A soldier's heart

A football match breaks out between British and German

soldiers on the Western Front as they abandon their

trenches. [World War I, 24 December, 1914]

Not every German soldier was a 'Hitler' at heart.  In fact, not every soldier is 'all in' on the real reasons that lead to conflict.

An American soldier holds the hand of a young

 Afghan girl. [Afghanistan War, 2010]

Like most of us, soldiers hope to serve well, to do what's right; they have to trust that their leaders understand the larger moral context and choices.  As they are sent off to war, they're stuck with the information they're given from the top.

In WWI, emperors and dictators sent their armies to conquer new lands, to expand their empires. Soldiers were told it was right and just to do so. Ten million soldiers died along with six million civilians.

A German soldier shares his rations with a Russian

 mother and her child. [World War II, c. 1941]

For WWII, power players like Himmler and Hitler were indifferent to the human cost.   

Nazi propaganda justified invasion on the pretext of 'protecting' German ethnic minorities in other countries.  Sixty+ million died in the war that followed, half of whom were soldiers. Ten countries lost millions each.  Eighteen more lost hundreds of thousands.

German civilians and regular soldiers in the field didn't know the details of the 'final solution', but became progressively more aware as deliberate 'desensitization' was managed through the national media. Afterwards, being brought to the reality was a horror from which many could not recover.

U.S. General Walton Walker began the practice of bringing German civilians to the concentration camps after they were liberated. He ordered the mayor of Ohrdruf and his wife to visit the Ohrdruf labor camp  discovered by American troops in 1945. After their visit, the Mayor and his wife returned home and killed themselves.

An East German soldier ignores orders

to let no one pass and helps a boy
found separated from his family by
the newly formed 'Berlin Wall'. 
[Cold War, 1961]

A soldier runs from the  battlefield with Vietnamese
children in his arms.  [Vietnam War, 1955 - 75]

As we discovered at the end of the cold war, regular folks behind the iron curtain were just like us.  Same hopes, same dreams for their children, and once they were delivered from government propaganda, similar values.  

As it turns out, most folks are reasonable and want to do the right thing.  

Farther up on the power-pyramid, what is it that rots the soul? What is it that converts reasonable intent to unreasonable actions?  Alongside power and wealth we note a lack of moral restraint, or perhaps fear and a deeply broken mind.  Depravity such as we've seen is not a single decision, but an extended decline from right thinking.  From the power-mongers to Wall Street (but I repeat myself), it's the same problem.

Christians protect Muslims as they pray during the 

Egyptian revolution. [Cairo, Egypt, 2011]

Egyptians embrace the army after they refuse 

orders to fire on civilians [Egyptian Revolution, 2011]

The good news, we can be 'normal', can we not?  We can be delivered from such wrong thinking. True?  Can ISIS? Al Qaeda?

Perhaps the sacred duty of leadership is to lead virtuously, to foster in those who follow a right heart and mind.  When the accounting comes, each will be responsible for their own actions, but the one who leads others astray will be judged accordingly.

A soldier chats with a young Iraqi girl while holding his position near Basra's main street as coalition forces take control of Iraq's second city. [Iraq, 2011]

CTF 4-2 broadcaster coaches local Afghan children - FEB 2013; they're curious, like kids pretty much everywhere, and you've just got to stop for a minute so they can see.

*T.E.C.E. - 001

From a Peace Corps worker's story...

"Music is an important part of my life and so as a teacher in the Peace Corps, I knew I wanted to share music with my students.  When I arrived with my group of volunteers in Benin and they asked us what the most unusual item we brought with us was, mine was a small ghetto blaster.  The thing was clunky and it took a lot of space in my suitcase, along with lots of DD batteries, but I anticipated that it would be well worth it.

School girls greet their Peace Corps school teacher,
holding on to her bicycle basket ...

