Niggers

Like most people, I find the racial epitaph in the subject line above to be both offensive and demeaning. However, I am old enough to remember a time when the word was used a lot more frequently, and it wasn’t considered to be derogatory at the time.

My parents grew up in a small farming community in Minnesota. Even today, the town is 97% Caucasian, so it’s safe to say that there aren’t a lot of Negroes in the town. I would not consider either one of my parents to be prejudiced, but I heard them refer to Negroes as “darkies” or “niggers” with absolutely no malice whatsoever.


“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was published by Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) in December of 1884. In the book, he used the word “nigger” more than 200 times, in large part because that was how most white Americans described Negroes at the time. There have been some very recent attempts to “sanitize” the book by removing the word “nigger”, but there are a large group of people who feel that the word “nigger” is an integral pat of the original message of “Huckleberry Finn” and should not be removed.



Shortly before I started high school, the first “Freedom Rides” left Washington, D.C.. When I was I a freshman, my instructors at the Catholic boys high school that I attended provided some valuable insight about the concept of “racial equality”, and Martin Luther King’s speech on my birthday in 1963 finally succeeded in planting the seed of moral outrage someplace deep within me.

I have a dream

Although the decade of the 1960‘s is the time period when “black folks” finally got some proper legal protection, via the 1964 Civil Rights Act, there were a few events in the 1950’s that helped to provide the moral underpinnings for the law:

The 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision

The 1955 murder of Emmett Till



Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in December of 1955, which led to the Montgomery bus boycott.

The “Little Rock nine” petitioned to enter Little Rock High School in September of 1957.

Due in large part to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Black History Month has been celebrated in America since 1976, but its origins go back a lot further in history.

Negro History Week was started by Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1926. Although it’s impossible to know his motivation for doing so, it’s likely that the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and the 1924 meeting of the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey may have influenced his actions.

On a local level, Evanston recently mourned the passing of a woman who was a pioneer for civil rights in the community.

Mayme Finley Spencer was Evanston’s first female African-American alderman. She served two terms in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, and was instrumental in passing the city’s fair housing ordinance, which prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of real estate. During the time that she was serving on the city council, the hospitals in Evanston refused to admit black patients for any reason. In response, her husband (Dr. Warren frank Spencer) helped to create Community Hospital in Evanston. For a number of years, it was the only hospital in Evanston that African-Americans could go to for medical services.

By now, most of us would have assumed that racial prejudice was a fading issue, but that’s actually not the case.

Shortly after her funeral, Mayme’s family received a racist letter from an unknown person. In typical fashion, they shrugged off the letter, which was essentially the approach that Mayme’s father would have taken. In a sense, he was following the advice of the reading from last Sunday’s gospel (Matthew 5:38-48) which advised us to “turn the other cheek”.

Another example of the fact that there’s still work that needs to be done can be found if you read the racist vitriol attached to the YouTube clip of Martin Luther King’s speech.

It’s an absolute fact that right wing hate groups are on the rise in America. A little more than a year ago, there were 932 hate groups operating in America, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

It’s also true that reverse discrimination still comes into play from time to time. “Black leader” Danny Davis recently endorsed Carol Mosely Braun for mayor of Chicago ONLY because she was black. To borrow a phrase from my friends in Indiana , “that dog don’t hunt no more.”

Ms. Braun won exactly ONE of Chicago’s 2570 precincts in the recent mayoral campaign, and she received no votes at all in 174 precincts. By gathering only 9% of the total vote, she’s living proof that the citizens of Chicago voted for her on the strength of her character, and not the color of her skin.

When the 2011 Black History Month comes to its conclusion on Monday night, I’d recommend spending a little time reading about the lives of 28 black people who have made enormous contributions to our society:

I have a dream

In a lot of ways, they are all unforgettable:

Nat King and Natalie Cole

The Prince of Egypt - in Arabic

قصة موسى ، كما روى لنا في سفر الخروج ، هي قصة مألوفة جدا. ما ليس على ما يرام كما هو معروف هو أنه يمكن أيضا قصة موسى يمكن العثور عليها في القرآن (سورة البقرة بدءا 7.103) و في التوراة.

