rarehero.com

The 2012 Shape of the Nation Report

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 04:21:00 +0000

View the entire Shape of the Nation Report at this URL:
http://www.aahperd.org/naspe/about/announcements/son.cfm

Consider donating to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education at this URL:
http://iweb.aahperd.org/iweb/Purchase/ProductDetail.aspx?Product_code=FNASPE

Friendship Factorial!

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 04:13:00 +0000

Just when you thought it was safe, I decided to throw down the challenge of a lifetime,

Friendship Factorial!

Cultivating relationships are a big part of being human. Are you human enough to accept my challenge?

Expectations

Pick a person in your life whose relationship with which you want to grow and for the next twenty eight days grow it! It could be anyone in your life that you value. A spouse, partner, lover, friend, parent, sibling, family member, roommate, anyone!

Determine three things that you can do that will grow the relationship. It could be something like this:

Schedule a dinner together at your favorite restaurant
Tell that person something personal about your life
Find out what the last book they read was and have a conversation about it

Then, do it.

Finally, let me know how it went. Looking forward to hearing from you!

The Story of The Man Who Didn’t Believe in Love

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I’d like to share a great story that I read in a book called “The Mastery of Love” by Don Miguel Ruiz.

There’s a very old story about a man who didn’t believe in love. This was an ordinary man just like you and I, but what made this man special was his way of thinking. He thought…

“Love doesn’t exist…”

Of course he had a lot of experience trying to find love and he had observed the people around him. This man was highly intelligent and very convincing. He said that love is not real and that’s why no human being could ever find love… even though he might look for it all his life.

Love, he said, is just like a drug. It makes you very high but it creates a strong need. You can become addicted to love. But what happens when you don’t receive your daily doses of love? Just like a drug, you need your everyday fix.”

He used to say that most relationships between lovers are just like a relationship between a drug addict and the dope dealer. The one who has the biggest need is the drug addict. The one who has the little need is like the dealer and this is one who controls the whole relationship. You can see this dynamic so clearly because usually in every relationship there is one who loves the most and the other who doesn’t love, who only takes advantage of the one who gives his or her heart.

The drug addict, the one who has the biggest need lives in constant fear that he will not be able to get the next hit of love. The drug addict thinks “What am I going to do if she leaves me?” That fear makes the addict very possessive. “That’s mine.”

The addict becomes jealous and demanding because of the fear of not getting the next dosage. He completely surrenders and does whatever he can to do to avoid being abandoned. The provider can control and manipulate the one who needs the drug by giving more doses or fewer doses. Or, no doses at all. What humans call love is nothing is a fear relationship based on control. Where’s the respect? Where’s the love they claim to have?

The man went on explaining why love doesn’t exist.

Young couples make a lot of promises to each other, to live together forever, to love and respect each other, to be there for each other through the good times and the bad. They promise to love

and honor each other and make promises and more promises.

What is amazing is that they really believe these promises. But after the marriage, a week later, a month later, or a few months later, you can see that none of these promises are kept. What you find is a war of control to see who can manipulate who; who will be the provider and who will have the addiction.

You find that a few months later the respect they had for each other is gone. You can see the resentment, the emotional poison, how they hurt each other little by little until they don’t know when the love stopped. They stay together because they afraid to be alone.Afraid of the opinions and judgments of others and also afraid of their own judgments and opinions… but where is the love?”

The man used to claim that he saw old couples who were so proud to have lived together 30-50 years or more. But when they talked about their relationship, they said, “We survived the matrimony.” That means one of them surrendered to the other at a certain time… he or she gave up and decided to endure the suffering. The one with the strongest will and less need won the war. But where is that flame they called love?

The man went on and on about all the reasons why he believed love doesn’t exist. His arguments were quite logical and he convinced many people. Then one day he was walking in a park and there on a bench sat a beautiful lady who was crying. Feeling curious, he decided to ask why she was crying.

You could imagine his surprise when she told him

she was crying because “love doesn’t exist”

Of course, he wanted to know more about her… “why do you say love doesn’t exist?” he asked.

“Well, it’s a long story,” she replied. “I married when I was very young and full of hope that I would share my life with this man. We swore to each other our loyalty, respect, and honor. So we created a family. But soon everything changed.

I was the devoted wife who took care of the children at home. My husband continued to develop his career and his success outside of home was more important to him than our family. He lost respect for me and I lost respect for him. We hurt each other.

And, at a certain point I discovered that I didn’t love him and he didn’t love me either. But the children needed a father and that was my excuse to stay and do whatever I could to support him.

Now the children are grown and I now have no excuse to stay with him. There’s no respect, there’s no kindness. I know that even if I find someone else, he’s going to be the same because love doesn’t exist. That’s why I’m crying.”

Understanding her very well, he embraced her and said, “You were right, love doesn’t exist. We look for love, we open our heart and become vulnerable just to find selfishness. It doesn’t matter how many relationships we have, the same thing happens again and again.

Why even bother to search for love any longer?

They were so much alike and they became best friends. It was a wonderful relationship. They respected each other and with every step they took together they were happy. There was no envy or jealousy. There was no control, there was no possessiveness. They loved to be together because they always had a lot of fun. When they were not together they missed each other.

One day when the man was out of town he had the weirdest idea. He was thinking…“hmm, maybe what I feel for her is love.”

But this is so different from what I’ve felt before. I don’t feel responsible for her. I don’t have the need for her to take care of me. I don’t need to blame her for my difficulties. We have the best time together. I respect the way she thinks and feels. She doesn’t embarrass me. I don’t feel jealous when she’s with other people. I don’t feel envy when she is successful.

Perhaps love does exist… but it’s not what everyone thinks love is.

He could hardly wait to go back home and let her know about his idea. As soon as he told her, she said, “I know exactly what you’re talking about. I had the same idea long ago but I didn’t want to share it with you because I know you don’t believe in love. Perhaps lovedoes exist but it isn’t what we thought it was.”

They decided to become lovers and live together and it was amazing that things didn’t change. They still respected each other. And the love grew more and more. Even the simplest things made their hearts sing with love because they were so happy.

Then one night… a miracle happened.

The man was looking at the stars and he found the most beautiful one and his heart was so full of love that the star came down from the sky and soon it was in his hands.Then, a second miracle happened and his soul merged with that star. He was intensely happy and he could hardly wait to go to the woman and put the star in her hands to prove his love to her.

And as soon as he put the star in her hands, she felt a moment of doubt. This love was overwhelming and in that moment the star fell from her hands and broke into a million pieces.

