Wednesday, October 8, 2014


News Clips For The Day


EBOLA – TODAY'S UPDATES

Spanish Nurse Says She Reported Her Ebola Symptoms Several Times – NPR
by SCOTT NEUMAN
October 08, 2014

Here's a roundup of the latest developments on Ebola. We'll update this post as news happens.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest confirmed that the U.S. will conduct additional screenings of passengers arriving from the Ebola-infected region of West Africa. JFK, Newark, Chicago O'Hare, Dulles and Atlanta's Hartsfield airports will implement measures that would affect about 150 passengers a day.

The World Health Organization today also updated its Ebola figures, reporting a total of 8,033 cases and 3,879 deaths from the disease in West Africa.

In Spain, Teresa Romero Ramos, the nurse who was admitted to a hospital in Madrid after caring for an infected priest who'd returned from West Africa, reportedly told health authorities three times that she had a fever before she was placed in quarantine.

There were also reports that she may have become infected by touching gloves to her face while she was removing a protective suit she wore while caring for an Ebola patient.

Her dog, Excalibur, was euthanized, reportedly inside the apartment she lived in with her husband. The dog's body was then transported to an incinerator, reporter Lauren Frayer tells NPR's Goats and Soda blog.

Earlier, The Guardian reported:

"In a note distributed on social media by several animal protection organisations, Javier Limón Romero said health officials had asked for his consent to put down the dog Excálibur.

" 'I said no. And they told me that they would ask for a court order to enter my house and put him down,' Romero said in the note.

"The appeal was sent from Limón Romero's isolation ward in the Carlos III Hospital where his wife, Teresa Romero Ramos, is also in quarantine."

A social media campaign to save the dog had been running with the Twitter hashtag #excalibur.

The Guardian newspaper cited the Spanish paper El Pais as saying that the nurse first contacted health authorities on Sept. 30. The Guardian writes:

" ... she complained of a slight fever and fatigue. Romero Ramos called a specialised service dedicated to occupational risk at the Carlos III hospital where she worked and had treated an Ebola patient, said Antonio Alemany from the regional government of Madrid. But as the nurse's fever had not reached 38.6C, she was advised to visit her local clinic where she was reportedly prescribed paracetamol [aspirin].

"Days later, according to the El País newspaper, Romero Ramos called the hospital again to complain about her fever. No action was taken.

"On Monday, she called the Carlos III hospital again, this time saying she felt terrible. Rather than transport her to the hospital that had treated the two missionaries who had been repatriated with Ebola, Romero Ramos was instructed to call emergency services and head to the hospital closest to her home. She was transported to the Alcorcón hospital by paramedics who were not wearing protective gear, El Paísreported."

Reuters quotes Spanish health authorities as saying today that another person being monitored in Madrid for Ebola had tested negative for the disease:

"The man, a Spaniard who had travelled from Nigeria, was one of several people hospitalised after authorities confirmed on Monday that a Spanish nurse had caught the disease in Madrid.

"A second nurse was also cleared of Ebola. A third nursing assistant was hospitalised late on Tuesday for monitoring, a source at La Paz hospital said — bringing the number of people examined in hospital for Ebola to five, two of whom tested negative."

The chief medical officer at La Paz University Hospital, Dr. German Ramirez, was quoted in El Mundo as saying that Romero contracted Ebola when she touched her face with gloves she had used in the room where she was treating Manuel Garcia Viejo, a priest who had worked in Liberia. Viejo later died from the disease.

In Dallas, as we reported in another post, Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who traveled from Liberia and was the first person diagnosed with the disease in the U.S., has died at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Hospital officials say Duncan "succumbed to an insidious disease, Ebola," this morning.

In a statement, the hospital said: "He fought courageously in this battle. Our professionals, the doctors and nurses in the unit, as well as the entire Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas community, are also grieving his passing. We have offered the family our support and condolences at this difficult time."

Health officials are still watching a group of people who had contact with Duncan after he developed symptoms of the disease but before he was placed in isolation at the hospital.

Duncan first sought hospital care on Sept. 26 and was admitted on Sept. 28. Before his hospitalization, 10 of the 48 people being monitored had close contact with him and are being most closely watched. Since the first symptoms of the disease can begin in eight to 10 days after exposure, "this is a very critical week," said Dr. David Lakey, the Texas health commissioner. "We're at a very sensitive period when a contact could develop symptoms. We're monitoring with extreme vigilance."

