From the moment we're born, our gender identity is no secret. We're either a boy or a girl. Gender organizes our world into pink or blue. As we grow up, most of us naturally fit into our gender roles. Girls wear dresses and play with dolls. For boys, it's pants and trucks.

But for some children, what's between their legs doesn't match what's between their ears -- they insist they were born into the wrong body. They are transgender children, diagnosed with gender identity disorder, and their parents insist this is not a phase.

A phase is called a phase because it is just that. It ends. And this is not ending. This is just getting stronger," Renee Jennings told ABC News' Barbara Walters. The Jennings asked that "20/20" not disclose their real name in order to protect the identity of their 6-year old transgender daughter, Jazz.

Most transgender children still live in the shadows, hiding from a world that sees them as freaks of nature. Rejected by their families, many grow up hating their bodies, and fall victim to high rates of depression, drug abuse, violence and suicide.

Today, hundreds of families with transgender children -- who have found each other over the Internet -- are taking a dramatically different course. They're allowing their children to live in the gender they identify with in order to save them from a future of heartache and pain.

"I think we're a very normal family," said Renee's husband, Scott. "I think we have a very healthy marriage. We love to watch our children in all of their activities, whether it's at school, or on the field playing sports."

'You're Special'

On the surface, the Jennings and their four children are a typical American family. But their youngest child, Jazz, is only in kindergarten, and already she is one of the youngest known cases of an early transition from male to female.

"We'll say things like, 'You're special. God made you special.' Because there aren't very many little girls out there that have a penis," said Renee. "Renee and I are in 100 percent agreement as to how we should raise Jazz," said Scott. "We don't encourage, we support. And we just keep listening to what she tells us."

From the moment he could speak, Jazz made it clear he wanted to wear a dress. At only 15 months, he would unsnap his onesies to make it look like a dress. When his parents praised Jazz as a "good boy," he would correct them, saying he was a good girl.

The Jennings wanted to believe it would pass. Scott said he "was in a bit of denial" about what Jazz was trying to tell them. After all, even their rowdy twin boys, who are two years older than Jazz, had painted their nails growing up. But Jazz kept gravitating to girl things, insisting that his penis was a mistake.

When Jazz was two, he asked his mother a question that left her numb and frozen. "[He] said, 'Mommy, when's the good fairy going to come with her magic wand and change, you know, my genitalia?" according to Renee.

Gender Identity Disorder

Troubled by her son's behavior, Renee eventually consulted her copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual or DSM-IV, the book used by psychologists and psychiatrists to identify mental disorders. She read the entry for Gender Identity Disorder (GID), with alarming familiarity.

The DSM-IV says a diagnosis for GID can be made if: (1) someone has a strong and persistent cross-gender identification; (2) feels a persistent discomfort with his or her sex; (3) this discomfort is not due to being intersex or hermaphroditic; and (4) the discomfort causes significant distress or impairment in their life.

Even Jazz's pediatrician told the Jennings that they had a serious problem on their hands. According to Renee, their doctor said, "'Yes, I believe your child has gender identity disorder, and I recommend that you go to a professional.' And I was -- my mouth opened up and you literally had to scrape me off the floor," Renee said.

Dr. Marilyn Volker, a therapist who specializes in sex and gender issues, later confirmed Jazz's diagnosis.

"When we began to talk, and I used -- whoops -- the pronoun 'he,' I was corrected," Dr. Volker said. Jazz told the therapist, "I'm a girl. I'm she."

Dr. Volker then brought out anatomically correct male and female dolls for Jazz to play with, and asked him to point out which one looked like his body. According to Dr. Volker, Jazz pointed to the male doll and said, "This is me now," and then pointed to the female doll and said, "This is what I want."

No Known Cause

No one knows why children like Jazz are transgender -- there are only theories. Through the first eight weeks of pregnancy, all fetuses' brains look exactly the same: female, nature's default position.

Only after testosterone surges in the womb do male brains start to develop differently. Some scientists suggest that a hormone imbalance during this stage of development stamped the brains of transgender children with the wrong gender imprint.

With Jazz's diagnosis at hand, the Jennings explained the situation to their other children. In their home, they came to accept Jazz as a girl. There he could wear a dress or dance as a ballerina, although they still referred to Jazz with male pronouns.

In public, they kept Jazz's look more ambiguous or gender neutral, especially at preschool, where he was allowed to put on a pretty top but he had to wear pants. Officially, Jazz remained a boy.

Jazz chafed under that arrangement. He wasn't happy until he could present as a girl both indoors and outdoors. Everyday became a struggle, according to Renee. Finally, a dance recital opened the Jennings' eyes to just how unhappy Jazz was.

The Turning Point

"She wasn't allowed to wear a tutu, like the rest of the girls. And she just kind of stood there and snapped her finger and did the tapping thing with the toe, and just looked so sad," Renee recalled. "It was heartbreaking to watch. Really heartbreaking."

The dance recital was a turning point. The Jennings then made the difficult decision to let their son become their daughter. On his fifth birthday, Jazz wore a girl's one-piece bathing suit. "He" was now "she," and an innocent pool party became a "coming out" to all of her friends.

"They referred to her as a boy. But kids are very accepting at that age. They believe what you tell them. She is a boy but she wants to be a girl, so we let her wear a bathing suit," said Renee.

That was the first time in front of everybody, she … announced to the world, that she was a girl," Scott added.

Living as a Girl

So how does a 5-year-old biological boy begin living as a girl? For Jazz, it meant growing her hair out, piercing her ears, and wearing dresses everywhere -- even to kindergarten.

At school, Jazz is registered as a boy. Her teachers know she's biologically male, but most of her classmates don't. She's lucky because there's a unisex bathroom and in sports, unisex teams. But even play dates are an issue.

Renee said, "I don't want to send Jazz over to anybody's house unless they know the truth. Nor will I let a child walk into our house, and play with Jazz, unless it's been explained to them."

Jazz's physical safety is always on Scott's mind. He worries about teasing, taunting, or worse. "Every day I'm afraid that I might get a call that something happened. But what we've tried to do for Jazz is give her as much self-esteem as we can. We have older brothers, and an older sister, that are always looking out for her. Keeping their eyes on her."

Dresses and Mermaids

After months of careful deliberation, the Jennings agreed to participate in Barbara Walters' special on transgender children, in the hope that doing so would further understanding of Jazz and others like her.

"I don't feel like you can capture the true essence of a child like Jazz until you see her in her environment doing things that she would normally do. It makes it a lot more believable," said Scott.

Jazz's bedroom is filled with things one would find in a typical girl's room: dresses in the closet, pink and purple sheets, and a bed overflowing with stuffed animals. There are also mermaids -- lots and lots of mermaids.

Asked why she liked mermaids so much, Jazz said, "Because they're different than us." She added, "They have tails."

"All of the male to female younger transgender children are obsessed with mermaids," said Renee. "It's because of the ambiguous genitalia. There's nothing below the waist but a tail. And how appealing is that for somebody who doesn't like what's down there?"

Jazz told Walters that she was very happy being a girl, and that she always thought of herself as one. When people ask her whether she's a boy or a girl, Jazz answers without any hesitation: a girl.

Jazz also showed Walters a drawing of a little girl with a tear-streaked face. Jazz drew it when she was in pre-school and still dressing as a boy. Asked by Walters why the little girl was crying, Jazz said, "Because she wants to wear the dress to school."

Now allowed to wear a dress, Renee reports that Jazz enjoys going to school and has lots of friends. If Jazz hadn't been allowed to transition, Renee said, Jazz today would be "very depressed" and "suffering."

The Child That Never Was

For all intents and purposes, Jazz is a girl. But underneath her frilly dresses, she still has the body of a boy, and puberty looms large over the horizon.

"This child will come into my bedroom in the middle of the night, [and say] 'Mommy, mommy, I had a bad dream that I had a beard and moustache like daddy, and I don't ever want to have a beard or a moustache,'" Renee said.

In order to prevent Jazz's nightmare from becoming a reality, the Jennings will probably allow her to undergo hormone therapy when she reaches puberty. First, Jazz's doctor will prescribe blockers that will stop her from growing body hair and developing other masculine characteristics.

A few years after beginning that regimen, Jazz will start taking estrogen, which will allow her body to go through a form of female puberty. She will grow breasts and her body fat will move to her hips. Most doctors will not perform sex reassignment surgery until the age of consent, 18. The Jennings say that if Jazz chooses to also take that step, they will fully support her. But they are also mindful of keeping all of Jazz's options open.

"We check in with her all the time," Renee said. "I tell her, I say, 'Jazz, if you ever feel like you want to dress like a boy again, cut your hair, you just let me know.' And she goes, 'Mommy, why would I want to do that?'"

While Jazz's parents now fully accept their son as their daughter, the transition has not been without considerable doubt and stress. Many parents grieve for the child that never was. "I mourn the loss of the idea of my son," Renee said. "I see pictures and the video, and that child's gone. But there's a wonderful person now that's with us."

By any measure, the Jennings home is a happy place. Kids play, kids fight. For now, Jazz lives safely inside a bubble, but the enormity of Jazz's situation is not lost on her parents.

"I always say that I'm in the front line. Jazz is protected, because she's not getting the slack, because I am putting out the fires before they burn her," said Renee. "I want to pave the way for a better life for her, and any trans kids. They didn't ask to be born this way."

My comments:

I should start off by saying when I was first diagnosed with M.S. students in my class thought I was different and treated me in a different way that really bothered me. There were some bullies too who called me names like handicap cause they did not know much of the disease (Stupid Assholes) .

One woman's article sparks backlash, after she complained she was bored with raising her kids.

Is it a social taboo to say that raising children bores you? Do you secretly hate having to read the same bedtime stories to your children over and over again? What about having to go to their music recital, all three nights?

For most moms, it is considered inappropriate to express boredom with these natural motherly duties, but freelance journalist Helen Kirwin-Taylor is one mom who isn't afraid to break those taboos.

