Tough day
I had such a tough day at work. I have been, to say it nicely, thrown under the bus! Sigh. Welcome to Corporate America. God bless those who have worked for years and years in this environment. It is stressful, taxing on your physical and spiritual life, at times discouraging and many times exhausting. Combine this with raising a family and you have the perfect cocktail for insanity! I always pull through days like this, only by God’s grace, but I sure wish they did not happen all that often. I truly should not complain. God has been so good to my family and I in providing this job for our well being. I do not deserve His mercy but I am given it daily.
Well, I think I will have a margarita…relax…and possibly turn in for an early evening.
Why should women vote??
I came across this very interesting article on my parish forum and decided to do a little more research. I had no idea of the sacrifices that women made in order for future generations to be allowed the freedom to vote. Found at http://www.fwhc.org/why-women-vote.htm. Let me know what you think!!
This is why we vote: Because we can!
The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and with their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of “obstructing sidewalk traffic.” They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the “Night of Terror” on November 15, 1917 (a mere 87 years ago), when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food — all of it colorless slop — was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because–why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO’s new movie “Iron Jawed Angels.” It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder. All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was — with herself. “One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,” she said. “What would those women think of the way I use — or don’t use — my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.” The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her “all over again.”
HBO will run the movie periodically before releasing it on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum.
We are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order. It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. The doctor admonished the men: “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.”
Please pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.
-Connie Schultz, The Plain Dealer, 1801 Superior Ave.,Cleveland, OH 44114, Cschultz@plaind.com, August 2004
Live for the moment! No Day like today!!
No Day Like Today…
By Rusty Montgomery *“I will not wait…I will live every present moment, filling it to the brim with love” – Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan
Have you ever wished away time? I have done it before. If you have ever found yourself saying one of the following lines you have also done so.
“I wish I was done with high school!”
“I wish it were three years down the line so we could get married”
“I can’t wait till my freshman year is over!”
“I am tired of being a teenager!”
So often I get caught up in thinking about what is going to happen in my life. We all look forward to the future and have the attitude: “oh I can’t wait till that happens,” or “I can’t wait till God gives me _____ in my life.” Our excitement or fear of what is to come is a natural part of growing up and becoming who we fully are.
Today I start another year of seminary. I am humbled and blessed to be a seminarian studying for the priesthood. Building up to the start of the year, I found myself acting like my life is a waiting room at the doctors’ office. I am here waiting for the Lord to do His thing, to call me back to his office to show me who I am and what I am called to do and that will be it. Somehow I don’t think it works that way. All of us, whether we are in middle school, high school, college, or out of school, can have the attitude of always seeming to be waiting on something else to come. Since we are waiting, we miss the truth of our lives that is right in front of us. Oh how much we miss! How much there is to learn in the present moment!
Bishop Francis Xavier was a bishop from Vietnam who came to understand this concept in a clear way. He was put in a prison camp in Vietnam shortly after becoming bishop. He missed his people very much and was in deep distress over being taken away from his ministry. After coming to terms with what the Lord was calling him to, he embraced the grace of each moment to live for the Lord and give his love and service to others. He reflected that his whole life was different after he started to live that way. How much we can learn!
Most likely there will be no prison for us or any experience that dangerous, but we are still called to live like the humble bishop from Vietnam! How often do we think school is boring? How often do we think work or practice is boring? How often do we not enjoy being with our family? Every moment is a gift from the Lord to be embraced and lived! Every moment and experience can help us to become more fully who God made us to be only if we choose to live them with great passion and love. Just imagine if we took each moment at school as if it was an opportunity to enter into the gift of life that God has given us. To learn, meet people, be challenged, and overcome all that is before us for the greater glory of God and to become who we were created to be. Just imagine if work was a time where we looked forward to the labor of the moment, the task at hand, and the satisfaction of a job well done in order to give God glory for the ability to work and serve all people. Just imagine!
My friends, life does not have to be a series of moments that we pass over because we are constantly longing for something different or something to come. Right now at this very moment, you are who you are, where you are, and doing what you are doing, because Jesus loves you and in His great mystery you are living out His plan. Live each moment, embrace each moment and live for the Lord!
No more waiting or looking for something in the future. The perfect will of the Lord is now…Just look around and see how beautiful it is…
God Bless You,
Rusty
* Rusty is a seminarian at St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward, Nebraska and is the co-founder of Live Greater Ministries. The ministry’s aim is to invite the youth of the Church into a dialogue about the present culture and how Jesus invites us to a relationship with him, finding true happiness and greater purpose. More information can be found on their website at
The Tuskegee Experiment
I had a class today at work on Diversity in the Workplace. Overall, it was a good session and I learned a few new ways to handle “diverse” situations. The instructor was using a story as an example and this story she was telling involved the Tuskegee Experiment. While I have heard of this I have never been well versed. She said that these African American men were injected, by the government, with syphylis. Well, upon some research, I can find not one site that says the government actually injected these men. I did find where the government knowingly did not treat these men for their terrible disease. Because of this many of these men died and their wives and children were infected. See below for more details.
