Faith and Freedom Tour With Mike Huckabee Comes To Ohio Christian University

Written By: Miranda Caverley
The atmosphere of tonight’s event Faith and Freedom with Mike Huckabee at Ohio Christian University in Circleville Ohio, can only be explained by the first sentenced that Congressman Steve Austria spoke as he took the podium to begin his speech to introduce Mike Huckabee. He said, “I felt more energy tonight than I have the past 30 days on the campaign trail.” It was truly an amazing feeling of camaraderie and unity that swept over the entire crowd.

The event began with Timothy Noble playing a piano solo of patriotic and spiritual hymns. This young boy was just 11 years old but played like he had been doing this for decades. He was astoundingly talented. After Timothy blessed us all with his amazing piano solos, the Bucyrus Celebration Singers and Orchestra took the stage and entertained us with patriotic songs and hymns to really get the crowd pumped.

American Political Activist Ralph Reed then took the stage to give the opening speech. The main point about his short speech that truly struck me was he used the bible scripture of being the head not the tail. That we as Americans need to stop allowing the government and elected officials who have taken our country clearly in the wrong direction from making us the tail. We need to rise up and become the head again, and bring America back to God. Strangely The quote “We are the head and not the tail” is one of the main quotes Jeremy and I use in our ministry when we are trying to encourage others whether it be in a phone call, email, on our JMC LIVE show or even live speaking engagements. To hear Ralph Reed say these same words was truly an inspiration. After Ralph Reed finished the opening speech and then the opening prayer was said, Dr. Ken Blackwell took to the stage.

Dr. Ken Blackwell has been very well known with the Tea Party Movement and has traveled all over the country speaking to the people in the church. Trying to get them to wake up and get out of their pews and from behind their pulpits and start making a change in America. To stop the path our current leaders have us on. Ken not only expressed that Americans need to become more pro-active in the community and politics but also shared some frightening statistics and stories he found out by attending many liberal meeting in America. He shared how Socialism is truly trying to infiltrate into our government and society and we as Americans need to stop this. Ken had a great sense of humor and nearly through his whole speech every other sentence was a joke or funny moment that he shared from his life.

Pastor Benny Tate took the stage after Ken Blackwell and I tell you I don’t think anyone stopped laughing through most of his speech. This man was a ball of fire the whole time and you just never knew what he was going to say. He wasn’t like many preachers I’ve experienced because this man was not afraid to say anything. He spoke what most pastors, preachers, ministers and Christians in general are afraid to say. I was just waiting for Kirk Franklin to pop up and yell “Preach Preacher!” at any moment because this man was on a roll. Benny stressed that Americans Need to Speak up For
1. Sanctity of Life
2. Preachers To Have A Backbone
3. The Sacredness of Working
4. The Church needs to stand up and be the salt and light of the world.
By the end of his speech Benny had everyone on their feet in a standing ovation and it was electrifying.

Dr. Mark Smith President of Ohio Christian University then came to the podium and the main point he made in his speech was that our world be in even worse shape than what it is now had it NOT been for the faith community. Dr. Smith also shared of some of the exciting new programs that OCU has started to reach out more to the community especially when disaster strikes.
After Dr. Mark Smith spoke the Bucyrus Celebration Singers and Orchestra led us in the pledge of allegiance and then the National Anthem.

The most surprising thing of all was that they had us sing the 4th verse of the national anthem that majority of people didn’t even know existed. Jeremy and I were just 2 of the very few that even knew the verse and we sang it loud and clear, while surprisingly able to heard ourselves singing because many in the audience around us didn’t even know the 4nd verse that it even existed or that there are actually 3 other verses to the Star Spangled Banner. If you have never heard the 4th verse or even the other 3 verses of our national anthem here they are for you

First Verse
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Second Verse
On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines in the stream; 'Tis the Star-Spangled Banner, O long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Third Verse
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country should leave us no more? Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Fourth Verse
Oh, thus be it ever when free men shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n rescued land Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto, "In God is our trust" And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

After the singing of our national Anthem Steve Austria came to introduce Former Governor Mike Huckabee. That was when Steve made the comment that he had not felt so much energy from a crowd in 30 days of being on the campaign trail as was felt tonight at Ohio Christian University. So when Mike Huckabee finally came to the podium to give the final speech everyone was more than ready to listen. The first thing that struck me about Mike Huckabee is that if this whole political thing doesn’t work out for him he would make a killing as a standup comedian, because the man is hilarious. The first sentenced out of this mouth was about Pastor Benny Tate who had spoken earlier. Mike said, “I’m not worried about Benny Getting into heaven, I’m afraid he’ll be so excited when he gets there he’ll run right past it and have to turn around!”

The main subject of Mike Huckabee’s speech however, was about bringing America back to its roots and remembering what our country was founded on and that if we don’t fight for our country there won’t be one for our future generations to come. Here are just a few of the most prominent quotes from Mike Huckabee’s speech

While discussing the upcoming elections and how great the way our government is set up Mike said, “America is like a self cleaning oven. When it gets gunked up and dirty, we turn up the heat and watch all the gunk turn to ash. Then on Election Day we open the oven and clean out the ashes and start all over.”

As Mike continued to tackle many tough topics he came to the recession and the fall of Wall Street and said, “Wall street didn’t melt down because of a money problem, but because of a moral problem!” Then while continuing to tackling the topic of Wall street, the recession and job loss in America Mike says, “we are exporting jobs because we’ve lost our common sense.”

But not once in his speech did he attack any particular person, political party or anything like that. He attacked the topics that no one in Washington is talking about. That we need to bring America back to what our Founding Fathers made it to be and founded it on. Start using the constitution and bill of rights to govern our country again and stop the selfishness and greed that seems to have over run our country.

As the event came to a close and Mike Huckabee finished his speech the crowd came alive to their feet and gave a long standing ovation. I felt at that moment, that I had just witnessed a part of history that I will one day share with generations to come. For I know that next week as we go to the poles and cast our votes here in America we will be sending most of those in Washington their pink slips and we will start to take America back! By placing the right people into the positions to help right all the wrong that has been done in this country.

Chillicothe Ohio Tea Party Rally On October 9, 2010

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Union Fires Man For Wearing USS George H.W. Bush Shirt and Hat At Obama Rally

click to read full story from World Net Daily

Wearing a Bush sweatshirt and cap has gotten a man fired from his work building a stage for an Obama rally.

But the Bush on the clothing worn by Duane Hammond had nothing to do with politics; it honors USS George H.W. Bush, the 10th and final Nimitz-class supercarrier in the U.S. Navy, and those, including Hammond's son, who are serving America on that ship.

According to a report by KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, the union stagehand was working on the platform of an Obama event in the city, and he was not making any political statement.

But Hammond told the station his union supervisor told him to take off the sweatshirt or turn it inside, or he would be sent home.

He refused and was told he was fired.

Hammond explained his son has been in the service of his country for three years already.

"He's serving proudly. I'm wearing his flag so to speak."

James Wright, a union official with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Union Local 33, says the case is under investigation, but if Hammond was sent home for wearing the Bush clothing, he'll still be paid.

