Getting as comfortable as possible in the
moments before she has to be anxious
again
I can relate.
From StoryPeople.
Getting as comfortable as possible in the
moments before she has to be anxious
again
I hated gym class. Skinny, uncoordinated and myopic, I knew that whatever activity they dreamed up, I wasn't going to be good at it. Some things, like crab soccer and pillow polo, were okay, because they really didn't require much skill. But I dreaded anything where some kids, invariably the jocks, got to pick teams, because I was certain to be damn near last, and with good reason.
....
But I guess I was lucky; I didn't go to the school in Decatur, Ala., where the teacher invented a game called "smear the queer" in which a single student is singled out to be slogged by volleyballs by the entire rest of the class.
....
I was lucky to have enough of a support system to reach adulthood and understand that people who act this way are saying more about themselves and their own insecurities than they are about you.
On October 17th, friends and I are participating in Out of the Darkness, a Community Walk to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. If you are in a position to contribute anything to help this worthy cause, please visit this link. It would be much appreciated. If you would like to know more about anti-bullying, LGBT youth and suicide prevention, please visit the links below:
* www.afsp.org - American Society for Suicide Prevention
* thetrevorproject.org - Hotline and other resources for LGBT Youth
* thinkb4youspeak.org - Discourages use of anti-gay language and verbal bullying
* truthwinsout.org - Fighting anti-gay lies and the ex-gay myth
* matthewshepard.org - Parents of a murdered gay teen founded this rights and education group
In response to mounting reports of vicious anti-gay bullying and student suicides, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance project is making a new documentary film and educational kit available – free of charge – to every school in the country.
It started with a Twitter message on Sept. 19: “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”
That night, the authorities say, the Rutgers University student who sent the message used a camera in his dormitory room to stream the roommate’s intimate encounter live on the Internet.
And three days later, the roommate who had been surreptitiously broadcast — Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old freshman and an accomplished violinist — jumped from the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River in an apparent suicide.
The Sept. 22 death, details of which the authorities disclosed on Wednesday, was the latest by a young American that followed the online posting of hurtful material. The news came on the same day that Rutgers kicked off a two-year, campuswide project to teach the importance of civility, with special attention to the use and abuse of new technology.
Those who knew Mr. Clementi — on the Rutgers campus in Piscataway, N.J., at his North Jersey high school and in a community orchestra — were anguished by the circumstances surrounding his death, describing him as an intensely devoted musician who was sweet and shy.
The Middlesex County prosecutor’s office said Mr. Clementi’s roommate, Dharun Ravi, 18, of Plainsboro, N.J., and another classmate, Molly Wei, 18, of Princeton Junction, N.J., had each been charged with two counts of invasion of privacy for using “the camera to view and transmit a live image” of Mr. Clementi. The most serious charges carry a maximum sentence of five years.
Mr. Ravi was charged with two additional counts of invasion of privacy for trying a similar live feed on the Internet on Sept. 21, the day before the suicide. A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, James O’Neill, said the investigation was continuing, but he declined to “speculate on additional charges.”
One Sunday morning an old cowboy entered a church just before services were to begin. Although the old man and his clothes were spotlessly clean, he wore jeans, a denim shirt and boots that were very worn and ragged. In his hand he carried a worn out old hat and an equally well read Bible. The church he entered was in a very upscale and exclusive part of the city. It was the largest and most beautiful church the old cowboy had ever seen. The people of the congregation were all dressed with expensive clothes and jewelry.
As the cowboy took a seat, the others moved away from him. No one greeted, spoke to, or welcomed him. They were all appalled by his appearance and did not attempt to hide it.
As the old cowboy was leaving the church, the preacher approached him and asked the cowboy to do him a favor: "Before you come back here again, have a talk with God and ask him what he thinks would be appropriate attire for worship in church."
The old cowboy assured the preacher he would.
The next Sunday, he showed back up for the services wearing the same ragged jeans, shirt, boots, and hat. Once again he was completely shunned and ignored. The preacher approached the cowboy and said, "I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back to our church."
"I did," replied the old cowboy.
"If you spoke to God, what did he tell you the proper attire should be for worshiping here?" asked the preacher.
"Well, sir, God told me that He didn't have a clue what I should wear. He said . . . . . He'd never been in this church."
June and Jonathan and Everybody,
I also want to thank everyone, deeply and profoundly. The outpouring of aid has been astounding and humbling. I don't mind suffering for me, but Katzie never asked for it. I'm sure to many it seems ridiculous - risking possible homelessness (yes, a bit melodramatic, but not unrealistic) for a *cat*, and, I'm willing to admit, it may well be. Still, besides the mere affection, which is emotional, there is the fact that I was the one who chose him, and whom he chose in the pet store. I've cared for him for nine years, and I undertook to care for him and protect him and he's been a companion and protector himself. I owe him, because I chose him. Were it something that couldn't be fixed, I would grieve and make the choice for his best. If it were a matter of a better home, I would grieve and send him, but no one will take a cat that's got those problems. I owe him.
None of you owe him - or me, and I can't express in coldly symbolic words how grateful I am.
Love,
Mark
....
I'll stick to cold facts, as I haven't slept more than two hours or eaten an actual full meal since Sunday, and I'm not thinking clearly and am extremely fragile and emotionally-devastated, right now.
