Schools as Sexual Playgrounds

By Kevin Ryan

If students attend schools which are run as sexual playgrounds, is it any wonder if they fail to learn?

Over the last three decades, social scientists, educational researchers, and pundits have probed for the reason why educationally the US on the fringe of being a Third World country. In particular, why does the academic achievement of American students begin to fall off during junior high and plummet during the high school years?

The “failure theories” are many: our schools are too big; our schools are too small; our school year is too short; our school day is too long; our teachers are too dumb or too lazy or under paid; our parents don’t care; we don’t give the schools enough money. Critics endlessly opine that our students don’t have enough arts, enough sports; enough science, enough math. They don’t have enough homework; they have too much homework. What is being missed from the analyses is the teenagers’ elephant in the room, their Kim Kardashian at the Sunday school picnic: sex.

Read it all here.

Related reading:  Sexual Abuse of Adolescent Boys; McCain Right on Illinois Sex Ed; Einstein Was Right About Education; Straight Talk on Public Education

Quote of the Week - Wendell Berry

"If you depreciate the sanctity and solemnity of marriage, not just as a bond between two people but as a bond between those two people and their forebears, their children, and their neighbors, then you have prepared the way for an epidemic of divorce, child neglect, community ruin, and loneliness. If you destroy the economies of household and community, then you destroy the bonds of mutual usefulness and practical dependence without which the other bonds will not hold." --Wendell Berry (From his essay Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, 1992)

Malala book launch stopped in Pakistan

Malala Yousufzai

PESHAWAR: A ceremony to launch Malala Yousufzai’s book ‘I am Malala’ scheduled at the University of Peshawar on Tuesday was stopped by the university after intervention by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.

The Bacha Khan Education Foundation (BKEF), Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO) and Area Study Centre had planned the ceremony.

“It is against the spirit of freedom of expression and promotion of education because holding a ceremony in honour of Malala Yousufzai means to scale up awareness about child rights,” Dr Khadim Hussain, director of the BKEF, told Dawn.

He said they had been informed by police late on Monday that they could not provide security for the programme.

“I was stopped by many people, including ministers, the vice-chancellor, registrar and police, from holding the programme,” Area Study Centre’s director Sarfraz Khan said.

Source: Pakistan Dawn


Related reading:  Malala's Book Expected to Make Millions

South Sudan Ceasefire Agreement

23 January 2014 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the United Nations Security Council today welcomed the signing of an agreement between anti- and pro-Government forces in South Sudan, a step towards a comprehensive deal that would halt the violence that has engulfed the country for more than a month.

Representatives of President Salva Kiir and former deputy president Riek Machar signed the agreement on cessation of hostilities, following three-weeks of talks mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

Mr. Ban "calls on the parties to immediately implement this agreement," his spokesperson said in a statement, which also congratulates IGAD on its "successful mediation."

Read it all here.

MLK Murder Conspiracy Trial

After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. In a press statement held the following day in Atlanta, Mrs. Coretta Scott King welcomed the verdict, saying , “There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations.

Read it all here.

Quote of the Week - The Rev. Bernice King

Speaking of her father's sacrifice, The Rev. Bernice King said, "I know deep down in my sanctified soul that he did not take a bullet for gay rights!"

California Drought Worsens

Alice C. Linsley

My home state of California is facing the worst drought in four decades. The chart below, released by the National Drought Mitigation Center, shows extremely low soil moisture levels with the dark brown.

Gov. Jerry Brown declared a drought state of emergency on Tuesday, asking Californians to cut back on their water consumption by "at least 20%" as the state faces its driest year on record.

"We ought to be ready for a long, continued, persistent effort to restrain our water use," he said at a press conference, according to the LA Times.

The drought has contributed to the spread of the Colby Fire burning in Glendora, which was is thought to have been sparked by an illegal campfire on Wednesday. So far, 1,700 acres are charred and 1200 firefighters are working that fire. The fire has spread rapidly due to dry and windy conditions.