Kirwin-Taylor, a mother of two young boys, says that "day after day after day, I think it gets very boring." She was so disturbed by the unwritten rule against saying anything negative about child-rearing that she wrote an article for London's Daily Mail entitled "Sorry, But My Children Bore Me to Death." Now a stay-at-home mom, Kirwin-Taylor admitted that she was bored stiff when taking her kids to birthday parties, to play dates and to school plays, and her article caused shock waves on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Good Morning America Radio's" Hilarie Barsky brought up this hot topic last week on her morning show. One woman who called into the show said, "I just have a real problem with someone who is so selfish in the idea of, you know, that's what motherhood is."

And it wasn't just on the radio show where reactions to Kirwin-Taylor's article ran the gamut of extreme emotions. One person wrote on an Internet blog in response to the article, saying, "do the world a favor and don't reproduce." Another post read, "Your lack of parental love borders on child abuse."

'Cult of the Child'

Kirwin-Taylor is quick to respond to these negative comments. "I think a lot of women read it as I was interfering and that their lives are meaningless," she said. Kirwin-Taylor adds that she sees more mothers like herself losing the freedom to express themselves in a more child-centered world. "You know, ten years before I started having children, there was no more cult of the child. Much, much more is expected."

Stephanie Coontz, the director of research for the Council on Contemporary Families, says that today's mothers and fathers are spending much more time with their children than their parents spent with them. "Somehow we've ratcheted up our expectations of what mothers should do and how much satisfaction we should get out of creating perfect little things."

Coontz says mothers are more aware that there should be an interactive relationship with their kids and that parents are more likely to feel guilty about not doing enough with their children in today's more competitive world.

The Business of Motherhood

Kirwin-Taylor feels that women who trade full-time jobs for full-time motherhood, as she did, end up transferring their drive to succeed from the workplace to the home. "I think we turned it into a profession, and it became competitive," she said, "and that is when everything changed."

She also says that since she waited for a long time to have children, she expected it to be the most fascinating thing in the world and, when it wasn't, she wanted to talk about what she experienced.

But some moms say that Kirwin-Taylor is missing the point of parenthood and strongly disagree with her when it comes to reading bedtime stories and participating in children's activities. "Why did she have children in the first place if she wasn't gong to be all into it? You're going to have to do things that you don't want to do and hopefully you will want to do them because you'll see the joy in your child's face," said one suburban mom.

Another mom said, "There are some people who are like that. You know, anytime it takes away from themselves, they're not happy and they don't like it."

What Makes a Good Mom?

Kirwin-Taylor laments the fact that her article created a war, instead of dispelling a taboo. But is there a middle ground when it comes to the mommy wars?

Authors Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile, who co-wrote "I Was a Really Good Mom Before I had Kids," think they have found it.

"We're not united enough," Nobile said, "and we're kind of pitting ourselves against each other in order to just make ourselves feel like, 'Oh, I'm doing a good job. I'm making the right choice.'"

They make the point that mothers shouldn't expect perfection of themselves or each other.

Now that Kirwin-Taylor's sons are 13 and 11, she feels that her relationship with them has matured and now enjoys sharing activities with them.

"I had this idea that good mothers read three bedtime stories. Good mothers do not get tired, they do not get stressed, they do not lose their temper. They do not think any homework is boring. They don't think anything is boring," she said

"I'm quite proud of myself because now, we've come out of the war and now, I'm in the fun bit. And now, we can talk about everything and we're all great friends."

 

My view:

Well i think kids are fun to be with because I was a teacher and it was really fun teaching them.  But i still remember being in hospital and at night all these kids used to cry and in the day they used to sleep which was pretty bad

Who is Anthony Godby Johnson? To many, he was a 14-year-old author with a heart-rending story: he was dying of advanced syphilis, AIDs, had his leg amputated, and had suffered 54 broken bones -- both at the hands of his biological parents, and others. The story that first aired on "20/20" in July 2006 now has fascinating new developments.

For more than a decade, Tony Johnson's story sparked the interest of a publishing company, a movie studio, and even this network. But was it a true tale? Does the boy even exist? Or, as some believe, was it all a hoax?

 

The story that captivated millions of readers and viewers across the country began in Union City, New Jersey. Tony lived, the story goes, in Union City with Vicki Johnson, a social worker who had adopted him.

She'd saved him from a harrowing life in New York City where he'd been abused and forced into prostitution by his biological parents.

Tony Touching People's Lives

The story was first told in Tony's inspirational autobiography, "A Rock and a Hard Place," an astonishingly impressive work for a 14-year-old. Published in 1993, the book had six paperback printings.

Eventually, the heartbreaking story attracted the eye of movie-makers. Ron Bernstein, an agent at the well-known talent agency International Creative Management, Inc., sold Tony's book to HBO.

"I said to HBO, 'don't do your usual cheap deal with me. This kid is dying! You gotta do it for the kid,'" said Bernstein. "[It] made people feel good about themselves. It was, 'I don't care how bad my life is, there's somebody whose life is much worse and they're not beaten down.'"

Bernstein says he was among those charmed over the phone by the boy. Tony spent hours talking with friends and supporters, including San Francisco writer Armistead Maupin.

"He would call just out of the blue and start talking to me," said Maupin.

Maupin says it didn't strike him as odd that he was developing a phone friendship with a 14-year-old boy.

"It struck me as wonderful. He was saying 'I love you' in the way that a kid says it to a parent or an adult that's really close to them," said Maupin. "It's a level of intimacy that was quite extraordinary, maybe even stronger because it was on the phone -- just a voice in the night talking to you who seems to understand you, to respect you, to need you."

Tony's increasingly dramatic story was part of a 1997 ABC special titled "About Us: The Dignity of Children." Hosted by Oprah Winfrey, the Emmy-nominated special about the resilience of children was watched by millions. Tony himself was played by an actor, but his own voice narrated his story.

Bernstein described Tony's voice as "very strangely androgynous."

Tony says in the show, "I was bought for an hour, sometimes two, or maybe for a whole night."

It was a story that easily sparked deep feelings and sympathy in people.

Not Believing in "Tony"

According to Maupin, Tony was on the phone, connecting with many people on a regular basis, including an ex-nun and a rabbi. Maupin says the rabbi came from Israel to see Tony and was turned away at the door.

Maupin says that each time he tried to arrange to meet Tony in person, Tony's adoptive mother Vicki would say the boy's fragile health prohibited visitors. Maupin had to settle for pictures of the boy, sent out by Tony and Vicki.

Bernstein says Vicki told him that Tony was nearing "death's door." "[He] was so fragile that he couldn't see anybody because their germs could kill him."

One of the first people to suggest a hoax was Terry Anderson, Armistead Maupin's former business partner and former boyfriend. "I've not met Tony Johnson, because there is no Tony Johnson to meet," said Anderson. Anderson also suggested a shocking possibility: the voice they'd all been speaking with sounded oddly feminine because, maybe, Tony's mother was playing both roles.

"For six years, my brain was divided down the middle," Maupin said. "There were days when I would talk to Tony and think, 'this is clearly a boy, why would I ever doubt this?' and other days when I would think, it's her [Vicki]."

But in those six years, Maupin says he never asked the crucial question: are you a fake?

"How do you do that? Do you say, 'excuse me, are you fake, are you really a 40-year-old woman?'", asked Maupin. He says if he had questioned Tony over the phone, he would have been doing the one thing that he says you're never supposed to do: doubt the story of an abused child.

Maupin turned his agonizing personal debate about the suffering boy into a novel, "The Night Listener."

One day, ICM agent Ron Bernstein received "The Night Listener" in the mail. Until then, he says he had not known that Maupin had a phone friendship with Tony. "I read it because Armistead is a client. I was so stunned. I called Armistead and I said, 'Are you sitting? I was the agent for that kid. I sold his book to HBO. I cannot believe you had the same experience that I did.'" Bernstein said he and Maupin talked for an hour, both aghast.

Bernstein admits he never questioned if anybody was lying. "I was talking to two voices, Tony and Vicki." But Bernstein says he began to have his own doubts when the $125,000 deal to turn Tony's book into an HBO movie collapsed because Vicki said Tony was too sick to let anyone from HBO meet him.

As time went on, Bernstein took note that a boy on the brink of death kept hanging on for years with a bushel of ailments.

Maupin agrees that he found the number of ailments a bit unbelievable, too. "It did get more and more melodramatic, and as it did, my doubts grew."

Questions Continue

But if Tony doesn't exist, then who wrote "A Rock and a Hard Place"? Could it have been Vicki Johnson? Either the mastermind behind a huge hoax, or the embattled guardian of a sick boy's privacy -- depending on whom you believe -- Ms. Johnson graduated from a Union City high school in 1975. Her real name is Joanne Victoria Fraginals.

Years after Tony's book was published, she moved to Illinois and married a child psychologist, Marc Zackheim.

The Zackheims declined to speak with "20/20." But faxes sent last summer by Dr. Zackheim insisted that Tony's story was true and had already been proven. He accused Maupin of spreading lies for commercial gain.

And a few days ago, Vicki Johnson's lawyer sent ABC a new, 140-page response to our story. It included signed affidavits by the Zackheims and three other people swearing to have met Tony. However, none of these people would discuss Tony with us directly. Also, the lawyer asserted that medical and adoption records for Tony exist, but will not be provided to ABC because they are "privileged and confidential." Further, the response contends that claims that Tony does not exist are an attempt to promote the movie version of Armistead Maupin's novel, "The Night Listener." "The Night Listener" was released by Miramax, a sister company of ABC, Inc. Just yesterday, Ms. Johnson's attorney accused ABC News of "bias and disregard for the truth."

ABC received other letters in support of Tony in July, some from people also claiming to have met him. One letter said, "Tony exists" and "is a beautiful and deep soul."

Jack Godby, who wrote the introduction to Tony's book, told "20/20" he still keeps in touch with Tony by email and by phone, although he admits that after all these years, he's never met Tony in person.

Bernstein's response to the people who still believe in Tony? "There are still people that believe in the tooth fairy." What's most interesting, Bernstein says, is not that Vicki may or may not have been Tony, but that people wanted to believe that Tony exists.

