November=Adoption Awareness Month

In light of changing up things a little, I'd like to let you all know that November is adoption awareness month. As a sister to 5 wonderful adopted siblings (who are 19, 9, 6, 5, and 4, and 4 of whom are from China) adoption is a big portion of my life.

Now, I'll provide you with a list of people who were adopted (some were adopted by a step-parents, but still). I came up with this list after helping my oldest little sister do a school project on adoption, and I figured it'd be a nice change of pace to share with the class.

-Steve Jobs (former Apple CEO)

-Michael Oher (Player for the Baltimore Ravens...also the subject of the movie 'The Blindside'

-Art Linkletter

-DMC (rap artist)

-Eleanor Roosevelt

-Faith Hill

-Leo Tolstoy

-Malcolm X

-President Gerald Ford

-President Bill Clinton

-John Lennon

-Jesus Christ (This can get a little tricky considering you deal with the meta-physics and all, but Jesus was technically adopted by Joseph, so just go with it)

-Nancy Regan

-Scott Hamilton (champion figure skater)

Equally important in the adoption process are the parents. Here's a list of a few famous adoptive parents:

-Barbara Walters

-Al Roker

-Angelina Jolie (I lost count of her kids...)

-Hugh Jackman

-Bob Hope

-Katherine Heigl

-John Denver

-Julie Andrews

-Dan Marino

-John McCain

-President Ronald Regan

That's just a short version of the list. But I found it interesting, and I figured you all would as well!

This is ridiculous.

So this article on the Diamond Casino being raided by federal agents just strikes me as DANG ridiculous. Mostly, the ending bugs me.
You can access the article at this website:

http://savannahnow.com/news/2011-11-15/feds-armed-search-warrants-board-diamond-casino#.TsLNXcNU_SY

Okay...they have absolutely NO information as to why the agents where there in the first place, so I'm really confused as to why this was reported on in the first place. However, the last part of the article is what really got me. This is what it reads:
'The Diamond Casino website describes the 200-foot-long vessel as the “finest casino cruise vessel” with numerous amenities including two floors of Vegas-style gaming and a third-floor observation deck. It offers more than 240 slot machines and 18 tables of Vegas-style excitement along with a large variety of video and reel slot machines in denominations from $.01 to $5.'

Now, I don't know if that information was even necessary, but if it was, there was a better way to talk about it without it sounding like a big advertisement for the casino. This is a news story about a possible federal investigation, not an advertisement.

Shorter Controversy.

(I start this blog post with the knowledge that I am going to tick at least a couple of people off. I am a Christian and have served with the Georgia Baptist association in missions programs, so if this slant bothers you, then now would be the time where you go look at another blog post of mine. With that said, you've been aptly warned.)

I've been paying attention to the controversy surrounding Shorter University. If you're not familiar with it...let me educate you.
-Shorter University is a private, Christian university that is funded by the Georgia Baptist Convention (a subset of the Souther Baptist convention).
-Shorter hasn't traditionally kept to their heritage, and the Georgia Baptist association has distanced itself from Shorter (although it is still classified as a GB university by many).
-Shorter gained a new president, Dr. Don Dowless, who's decided that he wants to return Shorter to being an actual Christian university.
-The things that Dr. Dowless and the board of trustees are asking the faculty to sign and adhere to several things (you can view these here: http://www.shorter.edu/about/faith_integration.pdf http://www.shorter.edu/about/Philosophy_of_Education.pdf http://www.shorter.edu/about/personal_lifestyle_statement.pdf)

Now, you can read these for yourself. But the thing that has everyone up in arms is the fact that the personal lifestyle statement asks for them to abstain from homosexual lifestyle and to abstain from consuming alcohol in setting where they may come in contact with students.

I really and truly believe that, considering the college is funded by the Georgia Baptist convention, and Southern Baptists believe that the Bible prohibits certain things, such as homosexuality, and that's their religious belief, then there shouldn't be a problem with asking their professors to abstain from that lifestyle. I feel like this would be a bigger issue if this were a public university with no religious affiliation, but since this is a private, and for all intensive purposes, church-funded organization, I don't think that there should be a problem with the personal lifestyle statement.
Now the thing about alcohol consumption. I'm aware that the bible does not specifically disallow drinking alcohol, but at the same time, the bible does state that Christians should be 'above reproach' and not give anyone a reason to doubt them and their walk. Thus, the reasoning behind the school asking professors not to partake of alcohol in settings where students might be.

I honestly feel like these are acceptable things for a church-run school to ask of their professors. If you believe that people in religion are wrong for believing certain things, that's one issue. But don't start working for an organization that you know has certain beliefs and then get all furious when they ask you to adhere to a certain standard.

The Friday effect

Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from her husband Kris Humphries last Monday, which is the same day that she released a statement concerning the divorce.

Nothing really major about that, especially considering every logically-thinking person probably expected it to happen. But there's something fairly interesting in the timing she chose to release her statement.

It was on a Monday.
Now, I know that most people weren't thinking about it. But here's the thing: The fact that she released this information screams 'GIVE ME ATTENTION!' Releasing news on a Monday gives the press and every Perez-Hilton wannabe a chance to spend a good 5 days or more talking about it.
Kim K is traditionally considered to be all out for any sort of fame (no one really knew who she was before the sex tape came out, then she's done whatever she could to maintain her status), and this doesn't seem to be any different. If she was really craving privacy, she wouldn't have released the statement on a Monday, and she wouldn't be talking about every aspect of her dirty little life on her various and sundry reality shows.