Sunday, May 08, 2016

Today is Mother's Day in the USA. I get a well deserved time off. The babies pictured are from Flint, Michigan.

May 8, 2016
By Jiquanda Johnson

Flint, MI -- Sean Gifford peers (click here) into the window of one of the family rooms at Hurley Medical Center to look at his wife. He stares momentarily and exhales.
"Look at her isn't she beautiful," he said as she held two of three babies the couple had on March 23. "This was all her. This wasn't me. I'm telling you she is phenomenal. She is amazing. She never lost focus."
The Gifford's made history at Hurley Medical Center in March when Nicole Gifford gave birth to triplets defying most odds that women face when carrying three babies.
According to Hurley Medical Center doctors, most women are lucky to make it to 32 weeks when carrying triplets, there was only a five percent chance that one egg would be fertilized let alone three and only one percent of triplet babies are delivered vaginally.
"As you can imagine I have been in practice for 30 years," said Dr. Mostafa Abuzeid, who specializes in in-vitro Fertilization at Hurley Medical Center "I have my share of patients who ended in triplets. To my knowledge this is the first patient that ended in vaginal delivery (for all three)."
Nicole Gifford not only made it to 36 weeks, the first-time mother delivered the babies in a little more than an hour.
Stella, Genevieve and Honour Gifford were all born at more than 4 lbs each and at 6 weeks are they are healthy and thriving babies....

It is important Islam does not create a schism among the different branches of Islam. Please don't allow hate speech of each other.

Indonesian Muslims pray between tombstones at the shrine of Sunan Gunungjati in Cirebon, West Java.


May 8, 2016
By Jewel Topsfield

...Sunan Gunungjati (click here) was one of the Wali Songo, or nine saints, credited with spreading Islam across Java in the 15th and 16th centuries. Pilgrims might visit his tomb to seek help finding a soulmate or with a financial problem, says Muhammad Jadul Maula, who runs an Islamic cultural school in Yogyakarta....

"They sometimes ask the Wali Songo to say a prayer to God about their problems. They believe Wali Songo are saints, close to God, and it is hoped their prayers will be answered," he says.
Sunan Gunungjati used wayang puppetry, a Hindu art form, to spread the word of Islam. This was typical of the Wali Songo, who embraced cultural practices from pre-existing faiths in their proselytising, including kapitayan, the ancient religion of Java.
This syncretism is part of what gives the Islam of Indonesia, known as Islam Nusantara, its unique flavour. It is also considered heresy by some Muslims, such as those who espouse the ultra-conservative brand of Sunni Islam known as Salafism or Wahhabism....

A forgotten population in the USA suffering with HIV/AIDS. They sometimes go without diagnosis.

  • Among all gay and bisexual men, (click here) African American gay and bisexual men are most affected by HIV.
  • Diagnoses among all African American gay and bisexual men increased 22% in the last decade but have leveled off since 2010.
  • Diagnoses among young African American gay and bisexual men increased 87% in the last decade but actually declined 2% in the last 5 years.

They probably don't invest in their health with fundamental survival techniques such as condoms.

...socioeconomic factors—such as limited access to and use of quality health care, lower income and educational levels, and higher rates of unemployment and incarceration—that place them at higher risk for HIV infection. These factors may help explain why African Americans have not made greater gains on the HIV continuum of care. Of African Americans living with HIV infection at the end of 2012, 86% had been diagnosed, but only 37% had been prescribed antiretroviral therapy (medicines to treat HIV) and only 29% had achieved viral suppression....

"The Gay Black Man" Culture has to be understood and addressed.

...There are several ways to promote condom use (click here) among people at high risk for sexual transmission of HIV. Individual and group-level interventions help do this by directly addressing individual’s knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors related to condom use, while community-level interventions give a strong emphasis to changing social norms. Although, individual-level, group-level, and community-level interventions demonstrate moderate to high success in promoting condom use, they show the greatest effect in reducing the risk of HIV infection when combined with structural-level interventions.

Structural-level interventions, such as distributing free condoms in diverse venues, social marketing campaigns, or policy change, can address the social, economic, and political environments that shape and constrain individual, community, and societal health outcomes. CDPs become structural interventions when the environment is changed so that there is increased availability, accessibility, and acceptability of condom use....

Really? It is another mirage of the right wing media. The viewers are deceived by their media.

There is always Glen Beck and Rush.

May 4, 2016

...According to the In Touch story, Lima and Ed Henry (click here) first connected via Twitter. That escalated to meeting in person when he was in Las Vegas, where the Fox New reporter keeps a condo. She told the magazine, “We’d have drinks and he was kinda flirty, you know? I never expected anything to happen.” That all changed in the spring of 2015 when, she says, “He was staying at the Wynn and asked, ‘Do you want to come up to my room?’ I wasn’t really interested like that, but I did go up there.” She goes on to say they had sex that night.

Lima told the tabloid that “Whenever he was in town, we would pretty much just have sex,” adding that Henry, who is 44, has a “really high sex drive” and is a “kinky nice guy.” The magazine notes that when they contacted Henry he said, “I don’t know anything about [the affair].” But Lima says they were so close that Henry once covered her rent but wouldn’t give her money out of an ATM because it would be a “red flag.”...
The smoke from the fires (click here) is being carried to the USA. Considering the heat carried with that smoke there will be effects in the weather.

May 7, 2016
Planning is under way (click here) to allow evacuated Fort McMurray residents back home, but it’s unclear how long it will be before advances in fighting a massive wildfire opens the door to their return, a senior Alberta fire official said Saturday.
However, officials said they will be fighting the overall fire, expected to reach 300,000 hectares in size by day’s end Saturday, for months to come even if they make gains that allow the return of more than 80,000 residents to the northern Alberta city.
“It’s going to take quite a while for the wildfire fighters to actually get that under control, contain it, put it out,” Scott Long, executive provincial operations director for the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, told a Saturday afternoon briefing in Edmonton....

The US House needs a new Speaker.

May 7, 2016
By Maggie Haberman

...“I think it would be better if it were unified. (click here) I think it would be. There would be something good about it,” Mr. Trump said in the interview set to air on Sunday. “But I don’t think it actually has to be unified in the traditional sense.”...

Donald Trump is correct, the president nominee can go it alone on the Republican ticket. I think to clarify the party's loyalist Mr. Trump can offer to conduct fund raising with the state or federal congressional nominees. If they decline he should realize there are differences in the current Republican culture. I think Sarah Palin is correct in that even places like Wisconsin have an alternative in the primary that willingly represents the culture affiliated with Donald  Trump. Donald Trump could conduct fund raising with those members of the party, too.

Donald Trump lead the party's nomination through most of the primary contests. He won this thing by himself without any help from a Superpac or big money donors. That is admirable and the people recognized that. They are allowed to decide about their choice for nomination. They decided. The party needs to accept that.

Mr. Trump and the Tea Party Republicans needs to realize, there will be establishment Republicans that if elected again in November may not vote for their agenda in Congress. Evidently, Paul Ryan is representative of a different culture that could provide for more opposition in the Congress, including the Senate. 

The Republicans should have realized this outcome was destined at some point in time. I am surprised this hasn't happened before now, but, in reality the Tea Party Republicans were locked out of funding and Donald Trump didn't need any. I guess it was going to be him or the Tea Party would still be spinning their wheels.

This is a real chance for the Tea Party to solidify their base and the funding it provides. It is now or never. Now, is the time to build their funding base.