clothing. How often have we both seen and heard those who would aspire to political office telling the crowd just what they want to hear to obtain their vote. Why do they do this? It is their way of manipulating the people to accomplish their agendas. To obtain, or continue in power, position, wealth, and recognition. They do not act as „fathers” to the people. Doing that which ultimately will benefit the people, but rather they act as wolves, preying upon the people.
Worldly wisdom often dresses up like „higher education”. Supposing that much learning is equal to truthful living. This is carried on even to the point of accepting that our „much learning” as proven that we evolved from a „prehistoric slime pit some millions of years ago”. Thus, very effectively cooperating with the Evil One in corrupting men’s minds, turning them away from the faith and knowledge of God, and the salvation provided by Him.
It often dresses up under the guise summed up in these words, „I owe it to myself”, or, „it is my right”. Jesus taught us if we are to be as He is, then we will have to learn to deny our personal rights, even as He did. Did He not have a right to heaven itself, in that He was the creator of all things? Yet He did not value that more then the will of His father, or more then what our salvation would mean to us. Therefore, He left it all behind and humbled Himself to ultimately end up beaten, and stripped naked and nailed to a tree. It is obvious that the seeking of personal rights does not in Christ’s mind equate with godly wisdom.

Is There A Power, A Means Of Over Coming Worldliness, (Living By Worldly Wisdom)?
Yes, I believe there is an answer. I believe that the single greatest personal attribute of one that would be heavenly minded and not worldly minded is that of honesty. A person that has learned to value the truth above all things, I believe it is only such a person that can by humility deny self, and live firstly for God, and then beyond that for the good (according to God’s will) of others. I suppose that is why Jesus in the parable of the sower identified the soul of man who produces 30-60-100 fold, as the one who is of an „honest and persevering heart”. In reference to this honest heart, I believe my years have taught me to agree with Solomon of old who said, „…I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all. This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes. (Ecclesiastes 7: 28b-29 NIV) Sad to say, I personally have found most men to be only as honest as what is convenient at the time. Now, having spoken this exhortation will I claim to be entirely honest? I will leave that judgment in God’s hands, only answering as did the Apostle Paul, „Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14 KJV)
My friend, my country man, my brother: in regards to the common faith, Jesus promised that we could know His truth, and in that truth we would be free. Yet, our people are obviously bound more and more with every sort of moral vice, and beyond that we are more and more becoming captive to the ungodly and oppressive dictates of our government. I tell you, it is only a people that know and do the truth that can bring forth the godly wisdom needed to lift our situation. Put away untruth from you. Put away from yourselves untruthful leaders, whether religious, or political, or educational, and seek and serve the Living God. Adopt in all things the wisdom of the wise, which is after the fear of the Lord. Then you will have hope as a man, in your marriage, in your family, in your church, in your community, in your state, and in your nation of pleasing God and living life to its fullest reward. Amen
A Watchman,
Gregory A DeHart
According to an article in Wikipedia 78.5 % of Americans consider themselves Christian. To be a Christian in my understanding would mean that one embraces the Christian faith. Meaning that each has by faith both admitted his/her sins before God, turning from them seeking to do what is right and just, and receiving the forgiveness that the Bible teaches is only available through the Lord Jesus Christ. At which time the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit enters the life and body of the person who is calling on the name of Jesus. Thus, that person is born again. The spirit of that person is regenerated, in that the life of God has touched their spirit, and a „new man” has been created. This new person is created after the image of Christ, who by the Holy Spirit entered them, and now resides within them. This new Christian, this new Believer, is both expected and exhorted to then in all the everyday aspects of his or her life to begin to (as emerytury they are provided understanding) conform all the practices and attitudes of his/her life to mimic the Lord Jesus. The Lord never expects any soul of man to conform his/her life to the image of Jesus other than by the power of the Holy Spirit, which begun to dwell in them when they surrender their life to Jesus. For it is impossible for an unredeemed soul of man to conform itself to the image of Jesus. For such a person is carnal in nature, and the power of God to offer life and change does not live in such a person. He is both a sinner and a slave to sin.
If these things that I have spoken are true, and they most assuredly are, than how is it that a nation where 78.5 % of its people boast the Christian faith also boasts an approximate 70% divorce rate of first time marriages, 40 million plus „legalized” abortions, an internet where a search engine states it can provide nearly one million porno sites, 8 out of 10 teenagers practicing sex out side of marriage, 50% of our young adults living together outside of the marriage covenant, a society where many of our people pay 50% of their income to taxes, where less than 50% of our youth have the opportunity to grow up with their natural father, and I would suppose nearly 98% of American people openly practice the abomination of adorning the male and the female the same, plus very many other violations of God’s laws? So I challenge your thinking mind. How can such a high percentage of people claim to belong to the Eternal God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and such a high percentage of practices that He would consider an an abomination exist together?
I will tell you the answer
We as western Christians in numerous way do not operate according to heavenly wisdom, (that wisdom that is from above) but rather we operate our lives according to worldly wisdom. (that wisdom that is from below) Heavenly wisdom is spiritual, and brings forth life because it does all things unto God’s glory, to fulfill His purposes in the earth. Worldly wisdom is from below, it is devilish. God’s purposes, or even the good of others are not first in its consideration, but rather „self” is preeminent. Heavenly wisdom is always firstly thoughtful of how God can be honored and how that His purposes, and the good of others can be accomplished. Worldly wisdom focuses on what „I” can do to promote my agenda, my desires, my promotions, my satisfaction, my will, my pleasure, „mine”, „mine”, „mine”, which equates to „I”, „I”, „I”, or what can be termed selfish living. In short terms, worldly wisdom does what is most expedient to further whatever interests or agendas I may have that revolves around my own self interests. The American Church is more and more becoming like unto the Church of Corinth, as spoken of in the Bible. We posses the faith of Jesus, but with much carnality. You might say it this way. Our salt has lost it savor! Therefore, sin is not restrained. Whether in our own lives, or in the fabric of our people.
Heavenly Wisdom Comes Forth From The Example Of Christ Our Lord
Jesus was the only truly completely „selfless” person. There is no example of Him ever acting or speaking in what was a self-centered manner. Rather, He always did that which pleased the Father. These words, as were recorded by the Apostle John are illustrative of this truth: Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but that which He seeth the Father do; for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. (John 5:19 KJV) What the Father did, that did Jesus. What the Father spoke, that spoke Jesus. Where the Father went, there went Jesus. So it is clear that the first and basic attribute of Christ our Lord was a submission to the will and purpose of the Father. Within the parameters of the Father’s will it is clear that the second greatest objective of the Christ was to serve man kind, both those immediately at hand, and to provide a general salvation for all man kind. For it is written of Him: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:28KJV) He taught His own to follow His example: As the Living Father sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. (John 6:57 KJV) Yet in another place:…as my Father hath sent me, even so I send you. (John 20:21b KJV) To follow the example of Christ our Lord, to pursue the will and honor of God first, and the good (according to God’s will) of our neighbor second, is the core of godly wisdom.
World Wisdom Comes Forth From the Example and Spirit Of The Wicked One.
The ancient prophet Isaiah testifies to us of the spirit of the Evil One in Isaiah 14: 12-14, which says, „How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into the heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” In these three verses the term „I will” is used 5 times. Thus expressing the core nature of godlessness, which is self-centered-ness. This self-centered-ness, or if you will allow me to refer to it as the spirit of „self”, dominated Lucifer, and from him was introduced into the human race at the beginning, and as since that time been the plague of mankind. The inclination to put self before God and His will, and the good of others is the core of worldly wisdom. Worldly wisdom is that thought process that promotes self before God’s will and glory, and the good of others, so that the „I” in any of us can remain dominant.
Can the spirit of worldliness or worldly wisdom take on different cloaks?
Yes, worldly wisdom can be adorned in many ways to make it look proper and respectable.

It often dresses very religiously. Remember it was a „religious” people who turned our Lord over to the Romans to be crucified. It has been „religious” people down through history that have been the death of many faithful servants of Jesus. It was a set of brothers from a „religious” family that sold Joseph of old into slavery. It is „religious” ministers to this day who „tickle” people’s ears, telling them what is easy to hear so that they can have their support, and with their support the people’s praise, and money.
It often dresses in Political clothing. How often have we both seen and heard those who would aspire to political office telling the crowd just what they want to hear to obtain their vote. Why do they do this? It is their way of manipulating the people to accomplish their agendas. To obtain, or continue in power, position, wealth, and recognition. They do not act as „fathers” to the people. Doing that which ultimately will benefit the people, but rather they act as wolves, preying upon the people.
Worldly wisdom often dresses up like „higher education”. Supposing that much learning is equal to truthful living. This is carried on even to the point of accepting that our „much learning” as proven that we evolved from a „prehistoric slime pit some millions of years ago”. Thus, very effectively cooperating with the Evil One in corrupting men’s minds, turning them away from the faith and knowledge of God, and the salvation provided by Him.
It often dresses up under the guise summed up in these words, „I owe it to myself”, or, „it is my right”. Jesus taught us if we are to be as He is, then we will have to learn to deny our personal rights, even as He did. Did He not have a right to heaven itself, in that He was the creator of all things? Yet He did not value that more then the will of His father, or more then what our salvation would mean to us. Therefore, He left it all behind and humbled Himself to ultimately end up beaten, and stripped naked and nailed to a tree. It is obvious that the seeking of personal rights does not in Christ’s mind equate with godly wisdom.