Woman Pleads Not Guilty In Damage To Controversial Artwork in Colorado

click to read full story from Fox News

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – A Montana woman accused of taking a crowbar to controversial artwork for religious reasons pleaded not guilty Friday.

Kathleen Folden, 56, a truck driver and grandmother from Kalispell, Mont., declined to comment during a court appearance in Colorado, where she learned she would stand trial in January. She is charged with one count of criminal mischief, a felony that carries a penalty of two to six years in prison.

Folden was arrested Oct. 6 in the Loveland Museum/Gallery after witnesses said she used a crowbar to smash glass shielding a print by Stanford University professor Enrique Chagoya.

The print at issue, one of several copies of the work, includes figures cut from a comic book, including a head resembling Christ on the body of a woman, and a skeleton with a pope's hat. The 7-inch panel, part of a 70-inch piece that contains several panels resembling a long pamphlet, contains a warning in Spanish: "For those 18 years and older."

Critics said the work depicted Jesus engaged in a sex act, but Chagoya said the work has been mischaracterized and doesn't show Christ. He said the work is a collage, and the controversial panel was aimed at expressing "the corruption of the spiritual by the church."

"It was taken out of context," Loveland Cultural Services Director Susan Ison said. "It's like taking a chapter out of a book, and then taking that out of context and thinking you understand the whole book."

Folden was led out of the museum in handcuffs wearing a T-shirt with a Christian slogan, "My Savior Is Tougher Than Nails." According to court documents, Folden told police she drove from Montana to Colorado specifically to destroy the artwork for "religious reasons."

Her arrest came after protesters picketed the museum and failed to persuade city leaders to remove the print.

"Violence is not something we condone," said Edward Armijo, deacon at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Loveland, who said he organized the protest after seeing children staring and giggling at the piece. "I wish she would have talked to me first. I would have advised her not to do it."

Folden declined to comment outside court and again seemed to let her T-shirt speak for her instead. Printed on the back was a cross with bloody nails, the words "With a big ugly stick" and a reference to a Bible verse from Colossians about not being fooled by enticing arguments.

Folden is represented by two lawyers, Derek Samuelson and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Cliff Stricklin. Folden has no previous criminal history, Samuelson said.

"She looks forward to sharing her perspective. She obviously is a woman of faith," he said of her upcoming trial.

Michigan Woman Faces Possible Charges For Advertisment Seeking "Christian Roommate" A Her Church

Click to read full story from Fox News

A civil rights

complaint has been filed against a woman in Grand Rapids, Mich., who posted an advertisement at her church last July seeking a Christian roommate.

The ad "expresses an illegal preference for a Christian roommate, thus excluding people of other faiths,” according to the complaint filed by the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan.

"It's a violation to make, print or publish a discriminatory statement," Executive Director Nancy Haynes told Fox News. "There are no exemptions to that."

Haynes said the unnamed 31-year-old woman’s case was turned over to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. Depending on the outcome of the case, she said, the woman could face several hundreds of dollars in fines and “fair housing training so it doesn’t happen again.”

Harold Core, director of public affairs with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, told the Grand Rapids Press that the Fair Housing Act prevents people from publishing an advertisement stating their preference of religion, race or handicap with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling.

"It's really difficult to say at this point what could potentially happen," he told the newspaper, noting that there are exemptions in the law for gender when there is a shared living space.

But Joel Oster

, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the woman free of charge, describes the case as "outrageous."

"Clearly this woman has a right to pick and choose who she wants to live with," he said.

"Christians shouldn't live in fear of being punished by the government for being Christians. It is completely absurd to try to penalize a single Christian woman for privately seeking a Christian roommate at church -- an obviously legal and constitutionally protected activity."

Haynes said the person who filed the initial complaint saw the ad on the church bulletin board and contacted the local fair housing organization.

The ad included the words, "Christian roommate wanted," along with the woman's contact information. Had the ad not included the word "Christian," Haynes said, it would not have been illegal.

"If you read it and you were not Christian, would you not feel welcome to rent there?" Haynes asked.

Oster said he hopes the case will eventually be dropped and that he's sent a letter to the state asking the authorities to dismiss the case as groundless.

"The First Amendment guarantees us Freedom of Religion

," he said. "And we have the right to live with someone of the same faith. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights is denying her rights by pursuing this complaint."

Boy Learns To Call 911 From Sponge Bob Square Pants Cartoon and Saves Father

click to read full story from Fox 8
NORTH RIDGEVILLE, Ohio —

Vincent Lamitie, 3, of North Ridgeville, was home alone with his dad when his father passed out and fell down the basement stairs last Sunday. Without hesitation, somehow, the young boy knew to call 911.

"I fell down the stairs," Vincent's father, Vince Lamitie, explained. "I must have turned around to go back downstairs, and I landed on the floor, I guess. I don't remember nothing. The only thing I remember is waking up, and my head was really hurting. My side (and) my nose (were also hurting), and my son was leaning over me, talking to someone on the phone."

Vincent's parents still don't know how he learned to call 911 because they never taught him, thinking he was too young to understand. The only thing they can figure out is perhaps he learned it from a cartoon.

When asked how he knew what to do in the emergency situation, Vincent replied, "Sponge Bob calls 911."

Not only did Vincent have the wherewithal to call 911, he also had the composure to go to the door and unlock it so that the paramedics could get into the house.

"I wasn't planning on being home anytime soon, so it's a good thing somebody called 911 because my husband would have been laying there a long time," said Vincent's mother, Jackie Lamitie.

"If he hadn't called, I would have laid there until midnight," Vince realized.

The family said Vince is recovering from a sore back, sore ribs and a concussion. His injuries put him in the hospital, but he hopes to return home to his family in a few days.

Worst Whooping Cough Outbreak In 60 Years Says Experts

click to read full story from CNN

(CNN) -- Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, has claimed the 10th victim in California, in what health officials are calling the worst outbreak in 60 years.

Since the beginning of the year, 5,978 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of the disease have been reported in California.

All of the deaths occurred in infants under the age of 3 months, says Michael Sicilia, a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health. Nine were younger than 8 weeks old, which means they were too young to have been vaccinated against this highly contagious bacterial disease.

"This is a preventable disease," says Sicilia, because there is a vaccine for whooping cough to protect those coming in contact with infants, and thereby protect the infants.

However, some parents are choosing to not vaccinate their children. In other cases, previously vaccinated children and adults may have lost their immunity because the vaccine has worn off.

The vaccine "does not protect you for life," explains Alison Patti, a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sicilia says California Health Department epidemiologists estimate 50 percent of the children who have gotten sick were infected by their parents or caregivers.

According to the recommended vaccine schedule for infants, newborns don't get their first pertussis vaccine until they are 2 months old, leaving them vulnerable to infection until then if the people surrounding them are infected.

"That's why the real important message is -- whether it's a mom, dad, sibling, grandfather or grandmother that comes in contact with these really young babies -- all the close contacts, including the health care professionals, need to vaccinated," says Patti. It's called the "cocooning strategy," where the newborns are protected because the older people around them have been vaccinated and protected from pertussis, and therefore won't pass it on to little babies.

