I was prepared to dislike the much-hyped children's book Angel in the Waters—just because a book has a pro-life message doesn't mean it's good. So I was surprised to find myself bursting into tears as I read the beautiful story, which is available online for free.
Thanks to Roman Catholic seminarian Dennis Schenkel—who may soon be two degrees of separation from Paris and Nicole—for the tip.
I've discovered something else I can do while I have this new free time—play readings. Yesterday, after a friend was faced with the sudden unavailability of two actresses for a reading of his play, I stepped in and read both roles, distinguishing them with different voices. Today that same friend informed me that the producer for whose benefit the reading was done—whose credits include the Barbara Eden show "Nite Club Confidential"—loved it and has agreed to produce it. So, if anyone else needs an actress for readings, I'm available (see e-mail address at left).
Duncan Maxwell Anderson exposes some how Title X federal funding is used to finance programs that glorify underage sexuality—including $50 million to Planned Parenthood (out of the more than a quarter-billion that the organization receives in government funds).
Convicted killer Michael Ross tried to get articles into Touchstone magazine, according to a surprising and thought-provoking post on the magazine's Mere Comments blog by executive editor James Kushiner.
Abortion Clinic Days, a blog run by "two abortion providers with a combined experience of more than 48 years," has an entry on one of Planned Parenthood's favorite topics: the supposed likelihood of women who had abstinence education to have "unsafe" sex.
I could go into the many solid arguments against the claim that education about contraceptives will protect women body and soul. But for now I'd like to highlight the abortionist's true message, which is buried in the post. It's an all-too-typical example of how those who counsel women in abortion clinics convince them that their temptation to choose adoption is "smug." So much for "choice":
it's easy to say "well, then she should just not have the abortion" but obviously she had considered that herself. her decision to discontinue the pregnancy was not one of convenience. being a contemplative young woman, she pondered deeply and then had to confront her smug assumption that of course adoption was an easy answer to the problem.UPDATE: Life Steward has a searing take on the same post.
The death of Traffic drummer Jim Capaldi caused me to dig out my manuscript of the only thing I ever wrote about him, part of a feature on record producer Jimmy Miller which appeared on the cover of New York Press in December 1995. I start out describing his star turn at Miller's funeral:
The most ironic moment was when an incoherent Jim Capaldi (Traffic's drummer), his hair stringy and his beard ratty, took the pulpit to tell a story about Miller which no one could understand. It was obvious that he was next on the death list. Immediately after Capaldi found his way back to his seat, Eddie Kramer (engineer for Miller and producer of Jimi Hendrix) got up and gave an English translation of the same story.
The service was followed by a party at the Hard Rock Cafe where the booze flowed freely. I managed to corner Capaldi, who was drinking as though he had gills, and, after buttering him up, slipped in the question: "Jim, since your bandmate Chris Wood died of liver failure, and now Jimmy's died of liver failure, do you ever think of quitting drinking?"
I cowered to avoid getting hit, but Capaldi took the query at face value. He replied slowly, somberly, "I do think about it, but I don't know how. So," he added morbidly, "there's nothing I can do about it."
All they need is Bert Parks.
(From Fr. Bryce Sibley, who calls it "the funniest thing I have EVER seen.")
UPDATE: Commenter Andy made me laugh out loud:
Whew. Check out the other "projects" on this firm's site (click on "churches" on the top banner). They're... um... interesting.
As a Presbyterian unschooled in Romish ways, I was particularly curious to see the basement chapel that they "brought into conformance with Vatican II." So I clicked on the link, and behold:
THEY TURNED IT INTO A GIANT FLOUNDER.
Or maybe it's a fluke. I can never remember which one has the eyes on its right side. Either way, it's a hulking great bottom-feeder. Have a look.
The sign of Jonah it ain't.
Michael Bates has a persuasive summary of the facts in the Terri Schiavo case, compiling the evidence that Schiavo is not in a persistent vegetative state and showing how her husband rejected a generous offer to drop his bid to have her killed.
With all due respect for the American Life League's Stop Planned Parenthood, I think Jim Sedlak's exaggerating the reaction to Gloria Feldt's leaving the presidency of Margaret Sanger's organization. It really doesn't take that much to make babies happy. They're happy just to be alive.
Then again, I guess that's the point.
There's a lively discussion on Touchstone magazine's Mere Comments blog over S.M. Hutchens's entry on the movement towards making worship more "attractive." Here's my favorite quote so far, from a reader trying to demonstrate how he can enjoy contemporary music outside church and yet not want it in church:
The arc of these discussions leads inevitably to the question of "style," or, more accurately, taste. My wife and I, both 30, have developed musical tastes quite common to our generation, summed up by this creed: U2 is best played at floor-shaking, neighbor-rattling, cat-hides-under-the-couch volume. True, our most shameful family secret is my wife’s predilection for Neil Diamond, but aside from these few idiosyncrasies our "tastes" are quite modern, thank you very much.Personally I'd take Neil Diamond over U2 as a badge of hipness any day (especially since he wrote some of the Monkees's best tunes, "I'm a Believer" and "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)," but the point is made.
A commenter who calls himself "Tulsa Human" (funny how none of these trolling libs give their real name or link to their blog) is grossly offended by my mother's satirical "Dear Terri" letter. When I asked him in the comments section to explain his ire, he wrote:
The "satire" presented on your site imputes grotesquely evil intent to Terri Schaivo's [sic] husband.Would someone who has followed this case closely please explain to Mr. Human, in the comments section below, what is a persistent vegetative state, whether Terri Schiavo is in one, and whether a person who is in one deserves to be murdered so that her husband can collect a huge insurance sum that had been earmaked for her upkeep?
But one key fact about the case is this:
The courts have ruled consistently that Terri Schiavo is in a Persistent Vegetative State, and has been for over 14 years.
These were not frivolous decisions. That fact alone should give one pause before savagely demonizing Michael Schiavo.
Given the more-than-reasonable doubt in this case (and I don't use the term legalistically), the most charitable thing to say about this "joke" is that it is in extremely poor taste.
From The Curt Jester comes word of a likely front-runner in the race to replace Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt, who has resigned under mysterious circumstances.
No, I'm not talking about Tiny Tim, but the smile-inducing winning entry in Slant Point's caption contest.
If you read this page last night, I've since added another post "back in time" (to keep "Bin Gripin'" uptop)—scroll down for Part 2 of my Oklahoma recollections. On a related note, Michael Bates writes about what it was like to know that I was blogging in the next room—but, amazingly, misses the opportunity to say that I was doing so in my pajamas.
