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I have been keeping my lips shut on an issue burning inside of me. Normally when injustice boils my blood I can do nothing but shout it from the proverbial rooftops. But this… this has been so hard to digest.

I’m not sure why I have been clueless. After I learned of it, I brought it up on seperate occasions to both my father and brother and they both knew about it. I can not fathom why this isn’t on MSM (main stream media) and why there isn’t total OUTCRY about it! Please Media don’t tell me for the one MILLIONTH time what Paris Hilton is up to and not report what may possibly be one of the biggest human rights violations of our time!

It isn’t bad enough that China forces abortions on women about to give birth. And repetitively commits religious persecution by imprisoning people for their faith. But what do they do with these prisoners???

THEY FREAKING HARVEST THEIR ORGANS TO MAKE MONEY FROM RICH FORIEGNERS DESPERATE TO LIVE!

This has been on my mind for awhile now, unable to imagine the depths of depravity one must be in to be able to kill a person, even 5 people at times, for the possibility of finding 1 kidney for well funded person.

Of course, China denies this. Hard proof of the practice is difficult to find, but I have been reading incredible research on the topic and believe there is more than enough convincing evidence This Report on Organ Harvesting takes an investment of time to read… but if this issue breaks your heart the way it has mine you need to schedule the time and read it.

I have not been able to figure out how to sum up my thoughts on the process, or how to appropriately compile talking points from the report… I have not attempted discussing it on Mommyzabs previously. I wanted to do this topic justice. But all I can do now is pray and beg people to listen, even if my writing can appropriately reflect the urgency. My influence in this world is completely minute. However, I’m compelled to do whatever I can.

I’m not typically a boycotter. Mostly because Christians seem to take boycotting to a ridiculous extreme. It takes A LOT to make me boycott. I’m just not sure I can give another penny to support China knowingly. The more I talk to others, the more insight I gain… the more I have to speak with my money. Sometimes it is the only language people listen too.

My Boycott won’t be able to be 100%. Sometimes it just is not feasible (like when my child gets a McD’s kids meal with his friends and there is a made in China toy with it, It is hard to tell a 3 year old they can’t have it when all their kids have their kids meal toys at the table…) But I have already begun looking at labels on everything and staying away from China.

On that tangent… since boycotting China makes it quite difficult to buy toys for your children, I found a helpful link for finding products (including toys and toy brands) that are not made in China.

I am going to publish the following article in my blog in full and I do hope that isn’t inappropriate. I want you to read it as it is a better summation than I can do. Please do take the time to read the Full Report. There is more information than could ever justly be summarized.

Organs harvested from live prisoners
Allison Hanes, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, May 18, 2007

TORONTO — Foreign patients who travel to China for transplants are likely receiving organs culled from political prisoners who are alive when their corneas, kidneys and livers are harvested, then left to die, an international group of doctors armed with a chilling Canadian report is warning.

In a new twist on an old practice of using organs from executed criminals, China has since 2000 turned to living donors and outlawed Falun Gong members to supply a growing trade in medical transplants, Doctors Against Organ Harvesting said Thursday during a public forum held at the University of Toronto.

With increasing numbers of Canadians on long waiting lists turning to China to save their own lives, the newly formed organization is seeking to warn patients that someone else’s life is likely being sacrificed in the process of obtaining organs.

“Each person who travels to China for an organ causes the death of another human,” said Dr. Torsten Trey, a Washington, D.C.-based physician and founding member of Doctors Against Organ Harvesting.

The group is sounding the alarm in the medical community about mounting evidence of unethical transplants in China. They want doctors to impress the information upon their patients. They want hospitals and universities to close their doors to visiting Chinese physicians and scholars looking to hone their techniques. And they want medical journals to reject research on transplants conducted in China.

“Medical science cannot build up any knowledge which is based on inhuman and unethical procedures,” said Trey, who compared China’s pilfering of organs from Falun Gong practitioners to Nazi medical experimentation during the Holocaust.

Doctors Against Organ Harvesting was formed in the wake of a Canadian investigation first released last year.

Authored by former Liberal MP David Kilgour and Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas, the report claims there is a widespread and systematic policy in China of selling organs from living donors to a growing clientele of desperate patients.

Kilgour said Thursday it is clear Falun Gong members are being targeted over other ethnic groups and religions, as a part of a campaign to villainize their spiritual practice since it fell out of favour with the government in 2000.

The report’s conclusions were drawn from interviews with a handful of eyewitnesses from the medical side, recipients of organs harvested in China, official government pronouncements, statistics showing a sudden explosion in the number of transplants performed, marketing Web sites and undercover inquiries to hospital.

