Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

March 15, 2008

 Today’s Announcement

Don’t forget to order your copy of Angels Watching Over Me, the story of an ordinary woman facing less than ordinary challenges.  Angels Watching Over Me is a story of family love, sacrifices, poverty and an undying faith that makes heroes out of all of us. Here is the link in case you have forgotten it: http://www.lulu.com/content/964306

Important notice: Storytime Tapestry is a free e-zine, however donations are always needed to help with the operating expenses of running the newsletter and to keep Storytime Tapestry the quality newsletter you are so accustomed to.   You can make your donations to paypal at: winterose@videotron.ca, or if you would prefer to use the mail system contact the publisher at the same email address: winterose@videotron.ca

Today’s Stories

LATEST INFORMATION ON ABORTIONS IN AMERICA

Duane Bates

The number if abortions in the US dropped to 1.2 million in 2005, the lowest number since 1974, the year the Supreme Court legalized abortions and 400,000 less that the in the peak of 1.6 million abortions in 1990.  An analysis of the 2005 report on abortions yields some important data on what women who are, and who are not, getting abortions.

Teenagers made up only 17% of all abortions in 2005.  Over 50% of the women getting abortions were over 25 years of age and 60% of them already had one child.  African-American and Hispanic women were disproportionately represented, with African-Americans, 13% of the US population, representing 35% of all abortions, while white women represented almost 55% of women having abortions.

Economic issues were cited by many women as playing a major role in their decision to have an abortion.  Women living at or below the poverty level were more than four times likely to have abortions than women with moderate or affluent income levels.  Increasing individual and family incomes would certainly have a positive effect on the number of abortions.  In 2004, for example, 50% of all Federal income tax returns reported income of $30,000 or less and 70% reported incomes of $50, 000 or less.  Within the 62.5 million tax filers reporting income of $30,000 or less in 2004, 42 million had so little income they had no Federal income tax liability, and the average income of the 62.5 million tax filers in this group was $14.149. In 2004, 25% of women having abortions said their decision was based on the fact that they could not afford another child.  I have posted below several links to articles on this subject.

Since the biggest single predictor of future income is the number of years of education, one of the best ways of increasing the decline in the number of abortions is to find ways to get teens to stay in high school, graduate and attend college or some form of vocational training that will increase their income, especially young women.

The other major factor that is involved in the problem of unintended pregnancies and the resulting abortion is the lack of a sense of personal responsibility.  It’s like the weather, everyone talks about it, but no one seems to know what to do about it.  When I attended high school from 1954 to 1958 I can only recall one out of wedlock pregnancy, and that boy and girl, seniors, were forced by their parents to quit school and get married.  There have been so many major social and economic changes in our nation since 1960 that our culture has fundamentally shifted and the whole concept of personal responsibility has radically changed as the result.

In my work with teenagers and their parents as a therapist one of my major objectives was to educate and model the important role of personal responsibility and its connection to building a secure future through education, delayed gratification, forethought and planning.  The clear message that the pathway to secure adulthood was the avoidance of involvement with alcohol, drugs, violence and not becoming parents before your education is completed and you are married.

My efforts on these subjects where thwarted by two major factors: the inability or unwillingness of the kid’s parents to reinforce and model my messages and the influence of our consumer and entertainment society which sends messages to the teens to live for the moment, act and spend impulsively and not worry about tomorrow.  These moms and dads were not bad people; they were simply overwhelmed with trying to earn enough money to pay for the basic necessities of life, drastically reducing the amount of time for parental supervision and guidance.  The result was that the major influences on their kid’s lives were their own peer groups and our consumer economy that encourages them to reject every attitude and behavior that are the foundation of providing them with a secure future.

Americans are famous for proposing simple solutions to complex problems. I once attended a presentation on a new approach to solving the problems with out young people: character education.  The basic approach was an educational program for kids that would teach them how to develop character traits that embody values, behaviors and beliefs that would allow them to avoid the pitfalls I have detailed above.

