2. MARK HOUCK AWARDED SEVEN-FIGURE SETTLEMENT AGAINST U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
from: LiveAction
SYNOPSIS: Mark Houck, a pro-life activist, received a seven-figure settlement from the Department of Justice (DOJ). The settlement stemmed from a lawsuit related to Houck's arrest by FBI agents in September 2022. Houck was arrested at gunpoint in front of his family after an altercation with an abortion clinic escort.
The DOJ charged Houck with violating the FACE Act but he was later acquitted. The lawsuit, filed by 40 Days for Life's Institute of Law & Justice, alleged excessive force and civil rights violations during Houck's arrest. The settlement is considered a legal victory for free speech and the pro-life movement. Shawn Carney of 40 Days for Life announced the settlement, emphasizing its positive impact.
Praise the Lord for this just and fair settlement to compensate for the unfair and biased use of the FACE Act to intimidate pro-life advocates.
3. LUBINETS APPEALS TO UN AND RED CROSS OVER SHOOTING OF UKRAINIANS DURING EASTER TRUCE
from: RISU
SYNOPSIS: Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's Human Rights Commissioner, will appeal to the UN and Red Cross regarding the killing of Ukrainian prisoners of war during the Easter truce. Russian forces are reported to have shot unarmed Ukrainian soldiers after taking them prisoner. An evacuation group near Huliaipilske in the Zaporizhzhia region was also killed by Russian forces.
Lubinets stated these actions are blatant violations of international humanitarian law. He explained that, according to information from open sources, Russian forces launched an assault on Ukrainian positions, resulting in four Ukrainian soldiers being taken prisoner. However, instead of adhering to international humanitarian law, the occupiers shot the unarmed Ukrainians on the spot. The article highlights Russia's disregard for the rules of war and its use of terror tactics.
Ask the Lord to bring a swift and fair end to this unjust war, and for full reparations for the damage done to Ukraine.
4. REVIEW: MY BODY FOR YOU: A PRO-LIFE MESSAGE FOR A POST-ROE WORLD
from: American Life League
SYNOPSIS: This article reviews Stephanie Gray Connors' book, My Body for You: A Pro-Life Message for a Post-Roe World. The book explores the meaning of the body from a pro-life perspective and a Catholic viewpoint. Connors argues that bodies are "for" communion and interpersonal relationships, rejecting isolated individualism.
The review highlights Connors' defense of life, addressing difficult cases and misinformation related to abortion and pro-life laws. It refutes claims of substandard medical care in emergency cases and criticizes unfettered access to abortion-inducing drugs. The book also covers conflict cases where maternal lives are at stake and the dangers of eugenic abortion: killing unborn babies simply because the parents don't like some characteristics of the baby.
Conceiving a baby is not like shopping for a car, a piece of clothing, or a TV. Pray for people to rid their minds of this consumerist mentality about human life.
5. FAMILY CAREGIVERS PROVIDE OVER $1 TRILLION IN CARE ANNUALLY
from: Disability Scoop
SYNOPSIS: Family caregivers in the U.S. provide care valued at over $1 trillion annually. This value is based on an estimated 59 million caregivers providing 49.5 billion hours of care, at an average rate of $20.41 per hour. The $1.01 trillion figure exceeds total Medicaid spending and private healthcare spending.
Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan of AARP highlights the emotional and financial toll on caregivers. The report emphasizes that family caregivers provide most long-term care, often unpaid, for tasks from daily living to complex medical care. AARP is advocating for policies like paid leave, respite services, and tax credits to support caregivers.
Thank God that more and more extended families are picking up their task of caring for their elterly and disabled family members, as St. Paul in 1 Timothy 5:8 instructs us to do, instead of neglecting them and making the state pay for their care.
6. THESE SIMPLE LIFESTYLE CHANGES COULD DECREASE DEMENTIA RISK BY 25%
from: NBC News
SYNOPSIS: A new study suggests that simple lifestyle changes can reduce dementia risk by up to 25%. Regular exercise and at least seven or eight hours of sleep per night are linked to better brain health. Breaking up long periods of sitting has a significant positive effect on brain health, even with moderate exercise.
Sitting for over eight hours daily increases dementia risk by nearly 30%, while regular physical activity can decrease it by 25%. Akinkunle Oye-Somefun emphasizes the importance of incorporating both physical activity and reduced sedentary time. Phillip Hwang explains that physical activity boosts blood flow and reduces beta-amyloid, benefiting brain health. Sufficient sleep is crucial for the brain's waste removal processes and memory consolidation.
Ask the Lord to help us get up off our duff and get moving! Sitting for hours at a time is harmful to our physical and mental health!
7. IS SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTIVE? WHAT THE SCIENCE REALLY SAYS
from: Disabled World
SYNOPSIS: Social media addiction refers to a pattern of compulsive, excessive engagement with social media platforms that interferes with daily functioning, relationships, or psychological well-being. It is well known that the big social media companies deliberately design their products to keep you scrolling.