The observation revealed the blockage is ongoing and has led to a bladder infection. The result is that [the veterinarian]... needs to do "aggressive surgery" which is the procedure which will widen Katzie's urethra by (layman's understanding) effectively creating a new opening below the belly, like that of a female cat. Females rarely block, while males have much more narrow openings.
....
There's not quite enough to cover the expenses, yet, but it's still coming in, and I haven't spoken with our priest yet.
Seth Walsh, the Tehachapi 13-year-old who hanged himself from a tree in his back yard after years of being bullied, died Tuesday afternoon after nine days on life support.
Tehachapi police investigators interviewed some of the young people who taunted Seth the day he hanged himself and determined despite the tragic outcome of their ridicule, their actions do not constitute a crime.
"Several of the kids that we talked to broke down into tears," Jeff Kermode, Tehachapi Police Chief, said. "They had never expected an outcome such as this."
He said the students told investigators they wish they had put a stop to the bullying and not participated in it.
Friends said Seth was picked on for years because he was gay.
School administrators said they have an anti-bullying program in place, but schoolmates said staff at Jacobsen Middle School in Tehachapi offered Seth no protection or guidance.
I saw a news item this weekend that stated that the Archbishop of Canterbury will not serve until he is obliged to retire (age 70 in the Church of England).
This is good news for the C of E and the Anglican Communion. What worries me is that the Archbishop (now 60) will retire at or before his 65th birthday. That would mean that his successor is chosen by the current Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron.
I have discovered that, reversing the decision of Gordon Brown to only require one name for episcopal appointments, Cameron has gone back to the historic tradition of requiring two names from the Appointments Committee, from which Cameron will pick one to send to the Queen for appointment. There are rumours (which I am discounting, but which may be true) that the two names that Southwark sent to the Prime Minister have
been sent back, one for being too liberal, one for not fitting the profile of the Diocese. I do not think that this could have happened without it being announced, as the Appointments Committee would have to reconvene to send two more names (as happened when Tony Blair, crypto-Roman PM at the time, sent back the two names for Liverpool early in his premiership). However, it is still a possibility.
The successor to Rowan Williams should be someone who is a consensus-builder, has a truly Anglican view of the Communion, and does not think of himself (or, perhaps by then, herself) as an Anglican Pope. Cameron is unlikely to look with favour on such a candidate.
By that time I believe that the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church in Wales, and perhaps the churches of Australia and New Zealand will be out of the orbit of the Archbishop of Canterbury. But the wrong person chosen as Archbishop will have a devastating effect on the Church of England. In 5 years Sentamu will be 66 and thus probably too old to take it. The current Bench of Bishops is conspicuously thin on the ground of good diocesan bishops. If Nick Baines has gotten a diocese and settled in by then, he would make a good candidate. But we need to be very wary of a new ABC. After all, we have suffered since 1990 with two very unsuitable Archbishops and a third one in a row would mean misgovernment of the Church for at least 30 years.
A humourous postscript: A Welsh politician has upbraided Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales, for stating in an interview that if he is with Rowan Williams and wants to say something in private, they switch to speaking Welsh. The politico says that this reinforces the stereotype of non-Welsh people entering a pub in northern Wales and hearing everyone switch to speaking Welsh as soon as they see that strangers have entered. That was exactly my experience the one time I went to north Wales, so perhaps it's more than a stereotype.
Chris Hansen
Anglican Catholics Rally to protect
and preserve Anglican tradition
New Society is announced
to refocus ministry and mission
Anglican Catholic bishops have announced that in addition to the provision of an Ordinariate offered recently by Pope Benedict there is to be a new Society [of St Wilfrid and St Hilda] for bishops, clergy, religious and laity in order to provide a place within the Church of England where catholics can worship and minister with integrity without accepting innovations that further distance the Church of England from the greater churches of the East and West.
At two upbeat gatherings this week of over 600 clergy and religious from the northern and southern provinces of the Church of England, there was unanimous condemnation of proposed legislation to allow the ordination of women as bishops that will soon go to the dioceses for discussion, debate and approval.
The unveiling of The Mission Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda reflects a determination not to accept a Code of Practice as currently suggested by the General Synod but to work for and create a more realistic approach which allows the integrity of those who cannot accept this innovation to be preserved, to flourish and grow within the Church of England. This development represents a constructive initiative on the part of those who cannot accept the innovations proposed in legislation and who are hurt and frustrated by the General Synod's inability to provide for their theological position.
How sad that the example given by St Hilda in her obedience to a decision concerning the ordering of her church is ignored by those using her name, who are themselves unwilling to accept the decision made by the Revision Committee and endorsed by the General Synod.
I couldn't help noticing that SSWSH invites being pronounced "Swish" - how appropriate for all those red-buttoned and braided cassocks with watered-silk cinctures being flicked out of the way of the unholy regiment of women!
A group of Anglo-Catholics, largely from Forward in Faith, have established a 'society' within the Church of England. For what purpose? We don't really know. What will this society do? We don't really know. Who will run the society? We don't really know.
The first action of the Society will be to immediately set about theological investigations of what it is for. Brilliant stuff.