In my village, the high school where I taught English had little amenities.  There was no electricity, no glass for the windows, no textbooks, no visual aids, and students squeezed together and shared desks.  The Beninese style of teaching was very disciplined, but dry.  Due to the lack of textbooks, students spent most of the class period copying information from the board.
With such necessary but tedious learning tasks, I was excited to introduce some creative teaching methods to the classroom and get the students engaged.   I was especially eager to share music with my students in my English lessons.

So one day, during the fall when the harmattan winds were blowing, I schlepped the ghetto blaster into my backpack, hopped on my bike and rode to school prepared to play some songs at the end of class for my older students (roughly 9th grade).  This class was large, 70 students, and managing it was always a challenge.  I worried that playing music may be too disruptive and when I pulled the ghetto blaster out of my backpack, my fears came true.  Students rushed up to the front of the classroom to see my contraption and marvel at it.  I yelled, “Get back in your seats!” feeling my head getting hot and starting to regret this exercise.  After everyone was finally seated I pulled out the flipchart with the lyrics to “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley.

We studied vocabulary words in the song and went over each lyric.  As soon as I played the song, chaos erupted again.  Many of male students stood up and did a funky dance down the aisle much to the hilarity of the rest of the class.  Seventy students screaming and laughing drowned out my admonishments to quiet down. No one was listening to the song anymore.  My temper flared again.  After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally got the class to quiet down and be seated.  Reluctant to continue, I pulled out the flip chart for the lyrics to the next song – “At Last” by Etta James.  We went over each line:

At last
My love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song
Oh yeah yeah
At last
The skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clover
The night I looked at you
I found a dream, that I could speak to
A dream that I can call my own
I found a thrill to press my cheek to
A thrill that I have never known
Oh yeah yeah
You smiled, you smiled
Oh and then the spell was cast
And here we are in heaven
for you are mine...
At Last

Suddenly, my teenage students were listening.  Such romantic lyrics peaked their interest.  God, I just might have their attention now, I thought.   Then with nervous anticipation on my part, I put Etta James in and pressed play.

Now this is what I mean by a moment of being because I swear as soon as I hit play, you could hear a pin drop and a brightness of being took over.  First, the violins singing, then Etta James’ booming voice soared out of the classroom, through the windows, out into the windy sunny day and touched some strange unseen chord strung down from heaven.  Here was Etta James’ voice slowly and clearly expressing this universal elation of finding love.  And my students understood.  We all understood.   It could be my imagination or fondness of memory, but that moment was simply magic.

At the end of the song, the class cheered and some students with moist eyes gave me the thumbs up and said, “Yes teacher, we like!” They asked me to play it again.  Who would have thought that a 1960’s American love song would be such a hit with teenagers sitting in a rural village classroom in West Africa?  After class, I practically floated out of there.

Sometimes on warm, dry, windy days when I am alone and it is quiet outside, I think of that day in an African village."




*T.E.C.E. - things evolution cannot explain

Music is among the artistic and philosophical expressions for which evolutionary science and theory have no adequate explanation,*  There is a great gulf between 'survival of the fittest' and what appears (only in humans) to be, for lack of a better term, a soul.

*The dominant evolutionary theory is that music is about sexual selection.  Try fitting that to Handel's Messiah or early Egyptian Cheironomy. 

If only

Harry Nilsson was an extraordinary musician/composer and a cornerstone of the 70's music world. His childhood was spent in poverty; abandoned by his father at age three, ....

Harry Nilsson, extraordinary talent - his
personal story is a tough one ...

If only I could find a place
Where smiling strangers knew our faces
I would take you there




A place with constant melody
Where you and I could wander free
I would take you there

Seems like such a waste of time
Just trying to unwind the facts of life
If I could find a place, I'd take you
Where the pain don't cut you like a knife
I would take you there

If only there were time enough
Or word enough, or rhyme enough
I would take you there

If only I could find a place
Where smiling strangers knew our faces
I would take you there


A place with constant melody
Where you and I could wander free
I would take you there.

~ 'I will take you there', a song by Harry Nilsson

Nilsson in the 40's, Brooklyn

Harry Nilsson was an extraordinary musician/composer and a cornerstone of the 70's music world. His childhood was spent in poverty; abandoned by his father at age three, he struggled to make his way.