عندما ولدت الصبي الذي أصبح موسى ، يمكن أن نرى أن والدته كان طفلا حسنا ، وأخفت عنه لمدة ثلاثة أشهر. وضعت عندما كان لم يعد من الممكن إخفاء له ، له في تابوت صغير مصنوع من القصب ، وأرسله إلى أسفل نهر النيل.

ووجدت ابنة فرعون له ، واستغرق الشفقة عليه ، رغم أنها تعلم أنه كان العبرية. تبنت له ، واسمه موسى له ، وهو ما يعني "للخروج من المياه". منذ أن كان الآن ابن ابنة فرعون ، وكان أيضا أمير مصر.

أصبح عندما كان لا يزال شابا ، بقلق متزايد عليه من قبل عقوبة العبيد كانوا يتلقون العبرية من أسيادهم المصرية. في يوم واحد المشؤوم ، قال انه يمكن ان تتخذ أي أكثر من ذلك ، وانه عدد كبير قبطانا مهمة المصريين الذين يضربون كان عبدا العبرية ، واخفت جثته في الرمال.

وهرب إلى الصحراء لتجنب التعرض للقتل على يد فرعون ، واستقر في حياة الراعي. تزوج من امرأة اسمها في نهاية المطاف صفورة ، والتي أنجبت له ولدا ، الذي سماها جرشوم. لم يمض وقت طويل بعد ولادة ابنه ، وسمع صوت من فوق ، ورأيت رؤية لحرق بوش ، الذي دعاه للعودة إلى مصر وحرر شعبه.

the burning bush



مؤخرا ، وأمير مصر في الآونة الأخيرة جاء إلى الحياة مرة أخرى. ورغم أن الظروف كانت مختلفة كثيرا هذه المرة ، وقال انه سراح شعبه مرة أخرى. سوف اسمه ليست اسم مألوف في أمريكا حتى الآن ، لكنه أصبح أفضل بكثير المعروفة في الأشهر المقبلة.

اسمه وائل غنيم. إن هو إلا 30 سنة ، لكنه يعيش في بلد 60 ٪ من السكان هم دون هذه السن ، مما يجعل له تقريبا "الموقت القديمة"

يعمل كمدير تنفيذي لإحدى التسويق لجوجل في مصر ، وكان شخص واحد الأكثر مسؤولية عن تغييرات جذرية في مصر الأسبوع الماضي ، بما في ذلك استقالة الرئيس حسني مبارك. آخر صاحب بوك الأخيرة ، والتي كان بعنوان "نحن جميعا وقال خالد" كان ، إلى حد كبير جدا ، و "اطلاق النار الذي سمع في جميع أنحاء العالم".

جاء مبارك الى السلطة في 1981 بعد اغتيال أنور السادات في 1981. خلال سنواته الأولى كرئيس لبلاده ، وقدم عددا من التغييرات التي كانت مفيدة جدا لمصر. بمرور الوقت ، على الرغم من الركود في البلاد في ظل حكمه. 20 ٪ من السكان تحت خط الفقر ، والناتج المحلي الإجمالي ليست سوى 6200 $ ، لذلك كان لا مفر منه أن التغيير سيكون في نهاية المطاف إلى أن يأتي

ما هو حقا رائع عن تغيير السلطة في مصر هو انه حدث بسبب وجود اثنين من الشركات الأميركية التي لم تكن موجودة حتى قبل 15 عاما. وكان كل من فيس بوك وجوجل مشاريع الكلية في السنوات الأولى من حياتهم.

في البداية كان من المعروف جوجل بأنها "backrub" وكان مقرها في جامعة ستانفورد في كاليفورنيا. تأسست الشركة في مرآب لتصليح السيارات في مينلو بارك بولاية كاليفورنيا في 4 سبتمبر 1998.

بدأ مارك زوكربيرج مشروع زملائه الطلاب ما يسمى ب "فيس بوك" عندما كان لا يزال طالبا في جامعة هارفارد. تأسست بوك ، الشركة ، في المهجع كليته في 4 فبراير 2004.

