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Archive for the 'childhood' Category
adventures in second language acquisition – an intro to the usage-based hypothesis of language learning
So now I'm going to describe and reflect on a rather more interesting video by two academics and teachers, Marjo Mitsutomi, a specialist in SLA, and Minna Kirjavainen, who researches first language acquisition. They're working in the teaching of English in Osaka, and they're describing the uni course they've just set up there. Kirjavainen, the first speaker, describes her research as being on 'the acquisition of syntax and morphology in monolingual, typically developing children, from about the ages two to six'. So now for some definitions. How does syntax differ from grammar, and what is morphology? A rough answer is that a grammar involves everything about how a language works, which includes syntax, which is essentially about how words are ordered in sentences. Morphology is often described as the corollary of syntax. Grammar can be divided into syntax, the external economy of words (i.e. in sentences), and morphology, the internal economy of words (i.e. from morphemes). For example, 'robbed' contains the verb 'rob' plus the unit of meaning '-ed', or '-bed', which means 'in the past'. But presumably 'went' is made up of two morphemes, 'go' and 'in the past', both of which are in a sense hidden in the word?
Kirjavainen describes herself as coming from the 'usage-based, constructivist view-point', and says
'this means that I don't assume there's innate syntactic components in the child's mind like many first language and second language acquisition researchers do. Instead, the usage-based viewpoint assumes that language exposure and general cognitive processes result in language acquisition in children.'
A slide accompanying this anouncement indicated that Michael Tomasello is one of the major developers of this approach. So I'll need to familiarise myself with Tomasello's work, especially as I'm currently reading Steven Pinker's The language instinct, which appears to be an attempt to popularise Chomsky's universal grammar theories. Chomsky and Pinker argue that there is something innate about grammar, though just what it is is hard to capture.
Kirjavainen is of the view that a child's general cognitive processes (e.g. pattern finding, analogy-making and categorisation) together with exposure to language, lead to competent language acquisition. She argues that these processes are effective for non-linguistic tasks, so the same mechanisms are sufficient for decoding the language they hear and want to use. She divides her inquiry into first language acquisition into three questions:
- how do children learn to speak their native language?
- what kind of things do children pay attention to when they learn their native language?
- how do caregivers talk to children? What effect does it have on children's language development?
Firstly, children pay a lot of attention to language input, and apparently research is starting to show that it's not just lexical items but grammatical structures that children mirror from caregivers. The most frequently used grammatical structures of caregivers are the ones used earliest by children, and they then become the most used by children. So the ambient language heavily influences the child's language development. The constructivists also argue that syntactic constructions are built on the language that children already know. So they chunk things together and try them out for effective communication with those around them, they absorb responses and corrections and adjust their language accordingly. Examples are 'Mummy', 'I want mummy', 'Mummy do it' 'I want mummy do it', 'I want mummy to do it'.
All of this makes a lot of sense to me prima facie. Mitsotomi, who next takes up the talk, is of Finnish background like Kirjavainen, but with a more pronounced accent, having learned English later in life. She begins by mentioning the critical period hypothesis for SLA, which might be the subject of a future post. Her concern is in how SLA is affected not only by the towering presence of the learner's L1, but by many other life experiences. So given these influences and possible constraints how do we create a space and an atmosphere conducive to SLA? Also, what does SLA mean to the identity of learners, and how is it that some acquire an L2 more quickly and effectively than others?
Kirjavainen then continues by introducing what might be seen as the obstacles to a collaboration between first and second language theorists. First, some linguists argue that there are inherent differences between first and second language learning. She lists three (out of many) common assumptions about these differences:
- all (typically developing) children learn to speak their L1 natively, whereas most people (with normal cognitive skills) don't learn their L2 to a native-like standard
- children learn their L1 very quickly whereas it takes L2 learners years to master their target language
- L1 learners make few errors in comparison to L2 learners, i.e. children find it easier to learn the grammatical rules of their language, whereas L2 learners find it difficult to learn these rules
Kirjavainen questions the first assumption, first on the basis of vocabulary – a child's L1 vocab will depend on her socio-economic background, the level of education, experience and language competence of those she's learning from and other such factors. These factors also affect syntax, and she described a study of native speakers' knowledge of and proficiency in the passive construction. The study compared the proficiency of university teaching staff (academics) with non-teaching staff. They were tested on their understanding of active and passive sentences based on pictures, a fairly easy test, and it was found that while both teaching and non-teaching staff had full understanding of the active constructions, only the academics had full understanding of the passive construction. The non-teaching staff were significantly below full understanding. The general point here is that not all native speakers know all the grammatical rules of their L1, and that it depends more on regular usage than is sometimes admitted.
