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      June 23, 2008

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   Recovery from Low Self Esteem

 

During my childhood I was abused sexually, emotionally, verbally and physically. Many of you have also been abused, or you deal with someone in your life who comes from an abusive, dysfunctional background.
 
What does abuse mean? It means “to misuse, to use improperly, to use up or to injure by maltreatment.” The effects of abuse can be devastating and long-lasting. Many people never recover from it. Let me give you a brief definition of the four types of abuse.

Sexual abuse: considered to be the most degrading and offensive; consists of rape, molestation, incest, exhibitionism, voyeurism and obscene phone calls.


Emotional abuse: consists of withholding attention, loving touches and words of acceptance. Love is only given based on acceptable performance. Abandonment is a type of emotional abuse and can occur when one or both parents leave the child physically or mentally. Adults can also experience abandonment if important people in their lives leave suddenly or violently. Abuse and the Miracle of Recovery

  
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HIGH school students in the Mexican state of Chihuahua are being made to care for screaming, hiccuping baby dolls to try to bring down the state's soaring teenage pregnancy rate. Pairs of teenage boys and girls aged 13 to 17 have to spend two or three days tending to the computerised babies, programmed to cry for food, burp and wake up screaming at night until they are rocked back to sleep. "You have to change their diapers, feed them and slap them on the back so they burp. They laugh, they get colic. They simulate the behaviour of a real baby," said state education official Pilar Huidobro, who is in charge of the program. "The aim is to have a more novel way of getting young people to be really conscious of the risk of becoming fathers or mothers at a young age." The northern border state of Chihuahua suffers from one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the country, with 20 per cent of babies being born to mothers aged 19 or younger, Mr Huidobro said. Some of the dolls can show symptoms of withdrawal from alcohol or drugs, as if they were the offspring of addicts. The uncannily lifelike plastic dolls, called RealCare babies, are also used in programs in the US and Britain. In Mexico, Toluca-based company Sucisa also sells them to health clinics in other parts of the country. Students in Chihuahua are mostly horrified at the amount of work involved in looking after a baby, which they take home at night, Mr Huidobro said. "There's been a good response," she said. "They all agree it's not the right time for that kind of responsibility."  and Jamie Lynn Spears Birth, Teen Pregnancy Increase Concern Experts ...
 

It's been many years since the late Senator Patrick Moynihan tried to sound the alarm about the problem of fatherlessness in the black community and its long-term implications.  Not only did his words fall largely on deaf ears, he was harshly criticized for speaking up about it. Sadly, what Moynihan saw happening in the black community has now happened in American society as a whole.  With celebrities leading the way, it is now no big deal for women to have babies out of wedlock.  The very phrase "out of wedlock" sounds positively old-fashioned.  Accidental pregnancies can be aborted -- or not -- take your pick.  And these days, eyebrows are barely raised over intentional pregnancies by single women.  The New York Times Magazine ran a cover story called "Looking for Mr. Good Sperm" a while back on the trend among single women, tired of waiting for Mr. Right, to seek out instead the right sperm donor.  The author writes, "As recently as the early 60's, a 'respectable' woman needed to be married just to have sex, not to speak of children."  Imagine!  What a ridiculous notion that sex was anything more than mere recreation.   And as for procreation, who needs it?!  The sex part that is.  Technology's come a long way, baby.   So guess who's become obsolete in an ever-growing number of households headed by single women or lesbian couples?  You got it: fathers.  But is that bad?
 
 

MUST RESIGN Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, has admitted to the Los Angeles Times that a website he maintains contains sexually explicit pictures and videos.  His severe lack of moral judgment demands that he either resign or, if he refuses, that Congress begin impeachment proceedings. "Judge Kozinski's admission to maintaining a website with explicit and degrading pictures is enough to determine that he is morally incapable of providing objective judgment, especially over obscenity cases.  Judge Kozinski must resign," said Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America. "If he refuses, Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against him.  And the Department of Justice should immediately conduct an investigation against him." Judge Kozinski is presiding over an obscenity trial that was to begin today against Ira Isaacs for distributing sexual fetish videos, featuring acts of bestiality and defecation.  Yesterday the prosecutor requested a delay to look into "a potential conflict of interest concerning the court having a ... sexually explicit website with similar material to what is on trial here."  Kozinski granted a 48-hour stay. Judge Alex Kozinski Must Resign
 
 
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