Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Designer Babies

A very good tongue in cheek article. One of the many consequences when we separate the body from the person, thinking that sexuality is something simply to be tinkered with.



Year 2027: Designer Babies
by Tom Purcell

March 27, 2007
"Son, now that you're getting older it's time you learn where babies come from."
"I know were babies come from, Dad. A husband and a wife become affectionate, a miracle happens, then nine months later a baby is born."
"Actually, Son, that's how babies USED to be made."
"Used to be made?"
"Son, when scientists cracked the human genetic code in 2000, it eventually opened up a lot of opportunities for people like your mother and me. It allowed us to build you from scratch."
"From scratch, Dad?"
"It took years, but scientists eventually figured out which genes — and the millions of unique ways that genes react to one another — cause humans to be the way they are. Eventually the technology evolved that allowed us to custom-design you."
"You ordered me the way you order a new car?"
"That's right, Son. You have blue eyes and blond hair, because that's what your mother wanted. You'll never go bald like your dad. And you don't have my big nose, either. Your mother picked a designer nose out of a catalog."
"I have a designer nose?"
"That's just for starters, Son. I was clumsy and skinny as a kid, but you won't have to worry about that. You'll be tall and fast and powerful. I'm already in negotiations with major universities about your football scholarship."
"Football scholarship?"
"We worked on your personality, too, Son. We eliminated the gene that causes crankiness. And because your mother is such a neat freak, we ingested another gene commonly found in people who pick up after themselves."
"Huh?"
"But best of all, you're way smarter than your mother and I. Intelligence is a difficult characteristic to pin down — there are so many variables that cause it — but we worked with genetic engineers to get your intelligence just right."
"I guess that's a good thing, Dad."
"And don't worry about getting ill. You'll likely never get a cold or cancer or heart disease. We restructured your genetic makeup to prevent such illnesses. Don't you see, son. You're the perfect child!"
"But I don't feel perfect, Dad."
"Look at yourself, Son. Good looking, smart, healthy. Maybe you'll be president one day or take over Bill Gates' company. You can be anything you want!"
"I guess I should be flattered that you and Mom put so much thought into building me. But I wish you had me the old way."
"Nonsense, Son. Look, humans have been trying to perfect their offspring since the beginning of man. Plato's Republic described a society intent on improving itself through selective breeding."
"Really?"
"And in 1926, the American Eugenics Society proposed procreation restrictions on immigrants from 'inferior' stock. It also proposed sterilization for the insane, retarded and epileptic."
"Didn't the Nazis try that?"
"Back in 2007, the genetic-engineering technology wasn't fully developed, but parents were able to screen embryos for defects and disease. Pope Benedict condemned the practice, but it was just getting started."
"Just getting started?"
"Sure, Son. Pretty soon, scientists were experimenting with live embryos. They attempted to manipulate the genetic structure of cells. Their goal was to learn more about inherited disorders in humans."
"Disorders?"
"In those days, scientists agreed this technology should NEVER be used to custom-design babies, but it was just a matter of time before somebody did it. Now it's commonplace, Son. That's why we were able to design a beautiful child like you!"
"I guess that's a compliment, Dad. But I still wish you had me the old way."
"Son, there's nothing wrong with what your mother and I did for you. Thanks to courageous parents like us, there are fewer sick, dumb and ugly people in the world. Your mother and I should be applauded for making you perfect.''
"But, Dad, don't you think you and Mom did the work that God should be doing?"
"God? God who?"

Tom Purcell's weekly political humor column runs in newspapers and Web sites across America. His email address is TomPurcell@aol.com; his web address is www.TomPurcell.com.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Eliminating Choice

This is exactly a perfect example of what Pope Benedict XVI has called "the dictatorship of relativism." The claim is being made in this article that abstinence programs do not work, yet there is no proof given that this true. Also, what really gets me is this statement: Some states found that the federal grant program had too many strings attached. Abstinence-only educators are asked to adhere to teaching points, including one that states that sex outside of marriage is "likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects."

And the problem with learning this is? Oh, we don't want our kids to have a guilty conscience by having the truth affect them, so we're going to eliminate any information that might actually give them a choice to live a truly healthy, holy, and wholistic lifestyle. Instead, we will impose our agenda while claiming to offer a variety options, of which abstinence is one of many. Yes, yes, we'll discount the fact that many of these kids have raging hormones and that our society continually pushes sexually-promiscuous lifestyles without showing the great woundedness that occurs afterward, because they're just animals. And thus we'll treat them that way, by severing the most powerful gift that God has ever given to them from the rest of their life (aka their fertility/fruifulness).