The movie version of Maupin's "The Night Listener" was released in August and comes out on DVD this week. Robin Williams plays the character Maupin based on himself. Williams says he's known Maupin for 30 years. "He became obsessed with the idea of finding out who is this person."

Maupin added, "It was very difficult for me. I didn't stop thinking about it. I didn't stop speculating over it. I didn't have any proof, so all I could do was turn to fiction."

Maupin says the movie is a fictional reflection of the complicated emotions he felt after bonding with Tony and Vicki on the phone and never being allowed to meet the boy.

"I think maybe Tony was her [Vicki's] imaginary friend. He was certainly mine," said Maupin with a laugh.

I Know This Child!

When "20/20" first broadcast this story in July, a haunting question remained. If Tony never existed, then who is the boy in the photographs people received? Like Maupin, Terry Anderson struggled to conjure the true identity of that boy -- a boy they only knew as Tony. "Somebody out there in the world knows who that is," says Anderson.

Of the many millions of people who saw the original "20/20" broadcast and the special web link which asked, "Do you know this boy?," exactly three people came forward to tell ABC the real name of the boy featured in the photos.

His name is Steve Tarabokija, not Anthony Godby Johnson. And he is not a writer suffering from life-threatening maladies, but is instead a very healthy traffic engineer from New Jersey.

As one can imagine, Steve was surprised when he received a call from an ABC News producer telling him the details of the story. "It was shocking. It took a couple of days just to sink in," he told "20/20."

So how did childhood photos of Steve Tarabokija come to be misappropriated, allegedly by Vicki Johnson? One viewer who came forward to identify "Tony" as Steve was Cary Riecken. She was watching at home the night of the original "20/20" broadcast.

"I said, I know this child! This is Steve!," tells Riecken. Steve, along with Riecken's son, Hassan, were classmates together at the Sacred Heart grade school in North Bergen, New Jersey. The school has since closed. As it turns out, Vicki Johnson was Steve and Hassan's fourth grade teacher. It may have been that Vicki used the photos of her young pupil in order to put a necessary face on a story that so many people believed.

Recalling her memories of Vicki, Cary Riecken explained, "She loved taking pictures of the children all the time. Her role as a teacher was not just as a teacher. She was like a friend to them." Steve's memories are similar. "She was a very nice teacher, one of the nicest that I've had." Nice or not, Steve's mother Lisa is not amused. What would she say to the alleged hoaxer, Vicki Johnson? "How dare you use my son's pictures? How dare you?," she told "20/20." Ms. Johnson's lawyer did not respond to "20/20's" questions about Steve's photos.

 

My Veiw:

Well to begin with I myself am diagnosed with MS and if anyone would like to write a book or even make a flim about I would say No because of me going through it again will bring back hard memories which I have tried hard to forget. And that is why from the start I did not believe this "TONY"! And if tony asks me to support him with money i would not because yeah i'm a cheapo

To become famous, you used to have to shoot for the stars — but not anymore. Now all you need to shoot are a couple of naughty photos or a random act of violence, post them on the Internet, and 80,000 hits later, you've go t… fame.

More than 70,000 new videos get posted every day on YouTube.com alone. One of the most recent rise-to-fame stories is that of Adam Schleichkorn, self-proclaimed inventor of the sport of "fence plowing."

The Rise of 'Fence Plowing'

Schleichkorn was visiting family in Florida, happened to see a fence in the post-hurricane aftermath, and thought, "We could run right through it." And run right through it they did.

The "first guy runs through — just barrels through," he said. "The second guy, my cousin John, gave up halfway, got stuck midway through. I think that was another twist to the comedic aspect."

Their horseplay on Schleichkorn's family's property was initially meant to be seen by a list of maybe 30 friends, but those 30 friends sent it to their friends, and so on. At one point, he retitled his video from "Guy Runs Through a Fence" to "Fence Plowing," garnering thousands more hits on YouTube.com.

It wasn't long before Schleichkorn and his cronies were being mimicked by other boys who saw their video. The difference is, those boys crossed the line between horseplay and public vandalism, resulting in their arrest.

"It really took off around the end of January, when the five kids in Deer Park [N.Y.] got arrested," Schleichkorn said. "They were basically copying my video. … They were doing it to public property, to property not owned by them. I was doing it on my cousin's property and of course … I really have to put it out there: I really don't promote vandalism at all."

Fame Can Be Just a Few Clicks Away

Schleichkorn has used his newfound fame as both a lesson in marketing and a catapult toward a career in the music industry — he is starting his own record label.

While becoming famous may be just a few clicks away, there is one caveat: Grabbing your 15 megabytes of fame requires increasingly extreme measures. Suddenly not only is the line between horseplay and vandalism being crossed, but the line between shocking and violent or obscene is as well.

Take, for example, a recent incident involving a 13-year-old girl in North Babylon, N.Y., who was beaten up by three other girls. By filming it, a 16-year-old boy was an accomplice to the attack, and then they posted it on the Internet for fellow students — and the world — to see. They called it "E-venge" against the 13-year old for dating one of her attackers' ex-boyfriends.

Parry Aftab, cyber lawyer and executive director of the Internet safety and help group organization WiredSafety, said, "If you're not more outrageous than the profile and video before you, you're not popular enough on these sites. These kids designed this attack for their page to become popular on YouTube."

'Cyberbullying'

According to a young girl who participated in a forum for teenagers conducted by WiredSafety about "cyberbullying" — in which people use the Internet to bully or abuse others — "If you beat up somebody but nobody sees it, you don't gain from that. If you beat up somebody and you film it and put it on the Internet, then everybody can see it and everyone can respect you and everyone can fear you."

Not only did the students in North Babylon draw attention from their fellow students who saw the video on YouTube.com or on MySpace.com but from school officials and police as well. The three attackers were suspended from school until at least April and charged with juvenile delinquency; the boy was suspended for five days and charged with unlawful assembly, a Class B misdemeanor, and is scheduled to be arraigned on March 22.

Another teenager who participated in the WiredSafety forum, Josh, said that people post ever-more shocking pictures and videos on the Internet to gain as much attention, short-lived though it may be, as they can. "So they go that extra step to be shocking so people will go see their video, which outdoes someone else's video. It's all about competition, about who can be the most obscene."

Jenna, another teen who participated in the forum said, "In my school, some high school girls took some pictures of themselves naked from the neck down and sent them to some senior boys in order to get them to ask them out … then the senior boys sent them to friends who sent them to other friends and now it's just all over."

She added that there are many sexually explicit movies on the Internet posted by girls in school and "they just do it so they can get boys to like them and other people think they're cool for being outrageous."

In the cyberworld, some achieve fame and some have fame thrust upon them. Such was the case for "American Idol" contestant Antonella Barba. While taking her initial steps toward fame on the show, she unexpectedly skyrocketed to the forefront last week, thanks in no small part to the Internet.

There has been a media storm over sexually charged photos of Barba recently posted on a Web site called "IDontLikeYouInThatWay.com." There were also sexually explicit photos that the anonymous contributor claimed were Barba.

The less-explicit photos still showed Barba in provocative poses. They were taken from a calendar she had made for her boyfriend, and during a vacation she and friends took to a topless beach. The rest of the photos, according to Barba's best friend and co-contestant, are not her.

Needless to say, while Barba's fame and fate on "American Idol" lies in the hands of "Idol" voters, there is no telling what could lie ahead for her as one of newest, though unintended, winners of the Internet celebrity lottery.

More than 80 people in three states may be at risk for meningitis after coming into contact with a University of New Hampshire student who died of the illness this week, health officials said.

The warning came amid another meningitis scare that shut down schools Thursday and Friday in three towns in Rhode Island.

The college student, 21-year-old Danielle Thompson, had been in her home state of Maine, as well as in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, in the 10 days before she was admitted to a Dover hospital. She died of bacterial meningitis on Wednesday.

Health and Human Services Commissioner John Stephen said the state has identified 29 people in New Hampshire and 55 in Maine who should receive antibiotics. Officials were still tracking down how many people Thompson visited in Massachusetts.

No one has yet shown symptoms, Stephen said.

Bacterial meningitis can be spread through saliva, creating the most risk for people who shared food or drinks, kissed or used the same eating utensils. It causes an infection of fluid in the spinal cord and surrounding the brain, with symptoms include high fever, headache and stiff neck.

"This case underscores just how serious this illness can be," Stephen said.

In Rhode Island, epidemiologists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working with state officials investigating a possible case of meningitis and three cases of encephalitis that surfaced in public school children. One second-grader in Warwick died from encephalitis that was brought on by "walking pneumonia."

Dr. David Gifford, director of Rhode Island's Public Health Department, said there have been an unusually high number of walking pneumonia cases in the children's communities.

As a precaution, classes for about 20,000 students in those communities Warwick, West Warwick and Coventry were cancelled Thursday and Friday while health experts investigate, Gifford said.

The promise of heaven is one of the most powerful and motivating beliefs in human history.

In a survey by ABC News, nearly nine out of 10 Americans said they believed heaven existed.

 

But what exactly do people envision when they think of an afterlife, and what do they believe is required to get there?

Is heaven a myth dreamed up to give our lives meaning? Or is it a real place?

Barbara Walters traveled to India, Israel, and throughout the United States, talking to religious leaders of every major faith, believers and nonbelievers, scientists, celebrities … and even terrorists, in search of a better understanding of just what people believe when it comes to the afterlife.

From Valhalla to Nirvana

Every culture has wrestled with the question of an afterlife, and most have come to a similar conclusion: The bad end up in hell, the good go to heaven.

If you were a Viking who died in battle, fierce goddess warriors known as the Valkyries would carry you to Viking Heaven, Valhalla, where you would join an eternal feast. The Romans thought they became immortal and were spirited off to Paradise on a fiery four-horse chariot.

The early Christians and Jews believed that man was not pure enough to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as flesh and blood. They believed all people were transformed into spiritual beings, filling Heaven with angels.