The fires are spread by the Santa Ana winds which come down off the mountains and bring drier conditions. Two small brush fires broke out in Pacific Palisades and Topanga.

For weeks, naturalists and farmers have been lobbying the governor to take action. Reservoirs across the state have hit record lows and water rationing is now a fact of life in many communities. The Sierra Nevada Mountains have a near record low snowpack for this time of year. The lack of snow at Lake Tahoe and in the Sierras suggests that this summer will be one of the worst for fires in California.

The drought in California as seen from space. 
Note the extreme dryness in the central valley.

California and parts of western Oregon experienced their driest year on record in 2013, according to statistics from the National Weather Service (NWS).  San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Fresno, and the Oregon cities of Medford, Salem, and Eugene have already broken their previous records for dryness in 2013.

Related reading:  US Drought Monitor; California Drought Monitor 14 Jan. 2014

The Crisis in South Sudan

Over the past few weeks, crisis has gripped the world’s newest nation, South Sudan, after an internal political conflict spilled into violence which has left thousands dead.

So far, there have been reports of mass graves, as well as one instance where rebel forces killed UN peacekeepers that would not let them get to the frightened civilians behind the gates of a UN compound.

These images are reminiscent of scenes from Hotel Rwanda. The conflict in South Sudan already shows patterns that we have seen in mass atrocities elsewhere: armed militias operating outside traditional military chains of command; forcible recruitment of civilians; and intimidation of the United Nations. It seems that the nation is falling apart, but what is actually behind the violence?

Timeline of events

Violence first broke out at the compound of South Sudanese president Salva Kiir on December 15 last year between soldiers loyal to him and those loyal to his former deputy, Riek Machar, who attempted to overthrow Kiir.

Read it all here.

Nigeria's Tough Stand on Homosex

The Nigerian bill prohibiting same-sex marriage or partnerships was signed into law on January 7, 2014, by President Goodluck Jonathan. The law criminalizes public displays of affection between same-sex couples and gay clubs and societies.

The law imposes a 14-year prison sentence on anyone who “[enters] into a same-sex marriage contract or civil union,” and a 10-year sentence on individuals or groups, including religious leaders, who “witness, abet, and aid the solemnization of a same-sex marriage or union.” It imposes a 10-year prison sentence on those who “directly or indirectly make public show of same-sex amorous relationship” and anyone who “registers, operates, or participates in gay clubs, societies, and organizations,” including supporters of those groups.

The law is be denounced as "draconian" by Human Rights Watch.

This law extends the criminal code in southern Nigeria, and the penal code in northern Nigeria, that impose up to a 14-year prison term for anyone who has “carnal knowledge” or “carnal intercourse” with any person “against the order of nature.”

In a country contentiously split among Muslims and Christians, leaders of Nigeria's mosques and churches are united in their condemnation of same-sex relationships. The Anglican Church of Nigeria opposes same-sex blessings, the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals and any homosexual practice. The Muslim community of Kano has maintained firm opposition to homosex and same-sex partnerships.

Britain and some other Western nations threaten to suspend aid to Nigeria and other countries where homosexuality is criminalized. They consider the laws discriminatory and grounded in bigotry and prejudice. In November, the European Union's top court ruled that gays and lesbians in countries that outlaw homosexual relations are eligible for asylum. Days later, the Malta Refugees Appeals Board granted asylum to an 18-year-old Nigerian teen.

Homosexual intimacy is criminalized in 78 countries, including 38 of 54 African countries. The death penalty is at play in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen as well as parts of Somalia.

The Pew Research Center's 2007 Global Attitudes Survey found that "people in Africa and the Middle East strongly object to societal acceptance of homosexuality." It should not come as a surprise that societies that value the traditions of their ancestors resist acceptance of homosexuality while societies that have largely set aside long standing traditions - Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and the United States - regard sexual boundaries to be less a matter of tradition and religion than of social accommodation.

Blue shades represent areas where homosex is most accepted. There are groups within the blue areas which do not accept homosex. The Micmac (Ainu) of northeast Canada and the Aborigines of Australia are examples.

