Teen charged in suburban school bomb rumor | Chicago Tribune
A 16-year-old Schaumburg High School student was cited as a juvenile with disorderly conduct today after he allegedly made statements he wanted to plant a bomb at the school on the 8th anniversary of the Columbine massacre.
It's the time of year for spring flings, senior sluff day, and copycat bomb/campus shooter reports. Which is a pretty sick joke, y'all, but it doesn't stop kids from pulling it.
Pope Revises 'Limbo' for Babies | Chicago Tribune
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI has revised traditional Roman Catholic teaching on so-called "limbo," approving a church report released Friday that said there was reason to hope that babies who die without baptism can go to heaven.
Benedict approved the findings of the International Theological Commission, which issued its long-awaited document on limbo on Origins, the documentary service of Catholic News Service, the news agency of the American Bishop's Conference.
This is just…weird. Next week: the Pope announces just exactly how many angels can do the foxtrot on the head of a pin (hint: fewer than can do the jitterbug, because of all the extra space needed for the fancy moves).
Vermont Senate: Impeach the President | Chicago Tribune
MONTPELIER, Vt. — Vermont senators voted Friday to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, saying their actions have raised "serious questions of constitutionality."
The nonbinding resolution was approved 16-9 without debate — all six Republicans in the chamber at the time and three Democrats voted against it.
Yet another non-binding resolution – let's have a binding one next time!
When you have hair like this, as I do, you get into weird conversations with complete strangers. Why? I have no idea, but people seem to think that a comment is required sometimes.
Here’s a fairly typical example of a conversation that I’m forced to have now and then. It happened earlier this week while I was heading down to the ground floor to run an errand:
Random middle-aged man in elevator: “That’s some red hair you got there.”
Me: “Yes, well, thanks to my parents.”
RMAMIE: “Wow, both of them?”
Me: “Yep, they both had it. It’s a recessive gene, so they both had to give it to me.”
RMAMIE: “Well, it’s sure red.”
Me: “I guess it is.”
See? A variation on this is the one where a complete stranger will come up to me, do some type of double-take, and start telling me about some cousin or distant acquaintance to whom I bear an uncanny resemblance. Apparently there’s an awful lot of oversized, pear-shaped red headed women with sharp features and thin lips running around on this planet. This happened most recently at lunch one day at work, when a woman started telling me, out of the blue as a passed her in a doorway, all about her friend that lookedjust like me. She was startled because at first she thought I was her friend, who’s from a distant state.
The most bizarre experience of this type happened when I was in high school on a Job’s Daughters sleep-away trip in Vernal, Utah. I had gone to the local Rexall drug store to get something with some of the other girls, and this pharmacist lady comes running up to me from the back, throws her arms around me, and starts carrying on in German: “Meine kusine, meine kusine von Duetschland” (My girl cousin, my girl cousin from Germany!). The really odd thing was that at the time, I spoke enough German tobe able to understand her and be extremely baffled. I stammered something equivalent to “No, I’m sorry, I’m an American girl.”
I’m not sure why, but this kind of conversation is NEVER, EVER initiated by someone younger than myself. It’s almost always a middle aged man. Women often add a compliment, or confine themselves to saying “You have beautiful hair,” or “What a lovely color.” Men tend to back into it awkwardly, commenting on how red it is, or speculating on where it came from.
Well, it didn’t come from a bottle, bub.
Now that bright silver-grey hairs are becoming more and more common, of course, I have to resign myself to losing the one thing that makes me stand out in a crowd. The color didn’t fade as I got older, thank goodness; and I’m pretty happy with how bright the grey hairs are and the streaks they’re starting to form at the temples and my natural part. I’m okay with that, and I certainly won’t resort to The Bottle in order to keep the color, because they just don’t make this color (it’s actually a bunch of differentreds – some deep red mixed with a much finer strawberry blonde).
Gunmans Writings Were Disturbing | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited
Lots of people knew Cho. Lots of people thought he was a little weird. Some people called him "the question mark guy" because on the first day of an English lit class, he put a question mark next to his name on an introductory signup sheet for class members. He could not put a name to himself.
There were opportunities to reach him that were missed, but who could have known? Cho's aspect was impenetrable; if you called out a greeting to him, he would not reply or respond. Dorm roommates knew little of him, and he rarely interacted with them in any way. But his creative writing classmates knew something was spookily, scarily wrong with him; stories that he wrote and submitted for review were full of macabre violence and bizarre weaponry.
His instructor tried to get him help, but of course was told that nothing could be done since no crime had been committed.
Cho was the big monster on campus, but no one but his teacher and a few classmates suspected the horrible truth.
Within the next few months, Resurrection members will move to a rented building elsewhere in West Chicago. The church has not decided if it will join a group of Anglican parishes based in Africa and Asia that are forming their own organization, Koch said.
A longtime member of the NAACP and a former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Koch rejects the view that his church’s stance is bigoted. “If I had a family come to my church that were polygamist, we would love them, we would be kind, but we wouldn’t approve. That wouldn’t mean that we were bigoted. It would mean that we didn’t agree with their lifestyle,” Koch said.
“That’s exactly the way we feel about same-sex relationships,” he said. “It ought to be possible to disagree without being accused of being a bigot.”
