Tuesday, May 31, 2011
When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Then the traveller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.
In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.
As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveller in the dark,—
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
The Man Who Had HIV and Now Does Not
Four years ago, Timothy Brown underwent an innovative procedure. Since then, test after test has found absolutely no trace of the virus in his body. The bigger miracle, though, is how his case has experts again believing they just might find a cure for AIDS.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/22KcWJ/nymag.com/print%253F/health/features/aids-cure-2011-6/
Little Girl Can't Let go as Sergeant Daddy Leaves For Iraq
Paige Bennethum, 4, holds her daddy's hand as he lines up in formation before heading to Iraq. Credit: Abby Bennethum
Some things are just not allowed when soldiers are standing in formation. One of them is 4-year-old girls.
However, there was no soldier stern enough to pry Paige Bennethum of Laureldale, Pa. from her father as he prepared to leave last July for a year-long deployment in Iraq.
Abby Bennethum captured her daughter's emotions in a photograph that she passed along to the Reading Eagle, the newspaper in Berks County, Pa. The image immediately captured many other people's emotions.Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Brett Bennethum was preparing to depart from Fort Dix, N.J., for Iraq, leaving behind his pregnant wife and two little girls. His family was there to see him off. His commanding officer didn't have the heart to tell Paige she had to let go of her daddy.
"I didn't want to let go of him," she told NBC Philadelphia.
Sgt. Bennethum, 30, is scheduled to return home next July. Until then, he's transporting supplies across the Iraqi border. He serves with the 733rd Transportation Company based in Reading, Pa.
Abby Bennethum said she got pregnant right before her husband left for Iraq. "I've heard of deployment babies, but I never thought I'd be having one," she told the Reading Eagle. The couple's other daughter, Lena, is just 10 months old.
Staff Sgt. Bennethum got a four-day pass so he could spend some quality time with his family and they could make the two-hour trip to Fort Dix to see him off. Almost immediately upon arrival, his commanding officer ordered the soldiers to fall in.
"Gotta go," he told his family. But Paige walked up behind him in formation, grabbed his right hand and would not let go.
"I called her a couple of times, but she wouldn't budge," her mother said. She still wishes she was holding her father's hand.
"I just miss my dad right now," Paige told NBC.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Canada: 15,000 March for Life in Ottawa Against Abortion
More than 15,000 pro-life advocates filled the nation’s capital today as they participated in the national March for Life to draw attention to opposition to abortion, which has been allowed on demand in Canada since 1969.
The large crowd gathered for the 14th annual event in front of the Peace Tower and listened to an array of speeches before they began parading through the city streets. The crowd ranged from college and high school students to senior citizens and include people with political signs and others with religious symbols signifying their Christian faith and they were joined by Terrence Prendergast, the Catholic archbishop of Ottawa.Jen Bradley of Milton, Ontario, told Canada Press, “I do think that a march like this, a doubling of numbers and spreading the word, such as it is, is a step in the right direction.”
Father Tom Lynch, a Catholic priest, said pro-life advocates should press Prime Minister Stephen Harper on abortion, telling Canada Press, “I think Stephen Harper has made it very clear that he and other political leaders don’t want to re-open, as he puts it, the issue of abortion or other pro-life issues. But the reality is that with every new Parliament, with every new government, we have a moral duty and we have a civic right to be able to express our opinion to be able to achieve changes in public policy.”
Georges Buscemi, president of Campagne Québec-Vie told the Canadian news outlet that the debate doesn’t have to be banning abortion, but making sure abortion businesses are not funded with taxpayer dollars.
“There could be some behind-the-scenes work done,” Buscemi said. “Different things, subsidies to different organizations, policies on health, policies on education. There are a lot of things that can be done behind the scenes to prepare for the future.”
Mary Ellen Douglas, national organizer of the Campaign Life Coalition, told the Toronto Globe and Mail that her group would be working with new members of Parliament from the Conservative Party to try to push pro-life issues.
Before the March for Life, Sun News commissioned Abacus Data to conduct a poll on abortion that found 59 percent of Canadians want more limits on abortion, 27 percent want protections starting at conception and 8 percent want all abortions to be prohibited. Just 26 percent want the abortion debate closed, more than half wanted limits on public funding of abortions, and just 45 percent want abortion funding in the public health system.In May 1969, the nation’s Parliament passed Trudeau’s Omnibus Bill that struck down abortion laws and stripped away protection from Canada’s unborn children. Then, in January 1988, the nation’s abortion law was struck down from the Criminal Code by the Supreme Court of Canada resulting in full legal abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy.