From the opening to his song "1941":

Well, in 1941, the happy father had a son

And in 1944, the father walked right out the door...
Harry of necessity began working early and managed to finish the ninth grade. Fortunately, he was brilliant.

From '69 to '72, his music was a major success.  Harry and John Lennon spent long days together, cocaine and alcohol, hangovers and women they didn't know and trying to remember what had happened the night before.  LSD with Timothy Leary, brief marriages (like his father's) before the last one, a life without apparent shape or restraint. Years were lost, consumed perhaps by the pursuit of wealth and success, both of which were temporary.  He died after just half of a lifetime.

Like most folks, the young Harry Nilsson had every good possibility still ahead of him.  Some of his choices were expensive.

Being a success in the celebrity world seems to have marred so many lives, you can't help but wonder if being non-celebrity, non-rich, and non-popular isn't an immeasurably greater blessing.

Nilsson's lyrics, and especially those in the song, "I will take you there" make the most sense when you realize where Nilsson was coming from.  The place he longed for but couldn't find, just a little peace, a little acceptance, a little real love.

His later years are less popularized.  You can't help but wonder (and hope) if perhaps he found what he was looking for before passing.  Remembered as a loving father, he is survived by seven children. 

Like Nilsson, each of us carries the shaping of our childhood.  We hope and intend to understand ourselves, to choose who we will be, to build well on our beginnings.  Not an easy task.  Is help available?  Or is it as lonely a path as Nilsson's lyrics suggest?

Point of View

Your view of things may be useful, particularly if it's different from the norm.  

It's not at all uncommon for everybody to agree until someone asks the question a bit differently. Suddenly, everyone can see that elephant, just like you.

(Happy Monday)

Wrong, Not Right: The Learning Myth

Isaiah does not worry about the “what-ifs,”

the negative voices around him, or even

 his possible failure, because in his mind

 he is a super hero.

Read his story here.

From Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, "My 5-year-­old son has just started reading. Every night, we lie on his bed and he reads a short book to me. Inevitably, he’ll hit a word that he has trouble with: last night the word was "gratefully.” He eventually got it after a fairly painful minute. He then said, “Dad, aren't you glad how I struggled with that word? I think I could feel my brain growing.”

Researchers have known for some time that the brain is like a muscle; that the more you use it, the more it grows. ... most when we make mistakes doing difficult tasks rather than repeatedly having success with easy ones.

... the best way that we can grow our intelligence is to embrace tasks where we might struggle and fail.

...   And now here’s a surprise for you. By reading this article itself, you've just undergone the first half of a growth­-mindset intervention. The research shows that just being exposed to the research itself (­­for example, knowing that the brain grows most by getting questions wrong, not right­­) can begin to change a person’s mindset.

See the original Khan article - The Learning Myth: Why I'll Never Tell My Son He's Smart

Perspective - ISIL

Iraqi officer's heroism exemplifies national unity against ISIL

2014-09-03 By Khalid al-Taie in Baghdad

The heroic actions of 1st Lt. Wissam Mohammed Khaled al-Tikriti, 27, who died August 24th as he helped counter an "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) attack on Baiji oil refinery, are being held up as an example of national unity in the fight against terrorism.

Al-Tikriti, a Sunni, served with the counter-terrorism forces of the Iraqi army's Golden Division, which was tasked with protecting the refinery.

Soldiers from the counter-terrorism forces reported that ISIL fighters had been taunting the refinery protection force, saying "Come to face us, you rafidis" (rejecters, a derogatory term for Shia).

In return, al-Tikriti came out shouting, "I am Iraqi; I am Sunni and will not let you enter the refinery, even if this is over my dead body. I am for Iraq and for my 'rafidi' brothers", his colleagues reported him as saying.

Al-Tikriti's brother Maytham Mohammed described how his brother died.