In Omaha, Neb., a freelance cameraman, Ashoka Mukpo, who contracted Ebola in West Africa and is being treated at Nebraska Medical Center, will reportedly receive blood donated by Dr. Kent Brantly, who earlier survived the disease. Antibodies against Ebola in Brantly's blood could help Mukpo fight off the infection, officials say.

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, burial teams reportedly refused to collect bodies of Ebola victims in the capital and went on strike, apparently demanding more money, though officials there told The Associated Press that the situation has been "resolved."

The AP says: "In neighboring Liberia, health workers said they planned to strike if their demands for more money and safety equipment were not met by the end of the week."

And in Geneva, as NPR's Marilyn Geewax reports, the World Bank issued an estimate of the projected cost of the Ebola outbreak, saying it could reach $32.6 billion by the end of 2015 if the virus spreads significantly beyond worst-hit West Africa.

"The enormous economic cost of the current outbreak to the affected countries and the world could have been avoided by prudent ongoing investment in health systems-strengthening," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.



“In Spain, Teresa Romero Ramos, the nurse who was admitted to a hospital in Madrid after caring for an infected priest who'd returned from West Africa, reportedly told health authorities three times that she had a fever before she was placed in quarantine. There were also reports that she may have become infected by touching gloves to her face while she was removing a protective suit she wore while caring for an Ebola patient. Her dog, Excalibur, was euthanized, reportedly inside the apartment she lived in with her husband. The dog's body was then transported to an incinerator, reporter Lauren Frayer tells NPR's Goats and Soda blog.... Rather than transport her to the hospital that had treated the two missionaries who had been repatriated with Ebola, Romero Ramos was instructed to call emergency services and head to the hospital closest to her home. She was transported to the Alcorcón hospital by paramedics who were not wearing protective gear, El País reported.”

This is another series of errors. Local people in the Spanish hospital twice failed to be on the alert for Ebola, turning the nurse away twice from hospital care. Then on the third time, rather than taking her to the hospital that was prepared to treat Ebola, they told her to call an ambulance and go to her nearest hospital. Sadly, the ambulance attendants were not equipped with gloves and HazMat suit, so now they are also exposed. Western nations need to be aware of the unusual danger of this disease outbreak and start thinking accordingly. It was only a matter of time before people would start leaving Africa and flying to other locals. It has only happened one case at a time, but there have already been several cases. The way this disease spreads, there could be a worldwide crisis at any time.



http://news.yahoo.com/spanish-nurse-ebola-dog-184950600.html

Spanish health officials obtain order to kill Ebola nurse's dog
By Dylan Stableford
October 7, 2014

The husband of the Spanish nurse who was diagnosed with Ebola is denouncing health officials who told him their dog would have to be killed as a precaution.

In a letter posted to posted to Facebook by Villa Pepa Protective Association, an animal rights group, Javier Limon Romero, the husband of the infected nurse, Teresa Romeo, says an official with the Madrid health department told him "that they have to sacrifice my dog."

"I was asked to give them my consent, but I obviously refused," Javier wrote. "He says he was going to ask for a court order to forcibly enter my home and sacrifice Excalibur."

The husband says he left the dog several buckets of water and food before coming to the hospital, where he has been quarantined along two others who are being observed for symptoms. Twenty-two other people who came into contact with the nurse are being closely monitored, Spanish health officials said Tuesday.

The nurse had helped treat two missionaries who contracted Ebola in West Africa and were repatriated to Spain last month. Both died shortly after arriving in Madrid. The nurse began feeling ill on Sept. 30 and was diagnosed with Ebola on Monday.

According to the Associated Press, Madrid's regional government obtained a court order to euthanize and incinerate their pet," saying "available scientific knowledge suggests a risk that the mixed-breed dog could transmit the virus to humans." It's unclear whether they carried out the order.

"It seems unfair," Javier wrote of the euthanasia order. "If you are really worried about this problem I think you can find another type of alternative solutions, such as putting the dog in quarantine and observation as it has me. Or maybe you will have to sacrifice me just in case. But of course, with a dog it's easier, it doesn't matter as much."

A Change.org petition to save the dog has already collected more than 97,000 signatures.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 3,400 people have been killed and more than 7,400 infected since the Ebola outbreak began in March.

U.S. animal officials, though, say there is no evidence dogs can transmit Ebola to humans.

While some dogs in West Africa have tested positive for the Ebola virus, they showed no signs of being infected, Michael San Filippo, senior media relations specialist for the American Veterinary Medical Association, told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette last month.