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
by Borgna Brunner
For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. These men, for the most part illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama, were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. Informed that they were being treated for “bad blood,” their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all.
The data for the experiment was to be collected from autopsies of the men, and they were thus deliberately left to degenerate under the ravages of tertiary syphilis—which can include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death. “As I see it,” one of the doctors involved explained, “we have no further interest in these patients until they die.”
Using Human Beings as Laboratory Animals
The true nature of the experiment had to be kept from the subjects to ensure their cooperation. The sharecroppers’ grossly disadvantaged lot in life made them easy to manipulate. Pleased at the prospect of free medical care —almost none of them had ever seen a doctor before— these unsophisticated and trusting men became the pawns in what James Jones, author of the excellent history on the subject, Bad Blood, identified as “the longest non-therapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history.”
The study was meant to discover how syphilis affected blacks as opposed to whites —the theory being that whites experienced more neurological complications from syphilis, whereas blacks were more susceptible to cardiovascular damage. How this knowledge would have changed clinical treatment of syphilis is uncertain.
Although the PHS touted the study as one of great scientific merit, from the outset its actual benefits were hazy. It took almost forty years before someone involved in the study took a hard and honest look at the end results, reporting that “nothing learned will prevent, find, or cure a single case of infectious syphilis or bring us closer to our basic mission of controlling venereal disease in the United States.”
When the experiment was brought to the attention of the media in 1972, news anchor Harry Reasoner described it as an experiment that “used human beings as laboratory animals in a long and inefficient study of how long it takes syphilis to kill someone.”
A Heavy Price in the Name of Bad Science
By the end of the experiment, 28 of the men had died directly of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis. How had these men been induced to endure a fatal disease in the name of science?
To persuade the community to support the experiment, one of the original doctors admitted it “was necessary to carry on this study under the guise of a demonstration and provide treatment.” At first, the men were prescribed the syphilis remedies of the day —bismuth, neoarsphenamine, and mercury— but in such small amounts that only 3 percent showed any improvement.
These token doses of medicine were good public relations and did not interfere with the true aims of the study. Eventually, all syphilis treatment was replaced with “pink medicine” —aspirin.
To ensure that the men would show up for a painful and potentially dangerous spinal tap, the PHS doctors misled them with a letter full of promotional hype: “Last Chance for Special Free Treatment.” The fact that autopsies would eventually be required was also concealed.
As a doctor explained, “If the colored population becomes aware that accepting free hospital care means a post-mortem, every darky will leave Macon County…” Even the Surgeon General of the United States participated in enticing the men to remain in the experiment, sending them certificates of appreciation after 25 years in the study
Following Doctors’ Orders
It takes little imagination to ascribe racist attitudes to the white government officials who ran the experiment, but what can one make of the numerous African Americans who collaborated with them? The experiment’s name comes from the Tuskegee Institute, the black university founded by Booker T. Washington. Its affiliated hospital lent the PHS its medical facilities for the study, and other predominantly black institutions as well as local black doctors also participated. A black nurse, Eunice Rivers, was a central figure in the experiment for most of its forty years.
The promise of recognition by a prestigious government agency may have obscured the troubling aspects of the study for some. A Tuskegee doctor, for example, praised “the educational advantages offered our interns and nurses as well as the added standing it will give the hospital.” Nurse Rivers explained her role as one of passive obedience: “we were taught that we never diagnosed, we never prescribed; we followed the doctor’s instructions!
It is clear that the men in the experiment trusted her and that she sincerely cared about their well-being, but her unquestioning submission to authority eclipsed her moral judgment. Even after the experiment was exposed to public scrutiny, she genuinely felt nothing ethical had been amiss.
One of the most chilling aspects of the experiment was how zealously the PHS kept these men from receiving treatment. When several nationwide campaigns to eradicate venereal disease came to Macon County, the men were prevented from participating. Even when penicillin —the first real cure for syphilis— was discovered in the 1940s, the Tuskegee men were deliberately denied the medication.
During World War II, 250 of the men registered for the draft and were consequently ordered to get treatment for syphilis, only to have the PHS exempt them. Pleased at their success, the PHS representative announced: “So far, we are keeping the known positive patients from getting treatment.” The experiment continued in spite of the Henderson Act (1943), a public health law requiring testing and treatment for venereal disease, and in spite of the World Health Organization’s Declaration of Helsinki (1964), which specified that “informed consent” was needed for experiments involving human beings.