Now, there is an old man walking around the world swearing that love doesn’t exist. And there is a beautiful old woman at home waiting for a man, shedding a tear for a paradise that she once had in her hands but for one moment of doubt, she let it go.

This is the story about the man who didn’t believe in love.

Who made the mistake?

The mistake was on the man’s part thinking he could give the woman his happiness. The star was his happiness. And his mistake was to put his happiness in her hands.

Happiness never comes from outside of us. He was happy because of the love coming out of him and she was happy because of the love coming out of her.

But as soon as he made her responsible for

his happiness, she broke the star because she

could NOT be responsible for his happiness.

No matter how much the woman loved him, she could never make him happy because she could NEVER know what he had in his mind. She could never know what his expectations were. She could not know his dreams.

The Moral of the Story is…

If you take your happiness and you put it someone else’s hands, sooner or later, that person is going to break it. If you give your happiness to someone else, he or she can always take it away. So if true happiness can only come from inside of you…

You Are Responsible for Your Own Happiness!

If we truly wish to be fulfilled, we can never make anyone or anything responsible for ourhappiness.

Poetry for Change

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Langston Hughes Let America be America Again

Let America Be America Again
1935

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-
- Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Hughes, L. (1994). Let america be america again. The collected poems of langston hughes (pp. 189-191). New York: Vintage Classics.

My other half

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 13:00:00 +0000

"I saw your other half on Monday. We were at a professional gathering of professionals and we spoke about how professional we were."

That was a dramatic reenactment of something that was said to me the other night when I myself was at a professional gathering of professionals (Toastmasters). It got me thinking, "I'm not an incomplete person, dammit."

Really, I just wanted to call attention to the idea that people don't necessarily need to be in a romantic partnership to be a complete person. People do need a varied assortment of relationships and social activity to live a full life. I'm not saying that each person is an island entire of them-self; I'm saying that the whole notion that a second person could complete another is, to me, silly. People are complete as individuals. Think of the ideas of collective impact, 1 + 1 = >2, apply that to your social life, and achieve great things.

Authentic Happiness: Meaning in Life Questionnaire

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 05:14:00 +0000

I took the Authentic Happiness Meaning in Life Questionnaire and wanted to share my results:

you probably do not feel your life has a valued meaning and purpose, and you are actively searching for something or someone that will give your life meaning or purpose. You are probably not always satisfied with your life. You may not experience emotions like love and joy that often. You may occasionally, or even often, feel anxious, nervous, or sad and depressed. You are probably questioning the role of religion in your life, and may be working hard to figure out whether there is a God, what life on Earth is really about, and which, if any, religion is right for you. People who know you would probably describe you as liking to play things by ear, or “go with the flow” when it comes to plans, occasionally worried, and not particularly socially active.

The Prisoner's Escape

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:33:00 +0000

Rain. It can be wonderful to dance in the rain for a few moments but to have to endure it for longer is difficult. Yet I have always loved the rain and have yearned for a day like today. I sit now, stuck under the cover of a branch that has kept some of the rain off of me. It was an adventure that has brought me to this very moment. It all started yesterday.
Yesterday began as any other day. The sun rose, it's light shining through the window down to the cell, where I have spent my entire life. My captor brings me my meal, clean water, and leaves me to my day. On their way out the window is opened so that I can have air and listen to the outside world. The sounds outside run my imagination wild and I dream up a life of freedom. That is how I usually spend my day until my captor returns and then we spend the evening together discussing the day's events. It is always a one-sided conversation. I have nothing to say that would be understood. But yesterday was different.
It was getting late and I could see by the light of the sun through the window that it was getting late in the afternoon. My captor is past due. Anxiety starts to creep up my body. A soft rustling outside the window startles me and I cry out.
Nothing. Moments pass but still nothing. It is unnaturally silent. I hear the rustling again, this time louder. My vision partially blocked by my cage I cry out as I catch a glimpse of a terrible sight.
Covered in fur, eyes as black as night, four legs, a tail with, and dangerously sharp teeth and claws. The beast is designed to kill.
This is the first time in my life that I have seen such a creature. Fear shoots up my body capturing my breath. The beast, now at the window, squeezes through. Soon the beast will be upon me. Locked in my cage I had few options.
Up to now all I have ever known is the safety of my cell. Yes my captor would often let me out but it was always so dangerous. Boiling cauldrons of water. Four immense spinning blades positioned on the ceiling that could kill me. I almost preferred the cage. It was safe. But back to the story.
The beast had heard my frightened screams and approached my cell. In a series of leaps and bounds it landed on the cage. I still had the cell to protect me but the weight of the beast on the edge looking down at me was causing the cage to lean dangerously to one side; it toppled over crashing down leaving the cell's door wide open.
With not a moment to spare I launched myself at the opening and to the open window. With a quickness the monster sunk three claws into my back knocking me down. I stumbled and rolled across the floor, to the window. Just as quickly as the beast I leaped up and flew out the open window and into a nearby tree.
That was yesterday. Now I sit here today; in a tree, on a branch, in the rain. The beast left me many hours ago. I am free. Alone.

Amazing American Express card limited time offer

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:39:00 +0000

Hi. For today's post I'll be offering a referral for the very cool to have, Starwood Preferred Guest (R) card from American Express.

All that I need to send the referral is your first name, your last name, and your email address. This offer expires 30 April (if this at all interests you, then, seriously, act now). If you click on the link, apply for the card, and are accepted, then I get 5000 points. To give you an idea of the value, I recently stayed at a Four Points by Sheraton for $25 a night. I ended up using 1000 points per night to cover the rest of the cost of the stay. It was actually a very good deal and, to top it off I was upgraded to a better room upon my arrival.

Sound good? Then click the picture link below to ask for the referral. Thanks.

Today is Good Friday...

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Today is Good Friday, observed worldwide by Jesus buffs as the day on which the popular, bearded cultural figure, sometimes referred to as The Messiah, was allegedly crucified and - according to legend - died for mankind's so-called sin. Today kicks off a holy weekend that culminates on Easter Sunday, when, it is widely believed, this dead savior - who also, by the way, claimed to be the son of a sky-dwelling, invisible being known as God - mysteriously rose from the dead.

According to the legend, by volunteering to be killed and actually going through with it, Jesus saves every person who has ever lived - and every person who ever will live - from an eternity of suffering in a fiery region popularly known as hell, providing - so the story goes - that the person to be saved firmly believes this rather fanciful tale.

My letter to: Arizona government

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:44:00 +0000

I'm writing to urge you to address the funding disparity among Arizona's
three universities and encourage you to support Arizona State University's
FY 2013 State Appropriation Request. As your constituent, I am counting on
your support.