A commenter who calls himself Conservatives Hate America accuses me of having "an awful lot in common with the Taliban" because I associate Osama bin Ladin with the culture of death. But it's worse than that. Yes, according to this anonymous flamer, I merit the worst insult known to blogdom: I am (gasp!) intellectually dishonest—
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the unbelievable irony in your commentary here. While last time I checked Osama hadn't spelled out his political platform, Islamic extremists are rabidly anti-abortion (kinda like you). For that matter, Islamic extremists are deeply opposed to the use of birth control (kinda like you) and equal rights for gays and lesbians (kinda like you). Indeed, recent news reports have spelled out the Vatican's growing alliance with fundamentalist muslims to oppose the United Nations' reproductive rights platforms. If you want to lead your life according to your own interpretation of the Bible -- hey, great, whatever works for you. But if you advocate using the authority of the state to impose your own scriptural interpretation on those who do not share your views -- well, hey, you're starting to have an awful lot in common with the Taliban. At least have the courage of your convictions, and the intellectual honesty, to acknowledge how much your views overlap with those of Islamic extremists.I wonder how one who holds a relativist worldview could know anything about what it means to have "courage of...convictions." But assuming he (or she) returns in search of a response, would anyone care to answer this person's points in the comments section below, and even shock him by resisting the urge to be snarky?
A researcher from the University of Illinois claims to have identified a DNA link for homosexuality.
The idea that a gene alone can cause someone to grow up homosexual is hogwash. But that won't prevent the homosexual lobby from using studies such as this latest one as "proof" that homosexuality is to be encouraged as a normal and healthy lifestyle.
However, there may be a silver lining to "gay gene" findings, one that nobody, least of all Planned Parenthood and NARAL—both major forces in the homosexual-rights movement—seems to notice. The belief that a gene causes homosexuality could affect the legality of abortion.
Think about it. Right now, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and their allies loudly defend a woman's "right" to murder her child at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason. They support a woman's right to use prenatal DNA tests for the purpose of deciding whether to abort—fighting vehemently against any attempt to disallow abortion for the purpose of sex selection, for example.
(For an example of Planned Parenthood's attitude towards sex-selection abortions, see the last paragraph of this page from the Web site of one of its chapters, which sniffs, "Each year, a number of bills designed to create barriers or limit access to abortion services are introduced. Areas this legislation has covered include 'informed consent,' abortion reporting, insurance coverage, student fees, pathology reports, 'fetal pain,' fetal license plates, sex selection, fetal tissue research, late term abortions, etc." Dig those scare quotes around "fetal pain"—not to mention the idea of "fetal license plates.")
Now, imagine if women who didn't want homosexual offspring started testing their unborn children for the "gay gene"—and aborting them if that DNA were present.
I guarantee you, the homosexual community would scream for legislation to prevent women from making such a "choice."
Last Saturday morning, my ever-gracious host in Tulsa, Okla., Michael Bates, chauffeured me to Oklahoma City, dropping me off at Surlywood, which Dustbury fans will recognize as the home of the venerable Charles G. Hill. (You can see a couple of photos of the home at the bottom of this page).
Charles and I began corresponding 1996, when I had my old Web site, which was full of Sixties pop writings and images so worldly as to be almost pornographic (it featured a photo of Carol Doda circa 1966, in a skimpy bikini, sitting on the counter of a bar, displaying neckties that came in a can). I think he must have found it by Googling my name after reading my Hollies liner notes or something. After a year or so of back-and-forth on our shared love of Ginny Arnell's "Dumb Head" and other obscure pop wonderments, we fell out of touch.
Four years later, the Doda photo was long gone from my site, I was a conservative Christian wingnut, and Charles somehow found me again, becoming a welcome reminder of the music that I couldn't give up despite my changed philosophy. I also realized for the first time that we were kindred spirits in other ways as well, as you can tell from his blog. While he's not a textbook conservative, he has a clear-headed grasp of right and wrong, and a sense of poetry. On a good day—which is often—his depth and perspicacity remind me of nothing so much as G.K. Chesterton's work in the Illustrated London News.
To be continued...
UPDATE: It turns out my memory of how Charles and I met and re-met is off, so Charles is the authority on that. He kindly leaves it to me to reveal what my CompuServe handle was, a vintage-pop joke that he alone understood: "Nogood4u."
With mass murderers like the Chairman (no, not Frank Sinatra—the other one) scrambling to follow Idi and Osama's example, you just knew that Moloch had to get in on the act:
Brett Taylor of Saint Kansas made a comment to "I. Amin Pro-Choice America" that must be shared: "Sorry, Dawn (and all the ladies)—this one's taken."
NARAL's "We Are Pro-Choice America" photo campaign is so popular that even dead genocidal dictators want to get into the act. Thanks be to Joel Helbling for sending in this shot of a man who killed some 255,000 victims—but doesn't have a peg on the hypocritical Hippocraticals who don white coats to extinguish life:
I visited Oklahoma for the first time last Thursday through Monday, at the very kind invitation of Tulsa residents Michael Bates and his wife, Mikki, and found much to like, from the Art Deco and Fifties-era hotel and burger-joint signs, to the gentlemanly menfolk who would hold doors open for me, to the cheap eats, to the churchy structures of all types (including the world's largest praying hands, to the rugged individualism reflected in the many specialty license plates, and more.
On Friday afternoon, Michael took me to the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore, which is really more like a shrine, filled with Frederic Remington sculptures, lassoes, postcards, sheet music, vaudeville posters, and loads of odd little dioramas of episodes in the humorist's life. (That's where Your Petiteness posed alongside a painting of the "Anti-Bunk" hero.) But while the dozens of Rogers epigrams posted on the walls make for amusing reading, many of the exhibits lack biographical background—it's largely just "here's his hat," "here are his spectacles," etc. (Exceptions include a great display on Life magazine's "Will Rogers for President" campaign.)
The museum's Web site includes information on Rogers that would have made its exhibits more interesting—like Eddie Cantor's tale of how Rogers schooled him. That piece includes a Rogers quote on how he drew his material from newspapers, which still applies in the age of blogs:
I have found out two things. One is that the more up-to-date a subject is, the more credit you are given for talking on it, even if you really haven’t anything very funny. But if it is an old subject, your gags must be funny to get over.Still to come: Record hunting with Charles G. Hill, coffee with the cream of Okie bloggers (where I just missed seeing a giant wiener), and tea with Happy Homemaker.
Looks like some people can't take yellow ribbin'.
Kevin McCullough reports that the University of Oregon is steaming over bloggers' and talk-radio listeners' massive protest against its banning the yellow-ribbon "Support Our Troops" stickers from university-owned cars. The school claims such expression on a state-owned university's property is "a violation of a statewide policy."
What I'd like to know is, since when did supporting the members of the U.S. military become a violation of the policy of a U.S. state?
As NARAL Pro-Choice America continues posting photos of hapless Americans holding the organization's pre-printed "I Am Pro-Choice America" sign, it seems unfair that the organization should ignore its many foreign supporters. To that end, Saint Kansas forwards me a shot that, inexplicably, didn't make NARAL's cut:
Roman Catholic seminarian Jeff Geerling just got back from the March for Life and has some photos to show for it, but what's on his mind now is the lopsided nature of the press coverage the rally received, as he writes in a thought-provoking entry, "War of the Words":
I am Pro-Life.Read on to his conclusion—it's something that needs to be said.
I am not an enemy of life. I am an ardent supporter of all human life; from the moment it starts (conception, when sperm meets egg), to the moment it naturally ends.