Pertussis, or whooping cough, is a highly contagious disease caused by bacteria that can lead to severe upper respiratory infections. The bacteria is spread in tiny droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

Initial symptoms are very similar to a cold, but a week or two later, a violent cough develops.

"If you've ever seen a child with pertussis, you won't forget it" -- that's how the American Academy of Pediatrics explains what whooping cough is on its website. The academy says a child with the disease coughs so hard and so often "until the air is gone from his/her lungs and he/she is forced to inhale with the loud 'whooping' sound that gives the disease its nickname."

Mega Church Crystal Cathedral Files For Bankrupcy

Click to read full story from Fox News

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. -- Crystal Cathedral, the megachurch birthplace of the televangelist show "Hour of Power," filed for bankruptcy Monday in Southern California after struggling to emerge from debt that exceeds $43 million.

In addition to a $36 million mortgage, the Orange County-based church owes $7.5 million to several hundred vendors for services ranging from advertising to the use of live animals in Easter and Christmas services.

The church had been negotiating a repayment plan with vendors, but several filed lawsuits seeking quicker payment, which prompted a coalition formed by creditors to fall apart, church officials said.

"Tough times never last, every storm comes to an end. Right now, people need to hear that message more than ever," Sheila Schuller Coleman, the Cathedral's senior pastor and daughter of the founder, told reporters outside the worship hall.

"Everybody is hurting today. We are no exception," she said.

The church, founded in the mid-1950s by the Rev. Robert H. Schuller Sr., has already ordered major layoffs, cut the number of stations airing the "Hour of Power" and sold property to stay afloat. In addition, the 10,000-member church canceled this year's "Glory of Easter" pageant, which attracts thousands of visitors and is a regional holiday staple.

Vendors owed money by the church formed a committee in April and agreed to a moratorium to negotiate a repayment plan with the Crystal Cathedral.

Kristina Oliver, whose Hemet-based company provided live animals for the church's "Glory of Christmas" manger scene, said she doubts she will recover in full the $57,000 she is owed.

"The church never made any kind of advancement that they wanted to pay their debt, that they were willing to try to make it happen and every time we tried they told us, 'You can't tell us how to run our business,"' Oliver said.

"I'm upset because I have a 30-year relationship with them and you need to be up front, put all your cards on the table."

Crystal Cathedral was founded at a drive-in theater and attracted congregants with its sermons on the power of positive thinking. It features a soaring glass spire and is an architectural wonder and tourist destination.

The "Hour of Power" telecast, filmed in the cathedral's main sanctuary, at one point attracted 1.3 million viewers in 156 countries.

Church leaders said the telecast and Sunday services will continue while in bankruptcy.

Crystal Cathedral and other megachurches have suffered from the recession and reduced charitable giving

Lasting Damage From BP Oil Spill

AP-mtvU Poll: College students' Obamamania wanes

2010-10-13 11:19:00 PDT Washington, , United States — (10-13) 11:19 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

The Obamamania that gripped college campuses two years ago is gone.

An Associated Press-mtvU poll found college students cooling in their support for President Barack Obama, a fresh sign of trouble for Democrats struggling to rekindle enthusiasm among many of these newest voters for the crucial midterm elections in three weeks.

Forty-four percent of students approve of the job Obama is doing as president, while 27 percent are unhappy with his stewardship, according to the survey conducted late last month. That's a significant drop from the 60 percent who gave the president high marks in a May 2009 poll. Only 15 percent had a negative opinion back then.

"Obama Is Dangerous" Dr. David Jeremiah Says

Chad Groening - OneNewsNow - 10/20/2010 3:45:00 AM

Dr. David Jeremiah, senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church of El Cajon, California, recently released his latest book, The Coming Economic Armageddon: What Bible Prophecy Warns about the New Global Economy. While he says he has no desire to vilify President Barack Obama, he disagrees with most of what the president has done.

"I have a very strong belief that President Obama is as much of a globalist as we've had in the office of the presidency," Dr. Jeremiah shares. "There was a period of time when he was running for office, and after he was elected, where people actually began to talk about him as if he were the president of the world. It seems as if he were running for president of the world."
"I do not believe he has been an asset to our country; I don't believe he's moved us forward in a good direction, and frankly, I am praying, along with many other believers, that in this mid-term election we will find a way to slow down this train that seems to be moving us toward socialism and away from our historical moorings," Dr. Jeremiah explains. "I'm really frightened about that, and I think in that respect, I believe he's a dangerous person."

The Dead Sea Scrolls ONLINE: Thanks To Google!

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Antiquities Authority is partnering with Google to bring the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls online.

The project will grant free access to the 2,000-year-old text — considered one of the greatest archaeological finds of the last century — by uploading high-resolution images. The first photographs are slated to be online within months.

The scrolls will be available in both original languages and in translation.

Antiquities official Pnina Shor said Tuesday this will ensure the originals are preserved while broadening access to the priceless artifact, which includes fragments of the Hebrew Bible.

Experts have complained only a small number of scholars were allowed access to the scrolls found in caves near the Dead Sea in the 1940s.

Shelley Lubben Speaks Out About HIV Outbreak In Porn Industry

4 Bullied Teens From 1 Ohio School Committ Suicide

Link To Article From Associated Press

By MEGHAN BARR (AP) – 3 hours ago

MENTOR, Ohio — Sladjana Vidovic's body lay in an open casket, dressed in the sparkly pink dress she had planned to wear to the prom. Days earlier, she had tied one end of a rope around her neck and the other around a bed post before jumping out her bedroom window.

The 16-year-old's last words, scribbled in English and her native Croatian, told of her daily torment at Mentor High School, where students mocked her accent, taunted her with insults like "Slutty Jana" and threw food at her.

It was the fourth time in little more than two years that a bullied high school student in this small Cleveland suburb on Lake Erie died at his or her own hand — three suicides, one overdose of antidepressants. One was bullied for being gay, another for having a learning disability, another for being a boy who happened to like wearing pink.

Now two families — including the Vidovics — are suing the school district, claiming their children were bullied to death and the school did nothing to stop it. The lawsuits come after a national spate of high-profile suicides by gay teens and others, and during a time of national soul-searching about what can be done to stop it.

If there has been soul-searching among the bullies in Mentor — a pleasant beachfront community that was voted one of the "100 Best Places to Live" by CNN and Money magazine this year — Sladjana's family saw too little of it at her wake in October 2008.

Suzana Vidovic found her sister's body hanging over the front lawn. The family watched, she said, as the girls who had tormented Sladjana for months walked up to the casket — and laughed.

"They were laughing at the way she looked," Suzana says, crying. "Even though she died."

___

Sladjana Vidovic, whose family had moved to northeast Ohio from Bosnia when she was a little girl, was pretty, vivacious and charming. She loved to dance. She would turn on the stereo and drag her father out of his chair, dance him in circles around the living room.

"Nonstop smile. Nonstop music," says her father, Dragan, who speaks only a little English.