The FY 2013 disparity funding request will allow ASU to expand the
faculty, increase instructional support and student services, and address
problems created by unfunded enrollment growth.

I was able to receive a quality education at Arizona State University and
want my children to have that same opportunity.

Can I count on your support of ASU's State Appropriation Request?

Thank you for your consideration of this issue. A strong higher education
system is essential to job creation and a more prosperous economy.

End of year giving

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 01:42:00 +0000

Here is a list of all the non profit organizations that I think could use some of your hard earned money:
Electronic Frontier Foundation
MIT OpenCourseWare
National Wellness Institute
American Red Cross
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Harvard School of Public Health
Harlem Children's Zone
St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance
Freedom From Religion Foundation
Humane Borders
American Civil Liberties Union
Planned Parenthood

There are lots of other organizations that could use your help but I think that these are a good option for you.
Be well.

My letter to: John McCain, Jon Kyle, and David Schweikert to support the Girls Protection Act

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:29:00 +0000

I am writing to express my deep concern about the common situation where girls are taken from the U.S. to their parents’ countries of origin to be subjected to Female Genital Mutilation. FGM is considered a severe human rights violation and the World Health Organization classifies the practice as a reflection of deep rooted inequality between the sexes and an extreme form of discrimination against women.

The WHO estimates that between 100 and 140 million girls and women worldwide have been subjected to FGM, which takes place throughout Africa, certain countries in Asia and the Middle East, as well as in locations where FGM-practicing immigrants reside, such as the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. According to an analysis of 2000 U.S. census data conducted by the African Women’s Health Center (AWHC) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, approximately 228,000 women and girls have undergone or are at risk for FGM. The data also states that from 1990 to 2000, the number of women who are at risk for FGM grew by approximately 35 percent in this country. A 1996 federal law prohibiting the practice of FGM within the US did not address the risk of girls removed from the country, sometimes to their parents’ countries of origin, to be subjected to FGM.

I am aware that new legislation, the “Girls Protection Act of 2011” (S. 1919) introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) aims to close this loophole and strengthen the 1996 federal law. This legislation would make it illegal to transport a minor girl living in the US out of the country for purposes of FGM. As my United States Senator, I urge you to cosponsor S. 1919 and take this critical step toward reaffirming that FGM, in all its forms, is a human rights violation. I also urge you to support the implementation of culturally sensitive awareness-raising, education and outreach programs to protect girls living in the US from FGM.

I thank you for your attention.

My letter to the FDA to support sodium reduction efforts

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:28:00 +0000

Docket No. FDA-2011-N-0400

I support your efforts to consider possible strategies and request you make sodium reduction a top national public health priority.

Americans are consuming far too much salt from packaged and restaurant foods, which account for over 75% of the sodium we consume. The current average daily consumption for all adults is about 4,000 milligrams (mg), even though the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend consuming no more than 1,500 mg for people with hypertension, those who are middle-aged or older, and African Americans. Almost half the U.S. adult population falls into those categories, yet 98% of them exceed the sodium recommendation.

High levels of sodium consumption contribute to hypertension, which 90% of Americans will develop over their lifetime, and can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease. At least 150,000 lives could be saved annually in the United States if sodium levels in packaged and restaurant foods were cut in half. Direct medical costs would be cut by $18 billion per year by reducing sodium consumption from 3,400 mg to 2,300 mg per day and by $28 billion per year if further reduced to 1,500 mg per day.

The food industry maintains that voluntary actions are enough to lower sodium to safe levels. However, changes made by food producers' over the past four decades have been inadequate to confront a real and growing -- health crisis. Rather than waiting for industry to make improvements at its own pace, the FDA should implement the Institute of Medicine's recommendations to establish mandatory limits on the sodium content of packaged and restaurant foods. Those regulations could be phased in gradually over time to allow food manufacturers to remove the excess sodium from their food products without causing a consumer backlash.

Thank you for your consideration of this important public health issue. There is virtually nothing else the FDA could do to improve America's food supply that would provide a greater benefit to public health than to reduce sodium levels in the foods we eat.

ASU Football - the clothes make the man

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 02:50:00 +0000

ASU football has worn a different uniform each game this season:
UC Davis

Missouri

Illinois

USC

Oregon State

Utah

Oregon

Colorado

Perpetrators of Gang Rape Released #WTF

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Raped at 12 by a gang of footballers – but judges say it’s the victims’ fault and frees them. Now one of the victims talks about the sickening events of that night

Katie (not her real name) was just 12 when her and a friend went with six men to a park where 'something terrible' happened (posed by model)

At first, she is almost too nervous to speak, but with her mother’s gentle encouragement, she tentatively begins to find the words.

She hopes, she says, that ‘people won’t judge her’ or think she is ‘messed up’ or that she is a ‘bad girl’.

‘I’m really not,’ she says pitifully.

That a 13-year-old girl should even feel the need to defend her reputation and character in such a way is perhaps the saddest aspect of what you are about to read.

Katie (not her real name) was just 12 when she and a friend, also aged 12, went with six young men to a park in Reading where ‘something terrible’ happened.

Sadly, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what that ‘something terrible’ was.

The six men — all promising local footballers — claimed they thought the girls were at least 16, but they were subsequently convicted of statutory rape because, in the eyes of the law, the girls were unable to give their consent.

Last week, though, the defendants were controversially freed from jail after the Appeal Court ruled that the girls had ‘wanted sex’.

In other words, according to the judgment, Katie and her friend — both just 12, remember — were not really victims at all.

Worse, it gave credence to the view, in the eyes of some, at least, that they were actually to blame for getting the six footballers, aged between 18 and 21, including a former member of Reading FC’s academy, into trouble and ruining their careers.

Already, Katie has received a string of hateful text messages.

‘It’s all your fault,’ said one particularly vile response. Another asked: ‘How can you live with yourself?’

‘It didn’t make me feel very nice,’ says Katie.

The incident in the park, and its aftermath, have been a personal tragedy for Katie, who is now receiving counselling.

But the tragedy spreads wider, for the case also exposes the increasing sexualisation of children and the sickening culture of group sex, which somehow seems to have become acceptable behaviour for a growing number of predatory teenage males.

Two of the six footballers who went to the park with 12-year-old Katie and her friend: Dennis De Sousa (left), aged 19 and Jahvon Edwards (right), aged 19

Anyone who is in any doubt should read the comments of the original trial judge, who said that the six accused standing in the dock in front of him in March this year had treated Katie and her friend ‘as if they were pieces of flesh’, before sentencing them to two years.

The judge’s words seem especially chilling when you meet Katie.