The battle goes on....



Ohio could become 8th state to reject abstinence-only money
Congress studies paying for instruction on birth control, STDs

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Leila Atassi

Plain Dealer Reporter
Ohio might become the eighth state to reject federal money for abstinence-only sex education - a decision that public-policy groups say is part of a nationwide shift toward more-comprehensive sex-ed programs.

Gov. Ted Strickland last week proposed phasing out federal grants for abstinence-only instruction, following the lead of governors in California, Connecticut, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

Days later, a bipartisan group in Congress introduced a bill that would pay for programs that include instruction about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases, while also emphasizing abstinence before marriage.

"The abstinence-only approach has seen its day, and the support's really waning," said Bill Smith, vice president for public policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States in Washington, D.C.

Smith and others attribute the shift away from abstinence-only instruction to new leadership in Congress.

The Responsible Education About Life Act is sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey.

The bill was first introduced in 2001 but gained little support in a Republican-led Congress that funneled about $175 million a year into abstinence-only programs across the country.

Some states found that the federal grant program had too many strings attached. Abstinence-only educators are asked to adhere to teaching points, including one that states that sex outside of marriage is "likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects."

Other states dropped the program after new rules banned information about contraception and STD prevention, even to answer students' questions.

In Ohio, Strickland's two-year budget proposes to cut $500,000 needed to secure $1.6 million in federal grants for abstinence teaching and materials. He explained that he has seen no conclusive evidence that the abstinence-only programs delay sexual activity during teenage years.

Strickland does not plan to apply for federal money after the program ends Sept. 30.

"The governor believes that continuing to pay for a program that has not been proven to work is an unwise use of tax dollars, particularly when we're facing a very challenging or constrained budget environment," said Keith Dailey, spokesman for the governor.

But some of Ohio's Republican lawmakers already have said they will fight to restore the abstinence-only money. And pro-abstinence groups who receive federal money say that the governor's decision disregards high community demand for their programs.

"I think it's extremely unfortunate that our kids, who already live in a highly sexualized culture, won't have the opportunity to experience these programs," said State Rep. John White, a Republican from Kettering. "We should be able to provide educational choices for parents and school districts, and if you take that money away, those choices will dry up."

Cheryl Biddle, executive director of Summit County-based Abstinence the Better Choice, said her organization, which received nearly $250,000 in federal money in 2005, will find other ways to pay for its operations if the state does not reapply for the grants.

"We're very disappointed in the governor's decision," Biddle said.

"And I would invite him to attend an abstinence-until-marriage class in the Akron area so he could see how children and their families benefit magnificently from courses like ours and how immense the community support for abstinence programs really is."

But the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States predicts even more states will reject the federal grant money.

Smith said that is because abstinence-only programs don't work as well as proponents say they do.
"They've had their chance," he said. "They've fallen down miserably, and policy change is the result."

