The Weekend Web

The indoctrination of Californian children and what Iran is learning from North Korea. Plus, the problem with texting.
 

The Alameda school district in California officially decided to indoctrinate the children in its care with a radical homosexual agenda last Tuesday. It approved a curriculum that ostensibly is designed to combat bullying but in reality promotes a homosexual lifestyle as being normal.

The curriculum begins innocently enough in kindergarten, where it states that children are to be taught to welcome new people, not to bully or exclude them. But by first grade, children will be taught that there are different types of families. They will be required to read Who’s in a Family? by Robert Skutch. This book is about Laura and Kyle, who live with “their two moms,” and Robin, whose family “is made up of her dad, Clifford, [and] her dad’s partner, Henry,” along with other families. The author said “the whole purpose of the book was to get the subject [of same-sex parent households] out into the minds and the awareness of children before they are old enough to have been convinced that there’s another way of looking at life.”

From here the indoctrination continues. In grade two, children will be required to read And Tango Makes Three, a book about two homosexual penguins bringing up a chick. It is banned in some parts of America. They are then to be taught that different types of “parents or caregivers” can lovingly bring up a child.

In grade three, they are to watch a video titled That’s a Family, which portrays homosexual “parents” as normal. The following year, they will have to read an article written by someone brought up by two “moms” on how to tolerate homosexuals. Finally, in grade five, they are to be taught about “famous” homosexual people.

The overwhelming majority of parents spoke out against the curriculum at a school board meeting, according to one parent attending. Yet the chairman of the school board ignored them, and repeatedly claimed that the audience evenly supported and opposed the issue.

For more information on the homosexual agenda, read our article “Radical Social Engineering.”

Obama and Netanyahu Wrestle Over Settlements

“Israel and America were locked in one of their most bitter disputes for decades last night after the Israeli government flatly rejected a direct call from President Obama to halt the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank,” wrote the Times on Friday. “The row threatened to set back President Obama’s already bleak prospects for brokering peace in the Middle East.”

After a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, Obama said he was “very clear about the need to stop settlements … to alleviate some of the pressures that the Palestinian people are under in terms of travel and commerce.” The president called for the complete cessation of any new construction and the removal of 100 Jewish settlements (which would impact nearly 300,000 people) on land Israel acquired in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. So far, Netanyahu has only agreed to dismantle 26 small settlement outposts and has not agreed to halt new construction. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejected any half steps on the issue, saying, “We think it is in the best interests [of the peace process] that settlement expansion cease. That is our position. … And we intend to press that point.”

According to the Times,

Mrs. Clinton, using the bluntest public language toward Israel for years, said that when Mr. Obama met Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, in Washington a fortnight ago, he had been “very clear” that there should be a stop to all building and expansion of settlements.”He (Obama) wants to see a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions,” Mrs. Clinton declared—a reference to Israel’s insistence that new construction was necessary to accommodate the growth of families already living in existing settlements. …The aggressive tone toward Israel marked a rare rebuke from Washington toward one of its closest allies. It appeared to reflect a decision by Mr. Obama to try to change the behavior of Mr. Netanyahu’s government.There have been few instances in recent times of Washington publicly turning the screw on Israel to try to advance the cause of peace.

Jewish supporters of the settlements, on the other hand, are “increasing the pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” according to the Washington Post. One group, the Rabbis of the Torah and the Land, “declared that Jewish law forbade police and troops from obeying orders to remove settlements,” the Post said. The group called a meeting to determine if Netanyahu had “changed his opinions or whether he is just misleading the Americans,” the secretary of the organization said.

According to another article in the Washington Post, “Netanyahu’s coalition of mostly right-wing parties has erupted in anger at the demand to halt settlements.” The article stated that “the near-daily barrage of U.S. demands that Israel halt settlement growth has surprised Israeli officials.”

According to the Post, “The Obama administration appears to have calculated that pressing Israel on settlements will help demonstrate to the Arab nations that the United States is serious about pursuing peace, even at the risk of appearing to undermine Netanyahu’s nascent government.”

The Trumpet has been forecasting the split between Israel and the U.S. for years. See “The U.S.-Israeli Collision Course Is Near” for more information.

