Twenty Items of Interest (v. 13)

Well to make up for missing last week, I’m posting a second Twenty Items.

1.  Minnesota has a publicly-funded Islamic school.  Katherine Kersten of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune reports:

TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is “establishing Islam in Minnesota.” The building also houses a mosque. TIZA’s executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.

Students pray daily, the cafeteria serves halal food -- permissible under Islamic law — and “Islamic Studies” is offered at the end of the school day.

Complete craziness.

HT: Matt Riesetter

2. The new sexual revolution going on at Harvard -- abstinence.

HT: Family Research Council

3. Continuing with the education theme.  Madness once again seen in public schools with one Wisconsin elementary school encouraging students to participate in a cross-dressing day.

HT: Kevin McCullough

4.  Just so Senator Obama doesn’t feel like I only pick on him (like his campaign staff would read this blog).  David C. Innes ponders whether or not Senator Hillary Clinton is insane.

5.  Catholic-run University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN is ok with transgender lecturers and Al Franken coming to address their student body.  But if you are Black and pro-life you are evidently not welcome.

6.  John Hawkins on liberal insanity when it comes to terrorists.

7.  Rich Lowry says that President Bush should boycott the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing over China’s brutal crackdown in Tibet.  What do you think?  I think I’m in agreement.

8.  By the way, I still don’t like Mitt Romney.  There is an online petition sponsored by Government is Not God to let John McCain know that Romney is not wanted on the ticket.  I already signed it.  I will not vote for a McCain/Romney ticket. 

HT: Carl Cameron

9.  Inspiring video over at Hot Air about a Marine who lost his leg fighting in Iraq, returns to duty… in Iraq.

10.  Oprah is a theological mess.

HT: Brent Thomas

11.  On the left is one example of “Christian” consumerism run amok.  Can I throw up now?  I guess I would need one of those mints if I do.

HT: Steve Randall

12.  LifeChurch.tv is going to launch it’s “One Prayer” initiative.  Interesting concept.  What do you think?

13.  The Olympic Torch leaves a huge carbon footprint.  Where’s Al Gore when we need him?

HT: Janice Dean

14.  News flash! Husbands benefit more than wives when it comes to the amount of housework the couples has compared to what they had before they were married.  According to a recent University of Michigan study:

Having a husband creates an extra seven hours a week of housework for women, according to a University of Michigan study of a nationally representative sample of U.S. families.

For men, the picture is very different: A wife saves men from about an hour of housework a week.

Does this really surprise anybody?

HT: Joe Carter

15.  Google doesn’t allow anti-abortion advertisements.  Another reason why I Goodsearch (that and if you designate Serve Our Youth Network as your charity we get $.01 every time you do).

16.  Here’s a college trend I’d like to see discontinued.

In the Woodstock era, the advent of coed dorms caused a stir, with Life magazine proclaiming the development “an intimate revolution on campus.” Coed floors came along over the next two decades, giving college students immediate proximity to each other. The next step, coed suites and bathrooms, brought the sexes even closer together.

Now, some colleges are crossing the final threshold, allowing men and women to share rooms. At the urging of student activists, more than 30 campuses across the country have adopted what colleges call gender-neutral rooming assignments, almost half of them within the past two years.

HT: Catherine Claire

17.  John Mark Reynolds shares a list of 12 books that Christians should read to gain better insight on how
to do “cultural apologetics.”

• “Abolition of Man” (Lewis)
• “Descent into Hell” (Williams)
• “On Fairy Stories” (Tolkien)
• “Closing of the American Mind” (Bloom)
• “Christianity and the Nature of Science” (Moreland)
• “How Now Should We Live” (Pearcey and Colson)
• “Liberty or Equality” (von Kuehnelt-Leddihn)
• “The City and Man” (Strauss)
• “Heaven the Hearts Deepest Longing” (Kreeft)
• “Reason in the Balance” (Johnson)
• “For the Life of the World” (Schmemann)
• “The Birth of the Modern World” (Johnson)
• “A Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy” (Schaeffer)

18.  R.C. Sproul interviews Ben Stein on his movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.  Listen to Part 1 and Part 2.

HT: A-Team Blog

19.  Muslims leaving Islam in droves.  Interesting.

20.  Pro-Life Doctors, are they a new oxymoron?

In November 2007, the Committee on Ethics of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) published Committee Opinion # 385 entitled, “The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine.” The committee opinion sought to “maximize accommodation of an individual’s religious or moral beliefs while avoiding imposition of these beliefs on others or interfering with the safe, timely, and financially feasible access to reproductive health care that all women deserve.”

Unfortunately, the balance struck by the committee between the right of conscience of physicians and the reproductive health care of women so emphasizes patient autonomy that it turns physicians into medical automatons forced to act against their best ethical and medical judgment. As pointed out on March 14, 2008, by Health and Human Services secretary Mike Leavitt: “The ACOG ethics report would force physicians to violate their conscience by referring patients for abortions or taking other objectionable actions, or risk losing their board certification.” Put simply, committee Opinion 385 could be the end of the pro-life doctor.

Related posts

• Rod Roberts Interview Part III: Social Concerns
• The Pro-Life Video that YouTube Banned (Update)
• Twenty Items of Interest (v.21)
• A Choice for Life
• Twenty Items of Interest (v. 23)
• Fatherhood Begins at Conception, but not Personhood?
• Obama and Clinton on Abortion
• Election Priorities
• Twenty Items of Interest (v.44)
• Big Tent...