Monday, March 26, 2007

Harming Women and Destroying Beauty
This is a great article about the reality of our 'undersexualized' culture. I say under-sexualized b/c we have no clue about what sexuality really means, that a person has been created to be loved, not to be used. Instead, most women 'feminists' instruct girls as young as six that if you are going to make it in this world, you have to show off your 'assets,' and I'm not talking about developing their mental talents. And then even us men who are striving to see women purely have that much more difficult of a time in being a witness of purity with our body. Oh, how we need divine mercy! Mother Mary, pray that your purity may be recovered in all our hearts.
Interview With Director of Women's Forum PERTH, Australia,
MARCH 21, 2007 (Zenit.org).
A recent report from the American Psychological Association on the harmful effects of the sexualization of girls shows that society needs a new strategy for young women, according to a leading women's advocate in Australia.
Melinda Tankard Reist, the founding director of Women's Forum Australia, commented on the report to ZENIT, noting that instead of turning girls into sexual objects, society should teach them to "be resilient and to defend their dignity and self-respect."Tankard Reist is also the author of "Giving Sorrow Words: Women's Stories of Grief After Abortion," and "Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics."
Q: A recent report published by the American Psychological Association pointed out the damage caused by the sexualizing of preteen and adolescent girls. How serious is this problem today in your opinion?
Tankard Reist: The problem of the premature sexualizing of girls is one of the most serious issues confronting us as a society at the present time. Girls are being turned into sexual objects earlier and earlier.The messages they receive through popular culture is that to be attractive, to be accepted, you have to dress and behave in a sexual manner. There are now lingerie clothing lines for preteen girls, and bras for girls under 10, T-shirts with sexual slogans, and even a pole dancing kit complete with a DVD that features "sexy dance tracks" for 6-year-olds.
Popular lines of dolls for girls feature sexy clothing and sexy personas. Gossip magazines aimed at a preteen readership also encourage girls to behave in a sexual manner, with pages devoted to grooming and relationships -- even with older men.In advertising catalogues, children are dressed up, made-up and posed in the same way that adults are. This suggests that children are interested in, and perhaps open to, approaches for sex.
Young girls are not emotionally equipped to process the sexual messages being targeted at them. It is difficult for them, when abandoned to their autonomy, to resist outside pressure. We are seeing the effects of this premature sexualizing on the bodies of our young women in self-destructive behaviors such as excessive dieting and eating disorders, drug taking and binge drinking, self harm, anxiety, depression, lower academic performance and ill health.
Prescriptions for drugs to treat depression in young girls increase every year. Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia are at epidemic proportions -- and manifesting in children as young as 8. I am pleased the APA has taken the issue seriously -- though I hope it's not too late.
Q: Decades ago one of the aims of feminism was to end the exploitation of women, yet contemporary culture has reduced women more than ever to her sex appeal. Has feminism failed women in this area?
Tankard Reist: I must admit I found it very hard to celebrate International Women's Day this year. I have three daughters and I see how vulnerable they are to messages about sexuality and body image and how hard it is for them to resist this. It is difficult to raise them in a culture so destructive of their self-esteem and which so abbreviates their childhood.
Many gains have been made by the women's movement, that needs to be acknowledged. But at some stage, efforts to end the exploitation of women were overtaken by the movement for sexual liberalism.
Suddenly, women's freedom was reduced to women's freedom to be sexual playthings for male arousal and pleasure. "Liberation" has come to mean a woman's ability to pole dance, expose herself, have multiple partners and avail herself of cosmetic surgery to enhance her "assets."
Sexual liberalism has not advanced women's freedom, but eroded and undermined it. We are living in a sexually brutalized culture. We are seeing more harassment, stalking and rape, more alcohol-fueled sexual abuse and use of date rape drugs. In general, more predatory behaviour.
While radical feminism has questioned the rhetoric of "choice" and exposed the costs to women of the so-called sexual revolution, liberal mainstream "choice" feminism needs to take some responsibility for a confused and destructive notion of freedom that underlines much of the assaults we see today on women's genuine dignity.
Ariel Levy's book "Female Chauvinist Pigs" describes how a culture of sexual display and raunchy behaviors -- i.e. strippers, porn stars, pole dancers, etc. -- is actually a monoculture which does nothing to empower women. It becomes clear that it is not freedom of expression, but a strong cultural expectation for women to appear and behave a particular way.
Q: The unhindered portrayal of sexual images and messages in the media is often defended in the name of freedom of speech. It is also argued that a lack of sexual restraint is "liberating" for women. What is your opinion on these points?
Tankard Reist: The barrage of sexual images in popular culture cannot be justified on "free speech" grounds when it is causing so much damage to vulnerable children who need protection.
Online networks of pedophiles also use "free speech" arguments when trading in images of children being raped. In Australia, a prominent social researcher, Hugh Mackay, said recently that there was too much censorship and that no one was harmed by the mere downloading of child porn.
He completely ignored the fact that every download fuels a demand for more images -- and often more degrading images. This attitude also ignores the harm done to the child whose image is used again and again for sexual gratification around the world.
The APA study and other research, for example by the Australia Institute and by my organization, Women's Forum Australia, provides solid evidence for the harm being caused by plastering society's wallpaper with sexual images.
What we are witnessing is not liberation but oppression. It is not liberating for young women to be told everyday that their only power is in their sexual currency. It is not liberating to convey to women that their freedom lies in participating in their own exploitation. To portray the sexual as the only value of a woman is not liberation, but rather oppression.
Q: What are some of the effects have you seen on adolescents and women regarding the consequences of a culture that increasingly puts no limits on sexual expression and behavior?
Tankard Reist: Young women are facing huge pressure to conform to a sexualized norm.
The "norm" is that young women have an insatiable appetite for sex. This is a cultural assumption that women should be having sex -- at least daily -- and something is wrong if they're not. There is profound pressure from the media for young women to be sexually attractive and active. Without this they are thought of as abnormal and unfulfilled.
Young women are compromised by a sexual free-for-all in which they come to expect only cold soulless encounters -- where they are always expected to give out sexual favors with little in return.The newly released "Sex lives of Australian Teenagers" demonstrates this. It makes bleak reading, revealing how little real love there is in the sexual -- I was going to say "intimate," but there's little real intimacy either -- exchanges between young people.
Q: What can be done to promote a healthier view of women in the sense of a greater respect for their dignity and their role in society?
Tankard Reist: We need a new strategy for women and girl advocacy.
We need to empower young women especially to be resilient and to defend their dignity and self-respect.
The decision not to submit to hypersexualized messages and to live above the dictates of the culture, needs to be seen for what it is -- a radical and defiant alternative lifestyle.
Young women deserve better than to be treated as merely the sum of their sexual parts. They need to be given encouragement to develop their minds, their intellects, their deeper inner lives, rather than wasting hours in trying to get their bodies to conform to an idealized oversexualized type.
We need more social protection of girls, and even more so because of the excesses of popular culture and the sexual danger this puts them in. As Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of "The Body Project," points out: "Although girls now mature sexually earlier than ever before, contemporary … society provides fewer social protections for them, a situation that leaves them unsupported in their development and extremely vulnerable to the excesses of popular culture and to pressure from peer groups."
We also need to be investing a lot more in raising decent men. There are many men who share the concerns I have raised here. But there are other men -- and it is primarily men -- who create the demand for the sort of material that strips women of dignity and respect. It is mostly men who commit sexual crimes, who traffic millions of women and girls a year into the twin industries of pornography and prostitution. It is mostly men who buy pornography and prostituted women.I don't have any easy answers here -- but I'd like to know why we aren't doing more to bring out the best -- not the worst -- in boys and young men? Boys are also demeaned and brutalized by a culture that conditions them to this type of behaviour.
In a Melbourne suburb, a group of 12 boys sexually humiliated an intellectually disabled girl then sold the DVD of the abuse to students at high schools in the area for 5 Australian dollars each. The DVD was also shown online for some time before it was removed. But many people defended their behavior, saying it was just a bunch of boys "having a bit of fun." As long as this attitude prevails, then there is little hope for our girls.
We need a new global movement prepared to stand up against corporations, advertisers, the sex industry, the makers of violent video games and demeaning music clip and Internet sites. We need the same momentum as we've seen drive recent movements against global warming and world poverty propel a new movement for fighting our toxic cultural environment.
ZE07032115

