Last week I blogged about a study released by Planned Parenthood’s research arm, the Guttmacher Institute. Abortion rates have dropped to their lowest point in 30 years, but black women are still overrepresented among the statistics. In 2004, black women aborted at five times the rate of white women.
Matt Jones, a student at Biola University, GodBlogCon sponsor, wrote and directed a short film called “Choices.” (Click on link or image to watch trailer on YouTube)
Matt’s goal is to get his film, released last year, into high school classrooms.
Along with films like “Choices,” there needs to be an emphasis on abstinence in so-called sex education programs in government schools. The first “it’s my body” choice a woman (or girl) has on the road to “unplanned” pregnancy is keeping her legs closed. If, after she chooses to open her legs and have sex, she ends up pregnant, she has more choices of the non-fatal variety. She can marry the father and create a stable, intact family, and raise the child. If she doesn’t want the baby, she can carry him to term and give him to a family who wants him and will love and take care of him.
Killing the child should never be an option.
Totally unrelated note: This week, I’m preparing to leave my temporary home in SC and move permanently to Southern California. I’m taking a brief break from updating this blog. Thanks again for all the well wishes and kind words about my decision to leave DC after 10 years (more backstory).
See you later.
by La Shawn on September 28, 2008
in Faith
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talked about the difficulty of following him. “Enter by the narrow gate,” he said, “for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
I’ve been a Christian for about 10 years, and last week I witnessed to a stranger, unsolicited, for the first time. The first time. I’ve explained to people what I believe and why I believe it when they’ve asked, but I’ve never initiated such a conversation.
I was talking to a man (an agnostic) at the Blog World Expo, and the conversation turned to religious beliefs. We talked about sin and judgment and forgiveness and salvation. To understand what he believed about these things, I asked a series of questions, listened to his answers, and explained what the Bible teaches. What bothered him about Christianity is its exclusivity.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus said. “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)
“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” (John 10:9)
We live in a country where it’s considered bad form to make statements about good and evil, and to declare a such thing as absolute truth. To make a judgment about what’s right or wrong is becoming taboo. Some are offended when we say Christ is the only way. “There are many roads to God. How can you say people of other religions are going to hell if they don’t follow your God?”
Actually, people are “going to hell” because they murdered or raped or lied, but the point is that Christ made these claims, and you can either believe him or not. There is no in-between. All this nonsense about Jesus being a great man or a good teacher is just that. Christ was exceedingly clear, and his statements were very simple. He spoke of two gates: wide and narrow. There’s no middle gate through which to walk. You can refuse his offer of forgiveness and face God’s wrath, or accept Christ, turn away from your sins, submit to him, and avoid his wrath.
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Back in this blog’s early days, I used to “live-blog” events like speeches and debates. Haven’t live-blogged in a long time. Why break the streak tonight?
I invite you to “live-comment” tonight’s presidential debate. Discuss the candidate’s answers, appearance, and anything else of relevance. Topics of interest to me: immigration (McCain voted for amnesty, so I don’t know what else I’m expecting from him – very disappointing selection), the war in Iraq and how to deal with global terrorism, and the developing Cold War, Part II.
TV-less? Watch it live at CNN.com beginning at 9 p.m. ET. Live-blogging at MM, and trackbackers probably will do the same. Live-blogging and chatting at Hot Air.
As always, thanks for reading and participating on my blog. 
Rest easy, everybody.
Update II (9/27): Unlike Kathleen Parker, whose article I quoted below, I don’t believe Sarah Palin should drop out of the race, as I’ve been falsely accused.
Thread closed. Discuss the presidential debate (and Sarah Palin, if you must) in this thread.
When this election is over, I think I’ll return to digital music tech blogging. Smaller readership, less interest, and fewer commenters (understatement), but less tense and much more fun. Politics makes people…
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So implied Congressman Alcee Hastings, an impeached former federal judge, to an audience of Jewish liberals yesterday.
According to CNN (also see this link), his exact words were (bad grammar included) “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks…If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention.”
I’m no Sarah Palin apologist, but what Hastings’s said was race-baitingly foul, obviously. I wonder if anyone called him on it or at the very least, asked what the heck he meant. If I’d been there…It’s a strange thing to say. People who exercise their right to carry a gun and who hunt animals are racist?
Imagine a white Republican saying something similar about a black liberal candidate. Mainstream media would cover it morning, noon, and night. There’d be widespread calls for an apology and/or resignation. But they’ll treat what Hastings said as a curious news item, forgotten by day’s end.
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by La Shawn on September 23, 2008
in Education
I’m a BIG fan of homeschooling, especially for Christians. Parents homeschool their kids for various reasons, but religion seems to be high on the list.
I think it’s a waste of time and resources to push for changes in the way government schools educate children. Don’t fight corruption and indoctrination. Get your kids out of there.
If you’re a homeschooling parent or considering homeschooling, check out This Old Schoolhouse magazine (see right sidebar and click on the ad). I recommend the magazine not only because it’s one of my advertisers; it’s a wonderful resource I’ve mentioned on the blog before. Other homeschooling resources:
Related posts:
If you’re a homeschool blogger or read homeschool blogs and other web sites, leave a comment with the name of the site and/or URL. Support homeschooling!
Overall, abortion rates have dropped to their lowest point since the Supreme Court legalized it in Roe v. Wade, according to a Guttmacher study.
As expected, blacks are still overrepresented among women who abort. Last I read, black women aborted at three times the rate of white women. In 2004, black women aborted at five times the rate of white women.
Download the 28-page Trends in the Characteristics of Women Obtaining Abortions, 1974 to 2004 in PDF.
