My prayers continue to go out to all the Oklahoma tornado storm victims.
Hold onto your faith and belief in Chist Our Savior.
Amen
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
In Tornado’s Wake, Worried Parents Seek Out Kids
Prayers for the people of Moore, OK as they had endure such tragedy and devastation. With help by thy neighbor, a whole lot of faith, and belief in God above, each and every individual will rebuild
Monday, May 13, 2013
Praying For One Another. Lessons Taught In The Holy Scripture
As Bishop Williams often says, the army of Christ The Lord must continue to prayer for one another as we have been taught through the wisdom shared in the Holy Bible that God's Will included that we take care of one another.
Prayer and benevolance toward one another are the lessons shared. Here are a few quotes to remind us to prayer for one another.
God Bless Each Of You,
Marybeth
Prayer and benevolance toward one another are the lessons shared. Here are a few quotes to remind us to prayer for one another.
God Bless Each Of You,
Marybeth
Friday, May 10, 2013
Authorities say human-trafficking crimes happening ‘in our midst’
I read this article by Mr. Ed Meyers earlier and wanted to share it here. I am so alarmed at what happened back up north.
By Ed Meyer
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published: May 7, 2013 -
By Ed Meyer
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published: May 7, 2013 -
Human sex-trafficking crimes, many similar to the cases of the Cleveland women found alive Monday after disappearing as teens more than a decade ago, are occurring all around the area.
That was the main topic of a sobering speech U.S. Attorney Steven M. Dettelbach delivered less than a week ago at the City Club of Cleveland.
Juvenile trafficking in particular, for forced labor or “literally being raped for money,” occurs “in our midst” in communities throughout Northeast Ohio, he said.
“It’s down the street at a coffee shop. It’s at that hotel you drive by off the freeway exit where you live. It’s in your neighborhood nail parlor or some of the farms you drive by as you use our interstates,” Dettelbach said in his hourlong speech.
Although his federal agency, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, declined to make any distinct connection between teen trafficking and the extraordinary case involving Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight, the issue was brought to public attention by DeJesus’ mother.
In April 2004, Gina was 14 when she was last seen on her way home from Wilbur Wright Middle School near West 105th Street and Lorain Avenue in Cleveland.
Years later, after never giving up hope her daughter would be found alive, Nancy Ruiz told a Cleveland television crew in April 2012: “I always said it from the beginning: She was sold to the highest bidder.”
Dettelbach, who began his prosecution career in California in 1996, when he won convictions in a case involving 70 Thai women forced to live in “sub-human conditions” at a compound where they worked as seamstresses for no pay, told his audience Friday that the same kind of horrific conduct has happened here.
“It’s in downtown Cleveland. It’s in Willoughby Hills. It’s in North Olmsted. It’s in Mentor,” he said.
“And that’s not just conjecture or me picking on particular cities. That’s telling you the places where we discovered some of this conduct and cases we have already prosecuted.”
In a meeting in Akron last May with reporters and staff members of the Beacon Journal editorial pages, Dettelbach told a similarly chilling story of a trafficking crime that happened a block away from his office.
In December 2011, Eric Tutstone, 44, of Cleveland, was sent to prison for 11 years for trying to sell a 16-year-old girl into prostitution to a madam for the sum of $300.
The attempted sale, Dettelbach said, took place at a Starbucks coffee shop on West Sixth Street in Cleveland’s Warehouse District.
Court records showed the girl told an FBI agent investigating the case: “When I saw Eric take the money, I knew I had just been sold.”
In another “sex for sale” trafficking case, Dettelbach said in his Beacon Journal interview, a Toledo girl who disappeared as a runaway — at the same age as Gina DeJesus when she went missing — was rescued by authorities only two blocks from where she lived.
Michael Tobin, Dettelbach’s spokesman, said there are signs the public can look for to prevent trafficking crimes.
“In general, it’s when something doesn’t look right. It can happen in a restaurant or a local nail salon,” Tobin said, “when someone is not allowed to talk, or are being intimidated, or appear to be in fear.”
In Friday’s speech in Cleveland, Dettelbach used the stunning example of the Thai women who were kept in forced labor in a guarded compound. It was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence with the wire pointed inward, he said, “so that nobody could get out.”
Tobin urged anyone suspecting such illegal conduct to make the first call to the FBI: 216-522-1400 in the Cleveland area or 330-535-6156 in the Akron area.
That was the main topic of a sobering speech U.S. Attorney Steven M. Dettelbach delivered less than a week ago at the City Club of Cleveland.