Related reading:  Genesis on Homosex: Beyond Sodom; Is Opposition to Homosexual Activity "Irrational"?; What would the Greeks have thought of Gay Marriage?

U.S. Health Care: Resolving the Quagmire

The following excerpts are from chapter one of a book in progress by Ron Robins, tentatively titled, Resolving America’s Economic Quagmire… individuals gaining inner fulfillment is the key*

————————————————————————————————————

“These [Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid] and other projected expenditures… have produced, not a fiscal cliff, but a fiscal abyss.”

—Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Boston University.


Overview (Excerpt)
“Professor Kotlikoff calculates this fiscal abyss of the U.S. Federal Government as an astounding unfunded liability of $205 trillion. It equals a current debt of about $665,000 for every living American adult and child. And most of this sum pertains to health care. The health care costs quagmire poses a financial deathblow to the U.S. economy and its citizens. To avert this calamity, America’s health care system will be revamped.

Notwithstanding Obamacare, one way will be to re-organize the health care system according to well-studied methodologies that show huge potential cost savings. While another way—garnering increasing attention—is by utilizing scientifically validated disease prevention interventions such as the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program. Also, many political leaders, economists and others, believe there will need to be substantial reductions in health care benefits as well.

Interestingly, by deploying the known methodologies and interventions inferred to above and written about below, it might not be necessary to reduce benefits yet still be able to cut health care costs a stunning 50-80 per cent!”

Major health care cost drivers. Reducing their cost through health system reform and introduction of the Transcendental Meditation disease prevention program (Excerpt)
“The major health care cost drivers are:
The increasing incidence of chronic disease in an aging population
Relatively fewer workers to pay for increasing costs
Exceptionally high professional fees relative to other developed countries
Huge oversupply of services, equipment
Administration costs and fraud

Now we look at these issues one by one, and where appropriate, determine the role that individual TM practice can play in reducing their costs.”


The increasing incidence of chronic disease in an aging population (Excerpt)
“Over half of Americans have chronic diseases. Yet, despite significant improvements in treatments for chronic diseases, their incidence and related financial costs continue rising dramatically.

Actual costs of America’s seven most common chronic diseases—cancer, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, heart disease, pulmonary conditions and mental disorders—have been estimated at $1.3 trillion annually by Ross DeVol and colleagues, or about 10 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). Their unique and original study quantified almost all related costs to employers, governments, and to the U.S economy. They say those costs could reach $4.2 trillion by 2023.

Numerous researchers cite the growing incidence of chronic disease as mostly due to aging. However, many in the medical field also believe that more important than aging are the unhealthy lifestyles, diets, and behaviors of most Americans. And this is another area where the TM practice can be highly beneficial. Aside from its well-documented physical health benefits, TM creates an ‘inner fulfillment and self-sufficiency’ that alleviates the desire for the kind of instant gratification (with bad lifestyles, diets, etc.) that cause much chronic disease.

The first major study demonstrating the effectiveness of the TM practice in reducing chronic disease (and overall illness) was by Dr. David Orme-Johnson in 1987. Using Blue Cross/Blue Shield data, Dr. Johnson found an average 50% reduction in medical utilization in all 16 major disease categories studied among subjects practicing TM as compared to matched controls.

As the elderly are responsible disproportionately for health care costs, some researchers suggest they be particularly encouraged to practice TM. One leading researcher on health care costs, Dr. Robert Herron, wrote about this in the Huffington Post on July 13, 2012. Dr. Herron remarked–on a study he did–that, ‘In the Medicare population… the highest spending 25 percent of seniors accounted for 85 percent of total expenses’ and that there was ‘a 28 percent reduction in doctors’ bills over five years from baseline for persistent high-cost people who practiced the TM technique.’”

Read it all here.

Pakistan a Deadly Country for Journalists

On 2 January 2014, the International Federation of Journalists called on authorities in Pakistan to carry out an immediate investigation into the murder of journalist Shan Dahar (Odhor) in the Badha area of the country's Larkana district.

