[ed..I am not a monarchist. I just want people to live a decent life on this earth according to their dignity being created in the image of God. What system of government achieves this, I don't care, as long as it isn't against God or Catholicism]
By Ryan Grant Original
he narrative some have come to trust from talk
radio or from public personalities like Pat Buchanan, Justice Antonin
Scalia or libertarians such as Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell, is that it is
in our best interest to return to the vision of the American Founding
Fathers, who, in their estimate, were God-fearing men, lovers of liberty
and risked life and limb to save their progeny from tyranny. Voting
Republican, in their view, will ensure judges interpret the constitution
according to original intent, protect the Church, and our free speech.
There is only problem with this account. It simply isn’t true. Making this case is Christopher A. Ferrara in his latest book, Liberty: The God that Failed.
Cacao (aka:Cocoa) is a superfood with an extreme array of health benefits. Cacao
has more antioxidant flavonoids than any food tested so far, including
blueberries, red wine, and black and green teas. In fact, it has up to
four times the quantity of antioxidants found
in green tea. Health benefits of these antioxidants includes promoting
cardiovascular health by helping dilate bloods vessels, reduce blood
clotting, improve circulation, help regulate heartbeat and blood
pressure, lower LDL cholesterol, and reduce the risk of stroke and heart
attacks. Cocoa’s antioxidants also protect from environmental and
metabolic toxins by helping repair and resist damage caused by free
radicals, and may reduce risk of certain cancers.
By increasing the levels of specific neurotransmitters in our brains,
cacao promotes positive outlook, facilitates rejuvenation and simply
helps us feel good. There is a misperception that chocolate is
fattening. In truth, the fats in cocoa butter are healthy fats. Cacao
contains oleic acid, a heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, also found in
olive oil that may raise good cholesterol. Also, substances found in
cacao are known to help reduce appetite. It is most important to fully
understand that in order to benefit from chocolate’s wide array of
nutrients, eat chocolate that is as close to its natural state as
possible. Whole cocoa and nibs are the best.
The title of this paper, "The Psychology of Atheism," may seem strange. Certainly, my psychological colleagues have found it odd and even, I might add, a little disturbing. After all, psychology, since its founding roughly a century ago, has often focused on the opposite topic-namely the psychology of religious belief. Indeed, in many respects the origins of modern psychology are intimately bound up with the psychologists who explicitly proposed interpretations of belief in God.
William James and Sigmund Freud, for example, were both personally and professionally deeply involved in the topic. Recall The Will to Believe by James, as well as his still famous Varieties of Religious Experience. These two works are devoted to an attempt at understanding belief as the result of psychological, that is natural, causes. James might have been sympathetic to religion, but his own position was one of doubt and skepticism and his writings were part of psychology's general undermining of religious faith. As for Sigmund Freud, his critiques of religion, in particular Christianity, are well known and will be discussed in some detail later. For now, it is enough to remember how deeply involved Freud and his thought have been with the question of God and religion.
Given the close involvement between the founding of much of psychology and a critical interpretation of religion, it should not be surprising that most psychologists view with some alarm any attempt to propose a psychology of atheism. At the very least such a project puts many psychologists on the defensive and gives them some taste of their own medicine. Psychologists are always observing and interpreting others and it is high time that some of them learn from their own personal experience what it is like to be put under the microscope of psychological theory and experiment. Regardless, I hope to show that the psychological concepts used quite effectively to interpret religion are two- edged swords that can also be used to interpret atheism. Sauce for the believer is equally sauce for the unbeliever.
Before beginning, however, I wish to make two points bearing on the underlying assumption of my remarks. First, I assume that the major barriers to belief in God are not rational but-in a general sense- can be called psychological. I do not wish to offend the many distinguished philosophers-both believers and nonbelievers-in this audience, but I am quite convinced that for every person strongly swayed by rational argument there are many, many more affected by nonrational psychological factors.
The human heart-no one can truly fathom it or know all its deceits, but at least it is the proper task of the psychologist to try. Thus, to begin, I propose that neurotic psychological barriers to belief in God are of great importance. What some of these might be I will mention shortly. For believers, therefore, it is important to keep in mind that psychological motives and pressures that one is often unaware of, often lie behind unbelief.
One of the earliest theorists of the unconscious, St. Paul, wrote, "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it . . . I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind . . ." (Rom. 7:18, 23). Thus, it seems to me sound theology as well as sound psychology that psychological factors can be impediments to belief as well as behavior, and that these may often be unconscious factors as well. Further, as a corollary it is reasonable to propose that people vary greatly in the extent to which these factors are present in their lives. Some of us have been blessed with an upbringing, a temperament, social environment, and other gifts that have made belief in God a much easier thing than many who have suffered more or have been raised in a spiritually impoverished environment or had other difficulties with which to cope. Scripture makes it clear that many children-even into the third or fourth generation-suffer from the sins of their fathers, including the sins of fathers who may have been believers. In short, my first point is that some people have much more serious psychological barriers to belief than others, a point consistent with the scriptures' clear statement that we are not to judge others, however much we are called to correct evil. READ rest of article
The famous story of Helen Keller which became the play and movie The Miracle Worker, is recreated in reality with a mother and her autistic son. Tenacity is really the key to success in anything! This video shows a mother doing what science said couldn't be done.
The miracle that cured my son’s autism was in our kitchen
By Mackenzie Dawson
When a doctor told Susan Levin her 4-year-old son, Ben, was
autistic, she was shocked. It was October 2007, and autism wasn’t
mentioned in the media nearly as much as it is today.
“I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God. What are we going to do?’ ” Levin
recalls. “Everyone knew autism was a lifelong disorder and couldn’t be
cured.”
Except that in Ben’s case, it could be. And it was.
The family’s journey — the many treatments tried and dismissed, from
biomedical interventions to speech therapy to occupational therapy and
more — is detailed in her new memoir, “Unlocked: A Family Emerging From the Shadows of Autism.”
Levin doesn’t call this particular cure a silver bullet for autism:
There is no silver bullet, no one-size-fits-all approach. Rather, she
credits his transformation to a number of things, including a home based
and child centered social-relational program called the Son-Rise
Program.
Enlarge ImageSusan
Levin, pictured above with son Ben, documents her family’s journey in
her memoir “Unlocked: A Family Emerging from the Shadows of Autism.”Tim Daley
But one of the biggest factors was what was on his plate.
“Hippocrates was right when he advised, ‘Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food,’ ” she says.
Levin is part of a growing group of people who are paying more
attention to diet — organic, gluten- and casein-free among them — as a
way to treat the symptoms of autism and other disorders. So strongly
does she believe in the healing possibilities of food that she’s now a
family wellness coach working exclusively with families of autistic
children.