Thursday, March 22, 2007

The Porn War Continues


It seems that we have thrown out the true understanding of what free speech is about all together. We have forgotten about the Word, who stands from Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, and that all of our other words must mirror this in order to truly bring life to others. The whole understanding of 'freedom of speech' is being governed by the idea that anything can be proclaimed, and if something is harmful, then it is up to the parents who have the duty to guide their children into what they will watch. But the problem is, parents don't know how to be parents anymore. Many have lost the understanding of what family. Instead all we have are individuals who happen to live in the same house. And it is the little one's who suffer. "Woe to those who cause scandal to these little ones..."





U.S. Judge Blocks 1998 Online Porn Law


Mar 22 08:32 AM US/EasternBy MARYCLAIRE DALEAssociated Press Writer



PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A federal judge on Thursday dealt another blow to government efforts to control Internet pornography, striking down a 1998 U.S. law that makes it a crime for commercial Web site operators to let children access "harmful" material.
In the ruling, the judge said parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit the rights of others to free speech.
"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection," wrote Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., who presided over a four-week trial last fall.
The law would have criminalized Web sites that allow children to access material deemed "harmful to minors" by "contemporary community standards." The sites would have been expected to require a credit card number or other proof of age. Penalties included a $50,000 fine and up to six months in prison.
Sexual health sites, the online magazine Salon.com and other Web sites backed by the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law. They argued that the Child Online Protection Act was unconstitutionally vague and would have had a chilling effect on speech.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a temporary injunction in 2004 on grounds the law was likely to be struck down and was perhaps outdated.
Technology experts said parents now have more serious concerns than Web sites with pornography. For instance, the threat of online predators has caused worries among parents whose children use social- networking sites such as News Corp.'s MySpace.
The case sparked a legal firestorm last year when Google challenged a Justice Department subpoena seeking information on what people search for online. Government lawyers had asked Google to turn over 1 million random Web addresses and a week's worth of Google search queries.
A judge sharply limited the scope of the subpoena, which Google had fought on trade secret, not privacy, grounds.
To defend the nine-year-old Child Online Protection Act, government lawyers attacked software filters as burdensome and less effective, even though they have previously defended their use in public schools and libraries.
"It is not reasonable for the government to expect all parents to shoulder the burden to cut off every possible source of adult content for their children, rather than the government's addressing the problem at its source," a government attorney, Peter D. Keisler, argued in a post-trial brief.
Critics of the law argued that filters work best because they let parents set limits based on their own values and their child's age.
The law addressed material accessed by children under 17, but applied only to content hosted in the United States.
The Web sites that challenged the law said fear of prosecution might lead them to shut down or move their operations offshore, beyond the reach of the U.S. law. They also said the Justice Department could do more to enforce obscenity laws already on the books.
The 1998 law followed Congress' unsuccessful 1996 effort to ban online pornography. The Supreme Court in 1997 deemed key portions of that law unconstitutional because it was too vague and trampled on adults' rights.
The newer law narrowed the restrictions to commercial Web sites and defined indecency more specifically.
In 2000, Congress passed a law requiring schools and libraries to use software filters if they receive certain federal funds. The high court upheld that law in 2003.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Coloring Masculinity "Green"