Blowing the Whistle
The story finally broke in the Washington Star on July 25, 1972, in an article by Jean Heller of the Associated Press. Her source was Peter Buxtun, a former PHS venereal disease interviewer and one of the few whistle blowers over the years. The PHS, however, remained unrepentant, claiming the men had been “volunteers” and “were always happy to see the doctors,” and an Alabama state health officer who had been involved claimed “somebody is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.”
Under the glare of publicity, the government ended their experiment, and for the first time provided the men with effective medical treatment for syphilis. Fred Gray, a lawyer who had previously defended Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, filed a class action suit that provided a $10 million out-of-court settlement for the men and their families. Gray, however, named only whites and white organizations as defendants in the suit, portraying Tuskegee as a black and white case when it was in fact more complex than that —black doctors and institutions had been involved from beginning to end.
The PHS did not accept the media’s comparison of Tuskegee with the appalling experiments performed by Nazi doctors on their Jewish victims during World War II. Yet in addition to the medical and racist parallels, the PHS offered the same morally bankrupt defense offered at the Nuremberg trials: they claimed they were just carrying out orders, mere cogs in the wheel of the PHS bureaucracy, exempt from personal responsibility.
The study’s other justification —for the greater good of science— is equally spurious. Scientific protocol had been shoddy from the start. Since the men had in fact received some medication for syphilis in the beginning of the study, however inadequate, it thereby corrupted the outcome of a study of “untreated syphilis.”
The Legacy of Tuskegee
In 1990, a survey found that 10 percent of African Americans believed that the U.S. government created AIDS as a plot to exterminate blacks, and another 20 percent could not rule out the possibility that this might be true. As preposterous and paranoid as this may sound, at one time the Tuskegee experiment must have seemed equally farfetched.
Who could imagine the government, all the way up to the Surgeon General of the United States, deliberately allowing a group of its citizens to die from a terrible disease for the sake of an ill-conceived experiment? In light of this and many other shameful episodes in our history, African Americans’ widespread mistrust of the government and white society in general should not be a surprise to anyone.
Anniversary
Yesterday was our anniversary. It has been two years since we were married in the Church. Thanks be to God He has blessed us so much! We have two beautiful girls, a home to live in and, of course, we have each other.
Frank took me to a local Mexican restaraunt called Javier’s. It was SO good! We started out with a beer and a margarita. We chatted for awhile, althought the only downfall was that the restraunt was very noisy, and then started the meal with an appetizer called Ceviche. Shrimp and fish with pico de gallo. It tasted great. We then went on to the main course. I got Filete Cantiflas, tenderloin stuffed with cheese, and Frank got the Red Snapper Mojo de Ajo. Everything was delicious and staff was very attentive. We never dine out at expensive restraunts so this was a really awesome surprise. The best part about the night, however, was not the fancy food but that we were able to be alone together for awhile. We very rarely get to go out together and really enjoyed spending a couple of hours with each other.
God truly has blessed us. I have no doubt that Frank and I were meant to be together for our own good. We are the opposite of each other in so many ways yet at the same time we compliment each other. It is as though God has done this on purpose so that we would balance the other out.
Anyway, I had a great time! Thank you to all of you who wished us Happy Anniversary!
Fitna the Movie- Defend our Freedom
When will Americans realize that Islam is not a religion of peace? The Koran calls for our destruction. Wathing this movie only makes it even more noticeable. Don’t forget those who died on 9/11! Don’t forget the children who were slaughtered! Don’t forget the pregnant women falling from the twin towers and their bellies busting open on the pavement below. Don’t forget the men and women who ran into the burning collapsing buildings to save the lives of others. Don’t forget the priest who walked through giving last rites to the wounded and dying and was then himself killed. Don’t forget. Remember, always remember, that the media will paint Islam in a good light. Never forget, always remember. Remember what you felt like that day. Remember the terror. Remember.
God help us. I am more then sure I will receive negative feedback on this post. If you are Muslim, and offended, why would you be? If your religion is one of peace then do not be offended when we speak out against those who are wicked! Join those of us who speak for true peace.
Happy Birthday Mom
Dear Mom,
Happy Birthday! Hopefully you read this and know that I am thinking about you. To be honest, their is not a day that goes by that I do not think about you! We have not spoken for a very long time and things have been this way on and off for years now.
Mom, I have wanted to express my gratitude to you for some time now. Thank you so much for giving me life. I know things were difficult for you and dad when I was born. I am more than aware that I was protected from much of the difficulty. You always provided for me. I know, as a teenager, so often I only thought about the bad times between you and me. However, as an adult, I know that their were many good times as well. I hold no grudges, no anger. I was angry in my early 20’s at you and at Dad but no longer. I realized years ago that anger does a person no good. It eats you up inside and spoils everything around you. I hope you have forgiven me as well for anything I did to wrong you as my Mom. I know you sacrificed to bring me into this world and I know you have always loved me.