Juvenile trafficking in particular, for forced labor or “literally being raped for money,” occurs “in our midst” in communities throughout Northeast Ohio, he said.
“It’s down the street at a coffee shop. It’s at that hotel you drive by off the freeway exit where you live. It’s in your neighborhood nail parlor or some of the farms you drive by as you use our interstates,” Dettelbach said in his hourlong speech.
Although his federal agency, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, declined to make any distinct connection between teen trafficking and the extraordinary case involving Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight, the issue was brought to public attention by DeJesus’ mother.
In April 2004, Gina was 14 when she was last seen on her way home from Wilbur Wright Middle School near West 105th Street and Lorain Avenue in Cleveland.
Years later, after never giving up hope her daughter would be found alive, Nancy Ruiz told a Cleveland television crew in April 2012: “I always said it from the beginning: She was sold to the highest bidder.”
Dettelbach, who began his prosecution career in California in 1996, when he won convictions in a case involving 70 Thai women forced to live in “sub-human conditions” at a compound where they worked as seamstresses for no pay, told his audience Friday that the same kind of horrific conduct has happened here.
“It’s in downtown Cleveland. It’s in Willoughby Hills. It’s in North Olmsted. It’s in Mentor,” he said.
“And that’s not just conjecture or me picking on particular cities. That’s telling you the places where we discovered some of this conduct and cases we have already prosecuted.”
In a meeting in Akron last May with reporters and staff members of the Beacon Journal editorial pages, Dettelbach told a similarly chilling story of a trafficking crime that happened a block away from his office.
In December 2011, Eric Tutstone, 44, of Cleveland, was sent to prison for 11 years for trying to sell a 16-year-old girl into prostitution to a madam for the sum of $300.
The attempted sale, Dettelbach said, took place at a Starbucks coffee shop on West Sixth Street in Cleveland’s Warehouse District.
Court records showed the girl told an FBI agent investigating the case: “When I saw Eric take the money, I knew I had just been sold.”
In another “sex for sale” trafficking case, Dettelbach said in his Beacon Journal interview, a Toledo girl who disappeared as a runaway — at the same age as Gina DeJesus when she went missing — was rescued by authorities only two blocks from where she lived.
Michael Tobin, Dettelbach’s spokesman, said there are signs the public can look for to prevent trafficking crimes.
“In general, it’s when something doesn’t look right. It can happen in a restaurant or a local nail salon,” Tobin said, “when someone is not allowed to talk, or are being intimidated, or appear to be in fear.”
In Friday’s speech in Cleveland, Dettelbach used the stunning example of the Thai women who were kept in forced labor in a guarded compound. It was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence with the wire pointed inward, he said, “so that nobody could get out.”
Tobin urged anyone suspecting such illegal conduct to make the first call to the FBI: 216-522-1400 in the Cleveland area or 330-535-6156 in the Akron area.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Is Texting Killing the English Language?
I'm such a old-school southern gal who still appreciates conversation ... I think texting has hindered us a society.
Texting has long been bemoaned as the downfall of the written word, “penmanship for illiterates,” as one critic called it. To which the proper response is LOL. Texting properly isn’t writing at all — it’s actually more akin to spoken language. And it’s a “spoken” language that is getting richer and more complex by the year.
First, some historical perspective. Writing was only invented 5,500 years ago, whereas language probably traces back at least 80,000 years. Thus talking came first; writing is just an artifice that came along later. As such, the first writing was based on the way people talk, with short sentences — think of the Old Testament. However, while talk is largely subconscious and rapid, writing is deliberate and slow. Over time, writers took advantage of this and started crafting tapeworm sentences such as this one, from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “The whole engagement lasted above 12 hours, till the gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the principal leaders and the Surenas himself.”
No one talks like that casually — or should. But it is natural to desire to do so for special occasions, and that’s what oratory is, like the grand-old kinds of speeches that William Jennings Bryan delivered. In the old days, we didn’t much write like talking because there was no mechanism to reproduce the speed of conversation. But texting and instant messaging do — and a revolution has begun. It involves the brute mechanics of writing, but in its economy, spontaneity and even vulgarity, texting is actually a new kind of talking. There is a virtual cult of concision and little interest in capitalization or punctuation. The argument that texting is “poor writing” is analogous, then, to one that the Rolling Stones is “bad music” because it doesn’t use violas. Texting is developing its own kind of grammar and conventions.
