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Getting Used to Things
The things we grow used to. This piece in the New York Times this morning, on the difficulty of agreeing about how to remember the days when Montgomery, Alabama, was a center of the slave trade illustrates how "Southern history is a custody battle still in litigation," and it reminded me of an interview with Shelby Foote, which I bumped into a few days ago while looking for something else.
Foote, a native of the Mississippi Delta, spoke mostly of William Faulkner (to whom, as a young man, he had boldly introduced himself while his best friend, Walker Percy, shyly cowered in a car parked in Faulkner's driveway) but he included some searing, honest and fascinating comments about racism and the culture in which he grew up. Acknowledging the evil of it, he nevertheless remembers how that culture could regard a black person (though he doesn't use that term) as "somewhere between an animal and a human being," and admits that "I lived in a society that was filled with horrors…they were not horrors at the time."
I can't help but wonder if there will come a time when many of us will be speaking of the commonplace, unremarkable horrors of our own time and country, among them, the aborting of nearly a million unborn children annually and our evident nonchalance about it.
We can get used to anything, it seems.
About the Author
Michael O. Garvey works in public relations at the University of Notre Dame.
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The anti-abortion movement needs its own William Wilberforce, a voice (male or female) to champion the cause of the estimated 42 million human beings aborted worldwide each year. It took Wilberforce almost 30 years to open the eyes of Parliament to the moral reality of the British slave trade and its brisk and profitable business in the buying and selling of human beings as chattel.
We are used to women getting abortions because the men who impregnated them are not held responsible for the offspring they engender.
With all the advances in DNA, the men can be identified. There would be fewer abortions if men were forced to support all their children through college. (Odd how bishops, priests, editors of and contributors to Catholic publications, Catholic laymen, Catholic legislators, et al. do and say nothing to ensure that simple solution.)
(Another simple solution which so many Catholic men oppose or refuse to promote is contraception.)
Plenty of "nonchalance" when it comes to men. Plenty of "finding fault" when it comes to women.
Faulkner is one of the few 20th century American writers that I deeply appreciate. I doubt that anything beats "The Bear" in white writing for forcing a confrontation with the intricacy (and intensity) of white/black relations in the South at the tims. His white characters seem haunted and even dumbfounded by their relations (in more than sense of the word) with blacks. I think, though, that his black characters are sometimes treated as ciphers or totems (a sort of proto-"magic negro" phenomenon); I suspect that that is a manifestation of their white counterparts (and Faulkner?) inability to find them as more than inscrutable.
Perhaps one of the "commonplace, unremarkable horrors of our own time and country" that we'll contemplate in the future will be the way the Catholic church preached population growth and an end to contraception in the very face of the escalating ruin of our rnvironment.
It's the "of our time" that I object to, when it seems pretty obvious that the phenomenon of unwanted pregnancy followed by potions and mechanical interventions to terminate pregnancy spans most of recorded history. Bill Collier, do you really believe women don't comprehend abortion? Or do you just disagree how and by whom the stakes and trade offs are weighed?
Come now, plenty of people are speaking out every day about things they consider to be horrors: not only abortion, but the horror of providing basic sustenance and insured medical care for infants, an adequate education for older children, and decent jobs for young and older adults. They are horrified that we have allowed a square yard of the Middle East to go unbombed, that citizens can vote unharassed, that a man who received substantial majorities of popular and electoral votes—twice—is serving as president, that the rich don't yet own everything, that people who love each other should be allowed to marry, and that some people are having sex that is not "open to life." (partial list)
Horror fatigue is a constant danger. People can only absorb so much horror before they turn away. Inveighers against horror might be more successful if they chose just one thing to denounce and fight against. But that would leave too much of humanity unrebuked.
Mr. Garvey - think I understand your opinion piece and your comparison but would suggest that you are mixing apples and oranges (it looks comparable but it isn't when you get down to the nuances). There is no comparison (except in general) between slavery and abortion.
Abortion involves the only area (IMO) in which we have a situation of potential life that resides and depends upon the mother's life to survive. Thus, you see the comments above which begin to reflect the complexity of the abortion debate. (it makes your comparison simplistic and thus my comment that it is apples to oranges)
Issue - the typical statement is that life begins at conception (but, how is this understood?) Science (genetics, biogenetics, bio-ethics, medical science) all point to a process for the beginning of life (just in nature itself 60% or more of all cells fail to be implanted and start development and we don't call that abortion).
An exclusive focus on abortion misses the fact that, too often, anti-abortionist forget about the infant, once born.
So, some thoughts:
- US has about 1 mil abortions annually (which has decreased over time)
- US has about 50 mil living in poverty (15 mil are children)
- More than 1,000 children die per day around the world because of poor diet, lack of food, clean water, lack of healthcare (why aren't these issues just as important or more important than abortion? Do we have a Fortnight of Freedom on these US issues?)
- Society today can easily enforce tough criminal charges and imprisonment for those involved in slavery. Can you say the same about a poor woman who opts to have an abortion? Will she be charged with murder? Put in jail?
- Speaking about slavery - we are now becoming aware of the reality that millions of women/girls/children are victims of sex slavery......isn't this just as important an issue as abortion?
Yes, would love to see the world increase its awareness and share a basic duty to protect life - but when are we prepared to begin that duty? (would suggest that this is the underlying difference between your simple comparison of slavery and abortion)
Mr. Garvey,
Thank you for sharing your perspective.
I agree that the desire to "normalize" abortion is pernicious.
Jim P., are you willing to regard the irresponsibility of some men about the pregnancies they are involved in as "normal?"
C'mon, Barbara LNU, you know I didn't say that. Society as a whole needs to experience a paradigmatic shift regarding the moral worth of the fetus, and that would include implementation of comprehensive social and economic safety nets that would both emphasize the inestimable moral value of human life and provide women contemplating abortions for economic reasons with another option.
But of course not all women "comprehend abortion" in moral terms. An influential icon of the feminist movement, and recent Presidential Medal of Freedom awardee, has posed with a big smile in her "I Had An Abortion" t-shirt as part of a Planned Parenthood campaign. IMO Ms. Steinem appears to place little if any moral worth on the fetus in her comprehension of abortion.
In a country that cannot even make free contraception part of health care without the church and others flipping their wigs, I don't think conservatives have much moral high ground on this whole issue.
Snopes, dammit!
Molly, I guess I don't see the parallel, but, in answer to your question - no, of course not.
Assuming my opinion on a question of Michael O. Garvey's sincerity matters little to anyone other than myself, I remind myself I have no reason to doubt his deeply charitable motives and convictions. Nonetheless IMO he once again comments upon a unquestionably sizeable and very real challenge from a self righteous position.
I cannot tell if he is making a comparison or an analogy or both between slavery and abortion. Either way, how in the world does that work? Are the women who have abortions in some way the same as slave owners? Are the aborted fetuses in some way the same as slaves? If so, in what distorted moral madness does such "reasoning" find usefulness?
There is no understandable much less acceptable defense of slave owners. None. There is an understandable and, in some circumstances acceptable, defense of women who have abortions. Before the self righteousness flows like water I remind you a defense is NOT the same a full throated approval. As for the second part, an aborted fetus as a representation of a slave, it is a notion so devoid of rationality I have no idea how to speak to it.
Finally, I remind Michael O. Garvey the profoundly tragic reality to which he speaks is one he is guaranteed to never experience for reasons to be found in the logic of coin tossing or in the divine wisdom of God. Either way the suffering he experiences pales in comparison to that of the women who actually experience the tragedy.
Merely to hear Shelby Foote talk is an absolute delight! Ken Burns did not use him enough.
Bill Collier,
I am all for offering women options that don't force decisions that they find economically necessary but morally objectionable. But not all women (or men) find abortion to be morally objectionable, not in the way or for the reasons that Catholic church does. Which is not the same as saying that "not all women 'comprehend abortion' in moral terms," but that not all women comprehend abortion in the same moral terms that you do.
