CPT Spirits in the Sky - Death - Such a Final Notion - But what if people hadn't died?

The mind is a marvelous thing of somewhat magical qualities because it has the ability to reject any principle like the laws of nature or laws of god and imagine a world without those laws.

You should try it some time.

For example, take the principle of death, what if death could be undone for people.  Then take some of the people who died way to early in life and just imagine what they could have done with a "normal" life span compared to what they did in a tragically shortened life.

Like Jesus for example.  Now JC turned everything in the world upside down for all time and he died at age 33 after preaching just 3 short years.  What if he stuck around preaching until he was 70 which is not all that old anymore?  Then he would have had 37 more years of preaching and imagine what impact that might have had on things.

There might never have been any question of him being the true Messiah and all those various sects and denominations of Christianity might never have existed, sects which led us into 2000 years of warfare, hatred and willingness to ignore the Ten Commandments although Jesus never said there were Ten, just one and then a second.

Singers and composers seem to be targets for early death.  Buddy Holly died at just 22, Hank Williams at 29, Patsy Cline - Jim Croce - Momma Cass Elliot all at 30, Karen Carpenter at 32,  Bob Marley at 36, Harry Chapin at 38, John Lennon at 40 and Elvis at 42.

Holly, Williams, Croce, Marley, Chapin and Lennon were among the greatest song writers of all time and were not even close to reaching their peak in terms of creative output.

Consider the enormous body of work all these gifted artists, singers and songwriters all, generated in their abbreviated lifetimes.  All of them should have lived 28-48 years longer if they lived a normal life meaning we lost out on more than 50% of their potential musical contributions to our history.

Then there is the strange 27 Club, those artists who died at the age of 27, and this includes a host of singers pushing the envelope like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain and the most recent addition Amy Winehouse.

How bizarre is that?  Not a single one died of anything remotely connected to "normal" circumstances.  Some people even speculate they might have subconsciously or even consciously died when they reached that age.  Drugs, booze and prescription drugs all played a role in the deaths.

Let's change fields of entertainment and take movies for example.  James Dean died at 24, when he was just getting started while Marilyn Monroe died at 36, at the peak of her popularity and Natalie Wood died at 43.  Even though Natalie spent her entire life in movies she was just reaching new fans and rebuilding her image.

So how did they die?  A car wreck, drug overdose (or murder), and drowning, again no natural causes and we were all cheated out of an entire body of work.

Of course in politics there was Bobby Kennedy at 43 and John Kennedy at 46 who along with their friend Martin Luther King, Jr. at 39 all were taken at the beginning of their contributions to America.

And let us never forget the enchanting fairy tale story line of Diana, Princess of Wales, dead at age 36, because of her contributions to the future of royalty in terms of personality and legacy.

Is there a lesson?  Make sure when you are planning your life the way the insurance and finance companies want you to you take the time to enjoy the present as if it were the last days of your life because it just might be.

Actuarial tables suck!

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Thought for the Day!

Godspeed on your search for the "why?"

 

The Melchizedek Chronicles - Nuclear Dangers - The Children of Chernobyl - Innocent Victims of a Silent Killer!

As you learned in my last article on Chernobyl, the extent of damage was not as severe as first speculated.  Since there was never a meltdown of a nuclear reactor before, no one really knew what to expect.  The most difficult aspect to project was the long term radiation impact on children who were exposed to the radiation cloud when it happened, or born after the accident to parents who were exposed to the radiation.

Since we are only 33 years into the history of the accident and the radiation half life may last 500 to 1,000 years, we have much to learn.  As you will discover in this story, in spite of the evacuation of many hundreds of thousands of people, men, women and children, many were contaminated with high levels of radiation.

Well science can claim the damage was much less severe than expected, but the children are not merely statistics, collateral damage in a severe accident, or a footnote in the history books, but a living testament to the follies of mankind.

What happened to them is criminal.

I personally met groups of children from Chernobyl just ten years after the accident on two visits to Scotland.  They still lived in the contaminated zone because they were contaminated in the accident along with their families and I can tell you, they did not complain but their lives and childhood had been stolen from them by something they did not understand, radiation poisoning.

There was and still is an incredible international effort to bring these victims out of the hot zone at least once a year and make them guests of ost families in different counties.  Scotland was one of the first countries to participate.  May the work of these humanitarians assure these helpless victims are never forgotten.

I am proud of my Scottish ancestors for working to improve the quality of life for these kids.  Even more so because Scotland was blanketed by the Chernobyl radiation cloud and many of the sheep were poisoned by the radiation and had to be humanely destroyed.