خلافا لجهودنا في العراق وأفغانستان ، وجاء التغيير في الحكومة في مصر حول تقريبا مع اي جهد من جانب الحكومة الاميركية وراء زوجين من المحادثات من الرئيس أوباما وسفيرنا المصري السابق ، فرانك ويزنر جي.

حدث الثورة الديمقراطية التي حصلت للتو في مصر لأن المواطنين الشباب من مصر اتصالات مع بعضهم البعض عن طريق فيس بوك وجوجل (وربما حتى التغريد). وأثارت الاضطرابات الثورة المصرية في عدة بلدان أخرى في المنطقة. هذا الاسبوع ، والمتظاهرين في الشوارع في ليبيا ، اليمن ، ايران ، والبحرين (موطن الأسطول الخامس للبحرية الولايات المتحدة) ، ووالمسيرات ومن المقرر ابتداء من غد في الجزائر والعراق. ومن الواضح جدا الآن أن تعلموا مواطني تلك البلدان الأخرى على "السير مثل المصري"

watch Michael Jackson dance

لتغريد ، وبالمناسبة ، لم يأت حتى يوليو من عام 2006.

عندما عرضت قتل ندا آغا سلطان في طهران في جميع أنحاء العالم على موقع يوتيوب في 20 يونيو 2009 ، فإنه بالشلل محاولات زعماء إيران في فرض ضوابط صارمة على مواطنيها. وخلافا للثورة عام 1979 ، عندما كان الوصول الى شبكة الانترنت غير موجودة (الذي لا يزال في حالة لمستخدمي Facebbok في الصين) ، ومواطني إيران والآن لدينا المعلومات التي يحتاجونها لتحقيق أهدافهم ، على الرغم من أن الحكومة الحالية "لا تزال تعمل على ذلك ".

مصر هي دليل حي على أن حرية الوصول إلى المعلومات والتعليم هي أدوات قوية. يمكن العثور على مثال آخر في أفغانستان وباكستان ، حيث غريغ مورتنسون (المؤلف من ثلاثة فناجين من الشاي) أقامت أكثر من 100 مدرسة. بذلك ، فقد كان محدودا بشدة النداء الذي وجهته حركة طالبان في تلك البلدان. كتبه والآن مطلوب قراءة للقوات العسكرية الأميركية التي تتعامل مع مكافحة التمرد.

تونس أيضا مؤخرا بتغيير القادة ، ومن المحتمل أن قادة بعض الدول الأخرى في المنطقة سوف يكون الحصول على "وثائق المشي" في المستقبل القريب جدا. على الرغم من أن الدول العربية قد لا يحقق ما أنجزوه في طريقهم "العصر الذهبي" ، والعودة في القرن 7 ، فإن حقيقة أن العالم العربي يتحول أخيرا إلى أقل استبدادية ، وأكثر ديمقراطية ، والحكومات يعني أن بقية العالم ستكون أكثر أمنا.

وقد تم بث قناة الجزيرة من مصر خلال الاضطرابات الأخيرة. بدلا من أن يكون في المقام الأول أداة لنشر المعلومات المعادية للغرب إلى تصلب الأصوليين ، ومحطة تقدم الآن أدلة دامغة على ان الجهاد لم يعد الإجابة الصحيحة ، و "الشيطان الاكبر" هو في الحقيقة رجل يدعى أسامة بن لادن.

نشرت مجلة تايم عند قضية أوراق البنتاغون أصبح معروفا لسنوات منذ العام 40 ، وهي قضية كتب عليها "ما هاث زيروكس المطاوع؟" على الغلاف. ونحن جميعا في فتعجب حقيقة أن التغيرات في القيادة يمكن أن تحدث بسبب آلة نسخ.

جوجل الآن العلامة التجارية الأقوى على وجه الأرض ، وهو موقف من شأنه أن يتصور أحد منا ، حتى مؤسسيها ، حتى قبل خمس سنوات. إذا كان الناشرون من الزمن ، أي منذ التاريخ ، قد ترى في نهاية المطاف تغطية تصور وائل غنيم ، والأمير الجديد لمصر على الغلاف ، مع عنوان "ما الذي يحدثه جوجل هاث؟"

منذ مارك زوكربيرج كان الرجل مجلة تايم لعام 2010 ، وتخميني هو أن الأمير الجديد في مصر يجب أن تكون منافسا قويا للقب عام 2011.

