Interesting Development in Religious Education

Catholiccartoon
Unless you’ve lived in a cave for 20 years you’ve no doubt heard much about the sex abuse scandals involving lots of US priests and various diocese across the country.  As part of its efforts to deal with the issue the New York Archdiocese is publishing a coloring book called "Being Friends, Being Safe, Being Catholic" that has some pretty direct cartoons about how to avoid being in dangerous situations (see image to the left for one of the pictures in the book).  From the Newsday article about the book:

That’s an unusual approach, says David Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests,
but not necessarily a bad one. "We welcome any innovation," he says,
"especially from an institution that has such a horrific track record."
The coloring book is intended as a supplement to the prevention
curriculum mandated by a 2002 U.S. bishops charter—a way for adults to
broach a topic that is "not the most pleasant to talk about," says
Edward Mechmann, the director of the New York Archdiocese’s Safe
Environment Program. He says the book (along with comics about
molestation, for older kids) has been shipped to about 700 schools.
Administrators are then given the option of distributing them.
"Teachers love it," Mechmann says. "It’s a nice little vehicle for
speaking to kids about [abuse]." Talk about alternative education.

Personally I think it’s a smart move by the Archdiocese, but definitely falls into the "too late" category.  Had the church dealt with this issue decades ago and listened to the victims when they first came forward then maybe we’d have seen efforts like this in the 70s or 80s rather than 2007.  Then maybe we wouldn’t dealing with the incredible number of abuse victims over the last 50 years, or looking at a church selling off assets to pay the victims’ damages and a church that lost who knows how many members who felt alienated by the church’s handling of the situation and who were sickened by a cancerous cell of spiritual leaders who sickened the entire church body.  A tragedy on so many levels.

links for 2007-12-03

Lewisville the Next RTP?

According to the Triad Business Journal the fastest growing municipality in the Piedmont Triad is my home berg of Lewisville.  According to the article the town grew 48.3% between 2000 and 2006, ranking it as the 35th fastest growing town in North Carolina.  A good chunk of that growth came from Lewisville’s annexation of certain parts of Forsyth County last year, but there’s also been a good size influx of folks from elsewhere, including yours truly.

Pics from the Twin City’s Past

As reported in today’s Winston-Salem Journal, Digital Forsyth has digitized with all kinds of photos from Winston-Salem’s past. Sources include local libraries and universities.

Tagcloud
I like how they’ve organized the photos and how they’ve utilized techniques like tag clouds for searches (see the image to the left for an example).  They also have it formatted much like a blog with each image having it’s own "post" with details about the picture in the post.  My hat’s off to the folks over there at Digital Forsyth.

Spelunking with Lenslinger

Greensboro-based blogger Lenslinger, he that is a photojournalist for Fox 8, or as he calls it el Ocho, was snapping some pics of co-workers from his station when he lost control of his camera and it plunged into the depths of a Greensboro storm cavern.  One of his co-workers, a fellow photog, shot some video of ‘Slinger diving for his lost treasure which you can view below.  Amazingly the ‘Slinger’s camera still works.

links for 2007-11-29

People Being Decent at Fenway

Disability Awareness day was being observed at Fenway Park.  An autistic man was singing the national anthem and got a case of the giggles.  At first the crowd laughs with him, but when he kept giggling the crowd started singing with him.  I don’t know if I’ve ever heard that many in a crowd sing the anthem before and it was way cool.  Don’t know how I missed it when it happened since I’m sure it had to make the sports highlights that night, but it’s still really cool to see.  Video is below.

links for 2007-11-28

At This Point I’ll Take Any Good News

What with all the bad economic news lately I’ll take any good news I can get.  Here’s some from PTI:

For the first time in two years, more passengers are flying out of Piedmont Triad International Airport than in the year before.The growth rate isn’t much: just one-third of 1 percent. But that’s better than the airport’s recent history.In the previous two years, boardings at the airport dropped by about 200,000 passengers.