400-408 – Kevin Coats and James Mastan are organizing something called "Horse for Hope" this Saturday, from 11am to 3pm at Maranatha High School in Pasadena. It's a basketball shooting-skills tournament where you'll be playing elimination "H-O-R-S-E" to raise money for 14-year-old Jessie Mastan, James' niece – only she died of cancer on March 22nd, before the tournament was played, so now the proceeds are going to help the family cover their huge medical expenses. Jessie was an outstanding student, and very popular, over 2,000 people attended her memorial service. So, who's the best shooter in LA? We'll find out Saturday. It's single elimination, open to anyone, and has a $25.00 buy in – anything beyond that goes to the Mastan family. Register ASAP by contacting Kevin at (818) 402-1653 or by emailing him at kevin.coats@aggreko.com. The winner gets the title "So Cal's Best Shooter" and $300 in gift certificates. You can also donate directly to the Mastan family by going to jessiefund.com.
[From the jessiefund.com webpage] Jessie's Medical Journey
When Jessie was 12 years old, she was diagnosed with a rare and deadly form of pediatric cancer (Ewings Sarcoma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewing's_sarcoma). She was treated with chemotherapy, stem cells, and surgery to remove the cancerous bone which left her with half of a pelvic bone. The cancer reoccured at age 14 in January 2010. She was re-admitted to the City of Hope hospital in Duarte, California. Due to a weakened immune system, she contracted a rare form of fungal mold that caused a massive stroke to her brain. After undergoing brain surgery, she fell into in a coma in the ICU at the City of Hope hospital, from which she did not recover. Please help us continue to honor Jessie's memory, assist her family financially, and aid other pediatric cancer patients with your donations.
413-423 – Kevin Coats
428-437 – Jill Martin-Rische, daughter of the original Bible Answer Man, Walter Martin, is today the Executive Director of Walter Martin Ministries (waltermartin.com, occult.mobi), and a trained apologist in her own right. She and her late father, along with co-author Kurt Van Gorden, are the authors of The Kingdom of the Occult. She co-hosts "Night Watch", Saturday nights from 8-10pm (CST) on AM980 KKMS, where they talk about every area of spiritual warfare, from ghosts to UFO theology, and everything in between, all from God's perspective. You can listen live online at KKMS.com.
443-452 – Jill Martin-Rische
458-508 – Jill Martin-Rische
512-523 – Jill Martin-Rische
528-538 – John Stonestreet, Executive Director of Summit Ministries (summit.org) in Colorado Springs, a worldview-apologetics ministry that each year holds intensive conference-retreats across the country. They'll be hosting 12 intensive two-week Student Worldview Conferences in 4 states this year: Colorado, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Virginia. Go to summit.org for more info. They also have worldview curriculum for elementary, middle, high, and Sunday schools. And, check out their online lecture series, that has the top 150 lectures ever given at Summit!
544-554 – John Stonestreet
558-608 – Steve Barr, founder of Green Dot Public Schools (greendot.org), which has a wonderful track record of transforming large public schools that are failing, into smaller cluster schools with amazing graduation rates. Green Dot operates now operates 19 charter schools, including the much maligned Alain Leroy Locke High School in Watts. As of today, 8 Green Dot schools have had graduating classes with the following cumulative results: 80% of Green Dot ninth graders graduated in four years, 76% of them were admitted to four-year universities, and almost all the rest have gone on to junior college. What's the LAUSD graduation rate? Just 47%. Nationally, the bottom 5% of failing schools account for 50% of all dropouts. If you're ready to improve the education of your child, join the parent revolution to transform your school by signing up at parentrevolution.org.
612-623 – Steve Barr
628-638 – (1:56) Thor Ramsey. Thor Ramsey, is one of the Christian Comedy All Stars performing this Friday, April 16th at 7pm at Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene, along with Lamont Bonman, Michael Jr., and Scott Wood. It's great for the whole family! Tickets are $15.95 for general admission, $29.95 for reserved seating. Get your tickets by calling (877) 995-KKLA (5552), or by going to christiancomedyallstars.com.
644-655 – •• Robert Rector (4/12/2010) Understanding Illegitimacy: Teen pregnancy isn't the story. The demise of marriage is. Robert Rector is senior research fellow in the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation.
My Summary – When LBJ launched the War on Poverty, 7% of US children were born outside of marriage. In 2008, that number is 40.6% (1.72 million). Of these, just 7.5%, or 130,000, were to girls under 18. To focus on teen pregnancy and not the collapse of marriage is to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. The average single mother receives three dollars of government benefits for every dollar she pays in taxes. Marriage and education are now a bright dividing line in America. Since the bottom half of the population, in terms of annual income, doesn't pay federal income taxes, you now have a situation in which the children born to married couples with a college-education are paying the way for those born to single mothers with no college education. Those in the cart are rapidly outnumbering those pulling the cart.
From the column – "The reason? Most liberal academics regard marriage as an outdated, socially backward institution; they have shed no tears over its demise. Even worse, liberal politicians and anonymous government bureaucrats have a vested interest in the growth of the welfare state, and nothing grows the welfare state like the disappearance of marriage.
Single mothers are inherently in far greater need of government support than married couples, so an increase in single parenthood leads almost inevitably to an increase in government benefits and services and a thriving welfare industry to supply them. Marital collapse creates a burgeoning new clientele dependent on government services and political patrons. When liberals refuse to talk about marriage and the poor in the same breath, they are guilty of willful neglect of the major source of poverty.
For the statist, the collapse of marriage is a gift that keeps on giving. It's no accident that the modern welfare system rewards single parents and penalizes married couples."
• Burton Folsom, Jr. (4/12/2010) Did FDR End the Depression? The economy took off after the postwar Congress cut taxes. Mr. Folsom, a professor of history at Hillsdale College, is the author of "New Deal or Raw Deal?" (Simon & Schuster, 2008). Mrs. Folsom is director of Hillsdale College's annual Free Market Forum.