The Prince of Egypt

The story of Moses, as told to us in Exodus, is a very familiar tale. What is not as well known is that the story of Moses can also be found in the Quran (starting with Sura 7.103) and in the Torah.

When the young boy who became Moses was born, his mother could see that he was a goodly child, and she hid him for three months. When it was no longer possible to hide him, she put him in a small ark made of reeds, and sent him down the Nile River.

The daughter of the Pharaoh found him, and took compassion on him, even though she knew that he was a Hebrew. She adopted him, and named him Moses, which means “out of the water”. Since he was now the son of the Pharaoh’s daughter, he was also a prince of Egypt.

When he was still a young man, he became increasingly troubled by the punishment the Hebrew slaves were receiving from their Egyptian masters. On one fateful day, he could take no more, and he slew an Egyptian task master who was smiting a Hebrew slave, and hid his body in the sand.

He fled into the desert to avoid being killed by the Pharaoh, and settled into a life of a shepherd. He ultimately married a woman named Zipporah, who bore him a son, who he named Gershom. Not long after the birth of his son, he heard a voice from above, and saw a vision of a burning bush, which called him to return to Egypt and free his people.

Recently, the Prince of Egypt recently came to life again. Although the circumstances were much different this time, he again freed his people. His name isn’t a familiar name in America yet, but he’ll become much better known in the months to come.

His name is Wael Ghonim. He is only 30 years old, but he lives in a country where 60% of the population is under that age, which almost makes him an “old timer”

He works as a marketing executive for Google in Egypt, and was the one person most responsible for the dramatic changes in Egypt last week, including the resignation of President Mubarak. His recent Facebook post, which he titled “we are all Khaled Said” was, to a very large degree, the “shot that was heard around the world”.

Mubarak came to power in 1981 after the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. During his early years as the leader of his country, he made a number of changes that were very beneficial to Egypt. Over time, though, the country stagnated under his rule. 20% of the population is now below the poverty line, and the GDP is only $6200, so it was inevitable that change would eventually have to come.

The problems in Egypt mirror the problems in the rest of the Arab world. As Thomas Friedman explains in his column of February 24, 2011, the issues that were the underlying cause of the revolutions that are currently raging overseas were actually the fault of America's addiction to cheap foreign oil.

What’s truly remarkable about the change of power in Egypt is that it happened due to the existence of two AMERICAN companies that didn’t even exist 15 years ago. Both Facebook and Google were college projects in their early years.

Google was initially known as “backrub” and was based at Stanford University in California. The company was incorporated in a garage in Menlo Park, California on September 4, 1998.

Mark Zuckerberg started a project that his fellow students called "The Facebook" when he was still a student at Harvard. Facebook, the company, was founded in his college dormitory on February 4, 2004.

Unlike our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the change in government in Egypt came about with virtually no effort on the part of the American government beyond a couple of conversations from President Obama and our former Egyptian ambassador, Frank G Wisner.

The democratic revolution that JUST took place in Egypt happened because the young citizens of Egypt communicated with each other by Facebook and Gmail (and possibly even Twitter). The Egyptian revolution has sparked upheavals in several other countries in the area. This week, demonstrators are in the streets in Libya, Yemen, Iran,and Bahrain (home the the United states Navy's Fifth Fleet), and marches are planned starting tomorrow in Algeria and Iraq. It's pretty obvious by now that the citizens of those other countries have learned to "walk like an Egyptian"

watch Michael Jackson dance



Twitter, by the way, wasn't launched until July of 2006.

When Neda Agha-Soltan’s murder in Teheran was shown around the world on YouTube on June 20, 2009, it crippled the attempts of the leaders of Iran to impose harsh regulations on its citizens. Unlike the revolution of 1979, when internet access was non-existent (which is still the case for Facebbok users in China), the citizens of Iran now have the information that they need to achieve their goals, even though the current government is “still working on it”.