And yet, I am a "foe." I am an "enemy," according to most media sources. Take a look at these headlines:
* "Anti-abortionists pledge to fight on"
* "Abortion foes march in capital"
* "Abortion foes rally in Washington"
* "Abortion Foes Get Call From Bush"
Some may think that this is a non-issue, but it is not. Many members of the media are playing a game with words, trying to make pro-lifers sound like bad people, and "pro-choicers" sound good.
Robert George, the man who puts the "pun" in "pundit," is among the creators of a new online site inviting readers to vote in the anti-Oscars. Of course, it's called The Felixes.
A call to let Terri Schiavo live has come from an online magazine not known for supporting a culture of life: Salon.
Linda Reid Chassiakos, mother of a severely disabled child, writes:
Terri's cause has been adopted by religious conservatives with passionate advocacy. I am neither religious nor conservative, but as a compassionate progressive, I believe the Schiavo case spotlights a critical juncture in the preservation of a humanistic and humanitarian culture: Allowing Terri to die via starvation belies and mocks the ethics and principles of a civilized society.Read the whole thing.
As a doctor, I have cared for patients who have chosen, in sound mind and in good conscience, not to prolong their lives via extreme measures. Their decisions were documented in written contracts, often after intensive counseling and personal consideration. Hearsay communications from potentially interested parties, however, are not an acceptable substitute. In the absence of a living will, I remain committed by my Hippocratic oath (an ethical code for the medical profession that prohibits doctors from causing any harm) and duty to my profession to do the utmost for my seriously ill patients.
New York City musician Peter Kohman, whom I remember from 20 years ago when he was with the Tryfles, sends notice of a concert in honor of beloved late Bomp! Records founder Greg Shaw:
On January 29, Magnetic Field in Brooklyn will be hosting an evening in memory of Greg Shaw...a night of performances by the Coffin Lids and Shaw 'Nuff. The Coffin Lids were one of the last bands Greg signed to Bomp! and come in a haze of smoked amps and electroshocked, Farfisa-driven rock'n'roll. Shaw 'Nuff is a one-shot NYC supergroup featuring Peter Stuart, Kurt Reil, Mike Fornatale, Michael Lynch and Wendy Fornatale. Each of these musicians is variously a veteran of, or enlisted in, groups like The Standells, Grip Weeds, Beau Brummels, Blues Magoos, The Monks, Moby Grape, Cavestomp Redcoats, Richard & The Young Lions, The Lynchpins, and Kelly Stoltz. DJs Ira Robbins and WFMU's Evan Davies will spin prime selections from the Bomp! catalogue and music with
appropriate blood ties.
The night begins at 7:30 on January 29th. The door price will be $10, all proceeds donated to Greg's widow and son. Magnetic Field is located at 97 Atlantic Avenue, between Hicks and Henry Streets, in Brooklyn Heights. The phone # is 718-834-0069.
The eloquent e-mails of my friend Steven Givler, a captain in the U.S. Air Force, telling of his experiences while stationed in Iraq, are now the subject of a three-part series in the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph. Here's a taste:
Some clown on the BBC the other night was saying that tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians had died because of American aggression. What nonsense. I'd be glad to host the man who said that. I'd let him spend the night in one of our flimsy trailers, listening to the shriek of rockets overhead, feeling the shock of the explosions and the rattle of stones on the roof. By morning, he'd be screaming for reprisals.
Not us. We take it. Sometimes on the chin. In ones or twos, our people are injured or killed. We mourn them. We pack their personal effects and send them home to their families and we press on, giving up our safety in order to assure [the safety] of Iraqi civilians. We don't do it for recognition and we don't expect to hear about it on the news. But it sure ticks me off when I hear someone saying exactly the opposite of what I know to be true.
By popular demand, here again is the link to Tracey Hallman's poetry. Tracey is married to Saint Kansas, who writes today of how kids' TV is celebrating a #$%*&!@ different kind of wordsmith.
From Kevin McCullough's new feature "Kerry—'Reporting for Duty", on the Massachusetts senator's return to Capitol Hill, comes this gem—a comment on a news article's stating, "On Monday, Kerry introduced a bill...":
Now there's something—not often said in the past 20 years...
A team of Ohio State University sociologists examining a sex survey taken by students at a Midwestern high school have created a "sex map" showing how nearly 300 teens were connected by sexual contact with one another.
Reuters reports that "288 students were linked in a one-to-one chain of sexual contact that rarely looped back. In other words, one boy had sex with one girl, who had sex with another boy, who had sex with another girl and so on."
The researchers said that the teens were "just average students" (I'm assuming they weren't talking in terms of academics) and "not extremely active sexually." (For comparison, they wrote, witness promiscuous adults such as "NBA stars with thousands and thousands of partners"—as though such scuzzy folk were somehow representative of responsible grown-ups.)
So what can be drawn from this interlocking map of hundreds of hedonistic high-schoolers? Hold onto your hat. "[S]ocial policies that could help some of them protect themselves from STDs could break a lot of these chains that can lead to the spread of disease," the lead researcher, sociologist James Moody, declares.
Ah yes, we're back in Planned Parenthoodland. It's perfectly fine for kids 14 and up to have sex with one another—just as long as Old Man VD doesn't break up the party. And as far as breaking "a lot of these chains," one abstinent student can break them—or at least impede their progress by saving himself or herself from premarital sex while making a positive psychological impression on other students.
But while Moody gives abstinence lip service, it's clearly not his priority:
"Anything that limits that and restricts the flow of body fluids between people would help." That includes education about condom use, abstinence and other policies, he said.It's so simple. Why can't uptight red-state values-voter parents get it through their thick heads? For children to be sexually responsible, all they have to do is—repeat after me—restrict the flow of body fluids. This is what Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, and their allies call "comprehensive sex education," in a nutshell. It's the George Clinton adage—free your a-- and your mind will follow.
*Bwahahaha! Oh, sorry...laughing at my own headlines again...
A quick and very sleepy note to say thanks so much to everyone who's commented or written to me with sympathy and kindness over the personal news that I reported yesterday. It means a lot to me. Having just gotten back from my vacation, I'm more behind on e-mail than usual. But on the other hand, I now have more time than before, so I plan to write back very soon to everyone who wrote in.
Also coming soon, fond reminiscences of the Okie blogger bash and great times with Jan the Happy Homemaker, Charles G. Hill, and Michael Bates.
Wittingshire's Amanda Witt, whose husband Jonathan is the Discovery Institute's senior fellow, is in hot primordial ooze with Darwinists (not as fun as it sounds) for pointing out a Darwin quote on the relative intelligence of the sexes that could have come from beleaguered Harvard President Lawrence Summers.
Today Witt let fly a riposte that strikes at the unquestioning faith of evolutionists who are so quick to attack any theory that springs from, well, unquestioning faith:
Proponents of intelligent design get attacked all the time for their supposed motives, when what matters is THE EVIDENCE. That never seems to get addressed in the slew of ad hominem attacks, and the hand-wringing over the implications of design theory.
Look at the evidence for intelligent design. Look at the lack of evidence for key aspects of Darwinian evolution. That's all the ID movement asks.
On this day of the March for Life, NARAL Pro-Choice America's Bush v. Choice blog, in an entry titled—with the organization's typical sensitivity—"'Moral Values' my ass!", assails President Bush's lack of "moral clarity."
