When Survivor hit TV for the first time years ago, I think I was in high school. Everyone was caught up in this brand new TV program format. People were talking about it non-stop and it seemed that everyone was watching it.

Except me apparently. I worked at a pharmacy and one day between customers, I skimmed through a newspaper. One columnist wrote with disdain about this TV show. His take on it was something along the lines of: “In a world where people actually struggle every day to simply survive and feed their children, and where some still starve to death or don’t make it to end of the day for some other reason, the West feels compelled to stage such fake scenarios and call it entertainment.” As you can tell, he was pretty disgusted with the whole franchise, from which has spun many other reality TV programs.

So I never watched it. Reality TV really isn’t my thing. Okay, well, one exception. My husband and I watch 19 Kids and Counting. As a new mom, I find Michelle Duggar inspiring. If she can do it with 19 kids, I can surely make it through sleepless nights with my one, sole, tiny human.

Anyhoodle. The whole reality tv-fake-surviving-entertainment brand just isn’t for me. It just feels like it’s mocking true hardship, suffering and loss of life. I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading too much into a TV show.

And then I came across this article which describes a new TV series which seems to be largely based on The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games describes a horrific, unjust world full of horror and suffering. And now we have a TV show that seems to be based on it. For our entertainment. Yay.

Read on:

Discovery has dubbed Survival Live “the first-ever live broadcast survival show,” and in a longer synopsis on Entertainment Weekly, the network called it a “24/7 real time, multi-platform viewing experience where viewers will play a large role in each survivalist’s success or failure. The survivalists struggle will be streamed live, day and night, from the moment they are abandoned into the remote wilderness with only the clothes on their back. Viewers will have the ability to check out the survivalists biometric data to see who is physically struggling, and can elect to help them out. The survivalists will be able to build a relationship with the audience by talking to them through the cameras. That relationship could be the difference between failing to succeed on the first week or making it the full 42 days. To prosper, these survivalists will need the audience in their corner if they want to stay alive.” The final sentence of that release is so ominous, it seemed to indicate that this whole thing was an April Fools’ joke; I’m still not entirely sure it isn’t, because I’m pretty sure we were just informed by Discovery that we — the hypothetical audience — are actually responsible for keeping these reality show contestants alive…

And they’ll have to prove many: Not only must they make fire, find food, and go out searching for the nearest source of fresh water, they’re going to have to gain our sympathy so we will in turn allow them access to things like food and personal care items. The “biometric data” will, one can assume, allow us to see who is in dire need of water, who has lost the greatest amount of weight, and who is having a Lisa Whelchel–style emotional breakdown and really, really needs a hug. You will sit in your warm bed, in your temperature-controlled home, eating a bowl of Fritos with the works, and you will deny her a hug because she has not worked hard enough to make you like her. I repeat: These survivalists will need the audience in their corner if they want to stay alive.

So the network won’t let people die or kill each other in Survival Live, but at what point does this whole type of franchise become disgusting anyway? Are we there yet? I just read a book about the early church and persecution and people being thrown to the lions as entertainment. People would cheer as they watched gladiators fight to the death. Fun times for the crowds.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, and part of this is due to lack-of-sleep-caused-by-an-adorable-newborn, but I thought I would raise it and ask for your feedback. Do these types of shows devalue life and suffering? TV viewers eat their Fritos and decide who “lives/survives” or who “dies/leaves the island”. Just based on whether they found them sympathetic? Whether they liked a contestant or not? “I like you, so you ‘live’!”

Or am I being too sensitive?

__________________________

Andrea adds: If you are too sensitive then I am too. I have never been able to stomach “reality” TV.

Not just another baby. IT’S ANOTHER BABY! We take these things for granted. Because they happen all the time. Babies. Rainbows. Sunsets.

Either they are all mundane or they are all special and I prefer the latter view.

Watch and enjoy.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ7-v7xVm3I]

(h/t)

For a long time, I’ve thought about how we need more people to do good creative work that is pro-life. We need more good movies, documentaries and images that lead people to life. This can be done through movies like Bella–a feel good movie with beautiful imagery, showing the power of life.

It can also be done in a different way, by reminding people of what abortion actually is. The filmmakers responsible for FrackNation, Mine Your Own Business and the movie about Al Gore “Not Evil, Just Wrong” are asking for funding to help make a movie about America’s biggest serial killer. Unknown to the better part of North America, Kermit Gosnell was a late term abortionist who gruesomely murdered babies after birth in his Philadelphia clinic.

Hollywood won’t touch it because the subject is abortion.

Help them make this movie. It is going to be good. My only question for myself is how much money can I give right now. That should be the only question you ask yourself as well. These are fine, honourable people (I met Phelim once, at the Freethinking Film Festival here in Ottawa) and was suitably impressed.

If you feel the same way I do, that this sort of influence on our culture is important, PLEASE DONATE. The quality of the outcome is guaranteed to be good, and few filmmakers are willing to take this on.

Here’s the link, again. Give them some dollars, and we can arrange for Canadian showings when it is finished.