I cannot tell if he is making a comparison or an analogy or both between slavery and abortion. Either way, how in the world does that work?
Slavery is a monumental evil that was nevertheless accepted as "business as usual" for centuries.
Abortion is a monumental evil that runs the risk of becoming accepted as "business as usual".
No analogy is perfect, but this one is pretty straightforward. And reasonably apt.
The attempts in this thread to explain away or justify abortion are some of the most depressing things I've read in a long time.
What I find bothersome and pointless about comparing abortion to slavery: slavery was legal in some states and illegal in others. It was finally outlawed, but only after a long and bloody civil war.
As difficult as it may be to obtain, abortion is legal in all 50 states. Since there's no Mason-Dixon line separating abortion and non-abortion states, it can't be eradicated by a civil war--as if we should welcome another civil war anyway. There are simply too many people who sincerely believe abortion should remain legal,.
The Catholic Church teaches its members that abortion is a grave sin. But in a pluralistic society, just as Catholics would resist a ban on blood transfusions because the Jehovah's Witnesses oppose transfusion, non-Catholics who disagree with the Church will resist being forced to abide by Catholic teaching on abortion. This is not going to change.
JP - your reply is sad. It continues a simplistic black and white reality.
You might benefit from reflecting on the words of Francis:
"We cannot forget that evangelization is first and foremost about preaching the Gospel to those who do not know Jesus Christ or who have always rejected him."
"Christians have the duty to proclaim the Gospel without excluding anyone," he continued. "Instead of seeming to impose new obligations, they should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet. It is not by proselytizing that the Church grows, but 'by attraction.'"
The *Just Say No* approach didn't work in the drug wars and it doesn't work today in abortion.
Many people who want to keep abortion legal may nevertheless be ambivalent and uneasy about it. Some of them might have been persuaded to oppose it if anti-abortion activists had not worked so diligently to weaken their own case and turn potential supporters away. By condemning contraception as contrary to natural law and gay relationships as intrinsically disordered and any departure from its teaching about sex as mortal sin, the Catholic Church has caused many decent, sane people to stop listening and avert their gaze from a father's nakedness. In asserting an authority it no longer has and insisting on all-or-nothing obedience, it is losing whatever chance it had to receive a sympathetic hearing on abortion.
A rational, humane, persistent, and non-accusatory exposition of the Church's teaching on the sanctity of life, decoupled from all the other stuff, might gain some attention and respect, especially if it was accompanied by sincere and effective regard for the anguish and desperation that often drive women to seek an abortion. Denouncing abortion as monumental evil, even if that is one's wholehearted belief, will not win many converts.
Jim Pauwels,
I've followed your posts for several years and I know that you're no right-winger. You are are a voice of reason. Stick to your beliefs and continue to speak as you do.
Slavery is a monumental evil that was nevertheless accepted as "business as usual" for centuries.
Millennia, not just centuries. And "monumental evil" may be an overstatement of a situation that, like religion, has involved nearly all people from the days our Ancestors switched first from gathering/hunting to gardening and then to agriculture. Making people give up the old leisurely ways and turn to tilling the soil by the sweat of their brows required harsh measures -- religion and slavery. (Are all priests/shamans and all captors and overseers of slaves burning in hell?)
Abortion is a monumental evil that runs the risk of becoming accepted as "business as usual".
Do you think abortion has not been "business as usual" for as long as agriculture and religion? (Longer, of course, because the Ancestors in the days before agriculture and religion were knowledgable about the properties of various plants, including those that could end pregnancies. A hunting/gathering woman could only manage one infant at a time.)
Denouncing abortion as monumental evil, even if that is one's wholehearted belief, will not win many converts.
Failing to convert the closed-hearted is an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of truth-telling. Telling bishops they are craven for shielding child-abusing clerics has not won their affection, either, but surely it is necessary. And, in fact, truth-telling does win converts - among those who are open to the truth. It seems to me that speaking the truth is Step One in any program to restore justice and, ultimately, peace.
The truth should be told in love, not hatred. You're quite right that sympathy - love - for pregnant women is both essential and important. As we feel and express that sympathy and love, we still need to speak the truth.
"Christians have the duty to proclaim the Gospel without excluding anyone," he continued. "Instead of seeming to impose new obligations, they should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet. It is not by proselytizing that the Church grows, but 'by attraction.'"
Bill - if you think that the Holy Father wants us to follow this program while accepting abortion as business as usual, then I fear you've misunderstood him.
And the argument gets even stranger as anti-abortion people condemn Nelson Mandela .... http://www.uscatholic.org/news/201312/world-mourns-nelson-mandela-aborti...
Now you are putting words in my mouth - never said business as usual.
You have to encounter people where they are at - prophetic witness is necessary (but as the comment above said well) your position comes across as condemnation, judgment, etc. It doesn't help the common good conversation.
Crystal's posted link is just another example of the rabid anti-aboriton folks who forget the gospel and even forget pro-life. Mandela forgave those espousing apartheid; he negotiated; and compromised to achieve freedom. Your statement doesn't sound like Mandela - it has no hint of forgiveness; no compromise, etc.
It is a complex issue that the bishops/popes have only made more difficult - contraception, a vision of family, isse of gays, role of women - all impact the conversation on abortion. Finally, as I tried to state initially, two big issues remain - what does *conception* mean? and what do you do in terms of civil law in a pluralistic society?
Didn't really like Sanctuary, to be honest.
Jim, At its most fundamental, slavery, particularly American ante bellum slavery and then Jim Crow is a form of tribalism -- exploitation of others by reason of ethnic heritage that makes them identifiably distinct from that of a favored group, sometimes but not always the majority. There is an in group and an out group.
Abortion isn't that. Indeed, an honest moral framework would recognize that pregnancy isn't "like" anything else at all, and would account for its unique status in trying to address its moral dimension. Catholic moral reasoning doesn't do that.
Failing to convert the closed-hearted is an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of truth-telling.
First you have to listen to the people you want to convert. Listen to them with your own heart open, so that you can put yourself in their place and understand their perspective. It seems to me that "Step One" is not "speaking the truth" but listening, and you are unable to do that. You are unable to do that, because your own absolutely negative reaction to abortion prevents you from hearing the voices of those who do not find abortion so gravely sinful always and everywhere.
Then, what to do? What can you do if something bothers you so much that you feel a compulsive need to voice your horror ("truth-telling", as you call it), but the very strength of your allergic reaction prevents you from being able to reach out to the margins? When you speak up under such circumstances, it is primarily for your own benefit - to get it off your chest -, not for the benefit of the people who have a different perspective ("closed-hearted", as you call them). It happens to me sometimes that I speak up about something, knowing that people will probably not understand me, but just because I cannot stay silent. It's not wise, and usually unproductive, but it makes me feel better.
Though I'm against criminalizing abortion, I do understand about making a strenuous argument for what you believe in, even if no one else wants to hear what you have to say. Today I saw an article at ABC Religion & Ethics by a theology professor at Fordham, giving Catholic reasons for vegetarianism. I'm a vegetarian and I know from experience that almost no one wnats to even entertain the moral arguments for not eating meat - they want to eat meat and they don't want to conside the unpleasant details that might make them feel guilty about doing that. I still bring it up, though, for the reasons mentioned in the article ... http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/12/04/3905260.htm ... maybe arguing against abortion is like that?
Sorry, I'm terrible at pasting links ... http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/12/04/3905260.htm
It happens to me sometimes that I speak up about something, knowing that people will probably not understand me, but just because I cannot stay silent. It's not wise, and usually unproductive, but it makes me feel better.
Claire - I usually feel bad when I speak up about something and I realize that nobody understood it, or worse, everyone dismissed it. It is not out of a desire to feel good that anyone who opposes abortion dares to put that opposition into words, at least in a room full of people who are allied with those who bear implacable enmity toward pro-life views. There are friendlier forums around for feel-good condemnations. I try to stay away from that sort of thing. That's living in a bubble. If all we do is expose ourselves to opinions like our own, we'll never get anywhere.
