Days of Noah | Ain't Complicated

Eeeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo

How do you spell all those words?! 😯

Whatever. This story is more important:

There is a horrifying slippery slope here. Where do we draw the line? Again, these babies did not have a debilitating lifelong malady. All they had was a chance of developing an illness. What’s next? Poor eyesight or hearing? How about food allergies?

Better yet, why stop at abnormalities? How about insisting they be taller than average, or have superior abilities? While you’re at it, why not also select the eye color and hair color? Don’t just fertilize eleven eggs. Fertilize a hundred, choose the single best one, and destroy the rest.

[…]

We are in an era where science enables us to do wonderful things, but also terrible things. Our public policy must protect life, especially the lives of innocent, unborn children.

And we must never deceive ourselves that we do children a favor by ending their lives as they begin.

PS: If you like to read bumper stickers, check out this one. 🙂

Charm Her xx Off

Does that title shock you for this blog?

That’s the subject of an email in one of my spam boxes.

So’s this: xx xx reveals xx in xx.

(Look, I’m no “prude” but I’m using xx to keep from being flagged by various filters out there.)

I deleted the emails unread. As I have thousands of their ilk over the years.

But I call attention to them because of what I wrote earlier this morning: He Needed Wisdom and Understanding.

A Huge, Negative Experience

OK, here’s the story, with my very own headline:

Stand Up and Be Taped

The third-grade teacher who taped a disobedient child to a chair last month will be disciplined but not fired, the Oakridge School District said.

What type of action will be taken against Jill Tomchak has not been disclosed because personnel decisions are confidential, the Associated Press reports.

She had been placed on administrative leave following the May 28 incident in which a 9-year-old boy was secured to a chair with masking tape after repeatedly refusing to stay seated. The boy’s unwillingness to sit had been a problem throughout the school year.

The boy’s mother, Becky Faile, told The Register-Guard newspaper in this story that she was satisfied with Superintendent Don Kordosky’s decision and will not pursue legal action.

“We’re trusting that since Don got to hear all sides that they’re doing the right thing,” she said.

Faile said her son will stay home for the remaining four days of school, but she expects to send him back to Oakridge Elementary in the fall. Tomchak, a long-time Oakridge teacher did not return a phone call made by the Register-Guard.

Faile told the paper “we decided that would be the worst thing for Austin, to drag this out.” She said another parent contacted the media about the taping and that she “never intended it to be such a huge, negative experience.”

“I was just trying to protect my son,” she said. “When you have your child come home and tell you something like this, you want to defend him.” She said she told Kordosky that she, her husband and Austin would be willing to meet privately with Tomchak this summer to try to put the matter behind them all.

The teacher was disciplined. Why not the child? Oh, wait. He was disciplined…by the teacher. In a manner unacceptable to the parents.

So the mother sets out to defend him.

Did she punish the child, too?

The boy already had a track record for disobedience and uncooperation at school. If that isn’t disciplined out of him by his parents and his teachers, he is in for worse things in life than getting taped to a chair.

Poor little boy.

(I resisted a few urges to call him a brat.) 🙂

Adrift Down the Tubes

Three news items for you to chew on.

Most Americans Say Divorce is Morally Acceptable

A record 70 percent of Americans believe divorce is morally acceptable, according to Gallupâ€™s 2008 Values and Beliefs survey. That’s an 11-point increase from seven years ago.

[…]

Of the pollâ€™s 16 ethical issues rated for moral acceptability, divorce topped the list, followed by gambling, embryonic stem-cell research, homosexuality and abortion. Extramarital affairs â€” often a cause of divorce â€” are at the bottom of the list, with just 7 percent of Americans finding them morally acceptable.

By what moral law and standard do my fellow Americans make this judgment? (At 70%, that includes a lot of real — as well as nominal — Christians. Wow!)

And why does that moral law and standard make extramarital affairs so unacceptable?

OK, here’s the second story:

Boston Doctor Offers Sex Change Treatment to Kids

Dr. Norman Spack, a pediatric specialist at the hospital, has launched a clinic for transgendered kids â€” boys who feel like girls, girls who want to be boys â€” and heâ€™s opening his doors to patients as young as 7.

So Doc Spack is catching lots of flak. I wonder if it’s coming from any in the 70% mentioned above. And why.

Now from the Mail Online (UK), the third story:

Fathers aren’t needed say MPs: Commons decides IVF babies can do without a male role model

Fathers were last night effectively declared an irrelevance in modern Britain.

The requirement for fertility doctors to consider a child’s need for a male role model before giving women IVF treatment was scrapped by MPs.

In a free vote, they swept away the rule despite impassioned pleas that the Government plan would “drive another nail into the coffin of the traditional family”.

Labour rebels said it would send entirely the wrong signal to society as Britain faces a crisis in responsible parenting. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, had warned it would remove the father from the heart of the family.

What’s the Point?

Today I finished reading Joel C. Rosenberg’s latest “Christian” novel, Dead Heat.

It’s interesting.

Especially since the author seems well-connected and in-the-know. And at times he could seem remotely semi-prophetic (in a forth-telling sort of way).

But what’s the point and purpose of the novel?

And why would Christians kill or order the deaths of others?

And why did Mr. Rosenberg include an extremely brief — part of a sentence, as I recall — mention of passionate physical intimacy between two of the main characters?

Most importantly to me, perhaps, is something far more personal — Why did I read the book?

Oh my.

Pity Aliza

She’s Exercising Her “Rights”:

Art major Aliza Shvarts ’08 wants to make a statement.

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts’ project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock . saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.

But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for “shock value.”

“I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts said.

It has, Aliza.

And I hope it also inspires some sort of praying.

News to Start Your Day

We start in Texas:

Texas defends separation of polygamist sect kids from moms

State officials Tuesday defended their decision to suddenly separate mothers from many of the children taken in a raid on a polygamist ranch in West Texas.

Texas Children’s Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said the separation was made Monday after they decided that children are more truthful in interviews about possible abuse if their parents are not around.

When state troopers and child welfare officials seized 416 children from the compound, 139 women accompanied them on their own and had been allowed to stay with the children until Monday, when they were driven back to the compound.

Only women with children under 5 could stay at the San Angelo Coliseum where they were being held.

[…]

Authorities raided the sect’s ranch more than a week ago in response to allegations that underage girls were forced to marry older men.

About three dozen of the women who returned to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ranch spoke out Monday, after 11 days in temporary shelters. They said in interviews that police surrounded them Monday and gave them a choice between returning home, or relocating to a women’s shelter.

“It just feels like someone is trying to hurt us,” said Paula, 38, who like other members of the sect declined to give her full name. “I do not understand how they can do this when they don’t have a for sure knowledge that anyone has abused these children.”

[…]

The state is accusing the sect of physically and sexually abusing the youngsters and wants to strip their parents of custody and place the children in foster care or put them up for adoption.

[…]

Officials said the investigation began with a call from a young girl who has yet to be located by CPS. The women in the sect said they suspect she may be a bitter ex-member of the church.

The FLDS practice polygamy in arranged marriages, sometimes between underage girls and older men. The group has thousands of followers in two side-by-side towns in Arizona and Utah.

The church has repeatedly fought because of its lifestyle before. Men, women and children have been swept up in raids that took place in 1944 and 1953.

I’m still amazed CPS can get away with this. And I think I’m even more amazed there hasn’t been a greater outcry “out there.” Maybe this country is further gone than even I imagined.

(The rest of my comments and other news selections are below the fold.)

Read it all