Now this article really hits the issue on the head. This is a major connection made between the immasculinization of our culture and the new emphasis on environmental worship. I really love the comment about Polar Bears.


Global Warming: Moving Towards Metrosexuals
By Daniel ClarkMar 17, 2007

The latest point of emphasis in the global warming movement is that cattle farming endangers the planet by producing too much methane. So now, steaks and hamburgers are classified as instruments of destruction, along with large vehicles, lawn mowers, and charcoal grills. It can't be much longer before cowboy movies, cigars and hockey are held to be enemies of the earth as well.

This has got to be the most blatant assault on guyhood since ABC moved Coach to the same night as Roseanne, and turned Hayden Fox into Phil Donahue. It's a wonder that liberals don't cut to the chase, by simply claiming that global warming is caused by testosterone. Then, they could make public school nurses siphon the offending fluid from the boys during health class.

Many environmentalists believe that the earth is a living organism, personified by the Greek goddess Gaia. Conveniently, it turns out that Gaia is a shrew, who demands that her men be reduced to henpecked, metrosexual noodles. Manliness makes Gaia angry, and we wouldn't like her when she's angry, because she'll turn into a green monster and start smashing everything to bits. Hell hath no fury like an earth goddess exposed to excessive cattle-produced methane emissions.Wouldn't it be more plausible if a few items like styling gel, latte makers and tofu were said to destroy the planet as well?

Perhaps, but that would not serve the purpose of expanding the base of the global warming movement. Since no liberal cause can produce much support on its own, any one of them must ally itself with all other liberal causes, so that they can pool their resources.That's why it's almost impossible to distinguish the original purpose of a left-wing political rally. What starts out being an 'anti-war' demonstration will invariably become an convention of environmentalists, gun control advocates, pro-abortionists, animal rights activists, racial Balkanists, and outright Communists, because that's the only way to prevent the size of the crowd from being laughably small.

Therefore, environmental alarmists must incorporate other causes within their own, in order to keep their core of support relatively large and energized. Clearly, they've determined their
alliance with the feminists to be vital to these ends.

It's not coincidental that the icon of the global warming movement is former vice president Al Gore, who, during the 2000 presidential campaign, sought advice from feminist author Naomi Wolf on how to become an "alpha male." Needless to say, she did not suggest that he scarf down a steak sandwich while sitting behind the wheel of a riding mower. Instead, her solution was to dress him in earth tones, as if obsessing over his wardrobe was any way to attain guydom. Never is it manly to ask, "does this make my butt look big," even if you want the answer to be yes.For Wolf to tell Gore that he'd become an "alpha male" just by wearing the right clothing is a little like a mother patronizing her young child. She probably got the idea when Gore put a bucket over his head and said, "Look, Ms. Wolf, I'm an astronaut," and she replied, "Yes, of course you are, dear."

Images of global destruction being more powerful than images of normalcy and stability, Gore and friends are bound to win the competition for people's emotions. Hence, they are now deterring any analysis of the issue, by calling skeptics "global warming deniers," a not very subtle comparison to neo-Nazis. If we succumb to this intimidation like a bunch of namby-pamby rice cake eaters, the debate will be lost for good.

Thus, the global warming movement seeks to repress guyhood in order to perpetuate itself. If a guy is shown a picture of a sad-looking polar bear adrift on an ice floe, his first thought will be something like, "I've heard that bear steaks are tough, but maybe if you marinated them in beer, they'd turn out all right." At that point, the alarmists' emotional ploy is foiled. In a world without guy stuff, however, his vacant mind may be invaded by irrationalities like, "Who will take care of thepolar bears' children?"

In this chicken-and-the-egg scenario, the success of the global warming movement is both the cause and effect of our society's emasculation. It would have never gotten this far if the "Nineties Man" hadn't paved the way. When "I feel your pain" became a successful presidential campaign slogan, we should have known that charcoal-grilled steaks would soon be on the endangered list.

Daniel Clark is a Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance.