JESUS AND MO - SHINE

As usual, click on the picture for the enlarged view.

From Jesus and Mo.

BUTTERFLIES ARE COMING! - PART 2

Following up on my original post on the caterpillars on our parsley plant, the caterpillars ate themselves plump, and then each wondered off to form a pupa or crysalis. If conditions are favorable, lovely Swallowtail butterflies, as pictured above, will emerge.

 

The caterpillars, which you see in the photo above if you click on the picture for the enlarged view, ate our plant nearly bare, down to the stems. I neglected to take a picture of the bare stems, but in the photo below, you can see that the stems at the bottom of the plant remain bare, but, in the center, new parsley leaves are growing...

 

...which only goes to prove the truth of the axiom (which I just now coined): You can share your parsley and eat it, too.

This link to a learning site for children on the life cycle of a butterfly, also serves grown-ups well.

NAMING YOUR CHILD

A psychiatrist was conducting a group therapy session with four young mothers and their small children. "You all have obsessions," he observed.

To the first mother, Mary, he said, "You are obsessed with eating. You've even named your daughter Candy."

He turned to the second Mom, Ann: "Your obsession is with money. Again, it manifests itself in your child's name, Penny."

He turned to the third Mom, Joyce: "Your obsession is alcohol. This too shows itself in your child's name, Brandy."

At this point, the fourth mother, Kathy, quietly got up, took her little boy by the hand, and whispered, "Come on, Dick, this guy has no idea what he's talking about. Let's pick up Peter and Willy from school and go get some dinner."

Do not blame me for this one. Blame Doug. He made me do it.

MONDALE ON OBAMA

From Jane Mayer writing about Walter Mondale, the vice-president who served with Jimmy Carter, in The New Yorker "Talk of the Town":

As for Obama, Mondale said, “He’s doing a good job,” adding, however, that when the President first took office he was “a bit green.” Also, he said, “In my opinion, Obama had a few false presumptions. One was the idea that we were in a post-partisan era.” The other was “the idea of turning things over to Congress—that doesn’t work even when you own Congress. You have to ride ’em.” Further, he suggested that Obama should stop thinking about what he can get from the Republican opposition: “You should explain clearly what you want, and, if they oppose you, attack them for it.”

Sounds about right to me. Mondale was there in the White House during the tough years of the Carter administration, and he should know. His seems rather obviously good advice to me, and I wish Obama would adopt the ideas and put them into practice.

STORY OF THE DAY

Getting as comfortable as possible in the
moments before she has to be anxious
again

I can relate.

From StoryPeople.

UPDATE FROM MARK ON KATZIE AND OTHER MATTERS

Mark posted an update on his blog, Enough About Me, which gives the latest news on Katzie. Please visit there and read Mark's post. It's lovely, from the heart, and hopeful in a way that I have not seen before, not just about Katzie, but about other matters, too. He is grateful beyond measure for the generosity of those of you who contributed to help with the expenses of Katzie's illness and subsequent surgery.

Please pray for Katzie and for Mark, especially, that he will continue to walk in hope.

IT GETS BETTER

Two videos to encourage gay and lesbian teens to stick it out, because it gets better. The videos are circulated on Facebook and Twitter, so the young people don't have to migrate to the site of an elderly woman (which they are highly unlikely to do) to hear the message from gays and lesbians who have walked through the fire of harassment and bullying and survived to go on to live happy and fulfilling lives.

GROWING UP GAY

Chris at The Verge of Jordan writes an excellent post about the difficulties of growing up gay.

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.

Not every young person is fortunate to have such a support system as Chris.

Chris documents the recent suicides of gay teens who have been bullied or worse, in school and out. The heartbreaking pictures and stories of the deaths of the young people in Chris' post, are all included in my "How Many Deaths...?" series of posts, which I began early this month and is already up to five suicides.

Chris says further:

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

Chris supplies a useful list of resources which approach the problem of teen suicide from different angles, to which I would add one more, It Gets Better, which Counterlight suggested. It wouldn't hurt to read Counterlight's post either, which gives an account of how he and his partner made it through the teen years and includes a series of videos which are well worth viewing.

Not all teen suicides are gay, and not all bullying is confined to gay and lesbian teens. Any young person who is different or who doesn't "fit in" is at risk. Perhaps we can begin to turn the tide in how we, as a society, view bullying and anti-gay attitudes and actions, in adults and youth, and begin to address them as the serious problem that they are because of the tragic consequences that all too often follow.

Thanks to Susan S. for the link to Chris' blog.

UPDATE: Bill Ghrist suggests the link to The Southern Poverty Law Center:

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.

HOW MANY DEATHS WILL IT TAKE...? - PART 5

From the New York Times:

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.

I read about Tyler's suicide yesterday, but I had no heart for posting on the deaths of two young people in the same day. I'm sorry.

My original post with the title above was posted on September 6, 2010. That I'm up to post N0. 5 in the series in one month is horrifying. Other incidents may have passed under my radar. I hope not.

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.”

Those who filmed the video and published it on the internet are not juveniles, and they will suffer consequences, as they should.

And another life of a gifted young man ended far too soon because of the inhumanity of humans, one to the other.

May Tyler Clementi rest in peace and rise in glory.

May God give comfort, consolation, and peace to Tyler's parents and to all who love him.

May God have mercy on us all!

A number of my readers sent me links to the story.

AN OLD COWBOY GOES TO CHURCH

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."

Thanks to Doug.