Next Kirjavainen gets stuck into the claim that children learn their native language quickly. She points out that an average 5 year old is quite a competent L1 user, but far from having adult proficiency. She then does a breakdown of how many hours a day children have spent, up to the age of five, exposed to and using the L1. That's 5 years@6-14 hours a day of exposure, and about 3.5 years@8-14 hours a day in using the language. Conclusion: it takes children years to reach a relatively high level of L1 proficiency.
All of this strikes me as really thought-provoking stuff, and some of the thoughts provoked in me are memories of my callow youth – for example an occasion when as a 15 year-old or so I found myself at a party full of uni students types, all a few years my senior, and was awed by their vocabulary and language proficiency, and fearful that I'd get roped into conversation and be mocked for my verbal incompetence. So, again, I'm finding Kirjavainen's arguments persuasive here at first blush.
The third assumption is more or less demolished by Kirjavainen as she cites research by herself and others to show that children make lots of errors, especially between the ages of 18 months and 4 years – these include pronoun errors, omission of infinitival to, agreement errors, subject omissions and verb inflection errors. Even at five and upwards there are mistakes with past tense, relative clauses and complement clause constructions. A complement clause? I've only just heard of them, but let me explain.
Here are two examples of complement clauses, taken from Kidd et al, 2007.
(1) That Rufus was late angered his boss.
(2) Rufus could see that he had angered his boss.
The complement clauses are underlined. The first here functions as the subject of an 'argument' sentence, the second as the object. The second sentence is described as an unmarked case, in which the complementiser that is optional and generally not used in naturalistic speech. There are many other forms of complement clause construction, so I won't get bogged down by exploring them here.
So this has been an enlightening post for me, and an enlightening view of a new (to me) usage-based constructivist view of language acquisition. Next time I'll report on the latter part of this talk, which will focus more on the implications for SLA.
Did Freud ever pass his orals?
A young person I know is studying psychology probably for the first time and she informed me of the stages of early childhood psychological development she has been told about – oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. I'd certainly heard of the first two of these, but not too much of the others. A quick squiz at the lists of Dr Google led me to Freudian psychosexual theory, which naturally raised my scepical antennae. And yet, despite my limited parental experience I've noted that babies do like to put things in their mouths a lot (the oral stage is supposed to extend from birth to 1 -2 years), sometimes to their great detriment. So, personality-wise, is the oral stage a real thing, and does it really give way to the anal stage, etc? I'm using the oral stage here to stand for all the stages in the theory/hypothesis.
These stages were posited by Freud as central to his hypothesis of psychosexual development – though how the phallic stage is experienced by girls is an obvious question. His view was that our childhood development was a matter of fixation, at various periods, on 'erogenous zones'. After the oral stage, children supposedly switch to an anal stage, which lasts to 3 years of age – presumably on average. These switches might be delayed, or brought on earlier, in individual cases, and sometimes an individual might get stuck at a particular stage, denoting psychosexual problems.
So how real are these stages? Are some more real than others? What is the experimental evidence for them, do they exist in other primates, and if they exist, then why? What purpose do they serve?
It seems that Freud, and perhaps also his followers, have built up a whole system around these stages and how individuals are more or less influenced by any one or a combination in the development of their adult personalities, and since the degree of influence of these different stages and the way they've combined in each individual is pretty well impossible to recover, the theory looks to be unfalsifiable. There also appears to be the problem that psychologists can usually only track back from the adult's personality to speculate about early childhood influences, which looks like creating a circular argument. For example, if an individual presents as an overly trusting, dependent personality, this may be cited as evidence of fixation at the oral stage of development, because children fixated at this stage are believed to develop these personalites in later life. The only way out of this impasse it seems to me is to define this oral stage (or any other stage) more carefully, so that we can accurately identify children who have experienced a prolonged or fixated oral stage, and then return to them to observe how their personalites have developed.
Of course there are other problems with the theory. There needs to be a clearer explanation, it seems to me, of how these apparently erogenously-related stages are marked into personality traits in later life. The relationship between an obsession with putting things in your mouth, or sucking, licking or otherwise craving and enjoying oral sensations, and a dependent, trusting personality, is by no means obvious. In fact, some might go as far as to say that, prima facie, it makes about as much sense as an astrologically-based account of personality.