First you have to listen to the people you want to convert. Listen to them with your own heart open, so that you can put yourself in their place and understand their perspective
A dialogue requires both listening and speaking. Both parties have this dual responsibility: to listen with an open heart, and to speak the truth. When I wrote that abortion is a monumental evil, it was my turn to speak. That is part of a dialogue, too. And so I did: I spoke the truth. I spoke after I had already listened to (read) the reactions to the original post. I did listen, and with an open heart. Why do you suppose that I don't listen? I have heard, weighed and evaluated what was written here. Do you doubt my sincerity? Do you not see that it is possible to listen with an empathetic ear and still come to the conclusion, "As important or dire as all these other things can be, it is still worse to kill unborn children in large numbers, as we do in the US"?
I also didn't like Sanctuary. The same goes for Soldier's Pay.
Wait a minute ... I might not have read Sanctuary. I was thinking of Sartoris -- didn't like it.
I spoke the truth.
You expressed an opinion.
Immured in their Tower of Truth, Church leaders issue their pronouncements as if they were working a geometry problem. It's all very tidy. Truth descends from on high, preordained and unalterable, rather than bubbling up from the mire and flow of biology and hard experience. Anyone seen to deviate an inch from the Truth must be reproved as an evildoer and called back brusquely to duty and submission.
It's all in the service of Truth, and no one can argue with that, I suppose. But it's lousy psychology, and retrograde. Why, a man had a better understanding of human hearts two thousand years ago.
Jim - I do not see that abortion is one and the same at conception and late in pregnancy. Yes, I realize that there are people who genuinely believe that abortion is murder, even abortion very early on.
But I object to calling the anti-abortion stance "truth-telling" because the analogue on the other side would be to say that calling the fertilized egg a person "is false and wrong". That's not dialogue: it's not saying "in my view,...", but claiming that one's side owns the truth. That's not inviting, and I think that it's not going to help any. But frankly, I am not sure what would help.
Crystal: yes, sometimes it's hard to refrain from making fun of vegetarians.
JP - some words of wisdom in the comments above esp. Barbara and Claire.
You might want to read the post that Mollie Wilson O'Reilly just posted and the NY Post response to NY "Invisible Child". (thought exercise - replace invisible child with those who have had abortions)
Too much of the anti-abortion meme sounds like the NY Post - some highlights:
- "it makes the invisible visible, and tells the story of people whose voice is seldom heard. Its generous sweep takes in not just the "invisible" but massive problem of the economically poor, homeless, mentally unstable, single, lonely, ignored, etc., but also the problems that plague public schools, and the conflicts that reformers' interventions can create; the tangle of social agencies (or Church agencies) designed to help people like Dasani's family, and the circumstances that keep clients from reaping the benefits; and the attempts made under Mayor Michael Bloomberg to address these issues and how they have fared."
- this excerpt gets at one of the issues about many who seek abortions; lack the means, knowledge, or emotional stability to use birth control, etc. It is a complex issue.
- and here is the Post response and the anti meme who are too often subjected to:
'....projecting a highly simplified argument and perspective onto a deeply complicated story, and then sneering: "The Times like much of the liberal establishment, seem to think it's the city's job to provide comfortable lives to outrageously irresponsible parents. In this case, that's a couple with a long history of drug problems and difficulty holding jobs. Something's wrong with that picture." (In other words, just say no)
The personal struggles of Dasani's parents, from drug addiction to emotional immaturity to general discouragement and despair, are vividly depicted in Elliot's story (that's how the Post knows about them). So are the economic conditions that make a phrase like "difficulty holding jobs" dishonest at best. But what "Invisible Child" focuses on most of all is the kids, Dasani and her siblings and all the others housed at their shelter and in places like it. They live in squalor -- the description of the bathroom they must share with other shelter residents is enough to make you cry -- they go to school hungry, and they are destined to grow up both much too fast and not at all.
And the NY Post splashes the headline - homelessness hooey and Mollie responds: "But what really makes that last line heartless is its implication that the story Elliot did report on is not worth telling. In fact, it's "hooey." (too often the anti abortion meme)
Some quotes from Pope Francis' address to Catholic gynecologists on 9/20/2013.
Every unborn child, condemned unjustly to being aborted, has the face of the Lord, who before being born, and then when he was just born, experienced the rejection of the world.
Dear doctor friends, you who are called to take care of human life in its initial phase, all of you must remember with facts and words, that this is always, in all its phases and at every age, sacred and is always of quality. And not because of a discourse of faith, but of reason and science!
You might want to read the post that Mollie Wilson O'Reilly just posted and the NY Post response to NY "Invisible Child". (thought exercise - replace invisible child with those who have had abortions)
Bill - I sincerely think you've misidentified the primary victim of abortion in your thought experiment. I do think, though, that your analogy can be brought into alignment with the point of the original post:
- Slavery and Jim Crow society in the US were pervasive, monstrous evils to which large numbers of respectable American citizens accommodated themselves, and many benefitted from - had a real stake in preserving the monstrous status quo
- Abortion on demand in the US is a pervasive, monstrous evil to which large numbers of respectable American citizens accommodate themselves and many benefit from - have a real stake in preserving the monstrous status quo
- Homelessness in the US also is pervasive, and I would say it is evil. Undoubtedly, large number of respectable American citizens have accommodated themselves to it. I don't think there are a large number of stakeholders in the status quo, though; homelessness is a different sort of problem in that respect. Its flourishing undoubtedly has many causes, but indifference on the part of society as a whole probably is more important than the machinations of an evil-doing, powerful group of stakeholders in perpetuating homelessness.
Charles- thanks for your kind words.
Barbara - yes, there certainly are important differences between slavery and abortion. But as I said, the analogy put forth by Michael O Garvey seems pretty sound, as far as it goes.
Gerelyn - the dictum "slavery is a momentous evil" is part of the framework of moral principles within which I strive to live my life. Were there a threat to that particular plank of the framework, I hope I would speak up to defend it. I expect that virtually everyone who posts and comments here has that dictum as part of their framework, as well, and would rush to the barricades with me or ahead of me to defend it.
The dictum "abortion is a momentous evil" is exactly the same kind of thing. Your wishing to call those principles "opinions" doesn't really alter their function or importance. You may or may not have removed that particular plank from the framework within which you live. If you have, then the risk of your edifice tumbling down has increased by some percentage. But it's not the same kind of thing as, "Pinot Noir is tastier than Merlot".
Crystal: yes, sometimes it's hard to refrain from making fun of ve
I'm always surprised how a group of people that claims to care about compassion can get away with this without being ashamed.
ISTM there are several problems here:
1. There is no clearly definitive, generally persuasive answer to 'when does an organism become a human person'?The best (tentative) answer is that in the first week of the process there is no person, during the next several months there might or might not be one, and in at least the last three months or so there is a person.
2. The ethicists and churches the moral issues as carefully as they need to be addressed so that the nation can reach at least a tentative answer to the most difficult questions: when is the organism a person with a right-to-life? and does its right-to-life equal its mother's?
3. Many people are unwilling to even consider the possibility that there might indeed be a person in the monther's womb whose right to life equals its mothers.
I should have added Gerelyn's point: until men are held to be equally responsible for pregnancy, there will likely be many abortions.
Complexity, complexity, complexity, . . . . . . . . . .
Jim, I don't drink Merlot. (Is that what makes Boehner cry so much?)
(This is a 15-year-old Pappy Van Winkle holiday season at my edifice.)
MitheBe ==
Cut out the insults, will ya'?
Crystal --
I don't think vegetarians are funny. I have some instincts in that direction myself, but I don't think that the reasons for it are persuasive. I do draw the line at eating anything alive, however. Think raw oysters. (I'm glad to hear that Peter Singer thinks that might be OK because they don't have the brain cells to feel being chomped unto death.)
