Note: This photo was taken at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore on the northwestern shore of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. It has been called one of the most beautiful places in the United States.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
First and foremost let me begin by saying how embarrassed I am to not have known about this. I feel like I am well versed in politics and world affairs… I stumbled upon Joseph Kony through a friend and was immediately entranced by the video I say on YouTube… I didn’t know what to expect… so I sat and watched one of the biggest tragedies I have ever seen… I cried and was ashamed that I was learning about this only now… and then I thought of how many more people that might not know…
Joseph Rao Kony (pronounced IPA: [koɲ];[6] born around about July/September of 1961)[1] is the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army(LRA), a Ugandan guerrilla group. While initially enjoying strong public support, the LRA allegedly turned on its own supporters, supposedly to “purify” the Acholi people and turn Uganda into a theocracy.[2] Kony proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and aspirit medium, has nurtured a cult of personality, and claims he is visited by a multinational host of 13 spirits, including a Chinese phantom.[2] Ideologically, the group is a syncretic mix of mysticism, Acholi nationalism, Islam, and Christian fundamentalism,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments and local Acholi tradition.[18][19][20]
Kony has been accused by government entities of ordering the abduction of children to become child-sex slaves and child soldiers.[21]An estimated 66,000 children became soldiers and two million people have been internally displaced since 1986.[22] Kony was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2005 but has evaded capture.[23] The LRA operates in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan.[24]
Kony’s group was originally called the United Holy Salvation Army (UHSA), and was not perceived as a threat by the NRA. By 1988 it had become a major player in Ugandan affairs: an agreement between the NRA and the Uganda People’s Democratic Army (UPDA) left members of the UPDA unsatisfied, and many joined the UHSA as a form of rebellion. One such person was the UPDA founder Odong Latek, who convinced Kony to use standard military tactics instead of attacking in cross-shaped formations and sprinkling holy water. The new tactics proved successful, and the UHSA won several small victories against the NRA.[31] The NRA responded by significantly weakening Kony’s group through a military campaign named Operation North. The operation was devastating to the UHSA and, with their numbers reduced from thousands to hundreds, they engaged in retaliatory attacks against NRA collaborators and terror against general civilian population. The LRA say that spirits were sent to communicate this mission directly to Kony.[31]
The bulk of Kony’s foot soldiers were children.[28] While estimates of the number of children conscripted since 1986 vary, some put the figure as high as 104,000.[28] When abducting the children, Kony and his army often killed their family and neighbors, thus leaving the children with little choice but to fight for him.[28] In 1992, Kony renamed the group the United Democratic Christian Army.[32] For a decade, starting in the mid-1990s, the LRA was strengthened by military support from the government of Sudan, which was retaliating against Ugandan government support for rebels in what would become South Sudan.[1]
If you have time… please watch this video… we all need to see…
Journals Of Enreal 