“Mother’s Inspiring Video About Blind Baby Son”

Taken from: http://news.yahoo.com/mothers-inspiring-video-blind-baby-son-173140041–abc-news-parenting.html

May 12, 2012

Lacey Buchanan never dreamed that a Youtube video she created about her blind baby boy and his rare cleft palate condition would spread virally, racking up some 7 million views and delivering hundreds of personal messages of support to her Facebook and email inboxes.

In the seven-minute video, which she made using her iPhone, the 25-year-old mother from Woodbury, Tenn., describes the triumph of witnessing 14-month-old Christian’s giggles in the face of the constant stares and whispers they encounter in public when strangers see her baby.

He was born with an an extremely rare condition called Tessier cleft, which means that he was unable to fully close his mouth, and that his eyes are also clefted such that they never even formed.

Buchanan, who works at a day care center and also attends the Nashville School of Law, said she made the video about their struggle because she wanted her son “to grow up knowing he’s important, knowing he has value, despite the way that he looks,” Buchanan said. ”I never thought it would be as big as it has gotten, but I’m thrilled that Christian is becoming a face and a voice for this, that beauty is so much deeper than what you look like,” she said.

Her own video was inspiredby a film made by a woman named Lizzie, who tells the story of how her disfigured face, caused by a rare, unnamed medical condition, led classmates to call her “the world’s ugliest woman.”

In the video, Buchanan faces the camera while holding Christian to her chest without revealing his face, the boy’s tousled blond hair the same shade as hers. Her expressive face turns from beaming to tearful as she wordlessly holds up signs and photos to the camera, describing how thrilled she and her husband were to learn of her pregnancy, the difficult news that their unborn son would have a cleft palate, and their joy that he was born alive, since doctors worried that his internal organs wouldn’t be fully formed and that he wouldn’t be able to breathe properly on his own.

But the road ahead was hard. While Christian’s internal organs were completely normal, he was born without eyes, and underwent surgery on his cleft palate when he was just four days old, spending four weeks recovering in the neonatal intensive care unit at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. It took the hospital two months just to give his rare condition a name, Buchanan said, and the couple discovered that only about 50 other people in the world had the same diagnosis of Tessier cleft.

Buchanan and her husband had no idea how to care for a blind baby — and in particular, they weren’t prepared for how people would stare at him. ”The first time I went to the grocery store, I didn’t expect to leave crying because people were whispering behind my back,” she said. “It was something I had to try to get used to.” Children would ask their mothers “what was wrong with ‘that baby,’” and one acquaintance even cruelly messaged Buchanan on Facebook to tell her she was a “horrible person” for not aborting Christian.

Despite the negative attention, the Buchanans received ample support from friends and family, and from their local Baptist church, which has held multiple fundraisers for Christian’s medical care and constantly checks in with the couple to inquire how their son is doing.

And, as Buchanan describes in her video, Christian grew into a happy baby who, in the face of strangers’ comments, “would start giggling … and they would giggle, too,” which eventually spurred an outpouring of messages to her family on Facebook, and well-wishes in public from people who recognized them after hearing about their story.

Only at the end of the video does she turn Christian around to reveal his face to the camera, and she lovingly kisses his cheek while he sucks on a pacifier (which he is now able to do because of surgeries on his cleft palate).

She posted the video two months ago, and it has since generated nearly 7 million views and 1.8 million Facebook “likes” after an inspired fan reposted it on the Christian video site GodVine.

Because of the attention, Buchanan has connected with three other people who have Tessier cleft — two adults and the parent of another — and she said the support has been life changing. ”I try to make the best decisions I can for Christian, especially medically, and sometimes I’m put into corners, where whichever decision I make is going to impact Christian’s life,” she said. “Being able to reach out to someone who has lived there [with his condition], it takes a huge burden off me.”

Since making the video, she’s also created a Facebook page for Christian, and receives so many messages of support that she now turns off her iPhone notifications at night so she’s able to sleep.

Buchanan knows Christian faces a much more difficult road ahead of him than a baby born without his condition, but she’s thrilled her video has inspired so many people. ”When Christian’s old enough, let’s ask him if he’s glad I let him live,” she said. “His laugh is so valuable, at 14 months old, and is making more of a difference than most people ever do.”

“Sharing a Heritage With a New Knicks Star”

If you haven’t heard about Jeremy Lin yet, you will soon. Not only heralded as the new face of Asian America, he is also helping to transform racial boundaries – people of all walks of life are now embracing “The Yellow Mamba”, all the “LINsanity”. The fans in the photo below are wearing Lin facemasks, and in this case, “yellowface” carries a different connotation, one of empowerment compared to racism.

