2009-11-21

Halloween Candy Proselytizing

This is beyond poor taste. I am just now still pulling Halloween candy out of my daughter's bag, and found two of these bible tracts in zip lock bags with the candy given by two different people.  The way these are given to and marketed towards children with cartoons is nothing new, but to me, incredibly offensive. It would be the same as if someone were to draw political talking points as cartoons and handed out to children as young as two. You would say that's in poor taste wouldn't you?

proselytize much?

click the images for full size

 


















And this one takes the cake:



















































2009-11-17

Bible Verse of the Day

There is some good stuff in the bible.  I will not deny it. It is few and far between, but it is there.

 

1 Corinthians 13

               

13:1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.               

13:2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.           

13:3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

13:4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

13:5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;            

13:6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;          

13:7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

13:8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.    

13:9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.   

13:10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.        

13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.               

13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

 

 

 

This is America?

I was very moved by the piece on last night’s Countdown – a story about free clinics, ordinarily reserved for third world countries. But this was in New Orleans, LA. Another one is scheduled for Little Rock, AR.

 

I will repost the story of Rich Stockwell who was there. If this isn’t a case for healthcare now, I don’t know what is.

 

Health reform's human stories

Countdown producer bears witness to America's health care shortcomings

MSNBC

updated 6:39 p.m. CT, Mon., Nov . 16, 2009

 

Rich Stockwell

Senior producer, 'Countdown'

 

New Orleans, La. — - It happened as I watched a 50-something woman walk out, after spending several hours being attended to by volunteer doctors. "She's decided against treatment. A reasonable decision under the circumstances," the doctor tells us as she heads for the next patient. The president of the board of the National Association of Free Health Clinics tells me why: "It's stage four breast cancer, her body is filled with tumors." I don't know when that woman last saw a doctor. But I do know that if she had health insurance, the odds she would have seen a doctor long ago are much higher, and her chances for an earlier diagnosis and treatment would have been far greater.

 

After watching for hours as the patients moved through the clinic, it was hard to believe that I was in America.

 

Eighty-three percent of the patients they see are employed, they are not accepting other government help on a large scale, not "welfare queens" as some would like to have us believe. They are tax-paying, good, upstanding citizens who are trying to make it and give their kids a better life just like you and me.

 

Ninety percent of the patients who came through Saturday's clinic had two or more diagnoses.

Eighty-two percent had a life-threatening condition such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or hypertension. They are victims of a system built with corporate profits at its center, which long ago forgot the moral imperative that should drive us to show compassion to our fellow men and women.

 

Health reform is not about Democrats or Republicans or who can score political points for the next election, it's about people. It's about fairness and justice in a system that knows none. I'd defy even the most hardened capitalist-loving-conservative to do what I did on Saturday and continue to pretend that the system in place right now is working.

 

Countdown chose to highlight and raise money for the Association of Free Clinics because we knew the work they do is so vitally important and we wanted to show in real terms how great the need is. We invited several politicians to attend so they could see first hand how critical the situation is. All declined. Some explained that they talk with constituents all the time and know very well of the need for reform.

 

I have news for them, these people didn't need to speak. Their actions spoke far louder than any words. Having to get a check up and diagnoses at a free clinic because they have no other option tells you all you need to know. There are no words that can accurately describe the quiet desperation on the faces of the patients. Every single one I spoke to, and every one I heard talking with doctors, expressed their gratitude for the event and wished that they were held more often.

 

They have been given the resources in their local communities with which they can get follow up care, but they are also the few. Over 700-thousand people in Louisiana alone have no health care, most of them with jobs that don't offer insurance.

 

Or, worse, they have to decide whether to pay for that or food and housing. Four patients were taken out on stretchers and admitted immediately to hospitals. One woman who didn't know why she was feeling bad had a blood pressure of 280 over 180, numbness in her right arm, and "a slight headache." She now has a shot at survival, but without her attendance at the clinic, it was a matter of time before the inevitable happened.

 

I spoke with a nurse who was there not as a volunteer, but as a patient. He works two part time jobs at hospitals providing quality care to those who have the one thing he doesn't. Many of his patients share his condition of high blood pressure, but they are fortunate to have insurance to pay for him to care for them while he goes without.

 

His situation is not uncommon, he has tried for years to get more hours at one of his jobs so he will be eligible for benefits, but it hasn't happened yet. Our system of for-profit health care can't afford to give him and others benefits - might make the stock price drop a penny or two.

The last time the media gathered at that convention center, it was for a natural disaster in which our government was rendered useless due to incompetence.

 

This time we were there to cover a man-made disaster of even larger proportions. This is a disaster that goes largely unseen by most Americans. It is not too late for our current government to show that they are competent, and can do what the vast majority of Americans are asking them to. The incredibly dedicated people at the Association of Free Clinics told me the clinic would change me and I knew it would. None but the most hardened and heartless among us could watch that event and not be moved to action.

 

I have changed. I am gratified that just over one thousand people were able to get the minimal amount of care and resources for follow up. But, I am heart-sick for the many more like them who didn't have the time or didn't know that they could get care on Saturday.

 

They walk through their lives not knowing when the ticking time bomb might go off.

Politicians continue to tell us we are the most compassionate and caring people, and clearly we have done much good in the world. I left the event overwhelmed by the hard work and dedication of the volunteers, doctors, nurses, other medical professionals, as well as ordinary citizens who came to help. I am left with one overwhelming question: what does it say about us as a nation of people who can live in a country so rich and yet allow this to continue?

 

© 2009 msnbc.com

 

 

 

 

2009-11-16

People who do not deserve to have kids - Human Trafficking edition

Police: Search is on for N.C. girl's body

By Gabriel Falcon, CNN

November 16, 2009 10:24 a.m. EST

 

(CNN) -- About 200 people were searching Monday in North Carolina for the body of a missing 5-year-old girl after "reliable information" indicated that she may be dead, Fayetteville, North Carolina, police said.

 

The search focused on land near a roadway because "reliable information received that the body of Shaniya Davis may have been dumped there," the Fayetteville Police Department said in a statement.

 

Investigators have been searching for Shaniya for several days.

 

Police charged the girl's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, with trafficking and other offenses, authorities said. Davis was "prostituting her child," said Fayetteville police spokeswoman Theresa Chance.

 

Other charges against the mother include felony child abuse, prostitution and filing a false police report, according to the Fayetteville Police Department.

2009-11-10

Road Closures tomorrow (2009-11-11)

Some kind of Country Music thing in conjunction with a Veterans Day Parade.

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