 I watched as a number of presenters detailed how the character development program would be presented in classroom settings.  At the end of the presentation we were allowed to ask questions about the program.  I posed the following question: given the influence of family and our society on kids can we realistically expect substantial numbers of children to essentially reject or ignore the values and behaviors they live with and experience 24/7 and develop the character traits we desire? In short, can we expect masses of children to have better “characters” than their parents?

Several of the presenters rose to defend the program and declared that the program could do exactly that.  One presenter, who understood the implications of my question, agreed that it was unlikely that substantial number of kids exposed to the character development program would change their values and behaviors.  In other words, adults, as a group, cannot expect their kids, as a group, to be any better than they are.  We can certainly influence individual kids to adopt better behaviors and values, but we have to change our cultural values to influence our children as a group. As adults, we must first change our behaviors in order to change our children’s behaviors.

Our abortion rate is the result of many different cultural factors.  We need to look to other developed nations like the Netherlands, France, and the UK to emulate their successful programs in reducing the abortion rate.  Many people believe that reversing Roe V Wade will stop abortions, but that action would simply move the issue to the fifty states. Seventeen states had already legalized some abortions prior to Roe V Wade and performed over 700,000 abortions in 1973.  Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is proposing a Constitutional amendment to ban abortions, but even if such as proposal was passed out of Congress by the required two-thirds majority of both Houses, something that is currently unlikely, it would require ratification by thirty-eight of the fifty state legislatures. 

A more effective approach to reducing the number of abortions is to attack the root causes; lack of education, better access to contraceptives, poverty and inadequate family incomes and the importance of the role of personal responsibility to teens and adults alike.  In spite of recent success in reducing the number of abortions, the US still has the highest abortion rate in the developed world. We will take a hard look in the mirror and find out what we must change in ourselves before we can find solutions to this issue.     

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22689931/page/2/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22250633/

http://www.guttmacher.org/media/presskits/2005/06/28/abortionoverview.html

Duane Bates

batesduane@yahoo.com

 ~**~**~

Poetry Corner

~**~**~

Avoidance

Cheryl Williams

You turned your head,

closed your eyes

while your little girl

cried,

while she lay

in shameful submission,

while she cowered in fear,

while she cursed the darkness;

Did you even shed a tear?

She was your sacrificial lamb;

Her innocent blood in on your hands;

you could have stopped him

with a cry

a plea

a phone call

a suitcast packed

a bullet to his head

But not even a tear was shed.

Cheryl Williams

Politicalgirl04@aol.com

 ~**~**~
 

  The Cleansing

Cheryl Williams

To dance on the wind

as cleansing rain washes over me,

I feel God's presence moving

throughout this broken child;
 I bow in submission

to One

who does not bruise

and my soul soars to Heaven

as sweet peace claims me.

Sobs rack this body, but

they are borne of love,

not pain,

and when I look up,

I see compassion

as my falling tears

wash the feet of Love.

Cheryl Williams

Politicalgirl04@aol.com

~**~**~
 

Readers Feedback

~**~**~

Carol, - the mistake that comes back to haunt you -
    Be patient my friend.  This mistake will not follow you forever.
Sadly, this data driven world has lost some of the human touch.
Now numbers on a sheet get more attention than a person's personal story.  If you stay patient and keep calmly explaining
what happened, though, eventually this problem will fade away.
    Let me know how it works out.  I will keep you in my prayers, Joe

Here is our Storytime Tapestry Angels: Also, I would like to thank those of you who chose to be a silent angel and gave an anonymous donation to keep Storytime Tapestry up and running.