In one instance, an Asian patient recounted that after rifling through a list of potential donors, a military doctor departed and returned to the hospital several times, bringing back a total of eight different kidneys before finally settling on a match.

In another, a sick patient found out one day he needed a transplant and had an organ within 24 hours.

Web sites market transplants in China in five different languages and in some cases guarantee availability of a matching organ within two weeks. The average wait time for a kidney in Canada is 32.5 months, while in British Columbia it is 52.5 months.

In surreptitious phone calls to Chinese transplant hospitals by Mandarin-speaking investigators, medical staff admitted organs came from Falun Gong prisoners.

While he is sympathetic to the plight of ailing Canadians who wait years for a transplant and face the prospect of dying before a match comes along, Kilgour said patients and doctors cannot turn a blind eye.

“Medicine cannot be practised by killing innocent people like chickens,” he said.

Gerry Koffman, a Toronto general practitioner and member of Doctors Against Organ Harvesting, said there are about 100 confirmed cases of Canadian patients from Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver having transplants done in China.

original report from Leader-Post (Regina)
(hat tip: ChinaView)

I wrote the author of the China View Blog a couple times to gain further perspective on what we can do. He is busy but has been very helpful. His 2 pieces of advice on what to do were the following:

A. as an individual, for our safety reason, buy as less Chinese products as we can. The bottom line is do not make our own life difficult, if the Chinese product is the only choice.

B. Urge/push the government/trade companies take action to boycott
until the situation is changed. Government action is the most effective way,
because for business companies profit is always their first choice and
they seldom really care about human rights.

To make it happen, we need to raise awareness and educate the officals,
NGOs, trade companies,etc, by make appointment/writing letter/email/fax,
and also the most important thing we are doing now, blogging.

I would like to add… If boycotting China gained enough buzz… like THE ONE campaign has, I do think it could be possible to effect the commerce world. If awareness was raised to the point that people were boycotting en masse and deciding to live with less in order to come against China’s human rights violations, some businesses would take the hint.

You may think, “this republican has fallen off her rocker” But realize that I serve Jesus Christ before any political party. And though Republicans have more the reputation of ruthless capitalists, and though I do believe capitalism is the less of evils in economic systems, ethics are not to be forsaken. We must always respect human life because God created it. Innocents must always be protected. Always.

PLEASE bookmark the China View Blog and stay up to date on the CONSTANT human rights violations by the Chinese government. We as a nation have got to stop turning a blind eye toward what they are doing.

From my Quiet time this morning, this passage on the tongue never fails to be a challange for me:

James 3:5-10

The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, its the whole course in one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by human beings, but no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters this should not be.”

I know that I have come a long way in this area… but I am quite certain there will be room for improvement the rest of my days on earth. Often, I come home from an event, or social setting where I vividly remember comments I have made that should have been thought about before they left my mouth.

I’m a talker, I love to talk, communicate. In fact this blog, is really helpful in my attempt to get out words during the day It has also been helpful in teaching me the discipline of sitting on my words a bit. Writing them, editing them, reconsidering them, and waiting for the appropriate time to air them. There was a time my blog was not written that way. I would often rant or throw words out whenever with little consideration given to their appropriatness. Few people read back then. These days I try to consider them longer.

This has helped me in my flesh and blood (non-cyber) life as well. I do have a long way to go, but I’m learning. I often have to pray for the conviction of God on my words… otherwise, I find them flying out, having no realization of their effect. Often if I give myself time to pause in speaking, a moment of consideration, I am better able to guard my tongue. It is when I feel a subconscious race to get it out that I find myself in the most trouble. Also, when I speak to fill air I often look back and see meaninglessness and boredom in my speech.

Thank God that when he shows us how greatly an area of our lives needs to be refined, he always provides the ability to change.

Tuesday morning our grass and flower beds were being edged… they hit our cable line… sliced it clear through. So we have been without phone, cable, and internet…. So I apologize for starting a big ole home school discussion then falling off the face of the earth. I came back to way too many emails for a non-work-world girl. And many comments that had to be approved to be posted. If you are wondering why yours didn’t show for awhile… that is why. I’m back though and trying to catch up when I should be sleeping!

Tomorrow I will read through more of the amazingly thorough feedback you left me on home-schooling and either comment or email back! I will also go and read all the links to the posts linked to from this post.

Did any of that make sense… I’m totally throwing this post out fast just to explain where I have been, no edit…. which leads me to posting what I wrote just before my internet crashed. And I’m totally not following my own rules in this post Give me grace on this one

I know, I know. My childern are only 3 and 1, but I’m already giving serious thought (& prayer) to their future schooling. We have many options in this area… and we also have a state that is extremely encouraging of HS’ing, while interferring very little in your choice of curriculum.