Egypt is living proof that free access to information and education are powerful tools. Another example can be found in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Greg Mortenson (author of Three Cups of Tea) has built over 100 schools. By doing so, he has severely limited the appeal of the Taliban in those countries. His books are now required reading for the U.S. military forces that are involved with counter insurgency.

Tunisia also recently changed leaders, and it’s likely that the leaders of some of the other countries in the region will be getting their "walking papers" in the very near future. Although the Arab countries may never achieve what they accomplished in their “Golden Age”, way back in the 7th century, the fact that the Arab world is finally shifting to less autocratic, and more democratic, governments means that the rest of the world is going to be a lot safer.

Al Jazeera has been broadcasting from Egypt during the recent upheaval. Instead of seemingly being a tool for disseminating anti-Western information to hardened fundamentalists, the station is now providing solid proof that jihad is no longer the right answer, and the “great Satan” is really a guy named Osama bin Laden. Ironically, Maommar Gadhafi (leader of a country long considered to be a terrorist state) recently described the protesters in Libya as "drug addled disciples of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden".

When the Pentagon Papers case became known to the public 40 years ago, Time magazine published an issue emblazoned with
“What hath Xerox wrought?”on the cover. We all marveled at the fact that changes in leadership could come about because of a copy machine.

Google is now the most powerful brand on the face of the earth, a position that none of us, even its founders, would have imagined even five years ago. If the publishers of Time have any since of history, you might eventually see a cover depicting Wael Ghonim , the new Prince of Egypt on the cover, with the heading of “What hath Google wrought?”

Since Mark Zuckerberg was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year for 2010, my guess is that the new Prince of Egypt would have to be a solid contender for the 2011 title.

新年快樂！

在中國人民隆重慶祝中國新年很長一段時間。中國的歷史可追溯到6000年類似，但第一個已知的使用Chinese calendar

日曆 < /一>）變為
回到公元前2637年。確切日期變得有點 murkier由於這一事實，即孫中山修訂的出發點就在1911年革命。在他的日曆系統，第一個日曆年是2698年。如果你用他的日曆系統，新的一年即將到來將是4799年。

農曆新年是最長的，最重要的節日，在農曆中。雖然它總是發生在我們的冬季，它被稱為“春節”，因為西方之間的區別與傳統中國方法計算的季節。

由於中國農曆新年是一個慶祝活動，開始了每年新年的變化。本節開始的第一天的第一個月就農曆和結束
與元宵節，這發生在第15天。由於我們使用的公曆，第一次約會是在新年後的第二個新月冬至。

我曾有幸親眼目睹了2004年開始的農曆新年與各位英語教師。強化啤酒的幾起案件，我們看著最壯觀的煙花匯演，我已經都看到的，在廣州市中心，中國。

煙花是一個很大的一部分，中國新年慶祝活動，但這樣的做法是一種徹底的大掃除（這可能是原產地的那句“春季大掃除”），顯示的橘子樹（這是說帶來好運），該交易所的紅信封，交換禮物和共進晚餐的家庭成員。

在農曆中，遵循一個 12年週期的生肖動物，以及一個 10年週期的天干。下面的鏈接提供了一個更好的解釋之二：

農曆新年的Chinese New year

為了簡單起見，下面我列出未來數年，和動物相關的這一年：

2011 - 這一年的兔
2012 - 年龍
2013年 - 這一年的蛇
2014年 - 這一年的馬
2015年 - 這一年的羊
2016 - 在猴年
2017 - 這一年的公雞
2018 - 這一年的狗
2019 - 豬年
2020 - 鼠年
2021 - 牛年
2022 - 虎年

我出生於 1947年，這意味著我出生在豬年。當我做了一些研究的屬性出生的人在豬年（當時我在中國）我很驚訝地發現準確描述的屬性的。

農曆新年開始的今年2月3日，恰好是我父親的生日。如果他還活著，他會在今年102。因為我也是一個信徒在權力命理，事實農曆新年開始在我爸的生日應該是一個吉祥的標誌。
從歷史上看，春節一直是時間，然後你和你的家人慶祝。雖然我的父親已經去了
近20年來，夾下面是如何珍貴提醒歐 ř家庭可以是：




新年快樂！

If your Chinese is a little rusty, I'd recommend doing a copy and paste version of the above story into Google Translate. If that process becomes a little cumbersome, just send me a note, and I'll send the English translation to you

Roe vs. Wade

I belonged to Toastmasters International for more than 25 years. Early on, I learned that the topics that you always wanted to avoid were religion, sex, and politics.