At school, life was very different. She was ridiculed for her thick accent. Classmates tossed insults like "Slutty Jana" or "Slut-Jana-Vagina." A boy pushed her down the stairs. A girl smacked her in the face with a water bottle.

Phone callers in the dead of night would tell her to go back to Croatia, that she'd be dead in the morning, that they'd find her after school, says Suzana Vidovic.

"Sladjana did stand up for herself, but toward the end she just kind of stopped," says her best friend, Jelena Jandric. "Because she couldn't handle it. She didn't have enough strength."

Vidovic's parents say they begged the school to intervene many times. They say the school promised to take care of her.

She had already withdrawn from Mentor and enrolled in an online school about a week before she killed herself.

When the family tried to retrieve records about their reports of bullying, school officials told them the records were destroyed during a switch to computers. The family sued in August.

Two years after her death, Dragan Vidovic waves his hand over the family living room, where a vase of pink flowers stands next to a photograph of Sladjana.

"Today, no music," he says sadly. "No smile."

___

Eric Mohat was flamboyant and loud and preferred to wear pink most of the time. When he didn't get the lead soprano part in the choir his freshman year, he was indignant, his mother says.

He wore a stuffed animal strapped to his arm, a lemur named Georges that was given its own seat in class.

"It was a gag," says Mohat's father, Bill. "And all the girls would come up to pet his monkey. And in his Spanish class they would write stories about Georges."

Mohat's family and friends say he wasn't gay, but people thought he was.

"They called him fag, homo, queer," says his mother, Jan. "He told us that."

Bullies once knocked a pile of books out of his hands on the stairs, saying, "'Pick up your books, faggot,'" says Dan Hughes, a friend of Eric's.

Kids would flick him in the head or call him names, says 20-year-old Drew Juratovac, a former student. One time, a boy called Mohat a "homo," and Juratovac told him to leave Mohat alone.

"I got up and said, 'Listen, you better leave this kid alone. Just walk away,'" he says. "And I just hit him in the face. And I got suspended for it."

Eric Mohat shot himself on March 29, 2007, two weeks before a choir trip to Hawaii.

His parents asked the coroner to call it "bullicide." At Eric's funeral and after his death, other kids told the Mohats that they had seen the teen relentlessly bullied in math class. The Mohats demanded that police investigate, but no criminal activity was found.

Two years later, in April 2009, the Mohats sued the school district, the principal, the superintendent and Eric's math teacher. The federal lawsuit is on hold while the Ohio Supreme Court considers a question of state law regarding the case.

"Did we raise him to be too polite?" Bill Mohat wonders. "Did we leave him defenseless in this school?"

___

Meredith Rezak, 16, shot herself in the head three weeks after the death of Mohat, a good friend of hers. Her cell phone, found next to her body, contained a photograph of Mohat with the caption "R.I.P. Eric a.k.a. Twiggy."

Rezak was bright, outgoing and a well-liked player on the volleyball team. Shortly before her suicide, she had joined the school's Gay-Straight Alliance and told friends and family she thought she might be gay.

Juratovac says Rezak endured her own share of bullying — "name-calling, just stupid trivial stuff" — but nobody ever knew it was getting to her.

"Meredith ended up coming out that she was a lesbian," he says. "I think much of that sparked a lot of the bullying from a lot of the other girls in school, 'cause she didn't fit in."

Her best friend, Kevin Simon, doesn't believe that bullying played a role in Rezak's death. She had serious issues at home that were unrelated to school, he says.

After Mohat's death, people saw Rezak crying at school, and friends heard her talk of suicide herself.

A year after Rezak's death, the older of her two brothers, 22-year-old Justin, also shot and killed himself. His death certificate mentioned "chronic depressive reaction."

This March, her only other sibling, Matthew, died of a drug overdose at age 21.

Their mother, Nancy Merritt, lives in Colorado now. She doesn't think Meredith was bullied to death but doesn't really know what happened. On the phone, her voice drifts off, sounding disconnected, confused.

"So all three of mine are gone," she says. "I have to keep breathing."

___

Most mornings before school, Jennifer Eyring would take Pepto-Bismol to calm her stomach and plead with her mother to let her stay home.

"She used to sob to me in the morning that she did not want to go," says her mother, Janet. "And this is going to bring tears to my eyes. Because I made her go to school."

Eyring, 16, was an accomplished equestrian who had a learning disability. She was developmentally delayed and had a hearing problem, so she received tutoring during the school day. For that, her mother says, she was bullied constantly.

By the end of her sophomore year in 2006, Eyring's mother had decided to pull her out of Mentor High School and enroll her in an online school the following autumn. But one night that summer, Jennifer walked into her parents' bedroom and told them she had taken some of her mother's antidepressant pills to make herself feel better. Hours later, she died of an overdose.

The Eyrings do not hold Mentor High accountable, but they believe she would be alive today had she not been bullied. Her parents are speaking out in hopes of preventing more tragedies.

"It's too late for my daughter," Janet Eyring says, "but it may not be too late for someone else."

___

No official from Mentor public schools would comment for this story. The school also refused to provide details on its anti-bullying program.

Some students say the problem is the culture of conformity in this city of about 50,000 people: If you're not an athlete or cheerleader, you're not cool. And if you're not cool, you're a prime target for the bullies.

But that's not so different from most high schools. Senior Matt Super, who's 17, says the suicides unfairly paint his school in a bad light.

"Not everybody's a good person," he says. "And in a group of 3,000 people, there are going to be bad people."

StopCyberbulling.org founder Parry Aftab says this is the first time she's heard of two sets of parents suing a school at the same time for two independent cases of bullying or cyberbullying. No one has been accused of bullying more than one of the teens who died.

Barbara Coloroso, a national anti-bullying expert, says the school is allowing a "culture of mean" to thrive, and school officials should be held responsible for the suicides — along with the bullies.

"Bullying doesn't start as criminal. They need to be held accountable the very first time they call somebody a gross term," Coloroso says. "That is the beginning of dehumanization."

72,000 stimulus payments went to dead people

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer – Thu Oct 7, 4:19 pm ET

WASHINGTON – A government investigator says 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each went to people who were either dead or in prison.

The Social Security Administration's inspector general said in a report Thursday that $18 million went to 72,000 people who were dead. The report estimates that a little more than half the payments were returned.

The report said $4.3 million went to a little more than 17,000 prison inmates.

The payments were part of the government's massive economic recovery package enacted in February 2009. Under the law, the $250 payments were sent to about 52 million Social Security recipients and federal retirees.

Woman Tears Down "Jesus Porn" In Colorado Museum

A controversial piece of art in a Loveland, CO museum depicting Jesus in a porn pose is no more. That’s because a women stormed into the exhibit, broke the glass casing around the piece with a crow bar, and tore the artwork to shreds.

Kathleen Folden, 56, of Kalispell, Mont., was arrested shortly after the 4 p.m. incident Wednesday and charged with felony criminal mischief, the Loveland Reporter-Herlad says.

“She was saying, ‘How can you desecrate my Lord?’” said Mark Michels, a strange who helped subdue Folen. “She wanted to wreck the print, and that was it. After that, she was totally passive.”