What Iran Is Learning From North Korea

Caroline Glick reported last week on the Iranian angle of North Korea’s nuclear test:

It can be assumed that Iranian personnel were present in North Korea during Monday’s test. Over the past several years, Iranian nuclear officials have been on hand for all of North Korea’s major tests including its first nuclear test and its intercontinental ballistic missile test in 2006.Moreover, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think that North Korea conducted some level of coordination with Iran regarding the timing of its nuclear bomb and ballistic missile tests this week. It is hard to imagine that it is mere coincidence that North Korea’s actions came just a week after Iran tested its solid fuel Sejil-2 missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers.Aside from their chronological proximity, the main reason it makes sense to assume that Iran and North Korea coordinated their tests is because North Korea has played a central role in Iran’s missile program. Although Western observers claim that Iran’s Sejil-2 is based on Chinese technology transferred to Iran through Pakistan, the fact is that Iran owes much of its ballistic missile capacity to North Korea. The Shihab-3 missile, for instance, which forms the backbone of Iran’s strategic arm threatening to Israel and its Arab neighbors, is simply an Iranian adaptation of North Korea’s Nodong missile technology. Since at least the early 1990s, North Korea has been only too happy to proliferate that technology to whoever wants it. Like Iran, Syria owes much of its own massive missile arsenal to North Korean proliferation.

For more on Iran’s role in end-time prophecy, read our booklet The King of the South.

Deeper Debt for Consumers

Debt and greed caused the current economic crisis. But rather than fixing this problem, Britain is still borrowing. The Finance and Leasing Association (fla) reported last week that the number of consumers buying goods through higher purchase agreements has increased by 24 percent over the past year.

The fla said that people were less willing to borrow large sums of money, but were instead taking on smaller loans. It reported that consumers were being attracted by zero-percent-interest and buy-now, pay-later offers.

This indebtedness could leave British consumers in serious trouble if the economy gets much worse.

Meanwhile, in America, the seasonally adjusted mortgage delinquency rate experienced its biggest-ever increase during the first quarter of this year—jumping from 7.88 to 9.12 percent. Both the delinquency and foreclosure rates are now at their highest levels since 1972.

“We clearly haven’t hit the top yet in terms of delinquencies or the bottom of the housing market,” said Jay Brinkmann, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association.

For practical financial guidance, see our article “How to Save Money During a Recession.”

No Time for Family

Yet another study has been published in Britain detailing the disturbing state of the British family. According to a poll of 3,000 families, taken as part of Britain’s first “National Families Week,” the average British family spends only 45 minutes a day together. Most families spend much of that time eating or watching television.

The study found that parents were twice as likely to describe their families as “tv and digital families” than “caring families.”

Only 5 percent said they spent family time playing sports, 3 percent reading, and just 2 percent of parents said they helped their children with homework.

More than half of parents said they did not spend enough time with their children. Twenty-three percent of fathers said that spending time with their friends came before spending time with their children.

For information on how to fix this if it is a problem in your family, see our recent article “Redefining ‘Family Time.’

Texting Taking a Toll

The average teenager sent and received 2,272 text messages in the last quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company. That’s almost 80 messages a day. The New York Times warns of the heavy toll excessive texting is having on our children. Doctors and psychologists warn that it could lead to “distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.”

“That’s one every few minutes,” said pediatrician Dr. Martin Joffe. “Then you hear that these kids are responding to texts late at night. That’s going to cause sleep issues in an age group that’s already plagued with sleep issues.”

Last year, theTrumpet.com columnist Brad Macdonald wrote:

… Our young people’s addictive overuse of technology ravages the mind in the same manner alcoholism ravages the liver and smoking degenerates the lungs. Even some of the social impacts are also similar. Everyone knows alcoholism and drug abuse drive a wedge between the user and those around him, weakening relationships with family members and even society in general. In many cases, our young people’s perpetual connection to, craving of, and dependence on technology does the same thing.Entire generations of young minds are being gutted by gadget addiction, yet few adults are speaking out about this travesty.

For more information, see “Destroying One of Our Greatest Gifts.”