We just passed the 38th anniversary of the passage of Roe vs. Wade. Regardless of how you feel about the ruling, abortion is the only topic that I can think of (other than pedophilia) that manages to involve all three.





I grew up in the conservative 1950’s, and “came of age” during the very turbulent 1960’s. Over the years, my outlook on most topics has shifted from conservative to liberal to conservative and back to “liberal”. As a result, one of the newspapers that I read pretty much on a daily basis is The New York Times, and I tend to cringe at the views that are presented in the New York Post, a VERY conservative newspaper that is owned by Australian Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, coincidentally, also owns Fox News, which hired Sara Palin as a regular commentator in January of last year. Although Fox News will not disclose her salary, her income from all sources between the time that she resigned as governor until April of 2010 was in excess of $12,000,000

The article that triggered this post was the one published this morning by Nicholas D. Kristof, which he titled, “Tussling over Jesus”. The link below will allow you to read the entire article, which I would strongly recommend.

Tussling Over Jesus.

Prior to the Supreme Court ruling of 1973, it is estimated that there were an estimated 250,000 illegal abortions performed each year in the United States. According to the most reliable estimates, 90% of the illegal abortions were performed by “reputable physicians in good standing in their local medical communities”, and they were completed in the office of the physician. The highest known number of maternal deaths from the procedure was 388 women, in the peak year of 1948. Starting in 1972, improved antibiotics reduced the number of maternal deaths substantially, to a total of 39.

The legalization of abortion hasn’t eliminated maternal deaths, since an estimated 30 women a year die from infections or adverse reactions to general anesthesia.

Texas and other southern states have recently passed some draconian abortion laws, which has led to an increase in what the state would consider to be illegal abortions. On February 14, 2014, the state suspended the license of a Houston doctor who had performed 268 abortions between November 6 and February 7.

The irony of restrictive abortion laws is that they actually lead to an INCREASE in the number of abortions. Since Texas passed its more restrictive law in the summer of 2013, roughly 30% of the safe abortion clinics in Texas have closed, and that total includes a number of Planned Parenthood clinics. Only 3% of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are abortions, so closing them means that impoverished women no longer have access to medical care and birth control. Since Texas has the 10th highest rate of poverty in the country, that's an awful lot of people. On top of that, sexual education is not mandated in Texas, and when it is taught, the focus in on abstinence, rather than an birth control. The result is that Texas has the fifth highest teen pregnancy rate in the country.

As of February, 2014, the abortion rate in America is the lowest it has been since the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973. The actions of Texas and other states can only lead to an INCREASE in a practice that they are trying to stop!

Just as the Volstead Act was ineffective in curtailing the consumption of alcoholic beverages in this country, abortions will be performed in this country whether they are legal of not. Contrary to what you might think, though, this article ISN’T about abortion - it’s about compassion.

Although Mr. Kristof’s article mentioned the Roman Catholic church, the fact remains is that virtually all of the world’s major religions are opposed to abortion. The controversy in the case that he cites was that a Catholic hospital (St. Joseph’s in Phoenix) was punished by the Catholic church because it allowed an abortion to be preformed on a woman who, without question, would have died otherwise.

Regardless of which religion you’re talking about, I’m opposed to the strict adherence to dogma when it overrides a human act that is a more compassionate approach, and I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Ancient Jewish law prohibited work from being performed on the Sabbath. Even though Jesus was born a Jew, he is know to have performed at least seven miracles on the Sabbath, and (in all likelihood) he probably performed more than that.