“There is more concern about fruit bats and non-human primates,” San Filippo said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ebola "may be spread as a result of handling bushmeat (wild animals hunted for food) and contact with infected bats."



http://www.reddit.com/r/ebola/comments/2i2c8d/confirmed_dogs_can_carry_ebola/

CONFIRMED: Dogs can carry Ebola
by dasAviator
October 5, 2014

SOURCE: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15757552

During the 2001-2002 outbreak in Gabon, we observed that several dogs were highly exposed to Ebola virus by eating infected dead animals. To examine whether these animals became infected with Ebola virus, we sampled 439 dogs and screened them by Ebola virus-specific immunoglobulin (Ig) G assay, antigen detection, and viral polymerase chain reaction amplification. Seven (8.9%) of 79 samples from the 2 main towns, 15 (15.2%) of 99 samples from Mekambo, and 40 (25.2%) of 159 samples from villages in the Ebola virus-epidemic area had detectable Ebola virus-IgG, compared to only 2 (2%) of 102 samples from France. Among dogs from villages with both infected animal carcasses and human cases, seroprevalence was 31.8%. A significant positive direct association existed between seroprevalence and the distances to the Ebola virus-epidemic area. This study suggests that dogs can be infected by Ebola virus and that the putative infection is asymptomatic

These data are consistent with observations we made during the different Ebola outbreaks that occurred in Gabon and the Republic of Congo in recent years. We observed that some dogs ate fresh remains of Ebola virus–infected dead animals brought back to the villages, and that others licked vomit from Ebola virus–infected patients. Together, these findings strongly suggest that dogs can be infected by Ebola virus, and that some pet dogs living in affected villages were infected during the 2001–2002 human Ebola virus outbreak.

Thus, dogs appear to be the first animal species shown to be naturally and asymptomatically infected by Ebola virus. Asymptomatic Ebola infection in humans has also been observed during outbreaks (18) but is very rare. Although dogs can be asymptomatically infected, they may excrete infectious viral particles in urine, feces, and saliva for a short period before virus clearance, as observed experimentally in other animals. Given the frequency of contact between humans and domestic dogs, canine Ebola infection must be considered as a potential risk factor for human infection and virus spread. Human infection could occur through licking, biting, or grooming. Asymptomatically infected dogs could be a potential source of human Ebola outbreaks and of virus spread during human outbreaks, which could explain some epidemiologically unrelated human cases.



http://archive.archaeology.org/9611/newsbriefs/ebola.html

Archaeology
Volume 49 Number 6, November/December 1996
Ancient Ebola Virus?
by Allison Brugg

The plague of Athens, which wiped out one fourth of the city's population between 430 and 427 B.C., was the earliest known outbreak of ebola, according to a recent article in Emerging Infectious Diseases. Epidemiologists Patrick Olson and Charles Hames of the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, and Abram Bennenson and Nicholas Genovese of San Diego State University believe that Thucydides' description of the disease in his history of the Peloponnesian War matches the symptoms ebola, which killed more than 300 people in Zaire and Sudan last year.

Thucydides wrote that after the disease's "abrupt onset, persons in good health were seized first with strong fevers, redness and burning of the eyes, and the inside of the mouth, both the throat and tongue, immediately was bloody-looking and expelled an unusually foul breath. Following these came sneezing, hoarseness...a powerful cough...and every kind of bilious vomiting...and in most cases an empty heaving ensued that produced a strong spasm."

Scholars had thought that Athens suffered an outbreak of measles, smallpox, typhus, or bubonic plague. All these ailments, says Olson, would have been preceded by a cough producing blood or mucus. Thucydides wrote that the cough was "empty." Olson and his colleagues contend that the description of the dry cough in Thucydides' account matches that of ebola, basing their theory in part on a retranslation of Thucydides. They believe that the Greek word lugx, which Thucydides uses in his description of symptoms and which had previously been translated as "retching" or "dry heaving," may have been the word for hiccup. Fifteen percent of the victims of the 1995 Zaire outbreak of ebola complained of uncontrollable hiccuping.




The presence of two infected dogs in France makes me wonder how that happened. The journal Archaeology article does give evidence of possible Ebola virus infections going back thousands of years, and in Greece rather than Africa, so it is likely that mammals in many parts of the world have some Ebola virus antibodies. The Reddit article says that dogs, without having any symptoms, can excrete the viruses in urine, feces and saliva, so the euthanizing of this nurse's dog is probably a good idea. Though dogs don't show symptoms of illness, they can shed virus in several ways, and no animal has been linked as closely to human society as the dog. Of course the bat is the primary suspect.

