Topics

Source- http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/27/call-me-jacob-jewish-names-tops-in-baby-derby

Among the 10 most popular boys names, six are Hebrew (Jacob, Ethan, Michael, Joshua, Daniel, and Noah) and another (Jayden) — like Paul Newman and Goldie Hawn in Adam Sandler's "The Hanukkah Song" — is half Jewish (derived, some say, from the American name Jaden and the Hebrew name Jadon). In fact, the only non-Jewish names in the top 10 are Alexander (Greek), William (German), and Anthony (Latin).

Among the XX-chromosome set, Hebrew names are not so dominant, though the most popular girls name (Isabella) is Hebrew, as is the eighth (Abigail, King David's third wife). Rounding out the top 10 on the newborn girls side for 2009 are a mishmash of Greek (Sophia, Chloe), Latin (Olivia, Emily) and others (Emma, Ava, Madison and Mia).

Start naming children White-  http://www.baby-names-and-stuff.com/europe-and-russia/

[they're own work]

The spread of every religion at some point requires just getting it "out there".  Many times, magazines, newspapers, blogs, really anyone wanting to say anything about Creativity will want pictures, sounds, media of any kind to go along with the story or perspective they have.

The problem is with copyright laws.  Media organizations can't use a copyrighted image without the author's consent and most of the time they won't waste time trying to get it.  So, I'm encouraging everyone who has they're own work related to Creativity, or knows for sure that the work is NOT copyrighted to upload it here.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Upload

First of all, it just gets Creativity "out there".  Second, this makes it easier to illustrate the Wikipedia articles related to Creativity, and third, people needing media related to anything often go there to find it- so when they want to talk about Creativity, voila, they have anything they need to go along with it.  And once it's out there's no getting it back in.

In fact, if the images here: 

http://creativityreligionresourcecentre.wordpress.com/

are free (no copyright) I will take it upon myself to upload them.  Right now I don't know the status of the files (nor do I have proof of that status) so I can't.  Anyway, keep this in mind and please contribute.

http://www.physorg.com/news202921592.html

One of the most controversial questions in cosmology is why the fundamental constants of nature seem fine-tuned for life. One of these fundamental constants is the fine-structure constant, or alpha, which is the coupling constant for the electromagnetic force and equal to about 1/137.0359. If alpha were just 4% bigger or smaller than it is, stars wouldn't be able to make carbon and oxygen, which would have made it impossible for life as we know it to exist. Now, results from a new study show that alpha seems to have varied a tiny bit in different directions of the universe billions of years ago, being slightly smaller in the northern hemisphere and slightly larger in the southern hemisphere. One intriguing possible implication is that the fine-structure constant is continuously varying in space, and seems fine-tuned for life in our neighborhood of the universe.

Interesting article on dolphin intelligence.  It's been stated that dolphins probably handle language different than humans, and this is evidence of that.

When two dolphin species come together, they attempt to find a common language, preliminary research suggests.

Bottlenose and Guyana dolphins, two distantly related species, often come together to socialise in waters off the coast of Costa Rica.

Both species make unique sounds, but when they gather, they change the way they communicate, and begin using an intermediate language.

Source:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9045000/9045389.stm

Funny thread; add your own.

http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/09/12/leaving-ultra-orthodox-judaism/

Matan (a pseudonym like all names in this article) was an ultra-Orthodox Jew who stopped believing several years ago. "I don't believe there is a God, but I also don't really rule it out," he said. "It can't have an unequivocal answer. Our understanding as humans ends somewhere...Religion tells you exactly how to understand things, how to interpret them. This is exactly the problem."

Matan was not alone. He was part of a growing phenomenon found deep within ultra-Orthodox society, part of a large group of haredim of all streams and divisions who call themselves the "Marranos," secret Jews – haredim against their will, who have stopped believing, but are forced to live a lie and hide it from the people around them. But contrary to haredim who openly leave behid the faith to live a secular lifestyle, these "Marranos" look ultra-Orthodox on the outside, but their inner world is the exact opposite.

I believe that we, as Creators (not necessarily on behalf of the Alliance), should spread and encourage this either in an official capacity representing our religion, or simply as individuals who want people to come to a scientific understanding of the world.  Obviously, the latter would be more effective.  Either way, it advances our goals.  Delenda est Judaica!

[It Takes a Village to Raise a Racist]

It Takes a Village to Raise a Racist

Researches have found that kids don't necessarily get their prejudice from their parents -- it is the community that fosters tolerance or prejudice.

http://bit.ly/dfgG53

Shortly after white supremacist James von Brunn's fatal shooting attack this spring at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., his 32-year-old son issued a statement to ABC News in which he denounced his father's ideology and described the devastating impact it had had on his family.