At my Catholic grade school, I learned the definitions of mortal and venial sins. It was said that if you died without confessing a mortal sin, you would be condemned to Hell after death. Although mortal sins could vary by degree of seriousness, eating meat on Fridays and masturbation were both considered to be mortal sins, as was homosexuality.

The Second Vatican Council in 1963 made a lot of changes in the then existing rules of the church. Along with dropping the requirement for celebrating mass only in Latin, the Church also dropped the requirement of abstaining from the eating of meat on Fridays throughout the year, although the prohibition still exists on Ash Wednesday and on Fridays during Lent. The Catholic Church still RECOMMENDS that Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays throughout the year, and it REQUIRES that some other form of penance be substituted if meat is consumed on a given Friday.

Some of my classmates at the Catholic high school that we attended in Minnesota were killed in Vietnam. To my knowledge, none of them went to Hell because they had masturbated the night before they died.

Although Dr. Oz strongly recommends frequent sex “even if you’re alone”, a number of other medical institutions feel the same way. According to BBC news, masturbation greatly reduces the incidence of prostrate cancer in older men.

Like many churches, the Catholic church is opposed to homosexuality. Without belaboring the point too much, I’m of the opinion that sexual preference is much more due to biology than a conscious choice, and should not be considered a sin. However, picketing at military funerals in order to advance a strident anti-gay message should definitely rank high on a list of “grievous sins”

In spite of the fact that the Catholic Church has paid more than $2 billion to victims of sexual abuse, there hasn’t been a mad rush to the exits among American Catholics. For a number of years, the percentage of the American population that considered themselves Catholic has remained a very steady 23%.

Although the actions of St. Joseph Hospital manage to put more compassion into an ancient church with a long and storied history, meaningful change will come about only when the shortage of priests escalates to the point that it’s a full blown crisis. Not only has the number of priests continued to decline, they are also getting a lot older.

In the early days of the church, women were ordained until the 4th Century, and priests were allowed to be married until the 12th Century. Surprisingly, there ARE women priests in America today, and their stories will be told when the movie “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican” comes out later this year. If the Catholic church worked to incorporate that group into the larger church body, and simultaneously allowed MARRIED MEN to be priests, the church would again be truer to the mission outlined by its founder nearly 2000 years ago.



At that time, we can all say “hallelujah”.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

“Guess who’s coming to dinner” was a GREAT movie from 1967 that included Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn as the main characters in a plot that involved their Caucasian daughter bringing home her fiancé, a black man played by Sidney Poitier, to dinner.



Now that we have a black man in the White House, who recently met with a visitor from overseas, the story takes an interesting twist.

A few months ago, Barrack and Michelle Obama were taking a mid-morning coffee break when, out of the blue, the President said “Hu’s coming for dinner”.

Michelle said, “I don’t know. I’ll have to check with Julianna Smott (current social secretary who is in the process of moving to Chicago to help President Obama’s re-election campaign) to see who is scheduled."

The President responded, “ Michelle, what I meant was that Hu Jintao, the President of China, is coming for a brief visit in January.”

Michelle said, “That’s good news! Since he’s probably tired of Chinese food, let’s have an “all American” menu, and let’s include things like poached lobster, aged rib eye steak, and apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

you are invited to a dinner at The White House

The President said, “ The menu sounds good to me, but who should we include on the guest list?

Michelle said, “ Julianna will take care of most of the invitations for us, but for starters, we probably should NOT include the Dalai Lama” or the family of Liu Xiaobo (the Chinese winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize).

“I agree. How about a heavy concentration of Chinese-Americans?”

“Well", she said, "there’s B.D Wong and Vera Wang, Elaine, James, and Wang Chao, Steven and Jean Chu, Charles and Ying Woo, and David Wu.”

“Anybody else in that category?”

“Perhaps a few people in the entertainment business, like Jackie Chan and Michelle Kwan.”

“Other categories?”

“Maybe a couple of guys from The New York Times, like Tom Friedman and Nicholas Kristoff”

“Any business leaders?”

“ Well, I’d invite people like the Chase Chairman, Jamie Dimon, and the GE Chairman, Jeff Immelt”

“:Anybody else we haven’t thought of?”

