Candlelight Vigil

3rd Street (front) Steps of the Pennsylvania
Capitol Building

Sunday, November 20th
4:30 - 6:00 pm

Come join us at the steps of the Pennsylvania Capitol Building for a candlelight event to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-transgender murder cases — has yet to be solved.

Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgender — that is, as a transsexual, crossdresser, or otherwise gender-variant — each was a victim of violence based on bias against transgender people.

We live in times more sensitive than ever to hatred based violence, especially since the events of September 11th. Yet even now, the deaths of those based on anti-transgender hatred or prejudice are largely ignored. Over the last decade, more than one person per month has died due to transgender-based hate or prejudice, regardless of any other factors in their lives. This trend shows no sign of abating.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance serves several purposes. It raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people, an action that current media doesn’t perform. Day of Remembrance publicly mourns and honors the lives of our brothers and sisters who might otherwise be forgotten. Through the vigil, we express love and respect for our people in the face of national indifference and hatred. Day of Remembrance reminds people that Transgender people are their sons, daughters, parents, friends and lovers. Day of Remembrance gives allies a chance to step forward with Transgender people and stand in vigil, memorializing those who’ve died by anti-transgender violence.

Apraxia of speech, also known as verbal apraxia or dyspraxia, is a speech disorder in which a child has trouble saying what he or she wants to say correctly and consistently.

Children with developmental apraxia of speech generally understand language much better than they are able to use words to express themselves.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a motor speech disorder. For reasons not yet fully understood, children with apraxia of speech have great difficulty planning and producing the precise, highly refined and specific series of movements of the tongue, lips, jaw and palate that are necessary for intelligible speech. Apraxia of speech is sometimes called verbal apraxia, developmental apraxia of speech, or verbal dyspraxia. No matter what name is used, the most important concept is the root word "praxis." Praxis means planned movement. To some degree or another, a child with the diagnosis of apraxia of speech has difficulty programming and planning speech movements. Apraxia of speech is a specific speech disorder.

The act of speech begins with an intention to communicate.  Next, an idea forms, outlining what the speaker wants to say.  The words for the desired message are put in the correct order, using the correct grammar.  Each of the words are comprised of a specific sequence of sounds (also called phonemes)and syllables that must be ordered together.  All of this information is translated from an idea and information about order of sounds into a series of highly coordinated motor movements of the lips, tongue, jaw, and soft palate.

The brain must tell the muscles of these “articulators” the exact order and timing of movements so that the words in the message are properly articulated. Finally, the muscles must work properly with enough strength and muscle tone to perform the movements needed for speech.

In typically developing speech, children make word attempts and get feedback from others and from their own internal systems regarding how “well” the words they produced matched the ones that they wanted to produce.  Children use this information the next time they attempt the words and essentially are able to “learn from experience.”  Usually once syllables and words are spoken repeatedly, the speech motor act becomes automatic.  Speech motor plans and programs are stored in the brain and can be accessed effortlessly when they are needed.  Children with apraxia of speech have difficulty in this aspect of speech.  It is believed that children with CAS may not be able to form or access speech motor plans and programs or that these plans and programs are faulty for some reason.

Many therapists believe that sign language is beneficial for children who have difficulty being understood. They often recommend that children attempt to say the words they are signing to practice making the necessary movements with their mouths.

People with more extreme cases of acquired apraxia may also benefit from sign language. Or they may use assistive electronic devices, including computers that can be used to produce words and sentences.

Very few studies have been done to determine the relative effectiveness of various treatment approaches for childhood apraxia of speech.

Where can I get more Information about Childhood Apraxia of Speech?

Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America (CASANA)
1151 Freeport Road, #243
Pittsburgh, PA 15238
E-mail helpdesk@apraxia-kids.org
Website: www.apraxia-kids.org

Birth Defect Research for Children, Inc. (BDRC)
930 Woodcock Road, Suite 225
Orlando, FL 32803
E-mail staff@birthdefects.org
Website: www.birthdefects.org

CHERAB Foundation
P.O. Box 8524
Port St. Lucie, FL 34952
E-mail help@cherab.org
Website: www.cherab.org
www.speechville.com 

If you love a good mystery and a touch of the supernatural, Anita Blake may just be a great book series for you.