According to reports, Dahar, a senior reporter for the Aaab Tak News Channel, was shot by unidentified assailants on his way home last Tuesday, 31 December 2013. He was taken to hospital with critical injuries and passed away in the early hours of New Year's Day.

Following Dahar's death, a series of protests led by IFJ affiliate, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), have been held by journalists across Pakistan to call for the government to step up its efforts to protect the safety of journalists in the country.

"We express our deepest sympathies with the family and colleagues of the highly respected journalist Shan Dahar, who we believe is the first journalist to be killed in 2014," said IFJ President Jim Boumelha. "We call for authorities in Pakistan to carry out an immediate and thorough investigation into his murder and to take every step necessary to ensure that the perpetrators of this horrific crime face the full weight of justice."

On 31 December, the IFJ released its annual list of journalists and media staff killed in 2013 which showed that Pakistan remains one of the deadliest countries in the world for media workers, with 10 journalists and media staff killed in the country last year.

Read it all here.

Iraqi PM urges tribal leaders to oust Al-Qaeda in Fallujah

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has again urged Al-Qaeda-linked militants in the western province of Anbar to surrender.

In a televised address on January 8, Maliki suggested that militants who quit fighting the government and its allies might be considered for clemency.

Maliki repeated a pledge not to use force if Anbar's Sunni tribes took action on their own to oust the militants.

But he also vowed his government would smash the Iraqi Al-Qaeda branch, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, calling it corrupt and evil.

His comments came amid reports that Iraqi tanks and artillery remained deployed around Fallujah, poised to attack militants who seized parts of the Sunni-majority city last week.

'I call upon the people of Fallujah and the tribal leaders to unite and reject the presence of those evil people, because Fallujah has witnessed fighting and destruction many times before,' Maliki said. 'We do not want this city to suffer at all. We will not use force as long as the tribes are ready to fight Al-Qaeda and expel them.'

Read it all here.

Kidnapped Swedish Journalists Released

Magnus Falkehed and Niclas Hammarström, two Swedish journalists who were kidnapped near the Lebanese border in Syria on 23 November, have been released, the Swedish government said today.

“We are very relieved to learn that these two journalists have been released safe and sound,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We nonetheless continue to be concerned about the 16 other foreign journalists (four of them French) and the more than 30 Syrian citizen journalists who are still held in Syria.”

Normally based in Paris, Falkehed works for many Swedish publications including the daily Dagens Nyheter and the magazine Sydsvenskan. Hammarström is a freelance photographer.

According to the information obtained by Reporters Without Borders, they are currently in Lebanon. No details about their abduction or release have so far been made public.

Source: IFEX

Uruguay Legalizes Marijuana

Uruguayan President Jose Mujica has signed a bill legalizing the sale and production of the drug despite global criticism. The UN has condemned the bill as a violation of international law, while Mujica claims it will undercut the illegal drugs trade.

Mujica’s secretary, Diego Canepa, told the Associated Press that the President had signed the bill into law on Monday night. Now the Uruguayan government has until April 9 – when the law comes into full effect – to finalize the regulations that will govern the sale and cultivation of marijuana.

As of today, the cultivation of up to six cannabis plants per family is now legal in Uruguay. As well as growing the drug, Uruguayans will also be able to purchase marijuana in pharmacies once they have registered in a nationwide database. There will be a cap on the amount of marijuana that can be bought every month which will initially be set at 40 grams.

President Mujica – who proposed the bill in the first place – has championed the legislation as a way to eliminate the illegal drugs trade in Uruguay. In this way, the market price for the drug will be set at a dollar a gram in an attempt to undercut the illegal market price of $1.40.

Read it all here.

Peru and other countries of South America may follow.

Thousands of Books Torched in Lebanon

Two-thirds of a historic collection of 80,000 books have gone up in smoke after a library was torched in the Lebanese city of Tripoli amid sectarian tensions. The blaze was started after a pamphlet insulting Islam was reportedly found inside a book.

