Week of May 2, 2005
Louisiana College has scheduled its first-ever summer Science Institute
for June 6-8. The event is open to high school students around the
state. “We are inviting young scientists – students who have a
general interest in the sciences – to campus this summer for three days
of workshops and activities to give them a greater understanding of the
career opportunities available to them through the sciences,” said Wade
Warren, coordinator of the LC Department of Biology. The institute
schedule features lecture series with medical and academic
professionals, interaction with peers and sessions with various
Louisiana College personnel, among other things. All applicants must
submit an application, an official copy of his or her high school
transcript, a written summary of his or her career goals and a $50
non-refundable deposit. Total cost of the institute is $200. Space is
limited, and applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible.
For information, persons should call (318) 487-7611 or e-mail
warren@lacollege.edu.
A recent survey of Belgian doctors found 79 percent believed it was
their duty to speed up death for critically-ill babies when necessary
to prevent suffering. The poll was done for The Lancet, a British
medical journal. In addition, euthanasia kits now are available at 250
pharmacies in Belgium, news reports indicate. Belgian doctors may pick
up the kits 24 hours after ordering them, the reports indicated. The
euthanasia rate in Belgium is increasing, official reports indicate.
During the first 15 months after the practice was legalized in 2002,
there were about 20 deaths a month from euthanasia. The rate is now up
to 30 per month. Euthanasia, or physician-induced death, may be
practiced in the nation when a patient is “in a medically-hopeless
condition of chronic and unbearable physical or psychological
suffering.” However, it is not legal for underage children.
The number of people sentenced to death last year fell to the lowest
level since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the penalty in 1976.
There were 125 people sent to death row in 2004, down from 144 the
previous year. It marked the sixth consecutive annual decline. In 1998,
300 people received death sentences in the country. One observer said
the decline is the result of high-profile exonerations based on DNA
evidence. As a result of those, many jurors are less willing to impose
the penalty when they see the system occasionally falls.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has moved its international
headquarters from Minneapolis to the evangelist’s old hometown of
Charlotte, N.C. The association moved into a $27 million facility built
on 63 acres of land off Billy Graham Parkway. The facility will house
300 full-time employees. The 200,000-square-foot building is made of
wood, glass and stone and is not open to the public. The association
also has plans for the Billy Graham Library, which is scheduled to open
in 2007 or 2008. The 40,000-square-foot library will be open to the
public with no admission fee planned. The main window will be in the
shape of a cross. Inside will be photos, mementos, a bookstore, a
restaurant and a theater showing footage from Graham’s crusades.
Groundbreaking on the project is planned later this year. In related
news, the site for this summer’s Billy Graham Crusade in New York City
has been moved from Madison Square Garden to Flushing Meadows Park in
order to accommodate anticipated crowds. The crusade is scheduled for
June 24-26 and could be the 86-year-old Graham’s last, although he is
said to be considering another in London this fall.
The new head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has
signaled he is serious about preventing live-birth abortions. Services
Secretary Mike Leavitt announced recently that the department had acted
to strengthen compliance with the Born-alive Infants Protection Act, a
2002 law that provides legal protection to fully delivered babies, even
when they are intended to be aborted. The law clarifies that a newborn
child fully outside his mother’s womb is a person to be protected under
federal law. This includes every human infant “born alive at any state
of development.” The measure especially targeted an abortion method in
which newborns who survive are allowed to die. Nurses had testified
before a congressional committee that the procedure – known as
live-birth abortion – was used at a Chicago hospital. In the method,
delivery is induced, and the baby is left unattended to die. In a
written statement, Leavitt said he would “vigorously uphold” the
principle in the Born-alive Infants Protection Act that all infants who
are born alive “are entitled to the full protection of the law.”
Spain moved one step closer to legalizing same-sex marriages recently
when its parliament passed a bill legalizing such unions. The measure
still must pass the Senate and once more in parliament, but it is
expected to become law. If it does, Spain would join Belgium and the
Netherlands as the only countries to legalize same-sex marriage. Seven
provinces in Canada and one state in the U.S. have done so as well.
Intelligent design is the subject of a new science blog to explore the
growing evidence for purpose and design in the universe and in earth’s
life systems. “There is a great lack of understanding about intelligent
design,” said Jay Richards, vice president and senior fellow with the
Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle. “The
national debate about intelligent design, as well as the criticisms of
theories such as Neo-Darwinism, has gotten very heated. We hope our
blog will infuse the debate with more light and less heat.” The blog is
located at www.idthefuture.com. It will involve multiple contributors
among the nation’s leading intelligent design scientists and theorists.
Items at the blog will focus primarily on the intellectual issues at
stake in the debate over intelligent design rather than its
implications in such arenas as education or public policy, Richards
said. “This is the first time that the public has had a chance to read
all in one place the leading design scientists’ thoughts on current
scientific news and issues,” he noted. Most posts will be brief,
providing editorial comment and links to relevant articles and
discussions, Richards said.
Five years after paying for the opportunity to make a movie about the
Columbine massacre, the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board
has lost the rights to the film. The movie was to be about Christian
student Cassie Bernall, one of 13 killed in the 1999 shooting at
Columbine High School. It was supposed to be the first feature-length
movie for theatrical or television release for the mission board, which
reportedly paid $20,000 for the rights to the story. However, those
rights expired in 2002 without the movie starting production. “We …
came very close to funding that would have done the story justice,” a
mission board spokesperson said. “Our folks felt it was a tremendous
opportunity to tell a story. It just didn’t come together.” The Bernall
family has been unable to get the movie project off the ground as well.
Bernall initially was identified as the student who said “yes” when
asked by her killer if she believed in God. However, a movie about her
suffered when an investigation revealed Cassie Bernall likely was not
the student who said “yes” to killer Dylan Klebold. Investigators
determined it was another student who survived the shooting despite
being wounded. “We still feel like it was a good opportunity, …” the
mission board spokesperson said of the movie possibility. “We wish
everything that we tried worked out.”
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary trustees recently voted to
designate the seminary’s new school of evangelism and missions as the
“Roy Fish School of Evangelism and Missions.” Fish was a longtime
Southern Baptist professor of evangelism at the Southern Baptist
school. “I know in my heart that more foreign missionaries, home
missionaries, more educators and more pastors have sat at the feet of
Roy Fish than any other evangelism professor,” trustee Ted Stone of
North Carolina said in making the motion to name the new school. “He is
sending out students who have a lasting burden for lost people.”
Trustees elected Keith Eitel as the first dean of the Roy Fish School
of Evangelism and Missions, which is set to admit its first students
this summer. Eitel currently is professor of Christian missions at
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Meanwhile, in other action,
seminary trustees adopted a budget of $34.25 million for the 2005-06
academic year, an 8.6 percent increase from the previous year.