That belief has changed over the centuries, but angels still have an important connection with heaven. In cities all over the world, angels can be seen in watchful poses.

"We believe that they are the ones who take care of us. They are the messengers of God. They are the ones who are God's very special friends and his servants," says Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, D.C.

"I always think of heaven as being a place where we won't have any troubles anymore. Heaven is a place where there will be peace and tranquility," McCarrick says. As a Catholic, McCarrick believes heaven is more than a spiritual place. Catholics, he explained, believe the body is resurrected. "I'm looking forward to meeting my mom and dad and the rest of my family," he adds.

The Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts, pastor of New York's famed Abyssinian Baptist Church, tells Walters he has had many visions of heaven over the years. He describes heaven as "no tears, no mourning, no suffering. It's eternal joy and happiness because you are at one with God."

Butts is certain of heaven's existence, but says it's in an indescribable dimension. "Heaven is in another dimension. So you don't necessarily have to look up but you can look out and see heaven. Heaven is a fourth dimension if you will."

Walters traveled to India where she met with the Dalai Lama, considered by Buddhists to be the reincarnated Buddha. The Dalai Lama says that the purpose of life is to be happy, and that you can accomplish that by "warm-heartedness." He tells Walters heaven "is [the] best place to further develop the spiritual practice … for Buddhists the final goal is not just to reach there, but to become Buddha. [It's] not the end."

As a Buddhist, he believes in reincarnation and that people can have second lives as animals. "If someone do[es] very bad, badly … kill or steal … [he] could be born in an animal body."

Walters also talks to actor Richard Gere, a longtime follower of Buddhism. "I don't think necessarily heaven and hell happen in some other life. I think it's right now," Gere says.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, tells Walters he believes heaven is indeed a physical place, but getting there depends on your behavior in this life. "The real life is the next life … and based upon how we live this life, it determines where we shall be in the next. We are told we will be in comfortable homes, reclining on silk couches … so we're given the delights of sex, the delights of wine, the delights of food with all of their positive things without their negative aspects."

The promise of heaven plays a central role in the life of evangelical Pastor Joel Osteen.

America's evangelicals see themselves as the purist version of the faith, with a God-given mission to save the world.

These days, they are more influential than ever. Osteen's televised sermons attract about 7 million viewers on Sunday mornings, and 36,000 evangelicals pack his Lakewood church in Houston every week, the largest weekly religious gathering in the country.

Evangelicals believe that a person can get to heaven only if he or she believes in Christ and if he or she is born again. So what happens to everyone else?

"I think only God can be the judge of that," Osteen said. "I can't be the judge of other people. … The Christian faith shows us that Christ's forgiveness is available to anybody. All we have to do is call on the name of the Lord. … I don't think there's any guarantee in the Scripture that we [go to heaven] if we do not have a relationship with Christ."

Rabbi Neil Gillman, a professor of philosophy at New York's Jewish Theological Seminary, expresses Judaism's perspective on the afterlife. "For the past 2,000 years, most Jews believed that at death, the body and the soul separate, the body is interred and disintegrates in the earth, the soul goes off to be with God," he tells Walters. But that's not the end of the story. "At the end of days, God will resurrect bodies, will reunite body and soul, and the individual will come before God to account for his or her life," Gillman says.

The Skeptics and Non-Believers

Walters also speaks with scientists who say they're beginning to understand why so many people believe in heaven. Still, they have yet to come up with any proof that it exists.

For most people, proof of heaven's existence is not necessary. Faith is all they need. Dr. Dean Hamer, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health, thinks he has figured out why this faith comes easily to some, but eludes others. "Whether a person is spiritual or not is not necessarily a matter of their will. It may be something innate about their personality," Hamer says.

Hamer suspects spirituality might be a personality trait encoded in our genes. He began his research by asking more than 1,000 people to answer a series of questions about faith and spirituality. He then tested DNA from the study participants and found that those who scored highest on his survey had a mutation of at least one gene that seemed to affect their level of spirituality. He named it "the God gene."

"It's a gene that's called VMAT2 and we can isolate it, and we can study it in detail. … This particular gene controls certain chemicals in the brain. And those chemicals affect how consciousness works. They affect the way that our feelings react to the events around us," he says.

Hamer also notes that researchers have been able to detect changes in the brain when people are in the midst of intense prayer or meditation.

Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroradiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of those researchers. Newberg says his research shows a marked increase in activity in the frontal regions of the brain while people meditate. "At the same time," he adds, "the parts of the brain that monitor our sense of time and space became less active."

Newberg says this contributes to an individual's feeling of "losing that sense of self." The feeling, he says, is "attributed to God, for example. And then they feel that God is providing them that energy, that feeling."

But for Ellen Johnson, president of the American Atheists, science or no science, heaven is a myth.

"Heaven doesn't exist, hell doesn't exist. We weren't alive before we were born and we're not going to exist after we die. I'm not happy about the fact that that's the end of life, but I can accept that and make my life more fulfilling now, because this is the only chance I have," she says.

'Death Trips' to Heaven

Walters also talks with people who feel certain of heaven's existence, apart from their faith, because they believe they've had a glimpse of it in near-death experiences.

A U.S. News & World Report from the late 1990s says as many as 18 million Americans believe they have had near-death experiences that gave them a glimpse of the afterlife.

Dianne Morrissey tells Walters she felt the "white light of God" when she was electrocuted. "My near-death experience changed everything about me … There is not a single experience on Earth that could ever be as good as being dead," she said.

British psychologist Susan Blackmore has spent decades searching for a scientific explanation. "When the oxygen levels fall in the brain … you get massive over-activity in the brain. … I think there is a true transformation, but not because you've been to heaven."

Family, Children and Heaven

Walters talks with California's first lady, Maria Shriver, whose early experiences with loss as a member of the Kennedy family prompted her to write a book about heaven for children. "I had, growing up, a lot of questions about these deaths that occurred in my family with no person to really talk to them about it," she says.

"My daughter, who was about 6 or 7 at the time, started asking me a lot of the same questions that I had had as a child, really basic questions: 'Why do you put somebody in a coffin? Where does she go now? Is she scared in the box? Can she breathe in the box?' And what was interesting," Shriver adds, "was that she started answering the questions for herself. So I started writing down her answers."

Walters also talks with Mitch Albom, author of "The Five People You Meet in Heaven," to get his personal take on the afterlife.

Albom tells Walters, "There's one thing I would say about heaven. If you believe that there's a heaven, your life here on Earth here is different. You may believe that you're gonna see your loved ones again. So the grief that you had after they're gone isn't as strong. You may believe that you'll have to answer for your actions. So the way you behave here on Earth is changed. So in a certain way, just believing in the idea of heaven is heavenly in and of itself," he says.

Personal Comments:

Well i do believe in heaven and hell. Because since childhood I used to go to these Religion classes where they used to teach us about god’s teaching and about heaven and hell. Furthermore, I have also read the book the five people you meet in heaven.  

It was Chris Gardner's life, and suddenly, one of the biggest movie stars in the world was acting it out. Will Smith was playing Chris Gardner.

"He had begun to study me," Gardner said. "Now, that made me uncomfortable. I had never been studied before. But I've got to tell you … Will Smith played Chris Gardner better than Chris Gardner ever did."

Gardner is a man who has earned millions of dollars as a stockbroker, after rising from homelessness. It was an amazing journey — a story "20/20" first told nearly four years ago — which resulted in Smith's new film, titled "The Pursuit of Happyness."

"I saw the '20/20' piece on Chris's life," Smith said. "It blew me away. He personified the American dream."

"It is such a story of the mythological picture of what a man is supposed to be," Smith said. "And that… the transferral of manhood from a man to boy is the center of life."

The film opens Dec. 15, and also stars Will Smith's son, Jaden. The word "happiness" is deliberately misspelled, just as it was on the wall of a day care center where Gardner once sought care for his own son, Chris Jr., during some of his worst days.

Gardner used to be homeless, and on rare occasions, he holed up in a public bathroom with his son.

"There's a choice: You eat or you stay in a hotel. We chose to eat. And we stayed in a subway station. We rode the trains. We slept in bathrooms," he said.

Homelessness Is Not the Stuff of a Reality Show

Then, after getting himself into a training program and proving he could keep company with the best of them, Gardner became a multimillionaire stockbroker. In the days just after his story was broadcast on "20/20," Gardner fielded a lot of weird offers related to his rise from homelessness to wealth — including a proposal for a reality show.

"Guy calls me up. He's got this great idea. He's gonna take some homeless people off the street, give them a job, and the one that does the most with their life is going to get a $300,000 house, $100,000 in cash. And I can't repeat what I said to the guy. But the gist of it was, being homeless is not a game, and if you think it is, I already won, so send me the money! Haven't heard from him again!"

Now Gardner's story is about how a life with much larger stakes than any reality show got turned into a book, and then screenplay. Examining his memories with movie and book writers, Gardner said, placed his life on a different scale.

"I would have never gone back in to take another look. Didn't need a second look. Hurt so bad the first time, you didn't need to see it again."

A Painful Start to His Extraordinary Journey

Gardner's story began in a Milwaukee neighborhood, with a kind of mystery: Why a woman with an incredible smile, a woman who turned out to be his mother, sometimes went missing.

"And no one explained to me, well, why am I living with this relative, or why am I living with that relative. My mother was in prison, twice. And it was one of those things that no one ever talked about."

One prison term was for allegedly receiving welfare while working, Gardner said. "And the second time she intended to burn down the house that my stepfather was sleeping in. She wanted to kill him for beating her. And I could say honestly, I'm sorry she didn't succeed. … Until I went to the U.S. military, the worst violence I ever saw in my life was in my home."

Later in his life Gardner was heavily influenced by decisions he and his mother made, sometimes with just a look between them, when he was terrorized by his gun-wielding stepfather.