By the way, do you know of any organizations that fight cruelty to farm animals? PETA does, but I'm not a vegetarian and PETA seems to be mess itself.)
(OK, so that was off-topic. But I think that the way this culture treats farm animals is outrageous, and we need to speak out against that too.)
Thanks, Ann. I agree about PETA. There are places that help farm animals .... Farm Sanctuary ... http://www.farmsanctuary.org/ ... amd the Hmane Farm Association ... http://www.hfa.org/ ... are a couple I know of.
Crystal --
Thanks for the info. I did some googling and also found out that the American Humane Association has a special fund for farm animal welfare. Looks good.
Crystal, I have farming relatives with small old fashioned farms, and my model for farming involves a harmonious cycle of raising, taking care of, feeding, killing, and eating animals. I am repulsed by the living conditions of animals in modern farm factories, and am all in favor of making meat more expensive even if it means eating less of it, but I think it's a big leap to go from there to becoming a vegetarian.
But in spite of our problems in our relationship to animals, humans come first. When I see that more people give money to a beggar when he holds animals on his lap, that they are more sensitive to the plight of animals than of people, it seems to me that such compassion is misplaced. That is where I part ways with the many vegetarians who want equal rights for people and for animals. Humans have priority.
As to the vegetarians who exclaim "That's horrible!" when I squish a fruit fly, I find it hard to not make fun of them. My compassion does not extend to fruit flies. I may have some grudging respect for those for whom fly compassion is an extension of their love of all creation, but I disagree strongly with those who turn to animals because they don't like people.
But that is not related to the topic of this post. A microscopic bean-like embryo, even though it does not arouse compassion (except by fantasizing about some pretty baby that it represents in some imaginative people's minds), is still the start of what will become a human person, and I think that makes it more important than even the cutest kitten.
Thanks for explaining how you feel. I've spent my life with pets and have loved them. I don't see any compelling reasons to priviledge people over other animals as far as kindness goes, since studies seem to increasingly show that people and animals are much the same in a number of ways. Since animals do think and feel, fear and suffer, I empathize with them and I'm not comfortable killing them for food or just because I can. And since they are so outmatched by us in power, I feel obliged to help them if I can.
Crystal - I admit I've made lots of fun of vegetarians in the past. I've grown to respect the choice to be vegetarian. I don't think I could do it myself, but the moral issues make me uncomfortable. So maybe that's progress. People who are sanctimonious about being vegetarian rub me the wrong way, but that's a function of sanctimony, not vegetarianism. I strongly oppose smoking, too, and have lost family members to lung cancer because of smoking, but people who are sanctimonious about not smoking rile me, too (the non-smoking sanctimonious ass perhaps was more common 20 or 30 years ago than now). If I come across as a sanctimonious anti-abortion ass, I really do apologize to one and all, and would welcome any suggestions, short of compromising the underlying principle, that would fix it.
Gerelyn - I like both Merlot and Pinot Noir, but I have an insensitive palate, and wine snobs rank second only to Mac snobs on my list of Bores To Ignore At Any Party Or Gathering.
While I don't discuss abortion with Catholics, I always learn something from these discussions and appreciate the comments here.
Couple of tangential points:
I think Jim Pauwels is a right-winger, but does that in any way preclude him from being a friend to all here and a person of sense?
Temple Grandin has tried to make the meat industry more humane. I don't think you have to be a vegetarian to support better treatment for livestock. Turns out that animals that are raised and slaughtered more humanely tend to be better for you. This is a very complicated issue with a lot of facets, but I was happy to hear about new FDA regulation of antibiotics. Anyone who wants to take a small step personally could refrain from eating turkeys, most of which are now bred to have so much breast meat that they cannot walk and are usually bred in intensive livestock operations. Send a letter to meat companies at Thanksgiving telling them you've changed your menu and why. They might eventually get the message. Veal is also often raised in pretty terrible conditions, and a good one to avoid.
Jim, my mother died of lung cancer and I know I can be sanctimonious about smoking. It's hard sometimes to share insights or beliefs without going there, I guess.
Crystal - FWIW, you never come across to me as sanctimonious about anything.
you never come across to me as sanctimonious about anything
I second that.
Thanks, you guys :)
Ann, I have vegetarian tendencies myself and probably would be at least 90% vegetarian if I weren't married to someone for whom a meal without meat isn't a meal. I like the food, and I very much dislike the inhumane farming practices of agribusiness. I think the PETA people are extremists though and don't wish to support them.
On a practical level, I simply try to buy from humane sources. I try to buy Fair Trade items, especially coffee and chocolate when I can. I buy as much organic as I can afford - not only to reduce the pesticide load on my family but also because farmworkers face these pesticides in huge amounts every day, and these poisons also make their way into the water table. I am not 100% organic, but I do what I can. I am more adamant about buying free range chicken, eggs and meat - free range, and without antiobiotics or hormones. I also buy milk and other dairy items that are free of the rBST hormones given to so much of the dairy herd. My friends and family think I'm nuts because I do pay a lot more for food than they do. Our food is very cheap in this country - but others pay the price, including animals.
Anne C --
ISTM that it's utterly inconsistent to call someone who tortures a dog or a cat depraved yet at the same time to let the cruelly indifferent growers of cattle go unregulated. And it's even worse, of course, to refuse to think of what abortion is in its terrible particularity (see Dr. Gosmell!). I'm hoping that eventually Pop Francis will speak out about tthis. A consistent ethic of life must extend to *all* animals.
I don't usually take the trouble to shop at Whole Foods, but you're right -- I should try to get there even if it costs more, or at least be on the look outfor fairly grown food. And, yes, we need to think of those who farm the farms which are marinated in pesticides, and also us who eat such foods.
I read a heart-rending story once by a journalist who was doing a story on the chocolate farms of Africa. He spoke with a woman who for years had worked harvesting the chocolate. Her wages were so low that she had never been able to buy a piece of chocolate -- she had no idea of what it tasted like! Enjoy your Christmas bon-bons, folks. (At least don't domplain at the price of chocolate these days!)
It also seems to me that our indifference to the farm animals and sometimes to those who work the farms is part of our ethic of indifference-to-life. (By the way, there was another school shooting today in Colorado.) American tolerance of violence is the result of such indifference. And since we tolerate the violence, we must also suffer it or the threat of it.
Ann, I find that the issue of how we raise our food and the impact on farm workers, the environment, and on the animals is simply not on most people's radar. We buy everything very sanitarily, all cleaned and neatly packaged. We don't see the growing conditions. We don't see slaughterhouses, or chicken coops where the chickens are so close together they can't spread their wings.
I now live on the east coast, but grew up in California, and I visit there frequently. One of my children lives in southern California and two near San Francisco (all three grew up in the east, went to college in California and decided to stay there), so I frequently drive through the heart of California's main agricultural valleys on my visits. About 1/3 of produce in California is now grown using organic farming methods, and since California is the largest supplier of produce in the US, that is very good. The farmworkers still work under backbreaking (literally) conditions. I see them stooped over the fields, picking strawberries and vegetables and other produce, in the hot sun, for many hours at a time. But at least those who work on organic farms aren't taking in huge amounts of pesticides and other chemicals. As the market for organic has grown, the costs have also gone down, at least some. And as more farmers adopt organic growing methods, less damage is done to the farm workers and the environment.
I am lucky enough to live in an area where it is possible to find organic and humanely raised animal products in places other than (the expensive) Whole Foods market, although I love just to wander around that store!. We have a couple of small organic markets, but I often shop at Trader Joe's. Their selection is limited, but their organic fresh, canned (diced tomatoes, for example), and frozen produce are very affordable - less for organic produce in all three of those forms there than I do at the mainstream grocery stores for non-organic. Catholic Relief Services has links to Fair Trade sources where people can buy coffee and chocolate if there are no Fair Trade products in their normal grocery stores. Most of the stores in my city now carry at least one brand of Fair Trade coffee and chocolate and Starbucks also has some Fair Trade coffee. Another source for Fair Trade chocolate and coffee but also for a wide selection of gift type items is Ten Thousand Villages. They have a lovely shop near my home, but also sell mail order. The prices are very reasonable. http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/
The abortion issue is, for me, a very difficult issue. I am "pro-life", but I also understand why many don't agree that a single-celled zygote is a human being, but a potential human being, nor do they think a blastocyst is a human being.. Scientists believe that somewhere between 50% and 75% of blastocysts never implant.
