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KFOG's 10@10 / 20 April 2007 - Earth Day!

« on: April 20, 2007, 10:02:53 AM »

nothing but flowers! today marks my one-year european anniversary.

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In Memoriam, Happy Birthday / Happy Birthday, Sidney Poitier!

« on: February 20, 2007, 08:16:42 AM »

"The first black man."

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Stream of Consciousness / Not Cool, Not Funny Stuff on the Internet

« on: January 24, 2007, 12:49:18 PM »

I'm obsessed with The Cohens. Here's the only thing I've read (aside from the article which appeared in Saturday's El Pais) that expresses how creepy the whole story is:

Quote

Israeli Court Allows Woman to be inseminated with Soldier’s Sperm…
Here’s an interesting look into the state of “morality” in this world…
I found an interesting article on FOXNews.com;
Israeli Court Allows Woman to be inseminated with Dead Soldier’s Sperm Without his Written Consent
The headline itself is of questionable morality. Without his consent? How was the sperm obtained?
Well….it gets worse, much worse. The man whose sperm was used has been dead since 2002, when he was killed by a sniper in Gaza. Yes, you read correctly…he’s dead. Well, that explains why they didn’t have his written consent.
Private Keivin Cohen – age 20 when he died – will father a child 6 years after his death. His sperm was obtained AFTER his death. His parents, who left Iran when Keivin was 5 years old, petitioned a family court in Ramat Gan, a town near Tel Aviv “to fulfill his desire to start a family,” even though Private Cohen never himself make the request for such a judicial step.
Not only will he father a child after his death, he never knew the woman who will ultimately become the mother of his child. She was selected by a family charity and the Cohen family. His mother, Rachael, is finally able to live her dream of becoming a grandmother.
The Cohen family has fought for four years to have this occur. Cohen’s mother said that she is acting as her own son would have wished:
Every time I go to his grave and touch his cold tombstone, I tell myself how wonderful it would be to hold a warm child in my arms instead, For Keivin, it was his soul’s desire to have children.
A statement like this makes me wonder if Keivin’s mother is acting upon her own grief, and not the wishes of her son. This is probably one of the creepiest things that I have ever heard. I question the morality of such actions.
What do you tell the child when he/she asks about their father? How do you tell a 3- or 4-year-old that his/her father died 6 years before he was even conceived? What do you tell the child about how this came about? A child’s natural curiosity makes them ask questions terribly difficult to answer, I would not want to be the parent who has to explain this one.
Mrs. Cohen says that she was guided in her decision by her dead son:
An hour after being told that he had been killed, I took his picture and started talking to him. I asked him, ‘Where are all the children you wanted?’ Then looked at the picture and heard him saying ‘Mum, it’s not too late. There is something you can take from me.’ Then it came to me – your sperm, that’s what you want me to take from you.’ Right there, I asked the officers who came to visit to make sure his sperm be kept.
I wonder who obtained the sperm and how it was done? I wouldn’t want THAT job.
I have some SERIOUS problems with this: If my child had died, I’m not sure that my first thought would be about obtaining sperm so that I could have his children brought into the world. It’s disgusting! I guess I wonder what she would have done if it had been her daughter instead of her son.
My next question is this: How do you pick the person to inseminate? By lottery? Did she have to take some kind of test? Did she have to look a certain way? What guidelines did they use to choose her? How do you make this kind of choice? It’s just awful. Did they have a “Miss Have the Baby Pageant?”
The family was assisted in its campaign by New Family, an Israeli NGO that described the ruling as “dramatic development” for those who wish to make a ‘biological will.’ The problem here is that all the parents have is their word. There is no written document or any other proof that their son would have wanted this to take place. This case reminds me of the Terry Schiavo case. No one knows what his wishes would have been. Maybe he would have wanted children only if he could raise them.
A year later, the family approached a medical sperm bank seeking permission to use it for insemination. When the request was turned down, New Family began a legal action that concluded successfully for the family this week. Is this New Family the Israeli ACLU?
There was a problem for a while in that the Attorney-General said that the only person who could ask permission for this was a spouse. Private Cohen wasn’t married and he had not prepared a biological will, but the family had testimony, including video recordings, in which he expressed his desire to have children. Yeah, but like this???
Irit Rosenblum of New Family said:
The parents felt it was their mission to fulfill his wish. They had to go through psychological tests and then the next hurdle was to find a mother. It took a year and a half but we found one. There is a legally drafted contract between the mother and Keivin’s parents guaranteeing that their only responsibility is to be the grandparents of the child when he or she is born.
OK, but what if she has the child, or even becomes pregnant and decides to go to another country and they never see the child again? As the mother of the child, she has a right to do so if she wishes.
Why did Cohen’s parents have to have psychological testing? What does testing them accomplish?
I wonder if the Cohen family was thinking of their son or themselves? Do they REALLY wish to fulfill the wishes of their son, or do they want their son “back”?
My guess is that this is a selfish act. I know I wouldn’t want this done to me. I want to be able to raise my children myself. I wouldn’t want to be inseminated by a dead man, either. Makes me wonder: what happened to decency and morality?

Surprisingly, taken from an extreme right wing website.

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In Memoriam, Happy Birthday / RIP Alice Coltrane

« on: January 16, 2007, 03:32:03 AM »

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-coltrane14jan14,1,1300733.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california&ctrack=1&cset=true

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In Memoriam, Happy Birthday / RIP: Iwao Takamoto

« on: January 10, 2007, 02:16:36 PM »

like jeez, scoob!

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Stream of Consciousness / Food Operator

« on: December 06, 2006, 04:43:24 AM »

check out my new radiopodthingy, if you have a chance:

http://foodoperator.blogspot.com/

it's going live on sunday, hopefully, but i need feedback from you guys. i'm not sure if the little js window is popping up in the top left-hand corner of the screen. and any general input would be great. i know the sound quality isn't the greatest, but that's the least of my concerns, at the moment. i just want to make sure everything is working.

i'm off to the south (granada) for the long holiday (constitution day today and the immac concep on friday - would that all babies had three-week gestation periods!), and won't be back until sunday, so i'll respond to your questions/comments then. thanks!

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