Taken from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/sports/basketball/at-soho-bar-jeremy-lins-fans-share-his-heritage.html?_r=1

February 10, 2012

Su Nam, a graphic designer, sat in the booth of a SoHo bar Friday night and surveyed the raucous crowd huddled in front of the broadcast of the Knicks game.

“All the Asian-American guys want to be Jeremy Lin,” she said. “And all the Asian-American girls want to marry him.”

More than 50 people, almost all of them Christians and the children of Asian immigrants, gathered to cheer for Jeremy Lin, the most unlikely story in sports, and a star they could relate to like no other.

They clapped when the television showed him walking to the locker room in a gray V-neck sweater. They screamed when he was introduced over the loudspeaker as the Knicks’ starting point guard. They shook the room when he made his first basket in a 38-point effort as the Knicks beat the Lakers, 92-85.

Many of them were not even basketball fans. Jay Kim, 29, had not watched the Knicks since they were in the N.B.A.finals more than a decade ago. Greg Wong, one of the night’s organizers, admitted to falling asleep when he watches sports. “I don’t even follow football,” one woman said. “Wait, this isn’t football.” But those in the crowd treated this regular-season game as if it were the Super Bowl, handing out “Linsanity” posters, hollering at the screen in their freshly purchased No. 17 jerseys and asking the harried waitress for one more beer.

If Lin’s storybook week captured the imagination of New York City and the wider sports world, it hit the community of Christian Asian-Americans like a lightning bolt. “He is so much what I am,” said Stanley Lee, 28, who had been a Knicks fan for all of two days. He ticked off the similarities: Chinese-American, Christian and athletic. (Lee said he had completed several triathlons.) And they both were underdogs, too. “I know what it’s like to be picked last,” Lee said.

Everyone in the room had his own reasons to identify with Lin. Some had been following him his whole career, from his collegiate success at Harvard to his struggles in Golden State, Houston and New York. Others had not heard of him until last week. But the standing-room crowd cheered his every basket — 18 points at the half — and competed to trace a connection to him. One man knew someone from Bible study who knew Lin’s sister-in-law. Another had a friend in San Francisco who (perhaps) knew him at Harvard. Leonard Lin, 29, got obvious bragging rights, while one group tried to figure out if he attended its church. The winner: one woman said she had met him.

If basketball fans have delighted in Jeremy Lin’s fast-forward crossover and uncanny court vision, the crowd at Gatsby’s bar admired him for other reasons. “He’s bold about his faith,” sad Kim, 29, a videographer who regularly attends church. “He’s not apologetic about it. That’s something that’s impressive to me.”

Daniel Chao, a Los Angeles native, wore a Kobe Bryant jersey, but he bought a Lin jersey for his wife, Kendra. He said that Lin’s record of success, despite his humble beginnings and his many setbacks, had inspired him at his own job at a health insurance firm. “In Asian culture, you’re supposed to do hard work and you’ll get noticed,” he said. “All the hard work I’ve put into where I am — maybe I could be that executive.”

For a room crowded with bankers, teachers and tech entrepreneurs, Jeremy Lin’s rise had already become something of a fable, a basketball version of “The Little Engine That Could.” “He just keeps going,” Chao said. “He’s defying all the coaches who said no, all the teams that have dropped him.”

Many people in the room said they felt protective of Lin, nervous that he would stumble in the bright lights. They breathed easier as he knifed through the Lakers’ defense, but they knew his astonishing run could not last forever. When the final buzzer sounded, the room erupted in cheers and the D.J. turned up the music full blast. “He outscored Kobe!” Leonard Lin said. Kendra Chao, who had no interest in the Knicks before last week, pointed to the No. 17 on her jersey with a broad smile. She said she was excited and proud, but the rest of her sentence was swallowed by the noise of the bar.

But what would it mean for Lin, and his new fans who so identify with him, if his star begins to fade? Audrey Kim, a Korean-American who works in New York University’s admissions office, shrugged off the concern. “He’s already a success and made so many people proud,” she said. “He’s such an inspiration to young Asian-Americans.” She thought that he opened up a new field for Asian-Americans, and that Lin’s parents, who supported his basketball dreams, should be models for immigrants raising American children. There was a pause in the conversation. Daniel Chao spoke up. “I mean,” he said, in a slightly stunned voice, “an Asian-American dunked.”