"There was gunplay in the house, consistently. I don't own a gun to this day. I'll never own a gun. My last Christmas at home, I was put out of the house, buck naked, at gun point. Till this day, I still have a problem with Christmas. But I made a decision that I was going to be everything that this guy was not. I'm not going to drink, and I'm not going to beat women. I'm not going to be ignorant. And one of the tactics that I developed as a young kid, I would read. And I'd read out loud. And [in my mind] I would be saying to this guy, 'Yeah, you can beat me down, you can beat me and you can beat my mom, you can put us out of here with a gun, but I can read, and I'm going places.'"

Gardner also learned to compartmentalize his reactions to trauma, including an incident of childhood rape by a man who was a member of a gang of thieves in his neighborhood.

"I don't know how any rape victim survives something like that. But … a lot of us do block it off, shut it down, compartmentalize it, contain it, hide it. I know I did. There was no one I could talk to about it. And at some point in time, I did have an encounter with that gentleman. I expressed myself another way."

Gardner said he struck the man with a cinder block. "And walked away. And left the whole incident right there on the street."

Leaving the Neighborhood for the Navy

What got Gardner out of his neighborhood was the Navy. After four years of duty, he was a young man without a college degree who valued reading and who learned quickly. He became a medical supply salesman in the San Francisco area, supporting a wife and a young son. But he reached another turning point in his life when, in a parking lot one day, he met a man who drove a red Ferrari.

"And I asked him two questions that basically changed my life: What do you do, and how do you do that? Turns out this gentleman was a stockbroker who was making $80,000 a month."

That was all the motivation Gardner needed to start knocking on doors, applying for a training program at a brokerage even though it meant he would have to live on next to nothing while he learned.

"I cut grass, I did yard work, I did roofing, I cleaned basements to take care of my family."

The toughest times were still to come. Gardner was hauled off to jail for $1,200 in parking violations that he couldn't pay. His wife left him. First, she took Chris Jr. with her. Then she returned to the boardinghouse where Gardner had moved to ask him to care for their son. Haunted by his stepfather's abuse and by a promise he had made to himself at the time, Gardner was determined not to abandon his own child.

"Growing up hearing constantly, quote, 'I am not your daddy' with a few other words thrown in there, I made a decision when I was a little boy: When I grow up, and when I had children, my children were always going to know who their father is."

The bottom line was this: Gardner was studying for a broker's license on virtually no income; the boardinghouse where he stayed wouldn't accept children; and he had to live with Chris Jr. in cut-rate hotel rooms when he could afford them. Occasionally, as Gardner brought his son home from day care past a strip of cheap hotels in Oakland, he got help from unexpected sources.

"By the time we were coming home, the ladies of the evening were beginning their shift. And they would always see me, this baby and the stroller. They never saw a woman. So they kind of figured out, something's going on. So they started giving him $5 bills. And if it were not for those ladies of the evening giving that child $5, there would be times I could not have fed him."

Occasionally, he found a place to stay in a nearby Bay Area Rapid Transit station, where he could bathe Chris Jr. in the sink and lock the door when they needed time. One of the moments that changed his life came when the Rev. Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco saw Gardner standing with his son in a food line outside the church.

"I saw a lot of women with babies, but not a man with a baby," Rev. Williams said. "And it just began to be a rather regular scene, where Chris appeared."

"He had a program for homeless women with children," said Gardner. "And I [told him], 'Obviously, I'm not a woman but I am homeless; I have a child. I need some place to stay to get myself together.' And he let me in."

Gardner and his son stayed in a shelter provided by the church when they needed a room. And when he finally started accumulating money and had enough to rent a modest place of his own, Gardner recalled that his determination to raise his son paid off in one priceless moment.

"I was giving my son a bath by candlelight. We had no electricity, and it was at a point in time, where honestly, I didn't know whether I was going to quit, crack or cry. Some kind of way this child, this baby, picks up on it, and he stands up in the bathtub, and he says, 'Papa, you know what? You're a good papa.' That was all I needed to go on. And to this day I have yet to hear words that meant as much to me."

'It's a Green Thing'

Once Gardner passed his exam to become a stockbroker and the opportunity was his to seize, the success of the formerly homeless man was astonishing. He started with cold calls, was recruited by other firms, and eventually opened his own institutional brokerage firm in Chicago, benefiting from, among other things, government and pension fund rules that created business for minority brokers.

On his way, Gardner said, the business did have some unpleasant baggage attached to it. Because African-American brokers were rare, one particular phone client assumed that Gardner was white.

"This one guy, he would tell me every Jew joke, every nigger joke, every spick joke in the world, and then he would turn around and say, 'Well, buy me 50,000 shares of whatever you called me about.' And one day he calls to say he wants to meet this broker that's been making him all this money. I knew there were only two things that could happen. He was either gonna close his account with me or he was gonna close all the other accounts that he had and I was gonna get all his business."

Gardner said the client closed every other account that he had and, until his death, gave all his business to Gardner. "That's when I learned in this business, it's not a black thing, it's not a white thing, it's a green thing. If you can make me money, I don't care what color you are. So that's how I deal with that to this day."

When actor Will Smith found Gardner's story so compelling that he developed a film based on the stockbroker's life, Gardner joined the project as a consultant. "Chris represents the American Dream," Smith said.

Smith and Gardner both made large donations to Glide Memorial Church, and Smith hired the Rev. Cecil Williams to play himself.

Smith also visited the transit station restroom where Gardner once went so he and Chris Jr. would have a place to stay for a few hours when they were homeless.

"I couldn't be there any longer than a moment," Gardner said. "And I turned to Will, and I said, 'Let's go.' He said, 'No, leave me here for a minute.' I left him. And I gotta tell you, when he came out … the phrase I once heard him use was that it was if the ghost in the walls had jumped out into him."

A Warm Welcome from Nelson Mandela

One of the great details of Gardner's story is that when San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit System issued new bonds to raise money a few years ago, one of the underwriters was Chris Gardner's company — run by a man who, when he was homeless, had bathed his son in the bathroom of its train station.

After shooting wrapped on the film, Gardner returned to being a star on the investment circuit, and he started an international mission designed to create economic opportunities in South Africa. For a man whose own father had abandoned him, he said that meeting Nelson Mandela was an unforgettable moment.

"He shook my hand and said, 'Welcome home, son.' And for the first time in my life, for a man ever to say the words to me, 'Welcome home, son,' and for it to be Nelson Mandela, I cried."

The quote on the cover of Gardner's new book, "The Pursuit of Happyness," echoes those sentiments. It reads, "I hold one thing dearer than all else: my commitment to my son."

 

That's Why i like Will Smith!

It's supposed to say sweet things to little girls like, "You're a wonderful friend," but push its button the wrong way and the Little Mermaid Shimmering Lights Ariel doll may say something else — "You're a slut," according to a California mother whose allegation came to light in a newspaper report.

The doll's manufacturer, Mattel, doesn't believe it's possible, and a company spokeswoman said the complaint by Stephanie Herrera of San Jose, Calif. — first reported in the San Jose Mercury News — is the only one it's heard of.

Normally, the doll says the phrases, "Your sparkles are so beautiful," "Life is the bubbles" and "You're a wonderful friend." It also hums a song without words.

Herrera said she discovered the fluke when her 3-year-old daughter, Juliana, was pressing the button quickly so she could skip the phrases and get to the melody. Instead of just moving to the song, Herrera said her daughter got the wrong message.

"I was in absolute shock," said Herrera, "especially after my daughter repeated it."

Mattel has asked Herrera to return the doll, and the company has offered her a voucher for a toy of equal value.

"We don't believe that any of the product out on the market is affected," said Mattel spokeswoman Sara Rosales.

"A lot of times this is something that's very adult directed," Rosales told ABC News. "A child would never hear this, that's not a part of their vocabulary."

Rosales said she checked another Shimmering Lights Ariel doll and didn't hear anything unusual. She said it was double-checked by engineers and designers who don't believe such a snafu is possible.

Mattel currently has no plans to recall the toy, since the company has only received one complaint.

Ariel is a character from the Disney-produced film, "The Little Mermaid," and Mattel has a licensing deal with Disney to produce the doll. Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

Stephanie Oppenheim, who publishes the independent toy guide Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, told the Mercury News that she put Arial to the test. After pushing the buttons on another Shimmering Lights Ariel doll, she said she heard the naughty word but had to listen really closely to get an earful.

Oppenheim said it could actually be good for business.

"Sometimes, this type of controversy makes a toy all the more desirable," Oppenheim told the Mercury News. "The more quirky toys tend to be more attractive to adult collectors."

She advised parents to test the "try me" buttons on toys before making a purchase.

ABC News bought an Ariel doll, and after pressing the doll's button several times quickly, some employees thought they heard the doll say, "You're a slut" — but only after listening very carefully. They warned that they could have heard it based on the power of suggestion.

Others said they could hardly understand what the doll was saying when it was sped up, let alone hear the phrase.

Since the alleged mouthy mishap, Shimmering Lights Ariel is not a welcome playmate in the Herrera house. Herrera has taken the beloved doll away from her daughter and given her a different Arial doll to play with.

Herrera said she bought similar Ariel dolls to sell on eBay, but scrapped her plans after the incident.

Many churches in Fairfax County, Va., serve home-cooked meals to the poor.

The Rev. Kathleen Chesson of First Christian Church in Falls Church told us:

"They love our food because it's home-cooked."

And the cooks, like Mary Baker, love preparing it. "I love cooking. I love it," she said. "I can take a little bit of something, like a soup bone? And I can make a whole pot of something. Tastes good. With some cornbread. You got a meal!"

"The importance of having a home-cooked meal," one homeless person told us, "[is that] you feel people put love in what they do."

Many volunteers, like Baker and Ruth Neikirk, first prepare the food at home. Ruth always bakes her favorites. "I love these myself," she said, gesturing to her breakfast muffins. "So I hope they will!"

Then she brings it all to the church, where they serve it to the homeless.

Charity, Or Criminal Activity?

It looks like a happy affair, but are you aware that this is criminal activity?!! They're preparing food, serving food to people. According to Fairfax County health department regulations, that's not safe, and last week there was a crackdown on the lawlessness.