She is in her school uniform, sitting anxiously in the living room of her home. Her exceptionally pretty features are framed by a sweet brown bob. Katie loves photography and is getting a camera for her birthday. She is doing well at school.

One of her favourite TV programmes is EastEnders. In her bedroom, which is as neat as a new pin, there are CDs of High School Musical and 17 Again, starring teen heart-throb Zac Efron. In the corner is a guitar.

‘I’m not very good,’ she says modestly.

‘Yes, you are,’ her mother says proudly.

Her parents split up when she was a baby, but she sees her dad regularly.

She lives with her mum and step-father, who runs his own business, in a detached house in a ‘picture postcard’ resort in the West Country. They moved there from their native Reading in 2009.

Katie, like many girls her age, has begun to wear make-up. She looks older than 13, but does not seem precocious in any way. On the contrary, when we meet, she is softly spoken and endearingly shy.

The reason her family allowed her to be interviewed is that they — but most importantly, Katie herself — want other girls to read her account of ‘what really happened’ and learn from it.

‘There is nothing to be scared of,’ her mother tells her before Katie begins to recount, in little more than a whisper, detail by harrowing detail, the chain of events that ended with her going to a park at night with six young men she had never met.

Jahson Downes (left), aged 20 and Luke Farrugia (right), aged 21. All but two of the six footballers come from broken homes

Those events unfolded one weekend in February last year, when Katie and her mother returned to Reading to visit relatives.

During the visit, Katie met the girl who had once been her best friend. We shall call her Lucy.

Lucy, who as we shall see is certainly old beyond her years, invited Katie to a ‘sleepover’, and in the evening they both attended a family birthday party in a local hall.

Soon, Lucy began exchanging text messages with a boy, or rather a young man, whose number she had obtained three weeks earlier (she told him she had found his number on someone else’s phone and ‘wanted to get to know him’). The young man’s name was Jahvon Edwards.

Edwards, 19, used to play for Henley Town and was now a part-time football coach. Lucy told him she was 16.

She received the first text from Edwards at around 8pm. The ‘conversation’ went like this:

Edwards: ‘Out in my car. You?’

Lucy: ‘Who you with? Should we come too?’

Edwards: ‘Five friends.’

Lucy: ‘We can have three each.’

Edwards: ‘Yes ... Who you having?’

Lucy: ‘Whoever wants me?’

Shortly afterwards, Jahvon Edwards and his ‘five friends’ pulled up outside the hall, where the family gathering was still in full flow, in two Vauxhall Corsa cars.

Lucy then asked Katie to come outside with her.

‘I went with her because I didn’t want to leave her on her own,’ says Katie.

She says she wasn’t aware of what Lucy had told Edwards in the text messages. Katie reluctantly got into one vehicle, Lucy in the other.

Katie says she went along because she thought they were only going for a short drive and would be back in ‘five minutes’.

Lucy’s parents (her father is a driver, her mother works in an office) were unaware the girls had left.

When they stopped at a garage in Reading, the girls got out and Katie says she started to cry.

‘I told Lucy I was scared and that I wanted to go back, but she said there was no way we would be able to on our own because we had gone too far.’

Courtney Amos (left), aged 20 and Ashley Charles (right), aged 20. In the run up to their court appearance, several of them were busy exchanging crude jokes

So Katie returned to the car. She and Lucy were taken to a local park, where they went to the toilet before splitting up. Katie says she saw Lucy disappear behind a tree, from where she then began calling Edwards and his friends over ‘one by one’ for sex.

Shocking? Degrading? Yes. But it was not the first time 12-year-old Lucy had indulged in such activities.

When the case subsequently came before Reading Crown Court earlier this year, it emerged that Lucy had done ‘exactly the same thing’ at least three times before. There was also a fourth occasion while Edwards and his co-defendants were awaiting trial.

Indeed, ‘shocking’ and ‘degrading’ hardly do such revelations justice.

Meanwhile, back in the park, Katie went and sat on a bench and her eyes began to well up again. One of the footballers wouldn’t leave her alone, however, and kept pestering her to perform a sex act on him, which, legally, is still classed as rape.

‘I kept saying “No, no”, but he kept on, so I gave in,’ she says, her voice faltering.

‘I have never done anything like that before, and I would never do it again. That’s the truth.’

Cynics might doubt her words. I do not. Talking to Katie left me utterly convinced that this was a girl — however foolish and naive she might have been — who was telling me the raw, simple truth.

Afterwards, she and Lucy were driven back to town and dropped off near to where Lucy lived. By now, Lucy’s parents had realised the girls were missing and had called the police. They were found wandering along a lane in the vicinity of her home at 2am.

Katie was reunited with her mother at the police station and, for the third time that night, broke down in tears.

‘I cuddled her and told her everything was going to be all right,’ her mother says.

The following day, Katie and Lucy were interviewed by detectives.

Jahvon Edwards, who lives with his mother in Reading, was subsequently arrested and charged with rape, along with Dennis De Sousa, 19, Jahson Downes, 20, Ashley Charles, 20, Courtney Amos, 20, and Luke Farrugia, 21.

All but two of them are from broken homes.

In the run-up to their crown court appearance, several of them were busy exchanging crude jokes about sex and prostitutes on Twitter.

Take de Sousa, whose own father spent much of the Eighties and Nineties in and out of prison for crimes including affray and conspiracy to supply drugs.

‘Love me some **** (the name given to a particular sex act) and I LOVE a woman that likes to do it,’ he tweeted, followed by: ‘Like what you see, but don’t touch it hoe (street slang for prostitute).’

Amos, brought up by his mother and who, until his rape conviction, was hoping to pursue a career as a children’s football coach.

He re-tweeted this offering from a friend: ‘I use to be a shy boy when I was young, until I lost my virginity and started **** ******** (slang for pleasuring a woman) females like no tomorrow.’

Or Charles, who has a conviction for assault, and used the ‘hashtag’ (a keyword used to categorise a Tweet) TheJoyOfTeenSex — a reference to the Channel 4 series of the same name. He later describes what he might like to do to a friend’s mother.

These, then, are some of the individuals who had sex with two 12-year-old girls in a park on the weekend of February 20, 2010.

Earlier this week, three of the six, who became friends while studying sports science at the same Reading college, agreed to meet the Mail at a bar in the town centre.

It was apparent that they see themselves, not the girls, as the real victims of what happened that night. Their conviction remains but their sentences have now been suspended, and they will remain on the Sex Offenders’ Register for ten years.

‘Our lives have been ruined, and none of us are now able to go on and follow the careers that we would have chosen for ourselves,’ said de Sousa, who now lives in a council flat with his father.