“How about Ma?”

“Honey, your mother has lived with us for the last two years .....

“No, Barack, I meant Yo Yo Ma, the cellist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.”

“Oh, yeah”.

“Speaking of Chicago, we should probably invite Richard and Maggie Daley, since Hu will be in Chicago later on this week”

“Agreed”.

“ I think we’ve got a good start, honey. We’ve got a Wong and a Wang, some Chaos and some Chus, some Woos and a Wu, a Chan and a Kwan, and a Ma”.

“Sounds good”

“Hey, it’s getting close to lunch time. Are you up for some Chinese food?”

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Richard and Maggie are taking a mid morning coffee break ………

What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve -

One of the best selling books of all time is a book called “Think and Grow Rich”. It was written by a man named Napolean Hill, and was published way back in 1937. I’ve read it several times over the last 40 years, and I gave my son a copy for Christmas this year.



Since the publication of the book, there have been countless people who have accumulated amazing wealth purely because of their belief in an idea. Recent examples are Bill Gates (Microsoft), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook). The MOST recent example is a story that was published in the January 16, 2011 edition of Parade magazine.

Cynthia Stafford, a single mother of five children, started to lull herself to sleep at night in 2007 visualizing that she had won the lottery, and she pictured the EXACT amount - $112,000,000. In her dreams, she not only saw the amount on the check, she also could see the clothes that she would be wearing when she learned that she had won.

As crazy at it sounds, her dream came true less than six months later!

The amount that she won in the lottery was EXACTLY $112,000,000, and she was wearing the same lime green blouse with a leaf print that she saw in her dreams when she learned that she had won.

The MOST remarkable story about achieving what the mind can conceive occurred almost 600 years ago, and had absolutely NOTHING do with accumulating wealth.

The video below will give you a a quick summary about an important historical figure, but the facts that surround this individual are even more remarkable.

Joan of Arc on YouTube

Joan of Arc was born to a poor French peasant family in the year 1412. Her family lived in a portion of northern France that was controlled by England, during a period of time that was known was The Hundred Years War.

At the age of 12, she was out alone in a field when she saw visions of Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret, who told her to drive out the English army, and restore the rightful king of France to the throne in Rheims.

At the age of 16, she petitioned the garrison commander for permission to visit the royal French court at Chinon. Although her first attempt was not successful, her second attempt was. On that visit, she predicted that the French would achieve a military victory over the English at a town called Orleans.

Less than a year later, the acting king of France put her in charge of the French army, a remarkable move in view of the fact that she was 17 years old, illiterate, and that she claimed that she was motivated by the belief that the voice of God was instructing her to take charge of her country’s army and lead it to victory.

Amazingly, she soon led the French army to a series of victories, and reversed the side of the war.

Ultimately, she was captured by the opposing army, and was brought to trail, where she was accused of heresy. She was condemned to death by burning at the stake, and she died on May 30, 1431. Although the Hundred Year War continued for 22 years after her death, the French ultimately prevailed.

After the war had ended, Pope Callixtus III authorized a retrial due to the urging of the Inquisitor-General, Jean Brehal, and Joan’s mother, Isabelle Romee. At the end of the appellate trial, she was declared innocent on July 7, 1456.

She became a symbol of the Catholic League during the 16th century, and in 1849, the Bishop of Orleans declared a fervid panegyric on Joan of Arc. His act attracted attention in both England and France, which eventually culminated in her beatification in 1909, and her canonization on May 16, 1920. Along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Teresa of Lisieux, she is considered to be a patron saint of France.

For a lot of reasons, the accomplishments made by Joan of Arc would be impossible to achieve in today’s world. However, that doesn’t diminish the fact that, even today, a single individual with a compelling vision can accomplish impossible acts.

Before you put your head on the pillow tonight, repeat the sentence in the title above. You may never win as much money as Cynthia Stafford did, and you’ll never change the course of history as much as Joan of Arc did, but at some point in time, your tomorrows are going to be a lot different.

To quote Moya Brennan, you’ll change your world.