Mark your calendars. Some upstanding young men are addressing how porn fuels the rape culture on campus. Important.

But this article is about how women don’t speak with one voice on birth control. I agree.

It also strikes me that we don’t even have the expectation that all men need to speak with one voice. Why so for women?

This press release was sent to me via a friend in Kenya who has dedicated his life to working amongst the poorest of the poor in Kisumu, Kenya.  It is a press statement from the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Kenya asking some very pointed questions about the current tetanus vaccination campaign that has been going on in that country.

Here are a few of their questions, just to wet your whistle:

-Is there a tetanus crisis on women of child bearing age in Kenya? If this
is so, why has it not been declared?
-Why does the campaign target women of 14 – 49 years?
– Why has the campaign left out young girls, boys and men even if they are
all prone to tetanus?
– In the midst of so many life threatening diseases in Kenya, why has
tetanus been prioritized?

Then they go on to say what they are really thinking:

Information in the public domain indicates that Tetanus Toxoid vaccine (TT)
laced with Beta human chorionic gonadotropin (b-HCG) sub unit has been
used in Philippines, Nicaragua and Mexico to vaccinate women against future
pregnancy. Beta HCG sub unit is a hormone necessary for pregnancy.
When injected as a vaccine to a non-pregnant woman, this Beta HCG sub unit
combined with tetanus toxoid develops antibodies against tetanus and HCG so
that if a woman’s egg becomes fertilized, her own natural HCG will be
destroyed rendering her permanently infertile.

In other words, Western vaccination programs are moving into developing nations and permanently sterilizing whole segments of the population without their knowledge.

So much for “choice”.  It looks like higher powers have already made that choice, and women in the developing world are stuck with it.  Instead of ending world hunger through sustainable projects, the richer nations are seeking to unload the burden of poverty by killing off the poor.  Welcome to the new colonialism.

You can read the entire statement here: Press Statement_CHCK_on_Ongoing Tetanus Vaccination

You’ve already read about this story. It has been shared widely on social media and mainstream news outlets are actually covering it.

Like Brian Lilley shares in the video below, I didn’t want to write or talk about this story. I gave birth to my son two weeks ago today, three weeks earlier than his due date. This story is just too much for me right now. That little humans like Jack are being used as eco-fuel… But like Brian explains, we need to talk about this story, even if we don’t want to.

And Wesley J. Smith, as always, has some powerful words to share:

Not cremated and respectfully interred, mind you: Incinerated as fuel to run the boilers.

Shocked yes, but not surprised. The law only reflects our values. In a morally polyglot society, many of us decide that what is legal is also “right.” That means, for many, abortion is morally correct—a view that immediately and logically transforms their perception of fetuses into a less-than-human “other.” Indeed, these days the moral value of fetuses depends wholly on whether they are wanted or unwelcomed.

To put it bluntly, legalizing abortion at will transformed fetuses in the minds of at least half the population into a killable caste—akin to a tumor or a vial of tainted blood—that can be destroyed at will (except in the latest stage of pregnancy, and in the USA, often even then).

What, you mean the results of the sexual revolution ain’t quaint? Casual sex? One night stands? Multiple partners? Lack of commitment? Abortion?

Shocker.

How many people will look back, years from now, at their Facebook albums with the kind of nostalgia HuffPost writes about?

There’s something about our grandparents’ wedding photos that makes us yearn old-fashioned love — the kind of love that meant just holding hands on a first date, handwritten letters (not texts), and sneaking kisses in your dad’s Cadillac.

Good satire bites, and this piece is good satire.

There’s a fundraising effort to pay for abortions going on in the USA. Since I can’t say anything better than Matt Walsh already did, just read his piece. All the way to the end.

They are giving out coat hangar necklaces when you donate. It’s not a joke. I just checked their web site. I thought to myself, I can’t be responsible for posting an Onion satire piece on my blog as reality.

Imagine how ideological you have to be to wear such a necklace.

Matt Walsh lays bare the facts on safe abortions today.

“Safe” abortions have killed at least 400 women.

The “reproductive health care industry” funnels them through, takes their money, and spits them out the other end, leaving many (all) to deal with the very real consequences. According to the Elliot Institute, 31 percent of post abortive women report physical complications, while 65 percent suffer from PTSD.

A peer reviewed study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that women who’ve had abortions suffer from an 81 percent higher risk of mental health problems.

Worst of all, the suicide rate among these women is tragic and startling.

Safe?

Safe for who, exactly?

Safe for the abortionists, I guess.

We need a cultural renewal. Very quickly. People–equip yourselves, go listen to Stephanie Gray on repeat, do what it takes. Because the only thing worse than my tax dollars paying for abortions are private agencies promoting them. And giving you jewellery when you give them enough money.

LifeSiteNews has done a little video here, about Steven Tyler of Aerosmith coercing his girlfriend into having an abortion.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwwmiiyNbps&feature=youtu.be]

If you would like to donate to help them in their spring fundraising campaign, click here.