Charlie Gard, Rest in Peace . . .Pray for Alfie Evans – The UK’s Next Victim?
Like many in the world today, we are still reeling at the heartless treatment of little Charlie Gard. Another child’s name may soon become a household name and elicit the prayers from Christian people around the world. Fourteen-month old Alphie Evans is in a Liverpool hospital in England, on life support, and has doctors strongly advising his life support be removed. To his parents objections, they suggest they get a lawyer. These parents also want to take their little boy to America for treatment. Given how the doctors in the UK seem to view the ‘do no harm’ of their medical vows, do we have to wonder how this case is going to turn out?
You have to wonder, what do these doctors really care? The parents are more than happy to transfer their son to another medical facility yet the doctors appeal to the courts to insure an outcome for Alphie the same as Charlie. Are they ashamed they couldn’t help the little boy? Is their pride at stake? You would think that at this point when they obviously are not helping the child, they would be more than happy to have another doctor possibly find a remedy and rejoice with the family if it does help. Nope, they take away the rights of the parents, get the courts involved and another little life is blotted out.
Are Vaccine Preventable Diseases Really That Serious?
Nothing lights up the argument channel than a difference of view on the vaccination issue! I’ve actually lost friends because they couldn’t give me enough solid information to make me even consider not providing my children with all the available help in the world. Unfortunately, few people will bother to read the article or take into serious consideration the documented facts included.
There is a complacency in the anti-vaxx people of that world that childhood diseases are not really that bad and certainly don’t need the ‘dangers’ involved with vaccinations to stop them from happening. The article:
https://www.verywell.com/anti-vaccine-myths-and-misinformation-2633730
should put a lot of these fears and misconceptions to rest . . . but it probably won’t until one of the seriously anti-vaxx people have a child who is seriously impacted by catching one of these ‘minor’ diseases. The following excerpt from the article shows exactly how much impact the pre-vaccination years were in the world.
Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Aren’t Really That Serious
This is one of the more dangerous ideas of the anti-vaccine movement.
The only reason that they get away with it is because vaccines have done such a good job! Since vaccines have eliminated and reduced most vaccine-preventable diseases, few people actually remember just how devastating these life-threatening diseases can be.
It is important to remember that in the pre-vaccine era:
there were regular outbreaks of polio in the United States causing 13,000 to 20,000 cases of paralytic poliomyelitis each year and about 1,000 deaths. In even larger polio epidemics in the 1940s and 1950s, there were up to 3,145 deaths.
there were about 500,000 cases of measles in the United States, with at least 500 to 1,000 deaths and 500 cases of measles encephalitis. As late as 1989-1991, there were 55,622 cases and 123 deaths in the US.
there were up to 200,000 cases of diphtheria and 15,000 deaths each year.
the Haemophilus influenzae type b bacteria caused life-threatening infections, including meningitis, epiglottitis, and pneumonia, in up to 20,000 young children each year. Many were infants, and up to 5 percent died. Among those who survived their Hib infection, up to 30 percent had hearing impairment or neurologic complications.
there were about 270,000 cases of pertussis and 10,000 deaths each year in the United States.
20,000 babies were born with congenital rubella syndrome during a severe epidemic of rubella in 1964 (12.5 million cases). An additional 2,100 newborns died and there were at least 11,250 surgical and spontaneous abortions in women with rubella while pregnant. The 1964 rubella epidemic is thought to have affected at least 1 percent of all pregnancies. These severe rubella epidemics were thought to have occurred every six to nine years, with smaller epidemics in two to four-year cycles.
Even today, about 200,000 children die each year from pertussis, and at least 122,000 die from measles around the world.
Vaccine-preventable diseases are clearly serious. We should also not overlook the fact that they would be just as deadly today if we stopped vaccinating our children and allowed them to come back in the United States.
How To Counter a ‘Peaceful Religion’
Telling It Like It Is!
The Seamy Side of Easter!
I’ve participated or observed a lot of Easter Egg hunts in my life and can’t say that I’ve ever come away with a particularly good memory of any of them. The public or even church-sponsored Easter Egg hunts seem to turn into a survival of the fittest with many parents helping with the pushing and grabbing of eggs for their darlings.
When I was growing up, the first year our parish was completed and up and running, the pastor decided to have an Easter Egg hunt behind the church in the large grassy area of property. There was to be a hunt after each Mass with volunteers happily replenishing the eggs during the next Mass. Seems that even though we were quite rural, word got out and many neighbor children raided the grassy fields and the usual prejudice they usually had against us ‘encroaching Catholics’ didn’t mar the desire for ‘Catholic’ goodies set out for the parish children. Even with chasing off the interlopers, the onslaught of children from Mass disregarded blessings recently received there and laid siege to the field. There wasn’t another such event ever in the church after that.