The NARAL blogger lauds an ACLU executive's pro-abortion op-ed that asks questions like, "What is moral about denying health coverage to a pregnant woman in need of an abortion when her doctor believes it is necessary to protect her health? What is moral about forcing a low-income woman to choose between paying for an abortion she needs to preserve her health and paying for food, shelter and other basic necessities for her family?"
Elsewhere on the blog, readers are directed to a discussion on Feministing.com about whether the Democratic Party should, while keeping its pro-choice stance, welcome pro-lifers (which, when you think about it, is like an oil refinery's welcoming asthmatics).
What the ACLU exec's op-ed and the Feministing discussion have in common is that they play into the idea that abortions are necessary primarily because a woman may need one to save her own life. In fact, abortion is never necessary to save a woman's life. It may be an unintended effect of a lifesaving procedure, such as ending an ectopic pregnancy, but a procedure intended specifically to kill the unborn child has been rendered unnecessary by advances in science. Even former Planned Parenthood president Alan Guttmacher famously wrote in 1967, "Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal disease such as cancer or leukemia, and if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save the life of the mother."*
The American Life League, a Catholic organization which is against every form of abortion, recognizes that lifesaving treatment may have an unintended "double effect": "Essentially, both mother and child should be treated as patients. A doctor should try to protect both. However, in the course of treating a woman, if her child dies, that is not considered abortion."
As for moral values and my a--, I'll stick my butt out for NARAL, the ACLU, and Planned Parenthood when they protest the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that the ex-husband of a "purposefully interactive, curious and expressive" woman can have her killed. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them—least of all the ACLU—to do so...at least, not until the Devil needs a pair of ice skates.
*Abortion—Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: The Case for Legalized abortion Now. Diablo Press, 1967.
I wrote the "wood"—the front-page headline—of yesterday's New York Post.
It was my last act at the Post. Knowing the Trump wedding was ahead, I shouted the headline to the paper's weekend copy chief as I headed out the door last Tuesday, my last day there.
The only things I can say about the situation right now are that it is always painful to lose one's job; I will always be proud of the work I did at the Post, where I won first place for "Brightest Headline" in the 2004 New York State Associated Press Awards; and I have faith that something better is in store for me.
IrishLaw takes on an anti-abstinence op-ed by NARAL's Karen Cooper that the blogger aptly terms "Grandmas for sex: because let's get real."
In response to Cooper's claim that abstinence-until-marriage is unrealistic as "a model for the 21st century, when half of the students in law school and medical school are women," IrishLaw writes:
I find it interesting Cooper focuses on law and medical students as an example here of those who are wanting (apparently) both to have sex and not to have children. If these students (still a very small percentage of all women) were to become pregnant -- as does happen in spite of all that comprehensive sex education NARAL advocates and these educated women undoubtedly know about -- surely they would be in the best position of all women to be able to take care of a child? Abortion is "needed" least for these.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Dr. Warren Hern, the late-term abortionist who's protesting that a Roman Catholic Church is publicly burying the ashes of some 1,000 babies he killed, says that he's got nothing against burial rites on principle. In fact, after he's vacuum-suctioned a baby out of a womb, he sometimes shows up at its funeral:
In some cases, he has participated in Jewish and American Indian funeral rituals after the abortion, along with the family members.This sounds like something out of a black comedy like "The Loved One." An all-inclusive package deal: "We kill it...and mourn it."
Still on vacation, but Michael Bates graciously allowed me to dominate his computer for a Planned Parenthood post tonight. You'll next hear from me late tomorrow or early Sunday, with photos and news of the first-ever Okie blogger bash. In the meantime, thanks for all the suggestions in "Ready, Willing, and Cable"—please keep them coming!
A mortuary worker in Boulder, Colo., was so disgusted by an abortionist's bringing boxes of human remains to be incinerated that he secretly brought the remains to a Roman Catholic Church—which has been quietly burying them for years.
Now, the church plans to publicly bury the ashes of up to to 1,000 aborted children—and the abortionist is hopping mad, as the local CBS affiliate reports:
Dr. Warren Hern of the Boulder Abortion Clinic said his contract with Crist Mortuary required it to bury the ashes in its own plot.I'm sure if the news organization had bothered to speak to any of the bereaved parents, they'd say they weren't memorializing their fetus, but their baby. Amazing how people can get carried away and anthropomorphize the things to the point of imagining they're actual human beings.
Instead, he learned this week that for nearly a decade, a mortuary officer has been giving the remains to the Sacred Heart of Mary Church. The ashes are buried near a statue of Jesus and a memorial wall with plaques carrying messages from people wanting to memorialize their fetus.
"A lot of my patients come in with desired pregnancies, deeply saddened they have a desired pregnancy which is medically complicated or threatening their life," said Hern, one of a handful of doctors in the country who perform abortions late in pregnancy.Notice how quickly the report throws off the fact that Hern, like Kansas' notorious Dr. George Tiller, performs late-term abortions. That means these weren't just "blobs of tissue," as the abortion lobby would have people believe. As volunteer Susan LaVelle from Sacred Heart of Mary explains, these were unmistakably mutilated babies:
LaVelle said the Crist officer who gave the remains to the church began doing it in 1996, when he worked at a different funeral home. She said the man was "traumatized" when he opened a shipment of remains and saw recognizable human parts. He asked the church pastor what to do.But the abortionist will have none of it.
"The two of them decided it would be good to be able to honor these unborn babies by giving them a proper burial," she said....
The church in the fields southeast of Boulder has quietly held burial ceremonies for fetal remains from Hern's clinic since 1996....[LaVelle] said parishioners have known about the activity since 1998, two years before the wall was built.
For a year, church leaders considered inviting the public to the burials, LaVelle said. When the church recently received enough remains for the largest burial yet, they decided to announce a candlelight vigil Friday night and a burial ceremony after Sunday morning Mass.
The burial will represent 600 to 1,000 remains of aborted, stillborn and miscarried fetuses. LaVelle said the ceremony was never intended as a political statement, though it comes one day after the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade that legalized abortion.
"I have never met a woman that didn't agonize over this decision, and we are not judging that. If anything, we are saying we understand this was agonizing," LaVelle said. "Our society says it's something to be quiet about, so she carries that pain in silence. We want her to know that she doesn't have to do that, that we're here for her."
"I'm appalled that the Catholic Church will exploit women's private grief and misery for their own political purposes," he said. "Crist made a political statement by collaborating with this macabre ritual."So proper burial is a "macabre ritual"—while sticking a pair of scissors in the skull of a viable unborn child is perfectly all right.
Kate Horle, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said it was unethical because neither Hern nor his patients knew of the burials.Got it? If it's a violation of privacy, then the unborn child is "medical records." If the woman has other wishes or personal beliefs, then it's a person. But in any case, neither Planned Parenthood nor Dr. Hern has ever considered giving women an opportunity to mourn—not just see a social worker, but really mourn—for their dead child. Because that, of course, would imply that the thing that was scraped out of their womb was really a child—when we all know it's really just a child-shaped political football that can be humanized or dehumanized at a woman's whim.