“Epidemiologists Patrick Olson and Charles Hames of the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, and Abram Bennenson and Nicholas Genovese of San Diego State University believe that Thucydides' description of the disease in his history of the Peloponnesian War matches the symptoms ebola, which killed more than 300 people in Zaire and Sudan last year.... They believe that the Greek word lugx, which Thucydides uses in his description of symptoms and which had previously been translated as "retching" or "dry heaving," may have been the word for hiccup. Fifteen percent of the victims of the 1995 Zaire outbreak of ebola complained of uncontrollable hiccuping.”

If this analysis of Thucydides is correct, Ebola which was recently thought to be a fairly new disease, is probably very old. One Scientific American article said that DNA from the family of viruses of which Ebola is a part has been found in the human genome. That doesn't mean that it was Ebola, but that it could have been. In http://phys.org/news196925610.html, is the following excerpt:

(PhysOrg.com) -- New research on the DNA of wallabies, rodents, a number of mammals and bats has found it is likely the ancestors of the Ebola and lesser-known Marburg viruses were in existence tens of millions of years ago, which is much earlier than previously thought.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news196925610.html#jCp The Ebola and Marburg viruses are known as "filoviruses," and result in life-threatening hemorrhaging in humans and other primates. Outbreaks occur in remote locations in Africa, and while rare they cause high fatality rates, and seem to appear out of nowhere. There are no effective treatments, and no vaccines.

It was previously thought that filoviruses were probably about 10,000 years old, with this figure based on the estimated mutation rate. The new research, by evolutionary biologist Derek Taylor and a team from the State University of New York in Buffalo, has used a different method to estimate their age.

The method is one used by paleovirologists, using remnants of virus genes found scattered within the genomes of animals. Viruses are either DNA or RNA based, and many insert their own genes into the DNA of host cells, and it had been thought that RNA-based viruses needed a gene for reverse transcriptase, an enzyme that converts their RNA to DNA in order to do this. Viruses with the gene are called retroviruses, and include the AIDS virus, HIV. Remnant viral genes from ancient retroviruses can be found in virtually every animal’s genome.

The team then compared the filovirus remnants in different species and found they were almost identical, which suggests the virus infected animals early in evolution, and the viral remnants were inherited by succeeding generations as the groups diverged to form separate species. For example, the house mouse and Norway rat have the same remnants in the same places in the same chromosomes, even though these diverged from each other over 12 million years ago.





http://news.yahoo.com/cop-came-her-house-without-warrant-grandmother-fought-205042141.html

When a Cop Came Into Her House Without a Warrant, This Grandmother Fought Back
By Nicole Pasulka | Takepart.com
October 6, 2014

Do not mess with Venus Green. In July 2009, police entered Green's home looking for her grandson, Tallie. He had come into the house moments before saying he'd been shot at a convenience store, but the officer at Green's door insisted that Green had shot him. 

"Police kept questioning him. They wouldn't let the ambulance attendant treat him," Green told WBAL-TV in the video above. "So I got up and said, 'Sir, would you please let the attendants treat him? He's in pain.' "

"You did it," she claimed the officer said, accusing her of shooting Tellie. When police tried to enter the basement, where her grandson lived, she wouldn't let them in because they didn't have a warrant. The officer and Green struggled, he handcuffed her, and then he headed into the basement.

"This was my private home," Green said. She stated that she asserted her rights as a homeowner and a citizen, locking the cop in the basement.

Despite her apparent interference with a law enforcement investigation, the city of Baltimore settled the lawsuit she brought, probably assuming that any jury of Green's peers would sympathize with a 90-year-old woman injured by a cop during an illegal search. 

This is just one in a number of police brutality and misconduct cases brought against Baltimore police officers recently. An investigation by The Baltimore Sun found that the city has paid money in more than 100 jury decisions or settlements for excessive force, police brutality, and misconduct claims since 2011. Last week, Baltimore Police Dept. Commissioner Anthony Batts asked the United States Department of Justice to review the department's policies and procedures in light of these settlements. 




I said in a recent blog that many cities have the same kinds of problems with race, police overstepping their authority, etc. It isn't just Ferguson and other southern cities. I think some more stringent oversight by the city government and even higher level authorities needs to be put into place around the country. I think the main problem with police is that they operate on their own without any supervision to too great a degree. Over a hundred jury decisions going against the Baltimore police just since 2011 is a lot of cases. Baltimore's own police commissioner has asked for an independent Justice Department review. That's good news. An honest man is at the top of the chain of command.





Scientists learn from 9,000-year-old man
By CHIP REID CBS NEWS October 7, 2014, 8:36 PM

KENNEWICK, Wash. - From the time we are children, we are told to listen to our elders.