Is There A Power, A Means Of Over Coming Worldliness, (Living By Worldly Wisdom)?
Yes, I believe there is an answer. I believe that the single greatest personal attribute of one that would be heavenly minded and not worldly minded is that of honesty. A person that has learned to value the truth above all things, I believe it is only such a person that can by humility deny self, and live firstly for God, and then beyond that for the good (according to God’s will) of others. I suppose that is why Jesus in the parable of the sower identified the soul of man who produces 30-60-100 fold, as the one who is of an „honest and persevering heart”. In reference to this honest heart, I believe my years have taught me to agree with Solomon of old who said, „…I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all. This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes. (Ecclesiastes 7: 28b-29 NIV) Sad to say, I personally have found most men to be only as honest as what is convenient at the time. Now, having spoken this exhortation will I claim to be entirely honest? I will leave that judgment in God’s hands, only answering as did the Apostle Paul, „Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14 KJV)
My friend, my country man, my brother: in regards to the common faith, Jesus promised that we could know His truth, and in that truth we would be free. Yet, our people are obviously bound more and more with every sort of moral vice, and beyond that we are more and more becoming captive to the ungodly and oppressive dictates of our government. I tell you, it is only a people that know and do the truth that can bring forth the godly wisdom needed to lift our situation. Put away untruth from you. Put away from yourselves untruthful leaders, whether religious, or political, or educational, and seek and serve the Living God. Adopt in all things the wisdom of the wise, which is after the fear of the Lord. Then you will have hope as a man, in your marriage, in your family, in your church, in your community, in your state, and in your nation of pleasing God and living life to its fullest reward. Amen
A Watchman,
Gregory A DeHart

The Azores islands lie here where the tectonic plates of the three major continents of Europe, Africa and America grind, push and shove. Here earth’s entrails spew out molten rock and built a submarine wall that is actually the longest submerged mountain range in the world, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This submarine mountain range extends from Greenland, passes through Iceland, flows between America and Europe, Africa and South America, then, moves down to the very tip of Africa, where it, next, turns East at the Cape of Good Hope and stretches onward to the Indian Ocean.
After five to six hours of flight from Boston, of spying below and endless blue mass of the Atlantic, approaching the islands, we think we are reaching a gigantic roadwork in the middle of the Ocean. Here the vast surface of the Atlantic opens up into gigantic mounds that pile up as if dug out by giant ocean gophers. Then, as our plane descends, the islands take on the semblance of an oversize Monument to Earth, a natural Stonehenge that rises from the bottom of the ocean and has us spell bound until we land.
These islands lie smack on the Mid Atlantic Ridge and are in the crossroads (the cross seas), of the New and Old World. It is here where north meets south and east meets west, and vice-versa. A person could say, they are a compass rose in Celtic knot, where they are in the southern part of north and the northern part of south; in the eastern part of west and western part of east of the Atlantic Ocean. A king Arthur’s reality, time warped in the middle of nowhere, this magic lava rubble of emerald meadows and mountain ridges, marks the heart of the Atlantic Ocean, give it an arcane, magic quality. These are the Azores the place where flat Earth became the globe.
On this outpost of the Portuguese sea crusade is where I live, and where I was born. Surrounded by the blue desert of the Atlantic, each island is a luxuriant emerald gem, a green refuge in the middle of the blue indigo vastness. There is here a bond of the people with this vast body of water we call our home. This archipelago once known as the Islands of Mist, the Flemish Isles or the Isles of Prince Henry, the Navigator, are an Avalon reality that is a two hour flight away from Lisbon and five and a half from New York, about one third of the way to America. Removed from any known continent, to the Azorean people, each of the archipelago’s nine islands is a virtual mainland. The rugged and often mountainous landscape gives us the impression of living not on landlocked islands, but on vicarious continents to the power of nine, a green wonderland.
These islands are so green that even tourists who have visited Ireland admit that, definitely, the Azores are greener than Ireland year long. Like Ireland, Scotland and Galiza, north of Portugal, the landscape has something Celtic. Celtic are the Atlantic wind swept rich green meadows, the rolling pastures, the hills and mountains, the lichen covered stone walls, and windy roads. This is the North Atlantic’s very Secret World, a green and blue, non-tropical paradise
South of this island, on the Island of Sao Miguel, called the emerald isle, is exactly where I was born. That is this was the island thought to be on the very brim of the flat world back in time. It was a violent world of sudden volcanoes and earthquakes, of boiling fumaroles and hot springs, of sulphur pits and rising and submerging earth, combined with the Mid Atlantic extreme humidity and gale force storm winds every day in the winter time. For that reason the settlers gave it the name of Saint Michael, the island that would have as a protector the angel that fights hell itself. The people of this island were also fittingly nicknamed the „coriscos,” or daredevils, for being tough, short-tempered people who in their love of life dared the very harsh elements that surrounded them and managed to make a living on this brim of hell world itself.
Being a „Corisco,” from my earlier living on that island, I remember my home which faced the Atlantic Ocean. I remember the weak sallow sun winters when dolphins paraded in front of our line of view, frolicked their way through the surface of the ocean in amusing marine acrobatics, elegant somersaulting and pirouetting. Ones with them, watching their fun made us want to take off, leave our island oasis and follow them freely through the open waters of the Atlantic.
From our upstairs windows we also saw ships come and ships go. Prisoners of this blue enclosure of the Atlantic, we were the Atlantic’s as the Atlantic was ours, and even though we wanted out of here, when we moved, we moved over to lands close to the Atlantic Ocean; lands, altogether, never too far from a combination of the watery element and green pastures nearby, be it in Bristol, Tiverton, Providence, Newport, Cape Cod, Hyannis or other seaside towns and villages of the New England states.
Central Atlantic Islanders, we had this intrinsic urge or bond with the world out there. Like the Inuit of Alaska, who called themselves, „Inuit,” meaning the „People,” when around them there was hardly anyone but bears, seals and whales, we, too in our Mid-Atlantic isolation, felt a strong bond to the world. We knew no one else but ourselves and, of course, the many ships that docked on some of our ports. Our concept of Portugal, actually, was our very island. We were Portugal, and we were Europe, even though, the majority of us had never been either to Portugal or anywhere in the old continent. In fact, there was a law that prohibited the free movement of people’s in Portugal, so that any of us would rarely travel or resettle on another island. That contributed to micro-cultures within the archipelago of the Azores, or a nine-folded reality of the Azores, each island claiming to be the Azores in its own way. That is the reality even today, when being on another island, is like being on a totally different world, a different Azores altogether.
What we, really, were not, and we were well aware, was America, and America was a greater magic than the Azores themselves. America was the magic California, New York, the lands of snow and ice, all in one, a land with a powerful allure. It was associated with money, cars, Hollywood movies, plenty of everything under the sun, food, lots of food, wealth, lots of wealth. Through the photos people sent back to the islands, America spelled progress, comfort, freedom, and glamor. It was a place of bicycles, toys galore, refrigerators, plush cars, warm homes with comfy sofas and arm chairs, TV’s, good tasting candy and sweet smelling gum, comfortable clothes, women who wore heavy lipstick; a place where one would be protein enriched plump (fat being something desirable in those days). It was a land of wooden houses, of piles of snow, of wooded surroundings everywhere, of „Cheese!” smiles and more smiles, a happy, wealthy, self-assured realm. Who, therefore, in the Azores did not dream of moving to America in those days? Isolated and neglected by Portugal, America was like a natural extension of these islands. It attracted us like a magnet. Fall River, New Bedford, Providence, Boston, Newport, Bristol, Tiverton, Taunton, Lowell, Pawtucket, California became household names here. The impact of America on these islands was such, that there is not one Azorean here on the island today that does not have a relative or an acquaintance living on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, that is the reality. America became, indeed, part of the Azores 1960′s and 1970′s warp and woof.
Then, one day in 1968, it was our turn. We moved on to Fall River, Massachusetts and the world would never again be the same.
Leaving the Mid-Atlantic Ridge reality, it was like arriving at a new flat land world, an expanse that took the place of the deep wide ocean and offered us an Ocean of possibilities. Immigrants, then we quickly learned what America was really all about; being new there, we, surely, did not take It for granted. We let go of our roots, we started speaking and thinking American. We were grafted to America, America was us.
Funny is that we soon perceived that America was made of islands too. There we were the „Portuguee,” the French Cannocks, from Canada, the Polacks, the „Italiano” and the Irish. For one, we started paying attention to K’s, Y’s and W’s, letters that did not exist in our alphabet. Going for a ride, felt like being one of those dolphins out there when we were back in the Azores, diligently trying to figure out the world of Americans through the billboards and signs we read. Coming from a wet world, America was a dry expanse, a world tangent to ours, a New England woodland green ocean, removed from us by centuries of progress and dry land imbued with the spirit of Indians and glaciers of yore.
America was, thus, as we understood it, put together of many ethnic groups or pockets of people who like Lego pieces came together under one America for all. There were the different neighborhoods, and ethnic events that proved that America was a mosaic of cultures, really, with a very strong, sometimes over bloated patriotic strand that kept us all together.
Like a Christmas spruce with a central shaft secured to a tree support, with branches covered with tinsel and bright lights of all colors that was America. The base, was, of course, America’s history of the War of Independence and the gargantuan efforts to break away from an old time system as that of oppressive kings and repressive England. It was Americas’s brand new history of independence and democracy.
The Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas time were three of its most significant highlights and the belief in its own greatness was something that made It tick, made us want to tick to. America was a young maverick of a country, and to have grown up in America was great! At the same time, we kept a penchant for the islands and people, the land from where we had come. How could we not?