Perhaps if we look at the oral stage, or claims about it, more closely, we'll find something of an explanation. In this description, we learn that the libido, or life force, gets fixated in the oral stage in more than one way, leading to an 'oral receptive personality' and an 'oral aggressive personality'. The first type, which is a consequence of a delayed or overly fixated oral stage, is trusting and dependent, the second is dominating and aggressive, due largely to a curtailed oral stage, apparently. Those who experienced a longer oral stage in childhood are supposedly more likely to be smokers and nail-biters as adults, though I'm not sure how this relates to being a dependent or trusting personality.
In any case this hardly takes us further in terms of evidence, and it's worth noting that the site in which this is mooted is described as 'integrated sociopsychology'. Dr Steven Novella, in the most recent episode of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, warned about the use of such terms as 'integrative', 'functional' and 'holistic' used before 'medicine' as a red flag indicating a probable bogus approach. I suspect the same goes for psychology. Obviously the website's author is a Freudian, and he makes this statement as to evidence:
What is undoubtedly disturbing to the 'Freud-bashers' is how much evidence has accumulated over the years to say that, in broad terms at least, if not always in detail, Freud's observations pretty much stand up so many years later.
However, other psychology sites I've looked at, which don't appear to me to be particularly Freud-bashing, have pointed to the lack of evidence as the principal problem for Freud's stages. Of course the major problem is how to test for the 'personality effect' of these stages. Again I think of astrology – someone dedicated to astrological causation can always account for personality 'deviations' in terms of cusps and conjunctions and ascendants and the like, and this would surely also be the case for the confounding influences of our various cavities and tackle, so to speak.
Some 20 years ago a paper by Fisher & Greenberg (1996) suggested that Freud's stages and other aspects of his early childhood writings should be scientifically examined as separate hypotheses, in a sort of piecemeal fashion. Unfortunately I can find little evidence that evidence has been found for the oral stage as a marker for later personality development – or even looked for. This is probably because most scientists in the field – experimental psychologists – have little interest in these Freudian hypotheses, and little funding would be available for testing them. They would surely have to be longitudinal studies, with a host of potentially confounding factors accounted for, and the end results would hardly be likely to convince other early childhood specialists.
I've said the theory looks to be unfalsifiable, but I'm not quite prepared to say outright that it is. It seems to me that the oral stage, with its obvious association with breast-feeding, and the obvious association between prolonged breast-feeding and dependence, at least in popular culture, is the one most amenable to testing. The later Oedipus/Elektra complexes, associated I think with the phallic stage, seem rather too convoluted and caveat-ridden to be seriously testable. I must admit to a residual fondness for some of Freud's theories of development though, however unscientific they might be. Though I was never interested in the strict form of the Oedipus complex, because my father was by far the weaker of my parents, I felt it offered some insight into relations with the dominant parent – struggle, rivalry, attempts to overthrow. I also agreed with his general view that early childhood is absolutely crucial to our subsequent psychological development, and I found his ego, id and superego hypotheses enlightening and fascinating. Polymorphous perversity, sublimation and the pervasive influence of libido also tickled my fancy a lot.
I think it's fair to say that Freud has had a greater influence on popular culture than on science, but it has been a profound influence, and overall a positive one. The term 'observations', rather than theories, seems better to describe his contributions. In writing about the libido and the pleasure principle, inter alia, he accepted our instinctive animal nature, and gave us ideas about how to both harness it and overcome it. Notions like the id and the superego seemed to give us fresh ways to think about desire, discipline and control. His ideas and concepts tapped into stuff that was very personal to us in our individual struggles, and his universalising tendencies helped us, I think, to look sympathetically at the struggles of others. Libido itself was a banner-word that helped release us from the straight-jacket of earlier sexual thinking – or avoidance thereof.
It's also probably unfair to expect from Freud's pioneering work anything like the scientific riguor we expect and really need from psychology today. Certainly he was far too firm about the rightness of his most speculative work – I read The Interpretation of Dreams as an ideas-hungry teenager and was impressed with its first-half demolition of previous dream theories, but the second-half presentation of his own theory struck me even then as ludicrously weak, though it had the definitely positive effect of putting me off dream-interpreters for life (a dream that can be interpreted is a dream not worth having, and that's their greatest gift to us). It's more what he drew attention to that counts. His concept of the unconscious doesn't really cut it today, but he made us start thinking of unconscious motivations in general, and much else besides. I've never been to an analyst, but I think one benefit of the psychoanalytic movement is to help us realise that there's no normality and that we all carry baggage of guilt, anger, fear and frustration. For all its failings, his was a humanising enterprise.