My sister-in law, who will hopefully comment Home-schools and my Aunt as well. I have 100 THOUSAND (exaggerated for dramatic effect!) fears about my abilities to home-school. What if me attempting to home-school would just be a journey toward a large trainwreck?

I have so many questions! I decided this would be the best place to ask them. Please, if you know someone who would want to contribute to this survey, ask them to come comment with their answers. I may not be the only one out there wondering about this, and the more feedback the better! We can learn from your personal experience.

Here goes:

1. Did you always know you would home-school?

2. What led you to the decision to home-school?

3. What age were your children when you decided to take the home-school plunge?

4. Did you have any fears? What were they? Were they realized?

5. Do you know a lot of other home-schoolers in your real-life community? (cyberworld does not count for this question!)
6. If you could name one thing that inspired you most to home-school, what was it?

7. How do you choose your curriculum?

8. Are some of your children easier to home-school than the others?

9. Lastly. Do you feel anyone is capeable of home-schooling? And do you feel every child is capeable of home-schooling? What would be an exception?

Also- if anyone else is considering this and has any other questions feel free to add them!

Thanks so much! (in advance)

Days at the pool, nights on the patio, dinners outside, parks, zoos, car-trips, family, sunshine, bike-rides, long-walks, less TV, flowers, trees, red cheeks, highlights, swingsets, driveway play-time, basketball hoops, beaches, long days, BBQ, sidewalk chalk, spinklers, water fights, blowing bubbles, laying out, pony-tails, naked face, endless smiles on my childrens’ faces, boating, popcicles, ice cream sandwiches, cook-outs, laughter, fresh-cut lawn, lush green grass, flip flops, tank tops….

What words resonate summer to you?

In honor of my official “summer is launching” weekend (yes, this is a holiday in my very own mind) I played with imovie and tried to make a little slide show. I have a lot to learn. I have already spent two times as much time on this as I really budgeted for tonight, oh well.

I wish the picture quality transferred better, and I wish I knew how to do a lot more… but It’s always fun to post your first try and laugh at it a year or two later when you are so much better at it Anyway, Laugh, Enjoy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeDLaS0OKhE]

in other news… the boys seem to really be either loving eachother physcially or beating each other physically at all times. Fortunately, I was able to catch a couple of the loving time on camera. I almost missed it. I was cleaning up, JJ was on his computer, and just several feet away they were doing this… all on their own.

In other news… It’s Memorial Day.
For all those who have given their lives, who have been willing to give their lives, and who have lost loved ones fighting for our country in one capacity or another. May we never forget you or belittle the sacrafice you have made. And may all the troops now serving be brought home safely at the right time. You are in my prayers… and no doubt the prayers of many others.

Okay so I am not sure if someone is playing a practicle joke on me???? but I just discovered my comments are going into spam folders. I found this out by finding my own comment on my own page in a spam folder. And i just finally got around to commenting on blogs in my circles… SO if you see me in your spam folder, please remove me I have written Wordpress and hope to be released soon. If you thought this was a funny joke, just know this post isn’t one of me being angry. Honestly, I don’t really care, just thought I would let people know that they should check there spam folders for me. It just made me laugh today, everything is making me laugh today. Oh except for the 3 times Owen ran from me when I was trying to get him in time-out, now THAT was not funny.

I read a really interesting article on a blog called Pick the Brain.

The post addresses how at an increasing rate, with the aid of technology, people are working in non-traditional situations, often from remote locations. The blog makes this point:

In the case of the modern information worker, nearly all tasks involve creative or strategic thinking. The way someone answers an email or interprets a piece of information can differ drastically depending on his or her energy level. Nobody does their best work 5:30 in the afternoon after they’ve been sucking down coffee all day to stay awake.”

I agree.

Pick the Brain argues that most people aren’t continually effective on an 8 hour schedule, that there are peaks and vallies throughout the day. I would agree with this. Why be at work during the vallies and cause the employer to have to pay for that time? I think they put it well when they state it this way,

When workers reach the low energy part of the cycle, they can’t recharge with a non-work activity. The only option is office purgatory. You can’t be highly productive because you’re mentally fatigued, but you can’t recharge because the 8 hour work day requires the appearance of constant productivity. The result is millions of unproductive workers trapped at their desks when they’d rather be doing something else.”

I would also argue that what may be a typically productive time of day for one person, may not one for another. Why not tailor your work day to the hours you work best? Middle of the night? Early in the morning? After lunch until prime-time? When the kids are napping? After they go to bed? You get the point.