The depiction of Jesus divided members of the quaint Colorado town, drawing protests against the piece and also “protesters protesting the protests,” according to one museum official:

Radio Flyer Wagon CAR Turns Heads

Link to Article

ANCHORAGE, Alaska —

A Valley couple took a childhood memory and turned it into a retirement project. Now, they have a Radio Flyer car to drive around town in.

Fred Keller and Judy Foster worked on the car for 11 months, and finished in August of this year, and their ride has been turning heads.

The base of the wagon is a 1976 Mazda pickup truck that Foster inherited from her dad.

The vehicle turns heads everywhere they go.

"I think the words I hear the most often is 'awesome' or 'cool' or people go by and give us a 'hi' sign," Foster said.

Firefighters Let House Burn In Tennessee Over An Unpaid $75 Dollar Fee

JMC Ministries Response
written by: Miranda Caverley

Do you think that if this $75.00 fee was in place in New York City on the day Sept. 11th happened that all those firefighters would have been told NOT To go and try and save as many lives as possible if the owners of the Twin Towers had accidentally forgotten to pay the 75 dollars? And be forced to just stand and watch thousands more die than what did that day? I don't think so.

The man offered to pay the fee. But he still got no help. So he watched as 3 dogs and 1 cat burned alive in this fire along with all his belongings. What if those pets would have been people do you think they would have helped then to save a life. It really makes me wonder especially how cold they were to even the news reporters and even calling on their radios for police back up to have news/media escorted away from this mans burning home.

What is the point of even having firefighters and paying taxes to them if they will just do nothing. Must be great to just stand around and get paid thousands of dollars a year to watch peoples homes burn. Even when the people offer to pay the 75 dollar yearly fee that they accidentally for got to pay.

Sadly my family was affected by something similar to this many years ago. My Great Aunt And Uncles home caught fire. They lived in a rural area in Ohio and when they called 911 they were told that the fire station was not in their jurisdiction and that they would not come put the fire out. Yes they let my aunt and uncles home burn down to the ground because they didn't have a fire station in their jurisdiction where they would come and help them.

Then I watch MSNBC Keith Olberman interview this man who lost his home today and the first words out of Keiths mouth to set up his interview was and I quote "A look now into the America envisioned by the Tea Party" Ok How in the world can you say that! I am not a tea party member but I do keep up on what the tea party is wanting to do to change America and it most definitely does not include letting fellow American's homes to burn and no body even care.

How is the tea party even involved with this town allowing this man's home to burn? I would say this is not a vision of the tea party but a vision of the twisted evil mayor and local officials of this town in Tennessee. It is most clear that the mayor by the interview that he does not even care about the people of his town if they forget or don't comply with this $75.oo fee. To see a publicly elected official to show no sympathy or empathy for this family is just disgusting even after knowing the family was willing to still pay the yearly fee and comply with their twisted rules. How can you be a mayor of a town if you don't show compassion towards the people that elected you?

All I can say is that election time is coming and I don't see this man staying in office for very long.

We pray for this family and for the others in this area who have also lost homes because of this fee. How can you put a price on peoples lives when they are already paying taxes? May God inspire people donate to this family and help them get back on their feet and supply what the insurance company doesn't. It is a sad day America when we see fellow citizens stand by and not help their fellow man. What have we become?

Marriage Poll: No Longer Just About Man or Woman Now Shows Bestiality As Category

Posted: September 23, 2010
9:15 pm Eastern

click to read original story from World Net Daily

A new WND/Wenzel Poll indicates that an overwhelming 70 percent of Americans want marriage limited to one man and one woman, but a subset, tiny though it may be, already is endorsing polygamy and bestiality.

The prospect that relationships abhorred both biblically and traditionally will be sanctioned already has been forecast by one of the California Supreme Court justices in 2008 who dissented from the majority opinion that "found" in the state constitution a provision for same-sex "marriage."

The decision later was rejected by voters through Proposition 8, which enshrined traditional marriage in the state constitution. The ballot measure was ruled unconstitutional in August, however, by homosexual Judge Vaughn Walker, who decided that the age in which gender mattered to marriage was over.

The new results come in a WND/Wenzel Poll conducted Sept. 13-14 with an automated technology calling a random sampling of listed telephone numbers nationwide. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.65 percentage points.

Fritz Wenzel, chief of Wenzel Strategies which conducts the WND poll, said there is a huge disparity between the political parties on how people feel about the question of marriage.

"While 92 percent of Republicans believe only in a one man-one woman marriage, just 52 percent of Democrats agreed," he reported. "Among Democrats, 44 percent said they believed a marriage could be any two people, regardless of gender.

"Independents were about halfway in-between Republicans and Democrats on the question, as 66 percent said they felt marriage should be just between one man and one woman," he said.

It was among those categories that the polygamous or polyamorous relationships – even bestiality – started appearing.

Among Democrats, 2.2 percent said "marriage" should be "many people-any gender." One-half of one percent of independents agreed. And a definition of marriage that would be "not limited to humans alone" was supported by 0.2 percent of Democrats and the same percentage of Independents.

The poll revealed that men and women felt about the same on the definition of marriage, with 71 percent of men and 69 percent of women saying marriage should be between just one man and one woman.

"However, younger respondents were much more likely to accept the idea of same-sex marriages – 45 percent said they believed in a one man-one woman union, but 39 percent said they felt same-sex marriages were acceptable. Interestingly, 16 percent of those under age 30 said they think marriage as an institution should be scrapped altogether," the Wenzel analysis of poll results said.

"Mirroring Wenzel Strategies polling conducted for WorldNetDaily.com last month, just 35 percent said they thought the federal judge's decision to vacate the California state constitutional amendment – which was passed by voters – was a courageous stroke of judicial magic. Another 34 percent said they believed it was the height of judicial arrogance, with the other third either somewhere in-between or undecided on the question," the Wenzel analysis said.

"On the question of whether respondents believed the nation would eventually come to accept same-sex marriage, two-thirds, or 63 percent said they did not believe it would ever be accepted. Another 14 percent said they thought same-sex marriages would be accepted, but that it would take a long time, perhaps decades, to occur. Twenty-one percent said they did believe that same-sex marriage would be accepted, and probably in the short-term," the analysis said.

The Alliance Defense Fund has noted some of Judge Walker's far-reaching conclusions in his court decision, now on appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals:

• "Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians."
  
  
• "Rather, the exclusion exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed."
  
  
• "The gender of a child's parent is not a factor in a child's adjustment."
  
  
• "The evidence shows beyond any doubt that parents' genders are irrelevant to children’s developmental outcomes."
  
  
• "Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals."
  
  
• "Many of the purported interests identified by proponents are nothing more than a fear or unarticulated dislike of same-sex couples."

Liberty Counsel has called the ruling "outrageous."

"This is a classic example of radical individualism and judicial activism. Judge Walker obviously has not learned the lesson of 2008, when the California Supreme Court refused to stay its decision on marriage. That decision was reversed in short order, but it caused a huge disruption," said chief Mathew Staver.

The American Family Association has launched an action alert to its several million supporters calling for the impeachment of Walker.