As a result, there have been nearly 4 million abortions in Canada, resulting in the death of babies before birth and injuring countless women.
Responding to that decision with the March for Life, the Campaign Life Coalition says pro-life advocates will send the government a clear message: “Abortion kills a human being” and they want it to stop.
“The National March for Life gives Canadians an opportunity to join together and send the newly elected government a clear message that abortion is an important issue,” said Jim Hughes, the head of the Canadian pro-life group. “In the past 40 years, over 3.5 million babies have been aborted, and it’s time the Harper government re-opens the debate.”
Along with several Members of Parliament, many well-known pro-life leaders were in attendance, including Prendergast; Bishop Gérald Cyprien Lacroix, Primate of Canada; David Bereit, founder of 40 Days for Life and members of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.
The March for Life follows the recent national elections, in which Conservative Party candidates in Canada won a majority of the seats in Parliament with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s party defeating Liberals and gaining 164 of 308 seats. Although Harper has opposed pro-life legislation and said his government would not push any bills limiting abortions, the results could allow pro-life backbencher MPs to obtain more support for bills that could offer some protection for unborn children.
Canada experienced fewer abortions in 2005 according to its most recent national figures. Overall, Statistics Canada indicates abortions lowered to 96,815 during that year, a decline of 3.2 percent from the 100,039 in 2004. In 2002, there were 105,154 abortions in Canada compared with a figure of 106,270 in 2001. The number of abortions in Canada peaked in 1997 at 112,000.
Personally, I believe that abortion is never the way to go, no matter what the circumstances are. I know that there are many skeptics and nonbelievers out there, and those who are pro-choice, neither for or against abortion. However, pro-choice advocates are mistaken. May God bless each and every one of you and let God shine a light on your path, so you are able to see clearly what is right and what is wrong. Abortion is wrong. I say that with confidence and a strong sense of pride, considering how I feel about my faith and about my beliefs. If you believe certain circumstances; like rape/incest, teenage pregnancy or pregnancy complications, are an excuse to have an abortion, you have been dealt a closed mind. Can you not see that these children all deserve a life? You deserved a life, and you were born. You are now able to speak, feel, touch, and cherish. You were given a chance. This chance of life God gave you was so that you too, can speak openly about the consequences of abortion, not only towards the child, but also, yourself. These are matters of importance, and whether or not Prime Minister Stephen Harper is willing to reopen this debate, this is the biggest and most important cause worth fighting for. It is not only those lives of the unborn, but in honour of all of our lives, who were saved from this atrocious act. Everyone Pro-Life knows to do this, but if you are Pro-Choice, add nine months to your current age. The fact of the matter is.. that is the true amount of time you have been alive on this Earth. You may not have been born yet, but you were in existence. No matter the size of an embryo or fetus, no matter if born or unborn. The only truth is that we are alive. We have all once lived within a womb, that carried us, and nourished us, until we were ready to embrace what lives outside of the uterus. There is no excuse, and if truly, with all your heart are having trouble understanding the value of life, and how people every day fight to survive, while the unborn are brutally murdered, contact me, and I will do my best to help you see the truth. Remember that God created us, and only God has the power and authority to destroy us as he wishes. Go in peace. Hopefully, one day I will see one of you holding a Pro-Life sign, and encouraging everyone around you, your family. Open your eyes and go in peace.
In honour of your efforts yesterday, while fighting for your beliefs... God bless you...
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
This portion of the Death Camps tour looks at the history of holocaust. By comparing Germany's Nazi holocaust and America's abortion holocaust you'll see there is practically no difference between the mindset of holocaust then and now. As with slavery in early America, killing Jews in Nazi Germany, or killing babies in America today -- just because something is legal does not make it right. So how do you get a country to allow humans to be treated worse than animals? You use euphemisms to convince people that these actions are justifiable, or even beneficial.
Abortion advocates and America's largest Death Camp operator, Planned Parenthood, have elevated the dehumanization of holocaust victims to an art form with their 'pro-choice' rhetoric. But those who side with the pro-choice crowd may be shocked by the racial slurs and elitist ideals of Planned Parenthood's celebrated founder, Margaret Sanger. As you'll see, her words and goals bear an eerie similarity to the words and ideas of the Nazis. Let's begin by looking at the famous Nazi Death Camp doctor who graduated from killing Jews to killing babies.
