In a study that was recently released, it was discovered that meat, fish, milk, maize and other crops produced in Gauteng are probably harmful to people due to radioactive pollutants.
To find out more about this story got to the News24 story called "Study warns of radioactive food."
"My dear disabled son: If we were told about your condition before you were born, we would have allowed a doctor to enter your mommy's womb to violently kill you in your mommy's tummy! Sorry, but we didn't really want you as you are!"
This is what a Tampa, Florida, couple effectively is telling their son in their "wrongful birth" suit against a doctor who said that they would be able to have normal children after their first son was born with the Smith-Lemli-Opitz genetic disorder.
When society has become so debased that a judge of that society could award people money for openly declaring that they would rather have wanted the option to murder their own child, then we know we have arrived in the valley of the shadow of death!
Of course, in today's "instant" world where almost anything and everything is according to one's taste, I suppose that it is a natural outcome that if a child is not according to one's taste, simply eliminate the child and try again until a suitable child comes onto the scene.
This culture of choice is certainly not a culture of reciprocation. The parents never reciprocate that choice to the child! Therefore, this child killing movement called "pro-choice" should be called something different, since only the parents can choose without considering the child at all in this equation!
The real name of this movement should be the "pro-pre-birth-murder" movement. Of course, this movement does not always think so clearly! The cartoon below spells it out so clearly.
That makes sense, doesn't it?
e-TV has long been one of the strongest purveyors of porn on television. Simply wait for late Friday or Saturday nights, and this vile filth will come into your home via e-TV's channel.
If you are concerned about the morals of this nation and the steep downgrade that is currently in full swing, then do something about!
I received the following email from Christian Action, and thought that more people needed to read it and act on it.
Protest and Prayer Against e-TV Porn Held Outside e-TV Studios
Members of Africa Christian Action, Christians for Truth and several other missions organisations and churches protested and prayed outside the e-TV Studios in Cape Town, on Saturday, (14 July 2007).
With placards such as “Porn is Anti-family”, “Pornography exploits women”, “Porn fuels sex crimes”, “Women deserve real protection and respect – Ban Porn, Execute Rapists”, and “E-nough, Remove Porn from e-TV”, participants drew some interested onlookers and were able to distribute Finding Freedom from Pornography leaflets and Gospel tracts to passers by.
The protest led to media opportunities for Christian Action Co-ordinator, Taryn Hodgson, to speak on radio talk shows, including national secular radio station SA FM and other short interviews for radio news slots and daily newspapers.
We praise God for the opportunity to use this issue as a springboard for talking about the havoc pornography is wreaking on South Africa and the importance of strengthening our families according to God’s Word.
One of the callers to the SA FM talk show complained that we were just aiming for a “soft target” that won’t “really effect the morals of this nation”. My reply was that yes, this is a soft target and that is exactly why we are targeting them. This is a reachable, tangible goal if we all pull together. When God, by His grace, grants us the victory, it will be an encouragement to tackle the pornography plague in other spheres.
We received a response to our letter to the e-TV director, in which e-TV denied the link between pornography and sexual abuse.
In their letter e-TV’s Regulatory Affairs Executive Officer Olefile Bop Tshweu, said “We submit that in broadcasting these films the timeslot is appropriate, the warnings are adequate, the content does not breach the Code and there is no evidence that these films contribute to sexual crimes.”
e-TV contends that their programmes are “soft-core porn” and therefore are not harmful.
Even so-called soft core pornography, however, has been shown to fuel sexual abuse. It desensitizes the viewer by objectifying the women. This can lead to addiction and a desire to view more hard-core material.
Porn on free-to-air national TV is outrageous. There are many parentless homes in South Africa and many homes where children are not supervised as to what TV they are watching. R18 restrictions are not enough to prevent children from watching these films.
We have in our hands testimonies from Safeline and Teddy Bear Clinic counselors who have counseled children who have sexually abused other children. They say that many of the children they have counseled say they have watched the Emanuelle porn films on e-TV.
Shaheda Omar, therapeutic manager at Teddy Bear Clinic in Johannesburg, has interviewed 100 child sex offenders and their mothers from across the social spectrum for her doctoral research project at Johannesburg University. In most cases she found that absent parents and “unmet emotional needs” had turned television into a “surrogate care-giver” with disastrous consequences. While some children claimed they had wanted to emulate love scenes in soap operas like the Bold and the Beautiful, others said they had been inspired by late night pornography on e-TV (Cape Times, Child on Child Violence Out of Control, 22 October 2006).
We cannot believe that e-TV feels no sense of social responsibility for the harm they are causing. Considering that South Africa has some of the highest rape statistics in the world and one of the highest HIV prevalence rates, can e-TV (and other broadcasters) afford to be contributing to these disastrous statistics through the negative sexual grooming of children and adults in this nation?
Pornography degrades and exploits people made in the image of God. Pornography is the theory, rape is the practise. We need to honour women by giving them real protection and respect. We need to ban pornography and execute rapists. We need to let children be children.
We urge advertisers who are currently advertising during these films to discontinue advertising during these exploitative films. We also urge people to boycott their products.
Other protests and prayer meetings outside the e-TV studios in Durban, Bloemfontein and Johannesburg are planned during July and August.
What You Can Do:
1. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, while the issue is still in the public eye.
2. Email your concerns to e-TV and request that all pornographic films or programmes be completely removed from all future broadcasts. Copy all letters to ICASA and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (this helps them to gauge public opinion).
ICASA: info@icasa.org.za
BCCSA: bccsa@nabsa.co.za
e-TV: info@etv.co.za.
Phone the e-TV National Office in Johannesburg and ask to speak to the director. Request a meeting to share your objections to these programmes as a concerned parent or citizen. Tel: 011-537 9300.