Why does this topic interest a non-working, stay-at-home mother of two toddlers? For a few reasons:

1. Even though the technology was not there when I was younger… I ALWAYS pictured working from home via computer and video conference. It was a rare occasion if I pictured it differently.

2. Withen 3 years of joining the career driven workforce, I started working from home via computer and occasional meetings at starbucks :).

3. Should I ever rejoin the workforce, it will be from home. It will be via computer, video conference etc. The schedule will fit into times when I am not taking care of and/or educating my children.

In an article from the Los Angelas Times, by James Flanigan, posted on AOL Jobs entiteled Working at Home Pays Off for Firms.

Flanigan uses a case study from Jet Blue. He points out,

JetBlue has 700 reservation agents working from their abodes (one pictures them sitting there in their robes and slippers, the fridge just a few feet away) with company-supplied personal computers and second phone lines.

To be sure, their wages of $8.50 to $10 an hour are way above the $2 to $3 a day that call-center operators in India and the Philippines often earn.”

Jet Blues Chief Executive David Needleman shares,

“With home working you get more mature people who stay with you,” he says. “There isn’t constant turnover.” What’s more, he adds, employees who take care of business from home tend to “feel better” about their jobs, boosting productivity by an estimated 25 percent.”

Flanigan also uses AT&T to illustrate the benefits of “homesourcing” workers.

“AT&T Corp., for its part, reported that last year it “received over $180 million in operating benefit from telework” — tasks performed away from the office by U.S.-based network planners, human-resources managers, sales personnel and others. With fewer corporate facilities to buy and furnish, real-estate savings accounted for a significant portion of the number.

The advantages for companies employing people to work at home continue to grow along with technological developments. Though not all jobs can be sourced from home, (eg. doctors, pilots, regulated companies, etc,) Many jobs can, and many employers are thinking out of “the box”.

I have the ability to stay home and not work right now and gladly accept it. But someday my children will be a little older, I will be done having more, and my driven brain will not going to cease to exist! At this point I know I will love working from home again, to what capacity? I am not sure. But I’m EXTREMELY thankful that we now live in a world capeable of it.

The Pick the Brain blog sums it up by saying,

Forty years from now we’ll be telling our grandchildren about the olden days when everyone’s mommy and daddy went to work in an office.

He’s probably right!

MOMMY-BLOGGERS
Heather Bixler (a commentor here) designs really fun themes for wordpress and they aren’t very expensive at all to use! Go here to check out her newest pre-made templates. They are just too cute, and if I wasn’t into making my own mastheads I would definitely purchase one. And no I’m not getting any kickbacks I just really like them! She only sells each theme once so get them while they’re still there!

Oh Boy!

I can not even remember the last time I watched the view… but I just saw this video over on Hot Air, and I am not sure I have seen anything like it on the daily talk shows since that creep Parsons (who claimed to killing Jon Benet) on That one show (don’t even remember the name?) or maybe back to Geraldo getting his nose broken! Looks like the 2 are getting super real with each other since Rosie is on her way out anyway. Check it out.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpEH6CWvqR4]

I’m going to open a can of worms with this one.

Let’s take the War in Iraq out of the equation… And the “war on terror” is such a difficult one to define that we should be careful on discussing that one as well.

What I want to know your thoughts on is,When is war okay?

Was World War 1 justified?

World War 2?

Many Christians are against the Iraq war… And I see some of their points, though I haven’t come to a personal conclusion. I know we (US) are there and can’t just run out right now. I don’t know what specific decisions could have been made better. I know that it is good Saddam is gone. Beyond that, we need to defeat the terrorists that are there… but I have no answers.

What about situations like Darfur? What if Iran or N. Korea get Nukes and are determined to use them? What wars were worth it in the past? In both world wars, the death-tolls were incredible!

Check out these Estimates via Wikipedia: (they seem unreal to me!)

World War 1 between 15 million and 66 million (larger number includes Spainish Flu deaths.)

World War 2 between 60 million and 72 million (the deadliest war ever) Included in these casualties is an estimated 50% civilian casualty!

Korean War between 2.5 million and 3.5 million

Vietnam War between 2.3 million and 3.8 million

American Civil War est. 970,000 (including 350,000 from disease)

Current War in Iraq between 214,000 and 655,000 and counting

I could go on….

Every casualty sucks.

So what makes it worth it? At what point is the cause great enough? Was stopping Hitler from taking over the world to form his Arian nation enough?

What constitues a “just war”. I have no clue.

Not

one

clue.

I know that it is a decision you should make with fear and trembling before the Lord, but that’s about all I know.

So for all those Christians that aren’t total pacificts, but are only for “A JUST WAR”, What does a just war look like?

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