Firefighters struggled to subdue the flames as the decades-old Al-Saeh library went up in smoke on Friday in the Serail neighborhood of Tripoli. Despite firefighters’ best efforts, little of the trove of historic books and manuscripts was recovered from the wreckage.

“Two thirds of some 80,000 books and manuscripts housed there,” a security source told Agence France Press, referring to the items destroyed. The source added that the blaze was started after a manuscript insulting the Prophet Mohammed was found hidden in the pages of one of the library books.

Read it all here.

Marines Evacuate US Embassy in South Sudan

By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3, 2014 – Marines evacuated about 20 U.S. Embassy staff members from the deteriorating security situation in Juba, South Sudan, on the same day the State Department announced it will add $49.8 million to humanitarian assistance the United States has provided to help victims of the conflict there.

The new aid brings to $300 million the assistance the United States has provided in fiscal years 2013 and 2014 to help South Sudanese victims of conflict and refugees seeking asylum in South Sudan, according to a media note released today by the State Department.

At the Pentagon, spokesman Army Col. Steven Warren briefed the press about the evacuation from Juba requested by the State Department.

"Early this morning," he said, "the Department of Defense sent two KC-130 aircraft [pre-positioned in Entebbe, Uganda, and] assigned to the Special-Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force-Crisis Response, also called the SPMAGTF-CR, … to Juba to evacuate approximately 20 personnel."

Soldiers from the East Africa Response Force, assigned to U.S. Africa Command and under the command and control of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, will continue to provide security reinforcement to the U.S. Embassy in Juba, according to an Africom statement also issued today.

Read it all here.

Related reading: State Department Intensifies Evacuation; Marines in Uganda to Aid Evacuation from S. Sudan

Private Conversations of Adel and Maher Aired on "Black Box"

Egyptian rights organizations filed a formal request on 31 December 2013 with the Attorney General demanding an immediate investigation into the broadcasting of activists' private telephone conversations by a TV talk show host.

Earlier this week, the host, Abdel Raheem Ali, who presents a programme called 'Black Box' on Al-Kahira Wal Nas TV channel, aired the private telephone conversations of political activists Mohamed Adel and Ahmed Maher. Adel and Maher are symbols of the protest movement that ignited the revolt that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The rights organizations demanded that an investigation be also conducted into the Vodafone company, the operator of the phone service used by the two activists, to determine whether it conspired to record and leak these conversations.

"This is a violation of the sanctity of private life and an illegal act which returns us to the hateful practices of the Mubarak era and his State Security Police. It is also a crime under Egyptian law," stated the organizations.

Under Egyptian law, the violation of privacy including eavesdropping or illegally recording or broadcasting conversation conducted privately without the consent of those concerned is an offence punishable by imprisonment.

'Black Box' TV Host Abdel Raheem Ali announced that he has even more private conversations to broadcast, "which goes to show his disregard for the law and his ability to act as if he had impunity. The Attorney General's office has a major responsibility to ensure its credibility and impartiality regardless of the political affiliations of all parties involved," said the organizations.

Source: Arabic Network for Human Rights

US Army Destroying Syrian Chemical Weapons

By C. Todd Lopez

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (Army News Service, Jan. 3, 2014) -- Some 64 specialists from the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center are expected to depart for the Mediterranean in about two weeks aboard the ship MV Cape Ray to destroy chemical weapons from Syria.

The nearly 650-foot-long ship, now in Portsmouth, Va., will travel to a yet-to-be specified location in the Mediterranean, will take on about 700 metric tons of both mustard gas and 'DF compound,' a component of the nerve agent sarin gas, and will then use two new, and recently installed 'field deployable hydrolysis systems' to neutralize the chemicals.

Onboard the Cape Ray will be 35 mariners, about 64 chemical specialists from Edgewood, Md., a security team, and a contingent from U.S. European Command. It's expected the operational portion of the mission will take about 90 days.

