Monthly Archives: May 2012

Sometimes, the original sentiment of a holiday can get lost.

In today's case, the true meaning of Memorial Day might get burried in, say, the the excitement of the year's first beach trip, a delectable BBQ or an enticing super sale. There's no shame in enjoying the three-day weekend. But, to make sure to enjoy it for all it's worth, we think it's important to focus on the deeper meanings: freedom and remembrance. Do take a moment this holiday weekend to honor our country.

We've put together a few quotes to help evoke gratefulness for the freedom we are so blessed to have.

What do you do to celebrate our freedom and remember those who fought to honor it?

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth." -George Washington

"Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose." -The Wonder Years

"What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us." -Helen Keller

"To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die." -Thomas Campbell

"Perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy." -Eskimo Legend

"Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." -Rossiter W. Raymond

Go here to see the original:
Let Freedom Ring: Inspirational Memorial Day Quotes

SARASOTA NATIONAL CEMETERY -- They trekked with focus and resolve to these emerald fields lined with marble headstones on a fiery hot Sunday afternoon.

Undeterred by the heat, they came, like pilgrims on a mission, carrying flowers, like Bradenton's Geraldine Schule, 80, to place on a grave site, in her case, the grave of her beloved husband, Bradenton's Rodney W. Schule, who had served in the U.S. Navy and Merchant Marine.

They came, like Rich and Mare Muno of Venice, to honor their neighbor, James Orr of the U.S. Air Force, who was laid to rest here on Clark Road two years ago.

They came, like Bradenton's Stefenie Hernandez and 14 others in her family, to lay a wreath during a special Memorial Day moment here in honor of Hernandez's son, Spc. 4 Patrick Lay, who died in Afghanistan on Aug. 11, 2011.

And, they came from Tallahassee, in a convoy of black vehicles containing Gov. Rick Scott and his wife, Ann, both of whom walked with the pilgrims, hugging many, including those in the Hernandez family and the Schule family.

Ann and Rick Scott later said they understand the desire many have to be a freedom pilgrim and come to a place like Sarasota National Cemetery on Memorial Day weekend, a time set aside to honor those who gave their lives for their country.

"You can't know what it feels like unless you have lost a family member in the service of his or her country," a humble Scott, the keynote speaker, said during a 45-minute Memorial Day ceremony attended by about 400 under a tent here.

Scott's father was in the 82nd Airborne during World War II and he himself served in the U.S. Navy.

Jets forge an unforgettable moment

At about 1:40 p.m., just after U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Bradenton, was being introduced to speak, four F-16s from the 482nd Fighter Wing at Homestead Air Force base roared in formation over the tent.

Read more:
Freedom 'pilgrims' come to honor those who sacrificed

Culture Challenge of the Week: Conscience Coerced

The liberal machine known as the Obama administration continues to accuse the Republican Party and conservatives in general of waging a war on women. Its a nonsense claim, and women arent buying it.

It is, however, a convenient smoke screen blurring the largest assault on religious freedom in decades.

The controversy swirling around the mandate from the Department of Health and Human Services, which forces religious institutions to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-causing drugs for their employees, escalated this past week.

This time, its the good guys on the offensive.

In 12 courts, 43 Catholic institutions have filed suit against the Obama administration and its agencies, asserting that the contraceptive mandate violates the religious freedom of faith-based institutions.

In a statement explaining why the University of Notre Dame has joined the lawsuits, the universitys president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, put the issue simply: The case is about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, and its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptives.

Dont miss this point: The free-exercise clause is about living our religious beliefs, not just about how we worship. It protects our ability to integrate our faith into what we say and what we do in the public square, not just within our churches, synagogues or mosques.

The Obama administration long has attempted to recast religious freedom as mere freedom to worship. Why? Because to the left, religion (and Judeo-Christian morality) is sort of like secondhand smoke some people like it, but on the whole, it harms society so it must be banned from public spaces and limited to restricted areas (churches, temples and mosques).

The troublesome First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, then, becomes mere freedom of worship. And so, outside of their houses of worship, religious believers would have no right to free exercise and therefore no right of conscientious objection.

Read the original:
HAGELIN: Religious freedom is real issue of mandate

A train station is where passengers begin a journey, or change direction. For the past year, Freedom Station has been a place where San Diego sailors and Marines with broken bodies start their journey to a new life.

It looks much like many apartment complexes in old San Diego neighborhoods. A handful of cottages circle a courtyard.

But every detail is ready to pass a drill instructors inspection. The grass is military-style neat. There is a white picket fence in front of each door.

And the residents, most in their 20s, arent ordinary. Josue Barron is missing a leg above the knee, and one eye is glass and bears the emblem of his infantry unit 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. Timothy Read also lost part of a leg, and one wrist bears scars where doctors stitched it back on after a roadside bomb blast.