Hundreds of pages of regulation say that to serve food to the public, you need a food manager certificate, a ware-washing machine (with internal baffles), drain-boards, ventilation hood systems, a sink with at least three compartments, as well as a hand-washing sink, can openers with removable parts, and so on for hundreds of pages … and you must get a commercial kitchen license.

Homeless people we talked to were outraged at the bureaucrats. "Some of them take their jobs just a little too seriously," said one man. "They got nothing better to do than sit around and write legislation."

"I thought they was crazy," said another man. "I mean, [the churches are] helping people and they're trying to stop it."

It does seem crazy, but the county health department was just enforcing its rules. And there had been a complaint… not about anyone getting sick, but an "advocate for the homeless" pointed out that the church kitchens didn't meet code.

"Give us a break," said The Rev. Judy Fender of Burke United Methodist Church. "We can fix a nice meal here, but we can't serve it."

Consider the Alternative

That is weird. Did the health department ever think of where the homeless eat when they don't eat at these churches?

"They've never stopped me from eating out of a dumpster or a trash can before," said a homeless man.

Dumpster diving has got to be more dangerous than unlicensed church food.

Chesson said if her church had to choose between serving meals and breaking the law, they would break the law. "Our agenda is to feed the hungry. We're going to feed the hungry. That's it. We're going to feed them."

I wanted to ask the health department why she shouldn't, but by the time I asked they were getting bad publicity. One headline read, "The Grinch in Fairfax County."

"I got up and saw my morning newspaper and was horrified," said Gerald Connolly, the Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

"So what was the health department thinking?" I asked him.

"I don't think they were thinking," Connolly said. "Not a single individual came down with any food-borne-related illness."

'Too Many Rules'

The rules are well intended, meant to make sure the public is safe, but rule makers forget that rules have unintended consequences.

"They've set up a situation where you have to have a $40,000 kitchen to feed someone who's going to get their food from questionable sources at best," said Fender.

"Looking at these rules, I'm overwhelmed," I told Chairman Connolly. "It just goes on and on for hundreds of pages… Do you ever think government has too many rules?"

"Absolutely," he said. "I think sometimes the rules overpower common sense."

"What if the health department had been around when Jesus was feeding the poor?"

"He might have been, you know, cited," Connolly said with a laugh.

Chairman Connolly quickly exempted the churches from the regulations.

I'm glad the churches feeding the poor squeaked past the food police this time, but bureaucratic rules kill all kinds of good things, always in the name of making things better.

In Santa Barbara, Calif., pedi-cabs — small carriages pulled by a man on a bicycle — used to take people around and often kept people out of cars late at night after they'd been drinking. But they no longer offer free rides, because new safety regulations drove them out of business.

In North Carolina, a couple of grannies were sewing quilts at home and then selling them… without a license. The government put a stop to this brazen criminality. The grannies are now out of business.

And just this week, the food police in my hometown decided to protect us from trans-fats, so they banned them from every restaurant. The New York Times called it, "a model for other cities."

George Mason University economist Donald Boudreaux saw that and said, "A model for what, exactly? For petty tyranny? What other voluntary activities will they ban? Clerking in convenience stores? Walking in the rain?"

"Bureaucracies don't understand exactly what's going on," said Chesson. "We don't want to have to break the law, OK?"

It's nice that Fairfax County rescinded the no-cooking rule, but why should free people have to beg for special dispensation?

"Fairfax is stepping back," said a homeless man we spoke to. "They're not going to enforce it… for now. This year… What about next year?"

Right. If you've got connections, or catch the attention of the media, you can bask in your government leader's forgiveness… but the rest of us are still stuck with all the rules. It makes me and some homeless people in Fairfax County want to tell all the regulators: Give me a break!

Knew it the Us government was really the the Grinch and SOBS!

While the world marked the 25th anniversary of the first reported cases of AIDS this summer, one important story in the epidemic was largely ignored -- until now.

OUT OF CONTROL: AIDS IN BLACK AMERICA is the first national network television news documentary on the AIDS epidemic among African Americans--- an epidemic that is spreading fast, but that has attracted little consistent attention from leaders in public health, politics, or religion. Terry Moran reports on the crisis in a special edition of Primetime.

Included in the report is a group interview conducted by Peter Jennings shortly before his cancer diagnosis. Jennings, who played a significant role in conceptualizing the program, speaks with a group of HIV positive African American men in Atlanta who are remarkably candid about the harsh realities of dealing with AIDS in Black America.

Black Americans make up 13% of the U.S. population but account for over 50% of all new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. That infection rate is eight times the rate of whites. Among women, the numbers are even more shocking -- almost 70% of all newly diagnosed HIV positive women in the U.S. are Black women. Black women are 23 times more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS than white women, with heterosexual contact being the overwhelming method of infection in Black America.

"In America today, AIDS is virtually a Black disease, by any measure," says Phill Wilson, Executive Director of The Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles. Wilson also points out that while many Black American leaders and celebrities have embraced the cause of the epidemic's toll in Africa, few have devoted similar energy to the crisis here at home.

In interviews with AIDS activists, doctors, and people on the front lines of the epidemic, OUT OF CONTROL: AIDS IN BLACK AMERICA paints a sobering and shocking portrait of the disease, and the failure of leadership that has allowed the epidemic to spiral into a crisis in small towns and inner cities across the country.

Terry Moran talks to experts in several key areas about what contributes to the spread of AIDS in Black America, including the disproportionate number of Black men in prison. Prisons have AIDS infection rates five times higher than outside the walls, and many men go into prison HIV negative and come out infected, often without knowing it.

OUT OF CONTROL also reports the results of studies from the Universities of Chicago and North Carolina which shed light on a complex reality that helps explain why heterosexual transmission among African Americans is so common: Black men are more than twice as likely as white men to have multiple female partners at the same time. Rates of all sexually transmitted diseases are higher among African Americans than other groups, and once those rates start to rise, says Dr. Jim Thomas of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "It starts a cycle. Because now when a person goes to have sex with someone, the chances that the new partner is already infected are relatively high."

And because homosexuality and bisexuality carry such a strong stigma in Black America, African American men may choose to hide their sexual orientation. Men who have sex with men, and then also have sex with women without necessarily telling their female partners about their male encounters, is another topic covered in back to back roundtable discussions led by Jennings and Moran. Black men and women talk openly for the first time about sexual patterns in Black America, denial, secrecy, and shame. "I know of few communities as conservative as the African American community, especially about sex," says Debra Fraser-Howze, CEO of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS in New York. "And when it comes to homosexuality, it's a real problem. Nobody wants to talk about it." Moran also reports on the role of the Black Church, traditionally the most powerful source of political and social activism in Black America. Black churches have been silent on AIDS, says The Rev. Calvin Butts III, Senior Pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. "When you see the numbers going up, you know you have not done enough," he says. Elizabeth Arledge is the producer of b>OUT OF CONTROL: AIDS IN BLACK AMERICA Kayce Freed Jennings is the Senior Producer; Tom Yellin is the Executive Producer.

 

 

I think this is crazy when the 2 people running for vice president "Dick Chenney" and "John Howard" were asked the question " What about blacks in America with Aids, do you know that black women are 3 times of more likely of getting aids then White women" And their (John Howard and Dick Chenney) 's reply was about Aids in africa" Do they even understand the question anymore? 

 

This news was started a long time ago by the late "Peter Jennings" so that is why It interests me.

It  is the season of giving. But what determines someone's likelihood of giving? Do liberals give more than conservatives? Do religious people give mostly to their own churches? Do the rich give more than the middle-class and the middle-class more than the poor? And are billionaires cheap? The answers may surprise viewers.

Stossel wonders about the charitable behavior of the "filthy rich." It turns out that the working poor give away a higher percentage of their salary to charity than the rich. So does that mean the richest Americans are cheap? He asks some of the Forbes 400 billionaires about that. Four, to date, have agreed to talk to him, and their reasons for giving, and not giving, are different and sometimes unbelievable:

• Ted Turner, who is worth 1.9 billion dollars, tells Stossel: "I'm doing all I can. And still keep enough, for, you know, make sure that my grandchildren make it, can get through college." When Stossel suggests that 1.9 billion should be enough, Turner answers: "It's not enough. Not in the way inflation... I was worth ten billion, about four, five years ago, at the very height. And I lost eight of it. So you know, the other two could evaporate overnight&the banks can close. They're not safe either, just like the United States government, behind social security."
• Dan Duncan, who is worth 7.5 billion dollars, is on Business Week's list of the most generous philanthropists. Still, he has only given away two percent of his net worth, which Stossel says "sounds cheap." Duncan answers, "If that was all that I ever wanted to give away, I would agree 100%, [but] if you're one of the gifted people that can actually make more money, people receiving it are better off if you keep it to get a lot more later on."
• Eli Broad, who is worth 5.8 billion dollars, and who has given away almost two billion dollars, 33% of his net worth, says he has so much money that he can't yet give it away effectively. "Who do you give it to? You could write checks. Everyone will take your money," he tells Stossel. "And I know people in decades gone by giving away a lot of money and you look back a decade later and say what happened to it? Did it make a difference?"
• James Goodnight, who is worth 4.5 billion dollars but is not on the list of generous philanthopists, just tells Stossel: "I think I give enough."

To illustrate what distinguishes those who give from those who don't, 20/20 went to two parts of the county that have two very different populations: Sioux Falls, South Dakota and San Francisco, California. 20/20 asked the Salvation Army to set up buckets at their busiest locations in both cities - Macy's in San Francisco and Walmart in Sioux Falls. Which bucket gets more money?

Sioux Falls is rural and religious, more than half of the population go to church every week. People in San Francisco make much more money, are more liberal, and just 14% of people in San Francisco attend church every week. Liberals are said to care more about helping the poor; so will people in San Francisco give more?

In his book, Who Really Cares, Arthur Brooks finds that the people who donate money are the same ones who will donate blood, volunteer, and even give up their seat on a bus. "The people who give one thing tend to be the people who give everything in America," says Brooks.