My plea to you is to not get so caught up in your own lives that you ignore the suffering of others, especially the innocent children of the world.

Kid born after accident

Chernobyl's legacy: Kids with bodies ravaged by disaster

THERE ARE 2,397,863 PEOPLE REGISTERED WITH UKRAINE’S HEALTH MINISTRY TO RECEIVE ONGOING CHERNOBYL-RELATED HEALTH TREATMENT. OF THESE, 453,391 ARE CHILDREN.

im Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY

Published 9:23 a.m. ET April 17, 2016 | Updated 12:25 p.m. ET April 18, 2016

There are 2,397,863 people registered with Ukraine’s health ministry to receive ongoing Chernobyl-related health care. Of these, 453,391 are children — none born at the time of the accident. Their parents were children in 1986. These children have a range of illnesses: respiratory, digestive, musculoskeletal, eye diseases, blood diseases, cancer, congenital malformations, genetic abnormalities, trauma. 

The children of Chernobyl have had children of their own who experience the effects of radiation exposure. It has not deterred Daryna Bizilya who hopes to be a singer.Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY

KIEV, Ukraine — Daryna Bizilya, 10, wants to be a singer. During a visit with her and about a dozen other children at Ukraine’s largest medical clinic for people living with the consequences of Chernobyl, that's what she did: She sang.

Bizilya walked directly into the middle of the room, signaled to her friend in the corner holding a cellphone to crank up its digital beatbox, and just went for it. She sang with feeling, dramatic facial expressions and large, sweeping arm gestures that occasionally ended with a clenched fist.

Daryna Bizilya, 10, sings at the institute in Ukraine.
(Photo: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY)

This clinic had an elaborate name, even by former Communist-bloc standards — the Institute of Specialized Radiation Protection of the Ukraine Population. It was full of sick children whose entire lives had only known illness.

The halls were long and dark and seemed, however improbably, to be lit chiefly by fading avocado-colored paint. The children’s bedrooms were neat but gloomy. Textbook orphanage-interior. Not every room was heated, and it was cold outside.

The Institute of Specialized Radiation Protection of the Ukraine Population, in Kiev. Photo: March 3, 2016.  (Photo: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY)

The children were eating a late breakfast when USA TODAY arrived. They all immediately stood up and said loudly, "Dobryy den!" (Good day!)

That’s when Bizilya presented herself.

The number she performed was by Ukrainian artist Ani Lorak, a hero of Bizilya's. On her website, Lorak describes herself as the "singer who became the idol of Ukrainians."

Bizilya, whose favorite subjects are math and English, said she admired Lorak mostly because she “sings from her heart, and she feels her songs with her heart.”

Bizilya has a heart condition brought on by eating contaminated food, her doctors said. Too much physical exercise makes her condition worse.

"They told us at school that some children were left without a home, and that they were very ill," she said when asked to explain what she knew about Chernobyl. "I would like to help those children who are without parents. There are children in our village like this," she added.

Daryna does not think of herself as especially ill.

Neither does Yaroslav Artemchuk, 14, a mild-mannered boy who said initially that he was not here because of radiation but because he fell and got a concussion.

Artemchuk also has ambitions to be a singer.

"Probably a pop singer, like Michael Jackson," he said.

The Institute of Specialized Radiation Protection of the Ukraine Population.
(Photo: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY)

He had some other things to say: Favorite food (meatballs), soccer team (Dynamo Kiev) and player (Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo).

"The doctor says I have very bad blood circulation," he suddenly volunteered. "My parents say that Chernobyl was a big disaster and many people perished because of it."

A girl named Alina Aponchuk, also 14, was too nervous to speak and fiddled with the sleeves of her dress. There was something on her mind. After a few minutes, she said she was going home the next day.

A road inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone stretches to the horizon.(Photo: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY)

 Aponchuk’s doctor said she had two left kidneys, both twice the normal size. She had chronic gastroduodenitis, which produces sharp stomach pains, lethargy and headaches. She also had "vegetative dysfunction," a nervous system syndrome that causes anxiety, depression and other emotional stresses.

Vadim Bozhenko, the doctor who runs the clinic, said children stay at the institute from a few days to several weeks and all come from areas located on radioactive land.

"The (children) eat and drink contaminated milk products because cattle that live there eat that grass," he said, adding that the clinic was underfunded by at least 30%.

Looking around the grounds that evoked a disheveled college campus, it was hard to believe the shortfall was that modest.

“Tell them we need beds and blankets,” Bozhenko said. "Tell them the Institute of Specialized Radiation Protection of the Ukraine Population needs this and a lot more."

God Bless the Children of Chernobyl!