I think that the bishops have made it harder for convincing and reasonable discussion about abortion to take place because they conflate birth control with abortion. They are not the same thing and it makes the Catholic church sound somewhat hysterical on the issue. Of course HV itself did that within the church - it was a disastrous decision to ignore the Birth Control Commission's recommendations, because the "magisterium" lost pretty much all credibility on sexual teachings after that. The vast majority of Catholics believe that the choice of birth control method belongs rightly to the couple who can choose which method best supports the marital union and they don't believe that taking the pill or using an IUD aborts "human beings".
We know that both Aquinas and Augustine believed that abortion was not a "mortal" sin until after a certain stage of development - I believe it was 40 days for male fetuses and 50 for female (there they go again with their misogny showing). That pretty much conforms to the stage of fetal development when all fundamental systems are in place, including the heart, brain and nervous system.
The question about when a true human being exists will probably never be answered. What IS a human being? What makes us human besides a particular arrangement of cells? Aquinas looked to "ensoulment" as the answer - but nobody really knows. When does the soul enter the body? When in our development are we "human beings" instead of a collection of cells invisibe to the eye? The Church has changed its mind on this more than once. Perhaps it will again someday.
Most Americans support abortion rights, but polls show increasing support for limiting it to the first trimester except under exceptional circumstances (saving the life of the mother, for example). Insisting that contraception and abortion are equivalent leads most people to simply ignore the arguments against abortion. Insisting that a zygote or blastocyst is a "human being" with equivalent rights to "born" human beings turns people off from listening at all. Most people are at least somewhat uncomfortable with abortion on demand, but the bishops and extremists within the pro-life movement make most people simply turn away from deeply examining the whole issue. I do not believe that any one religion has the "right" to impose its beliefs on all. So, as far as abortion goes, the bishops and pro-life movement should reconsider how they are fighting this issue. Education on the stages of embryonic and fetal development goes a lot farther to convince people of the immorality of abortion (at least after a certain stage of development) than does the hysterical approach they take now that equates birth control and abortion as being equivalent.
Anne, the abortion issue is also difficult for me. I am "pro-choice", but with many misgivings and reservations. Actually, the discussion on that seems to have moved to https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/peter-steinfels-responds-george-mckenna
(It's annoying that a new page is created as soon as the number of comments exceeds 50. It makes the comments above 50 much less accessible...)


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Suppose we are given the matrix $$\begin{pmatrix}x'\\y'\end{pmatrix}=\begin{pmatrix}\cos(\omega t)& -\sin(\omega t)\\\sin(\omega t)& \cos(\omega t)\end{pmatrix}\begin{pmatrix}x\\y\end{pmatrix}$$
In other words the new coordinate system is a rotating coordinate system.
Is there a matrix-based way of finding $\begin{pmatrix}\dot{x}\\\dot{y}\end{pmatrix}$ and $\dot{x}^2+\dot{y}^2$ in terms of the new coordinates?
I can, by inspection, see that the latter should be $(\dot{x'}-\omega y')^2+(\dot{y'}+\omega x')^2$ but I would appreciate a way using matrices. Also if such a matrix to "change coordinates" exist, I would appreciate an intuitive explanation of what it is doing.
Many thanks!

subset: commoncrawl


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Courtney Volturno '06, left, and Sheena Mooney '15.
By Daniel B. O'Brien
Psychology major Sheena Mooney '15 thought she wanted to work with kids. Shadowing an alumna who mentors city teens about opportunities for college, and then helping a teen apply for a job, reinforced it.
"I really liked what she was doing," Mooney says. "She didn't have a set, go into an office and only know people by a number job... Her job was going out and doing whatever these kids needed her to do at that time."
As a program coordinator at Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection, an affiliate of Hillside Family of Agencies, Courtney Volturno '06 works with juniors and seniors in eight district high schools throughout Rochester, N.Y., to spark students' interest in attending college. Students meet at least two of six risk factors for non-matriculation.
"Sometimes this is the first time someone is really talking to the students about college seriously," Volturno says of her position. "... You have to be persistent – to push them and show them that you're not going to go away easily because you believe this is important for them."
While Volturno's position isn't a direct fit for Mooney's career choice, the experience gave her a taste of what working with teens would be like.
That's the mission of the college's Winter Break Alumni Shadow Program.
More than 100 freshmen and sophomores signed up for the opportunity to shadow alumni in diverse fields and disciplines during the inaugural program, held over the 2013 winter break.
Stacey Wiley, director of Geneseo's Office of Career Development, solicited alumni and parent volunteers from around the country who work in a variety of career fields, including law, financial services, education and health care. Interested students chose their top three preferences and Wiley matched students to preferred alumni on a first-come, first-served basis. Of the more than 100 students who expressed interest, Wiley was able to match 82 pairs.
The program targets younger students: Shadowing allows students to try different careers on for size and find out what does and doesn't interest them, without making a major investment of time, says Wiley.
Volturno was happy to participate.
"You know the basic professions that you've come into contact with your entire life — doctors, teachers, police officers — but there are so many different opportunities out there," says Volturno, "and I think it's important to go out and see what those opportunities are."
Feedback from volunteers and students will help Wiley improve and tailor the program to student needs.
Wiley is seeking more alumni and parents in the high-interest fields of law, health care and finance, so more students with these interests can participate.
"We talk with students every day who are struggling to choose a major because they don't know what particular jobs actually entail," says Wiley. "The shadow program allows students to explore a potential career field by spending time with someone connected to Geneseo, who is happy to help them."
| Source URL: http://www.geneseo.edu/news_events/campus-innovation


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I am very new to Christanity and so kindly bear with me if my question appears novice. I want to know what is the ruling on eating pork in Christianity as per Bible?
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closed as primarily opinion-based by Affable Geek, El'endia Starman♦ Aug 1 '14 at 16:32
Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
Unlike Judaism, Christianity has no rule prohibiting (or commanding) the eating of pork. In fact, in Acts 10:9-16, Peter has a vision where a sheet is lowered from Heaven with "all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds" on it. He is then commanded to get up, kill, and eat the animals. To this, Peter is shocked and replies that he has never eaten anything unclean (as per the Judaic Law). To this, God replies:
There is of course a deeper meaning, but on the surface, God is telling Peter that nothing is unclean now (that is, no animals are unclean). This includes pigs and pork, so eating bacon and the like is perfectly acceptable (and happens quite often in the United States) among Christians. Another piece of support is that the four things still considered prohibited for Christians are listed in Acts 15:
None of these four actions apply to typical ways to consume pork. So, as a Christian, it is perfectly fine to eat pork.
As noted by waxeagle in a comment, not all Christians consider it acceptable to eat pork. Some sects maintain a kosher lifestyle whereas others abstain from meat entirely. However, these don't compose a significant portion of Christianity. The best course of action is to ask the Christian group you're part of.
Please excuse my comments to this answer as I was in a middle of a debate when typing them. My opinion is not relevant to the question.
Simply Jesus permits the food.
Mark 7:17-19 NIV
Matthew 15:10-20 ESV
There are few verses that mention that one shall not consume the flesh of swine:
Pork is also prohibited in the Bible in the book of Deuteronomy
A similar prohibition is repeated in the Bible in the book of Isaiah chapter 65 verse 2-5.
If I may speak from my convictions, Acts 10, while a fun story is not the definitive passage on this issue. Neither is Matthew 15:11-20, though I do love teaching that passage to middle school boys :) No, Paul wrote the treatise on clean and unclean foods in Romans 14.