Clara Westerfer, Mark Crider, Rosanne Catalano, Paula Booher, Kay Seefeldt, Mariane Holbrook, Mary Ellen Grisham, Louise Nomani, Sharon Bryant, Angela Walker, Hart and Helen Dowd, Keith Ready, Ginger Morgenstern, Ellie Braun-Haley, Surinder Jandu, Bob Shaw, Carol Meeks, Charlotte Hilliard, Marilyn Sink, Victor Buhagiar, Clarice Hinson, Conrad 

Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

March 15, 2008

 Today’s Announcement

Don’t forget to order your copy of Angels Watching Over Me, the story of an ordinary woman facing less than ordinary challenges.  Angels Watching Over Me is a story of family love, sacrifices, poverty and an undying faith that makes heroes out of all of us. Here is the link in case you have forgotten it: http://www.lulu.com/content/964306

Important notice: Storytime Tapestry is a free e-zine, however donations are always needed to help with the operating expenses of running the newsletter and to keep Storytime Tapestry the quality newsletter you are so accustomed to.   You can make your donations to paypal at: winterose@videotron.ca, or if you would prefer to use the mail system contact the publisher at the same email address: winterose@videotron.ca

Today’s Stories

LATEST INFORMATION ON ABORTIONS IN AMERICA

Duane Bates

The number if abortions in the US dropped to 1.2 million in 2005, the lowest number since 1974, the year the Supreme Court legalized abortions and 400,000 less that the in the peak of 1.6 million abortions in 1990.  An analysis of the 2005 report on abortions yields some important data on what women who are, and who are not, getting abortions.

Teenagers made up only 17% of all abortions in 2005.  Over 50% of the women getting abortions were over 25 years of age and 60% of them already had one child.  African-American and Hispanic women were disproportionately represented, with African-Americans, 13% of the US population, representing 35% of all abortions, while white women represented almost 55% of women having abortions.

Economic issues were cited by many women as playing a major role in their decision to have an abortion.  Women living at or below the poverty level were more than four times likely to have abortions than women with moderate or affluent income levels.  Increasing individual and family incomes would certainly have a positive effect on the number of abortions.  In 2004, for example, 50% of all Federal income tax returns reported income of $30,000 or less and 70% reported incomes of $50, 000 or less.  Within the 62.5 million tax filers reporting income of $30,000 or less in 2004, 42 million had so little income they had no Federal income tax liability, and the average income of the 62.5 million tax filers in this group was $14.149. In 2004, 25% of women having abortions said their decision was based on the fact that they could not afford another child.  I have posted below several links to articles on this subject.

Since the biggest single predictor of future income is the number of years of education, one of the best ways of increasing the decline in the number of abortions is to find ways to get teens to stay in high school, graduate and attend college or some form of vocational training that will increase their income, especially young women.

The other major factor that is involved in the problem of unintended pregnancies and the resulting abortion is the lack of a sense of personal responsibility.  It’s like the weather, everyone talks about it, but no one seems to know what to do about it.  When I attended high school from 1954 to 1958 I can only recall one out of wedlock pregnancy, and that boy and girl, seniors, were forced by their parents to quit school and get married.  There have been so many major social and economic changes in our nation since 1960 that our culture has fundamentally shifted and the whole concept of personal responsibility has radically changed as the result.

In my work with teenagers and their parents as a therapist one of my major objectives was to educate and model the important role of personal responsibility and its connection to building a secure future through education, delayed gratification, forethought and planning.  The clear message that the pathway to secure adulthood was the avoidance of involvement with alcohol, drugs, violence and not becoming parents before your education is completed and you are married.

My efforts on these subjects where thwarted by two major factors: the inability or unwillingness of the kid’s parents to reinforce and model my messages and the influence of our consumer and entertainment society which sends messages to the teens to live for the moment, act and spend impulsively and not worry about tomorrow.  These moms and dads were not bad people; they were simply overwhelmed with trying to earn enough money to pay for the basic necessities of life, drastically reducing the amount of time for parental supervision and guidance.  The result was that the major influences on their kid’s lives were their own peer groups and our consumer economy that encourages them to reject every attitude and behavior that are the foundation of providing them with a secure future.

Americans are famous for proposing simple solutions to complex problems. I once attended a presentation on a new approach to solving the problems with out young people: character education.  The basic approach was an educational program for kids that would teach them how to develop character traits that embody values, behaviors and beliefs that would allow them to avoid the pitfalls I have detailed above.