"We certainly see this as a violation of the privacy of women," she said. "(The church and the mortuary) don't have a relationship with these women and they have no idea what their wishes or personal beliefs might be."
I'd just gotten off the train to Newark International Airport and was in the elevator going up to the Air Train monorail, when I noticed that the only other person in there with me was a man about 40 years old, wide build, goatee, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and khaki bermudas. He looked like a beatnik Big Kahuna from the old surf movies. Except that the temperature outside was in the 30s.
He didn't look crazy, so I figured he must be traveling to somewhere warm.
"Going south?" I asked.
He paused and released an inaudible sigh.
"I could be sitting with a handgun and a kitchen sink on my head, and in New York, nobody would care," he said. "But put shorts on—" He sighed again.
The elevator doors opened. "Have a nice trip!" I chirped. And ran off.
I'm dashing this off my friend Michael Bates's computer in Tulsa, Okla., where I am on a four-day vacation—during which I'll be joining Dustbury, Happy Homemaker, Dan & Angie, the Gleesons, and others at the first-ever Okie blogger bash. (Don't worry, my collection of Herman's Hermits vinyl is safe; a pal's watching the Eden manse.)
One of my last acts before flying south was moving up from dialup—I now have a cable connection. (I'll pause a moment while the chorus of, "You still used dialup?" dies down.) But I've yet to test-drive my new connection by attempting to, say, listen to three-minute songs that previously would have taken me half an hour to download (like Saint Kansas' "Rock the Vote" parody, "Bomb a Rock Star).
Here's where you can help. What have I been missing all this time? What songs, sermons, videos, animations, or other things on the 'Net should I check out now that I'm a broad with bandwith?
Please put your suggestions in the comments section below. My only requirement is that they link to material that's rated G.
Note: The comments only go up when I publish my blog, so if yours don't go up quickly, don't fret—they'll be up later in the day. Also, blogging will be light until I get back on Monday—but do watch for photos of the blogger bash, which should be up by Sunday morning.
After I complimented the Associated Press for using the word "schmooze" in a headline yesterday, some editor watered the headline down, removing the Yiddishism.
I guess you could say they preferred the Gentile touch. But the message here is, sadly, you schmooze, you lose.
Sacred Miscellany's Mary Jane Ballou rethinks a counterculture classic—Malvina Reynolds' Levittown-inspired protest tune "Little Boxes":
Washing up after dinner tonight, the song kept running through my head and I found myself growing progressively more annoyed. Everything about the song oozed the self-satisfaction of the intellectual and political elite (self-identified, of course). No mass-produced houses for them, no boring jobs in corporations, no dull public schools for their children, and so on. I remembered performances of this song and the chortles of university students and faculty members that accompanied it. And, I blush to admit, I chortled along with the best (or worst) of them.An online bio of Reynolds notes, "In her jubilant, liberal rejection of traditional other-worldly religion, Malvina wrote and sang 'This World':
Was there ever a thought of how much those little houses (and today's equivalent) meant to the folks buying them with V.A. loans? Of the pleasure of having a home and the family that had been delayed by Depression and War? Of the quality of that housing compared to crowded older apartments or substandard rural dwellings? Of what the people in those houses wanted or thought or cared about?
Nah, it was all about being from Berkeley or San Francisco, being hip, politically active, and never taking a job with "The Man" as long as those graduate assistantships and the checks from home kept coming.
"I'd rather go to the corner storeSo this woman valued things below more than things above, yet she couldn't see how, for a working-class family, a prefabricated home of their own could be a little piece of heaven.
Than sing 'Hosanna' on that golden shore
I'd rather live on Parker Street
Than fly around where the angels meet."
The Canadian military has drafted guidelines for its chaplains to marry same-sex couples.
In other words, if G.I. Joe wants to marry G.I. Jeff, they can do it right on the base.
Never mind that no homosexual couple has asked the military to make the provision:
"It's essentially a statement of the way the law is going," said military chaplain Col. Stan Johnstone, who helped draft the new guidelines....Johnstone said that they also currently have never had a request by any same-sex couple to be "married," he simply wants the military to take the "leading edge" on the issue.This story is much larger than its skimpy news coverage would suggest, because it compromises the integrity of the Canadian military.
WorldNetDaily's David Kupelian's "How lying marketers sold Roe v. Wade to America" is a far-ranging and withering exposé of the abortion industry (sans photos) that should be read by everyone who considers themselves pro-choice—as well as pro-lifers who can withstand a behind-the-scenes description of people who kill people. Here's a sample—but read the whole thing:
Whereas once upon a time pregnant mothers were respectfully, lovingly referred to as being "with child," today we coldly refer to the unborn not as a child but as a "fetus." Indeed, the word "fetus" has taken on qualities and characteristics convenient to the pro-abortion viewpoint – implying something less than human, with little intrinsic worth, and therefore disposable. If an abortionist or "pro-choicer" looks at a "fetus," his eyes will see a perfectly formed human child – for that is what a fetus actually is – but his mind will see an ugly, nonhuman, disposable lump of tissue.
Interestingly, if there were no word for "fetus," such a switch of realities would be more difficult. The word itself becomes a convenient carrier of the "ugly, nonhuman" characteristics, and is thus a key tool for denying the humanity of the unborn human child.
We're dealing with very deep denial here. Let me offer a personal example: More than two decades ago, as a news reporter I confronted a Planned Parenthood attorney with a photograph of a white, five-gallon plastic bucket filled with dead, late-term human babies – the results of one day's abortions at a Canadian hospital. His response was to deny that what he saw were really human babies, and suggested that perhaps they were actually dead monkeys. Mind you, this man made his living defending the world's largest abortion provider – but when he saw real abortions, he denied what was right in from of his own eyes.
Planned Parenthood's Web site currently features a link to The Religious Institute of Sexual Justice and Healing, headed by the former CEO of the pro-abortion sex-ed group SIECUS. Its motto is—I kid you not—"Pastors for Sexual Health, Prophets for Sexual Justice."
Considering the group is a favorite of Planned Parenthood, which cleared $35.2 million last year, I guess it depends on how you pronounce "prophets."
The Religious Institute's Web site features the organization's "Religious Declaration on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing," which begins:
Sexuality is God's life-giving and life-fulfilling gift.So much for abstinence! Pity all those poor nuns, priests, monks, and spinsters walking around "unfulfilled." Pardon me while I run to the nearest singles bar to get godly "fulfillment."
Our culture needs a sexual ethic focused on personal relationships and social justice rather than particular sexual acts.I'm sorry, "social justice" does not go with "personal relationships." They tried that in the Sixties, requiring white coeds to sleep with a rainbow of partners in order to prove they weren't all prejudiced and uptight. It didn't work. (Stokely Carmichael famously claimed that the only position for a woman in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was "prone.")
God hears the cries of those who suffer from the failure of religious communities to address sexuality.Meaning, "God hears the cries of those who suffer from the failure of religious communities to address sexuality the way Planned Parenthood and SIECUS want them to address it." Is there any religious community in the world that fails to address sexuality? The only one I can think of is the Shakers.