"On that day the terrorist killers launched their fiercest attack on the refinery," he told Mawtani. "Fighters, along with my brother Wissam, defended the location with honour and the attacking terrorists were killed and their vehicles were burnt," he said.

"Wissam began firing at them while moving towards them," Mohammed said. "He aimed a number of rockets at them from his shoulder launcher and moved close to them after passing the concrete blocks."

"In the course of fighting, my brother went on top of a tank advancing towards him which had been rigged with explosives. As soon as he started to shoot those inside it, it exploded and he died as a result," he said.

"My martyred brother recorded the highest meanings of heroism, courage, protection of honour and the nation, protecting its people from the evils of terrorists until he became a martyr, raised the heads of his family members and became a medal on our chests," Mohammed said.

'A REAL HERO'

Al-Tikriti was born in Tikrit in Salaheddine province. He was known for his courage and selflessness, according to Hassan Faleh, a close friend who served with him in the counter-terrorism regiment.

"Wissam was a real hero who did not fear death, had great morals and everyone loved him for his dedication to duty and his sense of national responsibility," Faleh said.

Courage in battle was one of Wissam's attributes, Faleh said, adding that his friend had been "a source of pride" to others in the regiment.

"He once grew a beard, disguised himself in a uniform like the one worn by ISIL elements and attacked Abu al-Jawary area in al-Dhuluiya region with a number of other soldiers, killing about 10 ISIL terrorists and returning with his colleagues, unharmed," he said.

"Wissam also helped stop many attempts by ISIL elements to capture Baiji refinery and inflicted heavy losses in lives and equipment on the ranks of the enemy every time," he added.

In addition to his distinguished service, Mohammed said his brother excelled at the military academy where he graduated among the top students of his class.

"Wissam is an example of the heroic Iraqi fighter who does not hesitate to confront the enemy and sacrifice himself in defence of the homeland and the people of his country," counter-terrorism unit spokesman Sabah al-Numan told Mawtani.

"The martyr fought a lot of battles against the criminal gangs of ISIL in Salaheddine province, and managed with his brothers in the protection force to repel all terrorist attacks on the Baiji refinery with a strong spirit and high combat morals that always halted the enemy and led to its defeat," he said.

A SOURCE OF PRIDE

Local residents told Mawtani of their admiration for al-Tikriti, while others posted his photograph on their social media accounts with comments that reflect their pride in him.

"The martyrdom of 1st Lt. Wissam is an indicator of unity and national cohesion among all Iraqi people who are today facing an enemy […] that targets all Iraqis" regardless of sect or ethnicity, said Saad Majid, 37.

"The martyr Wissam has become an immortal national symbol in our memories and a role model for young Iraqis who refuse sectarianism and consider the love of country superior to all other considerations," 25-year-old student Huda Ali told Mawtani.

"I loved his dedication and courage on the battlefield, and shared his photos and heroic acts with my friends on Facebook," Ali said.

"We are very proud of the sacrifice of the martyr Wisam," said Tariq Mahdi, 41. "This young hero deserves a memorial to commemorate his role and sacrifice that has become today a clear indication of the brotherly links among all Iraqis."

Myth vs. Reality

It's particularly difficult to get a straight answer from the media.

For Example

* Journalists have reported the following about the science behind climate change:

• Miles O'Brien of CNN on whether "the Earth is melting because of carbon emissions": "The scientific debate is over."[1]

• Bill Blakemore of ABC on the "debate" over whether global warming is "man-made or natural": "After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such debate."[2]

• Katie Couric of CBS on whether "the world faces a 'planetary emergency' over climate change": "The scientific consensus is clear … [that it does]."[3]

• Jeffrey Toobin of CNN on whether global warming is a "problem": "[I]t's like acknowledging gravity. It is a scientific fact."[4]

* As of August 2011, 9,029 Ph.D. scientists including 3,805 atmospheric, earth, or environmental scientists have signed a petition stating:

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.[5] [6] [7]  The legitimacy of the petition was later challenged.