Texting is developing its own kind of grammar. Take LOL. It doesn’t actually mean “laughing out loud” in a literal sense anymore. LOL has evolved into something much subtler and sophisticated and is used even when nothing is remotely amusing. Jocelyn texts “Where have you been?” and Annabelle texts back “LOL at the library studying for two hours.” LOL signals basic empathy between texters, easing tension and creating a sense of equality. Instead of having a literal meaning, it does something — conveying an attitude — just like the -ed ending conveys past tense rather than “meaning” anything. LOL, of all things, is grammar.
Of course no one thinks about that consciously. But then most of communication operates below the radar. Over time, the meaning of a word or an expression drifts — meat used to mean any kind of food, silly used to mean, believe it or not, blessed.
Civilization, then, is fine — people banging away on their smartphones are fluently using a code separate from the one they use in actual writing, and there is no evidence that texting is ruining composition skills. Worldwide people speak differently from the way they write, and texting — quick, casual and only intended to be read once — is actually a way of talking with your fingers.
All indications are that America’s youth are doing it quite well. Texting, far from being a scourge, is a work in progress.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
A Nation In Need of A Pick-Me-Up: Our Need for Caffeine
I love my coffee and I often drink an energy drink (or two) in the afternoon. Should that be cause for health concern!?
How could the energy drinks, whose main ingredient is caffeine, be connected to the deaths? Andrea Giancoli, a registered dietitian and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, answer some questions worried consumers are asking about the beverages.
How does the body respond to caffeine?
“It’s a stimulant. It wakes you up. It makes you more alert. It is stimulating your nervous system,” says Giancoli. Giving the nervous system a jolt can lessen fatigue and sometimes improve mood. As heart rates go up, the body circulates more blood and can speed up the metabolism.
“It’s a stimulant. It wakes you up. It makes you more alert. It is stimulating your nervous system,” says Giancoli. Giving the nervous system a jolt can lessen fatigue and sometimes improve mood. As heart rates go up, the body circulates more blood and can speed up the metabolism.
What are some of the adverse effects of caffeine?
If you’re not used to the amount of caffeine you’re consuming, you can feel jittery. “You can get heart palpitations and feel agitated and nervous and like you’re bouncing off the walls,” says Giancoli. “You can feel your heart pounding very quickly, and your blood pressure goes up. Imagine if your body were undergoing this, times 10. It would land you in the emergency room. Your heart can only handle so much, and you are probably going to pass out.”
If you’re not used to the amount of caffeine you’re consuming, you can feel jittery. “You can get heart palpitations and feel agitated and nervous and like you’re bouncing off the walls,” says Giancoli. “You can feel your heart pounding very quickly, and your blood pressure goes up. Imagine if your body were undergoing this, times 10. It would land you in the emergency room. Your heart can only handle so much, and you are probably going to pass out.”
How much caffeine is too much?
“Typically we would say 300 to 500 mg is safe for most people — not that people need that much or want that much — it’s about three to five cups of coffee,” says Giancoli. “There are people who can drink much more than that. Some people can drink a whole pot of coffee a day and have no problem. Then you hear about people who cannot retain caffeine at all and have one cup, and they’re flying off the walls.” Giancoli says people can become accustomed to high amounts of caffeine over time, so the effect in enhancing alertness and improving energy may dwindle in heavy and frequent consumers compared with those who rarely drink caffeinated beverages.
“Typically we would say 300 to 500 mg is safe for most people — not that people need that much or want that much — it’s about three to five cups of coffee,” says Giancoli. “There are people who can drink much more than that. Some people can drink a whole pot of coffee a day and have no problem. Then you hear about people who cannot retain caffeine at all and have one cup, and they’re flying off the walls.” Giancoli says people can become accustomed to high amounts of caffeine over time, so the effect in enhancing alertness and improving energy may dwindle in heavy and frequent consumers compared with those who rarely drink caffeinated beverages.
Why are the amounts of caffeine in energy drinks unlabeled?
The FDA currently does not require caffeine amounts to be listed on food labels. Caffeine is not considered a nutrient and therefore only needs to be listed as an ingredient. The FDA does not regulate energy drinks because they are sold as dietary supplements. If the FDA did regulate them, most would have levels of caffeine higher than what the agency deems safe. The agency currently allows sodas to contain 71 mg of caffeine per 355 ml. According to the FDA, energy drinks contain from 160 to 500 mg of caffeine per serving. A recent Consumer Reports test of 27 best-selling energy drinks found that 11 do not list caffeine content, and among those that do, the tested amount was on average 20% higher than what’s listed.