Today, after having lived in Massachusetts and for about two decades in Central Europe, in the Netherlands and Germany, I returned full circle to these islands. Here, I realize that I am not from here any longer; that I do not fit here. The world culture caught up with the Azores, for sure, and the Azores are no longer what they used to be. These are not the islanders we once were. This is more like a shallow continental, obsessive compulsive consumer society which has been spoiled by the recent rapid affluence brought about by the adherence of Portugal to the European Union.
The music, customs and habits are those of any city in mid America, London or Paris, the prices on anything, as well. That is, the global culture has turned the islanders into consumers of anything and everything. Here too is the realm of cell phones, Ipods, Facebook, the social nets, and whatever is out there in the deep wide world. They crave for the latest, the best quality, the most expensive many another ultra-technological gadget, toy or piece of equipment. Low in self esteem, they have a inferiority complex, that makes them want to vie with the more affluent and powerful Northern part of Europe minus the discipline, hard work and moderation. The taste, therefore, here, as anywhere else in the big capitals of the world, is for anything extravagant, excessive, wasteful and pretentious. Having been for many decades the poorest country of Europe, it now exhibits a progress that defies some of their other realities, so that, for example, they are forcing everyone to use the online services for government purposes, when a good portion of the people are not ready for it yet. It is a technological age bureaucracy that borders on technological Fascism of some sort. Much is done through vanity, to prove their prominence and self-importance.
Unfortunately, what the Spaniards weren’t able to do century after century, in only about three decades, Brussels did. As a result of this new culture there is the drug and break-ins scene, a world of corruption and cultural excesses of a society receiving subsidies for everything they need and beyond. The looseness and the indulgence of the inner city infected the minds and customs of the people here and the simple, hardworking and unassuming Azorean atmosphere is gone.
The truth is, today’s islanders do not wish to leave the Azores any more. The They say their America is here, that they have no need or desire for America, that America is not what it is cracked to be — they surely have turned their backs on America, but they are doing the same to their age old values and Beliefs. While they definitely became more affluent and updated with the rest of Europe, they lost on humility, on honesty, on integrity. Proud global age people, they are an inside out society; one subservient to global trends and global mores; servants, if not slaves to their own self-indulgence, vanity and hedonism. Spoiled by subsidies and government hand-outs they make up a „Schau und Glanz” society, one led by greed, arrogance and an exaggerated sense of self importance.
Yet, what fascinates me more on living back here in the Azores is the History of the Age of Discovery, our history ‘s rich past.
Here born, although the sea is what shapes our character, we also have a great attachment to the land, for after all, in a time of famine as was the time of the Hundred Years and the Iberian Wars in Europe, everyone who moved here was looking for a peaceful place, a place away from constant armed conflicts, simply, a patch of land to farm and feed their family. We, Azoreans were, therefore, a product of an agrarian society, one attached to the fields, devoted to self sufficient farming and cows, lots of cows; while dreaming to one day better our lot somehow in the city or by moving somewhere else whenever possible.
People who lost touch with the old continent, many of the names around here are the only residual evidence of our origins. De Melo, my name, probably comes from somewhere close to where the caravelles sailed out, from the city of Lisbon or its surroundings. It also points to a place near the highest point of Portugal, called the village of Melo in the very center of Portugal. Some other names were translated into Portuguese from Flemish and French like the van Hagen into Silveiras, van Huerte into Horta, van Brugge to de Bruge, Breton to Bretao, Franc into Franco, Bernard into Bernardo, Ormond into Ormonde, Brun to Brum, and so on. Others have remained the same, like the Bettencourt, Fischer, Wallenstein, Weber, Schneider, etc. The Spanish invasion here for sixty years from 1582 to 1640 left names like Toledo, Borba and Avila. This was indeed, a first de facto European melting -pot, the place where people came together from different places in Portugal and Europe and from here spread the world over, especially to lands of Brazil Hawaii, Bermuda and North America.
Then, just like the seas around us, the more remote the island, the rougher, the less fluent the language is. Sao Miguel, the island where I came from, for example, has a very strong French accent, which points to the influence of people from Bretagne. One of the towns is even named Bretanha after Brittany, Bretagne in France. On another island, the island of Faial, more affected by the ingression of the people of Flanders, there is a town called the Village of the Flemish, or the Flamengos for the same reason.
A world detached from ours, although we felt we were Portugal and Europe, we were a people turned to the West. Portugal and Europe were not the direction of our ambitions. West, to the New World, was indeed the only direction we knew for centuries. Two hundred and sixty years ago it was to the southern part of Brazil, especially to the State of Santa Catarina that our people moved to. The king of Portugal himself, promoted this mass resettlement at that time to make sure that through an intensive settlement of the southern part of Brazil, the Spaniards would not encroach or take over that region. My own Great-Grandparents settled in Brazil and lived there many years before they returned to the islands. For a long time, Brazil was the Hy Brasile of Celtic lore. It was our destiny as we were Brazil’s.
At another time in the past, waves of Azoreans moved on to Hawaii and Bermuda, while others boarded the whaling ships that came by here from the New England states, and doing so, started a flow of people to Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, the three most sought after destinations in New England for the Azoreans. With the Gold Rush, we, then, moved on to California and in the early twentieth century, to Montreal, Ontario, Toronto, Quebec, Vancouver, B.C. and other cities in Canada.
To Brazil we brought our language and our customs, our Carneval, our religiosity, our Holy Spirit Cult, you name it. To Hawaii we took a musical instrument which was the forerunner of the ukulele. We also brought sweet bread and pineapple there. To America we brought our labor and our spirit of endeavour and adventure. From the Far East, we brought the hydrangea, camellias, North folk Island pine trees, tea plantations, orange trees, Japanese rose bushes and a ginger like lily plant that covers the hills here in September. From America, we brought news of our realization outside these islands, of a brand new country which made individual progress possible; gave everyone an opportunity to a better standard of living, the confidence of being financially independent and holding a sense of accomplishment impossible on the islands.
Portuguese outposts, these islands, are the islands of Prince Henry, the Navigator, the man, the prince, the leader of the Order of Christ in Portugal, the former Order of the Templars in disguise. On these remote islands, removed from every continent, south of the sinking of the Titanic, and north from the Sargasso seas, we, here, are linked to a time in history when the world unfolded and we sailed the seven seas. They are the islands of the Finisterre, a Finis Mare, an end of the world and sea reality, islands of fire and brimstone, a place where the secrets of the Atlantic Ocean were first unlocked and where flat world turned into the globe as we know it today.
After the immediate settlement of the islands, when cattle, pigs and goats were brought in and allowed to open up the land for humans, families from different regions of Portugal and Europe wandered in. This was followed by an era of wheat and woad, when the Azores became the granary of the Age of Discovery and woad, a plant used as dye, was exported to Flanders. Then came the Age of the Orange groves, when the English came and oranges were sent from here to England galore. Portugal, in fact, became the first western country that brought oranges from the Far East, namely China and the first to use of oranges to fight scurvy on their world voyages. As a result, Portugal was quickly associated with oranges to a point that many Arabic countries, countries where the Portuguese stopped on their voyages to and from India, started naming their oranges for the very name of Portugal, portugalo, an orange.
Now, during this Age of Discovery, one of the methods used by Prince Henry’s school was the methodical recording of information. That is, thanks to this School of Navigation Europe wide, captain logs and minute to minute reporting were for the first time introduced and became the standard operation procedure with the navies of all countries from then on up to the present. Each island was, by the decree of the Prince, governed like an actual ship, by a „Captain Donatory” in charge of a Captaincy that saw to it that the island each one was in charge of, was rightfully being settled and explored. Ironically, however, the secret gimmicks plots and intrigue played by the Templars marked the Age of Discovery as well. That is, while all efforts were made to scientifically, methodically keep track of all that was done and said, when all the information was recorded and shared as no other time before that era, it was also a time when much information was deliberately withheld or deceptively maneuvered to misguide and mislead if not everyone else, Spain for sure. That was an Age of deceptive hide-and-go-seek strategies, for which the Portuguese, under the order of Christ, (the Templars in disguise) became the best of players. It was a Tom and Jerry reality, where little Portugal, Jerry, had to take care of itself the best way it could, through trickery and artful, even devious scheming; through the withholding and altering information for some ulterior end, unknown today.
Columbus, himself, comes across as a wily character, one who was completely at home in Portugal, spoke the language, married into a noble family and was never thought of as a foreigner here in Portugal. When he moved to Spain, he was referred to as the Portuguese. No one ever called him the Man form Genoa, as it was customary to nickname foreigners those days, like El Greco. He is even suspected to have been of Jewish-Portuguese ancestry from a Portuguese-Jewish community in the region Genoa or Livorno, just to the South of Genoa, in Italy. Some even say that he is not even that, but that he was a noble from the region of Alentejo, from the town of Cuba in Southern Portugal and that was actually the reason for his naming one of the islands he discovered by that very name. He wrote Portuguese and Spanish with a Portuguese flair. He never used Italian to express himself, nor did he show any attachment to Genoa whatsoever.
So, the history of our islands, subject to this dynamics of deception and intrigue, points to an Age when not everything was revealed: it was a world where the powerful through Machiavellian stratagems ruled and the people had no choice, no voice, and no right to the knowledge of the games that were being played on them. After all, this was also the age, when spies, all foreigners, walked the plank or were sent to the pyre by the Inquisitors; the people were a rabble with no inborn direction and the court and the Church alone determined everyone’s destiny.