As annoying as the scientific community can be, they do (usually) provide objective facts and analyses for us to consider rather than unhelpful exaggeration.

On rising sea levels

* An Inconvenient Truth is an Academy Award-winning documentary about "Al Gore's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it."[8] In this documentary, Al Gore shows a computer simulation of what would happen to the shorelines of Florida and the San Francisco Bay if sea levels were to rise by twenty feet, while providing no timeframe for such an event to occur.[9]

* A 20-foot rise in sea level equals 8 to 34 times the full range of 110-year projections for sea-level rise in the 2007 IPCC report.[10]

* In his 1993 book, Earth in the Balance, Al Gore wrote:

About 10 million people in Bangladesh will lose their homes and means of sustenance because of the rising sea level, due to global warming, in the next few decades. Where will they go? Whom will they displace? What political conflicts will result? That is only one example. According to some predictions, not long after Bangladesh feels the impact, up to 60 percent of the present population of Florida may have to be relocated. Where will they go?[11]

* Between 1993 and 2011, the population of Bangladesh increased from 119 million to 159 million people (34%),[12] and between 1990 and 2006, the coastal population of Florida increased from 10.1 million to 13.8 million people (37%).[13] [14]

* The average global sea level has been generally rising since 1860 or earlier, which is about 45 years before surface temperatures began to rise and 75 years before man-made emissions of CO2 reached 1% of natural emissions.[15] [16] [17]  

Myth vs. Reality, and public opinion:

* In a 2007 New York Times/CBS poll, 32% of Americans said "recent weather had been stranger than usual" and global warming was the cause. Ten years earlier, this view has held by 5% of Americans.[18]

* Along with the IPCC,[19] the following journalists or people given a platform by the media have linked warm or snow-free winter weather to global warming:

• Multiple reporters of the CBS Early Show: Bryant Gumbel: "We never get any snow." Mark McEwen: "Do you think it's global warming?" Bryant Gumbel: "Yes, yes." Mark McEwen: "Do you, Jane?" Jane Clayson: "Yeah." Mark McEwen: "We're unanimous, we all think it's global warming."[20]

• Reporter Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News: "Just before we left the United States for Italy we learned that January was the warmest January ever in all the recorded history of the U.S. And suddenly now, in this region, global warming is a hot issue as well."[21]

• Environmental lawyer and professor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the Los Angeles Times: "Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don't own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers."[22]

* The following journalists or people given a platform by the media have linked cold or snowy winter weather to global warming:

• Atmospheric scientist Judah Cohen in the New York Times: "The reality is, we're freezing not in spite of climate change but because of it."[23]

• Political strategist Robert Creamer in the Huffington Post: "What's more, it turns out that global warming does in fact cause more frequent, more intense storms of all sorts -- including snow storms."[24]

• Agence France-Presse: "Counterintuitive but true, say scientists: a string of freezing European winters scattered over the last decade has been driven in large part by global warming."[25]

* The following journalists or people given a platform by the media have cited cold or snowy weather as evidence that global warming is not happening:

• Commentator Eric Bolling on Fox News: "Sixty-three percent of the country is now covered in snow, and it's breaking Al Gore's heart because the snow is also burying his global warming theory."[26]

• Geophysicist David Deming in the Washington Times: "Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards."[27]

• Reporter Katie Rook in the National Post, quoting a fisherman: "We've had such cold weather, -40C, -35C. That's not normal cold for us. We listen to the people calling for that global warming and they said there was going to be no ice and our seals were going to drown and all this stuff."[28]

* The following journalists or people given a platform by the media have linked warm summer weather to global warming:

• Environmental scientist Stephen Schneider on ABC's Good Morning America: "While this heat wave, like all other heat waves, is made by Mother Nature, we've been fooling around by turning the knob and making it a little bit hotter."[29]

• Commentator Kate Shephard in the U.K. Guardian: "[I]f you care to listen to climate scientists, we're in for a whole lot more days of skyrocketing heat in the future, not to mention heat-related deaths. So maybe this should serve as a good reminder that climate change has deadly consequences."[30]