Stossel also reports on the joy of giving. Science documents something called the "helpers' high." It is one more reason for people to think about giving more of their money, or time, to others. "Giving is as good for the giver as it is for the receiver, science says so," says Stephen Post, author of an upcoming book Why Good things Happen To Good People. In fact, new science says that giving more can actually improve your health.

It's officially over for "Vaughniston," the unwieldy appellation given to the romance between actors Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston.

People magazine reported on its Web site on Tuesday that the two had split after over a year together, citing representatives for the pair.

Former "Friends" actress Aniston, 37, took up with the 36-year-old star of "The Wedding Crashers" after splitting with husband Brad Pitt. They starred in the romantic comedy movie "Break-Up," which opened at No. 1 at the box office in June.

The union was the subject of much tabloid speculation, amid competing reports that they were either engaged or on the rocks. People's rival, US Weekly, reported in August that they were planning a secret beach wedding, but it later quoted insiders as saying the relationship was done.

 

i thought there were going to get married or at least live together you know like brad pitt and angelina jolie !

BAGHDAD, Iraq Nov 24, 2006 (AP)— Revenge-seeking Shiite militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left Friday prayers, drenched them with kerosene and burned them alive, and Iraqi soldiers did nothing to stop the attack, police and witnesses said.

The fiery slayings in the mainly Sunni neighborhood of Hurriyah were a dramatic escalation of the brutality coursing through the Iraqi capital, coming a day after suspected Sunni insurgents killed 215 people in Baghdad's main Shiite district with a combination of bombs and mortars.

The attacks culminated Baghdad's deadliest week of sectarian fighting since the war began more than three years ago.

Police Capt. Jamil Hussein said Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in the burnings of Sunnis carried out by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, or in subsequent attacks that torched four Sunni mosques and killed at least 19 other Sunnis, including women and children, in the same northwest Baghdad area.

Imad al-Hasimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriyah, confirmed Hussein's account. He told Al-Arabiya television he saw people who were soaked in kerosene, then set afire, burning before his eyes.

Two workers at Kazamiyah Hospital said the bodies from the clashes and immolations had been taken to the morgue at their facility. They refused to be identified by name, saying they feared retribution.

In spite of the police and witness accounts, however, President Jamal Talabani appeared to discount the reports. He emerged from meetings with other Iraqi political leaders late Friday and said Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obaidi told him that the Hurriyah neighborhood had been quiet throughout the day.

According to Hussein, the police official, militiamen rampaged through the district, setting fire to several homes in addition to the four mosques that were bombed and burned.

Some residents claimed that the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has begun kidnapping and holding Sunni hostages in order to slaughter them at funerals of Shiite victims of Baghdad's sectarian violence.

Such claims cannot be verified but speak to the deep fear that grips Baghdad, where retaliation has become a part of daily life.

In the past year, thousands of bodies have been found dumped across Baghdad and other cities in central Iraq, victims who were tortured, then shot to death, according to police. The suspected militia killers often have used electric drills on their captives' bodies before killing them. The bodies are frequently decapitated.

Burning victims alive, however, introduced a new method of brutality that seemed likely to be reciprocated by the other sect as the Shiites and Sunnis continue killing one another in unprecedented numbers. The attack, which came despite a curfew in Baghdad, capped a day in which at least 87 people were killed or found dead in sectarian violence across Iraq.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, the most influential Sunni organization in Iraq, said even more Sunni victims were killed. It claimed a total of 18 people had died in an inferno at the al-Muhaimin mosque.

The extreme violence continued to tear at the Iraq's social fabric even after the government had banned pedestrians and cars from the streets and closed the international airport until further notice in anticipation of a storm of retaliation for the five bombings and two mortar rounds that killed 215 in Sadr City on Thursday.

The airport closure forced Talabani to delay his planned Saturday departure for Tehran for meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian leader also invited Syrian President Bashar Assad, but it now appeared he would not attend.

The chaos also cast a shadow over the Amman, Jordan, summit next week between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Bush.

Politicians loyal to al-Sadr threatened to boycott parliament and the Cabinet if al-Maliki went ahead with the meeting. The radical Shiite political bloc, known as Sadrists, is a mainstay of support for al-Maliki, himself a Shiite. The Mahdi Army is the organization's armed wing.

Sadrist lawmaker Qusai Abdul-Wahab blamed U.S. forces for Thursday's attack in Sadr City because they failed to provide security.

"We say occupation forces are fully responsible for these acts, and we call for the withdrawal of occupation forces or setting a timetable for their withdrawal," Abdul-Wahab said.

A U.S. helicopter patrolling above Sadr City came under intense fire from the ground and shot back, wounding two people Friday night, according to police 1st. Lt. Qassim Mohammed and witnesses.

The U.S. military said the helicopter had taken fire from six rockets launched from one site and destroyed the launcher. The military statement did not address whether there were casualties.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzil said the president's plans to meet with al-Maliki on Wednesday and Thursday were unchanged.

Al-Maliki is increasingly at odds with the Bush administration for his refusal to disband militias and associated deaths squads that are believed responsible for killing thousands of Sunnis since an al-Qaida attack blew up the golden dome of a revered Shiite shrine on Feb. 22 in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Mortar fire rained down again on Sunni Islam's holiest shrine in Baghdad, the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Azamiyah neighborhood, wounding at least five people. Several mortars crashed into the area Thursday night within hours of the attacks in Sadr City, one of them puncturing the dome of the shrine and damaging the interior, including its library.

Also, militia gunmen raided a Sunni mosque in the Amil section of west Baghdad, killing two guards, police 1st Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said.

And in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, Sunni insurgents blew up the dome of the important Shiite mosque of leading cleric Abdul-Karm al-Madani.

In the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, 23 people were killed and 43 wounded when explosives hidden in a parked car and in a suicide belt worn by a pedestrian detonated simultaneously outside a car dealership, said police Brig. Khalaf al-Jubouri.

Altogether, 56 people were killed across in Iraq on Friday, and police said they found 31 bodies dumped throughout Baghdad, most of them tortured before being shot.

In Sadr City, cleanup crews continued removing remains of the dead from wreckage of the car bombs, and tents were erected throughout the ramshackle district for relatives to receive condolences.

Hundreds of men, women and children beat their chests, chanted and cried as they walked beside vehicles carrying the caskets of their loved ones toward the holy Shiite city of Najaf for burial. Despite Baghdad's curfew, al-Maliki, himself a Shiite, ordered police to guard the processions.

As the funeral processions reached the edge of Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad, the cars and minivans left most of the mourners behind and began the 100-mile drive south to Najaf, a treacherous journey that passes through many checkpoints and areas controlled by Sunni militants in Iraq's so-called "Triangle of Death."

My only question is that Civilized ? I geuss not

Our new class teacher Ms Kwok Hoi Yan (hoi yan - ready men i think) or better known as Kajano Kwok turns out be pretty awesome she was nervous at 1st because it was her 1st time teaching ! but really she's really emotional (sort of like Star Plus serials cause they easily cry Everytime anything happens) but she doesn't cry ! 

 

 

She like Hello Kitty and Chocolates or any soft toys so if anyone wants to impress her go give a Hello Kitty. Her desk is FULL OF SOFT TOYS (OK JUST  WONDERING IF SHE HAS A BF) CAUSE IN CLASS THE WHOLE 5B CLASS TEASES HER WITH MR. PC NO NOT COMPUTER I MEAN MR. PETER CHAN OF 5A WHO'S THE CLASS TEACHER AND THEY BOTH ARE NEW AND AROUND THE SAME AGE.So yeah an affaair to remember!lol ok better not talk so much or else Ms. kwok won't give me good deeds

20/20" reported a disturbing story on teen-dating violence, April 5, 2005. The story was so powerful we wanted to air it again with updates. Here you'll see the positive reaction of one mother to a devastating event.

Marcus McTear was a star running back at Reagan High School in Austin, Texas. At 16, he was bright and popular and dreamed of college until a spring day in March 2003. The popular athlete stabbed his girlfriend, Ortralla Mosley, to death in a school hallway after she tried to break up with him.

What had gone wrong? How did a boy with such pent-up rage escape the attention of parents and adults? As it turns out, Marcus had a history of teen dating violence a few years before, when he was dating an eighth-grade classmate named Rae Anne Spence.

Rae Anne said everything about Marcus appealed to her. "He was very, very sweet to me. We talked to like 3 o'clock in the morning every school night," she said.

At first, Rae Anne seemed happy. She was a cheerleader and her athletic boyfriend poured on the affection with flowers, love notes and constant adoration. Then the sweet relationship took a turn. She said Marcus began telling her what to do, what to wear and demanding that she not attract other boys' attention.

"I couldn't show a lot of skin. And with the makeup, if I would wear it, like, even a little bit, he would get mad," Rae Anne said.

Marcus was Rae Anne's first boyfriend, and she said she didn't know if this was unusual behavior.

But Rae Anne's mother, Elaine, soon noticed her bubbly daughter was becoming withdrawn and less confident. "I watched her go from being this vibrant beautiful girl to a person who never wanted to put on makeup, who worried about everything that she wore to not being able to be herself," she said.

The controlling behavior Rae Anne was experiencing is a sign that emotional abuse may escalate, experts warn.

"A girl always has to be aware that if he can annihilate you emotionally and verbally, slice and dice you, you can't be sure that he's never going to lay a hand on you," said Jill Murray, a psychologist and author of "But I Love Him: Protecting Your Teen Daughter from Controlling, Abusive Dating Relationships."

Murray says the pattern of abuse in teen dating violence is the same as that in adult domestic violence. For Rae Anne and Marcus, one minute there were tender kisses; the next, angry threats. Rae Anne says the first hint it was escalating to physical abuse came one day at school.

"I was standing with like a group of girls. And, like, he came up to me, and, like, I wanted him to stay with me and not go with his brother, and I just remember him turning around and punching me in my arm," Rae Anne said. "I just stood there, like, and I tried to pretend it didn't happen."

But Rae Anne kept her fears secret from almost everybody. One of the scariest moments, she says, happened during an argument between classes when she grabbed Marcus' backpack.