Barron likes to sit on the small porch of his cottage in the afternoons. Other residents call out greetings as they come home from their doctors appointments.

Being combat wounded, with all these guys here, I felt comfortable. If I was living in any other neighborhood, I wouldnt be able to talk to my neighbors because they have nothing in common with me, said Barron, 22, who lives with his wife and their dog in the small house while waiting for his medical discharge.

Here, we all are transitioning, and we all have our own demons, said David Smith, 23, an injured Marine veteran who was one of Freedom Stations first residents. But were all doing it together, so its easier.

Operated by a grass roots San Diego nonprofit group, Freedom Station officially opened one year ago, on Memorial Day weekend.

Since that time, the quiet complex has been home to 15 injured service members, who were once resident patients at San Diego Naval Medical Center in Balboa Park. An additional 23 are on a waiting list.

Sandy Lehmkuhler was volunteering at the Navy hospital, one of the militarys national centers for amputee care, when she got the idea.

Original post:
Next stop for wounded vets: Freedom Station

Internet freedom advocates are finding creative ways to get their message out to the masses.

Source: http://www.dccomics.comThe latest unique effort comes from Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian and online advocacy group Fight for the Future. Their plan: a "Bat-Signal for the Internet." According to Forbes, once it launches next month it will provide participating website administrators with code they can add to their sites that can be triggered in the case of a freedom-infringing episode.

The code will add to the sites widgets or banners that ask users to do things like call politicians or boycott companies. It supposedly even could trigger another blackout similar to the one that occurred in January when Google, Wikipedia, Craigslist and other sites went dark and posted messages in protest of SOPA.

Legislation such as SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA, which threaten the freedom of the Internet, seem to be popping up like a game of Whac-a-Mole and squashing them means online advocates rallying their followers. This is apparently another way to do it.

"People who wish to be tapped can see, 'Oh look, the Bat-Signal is up. Time to do something,'" said Ohanian. "Whatever website you own, this is a way for you to be notified if something comes up and take some basic actions ... If we aggregate everyone thats doing it, the numbers start exploding."

According to Forbes, Fight for the Future and Ohanian have been focused most recently on defeating CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protect Act. The bill, which was passed in the House of Representatives last month, aims to protect the U.S. from cyber terrorism and other online attacks. One of two versions of the bill will likely come up for a vote in the Senate early next month.

The problem with CISPA is it includes a provision that would let companies share users' private data with government agencies, and not just regarding threats of cyber attacks; companies will now be able to share users' private data in the event of "computer crime," exploitation of minors, and to protect individuals from "the danger of death or serious bodily harm."

This broad definition has privacy watchdogs up in arms.

Rainey Reitman, activism director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is an outspoken contributor to the CISPA debate. In a radio debate last month, Reitman said that while CISPA proponents employ rhetoric that the bill will "fend off a cyber Pearl Harbor," what they're really doing is inciting fears of security threats when, in fact, such concerns have existed for years. "I do think there is a need for companies to get more information from the government in a timely fashion. The problem that arises with CISPA is that it does so much more than that," she said.

"It also opens the floodgates for companies to intercept communications of everyday Internet users and pass unredacted personal information to the governments," she said, adding that several amendments to the bill would have addressed such concerns but they never made it to the House floor for a vote.

Read the rest here:
Internet Freedom Advocates Take a Page From Caped Crusader

Ron Danyi has been Bradley Hagerty's teacher for four years.

During that time, first at Northeast Middle School and this school year at Freedom High, Danyi has come to see a transformation in the boy whose life was dominated by a seizure disorder and learning disability.

"He just didn't have the self-confidence," Danyi said.

Bradley's seizures have kept him from getting a permit like other teens approaching driving age. And Bradley's learning disability kept him from comprehending directions, so he'd rarely speak up in class except to apologize for not understanding.

"The self-esteem building is the hardest thing in teaching," Danyi said.

Especially when a student is wracked with fear.

"With his seizures, his fear is when he has them, kids may make fun of him if he falls," said Bradley's stepfather, Ken Haas.

The 15-year-old freshman has found confidence in an unlikely place: the stage.

"Theater is one of the great equalizers," said Freedom English teacher Jennifer Wescoe.

Drama I has been offered as an English elective for years at Freedom. And when the Bethlehem Area School District revamped high school special-education services by moving Danyi from Northeast to Freedom, Wescoe opened Drama I to Danyi's students. It's Freedom's first full-inclusion drama class, in which 17 special-education students are learning and performing plays and musicals alongside five regular-education students.

Read more:
Freedom High special education students make academic and social gains via drama class