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...
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 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...
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!
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 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 ...
I don't hate Rush Limbaugh. Oh sure, I disagree with him strongly about most (well, maybe every) topic. But I don't hate him amd I find nothing joyful in his personal problems. And I don't understand why anyone would. When I came home today, I found that Michael Moore was in Ann Arbor, where I live. Mr. Moore was on a speaking tour for his new book "Dude, Where's My Country?" He had this to say about Rush Limbaugh: "I have been trying for the for the last 48 hours, with every single bone in m...
I saw this article on CNN this morning: "President Bush next week will lay out his "vision for expanding the space program," which is expected to include long-term proposals for manned missions to the moon and an eventual manned mission to Mars, senior administration officials say." The proposed date for the next moon flight would be 2018. Also rumoured is an eventual manned flight to Mars. The current shuttle fleet would be retired and replaced with more modern technology and the curre...
***WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SOME SATIRE MEANT FOR ADULT SENSIBILITIES! THERE IS NO INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE, BUT THERE ARE SOME ELEMENTS THAT MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME. SATIRE HAS LONG BEEN USED TO DRAMATIZE A POINT AND IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE ORIGIANL "MODEST PROPOSAL' REFERENCES, I SUGGEST THAT YOU LOOK UP JONATHAN SWIFT. NO HARM IS INTENDED BY THIS POST.********* White collar crime has reached epidemic proportions in America today. The CEOs of WorldCom, Enron, Tyco and others hav...
Earlier tonight, researching a response to a post about Israel's supposedly one-sided war against the PLO, I came across an open letter from the head of the World Lebanese Organization to the American Congress. It is linked here and is certainly worth reading for anyone interested in the truth about the Middle East, about the fate of Christians in that part of the world and for humanitarians in general. The letter calls attention to the plight of the Christian community in Lebanon which lives...
I've been following this story for a while now, and very frankly don't know what to make of it. Ivan Rybkin is the opposition candidate running against Vladimir Putin for the Russian Presidency. The election is scheduled for March 14th. Last week, his driver and bodyguard dropped him off at his Moscow home. That was the last time that he was seen for days. By Monday of last week an investigation into his possible murder started. Then stopped. About an hour after publicly saying that the ca...
My heart goes out to the victims of the bombings. As of this time, the death toll stands at 192 dead and 1400 wounded. An awful, awful tragedy. I must ask, what manner of creature would plan and execute such an action? How could they possibly feel that such an action was justified? This attack was not against military targets, but against civilians (if such a term is relevant anymore.) How many of the innocents were children? Less than 24 hours ago, I was posting my feelings about te...