• Reporter Mark Rice-Oxley in the Christian Science Monitor, quoting weatherman Paul Mott: "Global warming could well be contributing to this current hot spell."[31]

* The following journalists or people given a platform by the media have stated that global warming isn't evidenced by hot or cold spells:

• Atmospheric physicist Fred Singer in the Washington Times, quoting geography professor Charles H.V. Ebert: "Patterns of relatively wet, dry, hot or cold weather usually run in six- to-eight-year cycles. But media attention, combined with our poor memories of past weather, tend to generate unjustified alarm for our climatic future."[32]

• Agence France-Presse: "[E]stablishing a link between climate change and extreme weather is a controversial matter. … [S]cientists caution there is not enough evidence to blame global warming for recent extreme weather, and there are those who say there is no proof that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent."[33]

• Reporter Randolph E. Schmid of the Associated Press, quoting meteorologist Alexander E. MacDonald: "People can get deceived. Every time there is a warm spell doesn't mean global warming is here, and every time you get a cold spell doesn't mean it's disproven. There are changes over daily or monthly or yearly or even decadal time scales that have always been occurring. So if you want to understand what's happening with climate, you have to put it in the context of normal variabilities."[34]

Myth vs. Reality, a parting shot

* In 2000, James J. McCarthy, a Harvard oceanographer and IPCC co-chair,[35] saw a mile-wide stretch of open ocean at the North Pole while serving as a guest lecturer on an Arctic tourist cruise. He informed the New York Times, which ran a front-page story stating that the "North Pole is melting," the "last time scientists can be certain the pole was awash in water was more than 50 million years ago," and this "is more evidence that global warming may be real and already affecting climate."[38]  Other media outlets such as the Associated Press did likewise.[36] [37]

* Two days after the New York Times article was published, the London Times quoted a Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge stating, "Claims that the North Pole is now ice-free for the first time in 50 million years [are] complete rubbish, absolute nonsense."[39] [40] Eight days later, the New York Times published a correction stating that the original article "misstated the normal conditions of the sea ice," a "clear spot has probably opened at the pole before," and 10% of the "high Arctic region" is "clear of ice in a typical summer."[41] [42]

* This picture shows two U.S. submarines surfacing at the North Pole in August of 1962:

[43] [44]

There's more, of course, but we can't count on the media to be a particularly useful source of information, can we.

Thanks and a hat-tip to JustFacts.com for their detailed inquiry on a variety of concerns.

Getting things done

It's not a new problem for any of us.

The persistent stumbling block that perhaps impedes us all is that loop in the middle - deliberately staying on target when the path is a little rough.

Whether it's a personal project or family undertaking or work/school/community effort, staying focused on the goal is not as easy as it sounds.

Just a fun cross-reference to Sun Tzu's Art of War, suggests the important pieces for us might be ...

FOCUS on the TARGET:  stay directly involved, refine, adjust, adapt ...

Whether it's balancing your personal budget, getting your kid through college, or pulling the team along, the goal is the goal is the goal.  Our labor, our efforts, our lives have a purpose, a goal, do they not?

Just because the path (and perhaps some of the players) look crooked, it doesn't mean the goal changes.  Is. 45:2

Choices / Actions / Impact

(NC-17) ..................................................................................................

Can a baby survive an abortion?  Yes, some in fact do.*

This is Claire (right).  Her arm was torn off
during her abortion.  She wasn't a person
when the abortionist began to dismember her,
but moments later she was and is now.

Planned Parenthood says that these “extremely unlikely and highly unusual medical circumstances” just don't happen.

Official CDC records, however, show 362 babies born alive in the U.S. subsequently died as a result of actions or deliberate inaction by the abortionist. Similar records in Canada report 491 babies who were born alive were subsequently allowed to die by the abortionist. U.K. records show a similar annual rate of such incidents, around 500 in the last decade.  (These are just the deaths which were actually reported.)

After the reports were released, Planned Parenthood continues to deny that such things ever happen.  Meanwhile ...