We are called today to see, hear, and respond to the suffering caused by violence against women and sexual minorities, the HIV pandemic, unsustainable population growth and over-consumption, and the commercial exploitation of sexuality.That reference to "unsustainable population growth and over-consumption" sticks out like an abortionist's curettage knife.
I think he was also laboring under the misguided notion that you can reduce poverty by eliminating the poor. Of course, you can't do that. We know the way to reduce poverty is to set up the rule of law, put in place a system of respect and safeguards for private property. You set in place a fair and just legal system, you allow entrepreneurs to keep the proceeds of their enterprise rather than have them taxed away or stolen away by corrupt officials.The Religious Institute's latest effort is an "Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Abortion" (PDF file) urging clergy to offer "support with love to those who choose adoption or termination of their pregnancies."
Nice to see some Noo Yawk Yiddish creep into the mainstream, via this AP headline:
Saint Kansas has a screen grab from an episode of the kiddie cartoon show "Postcards from Buster" showing a "Mrs. President" who looks suspiciously like Hillary Clinton if she were a bunny rabbit with very short ears—or, as the post's headline suggests, a female dog.
Charles of Dustbury writes about the folly of requiring specific physical characteristics in a love interest:
You might infer...that there have not been many women in my life, and indeed there have not, but they have been a fairly diverse lot, from sizes 2 to 221?2, heights from 4'9" to 5'9", and don't even ask me to recall cup sizes. About the only thing they had in common was that at some point they thought I was acceptable, which is miraculous enough.What a beautiful statement. While I've done my share of guy-watching (often accompanied by involuntary hair-tossing and eyelash-batting), I have to agree with Charles. Looking back, the men to whom I was most attached weren't the ones whom I found most attractive on first sight. They were the ones with whom I felt comfortable—as opposed to the goofy and awkward way I feel around ultra-handsome men—and who intrigued me in a way that made me want to discover what was behind their eyes.
My latest Planned Parenthood post just turned up on The Daou Report, published by the John Kerry campaign's online communications advisor Peter Daou, "the Web version of a daily report prepared by Peter for KE04 and the DNC." I can't really make out a particular editorial view in its selection of topics—it just seems to be a potpourri of opinions from mostly leading conservative and liberal blogs.
This has to be the oddest pro-life blog I've seen. I can't make head or tail of it.
Well, on second thought, I can make out the head pretty well.
Reading a press release masquerading as a feature article on the Madera, Calif., Planned Parenthood clinic, I found this curious little quote from the facility's manager, which I offer without comment:
"Our community outreach program includes providing books for the children of our clients to encourage their love of reading."
"Nineteen years ago, 14-year-old Mishelle Elliot made a mistake that changed her life. She and her boyfriend were fooling around, and, as is often the case, one thing led to another. Maybe they didn’t have a condom, or maybe what they used broke, but Mishelle soon found herself responsible for an extra life growing inside her. Mishelle cried when she discovered it, afraid of what her family and her boyfriend would think and do."
So writes college student Paul Owen in a poignantly beautiful article for his school paper: "Adoption could save a life—like mine."
A friend in the military sends this prayer request from a chaplain in Iraq. I'm omitting the chaplain's e-mail address but will forward him any encouraging comments:
As a transportation battalion, my unit will be delivering the voting machines and the ballots to villages and cities throughout Iraq during the upcoming elections. (January 30/31) Our convoys are prime targets for the insurgents because they do not want the equipment to arrive at the polling stations nor do they want the local Iraqi citizens to have the chance to vote; timely delivery must occur so that the elections occur. Encourage your friends and family members and those within our churches to pray specifically for the electoral process.
Historically, the previous totalitarian regime would not allow individual citizens to vote. Democracy will not be realized in Iraq if intelligent and competent officials are not elected to those strategic leadership positions within the emerging government; freedom will not have an opportunity to ring throughout this country if the voting process fails. Announce this prayer request to your contacts throughout your churches, neighborhoods, and places of business. Those with leadership roles within the local church, post this message in as many newsletters and bulletins as possible. There is unlimited potential for God's presence in this process but if we do not pray then our enemy will prevail (See Ephesians 6:10-17) A prayer vigil prior to the end of the month may be an innovative opportunity for those within your sphere of influence to pray. This is a political battle that needs spiritual intervention. A powerful story about God's intervention in the lives of David's mighty men is recorded in 2 Samuel 23:8-33. David and his warriors were victorious because of God's intervention. We want to overcome those who would stand in the way of freedom. David's mighty men triumphed over incredible odds and stood their ground and were victorious over the enemies of Israel. (Iraqi insurgents' vs God's praying people). They don't stand a chance.
I will pray with my soldiers before they leave on their convoys and move outside our installation gates here at Tallil. My soldiers are at the nerve center of the logistic operation to deliver the voting machines and election ballots. They will be driving to and entering the arena of the enemy. This is not a game for them it is a historical mission that is extremely dangerous. No voting machines or ballots. No elections. Your prayer support and God's intervention are needed to give democracy a chance in this war torn country. Thank you for reading this e-mail. Please give this e-mail a wide dissemination.
Thank you for your prayer support for me and my family. Stand firm in your battles.
Blessings,
v/r
Lyle
CH (CPT) Lyle Shackelford
Battalion Chaplain
HHD, 57th Transportation Battalion
Providing With Mobility
"Keep Em Moving"
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."
-Joshua 1:9
The Margaret Sanger Blogspot is pleased to announce its 1st Annual Margaret Sanger at the Ku Klux Klan Rally Art Contest.See the full post for details on how to enter.
Margaret Sanger's account of her talk at the Ku Klux Klan Rally can be found below from pages 366-367 of Margaret Sanger An Autobiography (1971 reprint by Dover Publications, Inc. of the 1938 original published by W.W. Norton & Company):
http://michael_mcloughlin.tripod.com/magieandkkk.html
When the Margaret Sanger Blogspot performed a Google search for images of this historical event, none could be found. Clearly, there is a critical need for artistic recreations of the historic event.
The Big Abortion Industry still holds Margaret Sanger out as an icon. Artwork is one more important way to promote the truth about Margaret Sanger.
Karol of Alarming News has word of a pro-life rap song.
The specter of enforced "tolerance" rears its ugly head in Spokane, Wash., where homosexual groups are pushing the traditionally conservative city to create a special "gay district":
A gay district would signal that Spokane is tolerant and progressive, proponents contend, the type of community that can attract the so-called "creative class" that will build the economy of tomorrow.Needless to say, if you are opposed to creating a special part of town for people who need people who practice anal sex, you are an Uptight White Person. At least, according to "Bonnie Aspen, a business owner who arrived with her partner two years ago to escape the congestion of the San Francisco Bay area":
Spokane is some 90 percent white and a gay district will promote the notion that such a community can still be tolerant and have diversity, Aspen said.So that's it. People who happen to live in a 90 percent white town in the Pacific Northwest have some serious tolerance issues to work out. They can either make an extra special effort to make the other 10 percent feel included—or they can just agree to let developers set a part of their town aside for homosexuals.