‘I feel we were tricked into going to the park with them’ (a reference to the fact that Lucy claimed she was 16 on her Facebook page).

De Sousa, accompanied by Edwards and Downes, says he felt disgusted when he discovered the truth.

‘I’ve got a little sister that age’, he said.

But isn’t the crux of the matter that he and his five friends were quite prepared to take two young girls, regardless of how old they thought they may or may not have been, to a park with the specific intention of having sex with them?

Repeat: Six boys. Two girls.

The judge who jailed them certainly thought so.

‘It is clear to me,’ he told them, ‘that all of you were utterly reckless in what you did that night. Those girls were utterly unknown to you.

‘You saw those girls as utterly willing sexual partners, which they were, and behaved towards them as if they were simply pieces of flesh, not people.’

The Appeal Court took a more lenient view. You can be the judge of who was right.

To Cover Up or Not to Cover Up

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

From the Babe and the Breast:

The Real Reason Not to Cover Up Nursing Mothers (By Martha Neovard)

I was browsing the internet last night at about 3 am, while lying in bed and listening to the crashing of a distant storm, when I came across a recent blogpost, by a woman named loralee (See the blog). The blog itself was fantastic. The author openly admitted she has a level of discomfort when confronted with the sight of an openly nursing mom and baby. Her first reaction is kneejerk, a "cover that up" level of discomfort. Her second reaction is to check herself, take some deep calming breaths, assure herself it is well within the dyad's rights to eat wherever, whenever, no matter what implement they are using to do so. Yes, the article was fantastic, level-headed, pensive, and provoking. A very well-written piece, and after I read it I was left with a sense of relief and satisfaction. So then, stupidly, I moved on to the comments section.

Oy vey.

"I support any mom who wants to breastfeed, and anywhere she wants to, but my old-school upbringing about ‘good girls’ don’t show their boobs in public keeps getting in the way."

"I read your friends’ posts Loralee and I’m sorry, but their posts just made me feel angry. I do NOT agree with what these women feel is their motherly right. Fine, breast feed, go ahead, but cover up first! I feel sorry for the children, who are not theirs, subjected to quite honestly, a traumatic and disgusting event! NO ONE should EVER be subjected to having to see that. I agree, women should NOT have to go to a bathroom, or leave the room, or do it in private. BUT I do feel absolutely, they they CANNOT and SHOULD NEVER be LEGALLY allowed to whip out their tits..." (There is more to this shocking quote, but I will omit the rest, as it would certainly distract from the point of this post.)

"I never comment on anything that can be controversial. Ever. That being said…I nursed all my children and when necessary I did so in public however, it was never obvious. It doesn’t have to be. Nursing our babies is a natural thing but we can be discreet. My youngest child is 29 years old so that was quite a while ago. My daughter-in-law nursed all the grands and she too was discreet. There’s nothing wrong with not putting “it” out for all to see. Just saying…discreet."

I repeat. Oy vey.

For the record, I would never criticize or look down on a woman who wants or needs to use a nursing canopy to feel comfortable nursing her baby out in a public place. In fact, if that is what a mother needs in order to breastfeed when her baby wants/needs to, then I am right behind her, holding the straps (figuratively of course, otherwise I'd be breathing down her neck). They are a useful device, and certainly they are valuable to mothers everywhere. But I digress. The real point of this article is to explain WHY nursing uncovered is so important to breastfeeding moms everywhere, and why they should defend their blanketless state with emphatic arm-waving and raised voices. I repeat, I am NOT opposed to the option of covering whilst nursing, however I am opposed to the idea that some sort of cover is a NECESSITY for breastfeeding in public, and that all moms should use some kind of object to cover themselves so no one can see what they are doing.

Now you are thinking, oh brother here we go. Entereth the raging feminist with her trident of women's rights! No, actually. My concern is not the comfort of wee babies, or overheating, or woman and child rights, or even the reckless abandonment of muted colours in nursing covers (although these do factor in as well). No, instead my concern has to do with brain function and future generations.

Wha?

You see, as Kathleen Kendall Tackett points out in this 2009 article, breastfeeding is a right-brained activity. That means that no matter how many times we discuss it, how much we read about it, and how much we study pictures of it, we cannot teach our bodies how to do it. We need to be in close proximity to breastfeeding in order to understand the concepts associated with positioning, latch, swallowing, and multiple other small factors that go into breastfeeding successfully. It is something that Nature designed us to learn from our mothers, or from the community of women we interact with daily. Nature intended us to see other women breastfeeding their babies, and to internalize that knowledge to use with our own children. It is not something we can comprehend from the pages of a book, or from staring blearily at a nurse lecturing on the importance of breast milk.

As Kendall-Tackett states in her article, learning to breastfeed is much like learning to ride a bike. So, picture this. You have never seen a bike up close in your life. Maybe you saw it in a movie, but the bike was turned so you could only see the wheel, or the person riding it was mostly offscreen, or they just cracked weird bike jokes the whole time. You know that in 10 months time, you will be in a bike race. This bike race will be one of the most important events of your life. For months, people talk at you about riding a bike. Some people tell you to make sure to put your weight in the back, others say the front. Some say peddle swiftly, others say peddle backwards. Some say grip the handlebars just so, others say don't touch the handlebars, because that didn't work for them. You watch a couple videos about bike-riding, but they seem overly technical, and a lot of the jargon flies right over your head. You ask your parents, but their only reply is "We never rode a bicycle, just give it a try and hope it works for you." You go out in public to garner some information, but almost everyone who rides a bicycle rides them behind very tall hedges that you cannot see through. You feel a bit panicky, and a lot apprehensive. At last, the day of the race arrives. You wobble up to the starting line, someone hands you a bike, you climb on hesitantly, and they give you a good shove down a very steep hill and yell "YOU'LL FIGURE IT OUT!!!"

Metaphor much? Yes, breastfeeding these days is a lot like that. We don't see it done. We get some bits and bites of information in the months leading up to birth, then when the moment arrives, someone puts the baby on you and says "Okay, go!" How are you to know what this should all look like? What should it feel like? And really, how are we to know?

The thing is, most of us can't learn this from our mothers. We lost generations of right-brained hereditary knowledge to aggressive marketing and bottle-feeding. For those moms who do come from a family where breastfeeding was the norm, is it still enough to internalize the breastfeeding knowledge we need? How old were you when your youngest sibling was weaned?

Now what if everywhere we went, we saw moms nursing their babies, comfortably and openly? Every time we witness a friend, relative, or complete stranger breastfeeding their baby, our brains subconsciously make notes. So when it comes to our turn, our brain gathers up what we know, and we remember that the baby went THIS WAY, and mother held him just so. We may have even had the opportunity to ask questions. This is how we learn, and how we will know.