Europe, being in those days a theatre of war and of constant turmoil, of knightly forays and religious fever, of total waywardness best described by H.J. von Grimmelhausen’s The Adventurous Simplicissumus, was a de facto nightmarish scenario of many a battle and skirmish, a land of scoundrels, villains, cutthroats, of shrewd Jews- made new Christians, noble scoundrels, and simpleminded rogues everywhere. This was a time of religious zeal and roguish attitudes. Deep inside humanity wanted out and away from it all. Here, these islands in the middle of the Atlantic were the very first hope of escape from the quagmire of the times, and our people were for the most part that submissive rabble majority, interspersed with many a rapacious ruffian, cutthroat or thug, over zealous sailors or sea knights, greedy lords, petty nobles and shrewd foreigners who dared to break away from it all, and so we remain and are, even today.
This was Europe’s very own „Gold Rush.” It was the Rush of the European Spirit, tired from war, hungry for change, craving for the lands of dreams, of gold and spices, the Far East and India, the unknown frontiers of Prince Henry’s new world. One of the activities of the Flemish when they arrived here, was exactly to look for diamonds and gold which they thought were abundant in the Azores.
Through here, the Portuguese were able to mount its wide world empire, the first where the sun never set. It was the Portuguese to really first reach the Far East, lands of China and Japan, the first Europeans to settle on lands like Timor and Macao, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It was through the Portuguese Jesuit influence, that Vietnam, for example, picked up on a phonetic alphabet and the Chinese set their days of the week numerically starting with day of the Lord, Sunday and then Second, Third, Fourth and so on Days, Portugal being the only European country that does that. It is thanks to the influence of both the Portuguese Jews and the Jesuits that Portuguese is today, after English and Spanish, the third most spoken European Language of wide world span.
Having in Spain its arch enemy, Portugal’s alliance with England, the oldest and longer European Alliance since 1373, was a reality even older than Port wine. Prince Henry, himself, was the son of the House of Lancaster and the king of the House of Avis. In England the Portuguese found their staunch partners and protectors. At the Treaty of Windsor, both countries renewed the age old treaty and promised an eternal partnership. It was thanks to that treaty that the Americans through the bequest of England was allowed to open a Base here on the island of Terceira back in the 1941′s. The Portuguese government being a Fascist government during World War Two, did not align with the American presence here, but the Treaty was explicit, and the Fascist government bonded to England for protection of Portugal’s own worldwide empire, had no choice but to bow to England, when England made a special request that the Americans come in. So the Base was established and is still here, and here is where I work.
No Man is a continent; we are all islands, realities that rise from the bottom of a common watery body that binds us all into one sole reality that is the reality of our planet. Islands, what is happening to us here on these islands is, in fact, happening to the whole world as well.
Thus, global trends, the gimmicks of the stock markets and the banks, the cooperative world, play the same way the order of Christ did at the Age of Discovery. They are the new Order of the Templars in disguise. We live a time of non-submissive, self satisfied, smug masses who entertain themselves on new technologies as on toys, have lost the ability to build grand dreams, follow more than lead, live on a new kind of folly, one based on the excesses of information that comes form the outside and not from the inside of themselves. We have lost our inner virtuousness and are not authentically ourselves any longer, but subject to global trends, global schemes, slaves to what others think and do.
Azoreans, from the Azores, we can make out the outline of those new islands in the horizon, as we can tell reality in our world of mists and eternal shifting, rise and sinking of lava in these our sweet Islands of Mist. From here we can tell that the whole world is now a new Azores reality, where no man definitely is a continent. In the middle of this new Ocean, we realize we have reached our very West, and the far East is on; that there are games being played on us, the estranged, the detached masses. Are we opened-eyed enough to pick on the games being played this time, or will we all play being part of the lost continent of Atlantis, or is it the sinking of the Titanic?
The world is changing. The question that remains is, „Is this change into the globe as we built it here long ago, or is into a flatland on the brim of a fire and brimstone world, all over again?
It will be interesting to follow what follows next.
The Azores islands lie here where the tectonic plates of the three major continents of Europe, Africa and America grind, push and shove. Here earth’s entrails spew out molten rock and built a submarine wall that is actually the longest submerged mountain range in the world, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This submarine mountain range extends from Greenland, passes through Iceland, flows between America and Europe, Africa and South America, then, moves down to the very tip of Africa, where it, next, turns East at the Cape of Good Hope and stretches onward to the Indian Ocean.
After five to six hours of flight from Boston, of spying below and endless blue mass of the Atlantic, approaching the islands, we think we are reaching a gigantic roadwork in the middle of the Ocean. Here the vast surface of the Atlantic opens up into gigantic mounds that pile up as if dug out by giant ocean gophers. Then, as our plane descends, the islands take on the semblance of an oversize Monument to Earth, a natural Stonehenge that rises from the bottom of the ocean plac zabaw and has us spell bound until we land.
These islands lie smack on the Mid Atlantic Ridge and are in the crossroads (the cross seas), of the New and Old World. It is here where north meets south and east meets west, and vice-versa. A person could say, they are a compass rose in Celtic knot, where they are in the southern part of north and the northern part of south; in the eastern part of west and western part of east of the Atlantic Ocean. A king Arthur’s reality, time warped in the middle of nowhere, this magic lava rubble of emerald meadows and mountain ridges, marks the heart of the Atlantic Ocean, give it an arcane, magic quality. These are the Azores the place where flat Earth became the globe.
On this outpost of the Portuguese sea crusade is where I live, and where I was born. Surrounded by the blue desert of the Atlantic, each island is a luxuriant emerald gem, a green refuge in the middle of the blue indigo vastness. There is here a bond of the people with this vast body of water we call our home. This archipelago once known as the Islands of Mist, the Flemish Isles or the Isles of Prince Henry, the Navigator, are an Avalon reality that is a two hour flight away from Lisbon and five and a half from New York, about one third of the way to America. Removed from any known continent, to the Azorean people, each of the archipelago’s nine islands is a virtual mainland. The rugged and often mountainous landscape gives us the impression of living not on landlocked islands, but on vicarious continents to the power of nine, a green wonderland.
These islands are so green that even tourists who have visited Ireland admit that, definitely, the Azores are greener than Ireland year long. Like Ireland, Scotland and Galiza, north of Portugal, the landscape has something Celtic. Celtic are the Atlantic wind swept rich green meadows, the rolling pastures, the hills and mountains, the lichen covered stone walls, and windy roads. This is the North Atlantic’s very Secret World, a green and blue, non-tropical paradise
South of this island, on the Island of Sao Miguel, called the emerald isle, is exactly where I was born. That is this was the island thought to be on the very brim of the flat world back in time. It was a violent world of sudden volcanoes and earthquakes, of boiling fumaroles and hot springs, of sulphur pits and rising and submerging earth, combined with the Mid Atlantic extreme humidity and gale force storm winds every day in the winter time. For that reason the settlers gave it the name of Saint Michael, the island that would have as a protector the angel that fights hell itself. The people of this island were also fittingly nicknamed the „coriscos,” or daredevils, for being tough, short-tempered people who in their love of life dared the very harsh elements that surrounded them and managed to make a living on this brim of hell world itself.
Being a „Corisco,” from my earlier living on that island, I remember my home which faced the Atlantic Ocean. I remember the weak sallow sun winters when dolphins paraded in front of our line of view, frolicked their way through the surface of the ocean in amusing marine acrobatics, elegant somersaulting and pirouetting. Ones with them, watching their fun made us want to take off, leave our island oasis and follow them freely through the open waters of the Atlantic.
From our upstairs windows we also saw ships come and ships go. Prisoners of this blue enclosure of the Atlantic, we were the Atlantic’s as the Atlantic was ours, and even though we wanted out of here, when we moved, we moved over to lands close to the Atlantic Ocean; lands, altogether, never too far from a combination of the watery element and green pastures nearby, be it in Bristol, Tiverton, Providence, Newport, Cape Cod, Hyannis or other seaside towns and villages of the New England states.
Central Atlantic Islanders, we had this intrinsic urge or bond with the world out there. Like the Inuit of Alaska, who called themselves, „Inuit,” meaning the „People,” when around them there was hardly anyone but bears, seals and whales, we, too in our Mid-Atlantic isolation, felt a strong bond to the world. We knew no one else but ourselves and, of course, the many ships that docked on some of our ports. Our concept of Portugal, actually, was our very island. We were Portugal, and we were Europe, even though, the majority of us had never been either to Portugal or anywhere in the old continent. In fact, there was a law that prohibited the free movement of people’s in Portugal, so that any of us would rarely travel or resettle on another island. That contributed to micro-cultures within the archipelago of the Azores, or a nine-folded reality of the Azores, each island claiming to be the Azores in its own way. That is the reality even today, when being on another island, is like being on a totally different world, a different Azores altogether.