TRACKBACK: Dustbury's Charles writes in "They're here, we're used to them":
What bothers me about this is not so much that there would be a gay district in Spokane — we have one in Oklahoma City, fairly diffuse but centered not far from me, that bothers me not at all — but that they think it can be imposed from without. It can't. (The last time American cities made an effort to create separate neighborhoods, the symbol was not a rainbow, but a large black bird.)
Just a reminder: You don't need to start a blog to register with Blogger so you can comment on this blog. Just ignore the request that Blogger gives you to start a blog. Your comment will go through anyway.
I ask bloggers to register because it cuts down on comments spam and helps make commenters more responsible. I love the quality of the comments on this blog.
Among the many fine entries in The Dawn Patrol's first caption contest, "Faces of Feticide"—which featured a photo of a young woman in a cubicle holding a sign from NARAL saying "I Am Pro-Choice America," taken from the organization's gallery for its photo campaign*—were these gems:
A cartoon thought bubble above her head says:Wodamark, assuming you're a bona fide stranger (or near-stranger) and not a friend in disguise, you have won a $25 Amazon gift certificate. In addition, I'll donate $25 to the tsunami-relief charity of your choice and $25 to the pro-life charity of your choice. Please write me at dawn -at-dawneden.com to claim your prize and name your charities of choice, plus drop a comment below so I'll have verification that the person who e-mailed me is in fact Wodamark.
"PLEASE HELP ME...they said if I don't smile enough when I hold up this paper they will vacuum extract me from my cubicle...they took away my cubicle neighbor, the one with brown hair, glasses, and a black v-neck, because she didn't smile enough and held her up by her feet and stuck scissors in the back of her brain!!! OH GOD HELP ME..."
Thank you, readers! Using nothing but the force of satire, we shamed NARAL Pro-Choice America into removing its online "I Am Pro-Choice America" photo gallery.
I originally read about the gallery in this post on NARAL's "Bush v. Choice" blog. The gallery, which you can read about in my "Faces of Feticide" contest entry, featured images of women holding up printed signs saying "I Am Pro-Choice America." As one reader noted, the women were likely all NARAL employees.
The organization put out a call for supporters to send in photos of themselves for the gallery. That link is still up. But all the original gallery images are down—including both the ones I used for my caption contest.
While I'm thankful that the employees of NARAL—whom those in the photos most likely were—are feeling shame over their public identification as "Pro-Choice Americans, the sad part of this is that they have no compunction about exposing others to ridicule. You can bet that the gallery will re-emerge in time, with dozens or hundreds of Americans smiling with their "I Am Pro-Choice American" signs—unaware of the extent of public criticism they may face.
I don't believe in ridiculing people for the sake of making them feel bad about themselves. But when a person publicly holds up a sign saying, "This is what I am," and advocates for a particular view, they deserve to face the reaction of people who disagree with what they stand for.
I am thankful that I live in a country where we have this right to publicly state our views and publicly disagree. And, occasionally, make fun of a public person's hairstyle—without malice.
Contest results to follow later tonight...
Roman Catholic seminarian Jeff Geerling writes about taking part in the annual pro-life march in St. Louis, which drew 400 people. He's not kidding about the Planned Parenthood building's looking like a prison. But what I really like is his demonstration of how a pro-lifer and a newspaper photographer can approach the same situation from two totally different angles.
Charles of Dustbury has an excellent and highly informative post on the hijacking of my e-mail server, Panix. Sorry to be so taken up with this today, but, as you can imagine, it is a huge issue. According to Panix's Web site, it appears to be resolved, but I will never feel secure with an e-mail server again.
Watch this space for the winning entry of the "Faces of Feticide" contest. [UPDATE: The winner's posted above.]
Addled Writer comments to the entry below that it's too soon to attempt to make a political point out of the Jersey City killings, and that Muslims in America oppose violence done in the name of their religion. What do you think? Please post your comment to that entry—and do know that I am not advocating a reaction against Muslims in general, only the terrorists who are calling for violence against "infidels."
I just popped by the St. Gabriel's tsunami relief-fund Web site and was elated to see that the charity—whose public-service ad appears at left—is only a few hundred dollars short of its $50,000 goal.
Right now, the St. Gabriel's relief team—including the lovely woman known as The Penitent Blogger—is in India to deliver aid to the victims. You can read their journal of the trip on the organization's Web site. While you're there, why not click the PayPal link and add to their donations? I'm sure that as the volunteers of the charity—which started last month with nothing but love and concern—are working to help people who have lost everything, it would lift them up to hear that their much hoped-for goal had been met.
It's starting to hit me just how distressing it is that my e-mail server, panix.com, has been hijacked. Any company through which I've done business could e-mail my own address with personal information on me, and it would go to some stranger. Likewise, friends of mine could write me mentioning personal information about me or them, and the stranger—who's clearly a criminal—could use the information to commit fraud. Or the crook could write back to my friends and they'd think it was me.
When I get home tonight, I plan to e-mail my entire address book to tell them to use dawn -at- dawneden.com, which is still operative (it goes to the panix.net domain, rather than the hijacked panix.com). But I have many friends who aren't in my address book.
More information about the domain hijacking is on Panix's home page.
UPDATE, 1/16/05, 1:35 a.m.: This is bizarre and scary. The owner of my Web host says he's never seen anything before. Someone masterminded a scheme to take over New York's oldest commercial Internet service provider that involved nefarious dealings on three continents. Someone should investigate this story, because this is big. Check out the latest dispatch from Panix:
Panix's main domain name, panix.com, has been hijacked by parties unknown. The ownership of panix.com was moved to a company in Australia, the actual DNS records were moved to a company in the United Kingdom, and panix.com's mail has been redirected to yet another company in Canada. Panix staff are currently working around the clock to recover our domain, but this may take until Monday, due to the time differences and difficulties in reaching responsible parties over the weekend.
Today's Modesto Bee has a fascinating interview with abortion survivor Gianna Jessen, who was born alive at 7 1/2 months after clinic workers had injected saline into her mother's womb. Lack of oxygen in the womb resulted in her developing cerebral palsy. She thrived nonetheless and became an ardent campaigner for the pro-life cause. The whole article's worth a read—here's a quote that stood out:
"My biological parents made some really poor choices," she said. "I forgive them for what they did [but] I live every day with the result of the 'choice' that my biological mother made 27 years ago. So it's ridiculous to think our choices on a moment-by-moment basis only affect us. They always affect someone else, for good or ill."
Sports fans will appreciate how odd it was for me, as someone who doesn't follow the teams, to turn on the news-radio station today and hear the announcer speaking so excitedly about "gangrene."
This is your child's brain on drug education:
RAMAPO (N.Y.)—Grumpy is hyper-vigilant and mildly paranoid. Bashful, with his bloodshot eyes, red nose and unsteady gait, has a clear case of alcoholism. Sneezy snorts cocaine; Sleepy shoots up heroin. And Happy? Pot, of course.
"Snow White and the Seven Drugged Dwarfs" was just one of 17 workshops on substance abuse, health and sexuality offered yesterday at Rockland Community College as part of the annual Drug Awareness Day. The eight-hour event, which included a multimedia presentation and an afternoon reception, drew students from public high schools across the county, from the Rockland Board of Cooperative Educational Services and from Daytop Rockland.