I think there is no better illustration for the necessity of seeing breastfeeding than this story, found in The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding:

"In a zoo in Ohio, a female gorilla was born and raised in captivity, got pregnant and had a baby gorilla. On the day she had her baby, she didn't know what to do. She had never seen another gorilla nurse, and she had no concept of breastfeeding. Sadly, the baby gorilla died.
When she became pregnant again the gorilla's keeper called The La Leche League and had volunteer nursing moms come down to the zoo and nurse their own babies in front of the pregnant momma gorilla. At first the gorilla ignored them, but as her delivery date grew closer she became very interested. When the baby gorilla was born the momma gorilla forgot all that she'd learned and started to freak out. The keeper quickly called the La Leche League and another volunteer rushed over and slowly showed the momma gorilla what to do. "She brought her baby's chest to her chest, slowly cradled the baby's head in her left arm, held her breast with her right hand, and tickled the baby's lips with the nipple to get the baby to open his mouth. Then she pulled the open-mouthed baby toward her breast and with one rapid arm motion, got the cooperative baby quickly onto her breast. The gorilla watched, mimicking the moves step by step until, with a nearly audible sigh of relief, the gorilla looked down at her chest and saw her baby feeding happily for the first time."(p 29).

So I ask of you, when next you see a mother breastfeeding her baby without some sort of covering implement, please give her a big smile and bring yourself and your child closer to see. I can guarantee she will smile back, and most will comfortably explain to your child what they are doing. You are doing your child a favour, so that when she has her own baby, the imprint of this encounter will rise in her brain, and assist her instincts in learning to breastfeed your grandchild. If your child is male, he will internalize how to assist and support his partner in her breastfeeding journey. Please, no more calls to "cover up". Anyone who cries for a cover over the beautiful sight of a nursing mother and child is unwittingly and devastatingly calling for the destruction of womanly knowledge, and the handicap of the next generation of breastfeeders.

(Blogger's notes: We are not yet to the point where we see breastfeeding moms everywhere and anywhere, where we are able to internalize by watching. But luckily for us, Nature always has a back-up system where one system fails. Please check out Biological Nurturing and Kathleen Kendall-Tackett's article here to learn about instinctual breastfeeding, and how best to trigger both mom and baby's instincts to achieve a strong latch. Also please consider attending a breastfeeding support group meeting, like La Leche League during your pregnancy. Many women breastfeed openly at these meetings, and they are a great resource both for right-brained knowledge garnering, and for creating a support network, and meeting new mommy friends!)

The Business of Sex Tourism

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

This article from the New York Times, about sex tourism in Brazil, is a reminder that as a culture we must strive to not objectify people nor to take advantage of them. The link to read it on the New York Times website is here.

Allegations Link U.S. Companies to Brazilian Sex Tourism
by Barry Meier
Published: July 8, 2011

The Justice Department has been conducting a criminal investigation of sports fishing expeditions in the Amazon that may have been used as covers for Americans to have sex with underage girls, according to newly filed court papers.

The investigation and two related actions — a parallel criminal inquiry in Brazil and an unusual lawsuit filed in federal court in Georgia — could provide a rare look at the business operations of the multibillion-dollar international sex tour industry, which has increasingly focused on Brazil.

“Brazil is taking over from Thailand as a premier sex tourism vacation” spot, said Kristen Berg, an official of Equality Now, an advocacy organization in New York that helped bring the lawsuit in Georgia.

That lawsuit was filed last month on behalf of four Brazilian women who claim that they were coerced as minors to serve as prostitutes for Americans on Amazon fishing expeditions operated by an Atlanta-area businessman. One of the women said that she was 12 years old at the time.

Ms. Berg said the lawsuit was the first time that a federal law, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, had been used to seek damages from someone accused of operating sex tours.

On Thursday, the defendant in that case, Richard W. Schair, filed a motion asking that the lawsuit be stayed. The motion cited continuing criminal investigations in the United States and Brazil.

In a brief telephone interview, Mr. Schair, who operates an Atlanta-area real estate business, said that allegations that he was involved in child sex tours were untrue. He declined to discuss specifics of the inquiries.

“The allegations are false,” he said. “The facts will prove that.”

Solomon L. Wisenberg, a lawyer in Washington who represents Mr. Schair in connection with the federal criminal investigation, said he was confident that his client would not face charges. The status of the investigation is unclear, as Justice Department officials declined to comment.

Ms. Berg, of Equality Now, said that the group helped bring the Georgia lawsuit because it was looking for precedent-setting cases involving child sex tourism overseas.

She said that she and lawyers from a major firm, King & Spalding, which is working on the case pro bono, traveled to Brazil to interview prospective witnesses, including young women.

Both the lawsuit and the federal criminal investigation are apparently fallout from a separate lawsuit filed in 2007 by Mr. Schair against another operator of Amazon fishing tours, Philip A. Marsteller.

In that action, Mr. Schair charged that Mr. Marsteller had slandered him by telling people that he supplied clients on his fishing tours with prostitutes and drugs. Mr. Marsteller stood by his comments and, as part of his defense, sought statements from young women in Brazil as well as employees of Mr. Schair’s company, called Wet-A-Line Tours. The company is no longer operating.

In 2008, the two men settled the case, with Mr. Schair paying token compensation to Mr. Marsteller, said Kevin Buchanan, a lawyer in Dallas who represented Mr. Marsteller. Mr. Buchanan said that information that came up during the lawsuit led federal officials to begin an investigation of American business connections to child sex tourism in Brazil.

Several news reports in recent years have indicated that Mr. Schair was the subject of criminal investigations both here and in Brazil. But the filing Thursday in conjunction with the Georgia lawsuit was the first time the investigations were publicly acknowledged.

According to the court papers filed by Mr. Schair, federal prosecutors in Miami sent a grand jury subpoena to his company in 2009 asking for, among other things, customer lists. Another document shows that prosecutors notified his ex-wife in December that investigators had obtained information indicating that she was “involved with a company and/or an individual who may have engaged in child sex tourism in Brazil.”

Asked about the documents, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department in Miami, where the inquiry is based, declined, as a matter of policy, to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.

Translations of Brazilian documents, attached by Mr. Schair to his filing, show that he is charged in a proceeding there with the sexual exploitation of minors. He has denied the accusation.

Mr. Schair made the filing on Thursday on his own behalf.

According to the lawsuit filed last month, Mr. Schair or his employees or customers recruited young girls at a social club along the Amazon to join them on a fishing boat, where the girls were coerced into sex acts and paid.