What we, really, were not, and we were well aware, was America, and America was a greater magic than the Azores themselves. America was the magic California, New York, the lands of snow and ice, all in one, a land with a powerful allure. It was associated with money, cars, Hollywood movies, plenty of everything under the sun, food, lots of food, wealth, lots of wealth. Through the photos people sent back to the islands, America spelled progress, comfort, freedom, and glamor. It was a place of bicycles, toys galore, refrigerators, plush cars, warm homes with comfy sofas and arm chairs, TV’s, good tasting candy and sweet smelling gum, comfortable clothes, women who wore heavy lipstick; a place where one would be protein enriched plump (fat being something desirable in those days). It was a land of wooden houses, of piles of snow, of wooded surroundings everywhere, of „Cheese!” smiles and more smiles, a happy, wealthy, self-assured realm. Who, therefore, in the Azores did not dream of moving to America in those days? Isolated and neglected by Portugal, America was like a natural extension of these islands. It attracted us like a magnet. Fall River, New Bedford, Providence, Boston, Newport, Bristol, Tiverton, Taunton, Lowell, Pawtucket, California became household names here. The impact of America on these islands was such, that there is not one Azorean here on the island today that does not have a relative or an acquaintance living on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, that is the reality. America became, indeed, part of the Azores 1960′s and 1970′s warp and woof.
Then, one day in 1968, it was our turn. We moved on to Fall River, Massachusetts and the world would never again be the same.
Leaving the Mid-Atlantic Ridge reality, it was like arriving at a new flat land world, an expanse that took the place of the deep wide ocean and offered us an Ocean of possibilities. Immigrants, then we quickly learned what America was really all about; being new there, we, surely, did not take It for granted. We let go of our roots, we started speaking and thinking American. We were grafted to America, America was us.
Funny is that we soon perceived that America was made of islands too. There we were the „Portuguee,” the French Cannocks, from Canada, the Polacks, the „Italiano” and the Irish. For one, we started paying attention to K’s, Y’s and W’s, letters that did not exist in our alphabet. Going for a ride, felt like being one of those dolphins out there when we were back in the Azores, diligently trying to figure out the world of Americans through the billboards and signs we read. Coming from a wet world, America was a dry expanse, a world tangent to ours, a New England woodland green ocean, removed from us by centuries of progress and dry land imbued with the spirit of Indians and glaciers of yore.
America was, thus, as we understood it, put together of many ethnic groups or pockets of people who like Lego pieces came together under one America for all. There were the different neighborhoods, and ethnic events that proved that America was a mosaic of cultures, really, with a very strong, sometimes over bloated patriotic strand that kept us all together.
Like a Christmas spruce with a central shaft secured to a tree support, with branches covered with tinsel and bright lights of all colors that was America. The base, was, of course, America’s history of the War of Independence and the gargantuan efforts to break away from an old time system as that of oppressive kings and repressive England. It was Americas’s brand new history of independence and democracy.
The Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas time were three of its most significant highlights and the belief in its own greatness was something that made It tick, made us want to tick to. America was a young maverick of a country, and to have grown up in America was great! At the same time, we kept a penchant for the islands and people, the land from where we had come. How could we not?
Today, after having lived in Massachusetts and for about two decades in Central Europe, in the Netherlands and Germany, I returned full circle to these islands. Here, I realize that I am not from here any longer; that I do not fit here. The world culture caught up with the Azores, for sure, and the Azores are no longer what they used to be. These are not the islanders we once were. This is more like a shallow continental, obsessive compulsive consumer society which has been spoiled by the recent rapid affluence brought about by the adherence of Portugal to the European Union.
The music, customs and habits are those of any city in mid America, London or Paris, the prices on anything, as well. That is, the global culture has turned the islanders into consumers of anything and everything. Here too is the realm of cell phones, Ipods, Facebook, the social nets, and whatever is out there in the deep wide world. They crave for the latest, the best quality, the most expensive many another ultra-technological gadget, toy or piece of equipment. Low in self esteem, they have a inferiority complex, that makes them want to vie with the more affluent and powerful Northern part of Europe minus the discipline, hard work and moderation. The taste, therefore, here, as anywhere else in the big capitals of the world, is for anything extravagant, excessive, wasteful and pretentious. Having been for many decades the poorest country of Europe, it now exhibits a progress that defies some of their other realities, so that, for example, they are forcing everyone to use the online services for government purposes, when a good portion of the people are not ready for it yet. It is a technological age bureaucracy that borders on technological Fascism of some sort. Much is done through vanity, to prove their prominence and self-importance.
Unfortunately, what the Spaniards weren’t able to do century after century, in only about three decades, Brussels did. As a result of this new culture there is the drug and break-ins scene, a world of corruption and cultural excesses of a society receiving subsidies for everything they need and beyond. The looseness and the indulgence of the inner city infected the minds and customs of the people here and the simple, hardworking and unassuming Azorean atmosphere is gone.
The truth is, today’s islanders do not wish to leave the Azores any more. The They say their America is here, that they have no need or desire for America, that America is not what it is cracked to be — they surely have turned their backs on America, but they are doing the same to their age old values and Beliefs. While they definitely became more affluent and updated with the rest of Europe, they lost on humility, on honesty, on integrity. Proud global age people, they are an inside out society; one subservient to global trends and global mores; servants, if not slaves to their own self-indulgence, vanity and hedonism. Spoiled by subsidies and government hand-outs they make up a „Schau und Glanz” society, one led by greed, arrogance and an exaggerated sense of self importance.
Yet, what fascinates me more on living back here in the Azores is the History of the Age of Discovery, our history ‘s rich past.
Here born, although the sea is what shapes our character, we also have a great attachment to the land, for after all, in a time of famine as was the time of the Hundred Years and the Iberian Wars in Europe, everyone who moved here was looking for a peaceful place, a place away from constant armed conflicts, simply, a patch of land to farm and feed their family. We, Azoreans were, therefore, a product of an agrarian society, one attached to the fields, devoted to self sufficient farming and cows, lots of cows; while dreaming to one day better our lot somehow in the city or by moving somewhere else whenever possible.
People who lost touch with the old continent, many of the names around here are the only residual evidence of our origins. De Melo, my name, probably comes from somewhere close to where the caravelles sailed out, from the city of Lisbon or its surroundings. It also points to a place near the highest point of Portugal, called the village of Melo in the very center of Portugal. Some other names were translated into Portuguese from Flemish and French like the van Hagen into Silveiras, van Huerte into Horta, van Brugge to de Bruge, Breton to Bretao, Franc into Franco, Bernard into Bernardo, Ormond into Ormonde, Brun to Brum, and so on. Others have remained the same, like the Bettencourt, Fischer, Wallenstein, Weber, Schneider, etc. The Spanish invasion here for sixty years from 1582 to 1640 left names like Toledo, Borba and Avila. This was indeed, a first de facto European melting -pot, the place where people came together from different places in Portugal and Europe and from here spread the world over, especially to lands of Brazil Hawaii, Bermuda and North America.
Then, just like the seas around us, the more remote the island, the rougher, the less fluent the language is. Sao Miguel, the island where I came from, for example, has a very strong French accent, which points to the influence of people from Bretagne. One of the towns is even named Bretanha after Brittany, Bretagne in France. On another island, the island of Faial, more affected by the ingression of the people of Flanders, there is a town called the Village of the Flemish, or the Flamengos for the same reason.
A world detached from ours, although we felt we were Portugal and Europe, we were a people turned to the West. Portugal and Europe were not the direction of our ambitions. West, to the New World, was indeed the only direction we knew for centuries. Two hundred and sixty years ago it was to the southern part of Brazil, especially to the State of Santa Catarina that our people moved to. The king of Portugal himself, promoted this mass resettlement at that time to make sure that through an intensive settlement of the southern part of Brazil, the Spaniards would not encroach or take over that region. My own Great-Grandparents settled in Brazil and lived there many years before they returned to the islands. For a long time, Brazil was the Hy Brasile of Celtic lore. It was our destiny as we were Brazil’s.
At another time in the past, waves of Azoreans moved on to Hawaii and Bermuda, while others boarded the whaling ships that came by here from the New England states, and doing so, started a flow of people to Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, the three most sought after destinations in New England for the Azoreans. With the Gold Rush, we, then, moved on to California and in the early twentieth century, to Montreal, Ontario, Toronto, Quebec, Vancouver, B.C. and other cities in Canada.
To Brazil we brought our language and our customs, our Carneval, our religiosity, our Holy Spirit Cult, you name it. To Hawaii we took a musical instrument which was the forerunner of the ukulele. We also brought sweet bread and pineapple there. To America we brought our labor and our spirit of endeavour and adventure. From the Far East, we brought the hydrangea, camellias, North folk Island pine trees, tea plantations, orange trees, Japanese rose bushes and a ginger like lily plant that covers the hills here in September. From America, we brought news of our realization outside these islands, of a brand new country which made individual progress possible; gave everyone an opportunity to a better standard of living, the confidence of being financially independent and holding a sense of accomplishment impossible on the islands.
Portuguese outposts, these islands, are the islands of Prince Henry, the Navigator, the man, the prince, the leader of the Order of Christ in Portugal, the former Order of the Templars in disguise. On these remote islands, removed from every continent, south of the sinking of the Titanic, and north from the Sargasso seas, we, here, are linked to a time in history when the world unfolded and we sailed the seven seas. They are the islands of the Finisterre, a Finis Mare, an end of the world and sea reality, islands of fire and brimstone, a place where the secrets of the Atlantic Ocean were first unlocked and where flat world turned into the globe as we know it today.
After the immediate settlement of the islands, when cattle, pigs and goats were brought in and allowed to open up the land for humans, families from different regions of Portugal and Europe wandered in. This was followed by an era of wheat and woad, when the Azores became the granary of the Age of Discovery and woad, a plant used as dye, was exported to Flanders. Then came the Age of the Orange groves, when the English came and oranges were sent from here to England galore. Portugal, in fact, became the first western country that brought oranges from the Far East, namely China and the first to use of oranges to fight scurvy on their world voyages. As a result, Portugal was quickly associated with oranges to a point that many Arabic countries, countries where the Portuguese stopped on their voyages to and from India, started naming their oranges for the very name of Portugal, portugalo, an orange.
