News & Submissions 1/11/2011

January 11th, 2011 by sivodd

Freshwater officially fired
On January 10, 2011, the Mount Vernon City Schools Board of Education voted 4-1 to terminate the employment of John Freshwater. A middle school science teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio, Freshwater was accused of inappropriate religious activity in the classroom — including displaying posters with the Ten Commandments and Bible verses, branding crosses on the arms of his students with a high-voltage electrical device, and teaching creationism. After a local family sued Freshwater and the district in 2008, the board voted to begin proceedings to terminate his employment in the district. Finally, after administrative hearings that proceeded sporadically over two years, the referee presiding over the hearings issued his recommendation that the board terminate his employment with the district. Read full story from ncse.com

Mourners to hold ‘community healing’ Mass after Arizona shooting
Mourners will gather at a memorial Mass Tuesday for victims of the weekend shooting outside an Arizona supermarket that killed 6 people and wounded 14 others.

The Mass will be held at 7 p.m. (9 p.m. ET) at St. Odiilia Church in Tucson, Arizona – where 9-year-old shooting victim Christina Green had her First Communion a year ago.

“Right now it is important as a community to pull together and to reach out in care and concern to all who have been affected by this tragedy,” Bishop Gerald Kicanas wrote Monday in a letter to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson. Read full story from cnn.com

Religion Today and Spell Craft
Many people are religious such as a few friends of mine are. I have religious friends and not so religious friends and Wiccan and Pagan friends as well. I used to be in a coven of witches and liked the faith I was in, but for some reason or another, I decided to become a solitaire witch and sometimes I cast good spells for myself as well as for family and friends.

I would say I been practicing witch magick since I was teen and my one aunt did not like me reading ghost stories or witch craft books so she made me burn them and ask God for forgiveness. There maybe a Supreme Being but I am like my uncle, as he does not feel God is tangible. There maybe many Gods and Goddesses whom control us and our minds, or aliens from another planet that control the universe, for all I know. Read full story from modernghana.com

Hubble finds ghostly object in deep space
There’s a green blob in space, but unlike a bad science fiction movie, it’s not coming to take over Earth. Probably.

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of a green cloud of gas about 650 million light-years from Earth. It’s been named Hanny’s Voorwerp, Dutch for Hanny’s Object. Read full story from cnn.com

In Pictures: Builders please Gods to create posh Roman villa for Wroxeter Roman City
Workmen have built a huge villa on haunted land at the fourth-largest Roman settlement in Britain as part of a television series lauded as “the ultimate exploratory archaeology project”.

English Heritage and Channel 4 have recreated a villa urbana – a townhouse used as a country retreat by upper class Roman families – using traditional Roman methods at Wroxeter Roman City in Shropshire. Read full story from culture24.com

AP-Petside poll: Most pet owners see a 6th sense
LOS ANGELES — Lassie could always sense when Timmy was in trouble. Black Beauty knew the bridge was out.

Now two-thirds of American pet owners say they can relate — their pets have a sixth sense about bad weather. Forty-three percent say the same about bad news, according to an Associated Press-Petside.com poll.

Seventy-two percent of dog owners said they’ve gotten weather warnings from their pets, compared with 66 percent of cat owners.

For bad news, 47 percent of dog owners and 41 percent of cat owners said they’ve been alerted by their pets, according to the poll conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. Read full story from chron.com

Dying Wolf Given Stem Cells Stuns Vets With Recovery
Along a stretch of highway in central Brazil, a female wolf was hit by a truck and left to perish on the roadside. Death seemed imminent for the animal when it was discovered by a compassionate passerby and rushed to the veterinarian at a nearby zoo. With the wolf in a near-coma and suffering from a severely broken leg, animal care workers opted to try an untested method in hopes of saving it — treating a wild animal, for the first time ever, with stem cells. Within hours after surgery, the animal was on its feet. Within days, it had broken free of its enclosure and escaped back into the wild. Read full story from treehugger.com

Jared Loughner: Focus on delusions, not politics
FRANCISCO — Posting strange and paranoid messages on the Internet and fixating on the end of the world, accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner appeared to be more driven by a delusional mind than a real interest in politics, mental health experts said Sunday.

“I doubt people who say this is about politics have a good understanding of mental illness,” said Dr. Bob Dolgoff, medical director of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center‘s mental health division. “It could be conspiracy theories or men from outer space. The important thing here is, why wasn’t he in treatment?” Read full story from sfgate.com

Arizona lawmakers plan to block protesters within 300 feet of funerals
Tucson, Arizona (CNN) — The Arizona Legislature is expected to pass legislation Tuesday that will bar protesters at funerals from getting within 300 feet of services, a spokesman for the state House said.

The action, according to House spokesman Daniel Scarpinato, is in direct response to a controversial church’s announcement that it will picket the funeral of Christina Green, the 9-year-old who was among six people killed during Saturday’s attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona. Read full story from cnn.com

American Islamophobia (source YouTube – patcondell)

Jacobs: Birds Dying Because of DADT Repeal (source YouTube – RWWblog)

Supreme Court Ruling Religion Cannot Be Used To As A Reason To Refuse To Marry Gay Couples(source Youtube – MOXNEWSd0tCOM)

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