To what can we attribute these disproportionate rates of child killing? “Poverty” is an oft-cited factor. I’d add “ignorance,” “apathy,” and “plain old immoral” to the list. The cure for one is education; the cure for the others is a shift in values. Before I’m accused of race baiting, the reasons I believe women abort apply to all women, regardless of race. But we’re still left with why black women kill their babies at a disproportionately higher rate.
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Race, race, race. Can’t get away from it.
By now you’ve heard about a new AP-Yahoo News online poll that shows blacks and whites hold different views on race. Newsflash, right?
Generally speaking, blacks and whites don’t agree on how much racial prejudice exists and who’s to blame for such perceptions, and it didn’t take a poll to determine that. Fifty-seven percent of blacks said “a lot” of racial discrimination exists, and only 10 percent of whites said the same. A third of whites said “most” racial tension is caused by blacks, and only three percent of blacks said the same.
It would be helpful to know how individuals define prejudice and discrimination. The two aren’t wrong per se. We prejudge and discriminate all the time, as well we should. People my age and under have a twisted view of racism. Jim Crow was racism; jailing black men, who commit a disproportionate number of crimes, at higher rates is not.
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I was told there’d be a road of yellow bricks.
I spent the night in Las Vegas’s airport in July because of a weather-related canceled late night flight. Quite unpleasant. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again!
(According to rumor, the flight crew had exceeded its in-the-air hours, but the airline blamed the weather. Airline’s fault = free hotel stay. Weather’s fault = sleeping on grody airport chairs or paying for your own expensive near-the-airport hotel room.)
Rest easy, everybody.
Tom Tancredo is the only Republican in Congress who takes a consistent and unequivocal hard line against illegal immigration.
I gladly would have voted for this pro-immigration enforcement, pro-life opponent of homosexual “marriage” for president, but he’s too conservative for the Republican party. I have a better chance of marrying Denzel Washington than Tancredo has of becoming president of the United States. Ever.
At the Republican presidential debate last year, Tancredo debunked the “rounding up millions” myth. “We can’t round up millions of illegal aliens,” detractors say. We don’t have to, says Tancredo. Merely enforcing immigration laws would reduce illegal immigration.
That assertion has been proven correct over and over, as state and local governments take up the federal government’s slack and pass laws and ordinances that reduce economic incentives for illegal aliens and deter businesses from hiring them. These laws also give local law enforcement authority to question immigration status.
It happened in Northern Virginia and other localities. Local businesses are “suffering” because of the shortage of cheap labor, and there’s a noticeable decrease in hispanic students in schools. Illegal aliens, fearful of being asked immigration status, are packing up and going back to their home countries or moving to sanctuary cities and states.
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Wednesday, September 17: Forgot to mention this. The other day, I listened to a caller on Dr. Laura’s radio show pregnant with a baby diagnosed with a heart defect. The baby likely will be stillborn, she was told, or will die shortly after birth. Specialists offer no hope. The woman and her husband have decided to carry the baby to term.
As heartbreaking as it will be to lose that baby, they want to give their child a chance at life. You never know what can happen. The defect may turn out to be non-fatal after all.
Dr. Laura shared a story about a previous caller pregnant with a child doctors said would die shortly after birth. One doctor suggested she kill…pardon me…abort the baby. A couple years later (or was it a year?), the woman brought her healthy child to the same doctor and said something like, “I wanted you to meet the child you said I should abort.”
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Update: Believers for Barack. I just don’t see it.
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On the morning of November 5, 2008, some of us will be disappointed and others pleased. I voted for the first time at age 25. I pulled the lever for Bill Clinton in 1992 and again in 1996. I escaped leftism and voted for George Bush in 2000 and again in 2004.
When it comes to presidential elections, I’ve always been on the winning side. I’ve never had the dreaded feeling of waking up the day after an election and being bitterly disappointed. I hope the streak continues. 
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I know I’ve said and written that it doesn’t matter to me who’s in the White House. Hey, frustration makes say such things. Of course it matters. America won’t fall apart if Barack Obama is elected president.
But it will become less like the place I know and love.
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Caught…
…wearing the same shirt in two posts. Couldn’t you just die?
“Girl, is that a hickey on your arm?”
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by La Shawn on September 12, 2008
in General
Update (9/15): Hmmm…maybe I should rethink this living-in-Britain idea. So sad, the decline of Britain. And yes, I do think the adoption of sharia in any Western country indicates a decline.
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I remember how angry I was on September 11, 2001.
When I realized we’d been attacked by Islamic terrorists, I wanted the U.S. to do something strong and quick like leveling all countries that were helping Osama bin Laden elude capture and hunting down and locking up people with even the remotest connection to Al-Qaeda until they started talking. I wanted to see heads rolling, literally.
My anger has abated after seven years, naturally, but I still think we should have responded much more aggressively.
I urge you to think about the consequences of and real meaning behind September 11, 2001. It was not a random event perpetrated by lone-nut type fanatics who hate America. It was and is a defining moment in Muslims’ desire to destroy our way of life. It was an affront to Western civilization, and we’ve got to fight it with everything we’ve got. Forget weak “surges” and sending our men and women to fight a rag-tag bunch of thugs. Bomb them out, smoke them out, hold public executions — whatever it takes.
(I received an advance copy of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization. I haven’t started reading it yet, but with section headers like, “Beauty is not merely in the eye of the beholder,” “Knowing God yields science,” “How Christians elevated culture,” and “Islam v. Civilization,” I can’t wait to dive in. On the cover: “Warning: Contains Moses, Plato, Jesus, and Shakespeare. Contents May Be Offensive.” Too cool.)
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