The alert asks supporters to contact their members of Congress and demand his removal.

"What you have here is a federal judge using the power of his position to legitimize what is sexually aberrant behavior," Bryan Fischer, an analyst for the organization, told WND. "He's trampling on the will of 7 million voters in California. It's just a gross breach of his judicial responsibility.

"We think of it as an expression of judicial tyranny, judicial activism on steroids," he said.

Tea Partiers Say America Is A Christian Nation

click to read original story from CNN

Members of the Tea Party movement tend to be Christian conservatives, not libertarians, and are more likely than even white evangelical Christians to say the United States is a Christian nation, a detailed new study has found.

More than half of self-identified Tea Party members say America is a Christian nation, while just over four out of 10 white evangelicals believe that - the same as the proportion of the general population that says so.

"We found actually that among the Tea Party, rather than being libertarians, at least on the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage, they're actually social conservatives," the survey's lead author, Robert Jones, said Tuesday.

Despite the headlines the Tea Party movement has generated with their candidates upsetting mainstream Republican candidates in primary races from Delaware to Nevada, it is only half the size of the Christian conservative movement, Jones said.

"We found that the Tea Party movement makes up a significant number. One in 10 Americans consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement, that's not insignificant," he said. "But it is half the size of those who consider themselves part of the Christian conservative movement or the religious right," he said.

The details come from the American Values Survey, released Tuesday by the Public Religion Research Institute.

Read an analysis of the results by the institute's CEO and research director

Some findings from the telephone survey of more than 3,000 Americans confirm the conventional wisdom.

Tea Party members are big fans of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and not so hot on President Barack Obama.

They're much more likely than the general population to trust Fox News most - almost six out of 10 say it's their most trusted source of news, more than twice as many who say that among Americans as a whole.

A former speechwriter for George W. Bush said the emergence of the Tea Party movement reflects the latest development in a long-running conflict.

"We used to have culture wars on abortion and the nature of family," said Michael Gerson, who is now a Washington Post columnist.

"I think we're in the middle of a culture war, just as vicious, on the role and size of government and I think these results are consistent with that," he told a packed house at the Brookings Institution in Washington, where the report was unveiled Tuesday.

The Tea Party is not simply a movement of white evangelicals, the survey found by digging deeper into the specific beliefs of both groups.

The religious beliefs of Tea Partiers tend to be more traditional than those of the general population, but less so than white evangelicals'.

Pollster Robert P. Jones releases the results of a new study at the Brookings Institution.

Nearly half of Tea Partiers believe the Bible is the literal word of God, for example. One in three Americans overall believes that, while nearly two in three white evangelicals do.

Tea Partiers are much more likely than white evangelicals or Americans in general to think that minorities get too much attention from the government.

Almost six in 10 Tea Partiers believe that, while fewer than four in 10 white evangelicals say so. Figures for white evangelicals and Americans in general on that question are statistically identical.

But Tea Party opinions of immigrants line up with those of white evangelicals, with just under two out of three in each group saying immigrants are a burden on the U.S. "because they take jobs, housing and health care."

Just under half of the population as a whole says that.

The head of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said he was not surprised that there's both agreement and disagreement between the Tea Party and white evangelicals.

"Opposition movements tend to draw very broadly. When it gets to the specifics of governance there's going to be some big contrast," Albert Mohler Jr. told CNN.

"I think those areas of natural overlap are understandable but the issues of contrast are going to be unavoidable," he said.

Libertarians - who oppose government intervention in people's personal lives - will not see eye to eye with evangelicals on abortion or same-sex marriage, he said.

"Very few evangelicals would say the government has no role in these issues," he said.

The Public Religion Research Institute report, "Religion and the Tea Party in the 2010 Election: An Analysis of the Third Biennial American Values Survey," is based on telephone polling of a national random survey of 3,013 adults between September 1 and 14.

CNN's Richard Allen Greene contributed to this report.

Top 12 Politician Constitutional Contempt Clips

South Sudan Is Below Third World Status

click to read full story from ChristianPost.com

Mon, Sep. 20, 2010

The standard of life in South Sudan is so far behind modern society that it dreams to one day reach Third World status, says the head of a missions group that works in the region.

So if South Sudan voted to secede from the North in the January referendum, it would need “a lot of external help,” warns Bill Deans, president of Mustard Seed International.

“For the past three generations they’ve been in war. Every family is touched by that,” reports Deans, whose organization ministers to the "least of these."

“There is a great number of orphans, the infrastructure in the South is non-existent, there are no pave roads, thus the ability for the South to sustain itself is not there,” he adds.

Deans also emphasizes how there are no education or medical infrastructures in the region.

“It is going to take a lot of external help for that to happen over a period of time,” Deans says. “They have been so isolated for the past 25 years.”

Sudan is just four months away from a critical referendum in which the South can vote to break away from the North.

For more than 21 years, the predominantly Muslim North and the animist and Christian South fought in a bloody civil war that left some 2 million civilians dead and more than 4 million people displaced. The war also destroyed an estimated 500 churches in Southern Sudan.

In 2005, however, the two sides signed the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the war. The CPA called for a government of national unity to be formed for a transitional period of six years. After this time, the South could vote to be autonomous. Many analysts expect the south to vote for independence on January 9, 2011.

It is amid the desperate need for medical care after years of war that Mustard Seed International established the Akot Medical Mission in 2006. The clinic is literally in the middle of the brush – where there is not even a grocery store nearby – and provides the only medical care in the area.

“For us to build this facility was nothing short of a miracle,” says Deans, who noted the only building material on the site was the dirt. Every other material – from cement to nails – for the clinic was trucked or flown in from Kenya or Uganda.

“It is just a miracle that a facility like that can exist in the bush of South Sudan,” he remarks. “The people say it is the best facility in the whole country. But we have nothing to gauge that on because we have not been all over the country.”

In South Sudan, there is an average of one doctor per 100,000 people.

According to a report published by UNICEF in 2004, the infant mortality rate in South Sudan is 15 percent while the child mortality rate is 25 percent. About one in nine mothers die during pregnancy or childbirth and only five percent of births are attended by trained health care workers. The malnutrition rate, meanwhile, stands at 48 percent and severe malnutrition is over 21 percent. A U.N. official recently called South Sudan the hungriest place on earth.

Every year, the Akot Medical Mission provides direct medical attention to more than 30,000 people.

But Deans notes how very expensive it is to operate the clinic because of the transportation costs. He says it costs $10,000 to fly in $10,000-worth of medicine. MSI’s total budget for the South Sudan operation, however, is only $300,000. And for the past two years, the MSI board decided to shift funds to help the clinic stay open despite shortfall.

“We are a small organization,” says Deans, who became Mustard Seed International’s president in 2002 on the condition that all the staff work as volunteers. “We get it done. We don’t have the big publicity budget.”

Despite the constant financial struggle to keep the operation in “off-the-radar” South Sudan going, Deans says he finds his job “rewarding” and “good.”

“I’m working harder than I ever worked in my life running businesses,” he jokes.