Anita Blake may be small and young, but vampires call her the Executioner. Anita Blake is an Animator, who raises the dead for a living, as well as a Vampire Executioner and U.S. Marshal for the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team. She lives in St. Louis, were not only do wereanimals and vampires walk the streets, they have rights as citizens.

Necromancer: Anita is one of the most powerful animators operating commercially. She can raise zombies, sense the dead, raise vampires in daytime, sense vampires and lycanthropes, estimate their power level, the approximate age of vampires, has good night vision and can resist (at least partially) mental influence from vampires.

Combat Training: Anita has a black belt in Judo as of the first book. She works out regularly with her best friend Ronnie "to be able to out run the bad guys" when she needs to. She credits Edward for much of her training in weapons, primarily handguns and knives.

Supernatural Experience: Anita holds a bachelor's degree in preternatural biology and is a trained vampire executioner. She also has a well-worn two-semester background in comparative religion. These courses often told her useful tidbits about other cultures/mythologies, and throughout the series she learns vastly more about vampires, lycanthropes, and other preternatural creatures. RPIT relies on her for information about a wide variety of supernatural entities.

The Anita Blake series spans twenty novels so far. This is the complete list in chronological order. I do highly suggest reading the novels in order since the time-line for the story flows so closely from one book to the next.

1 Guilty Pleasures
2 The Laughing Corpse
3 Circus of the Damned
4 The Lunatic Cafe
5 Bloody Bones
6 The Killing Dance
7 Burnt Offerings
8 Blue Moon
9 Obsidian Butterfly
10 Narcissus In Chains
11 Cerulean Sins
12 Incubus Dreams
13 Micah
14 Danse Macabre
15 The Harlequin
16 Blood Noir
17 Skin Trade
18 Flirt
19 Bullet
20 Hit List

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/11/17/public-elementary-school-children-in-wichita-will-spend-thanksgiving-week-at-a-church/

Kansas elementary school.....

On Monday, the students will go to a local Christian church to prepare food for their Thanksgiving feast.

On Tuesday, they’ll spend the day in church where their feast will take place.

By the way, all of this is happening without parental consent. There were no permission slips. And the whole event is sponsored by the church and church volunteers.

What if there’s a Muslim mother who doesn’t want her child going to a Christian church? It doesn’t matter. What about the atheist parents who thought they put their kids in a public school to get away from shit like this? No one cares.

You know there would be an uproar if the kids were sent to a Hindu temple for this amount of time. FOX News Channel would be up in arms if they knew teachers were taking kids to a Mosque to hold a Thanksgiving feast.

For the same reasons, we should be concerned about this. Why is it incumbent on one parent to have to sound the alarms about this? Are any teachers or administrators trying to put a stop to this? If not, why not? We should all be horrified that these teachers in Wichita are more interested in bringing children to Jesus than doing their jobs.

You can read all about it at the link above.

What are your thoughts????

Balefire by Cate Tiernan

Clio Martin and Thais Allard are twins, separated at birth by their grandmother, Petra, to protect them from the questionable machinations of people within her own coven.  Thais goes with her father to live in Connecticut, while Clio remains with Petra in New Orleans.  But when they are 17, their father is killed in a mysterious accident, and Thais finds herself in the hands of strangers in a city she never thought she had any connection to.  Running into their twin the first day of school is the least of the surprises the girls face as they both discover their family's true history, one that goes back further than either of them ever imagined.

Thais soon learns that she and the twin she never knew come from a family of witches, that she possesses astonishing powers, and that she, along with Clio, has a key role in Balefire, the coven she was born into.
Fiery Clio is less than thrilled to have to share the spotlight, but the twins must learn to combine their powers in order to complete a rite that will transform their lives and the coven forever

Does the common good of Europe run against the interests of the people and how far are member countries of the Eurozone willing to sacrifice to remain united?

Torchwood: outside the government, beyond the police. Tracking down alien life on Earth, arming the human race against the future. The twenty-first century is when everything changes. And you gotta be ready.