The FDA currently does not require caffeine amounts to be listed on food labels. Caffeine is not considered a nutrient and therefore only needs to be listed as an ingredient. The FDA does not regulate energy drinks because they are sold as dietary supplements. If the FDA did regulate them, most would have levels of caffeine higher than what the agency deems safe. The agency currently allows sodas to contain 71 mg of caffeine per 355 ml. According to the FDA, energy drinks contain from 160 to 500 mg of caffeine per serving. A recent Consumer Reports test of 27 best-selling energy drinks found that 11 do not list caffeine content, and among those that do, the tested amount was on average 20% higher than what’s listed.
Is it possible to die from caffeine?
Overdoing caffeine alone is actually pretty difficult to do, says Jacobson. “It’s highly unlikely. Someone would really have to make an effort to consume 40 or so 200-mg caffeine tablets.”
Overdoing caffeine alone is actually pretty difficult to do, says Jacobson. “It’s highly unlikely. Someone would really have to make an effort to consume 40 or so 200-mg caffeine tablets.”
Is it only the caffeine found in energy drinks that are the main concern, or are other ingredients playing a role?
“There just hasn’t been enough studies done on the other ingredients,” says Giancoli. “The problem comes when there is a massive amount of caffeine. Some of these drinks are very concentrated with caffeine for a very small amount of liquid. It would be easy to drink many of these in a row.” She says some teenagers drink a large amount of high-energy beverages to get a buzz and also mix the drinks with alcohol. “It’s the excessive intake that we are concerned about,” says Giancoli. “There is a part of the population that has underlying heart conditions that cannot handle that amount of caffeine. We want to be really careful with that group of people. They would not do so well on that dose of caffeine. But if anybody has 40 cups of coffee you will be in trouble.”
“There just hasn’t been enough studies done on the other ingredients,” says Giancoli. “The problem comes when there is a massive amount of caffeine. Some of these drinks are very concentrated with caffeine for a very small amount of liquid. It would be easy to drink many of these in a row.” She says some teenagers drink a large amount of high-energy beverages to get a buzz and also mix the drinks with alcohol. “It’s the excessive intake that we are concerned about,” says Giancoli. “There is a part of the population that has underlying heart conditions that cannot handle that amount of caffeine. We want to be really careful with that group of people. They would not do so well on that dose of caffeine. But if anybody has 40 cups of coffee you will be in trouble.”
From a nutritional standpoint, should we be curbing our caffeine consumption?
“Not necessarily. People have been drinking these energy drinks for a long time now, and for much longer than other beverages that have caffeine in them, without harmful consequences. And in fact, there have been healthy consequences that have come out of research of regular coffee consumption,” says Giancoli. “Caffeine doesn’t necessarily need to be avoided, it’s these massive amounts that we are concerned about and particularly in kids when they’re trying to get buzzed. That’s when we really become worried.” For most people, caffeine in moderation is safe. Some sources of caffeine like coffee may also have additional health perks like lowering inflammation, which can contribute to heart disease, so safe amounts could be beneficial. “For coffee drinkers, the real issue we are concerned about is, Do you have trouble sleeping? If you do, maybe you do need to cut down on your caffeine. Are you agitated? Do you have stress that might be related to being jumpy from caffeine? If you do have symptoms that could be related to caffeine, then maybe you need to be tapering down. As far as avoiding it altogether, that’s not necessarily something we need to be doing if we can tolerate it. If we enjoy that cup of coffee there is no reason we shouldn’t drink it,” says Giancoli.
“Not necessarily. People have been drinking these energy drinks for a long time now, and for much longer than other beverages that have caffeine in them, without harmful consequences. And in fact, there have been healthy consequences that have come out of research of regular coffee consumption,” says Giancoli. “Caffeine doesn’t necessarily need to be avoided, it’s these massive amounts that we are concerned about and particularly in kids when they’re trying to get buzzed. That’s when we really become worried.” For most people, caffeine in moderation is safe. Some sources of caffeine like coffee may also have additional health perks like lowering inflammation, which can contribute to heart disease, so safe amounts could be beneficial. “For coffee drinkers, the real issue we are concerned about is, Do you have trouble sleeping? If you do, maybe you do need to cut down on your caffeine. Are you agitated? Do you have stress that might be related to being jumpy from caffeine? If you do have symptoms that could be related to caffeine, then maybe you need to be tapering down. As far as avoiding it altogether, that’s not necessarily something we need to be doing if we can tolerate it. If we enjoy that cup of coffee there is no reason we shouldn’t drink it,” says Giancoli.
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