While the scientific verdict is still out on diet as a cure,
statistics point to a definite link between gastrointestinal issues and
autism.
A 2012 study published by the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology
found a direct link between GI issues and behavior. As many as 70
percent of children with autism have gastrointestinal issues at some
point during childhood or adolescence — and diarrhea, food sensitivity
and constipation can cause extreme discomfort, leading to irritability,
and erratic or withdrawn behavior.
But not everyone is convinced.
“Over the years I’ve been privy to a million parents, a million
cures,” says Andrew Baumann, president and CEO of New York Families for
Autistic Children. “Parents are willing to try just about anything.” And
while he concedes that diet can have a very positive effect, he just
doesn’t see it as a cure for autism: “You can’t cure something [when]
you don’t know what the cause is.”
Parents are willing to try just about anything. You can’t cure something [when] you don’t know what the cause is.
- Andrew Baumann, president and CEO of
New York Families for Autistic Children
Kathleen DiChiara begs to differ. The former Fortune 500 executive
was diagnosed with sudden onset neuropathy, which left her unable to
walk. When the doctors told her there was little to be done, she went
back to school to study. She’s now a nutrition educator, chef and
speaker who credits an all-organic diet for healing not only herself,
but her 11- year-old son, Steven, who’d been diagnosed as autistic but
is no longer considered to be.
Why are people resistant to the idea of food’s effect on illness?
“It’s socially inconvenient,” DiChiara says. “They’re already
struggling, and the idea of removing things from the diet is so
daunting. But it’s the difference between the children who get well and
the ones who don’t.”
Maria Rickert Hong, author of “Almost Autism: Recovering Children
From Sensory Processing Disorder,” credits a gluten-free, dairy-free
diet with the recovery of her two children from sensory-processing
disorder.
“In a child with neurodevelopment disorders, the brain is inflamed,
and the gut and the brain are connected,” Hong says. “Most of these kids
have gut dysbiosis — an imbalance of good versus bad bacteria, like
having too many weeds in your garden. When you have that, the body’s
immune system is off.”
Levin and her family initially started Ben on a gluten-free and
casein-free diet, later eliminating soy, corn, potatoes and rice. But as
soon as one offending food was removed, she says, a reaction to another
popped up. Then they tried the Body Ecology Diet, an anti-yeast diet high in
grain-like seeds such as amaranth, quinoa, millet and buckwheat. Almost
overnight, Ben calmed down and started making eye contact.
Now 12, Ben is studying for his bar mitzvah. Eight years after that
chilling diagnosis, he’s become more empathetic, frequently saying “I
love you” to his mother, his father and sister.
Levin says his newfound compassion is nothing short of a miracle.
“It doesn’t matter what people say,” says Levin. “I have my kid back.”
The Pomodoro technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The technique uses a timer to break down periods of work into 25-minute intervals called 'Pomodoros' (from the Italian word for 'tomatoes') separated by breaks. Closely related to concepts such as timeboxing and iterative and incremental development used in software design, the method has been adopted in pair programming contexts. The method is based on the idea that frequent breaks can improve mental agility
summary: Most people are only able to focus on a task for about 25 minutes before they need a break. Rather than trying to change this, the Pomodoro technique works with your limitations. Here’s the basic recipe:
Pick a task you need to accomplish.
Set a timer for 25 minutes and start working
When the time rings, take a 5 minute break
Repeat steps 1-3
Ever four cycles, take a 25 minute break.
It seems too simple to be effective, but I decided to give it a try for just one morning at work;That was eight months ago and I haven’t turned back. Upon discovering that its simplicity is its strength, I’ve even adopted the Pomodoro technique at home.
The reason I think it works, has to do with left right brain functions.The left brain is usually used for socializing and multi-tasking. Right brain is for deeper concentration. The left doesn't like to give up its power to the right.. So by initiating this "game," we are able to trick our left brain to concentrate.
The main reason we don't get a lot of stuff done isn't because we are doing too little but we are doing too much! Thinking of doing the cleaning the house or any mundane task, makes it seem like a long time, with no real objective criteria of time. So we don't want to do it, because we could be doing more important things. But if we use the egg timer method, and say "I will clean for 25 minutes" them the task doesn't seem so bad. Plus if we don't clean everything in 25 minutes, we did do something and if done every day then, little by little work that needs to be done--gets done.
Did you know there are various health benefits to Gelatin, including:
- Good for joints and can help joint recovery-- Arthritis Harvard Medical School took 29 arthritis patients who had not responded in any way to medical treatment for arthritis over 15 to 20 years. They took them off their medication, it wasn’t working anyway, lined them up for joint-replacement surgery, and for 90 days before their surgery they gave them heaping tablespoon of ground up chicken cartilage (which is gelatin) in their orange juice every morning for 90 days. In 10 days these people had complete relief of pain inflammation that they hadn’t had in 15 to 20 years.
These are particular important martyrs. They suffered at the hands of the Communists. Many forget the horror the Communist regime could bring to bear on its opponents. And its opponents were usually poor and helpless, lovers of peace and prayer. That was their crime. The Greek Catholic Church has suffered for the Faith in unimaginable ways, in Ukraine, Belorussia, Romania, and even in Russia itself. Lets us not forget evil in man is because of our fallen nature. We need to oppose our evil tendencies at all times because if fed it produces things like Nazis and Communists. Remember all of us have the potential to be a saint or worse than evil, "but for the grace of God go I". Here is the telling of one such event in Romania:
DCA is a drug that has proven success against cancer, but since the pharmaceutical industry can’t profit from it (because it cannot be patented--it is public domain) they won’t fund any research, or start the development process
Where are the Catholic groups dedicated to helping people on this issue of DCA? Legatus, Tom Monahan or even Opus Dei have the money and connections to produce this for cancer patients. The Catholic Church is international enough to help to found a clinic anywhere in the world, that would be happy to treat cancer patients. As the women mentions at the end there are a number of drugs and treatments that no one takes up because there is no money to be made. But can there be a more pro-life message to produce non-profit pharmaceuticals?
I didn't know where to put this, just thought it was cool. Maybe I should add a recipe section? But for now I will put it under health and culture.[It does contain cultured milk ;-)]
Not too many people make real old fashioned whipped cream anymore because it can be so tricky to prepare and almost impossible to store. But for those of us who do prefer the real deal, these instructions will make the task so much easier.
"James and Janet Baker were the inventors of 'Dragon Systems' speech recognition software, and after years of work, they created a multimillion dollar company. At the height of the tech boom, with investment offers rolling in, they turned to Goldman Sachs for financial advice."
For a five million dollar fee, Goldman hooked them up with Lernout Hauspie, the Belgium speech recognition company. After consultations with Goldman Sachs, the Bakers traded their company for $580 million in Lernout & Hauspie stock.
But it turned out Lernout Hauspie was involved in cooking their books and went bankrupt.
Dragon was sold in a bankruptcy auction to Scansoft, and the Bakers lost everything. Goldman and Sachs itself had decided against investing in Lernout Hauspie two years previous to this because they were lying about their Asian sales.
I have just added a section on God's existence since I seem to have posted on this more than I thought I would.
This a protestant approach to the existence of God. It is called Presuppositional Apologetics. Pretty interesting. It takes some thinking. I don't agree that evidential proofs of God are useless but usually more helpful to believers.
video 1
Disciplining and controlling the human “sweet tooth” and subsequently stabilizing blood sugar is one of the most important things a person can do to maintain good health. Elevations in blood sugar and associated elevations in insulin are behind many, if not most of the health issues we confront today. High blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and of course diabetes have clear associations to unstable blood sugar and blood insulin. And while the connections to cancer, accelerated aging, osteoporosis, arthritis and autoimmune issues are less definitive, a case could certainly be made that the likelihood of confronting these health challenges (among others) would almost certainly be reduced by reducing sugar intake. Now while it is important to recognize that simply fighting sugar cravings is a futile strategy.
In other words will power is not a great weapon in the battle against sugar because the drive for sugar is built-in, it is hardwired into our brains from millions of years of evolution; and in the battle between hard wiring and will power, hard-wiring usually wins.
What we want to be able to do is understand the “habituation” mechanism. “Taste anesthesia” must be confronted. Our taste buds become numb to sweetness and gradually it takes more and more sweet for us to be satisfied. And, there is some literature that suggests that even the sweet taste can raise blood sugar and insulin levels, even without sugar!
These videos don't answer the new atheism. I think they want you to get the book for that. But I thought it was interesting to get the psychological aspects of the new atheism.
Thermographic image shows areas of high heat loss (red and yellow) from a home. The blue roof indicates good insulation and little heat loss. Image Credit: The Insuladd Company Remember that grade-school riddle, "What's black, white, and red all over?" Depending on who gave you the punch line, the answer was "a sunburned zebra" or "a newspaper."
Here's an updated version: What's every color in the world, but still always green?
The answer is paint that includes an insulating powder that originated at NASA. Widely used on commercial and residential structures, it transforms any color of paint into an environmentally friendly insulation barrier that saves energy and cost.
Once you taste the magic of homemade sour cream, you'll have a hard time not repeating. Sure it takes a couple days, but the effort is minimal for such a marvelous payoff.
Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream (aka whipping cream)--pasteurized, but not "Ultra-pasteurized" (update-7-17-12: I made it with Ultra-pasteurized. Because it is almost impossible to find just "pasteurized" also you might want to experiment with different butter-milks. Some have live cultures but it isn't labeled. I guess they don't want us making our own, since it is so easy., so they don't label it)
3 tablespoons cultured buttermilk--live culture
Mix together and leave in a warm spot (about 70-75 degrees F., which is normal room temperature) for 24 hours, or until thick. Refrigerate for; 24 hours before using. Should last a week or two. Best if jar and utensils are sterilized just before. Use coffee filter and rubber band to cover to keep away bugs etc...
[Update: Sept. 19. 2013-- Another way to get some liver in you is to eat liverwurst or liver pate. I made some pate a few days ago. It was great and I hate the taste of liver. Experiment I used sausage, garlic, onion and cumin. Experiment]
[Update July 10, 2012: There has been some concern if liver is dangerous
Despite the fact that traditional practices and scientific evidence support the many health benefits accrued by eating liver, many modern people express ambivalence about eating liver or express an outright refuse to eat it because they’ve been told that the liver stores toxins. This view has become popular among many conventional nutritionists and natural foods advocates.
The “liver is toxic” belief stems from a misunderstanding of what the liver actually does. The liver does not store toxins, rather it neutralizes toxins (e.g., drugs, chemical agents, and poisons). Toxic compounds that the body cannot neutralize and eliminate are more likely to lodge in the fatty tissues and the nervous system, not the liver. What about the risk of vitamin A toxicity?
Studies linking vitamin A consumption to toxicity relied on doses of synthetic vitamin A, which was found to cause problems and even contribute to birth defects. But natural vitamin A found in liver is an extremely important nutrient for human health and does not cause problems except in extremely large amounts,
Other than unusual cases, such as Arctic explorers eating polar bear or seal liver and taking several million units of vitamin A at one time, the risk of vitamin A toxicity in people eating one or two reasonable servings of liver per week are highly unlikely.
Taking megavitamin supplements containing vitamin A over a long period of time has been known to induced acute toxicity (e.g., 100,000 IU synthetic vitamin A per day taken for many months); however these go away upon cessation of taking such unusually high does of A in supplemental form.
How much liver is safe to eat?
A good recommendation for liver is one 100-gram serving of beef, lamb, bison or duck liver (about 4 ounces) once or twice a week, providing about 50,000 IU vitamin A per serving. Chicken liver, which is lower in vitamin A, may be consumed more frequently. If you experience headaches or joint pains at this level, cut back until the symptoms go away,]
A previous post on Catholic Data said what a superfood liver is but most people don't like the taste, nor do they know how to cook it. I don't like Liver so I felt bad telling people how healthy it is and didn't follow up with some tips to get it down.. Liver once a week or every couple of weeks should be enough for health.. Here are some suggestions that may help with a suggested recipe at the end. A simple; recipe that your family actually might liked.
1.Soak It In Acidic Water
I read this in several places, one of the toughest (pun intended) things to get past about liver is the texture, which is more dense than other meat. The acidity seems to break down the liver and make it more palatable. (Another suggestion I read was to soak it in milk for a several hours in the fridge. I am not sure how this helps.. One idea I had, although I haven't tried it yet, was to soak it in Blue Cheese salad dressing with a little milk. This could be the best of all worlds, acid, milk, and a strong 'masking flavor".)
To Do: Simply place your cut up liver in a bowl, barely cover with water and add the juice of a lemon or a tablespoon or two of vinegar. Soak for a few hours before cooking, drain and pat dry.
also see this article on the same subject here
[editor: I found this while surfing and forgot where its from. I found it very practical but I would like to add my two cents. While "Virtue, Industriousness, Beauty, Piety" are good they are a little too flowery for an otherwise very practical straight speaking article. I would simplify it, although, not rejecting the above criteria, by saying, 3 things help in making a choice:
1.) How he/she handles money--are they responsible and does the man have a job to support a family?, If not, and you are a woman of childbearing age--- skip him!
2.)World View--- same religion, political opinions, similar interests outside of religion and politics
3.) Psychological---is he/she sane? Are they suffering from depression...alcohol...drugs etc... I'd say no don't even think of dating them in 98% of the cases.]
This is a post that is a response to an inquiry by a long time reader of this blog. The basic question was this: what is my opinion on courtship, on dating, on how a young Catholic man should go about wooing a woman and about acceptable courting practices. This is going to be a very in depth answer, and it is going to be hard to disentangle it from my own subjective experiences in this matter, but as a man married for almost eight years who has not “dated” for almost ten, I think I can reflect on it with some type of objectivity. But I must stress two things before I launch into this topic:
(1) All of the following is my opinion only. I do not profess it to be the Church’s ideas or even anybody’s ideas but my own. They are just my opinions, formed by a historical study.
(2) I have to warn everybody, my opinions on this issue may diverge from several commonly accepted notions, even notions accepted within the Traditionalist and Homeschooling communities. My opinions on courting/dating and marriage are simply part of a larger worldview, which I am not at this time able to clearly articulate for various reasons. However, because I am going to in this post threaten some sacred cows, I anticipate getting some disagreement. So be it.
So first, let’s come to terminology. Wooing a female. Well, it does not matter one bit to me what you call this process. Some homeschool parents get all bent out of shape about the terminology. My child will not “date”; they will “court.” Okay, well what really matters is the substance of what is going on at these liaisons, not what you call them. You can call it courting, dating, keeping company, going steady, (or, my mother’s annoying phrase from the 1960’s, “going with”), or whatever you want. Don’t get all upset about the name. I know of some families who don’t let their kids “date,” but allow their daughters to be in situations with other boys that would be tantamount to dating, but they for some reason allow it because it’s not called dating and because “we know their family,” as if that makes concupiscence and passion any less intense!
When you are looking to make a meal that is delicious and exquisite, you usually overlook some foods that are healthy for you. There is one food in particular that one would commonly overlook in this case. That food is one that is known to be liver. Yes, liver, it is not a food you would normally consider “tasty”. However, some of you might do so, and even if you don’t, it should be known that liver can be very beneficial to your health. You are able to prepare liver in various different ways to have it go with your dish and support your health with the rich vitamins and minerals that is in liver.
When water molecules (red and white) and sodium and chlorine ions (green and purple) in saltwater, on the right, encounter a sheet of graphene (pale blue, center) perforated by holes of the right size, the water passes through (left side), but the sodium and chlorine of the salt are blocked. Graphic: David Cohen-Tanugi
Graphene--The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2010 was awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov at the University of Manchester "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene"
It can be stronger than steel and thinner than paper. It can generate electricity when struck by light. It can be used in thin, flexible supercapacitors that are up to 20 times more powerful than the ones we use right now and can be made in a DVD burner. It’s already got an impressive track record, but does it have any more tricks up its sleeve? Apparently, yes. According to researchers at MIT, graphene could also increase the efficicency of desalination by two or three orders of magnitude. Seriously, what can’t this stuff do?
Source: http://www.kijanigrows.com/
This idea shows the impotence of promoting access to education and technology in third world countries. This Swahili born inventor, now living in the USA, exhibits the creativity that can be achieved by letting local intelligentsia to develop. People are our greatest resource.
While this isn't technically a "low tech" innovation some of the basic principles are. The use of fish as a "hyper-composter" has potential.
Eric Maundu is farming in Oakland. There are no open fields in this concrete jungle, and even if there were the soil in his part of town is contaminated and not a suitable place in which to grow food.
But he’s not using farming methods of old. In fact farmers of a century ago wouldn’t recognize anything he’s doing. His technique uses fish, circulated water, and gravel to grow vegetables in whatever space he can find; a farming method called aquaponics.
The video after the break gives an excellent look at his farm. The two main parts of the system are a large water trough where fish live, and a raised bed of gravel where the fish waste in the water is filtered out and composted by bacteria to becomes food for the vegetables.
More parts can be added into the mix. For instance, once the water has been filtered by the stone bed it can be gravity fed into another vessel which is being used to grow lettuce suspended by floating foam board. But the water always ends up back in the fish trough where it can be reused. This ends up saving anywhere from 90-98% of the water used in normal farming.
But Eric is also interested in adding some automation. About seven minutes into the video we get a look at the control systems he’s working on with the help of Arduino and other hardware
Aquaponics
About Aquaponic Systems
recirculating water system
uses bacteria to compost fish waste into plant nutrients
grows plants on gravel and water: NO SOIL!
produces BOTH FISH and plants
Advantages Of Aquaponics
uses ONLY 2-10% of the water used in regular farming
10 times as much PRODUCE as CONVENTIONAL FARMING
food GROWN anywhere
a secure source of fresh healthy vegetables and fish
This is just general information. Trace minerals, while essential, need to be taken in the correct amount, it doesn't mean you need a lot. So please don't think "if a little is good, a lot must be better." I suggest to get in contact with a well informed nutritionist;who would agree with the contents of these videos. The thing that is interesting, if true, is that farm animals seem to have been cured of most diseases by supplementation, while humans aren't. I think the "Back to Eden" Gardening site might have the key to the whole problem of minerals. In "Back to Eden." his tree mulch is full of minerals which his vegetables and fruits seem to be enriched by.
All information posted on Catholic Data blog site is just opinions provided for educational purposes only. It is not to be construed as medical advice. Only a licensed medical doctor can legally offer medical advice in the United States. Consult the healer of your choice for medical care and advice.
[editor Catholic Data: Catholics or people in general seem to be motivated by ideology more than morality. Since no other religion has a moral theology Catholicism is really key to understang the goal and means of political systems]
In my article on “Roman Catholicism” in American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, I wrote that, “Conservative thought parallels Roman Catholic teaching in many respects.” I also pointed out, however, that the Church “does not fully embrace it or any particular socio-politico-economic perspective.” I especially pointed to the problem of the classical liberal economic perspective in certain branches of what is today called “conservatism,” which is probably the predominant view in varying degrees of most of the political right.
[Editor: This a pretty good article but I don't have time to comment on it. Hopefully I will in the future but just so those reading this know that French kissing was condemned by the Church officially ,when dating, it isn't just the opinion of this priest::
CONDEMNED= "It is a probable opinion which states that a kiss is only venial when performed for the sake of the carnal and sensible delight which arises from the kiss, if danger of further consent and pollution is excluded."--condemned. Pope Alexander VII Various Errors on Moral Matters [Condemned in decrees of Sept. 24, 1665, and of March 18.1666] Denzinger 1140
Also the primary purpose of marriage is children: "Whether the opinion of certain recent persons can be admitted, who either deny that the primary purpose of matrimony is the generation and raising of offspring, or teach that the secondary purposes are not essentially subordinate to the primary purpose, but areequally first and independent....the answer must be: In the negative." --Decree of the Holy Office, March 29, 1944 (Denzinger 2295)
“THE ACT OF MARRIAGE EXERCISED FOR PLEASURE ONLY IS ENTIRELY FREE OF ALL FAULT AND VENIAL DEFECT.” (Denz. 1159) -Condemned by Pope Innocent XI.]
by Rev. T. G. Morrow
Published in Priest Magazine, June 2011, pp. 16-23
Every year we bring our high school age youth to some excellent youth conferences. These events are Eucharistically centered, they provide ample opportunities for confession and just about always have a talk on chastity. These conferences are always very orthodox, but there is usually one ingredient missing: an explanation of what activities short of sexual intercourse are immoral and should be avoided.
The young people who attend these conferences are our best kids. They want to live the faith and they want to live chastely. However, because they seldom hear (apart from our local youth group discussions on chastity) about what activities they should avoid to really be chaste, they often come back, get into French kissing with their boyfriends or girlfriends, and end up having sex. Many high school students are unaware that there is another type of kissing. Kissing to them means French kissing.
French kissing, because it's so highly stimulating is almost an implicit invitation to have. Perhaps many of the young girls who do it don't realize just what is happening to their boyfriend when they kiss this way, but the boys know. And, they complain, "Why are you getting me so turned on if you don't want to have sex?" And, in a way, they're right. Why is she doing this? It is just asking for trouble.
The basic idea is this: Smear a food-grade drying oil onto a cast iron pan, and then bake it above the oil’s smoke point. The more drying the oil, the harder the polymer. So start with the right oil. Linseed oil used in painting is the same product as flax seed oil but non eatable. Basically what you are doing is doing fast pace oxidation. Similar to what happens to an oil painting, but non toxic.(DON"T USE LINSEED OIL from your hardware store!)
Go to your local health food store or organic grocery and buy a bottle of flaxseed oil. It’s sold as an omega-3 supplement and it’s in the refrigeration section because it goes rancid so easily. Check the expiration date to make sure it’s not already rancid. Buy an organic flaxseed oil. You don’t want to burn toxic chemicals into your cookware to leach out forever more. It’s a fairly expensive oil. I paid $17 for a 17 ounce bottle of cold-pressed, unrefined, organic flaxseed oil. As it says on the bottle, shake it before you use it.
This ain't funny or technically cultural but it is cool! It shows the power of people co-operating to produce the good and the beautiful. We can see it as prays flying up to heaven and how beautiful it is for a country to praise God in unison.
Romania established a new world record by launching 12,740 sky lanterns at the same time, June 4, 2012 in Iasi, outside the Palace of Culture. The event was organized by the developers of the Palas multi-functional center, which recently opened.
The record was ratified by the Guinness World Records representative Anna Orford. The city of Iasi beat the record held by India, with 900 sky lanterns launched at the same time. Over 30,000 people attended the event during the week-end.
Sky lanterns, also known as Chinese lanterns are airborne paper lanterns traditional in some Asian cultures.
Here is a niffy simple idea for missionaries. I think the idea is great and design great but the drums may be expensive for a poor community. There might be a way to use some common materials to achieve the same end but if you can get these drums to poor countries it could be useful. Simple but clever.
This gel is great for repurposing all those otherwise not-so-useful scraps of soap bars that tend to accumulate. The scent of the soaps used will be blended and masked by the fragrance that you add to the gel in the steps below; however, sometimes there may be a mismatch of scents, so be careful of using any soap that you think smells overwhelming.
1
Collect scraps of previously used soap bars, enough to equal 1 cup of chopped or grated soap.
The pot-in-pot refrigerator or zeer (Arabic: الزير) is a refrigeration device which keeps food cool without electricity by using evaporative cooling. A porous outer earthenware pot, lined with wet sand, contains an inner pot (which can be glazed to prevent penetration by the liquid) within which the food is placed. The evaporation of the outer liquid draws heat from the inner pot.Although the principle behind the device has been known for centuries, one modern device was developed by lecturer Mohammed Bah Abba for use in modern Nigeria.
The technique of using evaporative cooling with clay pots for food preservation was re-discovered by Mohammed Bah Abba, a Nigerian teacher from a family of pot-makers, who patented a pot-in-pot refrigerator in 1995 to help Sudanese families preserve food. Bah Abba was awarded the $75,000 Rolex Award for Enterprise in 2000 and the World Shell Award for Sustainable Development in 2001 for its development.
I have made this a separate post now because this idea of low tech missionaries seems like a good one. I didn't have place for it before. So I think this idea and others posted under "Low Tech Missionaries" will be a good reference for Catholic Missionaries.
Here is another low tech idea for lighting:
If you’ve ever gone for a walk in the woods, then you know the wonder of the feeling you get from it. But did you know that besides giving you a good feeling, walking in the woods is actually good for you? The Japanese call it shinrin-yoku. Translated, it literally means “forest bathing.” And now scientists have found physiological and psychological benefits from forest bathing.
They give a number of factors that contribute to the good health benefits of that walk in the woods (or park), including cleaner air, the relative quietness as compared to city life, and just the chance to separate yourself from the crowds. But researchers at Japan’s Nippon Medical School are offering another theory as to why the walk works: and it has to do with the essential oils that trees naturally emit into the air.
Essential fatty acids come from fish and plant oils and these are the good fats your body needs for survival. They are the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats referred to as the Omega fatty acids: Omega-3, Omega-6 and Omega-9.
The human body does not manufacture Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids and therefore these must be obtained from the foods we eat.
Omega-9 can be created in the human body from unsaturated fat such as olive oil. Some Omega-9s are common components of animal and vegetable oil.
Omega-3 is probably the best known of the essential fatty acids. However, we need all three omega fatty acids in combination to obtain balanced optimal levels of each for our good health.
BACK TO EDEN shares the story of one man's lifelong journey, walking with God and learning how to get back to the simple, productive methods of sustainable provision that were given to man in the garden of Eden.
The organic growing system that has resulted from Paul Gautschi's incredible experiences has garnered the interest of visitors from around the world. Watch full film here
Stephen Zarlenga’s speech at the U.S. Treasury (Dec. 4, 2003)
On December 23, 2010, in Research & Articles, by AMI
I thank the US Treasury for inviting me. It’s a great honor and opportunity to bring the research results of the American Monetary Institute to your attention, which are relevant to the developing fiscal crises faced by several states. Part of our 501c3 mission statement is to do just that.
The fiscal problem has its roots in the structure and control of our monetary system and I intend to show how that structure has ultimately been based on a false or inadequate concept of the nature of money.
THE PROBLEM IS THAT MONEY HAS NOT BEEN ACCURATELY DEFINED
Perhaps the chief failure of economics is its inability, from Adam Smith to the present to define or discover a concept of money consistent with logic and history. Economists rarely define money, assuming an understanding of it.
It’s still being argued whether the nature of money is a concrete power, embodied in a commodity like gold; or whether it’s a credit/debit issued by private banks. Does its value come from the material of which it’s made? Or is it, as we have concluded, an abstract social power – an institution of the law, having value because its accepted in exchanges due to the sponsorship of government?
It is so important for Catholics to understand this issue because it coincides with Catholic Social Doctrine very well.
Unfortunately Bill lost his run to be the Libertarian presidential candidate. Here is his presentation at the Public Bank Institute conference. I hope people can follow the main points of his presentation. [If not see older post of his documentary here] And his presidential platform [here]
For more information: http://publicbankinginstitute.org/
Move OUR Money is a call for cities, state governments and counties to move the public's money out of private banks and into public banks. Every quarter that goes into a parking meter, every tax payment that we make, every dollar that banks pay in penalties -- it's all OURs. Let's put it in OUR bank -- a public bank, one that serves the public interest.
Don't have a public bank? Contact the Public Banking Insitute to find out how you can start one in your community. Public banks are common throughout much of the rest of the developed world -- Germany and Japan have some of the largest public banks. Let's get with it and take our credit back from private banks -- let's Move OUR Money!
Why Move OUR Money?
The time for public institutions to place public money into private banks, which then use the public money for their own private gain, is over. Private banks have squandered the public trust.
FIRE DRILLS WITH A STOP LETTER by Monica H Breaux PhD
Fire drills are used to practice moving bodies to safety, so people will not get burned. They build up confidence in people for a timely escape. The frequency of the fire drill practice is the key to this prevention training. In the treatment of addiction, there is a helpful method that is also called a fire drill. It is used to practice an escape from habits of unhealthy behavior that is destructive like fire. Fire drills can be used to practice moving minds to safety, so people will not get burned. They build up confidence in people for a timely escape. The frequency of the fire drill practice is the key to this prevention training of the mind.
The simplicity of the method is the reason many people will not try it, but it is used successfully among
Uncontrolled bleeding has been the leading cause of death for soldiers on the battlefield. But the engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may have come up with a way to stop bleeding instantly with a special sponge.
The technology could be so effective, it may end up in hospitals and home medicine cabinets, experts said.
MIT engineers at the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies came up with ways to protect and heal soldiers on the battlefield. Their newest invention is a sponge that stops bleeding instantaneously.
"When we have a very heavy wound or a large amount of bleeding, we need to stop the bleeding immediately," said Dr. Paula Hammond. "We've been able to develop this sponge which can fit any kind of surface or wound and can be applied very rapidly."
Unlike regular sponges that absorb moisture, the lightweight sponge is coated with the protein thrombine -- a natural clotting agent already found in our bodies and combines it with tanic acids.
"What we're doing is actually releasing the thrombine in its active form immediately and allowing it to access the wound. It stops the bleeding within seconds," Hammond said.
Hammond said the nanotechnology is inexpensive to produce which could make it ideal for everyday use.
"First responders, emergency care rooms -- everything from something you might store in your bathroom or kitchen, to something you would use for extreme conditions," Hammond said.
"Many of the lessons we take to the operating room here for traumatized patients, we learned on the battlefield," said Dr. David King, a trauma surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital.
King, who is also a major in the Army Reserve, said the sponge technology is exciting.
(CNN) -- FaceTime, the Apple video-chat application, is not a replacement for real human interaction, especially for children, according to a new study.
Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal on Wednesday.
Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses.
The study only included girls who responded to a survey in Discovery Girls magazine, but results should apply to boys, too, Clifford Nass, a Stanford professor of communications who worked on the study, said in a phone interview. Boys' emotional development is more difficult to analyze because male social development varies widely and over a longer time period, he said.
"No one had ever looked at this, which really shocked us," Nass said. "Kids have to learn about emotion, and the way they do that, really, is by paying attention to other people. They have to really look them in the eye."
The antidote for this hyper-digital phenomenon is for children to spend plenty of time interacting face-to-face with people, the study found. Tweens in the study who regularly talked in person with friends and family were less likely to display social problems, according to the findings in the publication Developmental Psychology.
"If you eschew face-to-face communication, you don't learn critical things that you have to learn," Nass said. "You have to learn social skills. You have to learn about emotion."
There is so much information being published right now about the positive effects of coconut oil and Alzheimer’s sufferers. This is an area that I am still learning about, but I am sharing the information I find with as many people as possible. I don’t personally know anyone who is suffering with Alzheimer’s, but my dad died of it, and this information might be highly beneficial. If you know someone who is, or may be suffering, with Alzheimer’s or dementia, this information might be worth sharing with them or their caregivers.(check out my other health posts for stuff you may have not known of click here)
Let’s get the word out about this and see if we can make people’s lives happier and healthier. You’re not going to see a lot of this info in mainstream media, however, there is some happening, which is incredibly promising. There are some medical doctors who are starting to stand up and take notice, so we might be right on the cusp of some change. Let’s keep our fingers and toes crossed!
700 Club video:
If coconut oil works why bother with developing a drug?
Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital , Mesa , AZ. His private practice, Cardiac Care Center was in Mesa, AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heart disease. He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is also the author of The Cure for Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie.
March 1, 2012
We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong.. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries,today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.
I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled “opinion makers.” Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.
The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.
It Is Not Working!
These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.
The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.
Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.
Here are some Protestants using technology at the service of man. Dirt bricks came out of the environmental movement. But we can see how a basic idea can be developed. Catholic missionaries need to follow their lead on this one. It is basically dirt mixed with cement and pressed to make bricks.
It isn't exactly a “Christian” idea as in its driving force. I don't agree with the some of their political views of over population or Global Warming...etc But there are really good things happening from these ideas of “Earthships”. I think it would behoove Catholic Church missionaries and religious communities to see these things and see the benefits for self-sufficient housing. Could you imagine a monastery that needs no food and no utility bills or even Catholic communities? It is possible and this visionary has set a foundation that could be built on. Yeah his structures are not beautiful but Catholic artists developed souring cathedrals from the basis of pagan architecture developed by the Romans and other cultures. I think some really beautiful structures could be developed.
Usury and concepts of legitimate interest are points of contention between distributists and modern economists. A lack of understanding on the difference between them, and how to determine if a particular transaction is one in which interest may be legitimately charged, can make our positions confusing for those considering Distributism.
The average person, trained to accept the prevailing economic model, treats money as though it has the ability to produce wealth rather than being a convenient means of acquiring goods that actually do so, or just buying goods period. Because they look at money as a wealth generator, they see no problem in charging interest for its use. They have never been asked to look at the fundamental points that determine whether charging interest is legitimate or usurious. What is the Real Difference Between Sales, Loans, or Rentals?
A sale is an exchange of things of equivalent value, it is a transfer of ownership of the things exchanged. A loan is not an exchange at all. It is the temporary use of a specific thing which much be returned. A loan requires the return of the same thing loaned, not merely an equivalent thing. If I loan you my car, I require that you return the same exact car to me. If I charge you for using the car, it is a rental.
Oscar Wilde is widely celebrated as an artist persecuted for his homosexuality, a sort of protomartyr for the cause of gay rights. The current celebration of Wilde as gay martyr is certainly one legitimate interpretation of his life, but it oversimplifies his complexity; indeed, it ignores the major movement of his life, a life that may also be seen as a long and difficult conversion to the Roman Catholic Church.
Oscar Wilde
1854-1900
"I am not a Catholic," said Oscar Wilde. "I am simply a violent Papist." This statement, like so many of Wilde's outrageous paradoxes, conceals a sober truth beneath its blithe wit. Another example would be his jest that, of all religions, Catholicism is the only one worth dying in.
Looking back over his life more than a hundred years later, we can be forgiven for seeing the irony in such statements, for Wilde's fascination with Catholicism, its mysteries and rituals, did set the stage for his death-bed conversion. And we can certainly perceive justice in the fact that the man who cracked such jokes also believed that life imitated art: ultimately, then, the joke was on him. Wilde's name is much in the air these days. There are stage plays about his life, a recent feature film starring Stephen Fry and Jude Law, and articles in the national press. The centenary of his premature death in 1900 at age 46 was widely celebrated in the literary and gay communities with moving testimonies to Oscar Wilde, the persecuted genius and gay man, victim of a repressive and judgmental social order.
Many of these recent works do tell part of Wilde's story well. He was homosexual, promiscuously so, and his downfall was precipitated by his passion for a younger man. It was this young man, Lord Alfred Douglas, who in one of his poems called their desire "the love that dare not speak its name." The tale of their romance has classic, even operatic, features — objections by the beloved's family, separation and exile, brief reunion before the lover's death. The heart left unmoved by their story would be hard indeed.
Yet this sad accounting fails to give us the whole of Oscar Wilde. He was prosecuted for "acts of gross indecency with other male persons, " found guilty, and sentenced to two years in prison at hard labor. But his reading during his imprisonment included works by St. Augustine, Dante, and Newman. When he emerged from prison, injured and in poor health, he fled across the channel to France to reunite with his lover. But his first act on his release had been to write to the Jesuits begging to make a six-month retreat at one of their London houses. Wilde is celebrated as the center of a circle of unconventional poets and artists known as decadents and aesthetes. But looking a little past these labels we find that many of these men became sincere converts to Catholicism — Wilde being among the last of them, and entering the Church only in his final moments of life.
So the current celebration of Wilde as gay martyr dilutes his complexity and ignores the major movement of his life, a life that may more accurately be seen as a long and difficult conversion. But why this long conversion, and in what larger context?
Catholicism had held Wilde's interest all his adult life. Born in Dublin in 1854 to a Protestant Anglo-Irish family, Wilde came at age 20 to Oxford University in England, where he was taught by the critic and novelist Walter Pater. Under Pater's influence Wilde became fascinated — aesthetically, at least — by the mystery of Catholic ritual, and took to attending Mass regularly. One of Wilde's friends was David Hunter-Blair, a recent convert, who paid Wilde's way on a sojourn in Rome that included an audience with Pope Pius IX. Hunter-Blair had hopes of converting Wilde, but Wilde was apparently moved only to a kind of romantic excitement at this close brush with the dangerous Catholic Church.
Dangerous? Roman Catholicism was to poetic souls a sort of aesthetic temptation, while to many proper Englishmen the Roman Church was still the Whore of Babylon, the Anti-Christ. (It is well to remember that it had been less than fifty years since the Emancipation Bill that allowed Roman Catholics to hold public office in England, only thirty years since the defection to Rome of John Henry Newman and other prominent Anglicans, and just a few years since the First Vatican Council under Pius IX had debated and defined the dogma of papal infallibility — a dogma that must have seemed to many an outbreak of medievalism at the very birth of the Age of Darwin.)
Hunter-Blair's evangelizing efforts had no immediate effect, and the two men parted, Hunter-Blair taking Holy Orders and Wilde turning to the literary world of London. Wilde was forthright about his motives: "To go over to Rome would be to sacrifice and give up my two great Gods: Money and Ambition." His entrance into London society was spectacular: his dandified dress, pronouncements on fashion, and opinions on art were exquisite and sensational. He published poems and stories and made a lecture tour of America in 1882. (The story goes that when asked by a U.S. customs agent if he had anything to declare, Wilde replied, "Only my genius"). In the 1880s he married, fathered two sons in two years, and published several books of stories for children (truly moving fairy tales of sacrifice and death and life beyond the grave that are well worth reading today). But the 1890s were to see Wilde's great rise and sudden fall.
[Catholic Data editor: Why isn't this technique being used for breast caner? It would seem the obvious candidate ]
Baltimore, MD – May 26, 2011. Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center are using a new minimally invasive technique to treat soft tissue tumors in the liver, lung, prostate, head and neck, kidney and pancreas. [Catholic Data editor: Could it be possibly for breast cancer? it seems to be a soft tissue easily accessible]
The process, known as Irreversible Electroporation (IRE), offers another option for patients who have cancerous tumors that are close to blood vessels, ducts or nerves that may otherwise be damaged using other techniques, such as burning through radio frequency/microwave ablation, freezing through cryotherapy or traditional open surgery. The University of Maryland Medical Center is one of fewer than 30 hospitals in the United States offering this treatment option and is the only facility in the mid-Atlantic region currently using the approach.
“IRE uses electrical energy to target tumors at the cellular level. Using short electrical pulses, IRE breaks open the tumor cell walls, causing these cancer cells to die,” explains Ziv Haskal, M.D., professor of diagnostic radiology and surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and chief of vascular and interventional radiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Zapping tumors: Brain-cancer patients in a trial for a portable device that sends a weak electric field into the brain must wear electrodes almost constantly. One patient in a pilot clinical trial for the device, who still had cancer after radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery, experienced a complete recovery. The MRI at top shows a tumor on the left side of this patient’s brain before treatment. The MRI at bottom, taken after eight months of treatment, shows no tumor.
Yoram Palti, NovoCure (top image); Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (bottom MRIs)
An Israeli company is conducting human tests for a device that uses weak electric fields to kill cancer cells but has no effect on normal cells. The device is in late-stage clinical trials in the United States and Europe for glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer. It is also being tested in Europe for its effectiveness against breast cancer. In the lab and in animal testing, treatment with electric fields has killed cancer cells of every type tested.
The electric-field therapy was developed by Yoram Palti, a physiologist at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, who founded the company NovoCure to commercialize the treatment.
A man I know was in contact with Jimmy Brogan years ago about 2001. Brogan was a professional comedian for years and said he just got tired of the constant raunchy humor. So he branch out to be the "clean comedian". He does Church fundraisers and KofC halls.He is a humble man that seeks to help a troubled world the only way he knows how. Brogan gives full credit to his faith -- both in keeping him grounded amid the madness of show business and in defining his point of view so thoroughly he named his website www.thecatholiccomedian.com.
Jimmy Brogan is a proud graduate of St. Ann's Grade School, St. Ignatius High School and the University of Notre Dame.
He has appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson as well as Late Night with David Letterman.
"My act is all clean and appropriate for church events. I did an event downtown at the Cathedral last year" in Los Angeles, says Brogan. "It's not that I was doing all Catholic jokes, but they were appropriate for that kind of audience. I do benefits, and did one in Long Beach where a thousand priests and nuns were there, and they loved that not one of them had to worry about being offended."
His style was formed in the Catholic schoolyard. He was the wiseguy geek who learned a quick wit can be an asset. No one works a crowed like him.
Watch this video. What you thought about the post office losing money is a lie. Congress has mandated since 2006 to take 6 billion off the top each year. Small business depends on this cheap service. Remember it is a service NOT a business.-- it is organized to at least break even. Without the Post Office we will be at the mercy of private carries that would skyrocket the cost of letters and packages. This is a political game. Remember the US Post Office is part of the US Constitution. Those who want to enforce the Constitution and think it is great document must remember this!
Maafa 21: Black Genocide in 21st Century America is a 2009 pro-life documentary film which draws a connection between the targeting of African Americans by the eugenics movement in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the modern-day prevalence of abortion among African Americans. The film argues that abortion is an attempted genocide or maafa of black people, and has been so since the 19th century.
I have to laugh when secularists say that religion promotes ignorance. Maybe that could be often true in general-- you could include paganism and atheism as religions of ignorance. But Catholicism in its full strength offered education to the poor. Since there has been lack of religious brothers and nuns to keep Catholic eduction cheap and the liberalism in the Church has caused the standards to descend.
Here is an example of how Catholics were taught according to traditions of Catholic education. This is a renewal
Here is a strange video lecture.
It is given at a Protestant College by man who seems to be a Protestant.
At least he refers to himself as such indirectly. But his love of Flaherty O'Connor's novels and letters has captivated him into something of a closet Catholic. He could be a Catholic but has not formally entered the Church yet. He talks of the need of the sacraments especially Baptism to be Christian. Talks of Catholic as Christians, quotes the Pope and admires Flaherty O'Connor devotion to the Eucharist! It is a long talk I wish it was on MP3 so people could listen to it on their i-pod or in their car. Very interesting.
It is an example of the power of art. Art is communication and the artist communicates the worldview which he holds. In the case of a devout Catholic such as Tolkien or O'Connor their power to attract is magnetic, to the point of inspiring their fans to wonder: "What made him/her write that?" That can often be the beginning of a conversion.
Flaherty O'Connor is a forgotten Catholic writer that let her Faith influence her art. She allowed it in such a way that it leaves people perplexed. Her texts usually take place in the South and revolve around morally flawed characters, while the issue of race often appears in the background. One of her trademarks is foreshadowing, giving a reader an idea of what will happen far before it happens. Most of her works feature disturbing elements, though she did not like to be characterized as cynical.
"I am tired of reading reviews that call A Good Man brutal and sarcastic," she writes. "The stories are hard but they are hard because there is nothing harder or less sentimental than Christian realism... when I see these stories described as horror stories I am always amused because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror."
Many Americans have never had Kefir. It is very common in Slavic countries, like the Czech Republic or Russia. Some Americans don't like the taste at first. It is stronger in taste than Yogurt. But like beer it becomes a very pleasant beverage; after a few tries it becomes a real pleasure. It is similar to Buttermilk.
Kefir contain different types of beneficial bacteria than Yogurt. Yogurt containstransientbeneficial bacteria that keep the digestive system clean and provide food for the friendly bacteria that reside there. But it is only temporary. One needs to eat it on a regular basis to have the full effects. But Kefir can actually colonize the intestinal tract, a feat that yogurt cannot match.
Kefir contains several major strains of friendly bacteria not commonly found in yogurt, Lactobacillus Caucasus, Leuconostoc, Acetobacter species, and Streptococcus species.
[editor--unfortunately this therapy costs money. Maybe some priests could take the course and then be more enabled to help their flock? It does sound promising though]
What Is RECLAIM?
RECLAIM Sexual Health is a professional and science-based Catholic online program designed to help individuals overcome unhealthy sexual behaviors. Combining The Brain Science of Change and insights from Theology of the Body, RECLAIM is a powerful tool for more joy and happiness in life!
Participants who sign up now will initially be using the secular version of the Candeo Program. When the Catholic version, called RECLAIM, is completed, those enrolled will be able to access that program. The current acclaimed Candeo Program provides The Brain Science of Change training and the technical online applications that will continue to power the new RECLAIM Program.
The Arabic word kalaam literally means "speech," but came to denote a certain type of philosophical theology—a type containing demonstrations that the world could not be infinitely old and must therefore have been created by God. This sort of demonstration has had a long and wide appeal among both Christians and Muslims. Its form is simple and straightforward.
1.Whatever begins to exist has a cause for its coming into being.
2.The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause for its coming into being.
Grant the first premise. (Most people—outside of asylums and graduate schools would consider it not only true, but certainly and obviously true.)
They took them off their medication, it wasn’t working anyway, lined them up for joint-replacement surgery, and for 90 days before their surgery they gave them heaping tablespoon of ground up chicken cartilage (which is gelatin) in their orange juice every morning for 90 days. 
Thermographic image shows areas of high heat loss (red and yellow) from a home. The blue roof indicates good insulation and little heat loss. Image Credit: The Insuladd Company Remember that grade-school riddle, "What's black, white, and red all over?" Depending on who gave you the punch line, the answer was "a sunburned zebra" or "a newspaper." 
A previous post on Catholic Data said what a superfood liver is but most people don't like the taste, nor do they know how to cook it. I don't like Liver so I felt bad telling people how healthy it is and didn't follow up with some tips to get it down.. Liver once a week or every couple of weeks should be enough for health.. Here are some suggestions that may help with a suggested recipe at the end. A simple; recipe that your family actually might liked. 
Collect scraps of previously used soap bars, enough to equal 1 cup of chopped or grated soap.
Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal on Wednesday.
Published by MIT http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/19195/ 