The Torchwood Institute is the name of a secret organization set up to combat alien threats to the human race. Initially founded by Queen Victoria herself, Torchwood's head office was based in the Canary Wharf tower in London's docklands. However, a devastating alien attack [shown in the Doctor Who episode "Doomsday"] left virtually the entire staff dead, the organization without a leader, and the tiny Cardiff field office left to defend humanity on its own. Well, almost on its own...

Torchwood's small Cardiff office (known as 'The Hub') was established at the end of the 19th Century, on top of a rift in space and time. People, objects and creatures from across the Universe and from all periods of time often find themselves 'washed up' in Cardiff - and it's Torchwood's job to assess if they pose a threat to humanity, and to either capture or destroy them if they do or to take care of them if they don’t.

John Barrowman does a terrific job as Cap'n Jack Harkness, a man whose lived a life that won't allow him to die and has taught him a flexible sense of morality to match his flexible sense of sexuality. Cap'n Jack laughs, jokes, flirts and fights his way through one set after another of impossible circumstances, but a heart of gold beats beneath his suspendered chest. His team means everything to him and he'll give anything to protect them. The casting is excellent, rather than a stable of beautiful people, they have chosen actors that look, and thanks to good writing, behave, like real people.

The text reads:

Dear Evangelical Christians:

God here.

First, I do not exist. The concept of a 13,700,000,000 year old being, capable of creating the entire universe and its billions of galaxies, monitoring simultaneously the thoughts and actions of the 7 billion human beings on this planet is ludicrous. Grow a brain.

Second, if I did, I would have left you a book a little more consistent, timeless and independently verifiable than the collection of Iron Age Middle Eastern mythology you call the Bible. Hell, I bet you cannot tell me one thing about any of its authors, their credibility or their possible ulterior motives, yet you cite them for the most extraordinary of claims.

Thirdly, when I sent my “son” (whatever that means, given that I am god and do not mate) to Earth, he would have visited the Chinese, Japanese, Europeans, Russians, sub-Saharan Africans, Australian Aboriginals, Mongolians, Polynesians, Micronesians, Indonesians and native Americans, not just a few Jews. He would also have exhibited a knowledge of something outside of the Iron Age Middle East.

Fourthly, I would not spend my time hiding, refusing to give any tangible evidence of my existence, and then punish those who are smart enough to draw the natural conclusion that I do not exist by burning them forever. That would make no sense to me, given that I am the one who withheld evidence of my existence in the first place.

Fifth, I would not care who you do or how you “do it.” I really wouldn’t. This would be of no interest to me, given that I can create universes. Oh, the egos.

Sixth, I would have smited all evangelicals and fundamentalists long before this. You people drive me nuts. You are so small minded and yet you speak with such false authority. Many of you still believe in the talking snake nonsense from Genesis. I would kill all of you for that alone and burn you for an afternoon (burning forever is way too barbaric for me to even contemplate).

Seventh, the whole idea of members of one species on one planet surviving their own physical deaths to “be with me” is utter, mind-numbing nonsense. Grow up. You will die. Get over it. I did. Hell, at least you had a life. I never even existed in the first place.

Eighth, I do not read your minds, or “hear your prayers” as you euphemistically call it. There are 7 billion of you. Even if only 10% prayed once a day, that is 700,000,000 prayers. This works out at 8,000 prayers a second — every second of every day. Meanwhile I have to process the 100,000 of you who die every day between heaven and hell. Dwell on the sheer absurdity of that for a moment.

Finally, the only reason you even consider believing in me is because of where you were born. Had you been born in India, you would likely believe in the Hindu gods, if born in Tibet, you would be a Buddhist. Every culture that has ever existed has had its own god(s) and they always seem to favor that particular culture, its hopes, dreams and prejudices. What, do you think we all exist? If not, why only yours?

Look, let’s be honest with ourselves. There is no god. Believing in me was fine when you thought the World was young, flat and simple. Now we know how enormous, old and complex the Universe is.

Move on — get over me. I did.

God

This wasn't the way it was supposed to end for Joe Paterno.

I did a video on my thoughts about the firing of Joe Paterno. Feel free to listen to my thoughts and then tell me yours.