Here is Paul, a former Pharisee, declaring that there is no food that is unclean (vv14a, 20a) unless the person eating it or watching someone eat it thinks it is unclean. Even then it not "unclean" as much as it is a stumbling block to those for whom eating that food seems wrong.
To summarize Paul, if a person wants to eat any kind of meat (except that offered to false idols), let them eat it to the glory of God. Those that don't think they should eat a certain type of food, let them abstain to the glory of God. If God is pleased, great! If God is not, He will deal with the one who needs correcting. It is not our job to correct, condemn, judge, or ostracize a person over their dietary habits if their heart is in the right place. There are much bigger things in the Kingdom to worry about. Paul sums up the whole argument so succinctly in v20: "Don't destroy the work of the Kingdom over some barbecue and shrimp." (my paraphrase).
Some Christians eat Pork. Some Christians like me don't. You may ask why do I obey dietary laws? Let me state my reasons.
Malachi 3:6 - "I the Lord do not change."
Hebrews 13:8 - "Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever."
We see Jesus Christ saying this in John 10:30 - "I and the Father are one."
Since Father and Son are one, we know that the son Jesus Christ cannot reject the teachings of his Father God.
Also remember what Jesus said in Matthew 5:17 - "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
But you may ask what about Mark chapter 7:18 where Jesus says "Don't you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them?"
We have to notice one major thing while we read this. Jesus Christ said this to the Pharisee Jews and other Jews who were with Pharisees. Not to the Gentiles.
On the top of this, Jesus was a Jew and he didn't break a single commandment of Torah.
This is what Jesus said to Jews - Whatever they eat goes into their stomach and then out of the body. But what comes out of them is what defiles them, because it comes from their hearts. Not from their stomachs.
We read this in Mark 7:21-23 - "For it is from within, out of a person's heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person."
In Mark 7:3-4 - "The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles."
We read that Pharisees and other Jews favored the tradition of elders over Torah. Through favoring their traditions of the elders, they have set aside the commands of God.
In Mark 7:8-9, Jesus says this.
Mark 7:8-9 - "You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions. And he continued, "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!"
Through their so called traditions, Pharisees and other Jews tried to make themselves very clean "outwardly". But through "inwardly", they have defiled themselves through their evil natures - adultery, murder, theft, fornication, etc.
They have defiled themselves "inwardly" because they nullified the word of God through their so called traditions.
Mark 7:10-13 (NIV) - "For Moses said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.'But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."
We also have to understand that the generation of Jews during the time of Jesus was extremely evil.
We see Jesus calling them "wicked (or sinful) and adulterous generation." (Matthew 12:39, Matthew 16:4, Mark 8:38, etc.). We also see Jesus calling people in that generation that their father is devil (John 8:44) due to their evil nature. We also see Both Jesus Christ and John the Baptist calling them "offspring of vipers" (Matthew 23, Luke 3).
Even Jewish Priest Josephus agrees with Jesus on the wickedness of that generation.
"I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly: — that neither did any other city suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world." (Jewish Wars V, 10:5).
In Mark 7:6-7, we see Jesus Christ mentioning Prophet Isaiah and his prophesy when he tells this to Pharisees and teachers of the law.
It must be noted that we read this in Isaiah 66:17 - "Those who consecrate and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one who is among those who eat the flesh of pigs, rats and other unclean things—they will meet their end together with the one they follow," declares the Lord."
But you may ask what about Peter's vision in Acts Chapter 10?
Acts 10:9-16 – "About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat." "Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean." The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven."
When it comes to a vision or a dream, We should not take them literally. This is because it can have figurative or symbolic meanings.
Let me take an example from Genesis Chapter 41. When Pharaoh saw the dreams in his sleep, he knew these dreams should not be taken literally. He knew these dreams had a figurative or a symbolic meaning. That's why he called in Magicians and Wise Men of Egypt to interpret the dreams. Later, we see Pharaoh calling for Joseph to interpret the dreams when others failed to interpret them.
We see Joseph interpreting the dreams to Pharaoh in Genesis 41:25-27 (NIV) "Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, "The dreams of Pharaoh are one and the same. God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good heads of grain are seven years; it is one and the same dream. The seven lean, ugly cows that came up afterward are seven years, and so are the seven worthless heads of grain scorched by the east wind: They are seven years of famine."
Through this, we learn that a dream or a vision can have symbolic or figurative meanings.
Acts 10:17 - "While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon's house was and stopped at the gate."
So we see that Peter was wondering about what the vision really meant instead of taking it literally.
The meaning of Peter's vision is that Peter should not call Gentiles as unclean or impure.
We understand the meaning of Peter's vision in Acts 10:27-28.
In Acts 10:27-28 - "While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them: "You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean."
Through Jesus Christ, the salvation is also open to Gentiles. So Peter's vision in Acts 10 has nothing to do with God's dietary laws.
So I believe it is absolutely necessary for the Christians to keep the dietary laws.
Act 10, Peter's vision was about MEN, not food. The whole point of the vision was that gentiles were to be included in the covenant, not to change non-food to food. The bottom line is this: Christians are supposed to be Christlike. If Jesus did it, we do it. If He didn't we don't.
Act 10:28 says '' And he said to them, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean''.
So you can all see that it was not referring actually to food but Men because it was a vision. And No records in the bible that the Jesus Christ or His Disciples ate Pork Meat. Some Christians just reading the bible half way, read full chapter before concluding on issues.
If we are to obey ALL the laws of Moses, why would we believe that we need salvation through Christ? I mean when God gave the Law to Moses, he was only preparing the way for his Son to come into the World (many citations from Isaiah come to mind, and later, John the Baptist saying, "one greater than me is coming whom I am not worthy to untie the sandal of.")
It's really a debatable topic, because there are verses that speak to both sides. I think it is a personal choice. I myself avoid all meat including pork during lent (except fish).
It's my hat tip to the Mosaic law.
And I think the verse in Acts where God tells Peter to "rise, kill and eat" was mainly for the benefit of the Gentiles who had a long tradition of eating swine in first-century Palestine; the Jews are still under the Law. But if they profess to be Christians, then they are obviously not bound to the Law.
I love pork and ham. It's the sweetest of all the meats, and I revel in the ability to be able to eat it without spiritual consequences.
I am a Christian and I have read the bible and all the verses above regarding consumption of pork. We were eating pork before we were even Christian and so we will continue to eat pork, if it were sinful to eat pork then I rather to have sinned than not to have sinned by eating what I do not like ... peace to all
@gpuguy, Jesus finished with "...until all is accomplished." Since he didn't go into detail about accomplishment, it might be a point of debate as to what this means. The two ideas I've considered are:
Jesus created a new covenant, separate and distinct from the Mosaic law.
Paul asserts that the Law is good and had a purpose, but that it has been superseded:
I'm willing to entertain arguments about how we (all Christians) are still bound by the Mosaic law, but they would need to address the requirement to obey all of the law, including animal sacrifices (which seem completely unnecessary since Jesus is our once-and-for-all atoning sacrifice), temple worship, etc.
(EDIT:Added Conclusion)
Acts 10 is about men--not food. Even Peter declares he has never eaten unclean food. This is obviously after everything Jesus accomplished on Earth during his first coming. This should be an obvious clue that Jew and Gentile alike are still under Mosaic Law. As to how the Law pertains to sacrifices, it specifically states who is to perform the sacrifices and where (God's Temple). He allowed his temple to be destroyed after Jesus returned to heaven which means we cannot perform those sacrifices. That is why Jesus came, to be the ultimate sacrifice.
protected by Community♦ Jan 14 '14 at 1:22
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Chip DeLorenzo will present strategies for taking your skills to new, Montessori-friendly depths through the use of Positive Discipline, which teaches that for discipline to be effective, it must—among other things—be kind, firm, and respectful; and invite children to discover how capable they are.
Join this webinar and learn how to market your the 3 years that form the complete cycle of your school's Early Childhood program, highlighting a specific and clear, individualized curriculum with tri-annual benchmarks (as opposed to annual).