Well, scientists are listening to the story being told by a man born 9,000 years ago.

His skull was found in 1996, along the banks of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington.

Doug Owsley is the Smithsonian's top anthropologist. Eighteen years ago he and a group of scientists sued the federal government and local Indian tribes for the right to study a 9,000 year old skeleton - known as "Kennewick Man."

"It is certainly America's most important skeleton, it is an exceptionally rare discovery that doesn't happen but once in a lifetime," said Owsley.

The tribes believed the bones were ancestral and needed to be reburied.

The court ruled in favor of science.

"I truly consider him an ambassador from an ancient time period" said Owsley.

When asked about what "Kennewick Man" tells us about how humans first came to North America, Owsley replied, "You have people coming in thousands of years earlier than we had thought." "He is from these East Asian coastal populations," said Owsley.

He was five feet seven, and a muscular 163 pounds. His diet left a chemical signature in his bones.

"You find that this man is heavily dependent on seals," said Owsley. "From indications he's got lots of salmon in his diet. This man is a marine mammal hunter."

His enormous right arm bone suggests that he hunted with a spear, and that life was often brutal.

"His existence reflects a very strenuous physical existence," said Owsley. "He has half a dozen fractured ribs."

To add to that a severe shoulder injury, two skull fractures - and a spearhead lodged permanently in his hip.

"I think this is something that's intentionally lobbed at this man with the intention of killing him," said Owsley. "This is a very hardy soul and he was able to get away."

One of Owsley's biggest challenges was re-creating what "Kennewick Man" actually looked like.

Sculptors took months to build a likeness based on the shape of his skull and archival photos from Asian coastal people.

"Kennewick Man's" bones have been locked away by the federal government, but Owsley says there's still so much to learn - including what finally killed him.

"I feel like the skeleton is just beginning to talk to us and we need to carry on that conversation," said Owsley.

A conversation"Kennewick Man" has been waiting to have for a very long time.




“Doug Owsley is the Smithsonian's top anthropologist. Eighteen years ago he and a group of scientists sued the federal government and local Indian tribes for the right to study a 9,000 year old skeleton - known as 'Kennewick Man.' 'It is certainly America's most important skeleton, it is an exceptionally rare discovery that doesn't happen but once in a lifetime,' said Owsley. The tribes believed the bones were ancestral and needed to be reburied. The court ruled in favor of science.”

The reason Kennewick Man was the subject of such scientific interest was because his bones were first thought by the archaeologists to be those of an Ainu man – not Mongolian. That got the Native Americans upset, because they claim he was “their ancestor, whatever he looked like.” They wanted his bones reburied in an American Indian ceremony. I notice this article doesn't mention any of that. Maybe there will be some new studies in the news on his ancestry.






Quaker Oats accused of stealing the "face of America's breakfast"
CBS NEWS October 8, 2014, 9:27 AM

The descendants of a woman they say portrayed "Aunt Jemima" in the 1930s are suing Quaker Oats for $2 billion.

They allege the company that owned the brand made a promise to pay their great-grandmother a percentage of the profits, reports CBS News correspondent Jericka Duncan.

The Aunt Jemima brand was built around the caricature of a post-slavery black woman.

"She was developed a long time ago as a kind of a group of stereotypes distilled into a single person," Adweek writer Sam Thielmann said.

Over the years, her depiction has evolved, but not enough for a family that said their relative's image made the company famous.

"In the late '80s it was decided maybe the headscarf was too much," Thielmann said. "They took the scarf and gave her a straight forward hairdo."

But this popular brand still isn't sitting well with everyone.

A lawsuit filed in federal court alleges Quaker Oats stole recipes from Anna Short Harrington in the 1930s and failed to pay her royalties on products bearing her image.

In the complaint, her descendants say Harrington had a contract with Quaker Oats that was never honored.

"This is not your parent's Aunt Jemima story," attorney Jonathan Sherman said. "This is about how corporations are alleged to have taken the value, of the likeness of the actual person or people, who gave meaning to Aunt Jemima, and stolen it for themselves."

Quaker Oats, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, said Aunt Jemima was never based on an actual living person, and denies such a contract ever existed.

In a statement the company said "this lawsuit has no merit -- the claims are frivolous and unsubstantiated. The Aunt Jemima brand is not, and never has been, based on any one person. We are confident this legal matter will be resolved in our favor."

A federal judge will decide whether to dismiss the case.

"It has a lot of potential legal problems," Sherman said. "But that doesn't make it an untrue story, an uninteresting story or a story that you automatically dismiss."

