Articles Archive for May 2010
Social justice »
Just weeks after the American Academy of Pediatrics thought it was doing the right thing by suggesting it would be OK for parents to submit their daughters to a “ritual nick” to their genitals as part of the cultural practice of female circumcision, the AAP reversed itself this week, largely out of the outrage and letters from many of us. My letter of May 11 to AAP is in an earlier blog.
In the U.S., female genital mutilation is against the law even if it is regarded as a cultural …
Tempe, Town Crier »
It is never a good thing that death brings people together. But going back eons in most cultures, the death of folks have created reunions for the living. If it is a cruel excuse to bring people to reconnect, that is a good thing.
That said, it was breathtaking on Sunday for the massive turnout of Tempe’s prominent and faithful to attend the memorial service for Leonard “Len” Copple, a civic leader and former Tempe city councilman and vice mayor. The service for the 68-year-old attorney was held in the lovely …
Spirituality »
I really didn’t know who James Van Praagh was when I was invited to interview him in 2001 at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe back when I was the Spiritual Life editor for the East Valley Tribune. I was provided with a copy of his newest book at the time, “Heaven and Earth: Making the Psychic Connection,” and I read it in a weekend to prepare for the interview.
The mustachioed and congenial Van Praagh gave me about a 20-minute interview, then I sat through his talk before he did book-signings. …
Social justice »
By Lawn Griffiths
It is unfathomable how some in medicine have so little regard for the welfare of people and their human rights.
Here we thought that female genital mutilation, or female circumcision, in America had been soundly outlawed by Congress in 1996. The worldwide outrage, especially driven by women’s movements across the planet, reviled by what goes on in Africa and Arab nations, fed the legislation that went into effect as law in March 1997. It became illegal to submit females to the ritual cutting of some of, or all, female …