Michelle A. Vu
Christian Post Reporter

Church of England Survey Finds Christianity For Young People a "Faded Memory'

click to read full story from ChristianPost.com

Tue, Oct. 05, 2010

Posted: 08:50 AM EDT

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LONDON – Most young people consider Christianity irrelevant to their lives but they are not as hostile towards religion as their parents’ generation, researchers in the Church of England have found.

The researchers surveyed 300 young people from Generation Y – those born after 1982 – who had attended a Christian youth or community project. The five-year study looked at their faith in relation to Christianity and the impact of Christian youth and community work on their faith development.

It found that young people were more likely to put their faith in friends, their family or themselves than in God.

Sylvia Collins-Mayo, a sociologist of religion and one of the researchers behind the study, said: “For the majority, religion and spirituality was irrelevant for day-to-day living; our young people were not looking for answers to ultimate questions and showed little sign of ‘pick and mix’ spirituality.”

She said that young people only sought a religious perspective on “rare occasions” and that when they did, they often "made do" with a “very faded, inherited cultural memory of Christianity in the absence of anything else.”

This tended to be in times of difficulty, for example, after suffering a bereavement or illness in the family.

“In this respect they would sometimes pray in their bedrooms,” she said. “What is salutary for the Church is that generally young people seemed quite content with this situation, happy to get by with what little they knew about the Christian faith.”

The findings suggested that while Christian youth projects were an important source of support for young Christians, they had little impact on the faith of the non-churchgoers who took part in them.

Among the infrequent churchgoers, 28 percent said belonging to a Christian youth group had made them think more about the purpose of life. Thirty per cent said it had made them think more about God, 26 percent about Jesus, and 54 percent about what was right and wrong.

Infrequent churchgoers tended to be uncertain about the nature of God, with 23 percent saying they believed God was someone they could know personally, 22 percent saying they believed in some sort of higher power or life force but not a personal God, and 12% saying that they did not think there was any sort of God, higher power or life force. Forty-three per cent said they did not know what to think about God.

“The Christian youth and community projects were an important source of Christian faith support for the minority of young people who were already actively involved in Church," Collins-Mayo said. “For the majority, however, the Christian dimension of the projects had little impact on them beyond keeping the plausibility of Christian belief and practices alive.”

The results of the study have been published in a new book, The Faith of Generation Y. Collins-Mayo said that while Generation Y is largely unfamiliar with formal religion, it still takes a keen interest in ethical issues.

“The young people drew moral guidance from family as friends, but they also recognized the potential of religion, including Christianity, to provide them with guidelines for living,” she said.

The researchers say that the common assumption that teenagers are alienated from their parents and hostile towards religion is a hangover from the Sixties and Seventies and no longer applicable to today’s young people.

The book states: “Generation Y have less cultural hang ups about the Church than did their predecessors … The challenge to the Church is to provide them with the opportunities to explore and to learn about a narrative of belief of which they know little.”

The Faith of Generation Y is joint authored by Sylvia Collins-Mayo, West London priest Bob Mayo, and the director of the Midlands Centre for Youth Ministry, Sally Nash.

Jenna Lyle
Christian Today Reporter

---

UK's Pundit Virginia Ironside Would Kill Children Who Suffer!

Artist Paints Jesus Christ In Pornographic Paintings Draws Protests

link to original story
LOVELAND, Colo. - The exhibit is the work of Stanford University Professor, Enrique Chaagoya, entitled "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals" and will run through the end of November. Some say the pictures of Jesus show him in 'oral sex' positions, which they find to be pornographic in nature.

"We don't think our savior should be put in those kind of poses," said Steven Gergory. "I love art, but this isn't art."

Deacon Ed Armijo of St. John's Catholic Church says he has seen the display and is appalled by the thought of Jesus Christ being put in this light.

"We think it is just porn," said Armijo. We will be out front of the museum Friday at 10:30 in the morning."

The work is part of a show that also played in Denver the first half of last year, and FOX31 News was told that there were no issues with the show. In Loveland, the City Council, which helps operate the Museum, voted this week to keep the show running.

Still, some think the picture of Christ is offensive.

Bud Shark, who is putting on the exhibit in the show entitled, "The Legend of Bud Shark and his Indelible Ink," is from Lyons and the show is selected works of various artists who have visited and created art, here in Colorado.
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JMC Ministries Response

Why is it ok to draw Jesus this way and they uphold that it is freedom of speech but when it's another religion they shut it down because they don't want to offend anyone?

This is a blat-tan attack on the Christian Faith and all it stands for because the bible says that homosexuality and Sodomy is a sin. They can say it is artistic expression but we know it is just pornographic smut. That attacks the beliefs of the Christian Faith.

We pray for this man that he will see the truth and that Jesus loves him and allow Jesus to come into his heart and start making art that will inspire people to help one another and reach out to help those in need like Jesus did.

North Carolina: Student Shot And Killed At Christian University

Click to read full story from wavy.com
ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. (WAVY) - Monday classes have been canceled at Mid-Atlantic Christian University in Elizabeth City, N.C., after a tragic shooting over the weekend. School officials say local ministers and counselors will be available throughout the day to help students grieve the loss of their classmate.

According to police, one student shot another inside a dorm room in Pearl Presley Hall Sunday afternoon. The student accused of the deadly shooting willingly surrendered himself to police, according to the university. He has not been charged with anything and is not in custody at this time though, according to Elizabeth City Police.

Officers responded to the call of a gunshot victim just before 1:00 p.m. in the 700 block of N. Poindexter Street. Upon arrival they discovered a male student with a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a police report. The victim has been identified as Jonathan Schipper, a sophomore at the university.

The last place students at Mid-Atlantic Christian University expected to see violence was at their own school.

"Violence is unacceptable wherever it happens," said Mid-Atlantic President Dr. Clay Perkins.

But Sunday, the small campus of just 180 students turned into a crime scene. School officials say a fight between two students became deadly.

"The mood is just shock," Dr. Perkins added. "There are lots of hugs and lots of tears. The university is in pain."

The campus was put on lockdown following the shooting. Crime scene tape wrapped around the residence hall as detectives and school officials looked for answers.

"The why questions are abundant at the moment," said Dr. Perkins. "I don't even have those answers."

The answers could help provide comfort for the student who are leaning on each other for support.

"We are a family," Dr. Perkins added. "This will affect us for years to come. This is an ugly incident that happened in a good place."

Travel Alert Issued For U.S Citizens In Fear Of Terrorists Attacks In Europe

Click to read full story from CNN
(CNN) -- The United States issued a general travel alert for Americans in Europe on Sunday amid concerns that al Qaeda or related groups plan attacks similar to the 2008 massacre in the Indian city of Mumbai.
"U.S. citizens should take every precaution to be aware of their surroundings and to adopt appropriate safety measures to protect themselves when traveling," the notice from the U.S. State Department said. "We continue to work closely with our European allies on the threat from international terrorism, including al Qaeda."

The advisory is not meant to tell Americans to avoid travel, but to take "common-sense precautions" in case of trouble, Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy told reporters Sunday.