If you are contemplating AMS accreditation for your Montessori school, or if you are just beginning the process, participation in AMS's School Accreditation 101 will provide you with vital information about protocol, goals, and more.
In this refresher course for trained Montessori Secondary teachers who are familiar with conducting structured discussions with their students, you will be invited to examine key components needed for conducting successful Socratic discussions* with adolescents. After a review of relevant background information, the focus will turn to preparatory lessons, choosing appropriate texts, and writing and clustering questions as the "prepared environment" for discussion.
Drawing from her work on classroom-based assessment in Montessori schools, Linda will provide an overview of developmental benchmarks in reading and specific ways that Montessori teachers can learn about children in relation to those benchmarks in the first 6 weeks of school.
This webinar will offer a learning model that has proven effective at helping children who have learning differences or are at-risk for learning differences achieve success in reading, writing, and spelling, by integrating the Montessori written language curriculum with several other multi-sensory learning approaches.
This webinar will focus on cross-platform computer programs that can be used to improve school administration and classroom management.
By emphasizing our common origins with other humans, other living species, and with Earth and the universe itself, the Montessori Cosmic Education curriculum calls upon each person to help make the world more peaceful, socially just, and respectful of nature. This workshop will explore practical ways to make this understanding a part of the classroom.
This webinar will give you a wealth of ideas for step-by-step lessons that include experiments and other activities that will pique their curiosity about the many properties of water—and set them on the road to exploration and discovery.
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What are relative merits of something like a button on a piece of custom bizware that says, "press me to ask for a feature" or "click here if something didn't work right".
The problem I'm trying to remedy is the general lack of formality surrounding feature requests. Most specifically, the rate at which I receive walk-ups from end-users. Taken one at a time, it can be beneficial, but sometimes it can hinder productivity on the larger scale.
Has anyone done something like this and has it been a general success or alternately somewhat a waste of time. My instincts are not giving me a hint here.


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I saw some people saying their newsletter has X open-rate. How can I know this thing?
The technique used to work out if an email has been opened or not is to put a tracker image with a unique identifier in the request URL so your server can log that the email has been at least viewed. This image is normally just a 1x1px square that is invisible to the end user. The src of the image will be something like
However, any figure you gain from from technique can't be taken expclicitly, there are a number of factors that can lead to both an over-estimate and under-underestimate:
Are you using Google Analytics? Then you can use http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1033863 custom campaigns. Here you have an http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1033867 URL Builder.
This depends on how you distribute your newsletters, are you using client software or an online service provided by your hosting provider like phplist, or a service such as mailchimp which offer stats like open rates as standard.
the image tracker solution already mentioned is a preferred solution of mine.
Probably the easiest way is MailChimp.
Have been using it for the last 6 months. Only complaint is that the template editor is a bit tricky at the start.


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Arthur C. Berthold, 96, of Lincoln, formerly of Neb-raska City, died April 19, 2013 at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Lincoln. He was born on Aug. 16, 1916 in Nebraska City to Gustav Erwin and Christina (Guthals) Berthold. He graduated from Nebraska City High School in 1935.
He married Gail E. Brown on May 27, 1936 at Rock Port, Mo.
In his early years, Art operated the Hamburger Inn as well as Berthold Furniture Store in Weeping Water. The couple then moved to Superior in 1952 where Art operated Ben Franklin Variety Store. They then moved to Pasco, Wash., in 1956 to operate a larger Ben Franklin Store. In 1963 they went to Park Rapids, Minn., during the warmer months and operated an ice cream shop for a few years and later worked for Griggs Department Store in Pasco, retiring in 1974. After retirement, they moved to Lincoln to be closer to family.
He served in the Pacific during World War II in the U.S. Navy aboard the U.S.S. Boston.
He was a member of the American Legion Post #237 at Weeping Water where he had served as Commander. He was also a member of the Bethel United Church of Christ, the V.F.W.; 40&8, Elks Lodge and the Moose Lodge.
He is survived by daughters Joan Edwards and husband Don of Superior and Pat Jensen and husband Lloyd of Lakewood, Colo.; grandchildren Lisa Bruening and husband Stuart of Larkspur, Colo., Christy Treffer and husband Bruce of Lexington and Cindy Wolverton and husband Jay of Seward; seven great-grandchildren: Brock Bruening, Keith Wolverton, Cara Wolverton, Scott Wolverton, Leah Treffer, Sarah Treffer and Gregory Treffer; nieces and nephews, other family and friends.
He was preceded by wife Gail on Aug. 1, 1990, grandson Craig Alan Jensen, and brothers Walter "Shorty," Otto and Erwin.
Funeral services will be held on Wednesday, April 24, at 10:30 a.m. at the Bethel United Church of Christ in Nebraska City with Rev. Rodger Good officiating. Burial will be in the Wyuka Cemetery at Nebraska City with complete military services conducted by the U.S. Navy Funeral Honors Detail.
Memorials may be given to the Bethel United Church of Christ in Nebraska City.
Visitation is open at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the mortuary and also an hour prior to services at the church.
Remembrances may be left at www.gudefuneralhomes.com.
Gude Mortuary is in charge of the funeral arrangements.
Location, ST | website.com


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Deadspin - Amanda Ruggeri: Why Bode Miller mattered
Bode slaloms between good results and bad ones. Without knowing much about the sport, you can almost visualize the style of a skier like that. We're talking about a guy who, in any given race, was as likely to win a medal as he was to slide out of a course or crash.
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Developing HTML5 Apps Jump Start (05a): DOM Interactions, Part 1
- Posted: Oct 28, 2012 at 11:00PM
- 232,186 views
- 9 comments
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This video is part of a free online course from Microsoft Virtual Academy, click here to view the full course and take advantage of many additional features such as assessments, slides, learning plans and more.
Right click "Save as…"
In this important module, Michael Palermo and Jeremy Foster focus on DOM interactions. This important module covers topics such as Querying the DOM, Manipulating the DOM, and Responding to events.
Complete course outline for the Developing HTML5 Apps Jump Start:
This series of videos are a great way to help you prepare for Exam 70-480. Register now to take the Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 exam (70-480) exam. The promotion for the free exam using the promo code HTMLJMP is over, no new registrations will be accepted using the code. If you've already registered using the code then you're set.
If you want to learn how to apply these HTML5 skills to build your own Windows Store app, check out the Developing Windows Store Apps with HTML5 Jump Start.
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Excellent video. Thank you guys.
Jeremy, please note that not all the NodeLists are live. The NodeList returned by querySelectorAll is not live. This is true in win8 apps and also in the browser. The NodeLists returned by getElementsByClassName or getElementsByTagName or getElementsByName are indeed live.
Awesome jump start series guys... Thanks
Very informative videos.
Thanks you guys
Excellent material. I hope you continue to post more.
"horizontal knowledge, generating vertical growth. "
Cannot find Javascript Console in VS2012 - I searched everywhere for it, how do you get javascript console to open up??
Very nice and excellent material
Nice Videos. Helpfull in developement! Thanks Mans!!!
Great work for a quick start. Thanks guys.
Comments have been closed since this content was published more than 30 days ago, but if you'd like to continue the conversation, please create a new thread in our Forums, or Contact Us and let us know.


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I wanted to put a proper post up tonight but I haven't finished cutting my film down so it'll have to wait 'till tomorrow. In the mean time though I wanted to say a quick word about my weekend ride, it was absolutely incredible to be able to enjoy those stunning coastal roads completely traffic free thanks to the rolling road closure. The views were awesome, the weather was perfect and my legs felt great.
We were hosting seven of our clients in County Clare especially so that they could join us in riding the Etape Hibernia, and I played the role of domestique to one of the clients and was able to sit up, take in the scenery and cruise up the climbs at a pace that didn't push my heart rate much out of the 'warm-up' zone.