"My father's beliefs have been a constant source of verbal and mental abuse my family has had to suffer with for many years," he said. "His views consumed him, and in doing so, not only destroyed his life, but destroyed our family and ruined our lives as well."

Erik von Brunn's repudiation of his father's [beliefs] runs counter to the conventional wisdom that... racists will produce children like themselves. Indeed, the movement has its share of parent-child notables, including neo-Nazi leaders Tom and John Metzger, white supremacists Don and Derek Black, and Klan/skinhead organizers Ron and Steven Edwards. But the younger von Brunn is hardly alone in rejecting a parent's beliefs — and experts say that's no surprise.

"Overall, there's not a lot of evidence that, at least in the long term, kids get their prejudice from their parents," said Charles Stangor, who runs the Laboratory for the Study of Social Stereotyping and Prejudice at the University of Maryland. "I would call it more of a community effect than a parental effect. The community fosters tolerance or prejudice."

[Meet Stephanie Grace, the Harvard Law Student Who Started a Racist Email War]

Source:  http://bit.ly/cUQmj7

Meet Stephanie Grace, the Harvard Law Student Who Started a Racist Email War



Third-year Harvard Law student Stephanie Grace sent a mass email about whether black people are categorically less intelligent than white people. Now her campus, legal blogs, and the Black Law Students Association are up in arms, and Stephanie is hiding.

In the spring of her third and final year at Harvard Law, Stephanie Grace knows she shot herself in the foot. Coming home after a dinner debate with a group of law students over whether race determines intelligence, Stephanie fired off an email to her companions eugenics-lite email screed about "the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent." Which was the bigger mistake: thinking this audience wouldn't take offense, or thinking they wouldn't be cutthroat enough to take her down? Someone forwarded the email to Harvard's Black Law Students Association, and the email made its way to Black Law Students Associations' email lists nationwide. Then legal blog Above the Law printed the email with her name redacted. As comment moderators fought to keep her name off their site, Stephanie apparently navigated to Facebook and began scrubbing herself from the internet, presumably to minimize how closely the imbroglio would be tied to her name, face, and reputation.

She ignored our requests for comment, giggling, "That's not me," when she hung up on us on the phone. (It was her. The outgoing voice message said so.)

Stephanie graduated from Princeton in 2007 with a degree in—wait for it—sociology. She's on the Harvard Law Review and, after graduation, she'll head to California for a plum federal clerkship with Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, the titillating defender of free speech who had to recuse himself from a obscenity case when his cache of cow porn pictures came to light.

So happy trails, Stephanie Grace, and when you have a chance, could you please answer: What is the innate intelligence of a half-black, half-white female, naked on all fours mooing like a cow? Judge Kozinski wants to know.

[Arizona immigration law is 'moral and social sin:' Faith leaders]

Arizona immigration law is 'moral and social sin:' Faith leaders



http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2010/04/arizona-immigration-law-sin-christian-jewish/1

If you're in Arizona and look even remotely like some policeman's idea of an illegal immigrant, a law signed today says you will have to produce papers showing you're in the USA legally whenever and where-ever an officer requests this -- and so will anyone else with you. Now, faith leaders are calling this new law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer this afternoon, a sin against God and man and at least one says believers should not comply.


Faith in Public Life rushed out a press release round up of major faith groups calling this "an affront to moral conscience" and urging comprehensive national immigration reform. A sampling:

Rev. Jim Wallis, the evangelical leader of Sojourners, says,

The law signed today by Arizona Gov. Brewer is a social and racial sin, and should be denounced as such by people of faith and conscience across the nation. It is not just about Arizona, but about all of us, and about what kind of country we want to be. It is not only mean-spirited, it will be ineffective and will only serve to further divide communities in Arizona, making everyone more fearful and less safe. This radical new measure, which crosses many moral and legal lines, is a clear demonstration of the fundamental mistake of separating enforcement from comprehensive immigration reform. Enforcement without reform of the system is merely cruel. Enforcement without compassion is immoral. Enforcement that breaks up families is unacceptable. This law will make it illegal to love your neighbor in Arizona, and will force us to disobey Jesus and his gospel. We will not comply."

New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good says:

Throughout the Bible, God commands us in no uncertain terms to show kindness and hospitality to the foreigner and the stranger ... We join with Evangelicals and people of conscience everywhere in denouncing this wholly unbiblical and immoral law."

Gideon Aronoff, head of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, says:

The Jewish community has long called on our national leaders to reform our immigration laws to 'welcome the stranger' and to create an effective federal immigration system characterized by the rule of law and the humane treatment of newcomers. In the meantime, Arizonans are now living in a world where police may impound vehicles transporting anyone found to be an undocumented immigrant, which means that Arizonans who don't check the papers of the kids they drive to Sunday school may now be engaging in illegal activity. Arizona has taken itself out of the mainstream of American life and has betrayed the proud history of a nation built by immigrants.

"...If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky way. properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and had done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.

The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?" 

- Mark Twain
("Concerning The Jews," Harper's Magazine, 1899)

In "The Complete Idiots Guide to Understand Judaism (Second Edition)" the author, a rabbi, responds to Twain's statements with "Judaism is the secret.  We have not kept our faith.  Our faith has kept us."

[Israel protest at concert 'was not racist']

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8609737.stm

Israel protest at concert 'was not racist'

Protesters who disrupted a concert by an Israeli string quartet in Edinburgh have had charges of racially aggravated conduct thrown out by a court.

The five members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign shouted slogans during the performance by the Jerusalem String Quartet.

But a sheriff said the comments had been directed at the state of Israel rather than individual Israeli people.

He ruled the case against the accused was not competent and dismissed it.

About 60 supporters of the five accused burst into applause when Sheriff James Scott delivered his judgement at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

" It seemed to me that the procurator fiscal's attempts to squeeze malice and ill will were rather strained "
Sheriff James Scott

The Crown had brought the charges against Michael Napier, 63, Sofia Macleod, 39, Vanesa Fuertes, 35, Kevin Connor, 40, and Neil Forbes, 55, all from Edinburgh.

It was alleged that on 29 August 2008 at Queen's Hall in Edinburgh they had pursued a racially aggravated course of conduct amounting to harassment of the string quartet, which was performing at the city's International Festival.

The prosecution claimed that by shouting slogans including "they are Israeli army musicians", "genocide in Gaza", "end genocide in Gaza" and "boycott Israel" the accused had made comments which evinced malice towards the musicians based on their membership of an ethnic group or nationality.

They were also alleged to have disrupted the concert and struggled with security staff.

'Strained' attempts

Two alternative charges accused them of acting in a racially aggravated manner, and causing or intending to cause the members of the quartet alarm and distress.

Sheriff Scott said it was clear the accused were engaged in political protest against the Israeli state and an organ of that state, the Israeli army, concerning crimes allegedly committed by the Israeli state and its army in Gaza.

But he said the prosecution had failed to show the five accused had acted together, which made the prosecution disproportionate, and also stated that the comments made during the performance had been clearly directed at the state of Israel and Israeli army.

" The sheriff ruled in open court that it is perfectly legitimate to criticise the crimes of the state of Israel and that does not in any way constitute racism of any kind "
Mick Napier Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
The state of Israel was not a person and the members of the quartet were not targeted as presumed citizens of Israel, but as presumed members of the Israeli army, he added.

He said: "It seemed to me that the procurator fiscal's attempts to squeeze malice and ill will were rather strained".

The sheriff also said that the right to protest would be worthless if protestors were afraid of being charged with racially aggravated behaviour for naming a state they believed had committed crimes.

Their placards, the sheriff said, would need to read "genocide in an unspecified part of the Middle East" and "boycott an unspecified state in the Middle East".

He said the prosecution in its present form was unnecessary and, having concluded it was not necessary or proportionate and therefore incompetent, it had to be dismissed.

The sheriff discharged the complaint simpliciter.

Appealing decision

Speaking outside court, Mr Napier - the chairman of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign - said he and the other four protestors welcomed the sheriff's ruling.

"He ridiculed and satirised the procurator fiscal's efforts to protect a foreign state, in this case Israel, from criticism," Mr Napier said

"The sheriff could have hidden behind generalities, but today in court we discussed the state of Israel specifically and the sheriff ruled in open court that it is perfectly legitimate to criticise the crimes of the state of Israel and that does not in any way constitute racism of any kind.

"It is a constant never-ending attempt by those who support the state of Israel to name those who support the Palestiniains as anti-Semites. It never ends. Well it ended in court today and we will not be intimidated by this smear in the future."

Fiscal depute Graham Fraser said the Crown would be appealing the decision.

The case had previously been continued without plea on a number of occasions.

During legal debate earlier this year, lawyers representing the accused claimed that under the European Convention of Human Rights the prosecution represented an unnecessary, illegitimate and disproportionate interference with their freedom of expression, speech and peaceful political protest.

The Crown held that the charges were relevant and that the accused's rights under the convention were "not unfettered" as the rights of one person might impinge of the rights of another.

http://www.jnewswire.com/articles/print/2722

Western antisemitism at World War Two high

By Stan Goodenough
Mar 16, 2010


According to figures released by the Jewish Agency, acts of Jew hatred in western Europe in 2009 were pegged at their highest level since the Second World War.

Distorted media coverage of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza at the start of last year, along with the legally-flawed Goldstone Report which charged Israel with deliberately murdering innocent civilians in that conflict, have been identified as major fanners of the ever-present — if sometimes muted — flames of international antisemitism.

The unique and unparalleled form of racism has dogged the Jewish people since the earliest days of their national existence.

Since paving the way for - and driving the forces of - the Holocaust, the tide of this prejudice has ebbed and flowed. Whereas historically the exiled Jewish people were endlessly scapegoated for the ills plaguing their host nations, since 1948 that ingrained animus has increasingly focused on the reborn nation state into which they have been regathered.

The majority of anti-Israel officials, journalists and organizations strongly reject charges of bias, maintaining that criticism of Israel cannot be labelled antisemitism.

Their readiness to believe lies and distortions about the behavior of Israel's armed forces, the policies of Israel's governments and the intentions of Israel as a nation — however — give the lie to their protestations.

[Non-native animals cause rural problems, charity warns]

I can think of another non-native mammal species that is damaging the native species of the UK.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8602358.stm

Non-native animals cause rural problems, charity warns

A number of non-native mammal species are damaging the UK countryside by eating crops and threatening wildlife, a conservation charity has warned.

A report by the People's Trust for Endangered Species identified 14 problem species including rats, American mink and muntjac deer.

The trust said some of the creatures have been in the UK for so long, they are thought of as indigenous.

It said it was important to stop the extinction of native species.

Practical action

According to the report, two of the UK's fastest declining native species - the red squirrel and the water vole - which has declined by 90% - are under threat by mammals introduced by humans in the last two centuries.

American minks prey on water voles while grey squirrels, which were introduced to the UK in the 19th century carry the deadly squirrelpox virus and outcompete the native red squirrel when it comes to hunting for food and habitats.

The trust also warned the red-necked wallaby is capable of damaging capercaillie birds on Loch Lomond island, while muntjac deer congregating in high numbers are also accused of being a threat to wildlife.

According to the British Deer Society, muntjac were brought from China to a park in Bedfordshire in the early 20th century.

They spread across the country after they escaped, or were deliberately released, from the park.

Further invasions

People's Trust chief executive Jill Nelson said: "Our campaign to conserve Britain's native mammals is rooted in finding more about each animal's behaviour in response to the various threats they face and translating that knowledge into practical conservation action."

She said the way with how the UK dealt with the problem was a "vital component in preventing their extinction".

The trust said the species can have a negative impact on UK wildlife, landscape and agriculture. This range of problems include carrying disease, breeding with species to produce hybrids and altering the landscape and damaging crops.

The report also warned that global trade and a changing climate could lead to the invasion of more alien species.

Other species to have made the list include house mice and rabbits.

But the report, researched by professor David Macdonald and doctor Dawn Burnham from the University of Oxford Wildlife Conservation Research Unit acknowledged, that while rabbits are mainly seen as a pest, they can also have a positive conservation effect in particular areas where they graze.

[U.S. Schools More Segregated Now Than Four Decades Ago]

http://racerelations.about.com/b/2010/02/22/u-s-schools-more-segregated-now-than-four-decades-ago.htm

U.S. Schools More Segregated Now Than Four Decades Ago

In 1954 the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education mandated desegregation of public schools. So, why are 21st century public schools more racially segregated than the schools of the late 1960s? In an article called "The New Racial Segregation at Public Schools," Teaching Tolerance writer Tim Lockette tries to answer this question.

In the piece, Lockette interviews Gary Orfield, director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. According to Orfield, growing numbers of black, Latino and Asian American students attend "intensely segregated" schools, or those where students of color make up more than 90 percent of the student body. School segregation, of course, is directly linked to residential segregation. For example, one-third of black students attend school in places where the black population is more than 90 percent. Class ties in as well, with one-third of all black and Latino students attending schools where more than 75 percent of students receive free or reduced lunch. In contrast, only 4% of white children do.

The trend not only plays out in regions one might expect--such as the South--but in the racially divided Midwest. A drastic reduction in the number of students being bused as well as the rise of charter schools all contribute to school segregation. To boot, the U.S. Supreme Court didn't help matters when in 2007 it determined that school districts can't consider racial diversity as a factor in assigning students to schools. Lastly, the fact that minority children make up more of America's students today than they did four decades ago also factors into the re-segregation of public schools.

In the mid-1960s, 80% of American students were white, Lockette reports. But now children of color make up nearly 40% of U.S. students. "While the student body as a whole has grown more much more diverse, many majority-white schools have seen only a slight bump in their minority enrollment," Lockette writes.

And lest one think that school segregation only affects "those people," research indicates that the fact that students in segregated schools are far less likely to graduate or attend college has far-reaching consequences for the entire nation. Civil Rights Project scholar Erica Frankenberg puts it this way: "If we don't start educating black and Latino students better than we are doing now, we are going to see an intergenerational decline in the percentage of high school graduates in the adult population for the first time ever."

Additionally, both Frankenberg and Orfield argue that evidence indicates that integration could help eliminate the oft-discussed "achievement gap" between white students and students of color. That's because this gap was lowest during the late 1980s and early 1990s. What was unique about this period? It was the point in time when schools were most integrated.

[Prime-Time Supremacy]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/234770

Prime-Time Supremacy

Harlan is not the charming, genteel Mayberry you'd expect from a small town in Kentucky with a population around 2,000. At least not in Justified, the new FX series starring Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens, a maverick U.S. marshal dispatched to Harlan after he gets trigger-happy on a suspect in a Miami restaurant. Raylan's boss thinks sending him back to his quaint small town will be the ultimate punishment. As it turns out, Raylan's childhood friend Boyd (Walter Goggins - who also played a tranny in Sons of Anarchy) now leads a white-supremacist group so brazenly violent, they fire rocket launchers at black churches and rob banks in broad daylight. Maybe it's just my naiveté, but having lived in cities large and small, both north and south of the Mason-Dixon, I can't recall ever having seen a skinhead wash his car, or eat an ice-cream cone, or even glower from a dusky corner.

It turns out that Harlan's little local white-supremacy group is part of a real and growing problem. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, membership in white-extremist groups is ticking upward, as downtrodden, angry Caucasians seek an outlet for their anxieties about a black president, illegal immigration, and a leaky economy. Still, the supremacy surge seems to be much more acute in Hollywood than anywhere else in the country. The second season of Sons of Anarchycentered on a turf war in the town of Charming, Calif., between a white-separatist group called the League of American Nationalists and a motorcycle gang who are plenty unsavory, but at least they're not bigots. Your friendly neighborhood serial killer Dexter has dispatched his own supremacist, and all three iterations of the Law & Orderfranchise have featured stories in which murders lead to an underground white-power cell. Even a recent episode of the sci-fi puzzler Fringefeatured a Nazi villain who tries to poison folks at a meeting of the World Tolerance Initiative. In this tenuous moment, when we talk about post-racial America as though saying it can make it so, there's no more frightening a bogeyman than the occupational racist.

The reason the card-carrying white supremacist lingers in the public imagination is not just because he's scary, but because he fortifies our self-regard in an area where we all occasionally need some convincing. As the puppet of Avenue Qsang on Broadway, "everyone's a little bit racist." On some level we all recognize this, and to acknowledge—or even inflate—white supremacists is to assuage our guilt with the knowledge that there are people out there far more prejudiced than most of us could ever be. For writers, these characters have even more appeal. Their beliefs are so stigmatized, there's no need to bog down the story with motives and expository monologues. As Henry Rollins said of his skinhead Anarchy character, "I'm [playing] a white supremacist—I have no redeeming qualities whatsoever besides that I like my kids." Apparently there's some redeeming quality, or bald white actors wouldn't be getting so much work.

[Event pushes for black couples to wed]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36050760/ns/today-today_relationships/

Event pushes for black couples to wed

NEW YORK - For Kenny and Lynette Seymour, last weekend's black marriage gala was about celebrating their seven-year marriage. They got to meet other black couples while spending a romantic evening together.

"Every time you meet another couple, you learn something new about yourself and relationships in general," said Kenny Seymour, a 39-year-old Broadway music director who lives in Queens. "It was beautiful to be around a bunch of married people in love."

Other black couples will be marking the eighth annual Black Marriage Day this weekend, by attending workshops, black-tie dinners and other activities. Some groups have held events throughout the month, although Black Marriage Day, which celebrates matrimony in the black community, falls on the fourth Sunday in March

The founder estimates more than 300 celebrations are being held this weekend. The aim is to try to stabilize, if not reverse, the trend of non-commitment within the black community. Studies show blacks are less likely to marry than other ethnic groups and more likely to divorce and bear children out of wedlock.

Experts blame the disparities in part on high black male unemployment, high black male imprisonment and the moderate performance of black men in college compared with black women.

Marriage's image issue

They also note the lack of positive images of black marriage in the media and several misperceptions about matrimony — that it's for white people, that it's a ball and chain, that fatherhood and marriage are not linked.

"They have either seen really bad examples of what marriage looks like or no examples at all," said Yolanda "Yanni" Brown, 42, a divorced mother of two in Chicago, who is hosting black marriage events. "They are saying, 'Why bother? This works for us,' not knowing there are so many other benefits of being married."

Brown says she wishes she had fought for her marriage.

Joseph Arrington II, a 38-year-old black entertainment attorney in Atlanta, said there was a time when he wanted to get married, but his interest has waned. He hasn't had a girlfriend in 15 years. His parents celebrated their 50th anniversary last year. He said he focuses on his work.


"It's a combination of two things," he said. "I haven't found anyone, and I'm not actively seeking someone."

Gerard Abdul, 45, a who lives in East Orange, N.J., and runs an entertainment company, has never seen himself as the marrying type. He has nine children by five women. He said he cared about them all, and each wanted to marry him. But he wasn't interested.

"Because I'm so independent and on my own, I really didn't see the science of marrying them when I really didn't have to," Abdul said.

"I'm a great father," he added. "But I probably would have been a lousy husband."

A push to say 'I do'

Despite those attitudes toward marriage, there are a handful of campaigns to get blacks to walk down the aisle, from the federal government's African American Healthy Marriage Initiative to Marry Your Baby Daddy Day, with 10 unwed couples with children tying the knot later this year in New York.

"You Saved Me," a documentary that explores the marriages of eight black couples, will be screened in more than 20 cities this weekend as part of a Black Marriage Day premiere.

"We want people to take away that successful positive (black) marriages do exist," said Lamar Tyler of Waldorf, Md., who produced "You Saved Me" with his wife, Ronnie. The Tylers started their blog "Black and Married With Kids" in 2007 and released "Happily Ever After: A Positive Image of Black Marriage" last year.

Don Lee and his wife, Joan Griffith-Lee, of New York's Staten Island, who have three children, will be watching "Happily Ever After" Friday night and participating in a discussion at a coffeehouse. The couple have been married almost 20 years.

Several of their friends are divorced, and Griffith-Lee, 45, who works at Columbia University, said she and her husband often talk about why.

"We hope to leave there with a new awareness and maybe some tools that can help as we get older," she said.

Black Marriage Day founder Nisa Islam Muhammad is encouraging couples to renew their vows in front of friends and family in honor of Tyler Perry's movie "Why Did I Get Married Too?" which opens April 2.

Muhammad points out that many black children come from single-parent households and contends that the media are not helping. There's never been a black "Bachelor" on the popular TV show, and the star of the 2008 movie "27 Dresses," about a 27-time bridesmaid, was white.

Staying positive

"We're going to focus on the positives," said Muhammad, executive director of Wedded Bliss Foundation, which helps people develop healthy relationships and marriages. "We're going to show ourselves and our community that marriage does matter and we have some fabulous marriages in our community worth celebrating."

[Gordon Brown warns against 'scaremongering' over immigration]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/31/gordon-brown-warns-scaremongering-immigration

Gordon Brown warns against 'scaremongering' over immigration


Gordon Brown said net inward migration was not out of control. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Gordon Brown tried today to raise the tone of the coming election debate over immigration, warning against scaremongering over the figures and calling for a united front against those who want to use it "to stoke community tensions".

In a speech in Spitalfields, east London, the PM insisted that net inward migration is not out of control and has been on a downward path for the past three years.

However, the impact of the speech was blunted last night when Brown was reprimanded by the UK Statistics Authority for misusing immigration figures in a Downing Street podcast last Friday.

Brown promised to cut immigration further by pledging that Britain's need to import skilled migrants will be "substantially reduced" with the door closed to thousands of care workers from outside Europe by 2012 and to skilled chefs by 2014. He disclosed that moves to tighten the rules on overseas students and to crack down on "bogus" colleges were expected to lead to 40,000 fewer students coming to study in Britain in 2010 to 2011.

Brown also acknowledged that immigration generates legitimate strong feelings across communities with anxieties over schools, hospitals and housing.

"The question is, who has the best plan to control immigration, not who can appeal to our worst instincts of nationalism and xenophobia, but who can appeal to our best instincts of a fairer Britain for all the decent hardworking families across our country," he said.

He quoted statistics showing that net inward migration – the number of people who come to live and work in Britain minus the number who leave to live abroad – has fallen from 170,000 since 2007 with "provisional" figures from the international passenger survey showing the trend continued to June last year to 147,000. "This doesn't mean immigration isn't an issue at all. " he said. "But we should not allow people to scaremonger with unsubstantiated claims about rising net inward migration today."

However, Brown was reprimanded by Sir Michael Scholar, Whitehall's statistics watchdog, for misusing these statistics in the podcast, where he conflated two series of official statistics to demonstrate net inward migration had fallen from 237,000 in 2007 to 147,000. The first figure came from the Office for National Statistics's long-term migration series and was for the 12 months to December 2007. The second was drawn from provisional figures based on the international passenger survey for the 12 months to June 2009. The statistics watchdog said the two series were not comparable as the second figure included migration to and from Northern Ireland and excluded asylum seekers.

Scholar said Brown quoted them correctly in his speech today: "We hope that in the political debate over the coming weeks all parties will be careful in their use of statistics," Scholar told him.

In his immigration speech, Brown cited recent Institute of Fiscal Studies research showing that east European migrants in Britain make a positive net contirbution and pay 5% more than their share in tax and account for a third less than their share of the costs of public services.

He said the introduction of Labour's points-based immigration system had led to a fall in specialist skilled workers coming to Britain from 99,000 in 2007 to 63,000 in 2009.

Dispelling speculation that Labour might embrace the Conservative policy of placing an annual limit on immigration, Brown launched a strong attack on the Tory plans for a cap.

He called it a pre-determined quota which would prove arbitrary, unworkable in practice and bad for business. The Conservatives have given no more detail on their cap other than saying it would lead to "tens of thousands of migrants rather than hundreds of thousands".

Brown said weekend reports that it would be set at 40,000 a year would mean that once the movements of British and EU citizens, asylum seekers and family members had been accounted for, there would only be 15,000 places left for skilled workers and overseas students. He compared this with the 90,000 professional and skilled workers currently being brought to Britain to work by companies.

The Conservatives said Brown was guilty of ignoring Labour's failure on immigration: "We want to continue to attract the brightest and the best people to the UK – but with control over the overall numbers coming in," said the shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling.

The Liberal Democrats argued that the government's shambolic management of immigration had undermined the historically liberal attitude towards migrants. A system of exit checks and making sure migrants live where they are most needed was required to restore public confidence, said Chris Huhne for the Liberal Democrats.

This story speaks for itself:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7513282/Israeli-soldiers-used-child-to-check-for-booby-traps.html

The staff sergeants in the Givati infantry brigade have been charged with acting "in breach of military norms" by forcing the child at gunpoint to open bags they believed might be rigged with explosives.

The child, identified only as "Majd R", said he feared for his life.

"I thought they would kill me. I became very scared and wet my pants," he said in an affidavit to Geneva-based children's group, Defence for Children International.

"There were two bags in front of me. I grabbed the first one as he stood one and a half metres away. I opened the bag as he pointed his weapon directly at me. I emptied the bag on the floor. It contained money and papers. I looked at him and he was laughing."

One of the defendants, who have not been identified, said in an army radio interview he felt he and his comrade were being made scapegoats in the face of international criticism of Israel's offensive, in which about 1,400 Palestinians were killed, among them 400 children.

"They were looking for someone to blame in front of the entire world," the soldier said. "Sadly it was people who really didn't do anything."

The military said that it began its investigation of the incident in June. It said the probe was unrelated to a UN fact-finding mission which was visiting the Gaza Strip at the same time.

The UN mission, headed by South African former judge Richard Goldstone, later filed a report which concluded that both the Israeli military and Palestinian militants committed war crimes during the 22-day offensive launched on December 27, 2008.

Thirteen Israelis were killed during the war, which Israel launched in response to rocket and mortar attacks from the Islamist Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

This work is the first of the Sixteen Points of Creativity- a series of sixteen articles dealing with different aspects of life, and designed to illuminate Creativity and natural law.

Point One- Truth

"We know truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart."  -Blaise Pascal

If man's view of reality is too far askew from fact, he is deemed insane.  Therefore, sanity can be defined as conformity to the truth- or, knowing the way the world actually is.  How do we come to such knowledge?  Why is it important to know the truth?  What distorts truth?  Such are the questions pondered by veritologists- studiers of truth.

Truth reveals to humanity where their priorities should lie.  By examining nature, Ben Klassen concluded that an individuals highest priority is to their race.  Any person who wishes can retreat to a natural setting and observe firsthand the same phenomena that led Our Founder to his conclusions.  Everywhere in nature we see innumerable species segregating themselves along the lines of species and sub-species, all the while maintaining a fierce loyalty to their own.  It is natural law that dictates that this be the case, because such an arrangement facilitates the survival of the best.  Every species is locked into a battle for limited resources and only the best and strongest will survive that fight.  This battle, with it's inevitable casualties, results in ever more highly refined gene pools.  This process drives evolution.  The counterpoint to this process is disobedience to natural law.  When any species violates the ordinances decreed from time immemorial, the swift, merciless punishment is always the same- extinction.  Therefore we see that strict loyalty to our own kind and to nature's laws is critical to our own survival, expansion, and advancement.

Throughout the course of it's evolution, White humanity has gained an edge over other species not only by being able to recognize the truth, but by being able to apply it.  Applied truth takes the form of technology, and is one of the many advantages of knowing how the world works.  Millions of creative minds have transferred billions of inventions from heart to hand, improving the lives of countless people.  The house you live in, for example, is the product of thousands of inventions:  screws, drywall, insulation, safety glass, PVC pipe, and copper wire to name only a few.  The common link between all of these inventions is that they are subject to natural law.  The safety glass in your windows was designed and tested using the laws of physics.  The copper wire was produced with the laws of electrodynamics and conductivity in mind.  The color, texture, and viscosity of the paint that shades your walls is the cumulative result of applied chemistry.  This is not to mention architecture, vehicles, appliances, leisure activities, and communications that are all made possible by the application of truth to dilemmas.  Truth enables technology and therefore improves our quality of life.

Although nature's laws and punishments are immutable and have not changed for billions of years, the tendency of a given species to recognize and obey those laws is not immutable.  The outcome of recognition or rejection is always the same:  the species that actively chooses to recognize and obey the law is blessed with abundance, prosperity, and posterity; the species that rejects, ignores, or suppresses natural law is shortly met with ruin- nature has no mercy in her judgements.  As can be observed throughout history- both ancient and recent- when our race comes together in it's own self-interest and operates according to natural law, we too are blessed.  When we follow truth, great benefits await.  As Rome conquered the known world, it reached the zenith of its power.  Augustus Caesar, who presided over the Pax Romana, ruled according to truth.  At this time, Rome was an empire which firmly grasped the natural law of survival, expansion, and advancement as summed up in the Roman philosophy "impendo vel intereo"- expand or die.  The Romans rightfully believed that if they did not spread to every corner of the earth, they would perish from it.  Rome believed in natural law and was awarded with over 200 years of peace and prosperity.

Manifest Destiny pervades early Western culture.  It is a moral, almost spiritual, belief that the American continent was predestined to be conquered and ruled over by Whites, and that this was justified by any means.  The explorers who first set foot on America's rocky shores gave no thought to who may have owned the land.  As far as they were concerned, the land they desired was theirs for the taking.  Contrary to twenty-first century morality, natural morality dictates that this was indeed the proper perspective to have.  When a species invades a new territory in order to provide food or land for it's own, the first things it does it to drive out the native population either by cunning or force.  In the American expansion, the former is exemplified in the purchase of Manhattan Island for $24; the latter is seen in the many battles fought as we expanded across that continent.  As America gained influence and power, the expansion continued.  From the Louisiana and Alaskan Purchases to the annexation of Texas, White expansion in the United States did not stop until the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  At this point, the Great Depression and the first world war caused Whites, American and European alike, to reexamine their supremacy.  White people worldwide were ashamed of what had happened, and unfortunately had only a Semitic morality to guide them.  Had they examined natural law and obeyed it's edicts, perhaps today's demographic crisis may have been avoided.  When White people expanded and advanced according to nature's outline, they were blessed with a continent on which to raise their descendants and live peacefully.  As they rejected nature and embraced the Semitic religion of Christianity, they were cursed with confusion, war, a lack of identity, and a steep decline towards extinction.  Had our ancestors followed the truth, they would have know where to place their priorities.

Truth also enables control.  As we gain more control over nature, many feel less inclined to pray to gods or demons who supposedly control everything.  Understand nature, how the world is and why it works the way it does, enables us to bend it to our will and to harness it in a way that is beneficial to us all.  Understanding the laws of nuclear physics has led to the creation of new technologies, both beneficial and harmful.  Nuclear energy has the capacity to power millions of homes, yet a nuclear bomb can destroy those same homes in an instant.  Knowing the truth about nuclear physics enabled us to create these technologies- and the danger inherent in them emphasizes the need for a pure, honest, forceful morality to guide those whose hand we place that technology in.

There are many people, some with honest intentions, others who actively seek to deceive, who claim to hold the truth.  Many times one must be initiated to know the truth, or perhaps outsiders can know "some truth" but are told that unless they believe in whatever truth is being pushed at them that they can never know the "whole truth."  There should be viewed as warning signs.  No person, group, or religion that requires belief without providing observation should be trusted.  Would you pay into a life insurance policy if there was a good chance that it wouldn't pay out when you die?  Were every Christian killed, all of their bibles burned, and all of the churches destroyed and every reference to Christianity erased from history, would any man in the future rise up with the name "Jesus Christ" on his tongue?  No.  But the laws of nature can not be silenced by virtue that they are observable.  Our Bible, holy though it is, is not indestructible.  The foundation on which it rests, however, can never be destroyed.  Truth is not found in belief, but in observation- it is discovered by the mind and embraced by the heart.

Hello everyone.  I was formerly EastCoastCreator and have decided to rejoin the forum.

I've scaled back my Internet activity a bit but I miss the fellowship of fellow Creators, so I've decided to return to the forum.  It's a great place to organize and socialize with other Creators, in accordance with point nine of Salubrious Living- "Gregarious living within the framework of our CREATIVE religion, our White society and social intercourse with our White Racial Comrades. We are social animals."  It's good to be back.