Outside the ship, Jan. 2, Frank Kendall, under secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, said preparations began before the United States even knew it was committed to the mission -- or that the mission would ever materialize.

'There was a recognition that something was going to happen in Syria, in all likelihood that would require us to do something with those chemical materials that were known to be there,' he said.

In December 2012, a request was made to determine what could be done if the U.S. was asked to participate in destruction of chemical weapons from Syria.

By the end of January 2013, a team with the Joint Project Manager for Elimination and the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center had evaluated existing technology and configurations for neutralization of chemical weapons and made the recommendation to use the hydrolysis process. Construction of a deployable system began in February, and the first prototype was available in June. A second was available in September.

'We could have waited to see what happened and then reacted to that, or we could have moved out ahead of time and then prepared for what might happen or was likely to happen,' Kendall said. 'Fortunately ... we took the latter course.'

Onboard the ship, an environmentally-sealed tent contains two Field Deployable Hydrolysis System (FDHS) units which will operate 24 hours a day in parallel to complete the chemical warfare agent neutralization mission.

Each unit costs about $5 million and contains built-in redundancy and a titanium-lined reactor for mixing the chemical warfare agents with the chemicals that will neutralize them.

About 130 gallons of mustard gas can be neutralized at a time, over the course of about two hours, for instance, said Adam Baker, with the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, Edgewood, Md.

The FDHS systems can, depending on the material, process between 5 to 25 metric tons of material a day. With two systems, that means as much as 50 metric tons a day of chemical warfare agents can be destroyed. The mission requires disposal of 700 metric tons of material. But the plan is not to start out on the first day at full speed.

'There is a ramp-up period,' Baker said. 'It's going to be a slow start. We're going to go very deliberately and safely.'

Rob Malone, with the Joint Project Manager for Elimination at Edgewood, Md., said the two chemical warfare agents will be neutralized with reagents such as bleach, water or sodium hydroxide.

'They are doing a chemical hydrolysis process. It brings the chemical agent together with a reagent, another chemical,' Malone said. 'It creates a chemical reaction that basically destroys the chemical agent in and of itself.'

The result of that neutralization process will create about 1.5 million gallons of a toxic 'effluent' that must be disposed of, but cannot be used as a chemical weapon. Additionally, Malone said, the effluent is similar to other toxic hazardous compounds that industrial processes generate. There is a commercial market worldwide for disposing of such waste.

The effluent will be acidic and will be PH-adjusted to bring it up to 'above neutral,' as part of the process. The end result will be a liquid that is caustic, similar to commercially-available 'Drano,' said Baker.

The operational plan includes a cycle of six days of disposal plus one day for maintenance of the equipment. On board will be about 220 6,600-gallon containers that will hold the reagents used in the disposal process, and will also be used afterward to hold the effluent.

Read it all here.

Over 1000 Migrants Rescued in Mediterranean

ROME: The Italian navy said on Friday it had rescued in 24 hours more than 1,000 migrants attempting the perilous journey across the Mediterranean by boat in rough winter seas.

Some 823 migrants were picked up on Thursday and another 233 were rescued on Wednesday as part of a major ongoing search and rescue operation to save the lives of thousands of immigrants heading for Europe in overcrowded and rickety boats, the navy said. The immigrants, including 30 women and 42 minors, mainly hail from Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan and Tunisia.

Six military vessels and several helicopters were involved in picking them up and transferring them to the coastal town of Augusta in Sicily.

Immigration charities estimate that between 17,000 and 20,000 migrants have died at sea trying to reach Europe over the past 20 years, often crossing on rickety fishing boats or rubber dinghies.

The immigrants were rescued as part of the Italian government’s “Mare Nostrum” operation, which mobilizes warships, amphibious vessels and aircraft to try and prevent further tragedies like the two shipwrecks in October in which more than 400 immigrants died.

Source:  Pakistan Dawn

G.K. Chesterton on New Beginnings

"The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." ~G.K. Chesterton: 'Daily News'