Dr. Josef Mengele was the most active of the SS doctors at Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp. Present at the arrival of all the transports, Mengele oversaw the selection and cremation of thousands of murder victims at Auschwitz. His name was known and feared throughout the camp. Several accounts of camp survivors depict Mengele as killing in a dispassionate, medical way "as though he were performing regular surgery without showing any emotion at all."
Mengele routinely conducted experiments on humans, the most famous of which were conducted on twins selected on the unloading platforms of Auschwitz. At the end of the experiments, Mengele simply injected chloroform directly into the hearts of many of these twins. After the war, Josef Mengele practiced medicine in Buenos Aires in the 1950's. He "had a reputation as a specialist in abortions," which were illegal at the time. Mengele was arrested after he killed a girl in his abortion clinic, but an Argentine judge released him. Mengele was never extradited and presumably died in Chile in 1979.
But Mengele wasn't the only one. Vilis Kruze was a former SS officer who after the war worked as an abortionist for Kaiser Permenente in Ohio and Hawaii. It seems you can take the doctor out of the killing camp, but you can't take the killing camp out of the doctor.
Today, abortion is justified by claiming the killing of babies is "safe and legal." Dr. Michael Jackson, an abortionist and clinic owner said, "I just go by what the courts say. I only do what's legal." These were the same justifications used by doctors who participated in the massacre of millions at Auschwitz. Zyklon-B, the poison gas used to kill the Jews, was seen as helping to alleviate suffering and permit "humane killing".
At Nuremberg, numerous Nazi doctors and killers said they were innocent because they had broken no law. "The jurists in Berlin told us this was a legal matter," testified Walter Schmidt, "quite legal." According to an expert on Auschwitz, "The Nazis committed no crime at Auschwitz since no law or political order protected those who were condemned."
In fact, the legality itself helped to distance the killers from the killing - if it was legally ordered or at least permitted, then the killing was someone else's fault. At the trial held for nurses who injected infants and children with lethal substances, the heart of their defense of was that the killing was carried out in conformity of the existing laws. The defense claimed that "these people were only carrying out the laws of the land" and "the accused did not act wrongly because they were covered by law."
Friday, May 6, 2011
Matthew 14:13-21
Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”
16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
Genesis: The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Chocolate: The Bitter Truth
IN FREEDOM
Article 11. Each Member which ratifies this Convention shall take immediate and effective measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour as a matter of urgency.
Article 22. For the purposes of this Convention, the term child shall apply to all persons under the age of 18.
Article 33. For the purposes of this Convention, the term the worst forms of child labour comprises:
(a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;
(b) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances;
(c) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties;
(d) work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Toppenish teen fakes pregnancy as school project
A Toppenish High School student faked her pregnancy for the past six months as a social experiment for her senior project.
The Associated Press
GORDON KING / AP
Toppenish High School senior Gaby Rodriguez talks about rumors and stereotypes at a school assembly in Toppenish, Wash., during which she revealed that for the bulk of her senior year the 17-year-old A-student faked her own pregnancy in order to test the reactions of her friends and family for a senior project.
YAKIMA, Wash. —
Gaby Rodriguez would worry whenever anyone asked to touch her baby bump.
It wasn't because she felt shy or embarrassed. It was because the bulge - fashioned from wire mesh and cotton quilt batting - didn't actually contain a baby.
For the past 6 1/2 months - the bulk of her senior year at Toppenish High School - the 17-year-old A-student faked her own pregnancy.
Only a handful of people - her mother, boyfriend and principal among them - knew Gaby was pretending to be pregnant for her senior project, a culminating assignment required for graduation.
Her teachers and fellow students, except for her best friend, didn't realize they were part of a social experiment.
Neither did six of her seven siblings, including four older brothers, her boyfriend's parents, and his five younger brothers and sisters.
"At times, I just wanted to take it off and be done," she says. "I didn't want to go through this anymore."
But Gaby didn't give up the charade until Wednesday morning, when she revealed her secret during an emotional, all-school assembly.
The topic of her presentation: "Stereotypes, rumors and statistics."
"Teenagers tend to live in the shadows of these elements," she says.
Before taking off her fake baby belly in front of the entire student body, Gaby told her audience, "Many things were said about me. Many things traveled all the way back to me."
Then, she asked several students and teachers to read statements from 3x5 cards, quotes people actually said about her during the course of her experiment.
Her best friend, Saida Cortes, a 17-year-old senior who was sitting in the front row, read card No. 3: "Her attitude is changing, and it might be because of the baby or she was always this annoying and I never realized it."
It grew quiet in the gym as more and more quotes were read aloud. Then Gaby dropped her bomb: "I'm fighting against those stereotypes and rumors because the reality is I'm not pregnant."