Melissa Ohden, abortion
survivor and founder of
Abortion Survivors Network
"Abortion was meant to
render us voiceless. We are
here to give voice to our
experiences."

“These killings (of a live-born aborted baby) became so routine that no one could put an exact number on them. They were considered ‘standard procedure.’ ”

Sarah Smith survived the

abortion that killed her

twin brother.

Extract from the Gosnell investigation, “We were able to document seven specific incidents in which Gosnell or one of his employees severed the spine of a viable baby born alive,” said the grand jury. “We charge Gosnell, Lynda Williams, Adrienne Moton, and Steven Massof with murder in the first degree. Along with Sherry West, they are also charged with conspiracy to commit murder in relation to the hundreds of unidentifiable instances in which they planned to, and no doubt did, carry out similar killings.”

Some babies do survive to adulthood. Estimates suggest around 40,000 Americans have survived being aborted. Analysis of the available information points to many times that number having been born alive but dying by action or neglect.

James Pendergraft is the owner of five abortion facilities in Florida and a late-term clinic in D.C. “specializing” in abortions past the 24th week of pregnancy. He has had his medical license suspended four times for botched abortions, illegal late-term abortions, and dispensing drugs without a license. He has also faced legal and disciplinary actions for making up false threats from pro-life advocates and “reporting” them to authorities.

In a 2011 legal case that received no  media attention, Pendergraft was ordered by a court to pay the survivor of a failed abortion $36 million in damages for injuries she suffered during the abortion.

The baby was viable when aborted.  She survived. Injured by the abortion process, she is blind and disabled, unable to function or survive without caregivers.  Most such cases are settled out of court for undisclosed amounts of money, then sealed so the public never knows the truth about the dangers or the illegal, unethical, and unsafe practices that are common among abortionists. 

Abortionist Pendergraft has failed to pay the damages, has reopened his clinics in Florida and is again netting thousands a day while having mothers deliver their babies into a toilet.  His medical license has been suspend indefinitely; he employs an abortionist who is facing charges for slapping a patient and malpractice charges for critically injuring two patients.

In 2012, “Documentation that Pendergraft is operating a late-term abortion operation in Maryland confirms that state as the Late-term Abortion Capital of America,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation. “Pendergraft joins the likes of New Jersey’s Steven Brigham and Nebraska’s LeRoy Carhart, who targeted Maryland for their late-term businesses because of the state’s reputation of allowing abortionists to operate without regulation or accountability."

Considered objectively, there is a difference between (1) the legal right to choose abortion and (2) the life of a viable child, is there not? 

Despite the heated arguments pro and con regarding a woman's choice, the issues of post-viability abortion and a live-born child being subsequently killed or allowed to die ... these are either first degree murder (a specific intent to kill, premeditated) or negligent homicide. Both are common practice.

I remember holding my baby in my arms, the beautiful life I could see in her eyes, and of today's culture I cannot but note, this is not 'freedom of choice'.   This is unspeakable horror, done deliberately and knowingly by a strangely conscienceless industry.  Both the child and the child's mother are victims.

* In Britain, 2003, a baby at 24 weeks gestation was born alive following three abortion procedures. As of 2005, he is healthy and is the first long-term survivor of abortion to be born this prematurely.[1] [2]

Insulation

What are the chances I'm not an idiot?

Living in the developed world puts us in the top 10% or so of humanity for wealth and income. If we reach our national median, that's the world's top 1%. 

We're insulated from the real world, sheltered by wealth and security, and we complain when the grocery store doesn't have the bread we like.  Most folks are happy if they can get bread.  Any.

Today's perhaps most difficult challenge is living with awareness of Christian principle instead of by our privileged norm.  At least, that's the struggle that bothers me the most.

So begins the walk along that different pathway.  How much of my life is for my benefit and pleasure, and how much is better spent on others?  Stupidhead hard questions, my wife says.

Give us this day, bread, and deliver us from the evil before us, oh God.