Quaker Oats maintains Aunt Jemima products stand for warmth, nourishment and trust, and said the goal these days is to appeal to diverse backgrounds.

No matter the outcome, Aunt Jemima's iconic face will long be associated with a part of our history that's not so sweet.



“The descendants of a woman they say portrayed 'Aunt Jemima' in the 1930s are suing Quaker Oats for $2 billion. They allege the company that owned the brand made a promise to pay their great-grandmother a percentage of the profits, reports CBS News correspondent Jericka Duncan.... A lawsuit filed in federal court alleges Quaker Oats stole recipes from Anna Short Harrington in the 1930s and failed to pay her royalties on products bearing her image. In the complaint, her descendants say Harrington had a contract with Quaker Oats that was never honored. 'This is not your parent's Aunt Jemima story,' attorney Jonathan Sherman said. 'This is about how corporations are alleged to have taken the value, of the likeness of the actual person or people, who gave meaning to Aunt Jemima, and stolen it for themselves.' Quaker Oats, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, said Aunt Jemima was never based on an actual living person, and denies such a contract ever existed.... 'It has a lot of potential legal problems,' Sherman said. 'But that doesn't make it an untrue story, an uninteresting story or a story that you automatically dismiss.'”

I wonder if someone in the family has a copy of a contract that may apply to this case, either about her image or her recipe. Big companies have been unethical before in their dealings with relatively helpless private individuals. I'll be on the lookout for more articles about this.





Can They Say That at the Vatican? Pope Francis Promotes Sex Talk – NBC
BY ANN CURRY
First published October 8th 2014

Surprising details are emerging about exactly what is being said behind closed doors at the Vatican, where Pope Francis has gathered 191 cardinals and bishops to review the Church's policies on marriage and the family.

The high-level meeting, called a synod, which means a "walk together" in Greek, has already broken with Vatican tradition in a number of ways.

For the first time, synod discussions are not in Latin, lay couples have been invited to speak and, perhaps most stunning of all, is the degree to which topics considered sensitive for the Church, including the value of sex, are being talked about.

For example, Cardinal Vincent Nichols told reporters, one of the couples in the meeting has told the Synod Fathers, in "intimate" details, the importance of sexuality to the well-being of their marriage.

After a brief pause Cardinal Nichols added, with a raised eyebrow, "That's not what we bishops talk about normally."

Pope Francis has encouraged the fathers to speak their minds and, in less than two days, 70 have been counted as having done so.

Father Manuel Dorantes, of Chicago, reported that one Synod Father said priests have so often condemned sexuality outside of marriage, that sex within marriage "almost seems an imperfection that is permitted."

Father Dorantes added that some speakers said this negativity should be changed because, they said, "sex is the sacred path among married people," in that it promotes holiness and allows couples to be, "with God, co-creators of life."

Asked if this positive view of sex has ever been so openly discussed at such a high level of the Catholic Church Fathers, Father Dorantes shook his head saying, "This is completely new."

Father Thomas Rosica, the CEO of the Catholic Salt+Light television network, is able to be inside the synod to observe every day and reports that while no one is suggesting a change in church doctrine, some are suggesting changing the language the church uses. That, Father Rosica said, would include language such as "living in sin," which he said has been described in the meetings as "not helpful" in drawing people to the Catholic Church.

Drawing people is seen as important by the Church, which has concluded families are one of the best conduits for spreading the faith. Even before the synod began, a group of five influential cardinals strongly defended the current doctrine and opposed any changes.

The synod discussions, which end a week from Friday, are also expected to address divorce, single-sex couples and cohabitation, but recommendations are not expected until after a bigger assembly of bishops next year.

Still, the frankness encouraged by Pope Francis appears to already be generating a more open dialogue. Cardinal Vincent Nichols went so far as to say, "There is a very lovely spirit, a sense of fun and lightness," at the discussions, as the cardinals and bishops speak openly about their own experiences as priests working with couples and also growing up in their own families.

The question remains, will the openness described in these high-level discussions at the Vatican lead to any changes that will address the pastoral needs of 21st century Catholics? If they do, they will make history.