Now, during this Age of Discovery, one of the methods used by Prince Henry’s school was the methodical recording of information. That is, thanks to this School of Navigation Europe wide, captain logs and minute to minute reporting were for the first time introduced and became the standard operation procedure with the navies of all countries from then on up to the present. Each island was, by the decree of the Prince, governed like an actual ship, by a „Captain Donatory” in charge of a Captaincy that saw to it that the island each one was in charge of, was rightfully being settled and explored. Ironically, however, the secret gimmicks plots and intrigue played by the Templars marked the Age of Discovery as well. That is, while all efforts were made to scientifically, methodically keep track of all that was done and said, when all the information was recorded and shared as no other time before that era, it was also a time when much information was deliberately withheld or deceptively maneuvered to misguide and mislead if not everyone else, Spain for sure. That was an Age of deceptive hide-and-go-seek strategies, for which the Portuguese, under the order of Christ, (the Templars in disguise) became the best of players. It was a Tom and Jerry reality, where little Portugal, Jerry, had to take care of itself the best way it could, through trickery and artful, even devious scheming; through the withholding and altering information for some ulterior end, unknown today.
Columbus, himself, comes across as a wily character, one who was completely at home in Portugal, spoke the language, married into a noble family and was never thought of as a foreigner here in Portugal. When he moved to Spain, he was referred to as the Portuguese. No one ever called him the Man form Genoa, as it was customary to nickname foreigners those days, like El Greco. He is even suspected to have been of Jewish-Portuguese ancestry from a Portuguese-Jewish community in the region Genoa or Livorno, just to the South of Genoa, in Italy. Some even say that he is not even that, but that he was a noble from the region of Alentejo, from the town of Cuba in Southern Portugal and that was actually the reason for his naming one of the islands he discovered by that very name. He wrote Portuguese and Spanish with a Portuguese flair. He never used Italian to express himself, nor did he show any attachment to Genoa whatsoever.
So, the history of our islands, subject to this dynamics of deception and intrigue, points to an Age when not everything was revealed: it was a world where the powerful through Machiavellian stratagems ruled and the people had no choice, no voice, and no right to the knowledge of the games that were being played on them. After all, this was also the age, when spies, all foreigners, walked the plank or were sent to the pyre by the Inquisitors; the people were a rabble with no inborn direction and the court and the Church alone determined everyone’s destiny.
Europe, being in those days a theatre of war and of constant turmoil, of knightly forays and religious fever, of total waywardness best described by H.J. von Grimmelhausen’s The Adventurous Simplicissumus, was a de facto nightmarish scenario of many a battle and skirmish, a land of scoundrels, villains, cutthroats, of shrewd Jews- made new Christians, noble scoundrels, and simpleminded rogues everywhere. This was a time of religious zeal and roguish attitudes. Deep inside humanity wanted out and away from it all. Here, these islands in the middle of the Atlantic were the very first hope of escape from the quagmire of the times, and our people were for the most part that submissive rabble majority, interspersed with many a rapacious ruffian, cutthroat or thug, over zealous sailors or sea knights, greedy lords, petty nobles and shrewd foreigners who dared to break away from it all, and so we remain and are, even today.
This was Europe’s very own „Gold Rush.” It was the Rush of the European Spirit, tired from war, hungry for change, craving for the lands of dreams, of gold and spices, the Far East and India, the unknown frontiers of Prince Henry’s new world. One of the activities of the Flemish when they arrived here, was exactly to look for diamonds and gold which they thought were abundant in the Azores.
Through here, the Portuguese were able to mount its wide world empire, the first where the sun never set. It was the Portuguese to really first reach the Far East, lands of China and Japan, the first Europeans to settle on lands like Timor and Macao, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It was through the Portuguese Jesuit influence, that Vietnam, for example, picked up on a phonetic alphabet and the Chinese set their days of the week numerically starting with day of the Lord, Sunday and then Second, Third, Fourth and so on Days, Portugal being the only European country that does that. It is thanks to the influence of both the Portuguese Jews and the Jesuits that Portuguese is today, after English and Spanish, the third most spoken European Language of wide world span.
Having in Spain its arch enemy, Portugal’s alliance with England, the oldest and longer European Alliance since 1373, was a reality even older than Port wine. Prince Henry, himself, was the son of the House of Lancaster and the king of the House of Avis. In England the Portuguese found their staunch partners and protectors. At the Treaty of Windsor, both countries renewed the age old treaty and promised an eternal partnership. It was thanks to that treaty that the Americans through the bequest of England was allowed to open a Base here on the island of Terceira back in the 1941′s. The Portuguese government being a Fascist government during World War Two, did not align with the American presence here, but the Treaty was explicit, and the Fascist government bonded to England for protection of Portugal’s own worldwide empire, had no choice but to bow to England, when England made a special request that the Americans come in. So the Base was established and is still here, and here is where I work.
No Man is a continent; we are all islands, realities that rise from the bottom of a common watery body that binds us all into one sole reality that is the reality of our planet. Islands, what is happening to us here on these islands is, in fact, happening to the whole world as well.
Thus, global trends, the gimmicks of the stock markets and the banks, the cooperative world, play the same way the order of Christ did at the Age of Discovery. They are the new Order of the Templars in disguise. We live a time of non-submissive, self satisfied, smug masses who entertain themselves on new technologies as on toys, have lost the ability to build grand dreams, follow more than lead, live on a new kind of folly, one based on the excesses of information that comes form the outside and not from the inside of themselves. We have lost our inner virtuousness and are not authentically ourselves any longer, but subject to global trends, global schemes, slaves to what others think and do.
Azoreans, from the Azores, we can make out the outline of those new islands in the horizon, as we can tell reality in our world of mists and eternal shifting, rise and sinking of lava in these our sweet Islands of Mist. From here we can tell that the whole world is now a new Azores reality, where no man definitely is a continent. In the middle of this new Ocean, we realize we have reached our very West, and the far East is on; that there are games being played on us, the estranged, the detached masses. Are we opened-eyed enough to pick on the games being played this time, or will we all play being part of the lost continent of Atlantis, or is it the sinking of the Titanic?
The world is changing. The question that remains is, „Is this change into the globe as we built it here long ago, or is into a flatland on the brim of a fire and brimstone world, all over again?
It will be interesting to follow what follows next.

I know this not what the good people of Minnesota wants to hear, but it’s time for Zygi Wifi to move his team to Los Angeles. The Metrodome was knocked down by Mother Nature and does not look like it’s getting up any time soon. It is common knowledge that the Metrodome was dark, dingy and outdated before it was caved in with snow. Now it is not even safe too. Not to mention the lease expires after the 2011 season. It’s time to make the move. Do not let the local legislature try and sell you that the Vikings can play in TCF stadium until they get money to build a new stadium like the Vikings did on Monday. TCF stadium was fine as pinch hitter, and fine for a college stadium. But as NFL stadium, it would not make the cut. It is the 5th string quarterback that does not make it past Mini-camp. Wifi has been a patience man waiting for the city to build him a new stadium. It’s not going to happen. It’s never going to happen. The state is in a 6 billion dollar deficit, and has other needs like rebuilding its own bridges and schools. I’ve read that many Minnesotians think that since you are a billionaire you should to pay for it on your own dollars. Which sounds good, but unfortunately building a stadium cost a lot more than building an ice house on a frozen lake. They take money and lots of it. You move to Los Angeles and there is plenty of it to help.
Los Angeles has a site in the up and coming downtown area and architect firms giving them modern stadium designs. All they need is a team and they will begin the process of getting it built. AEG and former Lakers Magic Johnson are big time players and would not be involved if this is not a serious opportunity. Please don’t think about using Los Angeles as leverage, which has worked before like for Arizona and more recently Indianapolis, because if you haven’t noticed there other teams have major stadium issues, although not as bad as you. San Diego, St. Louis and even Jacksonville come to mind. Maybe even Buffalo too. AEG and Magic will not wait for you. If you pass on this opportunity you will be out in the cold, literally. You think Monday night’s game was cold. That is only the start. TFC field maybe your permanent home and you will have no longer have Los Angeles use as leverage. By the way these current Vikings played like they wanted nothing to with cold, and old school Vikings like Carl Eller, Alan Paige and Fran Tarkington will not discover the fountain of youth to play again. Minnesota would become the official Siberia of the NFL.
These are your choices. You can be the nice guy, stay in Minnesota, play in a packed college stadium or maybe a patched up with spit and gum Metrodome, with a almost zero chance legislature builds you a need new flat in the couple of decades. Or you can be the most vilified man this side of Art Modell by leaving Minnesota and moving to Los Angeles playing in a billion dollar palace complete with suites and all the goodies. It is your choice.
http://Mrcleo3586.info
I know this not what the good people of Minnesota wants to hear, but it’s time for Zygi Wifi to move his team to Los Angeles. The Metrodome was knocked down by Mother Nature and does not look like it’s getting up any time soon. It is common knowledge that the Metrodome was dark, dingy and outdated before it was caved in with snow. Now it is not even safe too. Not to mention the lease expires after the 2011 season. It’s time to make the move. Do not let the local legislature try and sell you that the Vikings can play in TCF stadium until they get money to build a new stadium like the Vikings did on Monday. TCF stadium was fine as kosze wiklinowe pinch hitter, and fine for a college stadium. But as NFL stadium, it would not make the cut. It is the 5th string quarterback that does not make it past Mini-camp. Wifi has been a patience man waiting for the city to build him a new stadium. It’s not going to happen. It’s never going to happen. The state is in a 6 billion dollar deficit, and has other needs like rebuilding its own bridges and schools. I’ve read that many Minnesotians think that since you are a billionaire you should to pay for it on your own dollars. Which sounds good, but unfortunately building a stadium cost a lot more than building an ice house on a frozen lake. They take money and lots of it. You move to Los Angeles and there is plenty of it to help.