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Check out The Hanged Man's Noose as well as Skeletons in the Attic, due out August 21st.
What do you write, and why?
I write crime fiction. My novels are what I like to call "amateur sleuth with an edge." That means my protagonists are amateur sleuths and the books are set in the requisite small town but there are no white picket fences, cats, crafts or cookie recipes. My short crime fiction is varied.
When and where do you write?
When I'm working on a book, I try to write a chapter a day, though it doesn't always work out that way. I'm also the Senior Editor of New England Antiques Journal and the Editor of Home Builder Canada (string enough writing jobs together, you can almost earn a living…emphasis on the almost), so the time of day I write fiction fluctuates based on my deadlines for the magazines.
I always write in my home office, on my iMac, with talk radio on. I can't imagine writing in a coffee shop.
How do you write?
I'm a complete panster. The chapter a day thing works for me because I have no idea where I'm going with my story, so I try to leave each chapter with enough of a hook that I'll want to come back and write the next day. When I'm writing a short story, I'll try to get the basic draft done in a couple of days. Then I get to work.
What do you read, and who?
Primarily mystery and suspense, though I also read other fiction. My favorite current-day authors, in no particular order, are: Michael Connelly, John Sandford, Tana French, Sara J. Henry, Louise Penny, Sue Grafton and Kristina Stanley. I grew up on Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Ed McBain, Dick Francis and John D. MacDonald. I've read every book by every one of those authors.
When do you read, and why?
I read every day, usually after dinner. It relaxes me. Reading is also the best teacher. When I decided to try my hand at short stories, I read several anthologies.
What was the biggest obstacle you faced when writing your last book?
Finding the time every day. Some days, it's really hard…
Give aspiring writers some good advice.
I always quote Agatha Christie whenever I'm asked this question: "There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well."
Plug your next book.
Skeletons in the Attic: A Marketville Mystery (#1) [August 21, 2016: Imajin Books]
What goes on behind closed doors doesn't always stay there…Calamity (Callie) Barnstable isn't surprised to learn she's the sole beneficiary of her late father's estate, though she is shocked to discover she has inherited a house in the town of Marketville—a house she didn't know existed. However, there are conditions attached to Callie's inheritance: she must move to Marketville, live in the house, and solve her mother's murder.
Callie's not keen on dredging up a thirty-year-old mystery, but if she doesn't do it, there's a scheming psychic named Misty Rivers who is more than happy to expose the Barnstable family secrets. Determined to thwart Misty and fulfill her father's wishes, Callie accepts the challenge. But is she ready to face the skeletons hidden in the attic?
Tell me something funny.
A few years ago, a friend asked me to come to her Girl Guide troop's career night to talk about being a writer. I was ridiculously excited about it. After all, I wanted to be a writer since reading Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery, and I'd been about nine at the time. Maybe I could inspire a young girl!
It turned out that the other career night speaker made dolls. That's right. Dolls. Dolls who had hair and eyes that could be interchangeable to match their owner's hair and eyes. Let's just say I did not have the troop leaning on my every word!
SKELETONS IN THE ATTIC is now available for pre-order on Amazon Kindle for the special introductory price of .99 (reg. $4.99). Find it here :http://getbook.at/SkeletonsintheAttic
Judy Penz Sheluk, Author
The Hanged Man's Noose (July 2015): Now available at all the usual suspects.
Skeletons in the Attic (coming August 21, 2016)

subset: commoncrawl


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**all items purchased by me
It's Monday again, so that means it's Miscellaneous Monday time! I thought that today, rather than posting about yet more accessories I've made, I thought I'd show what I got a few weeks ago to store a good portion of it all. For a while, I thought about turning a large unused picture frame into a way to hang earrings...but then I have the problem of no free wall space in the bedroom so when I saw this unit, the light went off.
Recollections Rolling Cart with 10 Drawers
Purchased from Michael's craft store while it was on sale - I think around $35
(but I don't have the receipt anymore)
~my camera is currently charging so I don't have a picture of it out of the box, but it looks just like the picture~
This was really easy to put together - you just needed a screwdriver for the little knobs. The other needed tool is included. I did not put the wheels on mine, since I knew that once I placed it I most likely would not be moving it around (turns out, if I had put the wheels on, it would have been too tall for where I've got it standing).
As far as what I'm using inside each drawer for organization...a little bit of everything. This is where creativity came to play. If it had divided compartments and would fit in the drawer, it was fair game to use. I also used various sizes of cardboard jewelry boxes for sets.