There were around 1750 riders taking part and I got chatting to many a friendly Irishman, all of whom without fail would ask me what that device was mounted on my helmet.
Stay tuned for the results…


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I have a vector of sample data that describes a divergent oscillation like in this image.
I want to transform this data (just the data, not the system or anything), so that the data does converge to zero. I also want to keep the peaks of data at the same sample point, and the graph smooth. Simply multiplying the data by decreasing values moves the peaks of the data which is not desirable.
What sort of method should I use?


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The recommended version of Kdenlive is 0.9.2 and MLT 0.8.2
All the following packages have been built with the official ffmpeg version of each Ubuntu release. If you are using some backported version of ffmpeg you can't use those packages.
Please report any problem in our forum.
Versions of Kdenlive in official repositories are deprecated. It is strongly recommended to install Kdenlive 0.9 packages using Sunab's alternative repository:
Install Kdenlive with the Software center (11.04, 11.10, 12.04) or your favourite package manager.
Alternatively you can do all the process typing the following command line in a terminal :
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sunab/kdenlive-release && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install kdenlive


text:
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The 7 Most Unexpectedly Awesome Parties in History
We have it way better than our forefathers. We've got cooler weapons, better hygiene, thousands of new drugs and Flamin' Hot Cheetos. And yet, despite our massive technological advantage and larger brains and even bigger Cheetos guts, we're still far behind our ancestors in one important category: the bitchingness of our parties.The history books prove it.
#7. Victory Day
Everyone who wasn't a Nazi had reason to celebrate Germany's surrender in the Second World War. In the U.K., tens of thousands of Londoners partied in Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square like it was 1999. In the U.S., half a million people packed into Times Square until Mayor LaGuardia literally told them to go home. In Paris, the French celebrated as if winning the war was their idea all along, and in Rome, the Italians shook hands with one another as if the whole thing was just a big soccer game. Meek and mild Canada surprised everyone by pulling the old "celebrate by rioting and looting liquor stores" standby.
A literal demon lurks behind this placid facade.
But once news reached Moscow that the Soviets had just won their Lord of the Rings-esque war for survival against the Germans invaders, let's just say that they partied in a way that would have made 1999 order a cup of coffee and think very seriously about giving up the bottle. The party started when the official invitation was delivered at 1:10 a.m. on May 9, 1945, by the chief announcer of Radio Moscow.
Then Shit Got Out of Hand ...
Moscow's celebration of the surrender of Germany just might be the single largest spur-of-the-moment anything in history. Thousands of people immediately took to the streets to transform one of the largest cities on the planet into "a sea of vodka," many of them still in their nightclothes.
It was kind of a big deal.
Muscovites went on bar-crawls past the embassies of the Allied nations, which sure enough joined in the vodkafest with some of their own alcohol. By the time Joseph Stalin addressed the nation after 22 hours of partying, the entire city's liquor reservoirs were bone dry. As one reporter put it, "I was lucky to buy a liter of vodka at the train station when I arrived, because it was impossible to buy any later ... There was no vodka in Moscow on May 10, we drank it all."
That's right. That was the day Russia ran out of vodka.
They were down to chugging pesticide by the end.
#6. Andrew Jackson Destroys the White House. Twice.
... And one of those times involved an enormous wheel of cheese.
When Andrew Jackson assumed the presidency on March 4, 1829, his first act in office was to show everyone what was what by throwing a huge party. More than 20,000 people showed up for his inaugural open house at the White House, during which the crowd got so rowdy that Jackson was forced to sneak out a window. It wasn't until someone had the bright idea to place tubs of whiskey on the White House lawn that Jackson was able to sneak back into the house and actually start being president.
The Secret Service ruins everything.
Yet as great as it was, "Open House at the White House '29" paled in comparison to Jackson's grand finale: the Great Cheese Party of 1837.
Then Shit Got Out of Hand ...
In 1835, a Col. Thomas Meecham of New York paraded into Washington to present President Jackson with a 1,400-pound wheel of cheese, just as a reminder to everyone of how awesome the 19th century was. The cheese fermented for more than a year while Jackson took out an ad in the paper to invite the whole country to help him eat his cheese.
Once Cheese Day arrived, more than 10,000 patriotic citizens answered their call of duty. It was said that you could smell cheese from a half mile in every direction from the White House, and it took the crowd two hours to devour the enormous piece of cheese, after which Jackson was awarded a carriage made out of hickory sticks -- which frankly we didn't even know was possible.
Clearly, this was an age of miracles.
With his vendetta against whoever built the White House complete, Jackson proudly handed the keys to the nation over to the incoming president, Martin Van Buren. And he was probably glad to hightail it out of there, because thanks to the cheese thoroughly ground into the mansion's carpets, couches and tapestries, the White House stank for weeks.
To say nothing of what all that cheese did to the septic system.
#5. The Field of the Cloth of Gold
Diplomatic conferences between belligerent nations with long histories of animosity are very rarely the sites of bitchin' parties. In fact, no matter how much C-Span we watch, no one at Cracked has ever seen a diplomat shotgun a jug of wine and tackle a foreign emissary.
This scene is just begging for a drop kick.
So when Henry VIII of England decided to ally himself with appropriately named Francis I of France in 1520, you can imagine things were going to be a little tense. And by "tense"' we mean "outrageously flamboyant."
Then Shit Got Out of Hand ...
Who would have thought that two nobles who looked like this:
... would empty their national treasuries to outdo each other in a three week orgy of extravagance and waste?
There were massive fountains that flowed with wine, tents woven out of gold cloth and mind-boggling feasts that lasted for days on end. The centerpiece was a 12,000-square-foot tent painted to look like a castle, because what's an international goodwill festival without a 12,000-square-foot tent painted to look like a castle? Woodstock, that's what.
There was also slightly less jousting at Woodstock.
But the real fun was in the jousting, games, music, archery contests and other batshit things people used to do before they invented TV. At one point, things got so out of hand that both monarchs decided to compete against each other in that most dignified of contests, wrestling.
Henry, giddy over his successes, rode the testosterone train by grabbing King Francis I by the collar and offering a challenge worthy of Rowdy Roddy Piper. Francis I wrestled Henry VIII's royal ass to the ground, Henry got pissed, and the battle royale abruptly brought the epic party to an end. The two left still at odds, and Henry even ended up forging an alliance with Francis' rival, Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire. Within a month, all three monarchs were at war.
So much for peace, love and happiness, eh?
#4. The Signers of the Constitution Celebrate Their Big Win in Philly
The U.S. Constitution wasn't just born in a patriotic explosion of fireworks, bald eagle feathers and Toby Keith songs -- it took five months of tedious finagling among some of the brightest minds in American history to make it happen. And when they finally got it written, you can bet the Founding Fathers were ready to let their wigs loose.
Coming soon from Cracked: Absinthe and the American Revolution.
So Philadelphia threw a sweet-ass party for George Washington and all 55 delegates on Sept. 15, just two days before they actually signed the Constitution. Showing up to the tavern were no fewer than four legendary founders who would later grace their own currency: George Washington, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and James "On the $5,000 Bill" Madison.
Yeah, if Ben Franklin was there, you know things were going to get rowdy.
It's time to get Franked up in here.
Then Shit Got Out of Hand ...
Let's have a look at the tab: Between Madison's keg-stands and Hamilton's mad beer-pong skills, the 55 delegates put away more than 100 bottles of wine, 22 bottles of porter, 12 bottles of beer, eight bottles of whiskey, eight bottles of hard cider and seven bowls of spiked punch.
Yes, we're pretty sure that is more alcohol than science says 55 humans should be able to consume without dying on the spot.
Even more hilarious is the fact that the innkeeper added a two percent fee to their (sizable) bill for the damage they did. It included a breakage fee for the broken bottles, tables, punch bowls and chamber pots.
Now don't you feel cheated that your elementary school history teacher didn't bother to tell you about the time George Washington and Ben Franklin apparently got into a drunken chamber pot fight?