 I watched as a number of presenters detailed how the character development program would be presented in classroom settings.  At the end of the presentation we were allowed to ask questions about the program.  I posed the following question: given the influence of family and our society on kids can we realistically expect substantial numbers of children to essentially reject or ignore the values and behaviors they live with and experience 24/7 and develop the character traits we desire? In short, can we expect masses of children to have better “characters” than their parents?

Several of the presenters rose to defend the program and declared that the program could do exactly that.  One presenter, who understood the implications of my question, agreed that it was unlikely that substantial number of kids exposed to the character development program would change their values and behaviors.  In other words, adults, as a group, cannot expect their kids, as a group, to be any better than they are.  We can certainly influence individual kids to adopt better behaviors and values, but we have to change our cultural values to influence our children as a group. As adults, we must first change our behaviors in order to change our children’s behaviors.

Our abortion rate is the result of many different cultural factors.  We need to look to other developed nations like the Netherlands, France, and the UK to emulate their successful programs in reducing the abortion rate.  Many people believe that reversing Roe V Wade will stop abortions, but that action would simply move the issue to the fifty states. Seventeen states had already legalized some abortions prior to Roe V Wade and performed over 700,000 abortions in 1973.  Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is proposing a Constitutional amendment to ban abortions, but even if such as proposal was passed out of Congress by the required two-thirds majority of both Houses, something that is currently unlikely, it would require ratification by thirty-eight of the fifty state legislatures. 

A more effective approach to reducing the number of abortions is to attack the root causes; lack of education, better access to contraceptives, poverty and inadequate family incomes and the importance of the role of personal responsibility to teens and adults alike.  In spite of recent success in reducing the number of abortions, the US still has the highest abortion rate in the developed world. We will take a hard look in the mirror and find out what we must change in ourselves before we can find solutions to this issue.     

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22689931/page/2/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22250633/

http://www.guttmacher.org/media/presskits/2005/06/28/abortionoverview.html

Duane Bates

batesduane@yahoo.com

 ~**~**~

Poetry Corner

~**~**~

Avoidance

Cheryl Williams

You turned your head,

closed your eyes

while your little girl

cried,

while she lay

in shameful submission,

while she cowered in fear,

while she cursed the darkness;

Did you even shed a tear?

She was your sacrificial lamb;

Her innocent blood in on your hands;

you could have stopped him

with a cry

a plea

a phone call

a suitcast packed

a bullet to his head

But not even a tear was shed.

Cheryl Williams

Politicalgirl04@aol.com

 ~**~**~
 

  The Cleansing

Cheryl Williams

To dance on the wind

as cleansing rain washes over me,

I feel God's presence moving

throughout this broken child;
 I bow in submission

to One

who does not bruise

and my soul soars to Heaven

as sweet peace claims me.

Sobs rack this body, but

they are borne of love,

not pain,

and when I look up,

I see compassion

as my falling tears

wash the feet of Love.

Cheryl Williams

Politicalgirl04@aol.com

~**~**~
 

Readers Feedback

~**~**~

Carol, - the mistake that comes back to haunt you -
    Be patient my friend.  This mistake will not follow you forever.
Sadly, this data driven world has lost some of the human touch.
Now numbers on a sheet get more attention than a person's personal story.  If you stay patient and keep calmly explaining
what happened, though, eventually this problem will fade away.
    Let me know how it works out.  I will keep you in my prayers, Joe

Here is our Storytime Tapestry Angels: Also, I would like to thank those of you who chose to be a silent angel and gave an anonymous donation to keep Storytime Tapestry up and running.

Clara Westerfer, Mark Crider, Rosanne Catalano, Paula Booher, Kay Seefeldt, Mariane Holbrook, Mary Ellen Grisham, Louise Nomani, Sharon Bryant, Angela Walker, Hart and Helen Dowd, Keith Ready, Ginger Morgenstern, Ellie Braun-Haley, Surinder Jandu, Bob Shaw, Carol Meeks, Charlotte Hilliard, Marilyn Sink, Victor Buhagiar, Clarice Hinson, Conrad