For the most part, I have a different color of accessory in each drawer. Some drawers still have room left in the organizer or space in the drawer for more organizers when needed; others are full (apparently I have a lot of blue earrings and necklaces - I did not realize that).
I only have 2 issues. One being I still have to use my dresser drawer, dresser top, the wall (those 3 areas just aren't as crowded now) and a couple other drawers in the built-in for jewelry. I also have a separate stack of drawers that I bought a few years ago on top of the unit. To fit everything, I would need a second unit (which I have no room for). The second is that the drawers aren't quite long enough to fit the divided jewelry trays. I ended up using one of my divided jewelry trays by cutting a row off to get it too fit.
I know of a few people who would say I clearly have way too much jewelry. But I like my accessories. And I like to make accessories. At least now that everything is organized by color family, I'm able to see most of what I have and more of my collection is getting used, whereas before I kept wearing the same few things.
Organizing keeps me happily occupied, and if by organizing over and over I'm able to see more and more of my collection, then all the better. I'll get more use out of everything.
Do you have a large accessory collection? What's your organization secret? Do you want to see inside the drawers? If you do, let me know!
**all items purchased by me
**my opinions are my own
**not sponsored/affiliated


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It was my 23rd birthday on Wednesday (cue me singing Blink 182's 'What's My Age Again?' and specifically the line "nobody likes you when you're 23" for most of the day). Since so many of you enjoyed reading my What I Got For Christmas post (link here), I thought that I would do a What I Got For My Birthday post too. So here's what I got for my birthday this year;
Disney Bambi Thumper Cushion
How adorable is this Thumper cushion? I originally saw it on Becky's blog (link here) and despite the fact that it was my 23rd birthday instead of my 3rd birthday, I made sure to leave more than enough hints that Thumper would be the perfect birthday present for me and here he is.
It wouldn't be a birthday for me without some new DVDs and these are ones that I've wanted to add to my collection for quite some time now. I'm so excited to see what happens in season 2 of Bates Motel and can't wait to catch up on season 3 of Girls, despite already seeing it last year. And the one movie that I've been dying to see; Gone Girl, will be getting watched this weekend with what's left of my birthday cake by my side. Hehe. I can't wait to see if the movie lives up to all of the hype.
If you happened to see my birthday wishlist blog post (link here) then you will know that I included quite a few camera related products in it, ones that I hoped would make their way to me for my birthday and here they are.
I can finally stop using one memory card between my camera and my phone (that was definitely becoming a bit of a faff) and I also now have a great little case to keep my camera safe and sound in (instead of keeping it in the cardboard box that it came in).
Rosie For Autograph Pyjamas
I had actually been lusting over this exact pair of Rosie For Autograph pyjamas at the end of last year but once they went into the sale at Christmas-time my chances of finding them quickly evaporated. I gave up all hope of ever finding them so you can imagine my real surprise when I received them for my birthday. Somehow my mum managed to grab the last pair of these in my size.
So that's what I got for my birthday this year. I hope that you have enjoyed this blog post and that it's given you a little bit of an insight into the kind of things that I enjoy the most (which from reading this particular blog post seem to be chocolate, lounging around in bed watching DVDs and playing around with my blog photography). Actually I think that that might be a pretty accurate representation of me. Hehe.
A huge thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday either on here or on Twitter or on Instagram. It really made my day that much more special. And another big thanks to the wonderful individuals (you know who you are) who bought me such lovely and thoughtful presents this year.
I'm off to have another slice of birthday cake and to choose which DVD to watch first. Which one should I go for?


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her 19th month has been a "busy" month for her....
(1) several teeth sprouting!!! yeah! finally! @ 18 months she has only like 5 teeth (and not fully formed)...and suddenly in early june, i could feel/see a few teeth sprouting. mummy was very excited... hehehe. the last i counted, 6 of them coming out at the same time. no wonder she was such a terror to feed the last month! but she's better now and her appetite is better these days.
(2) Feeding -- even though her appetite is better these days, she's still difficult to feed when we are outside. she's totally distracted by her surroundings and prefer to "play" than eat. ;( but at home, she's quite OK, usually finishes everything and quite cooperative. even the "carrot" of having "outside food" doesn't tempt her enough to sit down to eat. in fact, she seems quite disinterested in adult food, which is surprising to me, cos she used to be so happy when we feed her our food in the past.
now, she has developed the habit of "grazing" .... eat one or 2 mouthfuls and off she goes to play. sometimes she just eats bread ;(.
she also play "favorites" -- eating what she likes only.
i really don't know if i should be concerned about such bad "eating habits"??