The Amazon River in Brazil is a particularly attractive area for fishing enthusiasts because it is a home to a hard-fighting species called the peacock bass.

Click here to read more on this issue from Equality Now.

Kitchen Cleaning Step #1: The Sink

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Fill sink to the rim with very hot water; add one cup regular bleach. Soak for one hour.
Drain and rinse thoroughly.
Scrub with Ajax, Bon Ami, or baking soda.
Be sure to rinse thoroughly.
Shine with Windex or another glass-cleaning spray. Dry thoroughly.

Kitchen Cleaning Step #736: Keep up

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

When cleaning the kitchen always start with the sink.

A sparkling sink becomes your kitchen's benchmark for hygiene and tidiness, inspiring you to load the dishwasher immediately and keep counters, refrigerator doors, and the stove top spotless, too.

Every Day

Wipe down the sink after doing the dishes or loading the dishwasher (30 seconds).
Wipe down the stove top (one minute).
Wipe down the counters (one minute).
Sweep, Swiffer, or vacuum the floor (two minutes).

Every Week

Mop the floor (five minutes).
Wipe the cabinets, backsplashes, and appliances (10 minutes).
Wash the dish rack (four minutes).
Wipe the switch plates and phone (one minute).
Wipe the inside of the garbage can (one minute).

Every Season

Empty and scrub down the inside of the refrigerator (30 minutes).
Empty and clean the insides of the utensil drawers (15 minutes).
Scrub down the cupboard exteriors (30 minutes).
Clean the stove-hood filter (10 minutes).
Really clean the sink.

How to deal with telemarketing calls: Be nice

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:15:00 +0000

This morning I received an unsolicited call. Here is how it went down:

Telemarketer: May I speak to ****?
Me: There is no one here by that name.
Telemarketer: Please allow 48 hours for your number to be removed from our list. Thank you and have a good day.
Me: Thank you, have a good weekend.
Telemarketer: Thank you, have a good holiday.
Me: Thank you, have a good month.

That is how it is done. I cannot be out "niced" by anyone, especially on the phone.

Lend Your Voice to the Deficit Reduction Talks Today!

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Prevent Cuts to the Nutrition Programs and Programs for At-Risk, Low-Income, and Poor People in Need!

Washington, DC, 29 June 2011 – The White House and congressional leaders are in final negotiations to raise the debt ceiling.

Congress must raise the debt ceiling so that the U.S. government can pay its current obligations. To secure votes to raise the debt ceiling, some members of Congress are withholding support unless dramatic cuts are made to federal spending—including destructive, long-term cuts to the nutrition, hunger, and other programs for people in need.

Every deficit-reduction package of the last 30 years has been bi-partisan, exempting key programs for at-risk, low-income, poor people from cuts. We must protect these programs.

Final negotiations between the President and key leaders in Congress are happening right now. Call your senators today and tomorrow and ask them to urge Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to create a circle of protection around funding for the nutrition programs and programs for at-risk, low-income, and poor people in the United States and the desperately poor abroad in any legislation to raise the debt ceiling. Do not put off your call! Make your voice heard!

You can explain your message by adding any or all of these points:

Exempt programs for hungry and poor people from cuts. All major deficit-reduction packages in the past 30 years under Republican and Democratic leaders have exempted key domestic programs that affect hungry and poor people. Congress must continue this precedent by protecting low-income programs here in the United States and abroad.
Revenues and spending cuts must be on the table to achieve deficit reduction so we can continue our commitment to ending hunger and poverty at home and abroad.
Funding these programs is good for the economy. Low-income families spend their benefits immediately and in their local communities, leading to local job creation and job sustainability.

Your Senators need to hear from you today and by Friday 1 July at the latest! Call your U.S. senators on 202.224.3121 and tell them to urge Sens. Reid and McConnell to protect the nutrition, hunger and other programs for at-risk, low-income, and poor people in the debt ceiling negotiations.

My favorite recipes

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Today I'm sharing my favorite recipes with you

These are some of my favorite recipes and websites with recipes. Have a look at them and try some out. Let me know which recipe is your favorite or which site has your favorite collection of recipes.

House Cuts Do More Funding Damage than First Assumed!

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Washington, DC, 20 June 2011 – The 2012 Agriculture Appropriations bill (H.R. 2112) approved by the full House in contentious floor debate last week by a vote of 217-203 does more funding damage to the WIC Program’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget than previously thought! House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Staff advised NWA late Friday night of the further reduction in funding.

Here’s what happened!

When the bill left the House Committee on Appropriations Tuesday 31 May, an amendment by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-CT, had increased funding for the Program from $5.901 billion (the House Agriculture Appropriation Subcommittee’s markup funding level set the previous week) by $148 million to $6.048 billion.
But Republican lawmakers opposed DeLauro’s amendment on the floor of the House which offset the increase to WIC by reducing funding to the Brazilian Cotton Institute. Lawmakers then voted to cut the funding from the Cotton Institute. This left WIC funding at $5.901 billion again.
The floor manager for the bill, Rep. Jack Kingston, R-GA, Chair of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, assured Rep. DeLauro and Democrats who had opposed the rollback that he would restore the $147 million included in her amendment to WIC.
To accomplish this, he offered an amendment that cut all of the Programs in the first six titles of the bill – everything from agriculture and conservation programs, to rural development, domestic nutrition and food programs, to foreign assistance and related programs, and the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) – by 0.78%.
This left WIC funded at $6.00 billion, barely above the Subcommittee’s markup level of $5.901 billion and hardly the bump back up to $6.048 approved by the full Committee.
The bottom line: a cut of $733 million off of Fiscal Year 2011 funding of $6.734 billion and a potential loss of 300,000-700,000 moms and young children from the Program’s benefits!

Earlier in the day, with the help of NWA members and the breastfeeding community, the House voted 119-306 (click here for a PDF of the Roll Call Vote) to reject an amendment by Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-NC, to cut $82.5 million in funding for breastfeeding peer counselors and performance bonuses! The House also voted to reject by a vote of 64-360, an amendment by Rep. Paul Broun, R-GA, to cut $604 million from WIC.

These cuts are bad news not only for WIC, but all of the nutrition, agriculture, conservation, and foreign assistance programs and the FDA that have taken a broad-side in the name of deficit reduction and political ideology.

At the end of the day, these cuts, but particularly the WIC and nutrition funding cuts, will damage the nation’s public health nutrition infrastructure, result in challenging nutrition consequences for hundreds of thousands of mothers, children, and families, have long-term negative health consequences, hurt rural and urban communities alike, and hurt small businesses and family farmers. These cuts will cost jobs! None of this makes any sense for an economy that is struggling to find its feet or for families who are caught in endless cycles of frustration, desperation, even hunger as they try to make ends meet!