Los Angeles has a site in the up and coming downtown area and architect firms giving them modern stadium designs. All they need is a team and they will begin the process of getting it built. AEG and former Lakers Magic Johnson are big time players and would not be involved if this is not a serious opportunity. Please don’t think about using Los Angeles as leverage, which has worked before like for Arizona and more recently Indianapolis, because if you haven’t noticed there other teams have major stadium issues, although not as bad as you. San Diego, St. Louis and even Jacksonville come to mind. Maybe even Buffalo too. AEG and Magic will not wait for you. If you pass on this opportunity you will be out in the cold, literally. You think Monday night’s game was cold. That is only the start. TFC field maybe your permanent home and you will have no longer have Los Angeles use as leverage. By the way these current Vikings played like they wanted nothing to with cold, and old school Vikings like Carl Eller, Alan Paige and Fran Tarkington will not discover the fountain of youth to play again. Minnesota would become the official Siberia of the NFL.
These are your choices. You can be the nice guy, stay in Minnesota, play in a packed college stadium or maybe a patched up with spit and gum Metrodome, with a almost zero chance legislature builds you a need new flat in the couple of decades. Or you can be the most vilified man this side of Art Modell by leaving Minnesota and moving to Los Angeles playing in a billion dollar palace complete with suites and all the goodies. It is your choice.
http://Mrcleo3586.info

Different online games now come with superb effects especially when you choose to download tycoon games. Online gamers can get a chance to create their own concept of events and interact with the virtual world.
When you download tycoon games you will definitely enjoy different graphics and visuals that seemed real. These games have realistic and authentic designs like different environment settings, weather conditions and land geography. All of these are some of the perks that you can get when you choose to play tycoon games.
A perfect example of a tycoon game is the Roller Coaster tycoon. This amusement has 3 parks, 3 roller coasters and a whole lot more that you can choose to modify. However, there are some people who would opt to buy these games on sales or game stores.
If you wish to do so, the prices are $25-$30 or it can also be less than this value. Upon installing it, you can convert everything and make your own settings. It can be a zoo, amusement park, or a combination of both. This will all depend on how creative you are and how you would want the whole game to look like. All of these are limitless and are beyond your control.
There will also be available links when you fail to have your newly purchase tycoon game match with Vista. These links will open a blank web page and a download tycoon games window. From there, you would have to click the open button and extract it to the original folder. When you’re done, click on the new or create shortcut to desk top. When you create new shortcut make certain to delete the old one to have a smooth download.
When all of these things are done in an appropriate manner, this will be the time for you to close all the programs and click on restart. There will be times when you will encounter adversities when you download tycoon games; however the best this to do is to install it again or visit other online forums that will give you insights and other related topics regarding tycoon games download.
Tycoon games are good online games for the whole family that will not only strengthen your ties as family but will also enhance your skills in managing your finances as well as your problem solving abilities.
All of these can be learned when you visit my site. Get to know of other tips to download tycoon games the simple way.
Different online games now come with superb effects especially when you choose to download tycoon games. Online gamers can get a chance to create their own concept of events and interact with the virtual world.
When you download tycoon games you will definitely enjoy different graphics and visuals that seemed real. These games have realistic and authentic designs like different environment settings, weather conditions and land stoły warsztatowe geography. All of these are some of the perks that you can get when you choose to play tycoon games.
A perfect example of a tycoon game is the Roller Coaster tycoon. This amusement has 3 parks, 3 roller coasters and a whole lot more that you can choose to modify. However, there are some people who would opt to buy these games on sales or game stores.
If you wish to do so, the prices are $25-$30 or it can also be less than this value. Upon installing it, you can convert everything and make your own settings. It can be a zoo, amusement park, or a combination of both. This will all depend on how creative you are and how you would want the whole game to look like. All of these are limitless and are beyond your control.
There will also be available links when you fail to have your newly purchase tycoon game match with Vista. These links will open a blank web page and a download tycoon games window. From there, you would have to click the open button and extract it to the original folder. When you’re done, click on the new or create shortcut to desk top. When you create new shortcut make certain to delete the old one to have a smooth download.
When all of these things are done in an appropriate manner, this will be the time for you to close all the programs and click on restart. There will be times when you will encounter adversities when you download tycoon games; however the best this to do is to install it again or visit other online forums that will give you insights and other related topics regarding tycoon games download.
Tycoon games are good online games for the whole family that will not only strengthen your ties as family but will also enhance your skills in managing your finances as well as your problem solving abilities.
All of these can be learned when you visit my site. Get to know of other tips to download tycoon games the simple way.

Dentists in Moreno Valley, California
In case you’re searching for a dentist in Moreno Valley, California, you really are spoiled for choice. With the amount of general and specialized dentists at your disposal, how can you tell what one is perfect for you? Well, here’s a useful overview of their professional services to let you make a well informed decision. North Heacock Dental on Heacock Street offers various general and family dentistry professional services including tooth whitening, crowns and bridges, dentures and digital x-rays. They even offer dental implants and veneers as well as all general dental treatments. They have complete orthodontics and periodontics, as well as oral and maxillofacial surgery. If you’re wondering what that is – an oral and maxillofacial surgeon has fulfilled four to six years extra training after dental school and is qualified to treat several head and neck disorders. Including the treatment of misaligned jaws, cleft lip & palate, sleep apnea and oral cancers. Sunnymead Dental Group, on the other hand have services particularly for retirees such as general dentistry and periodontics. They offer whitening, porcelain crowns and veneers, bridges root canals, partial and full dentures and dental implants. They’ve got a professional Fresh Breath Center and provide the Zoom!® whitening treatment.
Specialized dentists in Moreno Valley, California
Moreno Valley Dental Center offer general dentistry, but focus on orthodontics and periodontics. They provide full pediatrics support – from toddlers to teens, and accept insurance plans. Stonebridge Dental Group also specialize in orthodontics, but offer a complete service such as braces, bridges, endodontics, solution for gum disease, periodontics, root canal treatments, whitening and veneers. The Family Dental Office, a Dentist in Moreno Valley, meanwhile, focus on periodontics, cosmetic procedures, implants, bleaching and whitening. They provide stress and anxiety free dentistry, accept most insurance plans, and are able to handle customers in English, Spanish or Korean. The Montclair Plaza Dental Group offer all general dentistry services and are also preventative dentistry specialists. They provide orthodontics, pediatrics and oral and maxillofacial surgery. Additionally they offer the disguised brace treatment, Invisalign® as well as the cosmetic treatment Lumineers®. They offer payment solutions, however they don’t accept insurance. Plaza Family Dental Group, the next Dentist in Moval also offers anxiety free dentistry and all general treatment methods consisting of bonding treatments, bridges, full and partial dentures and veneers. They’re alone, however, because they are the only dentist within the Moreno Valley area to provide communication in Tagalog along with Spanish and English.
Individual dental practices in Moreno Valley, California
You’ll also find many individual dentist’s practices in Moreno Valley providing well-rounded dental services. One is Katyuska Pareda, DDS a Dentist in Moreno Valley, whose practice offers a twenty-four hour unexpected emergency answering service, and provides general dentistry, cosmetic procedures, dental implants and whitening. This practice is ready to communicate in Spanish, and it is both minority and female owned. Julieta Echeverria, DDS, offers you superior care for children and adults. This practice is also qualified to communicate in Spanish, and is female owned and operated. They will take nearly all insurances and credit cards, and provide all general dentistry services along with dentures, dental implants, bridge work, paediatrics and crowns. Robert Silvola, DDS, offers excellent, up to date dentistry as well as dentures, endodontics, bonding treatments and anxiety free dentistry.
Dentists in Moreno Valley, California
In case you’re searching for a dentist in Moreno Valley, California, you really are spoiled for choice. With the amount of general and specialized dentists at your disposal, how can you tell what one is perfect for you? Well, here’s a rzeczoznawca majątkowy useful overview of their professional services to let you make a well informed decision. North Heacock Dental on Heacock Street offers various general and family dentistry professional services including tooth whitening, crowns and bridges, dentures and digital x-rays. They even offer dental implants and veneers as well as all general dental treatments. They have complete orthodontics and periodontics, as well as oral and maxillofacial surgery. If you’re wondering what that is – an oral and maxillofacial surgeon has fulfilled four to six years extra training after dental school and is qualified to treat several head and neck disorders. Including the treatment of misaligned jaws, cleft lip & palate, sleep apnea and oral cancers. Sunnymead Dental Group, on the other hand have services particularly for retirees such as general dentistry and periodontics. They offer whitening, porcelain crowns and veneers, bridges root canals, partial and full dentures and dental implants. They’ve got a professional Fresh Breath Center and provide the Zoom!® whitening treatment.
