This week two of my favorite musicians passed away. Johnny Cash, the legendary Man in Black, and Warren Zevon, the Excitable Boy, both joined the celestial choir this week. Their songs were important to me and I will miss them both. In memorial, I would just like to share the impact that they had on my life. I would never have said that I liked country music until I heard Johnny Cash perform "A Boy Named Sue." (Written by children's story writer Shel Silverstein, I should add.) The song is wi...
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is donating $51 million to the City of New York to create small, academically rigorous high-schools to help students prepare for successful careers. “Nearly one of three eighth graders in America today will not graduate from high school,” said Bill Gates. “New York City is demonstrating how we can bring our schools into the 21st century to make sure that all students, not just a select few, are prepared for college and the workplace. Our country’s civic, ...
I read an interesting article in Time Magazine today entitled "Inside the War on Hamas." I have linked to it below. Two things are apparent to me: 1- Under the current state of affairs, no real peace process can go forward without the active participation of Hamas. I don't just mean peace between Israel and the Palestinians, I mean peace in the entire region. Please note also that I began by saying "Under the current state of affairs." 2- Hamas has little or no incentive to participate in a...
Researchers will begin testing an experimental HIV vaccine on 24 human volunteers in South Africa, a country where almost 5 million people are infected with the AIDS-causing virus. The vaccine contains parts of a weakened strain of Venezuelan equine encephalitis and a harmless gene from a South African HIV strain. It is very early on, but with millions of people effected by the AIDS virus, keep your fingers crossed for the success of this vaccine!
This is a reprint of a story that appeared on the HonestReporting.Com website regarding media bias. It seems that the AP and Reuters news services don't think that the terrorist attacks in Israel are worth reporting. Now that is different than saying the attacks are justified. To deny that the attacks are even worthy of being listed.....well, words fail me. *************************************************************************** AP, REUTERS OMIT TERROR IN ISRAEL Dear HonestReporting...
The United States has rushed to the aid of earthquake victims in Iran. While we may end up at war with the government of Iran in the near future, I think that it shows the humanity of Americans that we have rushed to help the Iranian people. The death toll after the recent earthquake in the city of Bam now stands at 28,000. Without food, blankets and medical supplies, more people would have died. So far, the United States has rushed over 168.5 tons of supplies to the region. Now the US is ...
An earthquake of 6.3 magnitude struck the city of Barn in Iran on Saturday. Casualty estimates vary from 5,000 to 20,000 dead. Eighty percent of the historic city was destroyed and the truth is that no one knows how many are dead in the rubble. The government of Iran has appealed for international aid and US and European aid teams are expected to arrive beginning today. It is freezing cold in the city and many people only have the clothes that they were wearing when the quake hit. The city ha...
The story goes as follows: In 1945, a gentleman named William Sianis tried to bring his billy goat to the World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Detroit Tigers. Now, while this might seem unusual, given that Mr. Sianis was the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago one can see that this was a brilliant marketing ploy. Due to personal hygiene problems (presumably the goat was the offender) Mr. Sianis was denied admission. Not a man to be taken lightly, he stood outside of Wrigley Field ...
According to a new study reported in The Archives of Internal Medicine the number of severly obese people, people more than 100 pounds overweight, has increased dramatically. Based on a telephone study of 1.5 million adults conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 50 adults is severly obese. Compare that to 1986, when 1 in 200 adults was severly obese and you can see that we have a growing problem. During that same time the rate of moderate obesity roughly doubled, from ...
This is a wonderful article that put a smile on my face. Ikea is the largest chain of furniture stores in the world, with annual sales of over $12 billion. But the founder, Ingvar Kamprad, who may be the richest man in the world or only number 13 (whats a couple of billion dollars between friends?) is also among the world's most........well, frugal is the second word that came to mind. Kamprad founded Ikea in 1943 when he was only 17 and, despite being forced to officially retire, he re...
Common people sometimes do uncommon things. These are the real heroes and they deserve our respect. Every generation seems to have its own Holocaust, to produce its own deathcamps. Yet, at the same time, every generation produces those unafraid to stand up to the evil, to be that generations Oskar Schindlers. During the ethnic cleansings in Rwanda, men like Evariste Nyatanyi stod up to mobs and saved lives. Click on the link to read their stories.
My cousin is an Arab. Well, that is not literally true, but I bet that it got your attention. What is literally true is that Jews and Arabs share many of the same roots, both cultually and genetically. Both are Semetic peoples and if you accept the Bible, both are descended from the Patriarch Abraham. But there is another element that we have in common. Both are victims of stereotyping. I watched author Jack Shaheen speak today and he makes many good points. He has writtem several boks ...
Jose Luis Zapatero was elected just days after the terrorist bombing killed 200 Spanish citizens, in large measure because of his promise to withdraw Spanish troops from the multi-national force in Iraq. Yet today he seemed angered at charges of cowardice. At a Socialist Party conference today, the Prime-Minister Elect said ""No Spanish government has given into terror and no government will do that." He continued "My priority is to fight every type of terrorism. Terrorists are going to fi...
Terrorist attacks by Hamas have taken a new and ugly turn, with unwilling Palestinian children having bombs strapped to their bodies. In two separate incidents in Israel, the bomb carriers have been teenage boys who were terrified at what they were being forced to do. Near Nablus, Israeli soldiers stopped a 14-year old boy with a bomb vest strapped to his body. The entire incidenet was caught on videotape. To quote the referenced article: "In dramatic images caught on camera, the teenag...
In an online document, Al Qaeda posted their plan to use terrorist acts to influence the Spanish government and force a withdrawal from Iraq. This document was posted months before the bombings last week. What is astonishing is that Al Qaeda was able to execute the plan to perfection and get exactly the desired results. Posted in December on a message board, the Al Qaeda document predicted the Spanish reaction to terrorist acts: "We think the Spanish government will not stand more than t...