The final bill does include $14 million in funding for infrastructure, $75 million for breastfeeding peer counselors and related activities (NWA proposed $80 million) including $7.5 million for breastfeeding performance bonuses (NWA proposed $10 million), and $50 million for management information systems/EBT development (NWA proposed $60 million).

House of Representatives Acts to Cut Mothers and Young Children from WIC!

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 04:14:00 +0000

Washington, D.C, June 16, 2011 - In a sad day for our nation’s most vulnerable population, the U.S. House of Representatives today voted largely along party lines (217-203) to cut hundreds of thousands of mothers and young children off of the nation’s premier public health nutrition program serving low-income mothers and young children to age 5 – the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) – eliminating access to critical nutritious foods, nutrition services and referrals to health care and social services.

The legislation, the Fiscal Year 2012 Agriculture spending bill (H.R.2112) funds WIC at $6.048 billion – a $686 million reduction from the current fiscal year’s funding level of $6.734 billion. Current funding allows WIC to serve roughly 8.9 million mothers and young children. Under the House’s approved bill, between 200,000 and 750,000 low-income mothers and young children will be cut from the Program in the midst of a still weakened economy.

“Families turning to WIC for nutrition assistance are vulnerable and at-risk,” said Kiran Saluja, Chair of the National WIC Association, NWA Board of Directors.” Economic crises compound their vulnerability and WIC food packages and the nutrition services that accompany them ensure that WIC mothers and young children stay healthy.”

“With these funding cuts, WIC will be forced to turn mothers and young children away!” said the Rev. Douglas A. Greenaway, President & CEO of NWA. “WIC’s food budgets, like all families’ food budgets, are sensitive to inflation. Economists are predicting food prices to rise by at least 5% during the 2012 fiscal year, so there won’t be enough money to meet the nutritional needs of all WIC families.”

Quality nutrition services are the centerpiece of WIC: nutrition and breastfeeding education, nutritious foods, and improved healthcare access for low and moderate income women and children with, or at risk of developing, nutrition-related health problems, including overweight, obesity, and type-2 diabetes. Research demonstrates that the food and nutrition education components of WIC work synergistically to achieve successful outcomes:

WIC prenatal care benefits reduce the rate of low birth-weight babies by 25% and very low birth-weight babies by 44%.
Infants receiving WIC are less likely to be underweight and are in better health than eligible infants not participating in WIC.
WIC children have improved nutrient intakes, improved immunizations rates, and dramatically reduced risks of child abuse or neglect.

The National WIC Association, NWA, is a non-profit representing the nearly 9 million mothers and young children participating in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children – known as WIC – and the nation’s 12,200 dedicated WIC service provider agencies.

For further information contact the National WIC Association on 202/232-5492 or visit our web site at www.nwica.org.

My Letter to US Congressman David Schweikert

noreply@blogger.com (Re He) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:00:00 +0000

As a voting constituent, I write in strong opposition to the counter-productive cuts to nutrition programs included in the Fiscal Year 2012 Agriculture Appropriations bill, H.R. 2112. This legislation would have a devastating impact on our nation’s most vulnerable populations. I urge you and your colleagues to speak out against these cuts when this bill comes to the House floor for debate. I urge you to vote against the bill in its present form.

In particular, funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), despite an amendment approved in Committee increasing funding by $147 million, is set at $6.048 billion -- $686 million below the current Fiscal Year 2011 funding level. This would result (depending upon participation growth and food cost inflation) in 200,000 to 350,000 vulnerable, at-risk, low-income pregnant, post-partum, and breastfeeding women, infants, children losing critical nutrition assistance. I urge the House to amend the bill to fund WIC at $6.83 billion.

As passed out of Committee, the legislation also contains report language that misrepresents the reality of WIC’s preventative public health nutrition services – the core mission of the Program. By lumping the cost of these and other critical mission driven client services into program management or administrative costs, the Committee claims that WIC administrative costs are well above 40%. The reality is that in fiscal year 2010, WIC administrative costs (according to USDA) averaged 9.09%. I urge the House to strike this report language.

WIC currently serves nearly 8.9 million mothers and young children (Over 2000 in Tempe) – approximately one out of four pregnant women and roughly 50% of all infants or grandbabies born in the United States – providing nutrition education and breastfeeding support, health care and social service referrals, and nutritious monthly food packages with an average value of $41.43 in fiscal year 2010.

Almost 51% of pregnant women enroll in WIC during their first trimester of pregnancy and at certification, 25% of those pregnant women have three or more nutrition risk factors. Numerous studies have shown that pregnant women who participate in WIC have longer pregnancies leading to fewer premature births; fewer low and very low birth-weight babies; experience fewer fetal and infant deaths; seek prenatal care earlier in pregnancy; and consume more of such key nutrients as iron, protein, calcium, and Vitamins A and C.

Preterm births cost the U.S. over $26 billion a year with the average first year medical costs of a premature/low birth-weight baby roughly $49,033 compared to $4,551 for a baby born without complications. WIC prenatal care benefits reduce the rate of low birth-weight babies by 25% and very low birth-weight babies by 44%, saving the nation vast sums in health care costs. Every dollar spent on pregnant women in WIC produces $1.92 to $4.21 in Medicaid savings for newborns and their mothers.

Infants receiving WIC are less likely to be underweight and are in better health than eligible infants not participating in WIC. Participation in WIC positively influences the nutrient intakes of children, improves immunizations rates, and dramatically reduces the risk of child abuse or neglect. WIC children at ages 1 to 2 have less dental related Medicaid costs compared to children who do not participate in WIC and four and five-year olds whose mothers participated in WIC during pregnancy have better vocabulary test scores than children whose mothers had not received WIC benefits.

For better than a decade and a half, successive Administrations and Congresses have provided bi-partisan supported funding to serve all eligible women, infants and children who apply to WIC. The proposed cut would needlessly harm hundreds of thousands of WIC families.

I urge Congress to fund WIC at $6.83 billion and continue to closely monitor WIC caseload and food cost inflation to assure sufficient funding to maintain current caseload, keep pace with rising food prices, and ensure WIC is able to serve all eligible mothers and young children who apply to the Program.

No one denies that our nation is facing serious fiscal challenges, but balancing the budget on the backs of vulnerable, at-risk, low-income populations that need essential food and nutrition assistance programs is not the way to achieve financial security. I urge you to do everything in your power to protect our nation’s struggling families from hunger and improve their nutritional health and well-being. I urge you to oppose the funding cuts to WIC and the other nutrition Programs.

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