Specialized dentists in Moreno Valley, California
Moreno Valley Dental Center offer general dentistry, but focus on orthodontics and periodontics. They provide full pediatrics support – from toddlers to teens, and accept insurance plans. Stonebridge Dental Group also specialize in orthodontics, but offer a complete service such as braces, bridges, endodontics, solution for gum disease, periodontics, root canal treatments, whitening and veneers. The Family Dental Office, a Dentist in Moreno Valley, meanwhile, focus on periodontics, cosmetic procedures, implants, bleaching and whitening. They provide stress and anxiety free dentistry, accept most insurance plans, and are able to handle customers in English, Spanish or Korean. The Montclair Plaza Dental Group offer all general dentistry services and are also preventative dentistry specialists. They provide orthodontics, pediatrics and oral and maxillofacial surgery. Additionally they offer the disguised brace treatment, Invisalign® as well as the cosmetic treatment Lumineers®. They offer payment solutions, however they don’t accept insurance. Plaza Family Dental Group, the next Dentist in Moval also offers anxiety free dentistry and all general treatment methods consisting of bonding treatments, bridges, full and partial dentures and veneers. They’re alone, however, because they are the only dentist within the Moreno Valley area to provide communication in Tagalog along with Spanish and English.
Individual dental practices in Moreno Valley, California
You’ll also find many individual dentist’s practices in Moreno Valley providing well-rounded dental services. One is Katyuska Pareda, DDS a Dentist in Moreno Valley, whose practice offers a twenty-four hour unexpected emergency answering service, and provides general dentistry, cosmetic procedures, dental implants and whitening. This practice is ready to communicate in Spanish, and it is both minority and female owned. Julieta Echeverria, DDS, offers you superior care for children and adults. This practice is also qualified to communicate in Spanish, and is female owned and operated. They will take nearly all insurances and credit cards, and provide all general dentistry services along with dentures, dental implants, bridge work, paediatrics and crowns. Robert Silvola, DDS, offers excellent, up to date dentistry as well as dentures, endodontics, bonding treatments and anxiety free dentistry.

The political cost of overhauling the health care system turned out to be higher than President Obama had expected. American voters bruised by economic hardships handed a crushing defeat to the Democratic Party in the US mid-term elections. Even a strong Jupiter could not help the President this time. President Obama is in Jupiter Main Period and Rahu sub period from Feb 2010 to July 2012. Transit Jupiter was weak and badly afflicted by transit Saturn during the months of May, June, July, August, and September 2010. US Economy showed no signs of improvement, and was the main reason of Democrat’s defeat.
Transit Jupiter will be strong next four months until Mar 10th 2011. This will still be a good period for President Obama as main period lord Jupiter will be strong by transit. But Obama has a difficult road ahead and will face new challenges between Mar and Sept 2011. Mahadasha lord Jupiter will again come opposite transit Saturn during the months of March, April, May 2011, not good at all. During this time Mercury, Venus, Sun, and Mars will also be in Pisces along with Jupiter directly in the fire power of transit Saturn from Virgo. During this time the sub period lord Rahu in President Obama’s astrology chart will also become unfavorable as Rahu will be transiting Ketu’s nakshatra and Ketu will be transiting Mars nakshatra, the badhaka planet for President Obama, from Feb 2011 to Oct 2011. These are very Sensitive months for Obama and the United States. Finally mahadasha lord Jupiter will again come opposite Saturn one last time during December 2011, January, February, and March 2012. This will be again a very difficult period for Obama. This will also be a very difficult period for Vice President Joe Biden. During this time the Administration may seriously think of replacing him with a new Candidate for the 2012 elections. In nutshell President Obama will not be able to accomplish much in his first term. President Obama’s approval ratings will continue to drop during this time. There will be no improvement in the economy and the unemployment rate will continue to stay high.
After July 2012 the momentum will again shift in favor of President Obama as he will come out of 12th lord Jupiter’s mahadasha and will enter ascendant lord, and 2nd house lord Saturn’s mahadasha. Saturn is a very good planet for President Obama. At the same time transit Jupiter will enter Taurus sign on May 16th, 2012, and will start aspecting the natal position of Saturn and Jupiter in Capricorn in Obama’s astrology chart. This will be excellent time for Obama when luck will be on his side once again. President Obama’s approval ratings will go up after June/July 2012, and the public opinion will again shift in his favor just before 2012 elections. Hillary Clinton will replace Joe Biden for the Vice President’s position in 2012 elections. Obama will win 2012 elections very easily and will get re-elected as the President of United States for the second term. Year 2013 and 2014 will be the golden years in Obama’s second term and for United States. The economy will be doing better in US, and President Obama will solve many domestic and international problems during this time. Obama will be able to end the two wars and bring troops home during this period. Obama may even win another Nobel Prize or some kind of award during this time. During this time Jupiter will be transiting Gemini sign from May 30th, 2013 to June 18th, 2014, and will aspect transit Saturn in Libra, the mahadasha lord in Obama’s chart, by its 5th aspect.
Obama will run out of luck between Oct 2014 and Dec 2015 when transit Saturn will be in Scorpio. Saturn in Scorpio will aspect all important planets in his astrology chart while Obama is in Saturn’s mahadasha. Transit Saturn in Scorpio will aspect the natal position of ascendant lord Saturn and 12th lord Jupiter in Capricorn by its third aspect, the natal position of the 7th house lord Moon in Taurus sign by its 7th aspect, and the natal position of Rahu and 10th house lord Mars in Leo sign by its 10th aspect. During this time President Obama will find it very difficult to complete his second term. The enemies of the United States are represented by the 7th house in Obama’s chart. The lord of 7th house Moon is in Taurus sign at 10 degrees in Obama’s chart. When Saturn goes to 10 degrees in Scorpio which will happen three times between Oct 2014 and Dec 2015 will be a very sensitive time for President Obama and the United States.
The political cost of overhauling the health care system turned out to be higher than President Obama had expected. American voters bruised by economic hardships handed a crushing defeat to the Democratic Party in the US mid-term elections. Even a strong Jupiter could not help the President this time. President Obama is in Jupiter Main Period and Rahu sub period from Feb 2010 to July 2012. Transit Jupiter was weak and badly afflicted by transit Saturn during the months of May, June, July, August, and September 2010. US Economy showed no signs of improvement, and was the main reason of Democrat’s defeat.
Transit Jupiter will be strong next four months until Mar 10th 2011. This will still be a good period for President Obama as main period lord Jupiter will be strong by transit. But Obama has a difficult road ahead and will face new challenges between Mar and Sept 2011. Mahadasha lord Jupiter will again come opposite transit Saturn during the months of March, April, May 2011, not good at all. During this time Mercury, Venus, Sun, and Mars will also be in Pisces along with Jupiter directly in domy z bali the fire power of transit Saturn from Virgo. During this time the sub period lord Rahu in President Obama’s astrology chart will also become unfavorable as Rahu will be transiting Ketu’s nakshatra and Ketu will be transiting Mars nakshatra, the badhaka planet for President Obama, from Feb 2011 to Oct 2011. These are very Sensitive months for Obama and the United States. Finally mahadasha lord Jupiter will again come opposite Saturn one last time during December 2011, January, February, and March 2012. This will be again a very difficult period for Obama. This will also be a very difficult period for Vice President Joe Biden. During this time the Administration may seriously think of replacing him with a new Candidate for the 2012 elections. In nutshell President Obama will not be able to accomplish much in his first term. President Obama’s approval ratings will continue to drop during this time. There will be no improvement in the economy and the unemployment rate will continue to stay high.
After July 2012 the momentum will again shift in favor of President Obama as he will come out of 12th lord Jupiter’s mahadasha and will enter ascendant lord, and 2nd house lord Saturn’s mahadasha. Saturn is a very good planet for President Obama. At the same time transit Jupiter will enter Taurus sign on May 16th, 2012, and will start aspecting the natal position of Saturn and Jupiter in Capricorn in Obama’s astrology chart. This will be excellent time for Obama when luck will be on his side once again. President Obama’s approval ratings will go up after June/July 2012, and the public opinion will again shift in his favor just before 2012 elections. Hillary Clinton will replace Joe Biden for the Vice President’s position in 2012 elections. Obama will win 2012 elections very easily and will get re-elected as the President of United States for the second term. Year 2013 and 2014 will be the golden years in Obama’s second term and for United States. The economy will be doing better in US, and President Obama will solve many domestic and international problems during this time. Obama will be able to end the two wars and bring troops home during this period. Obama may even win another Nobel Prize or some kind of award during this time. During this time Jupiter will be transiting Gemini sign from May 30th, 2013 to June 18th, 2014, and will aspect transit Saturn in Libra, the mahadasha lord in Obama’s chart, by its 5th aspect.
Obama will run out of luck between Oct 2014 and Dec 2015 when transit Saturn will be in Scorpio. Saturn in Scorpio will aspect all important planets in his astrology chart while Obama is in Saturn’s mahadasha. Transit Saturn in Scorpio will aspect the natal position of ascendant lord Saturn and 12th lord Jupiter in Capricorn by its third aspect, the natal position of the 7th house lord Moon in Taurus sign by its 7th aspect, and the natal position of Rahu and 10th house lord Mars in Leo sign by its 10th aspect. During this time President Obama will find it very difficult to complete his second term. The enemies of the United States are represented by the 7th house in Obama’s chart. The lord of 7th house Moon is in Taurus sign at 10 degrees in Obama’s chart. When Saturn goes to 10 degrees in Scorpio which will happen three times between Oct 2014 and Dec 2015 will be a very sensitive time for President Obama and the United States.