On March 25, a California trial awarded $6 million to a plaintiff who argued that the addictive qualities of social media had caused her harm. Google and Meta, which were the companies that were found liable, disagree with the verdict and intend to appeal. Debate among researchers centers on whether the neurological and behavioral markers observed in heavy social media users - including changes in reward-related brain activity and impaired decision-making - are sufficient and consistent enough to meet established criteria for addictive disorders.
Pray for God's help to strictly limit our time on social media and instead use our time for constructive, useful purposes.
This book I've just ordered promises to challenge me – and us, if you read it – to cleanse our minds from the numbingly repeated foolish and false thinking that has befuddled our minds in recent decades. Here's what the blurb at Amazon says:
"What is happening to the world? Why does it seem like everyone has gone insane? Why are so many things that seemingly everyone believed the day before yesterday suddenly held to be retrograde, hateful, or even criminal? And why are things that everyone seemed to view as lunacy the day before yesterday suddenly taught or even required?"
"In Pandemic of Lunacy: How to Think Clearly When Everyone Around You Seems Crazy, University of Texas philosopher J. Budziszewski patiently explains the delusions that beset us. Ranging over the topics of morality and happiness, politics and government, family and sexuality, the real and the unreal, and God and religion, Budziszewski makes the case for sanity in commonsense language accessible to all."
"Pandemic of Lunacy will be treasured by any who are troubled or confused, any who wonder whether the world has gone crazy or whether they have, and any who feel the need for a trustworthy guide in a topsy-turvy age."
The book is also available in Kindle eBook format and as an easy-to-listen-to-while-traveling Audible audiobook. I have hundreds of e-books, but if some book I'm considering looks like a "keeper" I like to have a print copy of it so that I can share it with others when I'm done reading it!
The author, J. Budziszewski, a professor of logic and natural law ethics at U. of Texas, renounced the Christian faith of his teenage years when he went to college and became an atheist and radical socialist, but after earning his PhD and becoming a professor, he realized the logical bankruptcy of that position. You can read a five-part series of his intellectual and spiritual journey here:
Part 1,
Part 2,
Part 3,
Part 4,
Part 5, and a great review of the book "Why Are We Going Crazy? New Book Has a Diagnosis".
At the author's personal website, he gives us an excerpt from this book, so here's just a snippet of it to whet your appetite:
"The delusion that things are whatever we say they are gives such an inflated importance to the mind that one would think nothing existed but thoughts, or maybe words. Materialism swings to the opposite extreme: that nothing exists but matter and material bodies. If nothing but matter exists, it seems to follow that there is nothing but matter to care about: As one pop diva famously chanted, '[T]he boy with the cold, hard cash / Is always Mister Right / 'Cause we are living in a material world / And I am a material girl.'"
"'Matter is all there is' is so much taken for granted that the Encyclopedia Brittanica simply announces it as fact. Matter, it declares, is 'material substance which constitutes the observable universe and, together with energy, forms the basis of all objective phenomena.' The phrase 'together with energy' adds nothing because energy can be converted into matter."
"To say that 'matter is material' is circular, of course. More commonly, matter is taken to be whatever has mass and takes up space. In this sense, dirt is matter, but the meaning of the definition isn't. Assuming that this is what the Brittanica’s editors have in mind, it seems that the meaning of their sentence could be neither observable nor objective – yet somehow they expect us both to observe it and accept its objectivity." (Click the above link to read the whole excerpt!)
I've often remarked that astrophysicists have discovered there's something wierd going on in the universe: something they can't sense or detect even with their strongest telescopes and other instruments. They call it "dark matter" or "dark energy" but it's neither dark or bright – it's just there... that is, it must be there, otherwise they say the universe simply couldn't exist! And astonishingly, they calculate that it makes up at least 95% of all that exists!
Let that sink in for a minute: if all that we human beings (or AI) could ever possibly know or experience is only less than 5% of what really exists, and if people are using only about 5% of their mental ability due to laziness, lack of education, and muddled, sloppy, or illogical thinking habits, that means that we likely only comprehend about 0.25% of all that there is!
Add to all this: there's a new documentary movie coming to select theaters: The Story of Everything. Click this link for the movie's trailer and the details, but briefly here's what it's about: for over a century, we've been trained to think materialistically, that matter is all that matters. But the more we discover through the sciences, the more we find out that there's something "je ne sais quoi" – "I don't know what" – that's missing.
For example, the existence of the simplest living cell requires the instructions coded in DNA and RNA molecules in order to hold together and function. Darwin proposed some sort of "primordeal soup" with just the right ingredients and temperature for simplest living cells to form. For 150 years or so, this idea has held sway. But what Darwin didn't know about, DNA or RNA, is the kicker: this coded information must first exist somehow, somewhere in order for the simplest living cells (and all the more complex ones too!) to come into being. That's on the microscopic level: it's the same on the macroscopic level, the level of the stars and galaxies. In order for anything to exist, there must be "laws of nature" – physics and mathematics – to hold everything in the most delicate balance. These laws, like DNA and RNA information, are non-material: logic / information, and without it, the material world couldn't exist.
"In the beginning was the Word (the Logos – logic/information), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. . Without Him was not anything made that has been made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn't comprehended it" (John 1:1-5).
"For by Him (the Word) were all things created, in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through Him, and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things are held together" (Colossians 1:16-17).
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