She had been nervous about how the crowd might react. After all, she had been lying to them since October.
"It `happened' at homecoming," says Principal Trevor Greene, making air quotes with his middle and index fingers at the word "happened."
"In essence, she gave up her senior year," he says. "She sacrificed her senior year to find out what it would be like to be a potential teen mom.
"I admire her courage. I admire her preparation. I give her mother a lot of credit for backing her up on this."
But, the principal continues, "I have a daughter that will be here next year, and I would not let her do it."
At first Gaby's mother wasn't sure what to make of the idea, either.
"I thought she was crazy," says 52-year-old Juana Rodriguez, adding it was difficult to lie to family members - "It didn't feel good" - but she felt she needed to support her daughter, who enlisted two mentors from Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital's Childbirth Education Program to help her with her project.
When Gaby approached Greene last spring, she says she worried he might say no. He says he was impressed with her determination. He also says he was "shocked."
"I heard her out," he says. "I listened to her presentation, her proposal. And then I went through all the difficulties I foresaw to making this happen."
People might talk about her behind her back. Her older brothers might want to beat up her boyfriend. And there might be backlash - even broken relationships - when students, teachers and family members learned the truth.
"None of that deterred her," Greene says, adding he felt he needed to get permission from the superintendent.
John Cerna signed off. In fact, he left the west side of the state -- where he had been attending a conference -- at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday in order to get to Gaby's 10:15 a.m. presentation.
"I wouldn't miss this," Cerna says, adding, "It's amazing that a young lady would take this challenge on. It was a well-kept secret."
Gaby began wearing her homemade, basketball-sized, prosthetic belly to school after spring break. Before that, she wore baggy sweaters and sweatshirts to conceal her faux pregnancy.
Her supposed due date was July 27, not quite two months after graduation.
Gaby and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Jorge Orozco, met at the homecoming game when she was a freshman and he was a senior. They started dating just over three years ago.
When Gaby told him her plan, "I thought she was nuts," the 2009 Toppenish High School graduate says. "I thought I was going to end up getting into problems with her brothers. I didn't really want to get into problems with anybody."
But "I was doing it for her," he says, adding, "My parents thought it was going to be a boy."
Gaby - who has a grade-point average of 3.8 and serves as president of her school's MEChA, or Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de AztlÃÆ'Æ'Æ'¡n, Club - came up with the idea during her sophomore year Advanced Placement biology class with Shawn Myers. She's in his anatomy class this year.
"You saw the side comments and the looks at her stomach," says Myers, who says he wasn't disappointed - "just concerned" - when she told him she was pregnant.
He says he wondered: "How are we going to take all of the potential that's in this girl and make sure it manifests itself and not let this define who she is and let it be a roadblock to what she wants to accomplish?"
It's a question Hispanic teens are more likely to face than white teens, Gaby found in her research. Black and Hispanic teens continue to have higher pregnancy rates than white teens.
And most teens at Toppenish High School - about 85 percent - are Hispanic.
Gaby came clean to Myers and two other teachers, both women, Monday. The women, she says, seemed relieved.
Myers had a different reaction: "She kept talking, and it did not register. Then I just kind of leaned forward and said, `Are you serious?' I told her, `You've run a great value experiment. You couldn't tell anybody because you had to control the variables.'"
But, he says, "When you're running a social experiment, you're dealing with human emotions. The human person in me felt I had been lied to."
Wednesday, Gaby apologized to teachers and students for misleading them.
When she took off her baby belly, there were a few nervous giggles, and a loud, "Whaaaaat?!" from the audience.
Then, there was applause. And, at the end of the assembly, following a Q&A session, there was a standing ovation, the first one Greene says he remembers during his three-year tenure at Toppenish High School.
"She really fooled me. I never would've guessed it," says 17-year-old senior Vicente Villanueva. "I'm really surprised."
So was 19-year-old Angel Jalomo, a 2010 Davis High School graduate and Gaby's niece: "I didn't know what to say. I just started crying."
Gaby will present her research to a board of community members in May. It will include photos and video from Wednesday's assembly. And Gaby still needs to finish writing her report. But by revealing the project to students Wednesday, she can go on her English class trip to Ashland, Ore., on Friday without her baby belly.
Plus, she didn't want to be pregnant for prom. She already has her dress, a teal form-fitting mermaid gown with spaghetti straps.
Gaby plans to attend Columbia Basin College to study social work or sociology in the fall. And, she says, "I'm not planning to have a child until after I graduate."
Monday, May 2, 2011
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