The Rev. Stephen Martz, of St. Nicholas with the Holy Innocents in Elk Grove Village, called that explanation “disingenuous.” “It’s a clear message that, ‘We as a church don’t approve of you,’ ” said Martz, who’s known Koch for years. “The reality is that the message is harmful.”
New members who are gay or who support the church’s welcoming stance on homosexuality have swelled the ranks of the St. Nicholas congregation, Martz said.
Koch and Skidmore both said that unlike other such splits, they are grateful Resurrection’s departure was peaceful. “Because of the way it’s been handled by both parties, I don’t think it’s going to deter the path we’re on,” Skidmore said. “We’re going to continue to reach out and welcome the ministry of all members — and that includes our gay and lesbian members.”
Hey! Well, this is sad news about Res leaving, because they're a vibrant group, but they've been a foot-and-a-half out the door for years. It's strange about their stance, because they're liturgically a lot more modern and "liberal looking" than most other parishes in the area.
It must be hard on Steve, though. He's known Koch for years, as stated in the article, and he tells me via email that the interviewer caught him a bit unawares for the comment.
Living on Earth: New Studies Link Asthma, Prostate Cancer to Toxic Chemicals
CURWOOD: Dr. Myers I know the study didn’t look at this at all but the asthma epidemic is really big in cities and really big among poor people. What questions would you want to ask as a researcher to link that prevalence of disease in those populations to what is being found in this research?
MYERS: That’s a great question, Steve and all the science isn’t in on the answer yet. But there are a couple of clues that we can take from this. One is that the biggest source of exposure to these things is dietary. Diets that are high in fat are more likely to expose you to some of the persistent contaminants that this study focused on. The other thing that science is pointing toward is the fact that cheaper grade construction materials often contain compounds that the science links to increased immune systemsensitivity.
CURWOOD: In other words your house could be causing you asthma.
MYERS: Your house definitely could be causing you asthma. There have been some very interesting studies looking at the composition of dust in houses and the relationship to risk of asthma and there are significant associations being found.
Living on Earth plays early on Saturday mornings, and sometimes we like to listen to the radio and doze rather than turn off the alarm. This story, however, made me sit up and listen hard. I know that dust is a factor and our bedroom is very much in need of a thorough spring cleaning, and also the carpet is really worn. One of the things we’ve talked about is getting hardwood floors laid down (in the case of the Ugly Room, finished) in the bedrooms.
I’m still coughing my head off and not sleeping. This past week is as bad as it’s been since the beginning. When not coughing, though, I feel fine, I just constantly feel a sense that there’s crud in my chest that I can’t expel. And every now and then, a slight tickle in the center of my chest, below the back of my throat, flares up and forces an epic coughing fit.
I suppose the dietary hints in these studies probably mean my cutting back on the greater part of my beloved dairy foods… darn it. However, when I was avoiding fat in January and February during the office health club offer I had, I felt great.
I’ve been reading one of the linked articles about the asthma/toxic chemicals research to get more information. In the article, the toxic or persistent chemicals are referred to as “environmental estrogens” or EEs because they mimic the action of estrogen, which is involved in the body’s normal immune response. With allergic reactions, the immune system overreacts to various triggers, but the weird thingabout this research is the amounts needed are kind of the opposite the researchers expected. There’s not a lot of information about possible treatments in that article, the research is still just on the root causes. The other article is just the formal abstract. There’s nothing there about cheap building materials or reducing fat in the diet. However, I’ve read and heard about “healthy” vs. “unhealthy” flooring andbuilding materials before, so it makes some sense.
Technorati Tags: Asthma
Here you go:
Via the "I Can Has Cheezburger?" website, which was running some very funky javascript when I linked earlier
Pastor must answer important questions
Question: What is thy duty toward thy neighbor? Answer: My duty toward my Neighbor is . . . to do to all men as I would they should do unto me: . . . To be true and just in all my dealings: . . . To keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my tongue from evil speaking, lying, and slandering: . . . Not to desire other men’s goods; But to learn and labor truly to get my own living. — The Book of Common Prayer 1928.
We are 19 former vestry members from Grace and St. Stephens Episcopal Church. Between us, we served almost every year when Father Don Armstrong was rector. Though we represent a variety of views on the moral issues facing our church, those issues are not in question here.
At issue is the commandment: Thou shalt not steal. Armstrong is exploiting theological divisions within the Episcopal Church to avoid a canonical investigation about his alleged financial wrongdoing.
He has defied church and civil law by occupying and taking property from the church he and his allies left.
We cannot keep silent. Armstrong dismisses inquiries into his financial activities. He cries “religious persecution.”
Consider the facts and ask: Is Armstrong trustworthy? Is he guilty of financial wrongdoing? Do he and his followers have a lawful basis for taking church property?
The link is to an "advance" copy of an article in today's Colorado Springs Gazette by Paul Asay. I couldn't find it by searching the online edition, but this link was posted in an anonymous link to Asay's blog Faith at Altitude.
It's interesting reading, and also reveals that at least one other member of the vestry would have voted against leaving the Episcopal Church, had he not resigned a couple of days before the vote. Which would have ruined the "unanimous" label that Fr. Armstrong and his supporters have been touting, though we already know that another vestry member who would have voted "no" was conveniently out of own.
[tags]Episcopalian, schism[/tags]