3. If you live in Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Durban, or Port Elizabeth you can also demonstrate and/or pray out side the e-TV studios/offices. Please let us know if you are interested in organizing a similar prayer meeting or demonstration. Contact us for appropriate literature to distribute or for suggested slogans for posters.
4. Pray that God would move the hearts of the e-TV directors to remove these offensive pornographic programmes from their channel. Pray that more churches would get involved in discipling their congregations in finding freedom from sexual addictions and mobilizing their members to combat the pornography plague.
Africa Christian Action
PO Box 23632
Claremont
7335
Tel: 021-689 4481
E-mail: info@christianaction.org.za
Web: www.christianaction.org.za
To view pictures of the demonstration against e-tv porn, visit the www.christianaction.org.za website.
For more information on how you can fight porn visit the Standing Together to Oppose Pornography website: www.stop.org.za.
My wife (Charlaine) and I were out shopping for a tracksuit for myself. Needless to say that I came away from the store with nothing and my wife came home with a beautiful turquoise blouse. Ok, it wasn't like that! We men always see women as shopping and spending a lot of money. However, in this case I noticed the blouse and thought that it would be perfect for Charlaine. I told her to try it on and she loved it.
However, that is not what I want to talk about. While we were walking through department stores, I noticed how many t-shirts and tracksuits had the brand's logo emblazoned on the front or back of the garment. It is either QuickSilver or Nike or some other top brand.
Then, to top it all, these brand names are extremely expensive compared to so-called "cheap" brands.
What I find so interesting about all these brand names and logos printed in large print on these garments, is that the companies that make the clothes that many children, and sometimes adults, just have to wear, pay enormous amounts to print media and television to advertise their merchandise.
However, they do not pay those gullible children and adults a dime for doing the advertising they do every time they wear those garments. In fact, these people that make you pay top dollar (rand) for those wanted outfits, get free advertising from the wearer of the garment and then do not think twice to rip them off with the next outfit.
Why should we, the individuals who wear the clothes, also advertise the clothes that we pay so much for.
I think it is time that we as the buying public should reconsider this free advertising and stop buying clothes that make us advertise freely for the brand and then still pay an arm and a leg for a piece of cloth.
People so much want to be in with the crowd that they would do unwise things like paying way to much for something. It is especially so when it comes to clothing. The fact is that many of these BIG brand names have conned the consumer into advertising their products, absolutely free!
Do people really think that they need to wear Billabong or Nike or whatever is the next hot brand name? The reality of it all is that these brands simply created the need for their clothing to be worn, where there was no need! People need to wear clothes, but do they really need to wear clothes that are ridiculously expensive just because there is some logo on them?
Every year all these brands just keep getting more expensive and people are stupid enough to keep buying because of some dumb sociologically driven need to belong. There is no problem with wanting to belong, but if one's sense of belonging is based on a logo printed on a piece of cloth, then is there really any belonging at all? A person may feel that he belongs, but in reality he does not belong and is wearing an expensive piece of cloth that advertises a company's clothes! That, indeed, is a very shallow idea of belonging. To think that one belongs because of the logo on a t-shirt is quite pathetic.
However, that is quite beside the point of the discussion here. The fact is that consumers have been conned into paying a lot of money to BIG brand names for a piece of cloth that does advertising for the BIG brand name for free!
I think that we, the consumers, must take this issue up with the BIG brand names and start charging them for the advertising we do for them almost on a daily basis.
I am in Antananarivo, Madagascar for 2 nights on business. It was arranged very suddenly. Last week my family and I were on holiday in Hibberdene, South Africa, the South Coast of Kwazulu-Natal. Even though it is winter in South Africa, the weather was good enough to swim.
Well, back to Madagascar! I arrived here last night (5 July) at about 22:00. The weird thing was that on the flight to Antananarivo, we first had to stop in Port Dauphine, where we all had to disembark (sounds like something you do to a dog that barks too much!). Here we had to collect our baggage, go through customs (who checked every single bag) and finally check back onto the exact plane that we came on.
I flew on Air Madagascar, because every other flight to Madagascar from South Africa was fully booked. The service on the plane was very good. The stewardesses were always smiling and were very helpful.
It is such a pity that I arrived last night and must be back on the plane home tomorrow already. There were a host of tourists on the plane and it seemed that they were going to have a good time here.
It looks very much like Africa here, except for a few lasting European touches.
I have done a lot of travelling in the last year and a bit, and the more I travel, the more I dislike it. In the beginning I thought that the travelling part of my job was going to be interesting. Well, it still is interesting, but with all the travelling, the shine has gone! I'd much rather be home with my family.
It is with my family that I derive a lot of joy in life. There is nothing better than getting home from a trip such as this, just to have my twelve year old daughter and my ten year old son literally come bounding into my arms. Everytime I think that "now I'm going to fall!" What with my travelling bags and two kids that are running at me like hungry lions.
That just makes me want to go home even more!
It is the basic building block of society that still remains the best!
UPDATE: 7 July 2007
I am sitting at the airport waiting to board the plane back to South Africa. The plane has been delayed, and instead of having left at 15:00, we are still stuck at the airport. Today I took a strole through Antananarivo, and I found it very interesting. There are little kids from as young as 3 and 4 begging for money on the streets. A simple "no" is not good enough to shake them off. These kids are very persistent. Last night, after I returned from the office at about 20:30, I decided to take a walk to find a restaurant away from the hotel. There were two women with babies on their backs begging for money. The faster I tried to walk, the faster they walked. At one point they were almost jogging after me. Poverty seems to be a big problem here too as in Most of Africa.
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