(3) speaking -- the last we counted (about 1 week back), she has a vocab of more than 150 words. we decided to stop counting ... lost track. =P she's really busy being a "parrot" these days... always repeating what we say. and trying to string more words together.
one thing though, think i have to make a conscious effort to speak to her more often in mandarin. i tend to rattle on in english.
(4) she's getting more attentive to craft work like painting, playing with the play dough and so forth.
(5) socially, she's better in small groups. definitely not as shy and reserved. but put her in a big group, her insecurity starts to show and she sticks to us and wants us to carry her. not sure what else we can do to help her here. guess we just go with the flow and sooner/later she will mature and be confident.
here's a photo of her taken a few days before she turned 19 months in a pretty dress bought for her by her 奶奶. Thank you 奶奶!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
19th month
Posted by Ms Long at 12:57 AM
Labels: kaira
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text: The following are links to other great Pokemon Shrines that I recommend you visit if you enjoyed The Godfather. I try to link new Pokemon shrines when they pop up but I do tend to miss some. If you have a shrine that I haven't listed and would like to see it here, please contact me. I would love to list your site!


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• Environmental Health Innovator Announces World's First from 2 pcs Mini UVC Light wands.
• Business for travel, meals, travels to bring easy to use.
• Easy to use for disinfection, "ON" is for start to disinfection, "OFF" is for stop disinfection.
• With a protection (safety switch), it will automatically turn the UV-C light off if the device is turned upward.
• Ultraviolet (UV-C) light help to eliminate bacteria, viruses, fungus, molds, etc on the surfaces of
most household and personal items.
• Remove odors, bacteria, and dust motes which cause splenetic, pneumonia, asthma, and allergies.
• Maintenance room, closet, and to put around the house supplies of clean living.
• To avoid being covered by bacteria.
• Convenient hand-held lightweight design, the required area at any time for sterilization.
• Can be standing on the desktop, on the local space (such as the bathroom) so
long sterilization of bacteria.
• Special lamp designed to allow partial exposure lamps, bactericidal larger and easier clean tube.
• Products used in daily life, chopsticks, spoons, dishes, telephone handsets, desk, toilets, public
places, automobile, etc. .., free from harmful bacterial pathogens.
• Keeping your rooms, closets, and household appliances in a "Germ Free" antiseptic environment.
• Product Size: 150 x 44 x 23 mm.
• Weight: 60g.
• UV-C Lamp: 2W DC Lamp (2pcs).
• UV Wavelength: UV-C (253.7nm).
• Radiation: >1500uw/cm²
• Batteries: 4x AAA / 6V.
• Tube Life: >8000hrs .
• Certificate(s): CE, RoHS, FDA, Lab Test Report.
• Color: Pink, Blue, White, Any colors.
• MOQ: 1000pcs.
School Mini Sanitizer Sterilizer Disinfection


text:
I fully support W. "Al" Krotoski, MD, PhD, MPH's letter titled "Seeking mercy for deaths of innocents in America." He speaks from his heart and his "voice" speaks for many pro-lifers and definitely for the unborn themselves.
It's ironic that his letter was published on Groundhog's Day. In a time when many people seem to care more about the safety and lives of animals as opposed to protecting human life, the groundhog took center stage on Fox News this morning. While discussing the terrorist issues (including the beheadings), they abruptly interrupted their program to check in with the groundhog's "shadow" in Pennsylvania. Before I upset the Animal Rights Activist, let me assure you that I am an animal lover, too. As a youngster, we always had at least one family pet. As a father and grandfather, our family pets have been well loved and cared for.
As I penned my thoughts, an advertisement for the ASPCA soliciting donations appeared on TV. It noted that many abandoned animals "cling to life" and most will not survive without someone's assistance. The same can be said about the unborn babies with the exception that NONE survive without someone's help. Abortion, at any stage of development of the baby, always results in sudden death of a live human being. It's no different than when the ISIS terrorist cuts off the head of an innocent person. The process of abortion and beheading produce the same result: death of a live human being!
Dr. Krotoski hit the nail on the head when he said that it's time for us to humble ourselves and pray to God for His mercy. The blood of these innocent babies stain the "hands" of all of us in America. We should be ashamed! God provides us with hope in (2 Chronicles 7:14) when He promises to revive (save) our land and pardon our sins if we humble ourselves, pray, seek His presence and turn from our wicked ways.
Francis Rinaudo Jr.
retired dentist
St. Francisville