Fast forward to when I had my own children: There was an Easter Egg hunt at our parish at the time, the first ever! My children were under five years old and very excited. The parish thought they had it figured out and set aside a lawn for the under five set with plenty of eggs in plain sight. Their flaw in the theory? When they sounded the beginning of the hunt, the older children ran across this area on their way to their hunting grounds . . . scooping up eggs as they went leaving the little ones standing in a harvested patch of grass, empty baskets in hand. I don’t think that parish ever hosted one again. And, yes, aggressive parents raced around with their children ‘helping’ them find the eggs. Something wrong with an event when children near shaving age have an overflowing bucket of eggs. It makes one wonder why people would fight so hard for hard-boiled eggs?
I recently read that a fire department in the US decided to cancel their plans for an annual Easter Egg hunt because the cost of possible lawsuits would be expensive. Again, the parents were the reason as they had had incidents of parents helping to push aside other children in order for their own ‘darlings’ to grab the most and best of any finds.
It must be something in the air once the world ‘Easter Egg Hunt’ is said out loud. I had a small family gathering, years ago, and thought that I could oversee a fun, safe, and Christian Easter Egg Hunt. I carefully schooled my children in being fair and charitable and not be greedy as they had already received generous baskets earlier in the morning from the Easter Bunny. Relatives arrived and the slightly older cousin whose mother bragged about being a near-saint in the making, pushed aside everyone ready to hunt, gathered up treats by the handful and had a great blocking mode to keep anyone else from getting anything. I guess you can say the kid won the event as he was the only one who got any treats. Guess who else never hosted an Easter Egg Hunt ever again?
Say to think that the ‘helpful’ parents at these events only provided them children with momentary treats while raising parents who would probably act the same way when they had their own children.
Smiles From the Internet . . .
A Sunday school teacher asked her class, “What was Jesus’ mother’s name?” One child answered, “Mary.”
The teacher then asked, “Who knows what Jesus’ father’s name was?” A little kid said, “Verge.”
Confused, the teacher asked, “Where did you get that?”
The kid said, “Well, you know, they are always talking about Verge ‘n Mary.”
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A little boy was overheard praying: “Lord, if you can’t make me a better boy, don’t worry about it. I’m having a real good time like I am.”
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After the christening of his baby brother in church, Jason sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, “That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you.”
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I had been teaching my three-year old daughter, Caitlin, the Lord’s Prayer for several evenings at bedtime. She would repeat after me the lines from the prayer. Finally, she decided to go solo. I listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer: “Lead us not into temptation,” she prayed, “but deliver us from E-mail.
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One particular four-year-old prayed, “And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.”
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A Sunday school teacher asked her children as they were on the way to church service, “And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?” One bright little girl replied, “Because people are sleeping.”
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Six-year-old Angie and her four-year-old brother, Joel, were sitting together in church. Joel giggled, sang, and talked out loud. Finally, his big sister had had enough.
“You’re not supposed to talk out loud in church.”
“Why? Who’s going to stop me?” Joel asked.
Angie pointed to the back of the church and said, “See those two men standing by the door?
They’re hushers.”
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A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin 5, and Ryan 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. “If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, ‘Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.’
Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, “Ryan, you be Jesus!”
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A father was at the beach with his children when the four-year-old son ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and led him to the shore where a seagull lay dead in the sand.
“Daddy, what happened to him?” the son asked.
“He died and went to Heaven,” the Dad replied.
The boy thought a moment and then said, “Did God throw him back down?”
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A wife invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, “Would you like to say the blessing?”
“I wouldn’t know what to say,” the girl replied.
“Just say what you hear Mommy say,” the wife answered.
The daughter bowed her head and said, “Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?”
Being Sneaky in the Kitchen!
When the children were younger, they had limited tastes when it came to dinner. If it wasn’t fried, pasta, or pizza there would be exaggerated sighs of resignation as they moved their food about the plate in interesting but uneaten patterns. I recognized a declaration of war and began arming myself through the meals I cooked. Meatloaf, which for some reason they would eat now included finely ground carrots which were browned a bit with the also finely chopped onions. No complaints and no reality checks from the peanut gallery.
The seasoned tomato sauce for the pizza had steamed and pureed carrots and green beans in it. Blended with the tomato sauce, the opposing dinner forces never caught on. Initially, I had finely chopped and steamed carrots but a slightly larger bit of carrot caught the attention of one of the dinner-time police and I had to retreat and rethink strategy.
Spaghetti was the number-one favorite among my panel of judges. When I made a meaty tomato sauce, I would get a can of pinto bean, drain, rinse, and them puree them with some broth and add that to the sauce. The sauce would be creamy, meaty, and rapidly devoured by the family.
Have I shared these tips with my now older children? No, because, someday, they will have to deal with little versions of themselves and I think they should enjoy all the splendor of that period in their lives.
Crazy Quilts, Catholics & Cookies 