From NBCNews.com: Only one child made it out alive of a first-grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School last week — by fooling the gunman into thinking she was dead, the family’s pastor says. The little girl, who is 6½ years old but hasn’t otherwise been identified, “ran out of the school building covered in blood from head to toe, and the first words she said to her mom when she got outside was, ‘Mommy, I’m OK, but all of my friends are dead,'” the Rev. Jim Solomon, pastor of New Hope Community Church in Newtown, Conn., told ABC News in a report that aired Sunday. “Of those who were…
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Pres. Obama addresses mourners in Newtown
[Transcript below]
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“I am Adam Lanza’s Mother” interviewed on Today Show
If you haven’t read Liza Long’s essay dubbed “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” you need to. Long is the mother of a child with mental health issues, and she identifies with the tragedy in Newtown like few others can. She will be interviewed on “The Today Show” tomorrow morning. An excerpt from that interview was released earlier tonight (see above).
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President Obama’s tearful statement about CT shooting
[TRANSCRIPT] This afternoon, I spoke with Governor Malloy and FBI Director Mueller. I offered Governor Malloy my condolences on behalf of the nation and made it clear he will have every single resource that he needs to investigate this heinous crime, care for the victims, counsel their families. We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years. And each time I learn the news, I react not as a president, but as anybody else would as a parent. And that was especially true today. I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief that I do. The majority of those who…
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Google’s 2012 “Zeitgeist” Video
Zeitgeist is the German word for “spirit of the age.” Google tries to capture the Zeitgeist annually in a video montage of top search terms from the previous year. I really enjoyed the 2011 Zeitgeist video. This year’s is good as well. See above. Jefferson Bethke makes an appearance in this video at 2:22.
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A Curious Headline about Gay Marriage
Politico and George Washington University just released a poll showing that 40 percent of Americans favor gay marriage. The same poll also says that 30 percent support civil unions but not gay marriage, and 24 percent oppose any kind of legal recognition of gay unions.
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Supreme Court will hear gay marriage cases
The news is just breaking that the Supreme Court has decided to take up two gay marriage cases: the legal challenge to California’s Proposition 8 and a review of the Defense of Marriage Act. They will render a decision on this by June 2013, and the result could be every bit as momentous as Roe v. Wade was in 1973. That means that in less than a year laws banning gay marriage could be overturned in every state of the union. Or maybe not. It’s all in the balance now. Here’s the report from the Associated Press:
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Why aren’t we calling it the “royal fetus”?
As you have probably already heard, Kate Middleton is pregnant. Her offspring will be third in line for the British throne. The media have been abuzz with the news. In fact, I would say that they have been downright obsessive about it. With all this coverage, I just have one question. Why is it that I have yet to hear or read anyone refer to her unborn child as the “royal fetus”? Oh, I’m sure someone has used the term “fetus,” but it seems to me that the preferred term is “royal baby” or “child,” even though the Duchess of Cambridge is in the very early stages of pregnancy (e.g.,…
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Banning “Gay Conversion Therapy” in California
California has passed a law making “gay conversion therapy” illegal for persons under 18 years old. Two judges have ruled on the law this week, and they have come to opposite conclusions. Where do things stand now? A religious liberty organization called Liberty Counsel is filing an emergency appeal to stop the law before it goes into effect on January 1, 2013. Joe Carter has the rest of the story on this case, and I encourage you to read it. I want to highlight here Carter’s remarks about why the case is important. He writes:
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Mom Cares for Daughter in Coma for Nearly 40 Years
This story needs to be remembered. When Edwarda O’Bara was 16 years old, she slipped into a coma after a becoming sick from her diabetes medicine. Just before losing consciousness, Edwarda asked her mother not to leave her. And for nearly 40 years she never did. Edwarda’s mother and father cared for her. They read to her, played her music, made she was turned every two hours, bathed her, gave her insulin and provided nourishment through a feeding tube. Edwarda slipped into her coma in 1970. Her father and mother took care of her until 1976 when her father died. Her mother cared for her until 2008 when she died.…