“The high-level meeting, called a synod, which means a "walk together" in Greek, has already broken with Vatican tradition in a number of ways. For the first time, synod discussions are not in Latin, lay couples have been invited to speak and, perhaps most stunning of all, is the degree to which topics considered sensitive for the Church, including the value of sex, are being talked about.... Father Manuel Dorantes, of Chicago, reported that one Synod Father said priests have so often condemned sexuality outside of marriage, that sex within marriage 'almost seems an imperfection that is permitted.' Father Dorantes added that some speakers said this negativity should be changed because, they said, 'sex is the sacred path among married people,' in that it promotes holiness and allows couples to be, 'with God, co-creators of life.'... Even before the synod began, a group of five influential cardinals strongly defended the current doctrine and opposed any changes. The synod discussions, which end a week from Friday, are also expected to address divorce, single-sex couples and cohabitation, but recommendations are not expected until after a bigger assembly of bishops next year.... The question remains, will the openness described in these high-level discussions at the Vatican lead to any changes that will address the pastoral needs of 21st century Catholics? If they do, they will make history.”

Fundamentalist Protestants, like Catholics, use the term “living in sin,” though many younger couples are doing just that. Both black and white couples are doing things like waiting to get married until they are pregnant, and even then not necessarily marrying. I hear them on TV more and more saying “my fiance” when they mean my common law husband, because they have children together. The way the term “common law” spouse came into being was that so many couples simply lived together and called themselves married. If they behaved as a couple, and the community accepted them as a couple, they were “married.” See Wikipedia on this subject. It is very interesting. According to that article, the common law marriage was outlawed in England but not in North America under British law. As a result it has continued here in a number of places. See below. :


Common-law marriage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Common-law marriage (sometimes spelled without a hyphen), and also known as sui juris marriage, informal marriage or marriage by habit and repute, is an irregular form of marriage that can be legally contracted in an extremely limited number of jurisdictions.

The original concept of a common-law marriage is a marriage that is considered valid by both partners, but has not been formally registered with a state or church registry, or a formal religious service. In effect, the act of the couple representing themselves to others as being married acts as the evidence that they are married. In jurisdictions recognizing common-law marriages, such a marriage is not legally distinct from a traditional ceremonial marriage enacted through a civil or religious ceremony in terms of the couple's rights and obligations to one another.

"Common-law marriage" is also often used colloquially or by the media to refer to cohabiting couples, regardless of any rights that these couples may have, which can create public confusion both in regard to the term and in regard to the rights of unmarried partners. [1]

The concept of common-law marriages originates from the common law of the English and American legal systems. However, registration of a marriage in order for it to be considered legitimate is a requirement of a large and growing number of jurisdictions.

History[edit]

In ancient Greek and Roman civilization, marriages were private agreements between individuals and families. Community recognition of a marriage was largely what qualified it as a marriage. The state had only limited interests in assessing the legitimacy of marriages. Normally civil and religious officials took no part in marriage ceremonies, nor did they keep registries.

In medieval Europe, marriage came under the jurisdiction of canon law, which recognized as a valid marriage one where the parties stated that they took one another as wife and husband, even in absence of any witnesses.[citation needed]

The Catholic Church forbade clandestine marriage at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which required all marriages to be announced in a church by a priest.

England abolished clandestine or common law marriages in the Marriage Act 1753,[citation needed] requiring marriages to be performed by a priest of the Church of England unless the participants in the marriage were Jews or Quakers. The Act applied to Wales. The Act did not apply to Scotland because by the Acts of Union 1707 Scotland retained its own legal system. To get around the requirements of the Marriage Act, such as minimum age requirements, couples would go to Gretna Green, in southern Scotland, to get married under Scots law.

Marriages by Per Verba De Praesenti, sometimes known as common law marriages, were an agreement to marry, rather than a marriage.[5]

The Marriage Act of 1753 also did not apply to Britain's overseas colonies of the time, so common law marriages continued to be recognized in the future United States and Canada. In the United States, common law marriage can still be contracted in Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, the District of Columbia,[6] or under military law.[7] Except for same-sex interpersonal unions contracted by habit and repute, all jurisdictions recognize common law marriages that were validly contracted in the originating jurisdiction, because they are valid marriages in the jurisdiction where they were contracted.

All other European jurisdictions having long abolished "marriage by habit and repute", Scotland became the last to do so in 2006.[8]







Kurdish Protesters Killed In Turkey Amid Calls To Save Kobani – NPR
by SCOTT NEUMAN
October 08, 2014

At least a dozen people have been killed as Kurds protest across Turkey demanding that the government do more to break the siege of the Syrian border town of Kobani.

For days, Turkish tanks have deployed to the border within sight of the fighting between the self-declared Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and the Kurdish People's Protection Committee, or the Syrian Kurdish militant group known as the YPG.

Al-Jazeera reports on the clashes between protesters and police in Turkey:

"Police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters who burnt cars and tyres as they took to the streets mainly in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish eastern and southeastern provinces late on Tuesday.