"In a lot of ways, this is the first step," event co-chairman John Dunn said about the program's purpose. "An adolescent is probably not going to stop using substances solely because of this program, but it tips the scale a little bit.
"Students will come away with a heightened awareness of the risk and come away with skills to help them address that risk."[Source]
Have we not learned anything from the Sixties? The enormous popularity of Cheech and Chong among potheads shows that portraying marijuana users as happy-go-lucky goofballs does not exactly deter teens from seeking out the weed. In fact, any attempt to portray drug addicts in hip and ironic settings only serves to distance kids from the intended lessons, disassociating the danger from the children's reality.
And speaking of disassociating from reality:
In one of the workshop rooms in Academic II, peer educators from Planned Parenthood passed out cups of water representing body fluids. Except for one cup injected with a faint dye, all the cups were clear. As students, simulating the exchange of body fluids, transferred the contents of their cups to other cups, all of the water gradually became contaminated. The infection, originally carried by one person, had transmitted to all the people.This is a typical Planned Parenthood exercise, and it's deceptive in that it appears to give kids an important message: Sexually transmitted diseases are contagious. But what message does it really give?
"They all reacted, 'Who gave me this?'" said peer educator coordinator Mara Yacobi.
My e-mail server, Panix, announced today that its domain has been stolen.
What that means for me is that I can best be reached via my dawneden.com address, dawn -at- dawneden.com, rather than my Panix one.
As for what it means for Panix, I thought I would post the two notices they've sent out on the subject, in case the techies among you are interested or would like to comment:
[First notice]:
Sat, Jan 15 2005 -- 6:03 AM
------------------------------------
We are currently looking into a very serious error involving our main domain name, "panix.com". It has either been stolen, or been the victim of a very bizarre technical failure on the part of one or more domain registrars or some part or the global DNS system. Some of the entities involved in this failure appear to be in Canada, Great Britain, and Australia, and it's proving challenging to untangle so far. We are of course working on resolving this as soon as possible, since this failure impacts *all* services that use the panix.com name.
Since the errors (or theft) are controlled by domain registrars, and not by us, this is not a simple technical failure that we can resolve on our own by working hard enough. This is a failure of the underlying fabric of the Internet. Since we are reliant on registrars to fix this problem in their databases, we can't provide a definite estimated time to fix this problem. We will however provide updates as sson as we know anything else.
[Second notice:]
Sat, Jan 15 2005 -- 10:39 AM
---------------------------------
Until we resolve the issue of the domain "panix.com", we have set up the domain "panix.net" to include the same names and addresses as "panix.com".
You may use this as a temporary solution for access to mail, webpages, etc. Wherever you would use "panix.com", you can replace it with "panix.net".
The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force's statement in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day features this quote from Jesse Jackson's 1984 Democratic National Convention speech:
The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.My first thought reading that was: And they forced Interior Secretary James Watt out four years later because he bragged that his staff included "a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple"? (Never mind that he also dissed the brothers.)
From Christianity Today's Weblog, for a story about a Christian organization's being told it can't put tsunami orphans in a religious group home, a headline with a rock'n'roll reference: "Hey, Preacher, Leave Those Kids Alone."
Someone known only as "sprflwr" went into the Dawn Patrol archives and made a pro-abortion comment to my entry about Planned Parenthood's reaction to the baseball-bat abortion case:
Planned Parenthood exists to keep incidents like this from happening. The tragedy here is that this young couple was so desperate to end this pregnancy that they took this girl's life into their own hands. Ted Kennedy said it best this Wednesday: "History teaches that abortions do not stop because they are made illegal. Indeed, half of all abortions in the world are performed in places where abortions are illegal." Those who oppose abortion need to face the fact that "the number of abortions is reduced when women and parents have education and economic opportunity." Don't those who care about the right to life have a special obligation to make universal prenatal care -- and health care generally -- a priority? Instead of focusing on making abortions illegal, use your energy to help keep children from getting pregnant in the first place!Would anyone care to post a polite response to that comment in case the commenter returns?
I am happy to report that the news article I linked to earlier about Pope Pius XII's allegedly ordering that Jewish children sheltered by Catholics not be returned to their parents, has been debunked. The Curt Jester has the story.
Jeff Geerling, thank you for not saying, "I told you so."
UPDATE, 7:50 p.m.:
My phone rang at work at 6:30 p.m. today and it was a man identifying himself as Jim Joseph, counsel for NARAL at Arnold & Porter in Washington D.C. The law firm's name was familiar because a reader who had posted a comment to this post, which included a link to his doctored version of the NARAL photo that I had posted, had e-mailed me an hour earlier to say that someone from Arnold & Porter had been viewing his site.
Before Joseph could say anything else, I said, "and you'd like me to take the photo off my site?" He said, "Yes." I said I'd do it immediately, and I did.
That was it. He was perfectly polite. Except that he said he hoped all my eggs died...JUST KIDDING! Please don't call me again on that one.
Because I said, "that photo," and he said, "yes," I believe I am within my rights to reasonably assume he meant only the photo that was taken from NARAL's site—and that Jeff Miller's fine photo of Death as "Pro-Choice America" can stay. And so it will unless and until my phone rings again.
You really have to admire these NARAL folks' research capabilities. They must have looked at their hits from my links to their site, then gone to my site, then dug through my various links until they found where I worked—something that is intentionally not obvious on my site because I wish to retain my safety and privacy. (Then they had to convince the switchboard operator that I work there, which is an effort in itself.)
One interesting result of NARAL's discovering The Dawn Patrol is that the photo I originally featured is no longer on NARAL's site. Apparently that woman is no longer Pro-Choice America. Since she has probably seen what readers have said about her and now realizes what some people think of her position, I think it'd be a good idea to pray that she gains God's wisdom and understanding and doesn't harden her heart. (Those are good prayers for anyone, myself included—not just her.)
The contest is still on, but with a new photo to caption. From now on, please make your captions for this photo from NARAL's gallery [UPDATE, 1/16/05: NARAL removed that photo too]. (Also, please let me know if NARAL takes it away or alters it—right now it's a blond woman holding the sign atop her head.)
Because this whole ordeal has only served to radicalize me, I am now adding to the prizes. Besides the ones mentioned below, I will donate $25 to the pro-life charity of the winner's choice.
Thanks very much for your support and encouragement, which means a lot to me when I come up against resistance, as it inevitably comes. I'm thankful that Jesus has overcome the world.
In the grand tradition of the Iraq Photo Project that had dreadfully earnest-looking Americans holding up "We're Sorry" signs—which Tim Blair hilariously sent up in "THE TERRIFYING FACE OF FORGIVENESS"—comes NARAL's "I Am Pro-Choice America" campaign. Go to its home page and you will find dreadfully earnest-looking images of women in various states of defiance [UPDATE, 1/16/05: NARAL removed all photos], each displaying NARAL's "I Am Pro-Choice America" sign in he office cubicle. It's intended to protest President Bush's inauguration and celebrate the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade.
Which gives me an idea...