I don’t always have the right words to express myself but I wanted you to know how much I love you. You will always be my mom and, because of the will of God, I will always be your first born daughter. I pray daily for our reconciliation and that we be a true family.
Love,
Jeni
Late term abortion clinic closes
Late-Term Abortion Facility in Dallas To Close – Eighth Closure Since Bishop Began Prayer at Clinics
24 hours a day, 7 days a week ecumenical effort was organized, with more than 800 people from 89 churches and several denominations
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
DALLAS, Texas, June 24, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Catholic Pro-Life Committee, the Respect Life Ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas, has reported that Aaron Women’s Health Center, a late-term abortion facility in Dallas will be closing its doors on June 28. Aaron’s was one of three abortion clinics in Texas authorized to perform late-term abortions on unborn babies older than 16 weeks gestation.
When Bishop Charles Grahmann began leading a monthly “Second Saturday Rosary” outside Dallas abortion clinics in 1990, there were 13 abortion clinics in the city. Seven clinics closed between 1990 and 2001, and after Aaron’s closes there will remain only five freestanding abortion clinics in Dallas. The Catholic Pro-Life Committee and others have vowed to continue to pray and offer alternatives to abortion outside those remaining five clinics.
The Catholic Pro-Life Committee has maintained a constant presence of peaceful prayer and sidewalk counseling in front of Aaron’s for over a decade and participated in a “40 Days for Life Prayer Vigil” there in 2004.
During the 40 Days Vigil, a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week ecumenical effort was organized, with more than 800 people from 89 churches and several denominations praying and fasting for an end to the killing of babies inside the clinic.
“We are overjoyed to hear that this notorious place of death is finally closing,” said Karen Garnett, executive director of the Catholic Pro-Life Committee.
“Not only is this a victory for the pro-life movement, for mothers and for babies, but it is a victory for Dallas as well, as the horrific practice of the killing of unborn children will take place at one less location in our city: Dallas will no longer be the home of a late-term abortion facility.
“We thank God for the many lives that will be saved and mothers spared the agony and regret of abortion with the closing of Aaron’s. We stand ready to offer help and healing to those who have made the abortion decision at Aaron’s or any other abortion facilities. We mourn the tremendous loss of so many thousands of innocent human lives, and we’ll continue to pray and work towards the day when Dallas is an abortion-free city and the blood of innocent unborn children is no longer shed here.”
Bishop Kevin Farrell of the Diocese of Dallas welcomed news of the closure of the clinic, saying, “This is the best news I’ve heard all week.” He expressed his personal gratitude to everyone who has offered prayers and sacrifices for an end to the killing. A Mass of Thanksgiving for the closing of Aaron’s will be celebrated Saturday, June 28.
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Mass of Thanksgiving and Prayer Service this Saturday, June 28 – please help spread the word!
A Mass of Thanksgiving and Prayer Service for the closing of Aaron’s will be celebrated by Rev. Msgr. Mark Seitz at 8:00 am on Saturday, June 28, at St. Rita Catholic Church, located at 12521 Inwood Rd., Dallas. St. Rita was the location of the opening Mass and kickoff rally for the 40 Days Vigil held in 2004-05. Following Mass we will take buses to Aaron’s for a closing prayer service and then return to St. Rita Sweeney Hall for a reception. All are invited to attend.
Please help spread the word by forwarding this email about the Mass to your e-mail lists and sharing the news with your friends! Our list is limited and we want everyone to hear the GOOD NEWS and come to celebrate! It’s been 7 years since the last abortion center closed in Dallas!! Thank you and God bless you!
The Catholic Pro-Life Committee, Respect Life Ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas, has learned that Aaron Women’s Health Center, a late-term abortion facility in Dallas located at 6546 LBJ Freeway, will be closing its doors. Aaron’s was one of three abortion clinics in Texas authorized to perform late-term abortions when they upgraded their facilities in early 2005 to be in compliance with new state regulations requiring “ambulatory surgical center” status to perform abortions on unborn babies older than 16 weeks’ gestation.
A couple of years ago I did sidewalk counseling at this abortion clinic for several months. It was so devestating to see the lives, babies, women and men, that were ruined. God is so merciful and has heard the prayers of His people.
The Catholic Pro-Life Committee has maintained a constant presence of peaceful prayer and sidewalk counseling in front of Aaron’s for over a decade, and was the second organization in the country to hold a 40 Days for Life Prayer Vigil in 2004. Aaron’s was the site of that effort from December 12, 2004, Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Unborn, to January 22, 2005, anniversary of the tragic Roe vs. Wade decision, when it was remodeling to do late-term abortions.
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