"Earlier, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had warned that Kobane was about to fall into the hands of ISIL.

"Clashes also erupted in the capital Ankara and in the country's biggest city, Istanbul, where almost 100 people were detained and 30 people were injured, including eight police officers, the Istanbul Governorship said in a news release early on Wednesday."

Elsewhere, there have been Kurdish protests in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. In Brussels "about 50 protesters smashed a glass door and pushed past police to get into the European Parliament. Once inside, some protesters were received by Parliament President Martin Schulz, who promised to discuss the Kurds' plight with NATO and EU leaders," according to The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, several Syrian human rights groups called on the world to save Kobani from ISIS as new U.S.-led airstrikes targeted the extremists near the town Wednesday, The AP reports.

Even so, Syrian Kurds are reportedly holding back ISIS forces, according to The Guardian, which describes "street-to-street fighting" in the city, but quotes a resident as saying "Kurdish fighters who live in the area have the upper hand." The newspaper says:

"The resident, Mahmoud, described seeing Isis fighters in the streets looking relaxed and walking around freely. But, he said, those who had entered so casually were soon killed by Kurdish fighters with superior knowledge of sites throughout the city for guerilla-style fighting. More militants soon took their place, however."

Alison Meuse, reporting for NPR from Beirut, Lebanon, says ISIS detonated a suicide car bomb in the center of Kobani for the first time since the fighting in and around the town began.

She spoke with Marwan Ismail, an activist in Kobani, who says that concentrated airstrikes today had allowed Kurdish forces to push Islamic State militants about a half-mile out of the city.

Another Kobani-based Kurdish activist, Mustafa Ebdi, tells NPR of street fights in the south and east of the city.

"The coalition strikes hit ISIS in the center of the city," he says.

NPR's Peter Kenyon tells Morning Edition that "one reason for the protests is that Kurds have been basically told by their leaders to go help the Syrian Kurds across in Kobani who are fighting ISIS, but the Turkish border guards aren't letting them go. He adds:

"Kobani is so close to the border that people can literally watch it begin to fall. They can't do anything to help, and the anger after these deaths, especially, is only likely to grow.

"If you step back from the conspiracy theories that Ankara is happy to see its longtime Kurdish enemies weakened, then a couple of things stand out: First, the Syrian Kurds don't want Turkish tanks in their territory any more than the Turks want to be there — they've been fighting for too long, at least some Kurds and Turks.

"The second thing is that the arguments against ground intervention in Syria at all are as compelling as ever. For years, Turkey has been calling for safe zones, no-fly zones, areas where Syrians can be safe without becoming refugees."

In Iraq, Islamic State militants reportedly shot down an Iraqi military attack helicopter, killing the pilot and co-pilot.

According to the AP, two Iraqi officials said Islamic State militants fired a shoulder-launched missile at the Bell 407 helicopter, which crashed about 130 miles north of Baghdad.




“'Clashes also erupted in the capital Ankara and in the country's biggest city, Istanbul, where almost 100 people were detained and 30 people were injured, including eight police officers, the Istanbul Governorship said in a news release early on Wednesday.' Elsewhere, there have been Kurdish protests in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. In Brussels 'about 50 protesters smashed a glass door and pushed past police to get into the European Parliament. Once inside, some protesters were received by Parliament President Martin Schulz, who promised to discuss the Kurds' plight with NATO and EU leaders,' according to The Associated Press.... Even so, Syrian Kurds are reportedly holding back ISIS forces, according to The Guardian, which describes 'street-to-street fighting' in the city, but quotes a resident as saying 'Kurdish fighters who live in the area have the upper hand.' The newspaper says: 'The resident, Mahmoud, described seeing Isis fighters in the streets looking relaxed and walking around freely. But, he said, those who had entered so casually were soon killed by Kurdish fighters with superior knowledge of sites throughout the city for guerilla-style fighting. More militants soon took their place, however.'... Peter Kenyon tells Morning Edition that 'one reason for the protests is that Kurds have been basically told by their leaders to go help the Syrian Kurds across in Kobani who are fighting ISIS, but the Turkish border guards aren't letting them go.'”

The Kurds are behaving valiantly, and should be helped rather than hindered. The whole Middle East including Turkey will be in grave danger if ISIL takes over, as it is trying to do. The US should at least give the Kurdish fighters heavy weapons as they have asked, numerous times now. For us to withhold real support appears to be foolish, as the ISIL fighters are present in overwhelming numbers and have superior weapons. Still the Kurds hold their own. They should be rewarded, not shunned.