“Christian Prayer Rally Raises Concern for Some Muslims”

Taken from: http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/region/wayne_county/muslims-angry-over-call-to-prayer?hpt=us_bn6

November 11, 2011

DETROIT (WXYZ) – A Christian call to prayer is causing controversy in Detroit. ‘The Call: Detroit’ is being billed as a 24-hour prayer summit at Ford Field but some are concerned that the event promotes an anti-Muslim sentiment. “This group has propagated over video that muslims are demon-possessed and they believe in exorcisms to the point of going to certain locations and driving stakes into the ground,” said Dawud Walid of the Council of American and Islamic Relations.

Walid met with Muslim activists on Wednesday to discuss concerns surrounding the event and even warned mosques to heighten security.  “We have fears and concerns that they may be spreading intolerance through their message and that it can play itself out in other ways,” said Walid

But Christian groups deny the claims, saying the 24-hour long prayer event is aimed at lifting the city out of its “greatest darkness.”

The event is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Friday and run through 6 p.m. Saturday.

“Pastor’s corporal punishment advice scrutinized after child deaths”

Taken from: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/pastor-corporal-punishment-advice-scrutinized-child-deaths-160004793.html

November 7, 2011

In recent years, several children have died after enduring extreme forms of corporal punishment from parents who had absorbed the controversial child-rearing advice of Tennessee pastor Michael Pearl. Now, the New York Times reports, Pearl himself is under fire.

In their self-published book, To Train Up a Child, Pearl, 66, and his wife Debi, 60, recommend the systematic use of “the rod” to teach young children to submit to authority. They offer instructions on how to use a switch for hitting children as young as six months, and describe how to use other implements, including a quarter-inch flexible plumbing line. Older children, the Pearls say, should be hit with a belt, wooden spoon or willow switch, hard enough to sting. Michael Pearl has said the methods are based on “the same principles the Amish use to train their stubborn mules.”

There are 670,000 copies of the book in circulation, and it’s especially popular among Christian home-schoolers such as Larry and Carri Williams of Sedro-Woolley, Wash. In September, local prosecutors charged them with homicide by abuse after their adopted daughter Hana, 11, was found naked and emaciated in the backyard, having died of hypothermia and malnutrition. She had been deprived of food for days at a time, and made to sleep in an unheated barn. Hana, originally from Ethiopia, also had been beaten with a plastic tube, as recommended by Michael Pearl. Carri Williams had praised the book–which advises that “a little fasting is good training”–and had given a copy to a friend, local authorities  say. The Pearls aren’t being charged. But Dr. Frances Chalmers, a state pediatrician who examined Hana’s death, suggested to the Times that their teachings may have played a role in Hana’s death. “My fear is that this book, while perhaps well intended, could easily be misinterpreted and could lead to what I consider significant abuse,” she said.

That may also have happened in the case of Lydia Schatz, who was adopted from Liberia at the age of 4 by Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz of Paradise, Calif. She died last year, age 7, after her parents had whipped her for hours, with pauses for prayer. The Schatzes are both serving long prison terms, after Kevin Schatz pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and torture, and Elizabeth Schatz pleaded to voluntary manslaughter and unlawful corporal punishment. Like the Williamses, the Schatzes owned a copy of To Train Up a Child, and the local district attorney criticized it as a dangerous influence.

There was also Sean Paddock, of Johnson County, N.C., who died from suffocation in 2006, age 4, after he’d been wrapped tightly in a blanket. His mother Lynn Paddock, who said she had come across the Pearls’ website, was charged with first-degree murder. Sean’s siblings testified that they were beaten each day with a plumbing tube that the Pearls recommend.

The Pearls, along with many conservative Christians, say the Bible calls for corporal punishment. “To give up the use of the rod is to give up our views of human nature, God, eternity,” they write in the book. And Michael Pearl rejects the notion that his teachings bear any responsibility for the childrens’ deaths. “If you find a 12-step book in an alcoholic’s house, you wouldn’t blame the book,” he told the Times.

But other Christians appear to disagree. Crystal Lutton, who runs a Christian blog that opposes corporal punishment, told the Times that the Pearl’s methods carry a big risk. “If you don’t get results, the only thing to do is to punish harder and harder,” she said.

Some Christian groups are working to pressure booksellers such as Amazon not to carry the Pearls’ book.

The issue of corporal punishment had already been making headlines recently. Last week, a Texas woman posted online a video from 2004 that showed her father, a judge, whipping her with a belt when she was 16.