"If they see unattended packages or hear loud noises or see something beginning to happen that they should quickly move away from them," he said. The warning urges them to be cautious in public places like tourist sites and airports or while riding public transportation, and Americans should know how to contact the U.S. Embassy and consider registering their travel plans there, he said.

In addition, thousands of U.S. troops based in Germany were placed under a curfew Friday night and were ordered not to wear their uniforms off base, according to an order obtained by CNN.

Kennedy said the State Department has issued travel alerts for Europe for "a variety of reasons" in the past, including the recent eruption of a volcano in Iceland that snarled air travel across the continent.

The State Department said worldwide travel alerts have been issued for U.S. citizens in the past, most recently in early September after the pastor of a small Florida church threatened to burn copies of the Quran, the Islamic holy book.

Previous alerts were issued after the 2004 al Qaeda bombings of commuter trains in Spain's capital Madrid and after the 2005 bombings of subway trains and buses in London, England.

Suicides Of Baby-Boomers Generation On The Rise

click to read full story from CNN

(CNN) -- "I hate him. I'm so mad. I love him. I miss him. I want him back," Christine Lopez's thoughts twisted and churned.

Questions swirled. A void swelled. And their 4-year-old son tugged at her, asking about Daddy.

Her husband committed suicide in 2007.

"It's not like he died in a traffic accident," she said. "All these thoughts were running through my head. I lost my future -- the man I was in love with, my son's father. Who do I blame?"

David Sklar, 43 and a part of the baby boomer generation, grappled with depression and chronic pain.

In the last 11 years, as more baby boomers entered midlife, the suicide rates in this age group have increased, according to an analysis in the September-October issue of the journal Public Health Reports.

The assumption was that "middle age was the most stable time of your life because you're married, you're settled, you had a job. Suicide rates are stable because their lives are stable," said Dr. Paula Clayton, the medical director for the American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide.

But this assumption may be shifting.

Dashed expectations, economic woes, depression or chronic medical problems -- these may be factors why the suicide rates for middle-aged Americans have increased.

Surveys of baby boomers have shown a tone of disappointment.

"So many expected to be in better health and expected to be better off than they are," said Julie Phillips, lead author of the study assessing recent changes in suicide rates. "Surveys suggest they had high expectations. Things haven't worked out that way in middle age."

Richard Croker, author of "The Boomer Century, 1946-2046: How America's Most Influential Generation Changed Everything," said, "From Dr. Spock to Annette Funicello, growing up in the '50s and '60s, we grew up thinking we were special. Somehow, we metamorphosed from peace, love and happiness to a me generation."

"We started accumulating wealth and began focusing on providing for ourselves and our families. That's what we did and now, we're beginning to look around. What's it all about?" he said. "Many of us are divorced. Our families are spread to the seven winds. We're disappointed."

Baby boomers (defined in the study as born between 1945 and 1964) are in a peculiar predicament.

"Historically, the elderly have had the highest rates of suicide," said Phillips, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University. "What is so striking about these figures is that starting in 2005, suicide rates among the middle aged [45-64 years of age] are the highest of all age groups."

The 45-54 age group had the highest suicide rate in 2006 and 2007, with 17.2 per 100,000. Meanwhile, suicide rates in adolescents and the elderly have begun to decline, she said.

"What's notable here is that the recent trend among boomers is opposite to what we see among other cohorts and that it's a reversal of a decades-long trend among the middle-aged," said Phillips, who along with Ellen Idler, a sociologist at Emory University, and two other authors used data from the National Vital Statistics System.

Baby boomers had higher rates of depression during their adolescence. One theory is that as they aged, this disposition followed them through the course of their lives.

"The age group as teenagers, it was identified they had higher rates of depression than people born 10 or 20 years earlier -- it's called a cohort effect," said Clayton, from the American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide, who read the study.

But none of these factors adequately explain why one individual commits suicide.

U.S Judge Asks Vatican To Serve Court Papers to Pope

click to read full story from Fox News

MILWAUKEE – A federal U.S. judge is asking the Vatican to cooperate in serving the pope and two other top officials with court papers that stem from decades-old allegations of sexual abuse by a priest in Wisconsin.

The request is an incremental step in a lawsuit that accuses the officials of conspiring to keep the allegations against the Milwaukee priest quiet. The Vatican is not obliged to comply with the request.

When faced with similar requests the Vatican has made service difficult, time-consuming and expensive by insisting, for example, that documentation be translated into Latin, one of the Vatican's official languages.

Mike Finnegan, the attorney representing the Chicago-based plaintiff, said Friday he's not holding out hope that the Vatican reverses course and begins to cooperate now.

"Based on what they've done in other cases, I don't expect them to do the right thing," he said. "I expect more delay and obstruction."

Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's U.S.-based attorney, said he hadn't seen the court request and couldn't comment on whether the Vatican would comply with it.

The lawsuit, filed in April in U.S. federal court, names as defendants Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI; Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, and his predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

It claims the three men knew about allegations of sexual abuse at a Milwaukee-area school for the deaf, and called off internal punishment of the accused priest. The Rev. Lawrence Murphy, who died in 1998, was accused of sexually abusing some 200 boys at the school from 1950 to 1974.

Lena has called the lawsuit a publicity stunt and said it rehashes theories already rejected by U.S. courts.

"This is a minor procedural step by plaintiff's lawyers in a meritless lawsuit," he said. He added that it refers to abuse that occurred in the 1970s, which he said was more than 20 years before the Holy See first learned of the priest's actions.

The Vatican has argued that it isn't liable for clerical sex-abuse cases because according to canon law and the structure of the Catholic Church, bishops — not Rome — are responsible for disciplining pedophile priests.

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JMC Ministries Response

If they are going to do this then shouldn't they be sending out court papers to the leaders of the Muslim world when there people have gone on trial for killing thousands? It just doesn't make since. It seems they are trying to put the entire Catholic Faith on trial. No matter what religion you may be, there will always be people who do evil things. Satan gets a hold of peoples minds and put horrible evil thoughts that he eats a way at them with until they cave in and act upon those temptations.

Do we think the Pope is personally connected with this, no we don't. Just as other leaders in the Christian Faith are not connected with what this Pastor In Florida who is being accused of sexual abuse and is on Trial for. People make their own choices in life.

We are sure the Pope knows what is going on and is informed of this trial but what good is it to try and place him on the stand other than to ask him if he knew anything about this and what did he try to do to rectify the situation.

It is horrible that Children are being abused by people of the Christian Faith, and we must pray for them that they turn from this evil behavior that destroys lives and scars people from even wanting to be a Christian and go to church. These kind of things are just giving people more and more excuses not to go to church. We must pray for the pastors, bishops, priests and all that are in leadership in churches. That they be the example of Christ and share His love.

We must also pray for the victims of the abusers. That they be comforted by the Holy Spirit and that God bring healing to their bodies, hearts and souls.

There has been too many of these kinds of stories popping up around the Country and World. As Christians and people of Faith we must watch and listen and pay attention in our churches if we think abuse is going on, say something before it get's to this level. Abuse needs to stop and only through the Love of Christ and his guidance can there really be an end to it.