Most things like this

have their origins lost in time.


Cleansing evil spirits at El Colacho baby-jumping festival

"El Colacho is a vibrant, albeit Pope-worrying festival in Castrillo de Murcia in north-west Spain, the culmination of 96 hours celebration following the feast of Corpus Christi."

Though I'm really not sure at all how this could have come about...

There's no documentation, but the comments about the Church and Pope Benedict XVI are interesting.

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Goodbye, little Avery,

and Godspeed. Rest comfortably in God's arms until you can see your Mommy and Daddy again.

Baby Avery, whose parents created 'bucket list,' dies

God bless them, too, and everyone who loved you.

Here's her blog:

Avery Lynn Canahuati

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Good Advice

The bitter truth behind the chocolate in your Easter basket

"The average American eats around 11 pounds of chocolate each year, and the weeks leading up to Easter show the second biggest United States sales spike of the year next to Halloween - 71 million pounds according to a 2009 Neilsen report. A recent press release from Kraft claims that worldwide, more consumers purchase chocolate during Easter than any other season.

So how does a chocolate lover ensure that the treats filling their family's Easter baskets are not supporting a life of slavery for a child half a world away?"

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Here's one



SWMBO sent me this.

How to get your kid to be a fanatic reader

Alternately, you can drop him/her on his/her head and then, as he/she grows up, prevent them from doing anything that could possibly involve any risk of their re-injuring themselves. All they have left to do is read. I wouldn't recommend this method, but it worked for me. It does present its own set of issues, however.

No, it's probably not a good idea...

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I don't care

I still call it 'bat-sh*t crazy'...

Mickie Wood, Mother of Controversial Child Pageant Star Eden Wood, Responds to Her Critics with Fart Noises

Be on the look-out for the 6-year-old's memoir. Good grief!

They're packaging her like a product and living in their own little made-up fairy-land no matter what they say. So they can, in a manner of speaking, sell her to make a fortune.

Disgusting.

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Why is it so hot in here?

And why are we in this handbasket?

Would You Buy Your Toddler French ‘Loungerie?’

Does our culture despise purity and virginity so much that this is the sort of thing they sell? Can't children be children? Do we have to sexualize everything?

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I heard this program

Machine Gun Preacher: Sudan's pistol-packing preacher

It's really quite good and very much worth a listen. It certainly gets you thinking...

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A different word comes to mind

Pint-sized preacher: The toddling pastor wowing churchgoers in Mississippi

That word is 'exploitation'.

He's only 4 years old, for crying out loud. Only in America you say? Thank the good Lord!

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Turn up your volume

and listen to this young fellow sing!

Smokin’ Hot Brandon MacFarlane

He's unbelievable! If he can keep this up (who knows what the future will bring) he'd better plan on studying music of some sort, or at least working in that direction informally. What talent!

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A brilliant work

Aiming to Spread Judaism One Book at a Time

It's a great thing for God's chosen people to do for themselves, and for others. The world will be a better place if all our children get to know the Creator through their faith traditions...

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Y'know...

...somehow I can't imagine that this is something we should be proud of...



(Thanks to The Atlantic for the photo.)

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Teaching Science

A very good column by Jon Carroll

The Value of Facts

"The idea partly was to teach biology in a new way, and also to try to end homophobia and teasing in the schools by demonstrating that gender switching is a phenomenon as old as the animal kingdom itself. If you want to include the plant kingdom, well, tread lightly because stuff gets really kinky there. "

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Sadly,

this is a very ill-advised experiment in defying prevalent social norms...

'Genderless' Child Ignites Firestorm in Canada

...which will likely end in high mental health costs.

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Good grief!

Parents outraged once again at retailer selling sex

Orignally being marketed to girls age 7 and up! These people have no shame! They could easily be classified in the same category as pornographers. Just to appease the god of this world.

Fortunately, I've never purchased anything from them, nor will I ever, now. The only way people can express their displease is with their money. That's all these people understand...

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God's gift to us

There's no clipping the wings of Super-Girl

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'Rails'?

Pope rails against rise of un-Christian names

Somehow the tone of the article describing the Pope's comments doesn't really fit the definition of 'to utter bitter complaint or vehement denunciation'. Synonyms for 'rail' are words like 'fulminate, inveigh, castigate, rant, revile.' No, still doesn't sound like the article. I wonder why they chose that word for the headline? (The name of the piece's author is probably some weirdly spelled version of 'Brittnie' or something...)

I have to agree with the Pope in some ways. I think the rush to make a child's name unique is just the start of the helicopter parent's way of telling kids that it's all about them and that they're more important than anyone or anything else in the world. A person's name can have a huge effect on a person, perhaps for all of their lives (I would think you could ask Free Seagull or Elijah Blue about it.)...

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An historical tragedy,

on this date in 1883, that led to a very important invention...

Victoria Hall disaster

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There are too many reports

that corroborate each other that allow people to believe what these individuals allege.

No kids allowed

And these reports have been surfacing for years...

For more information on Scientology, visit:
The Secrets of Scientology
and www.xenu.net

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I love her articles...

My Prickly Priest

There's too much of the negative in the world. We're inundated with bad news all the time. When I read Danielle Bean's articles I'm usually suffused in a ray of sunlight. It's so refreshing...

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Is this so bad?

Harsh Lesson

There are so many people (adults) who find this sort of thing offensive (as adults) that they forget that they were brought up on this, on Grimm's fairy tales, which also were gruesome at times, and so on, and they turned out able to tell right from wrong and not permanently scarred. I think they need to let children be children, experience some of the same things they did that can help them to think and reason, and not try to protect them from everything so that, as adults, they can be affected negatively by everything...

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