"When I got to the top of the stairs, he got behind me, and like grabbed me by my arm and like twirled me around, and told me to never touch him like that again. And he pushed me down the stairs," she said.

Rae Anne told her mom about the incident. At this point, Elaine said she tried to persuade her daughter to end her relationship with Marcus. "I tried to pound it in her head that this boy was no good for her. I mean, if he was going to push her down stairs, what else was he doing that I didn't know about?" she said.

There was a lot she didn't know. One time, Rae Anne says Marcus bit her cheek. On another occasion, she says, he set her backpack on fire. Rae Anne says other students saw the violence but blamed her for the trouble, not the star athlete.

Despite feeling isolated and alone, Rae Anne somehow found a moment of confidence and broke up with Marcus.

Potential for Abuse Doesn't End With Breakup

Murray says ending a relationship doesn't mean the danger of abuse is gone. "The most vulnerable time for a girl in a domestic violence situation is when she leaves, because they've taken their power and control back. And an abuser who doesn't have power and control is very frightened," she said.

Just days after they split up, Rae Anne says Marcus wrote a heartfelt letter to her, begging for another chance.

"He just apologized and said he'd never do it again," Rae Anne said. She gave him another chance, she said, hoping the relationship would get better.

But as in most cases of teen dating violence, it didn't get better. Marcus even said he'd commit suicide if she left him, Rae Anne said.

The breaking point came one day in drama class. Rae Anne says Marcus violently smacked her with a notebook "as hard as he could."

"My ear was ringing and then he didn't stop. … So I got up and I slapped him back," she said. "And that was like the worst mistake I could have done, because he put me in a head lock and he continued to punch me until the teacher stopped him."

By now, Rae Anne's mother was beyond exasperation. After the incident, the school suspended both Marcus and Rae Anne. But in response to the escalating violence, Rae Anne's mother says she felt that the school essentially did nothing to help her daughter. So she took a drastic but, she felt, necessary step: She moved her family across town to a new school district. She says felt it was the only way to get her daughter away from Marcus.

Despite the physical abuse, Rae Anne says she wasn't able to end her relationship with Marcus. "Because I loved him. … I just felt like he needed me," she said.

Rae Anne said she was concerned for Marcus, and worried "that he'd hurt himself or somebody else."

Boyfriend Moves On, With Tragic Consequences

By the fall of 2002, Rae Anne had escaped her rocky relationship with Marcus. The popular football star was now a sophomore, and it didn't take long for him to move on to a new girl at school. This time he found someone just as popular as himself, an outgoing 15-year-old sophomore — a beautiful, bright dancer named Ortralla Mosley.

Her mother, Carolyn Mosley, remembers the first time she met Marcus. He made a good impression. "He was a very good young man. He had his life organized to where he thought he was on the right road. I really thought they would make a very, very, very good couple," she said.

But just as he had with Rae Anne, Marcus soon began to control Ortralla's life and by the spring of 2003, Ortralla's mother said her daughter had had enough and was trying to break up with him.

On the morning of March 28, 2003, she says Ortralla went to school expecting trouble. Marcus was an emotional wreck, begging Ortralla not to leave him, Mosley says.

Ortralla's English teacher, Vanessa Connor, recalls that Ortralla seemed particularly distressed about Marcus. "I looked at her and she looked like she wasn't all with me that day, you know. And I said, 'Baby, you, you all right?' And she said, 'Oh, you know how it is, Miss Connor, roller coaster of love. You know how teenagers are.' And I smiled and said, 'All right,'" Connor said.

But things weren't all right. At 4 o'clock that afternoon, Marcus snapped. After a violent confrontation, he chased Ortralla to a second-floor hallway, pulled out an 8-inch kitchen knife he'd hidden in his backpack and began stabbing her repeatedly: six times in the head, the neck and the back. Students and teachers heard screaming and came running.

Amid the chaos, Connor knelt down on the bloody floor to provide comfort to the dying girl. "I was saying, you know, 'You got to hang in there. You got to stay with me. Don't go.' And it was the hardest thing I've ever been through," Connor said. Moments later, Ortralla was dead.

Marcus was arrested and charged with murder. He pleaded guilty and is now serving a 40-year sentence.

Marcus declined requests for an interview, but "20/20" was able to speak with another young man who says he understands how teen dating relationships can become physically abusive.

Chris Cummings, 22, does not know Marcus, but says he understands how the cycle of abuse can poison a relationship. Cummings said he had a deep-seated insecurity as a teenager during a three-year relationship.

Cummings said he didn't hit girlfriend "with a fist," but he'd push her around. "I threw her to the ground once or twice," he said.

When his girlfriend cried, he said, the violence would escalate. "It just made it worse, you know, 'cause then I'd hit harder," he said.

Cummings says violence somehow made him feel powerful and in control. He even took out his frustrations on his bedroom walls.

Murray says that's a classic sign that a teenage boy may become abusive.

"A boy who puts his fist through a wall or through a window is a dangerous person, because the brain doesn't know the difference between a wall and a face. All it knows is that when I punch through something, I feel better. And then the next step is he punches them," she said.

Cummings says he is grateful that his relationship never descended as far as Marcus and Ortralla's did. He realized he needed help and got counseling with the support of his family. Unfortunately, in the case of Marcus McTear, his uncontrollable violence left Ortralla dead and Rae Anne emotionally scarred.

"I have nightmares of the murder. I feel like I was there, even though I wasn't," Rae Anne said.

Rae Anne said she still struggles with self-esteem and confidence issues. "Marcus still has a lot of it. I just hate that he has half of me with him. The me that I want back," she said.

Now 19, and wiser, Rae Anne is refusing to run away from her past. She's speaking out, hoping to spare other young girls from the nightmare that she escaped and Ortralla Mosley did not.

She said she keeps a picture of Ortralla above her bed. "I feel like now I'm not just living for me, I'm living for her," Rae Anne said.

"There's a reason for everything. And there's a reason why I'm still here. And I think I'm going to keep 'Tralla alive. I'm going to keep her spirit alive the best I can. And I'm going to talk about this as much as I can. And make sure it doesn't happen again."

Ortralla's mother, Carolyn Mosley, has become a Texas correctional officer so she can learn how to deal with young offenders. In honor of her daughter, she has incorporated the Ortralla Lu Wone Mosley Foundation — a Texas organization that will provide a safe haven for adolescents dealing with dating violence.

 

 aiya hai  teenage love! hai!

i saw 20/20 from ABC

 

the number 3 reason why that world is going to come to an end is because of nuclear wars. See countries like Us and Russia have made 80,000 nuclear weapons enough to destroy 8 billion people in the world. the only question is here are only 6 billion people in the world?

 

The number 2 reason is Plague just like SARS a disease may strike the world. And it may be cause of a sneeze just like SARS or even more deadly like touching.

 

The number 1 reason is Global warming. 

Today............. waah Today was a nice day since well in the morning i read abcnew.com where it showed democrats in the states have mostly won . Later when i was coming home from school a primary school boy comes up to me and asks me where are you going? At first , i did not remember him but later he said his name is ahbishek which reminded me that yea he was the boy whom i taught this summer with Mai and Sandip!

Do you believe the scales of justice tilt in favor of the rich and powerful? To explore this question, "20/20" went to Texas to examine the fate of two men who came before the same judge.

Alex Wood was accused of killing a male prostitute in Dallas in 1995. He pleaded not guilty and went to trial. According to prosecutor Rick Jordan, the evidence against Wood was incontrovertible: He had shot an unarmed man in the back.

But just as the jury was about to conclude its deliberations, Jordan struck a plea bargain: In exchange for a guilty plea, Wood would be given 10 years of probation and no jail time. Jordan's explanation for striking such a lenient deal? He believed the jury was sympathetic to Wood, and Jordan worried it might acquit Wood altogether.

Maybe it would have. Wood had no criminal history and came from a wealthy and well-connected Texas family. Wood's father, the Rev. John Alvin Wood, is a retired pastor of the First Baptist Church of Waco and a former regent of Baylor University. He's also a big game hunter and fossil collector whose private museum was recently featured in National Geographic.

Wood's sister is married to eight-term congressman Chet Edwards, whose vast district, the 17th Congressional District of Texas, extends from the Fort Worth suburbs in the north to the Bryan-College Station area in the south.

Wood himself dabbled in the genteel business of breeding and showing dogs, specifically Pharaoh Hounds — an exotic breed whose lineage can be traced back to ancient Egypt.

At trial, Wood was represented by top defense attorneys who described the victim as violent and aggressive, and argued that Wood shot the man in self-defense. Even more important, given the location of the trial — the Bible Belt South — they brought in several prominent members of the Baptist church as character witnesses.

Among them was O.S. Hawkins, the exceedingly urbane pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, and a true celebrity among Baptist officials. Said Jordan of some of the women jury members, "When O.S. Hawkins came in, it was like they wanted to crawl over the rail and just kiss the ring."

Another reason Jordan agreed to the plea was that he expected Wood to violate probation and end up in jail anyway.

Wood did, indeed, violate probation. First, he tested positive for cocaine use, and shortly after that he and another man were arrested when they were found with crack cocaine in one of Chet Edwards' cars. Citing the failed drug test and the arrest, prosecutors went to Judge Keith Dean, the original trial judge, and asked him to revoke Wood's probation.

Dean, who serves at the 265th Criminal District Court of Dallas County, and who has been elected to the bench four times, is described as a good, committed judge. But he allowed Wood to remain out on bail for several months, during which time Wood failed two more drug tests.

In the end, Dean let Wood enter a private inpatient treatment center rather than go to jail. In another lucky break, prosecutors decided not to pursue the crack charges against Wood.

But Wood continued to get into trouble — and continued to escape the consequences. In a dispute over a puppy, dog trainer Margaret Worth said Wood broke into her home. After Wood's father intervened, Worth agreed not to press charges.

Two Court Cases, Same Judge, Varied Treatment

Last year one of Wood's high-powered lawyers asked Dean to shave a year off Wood's sentence and grant him early release from probation. Dean refused but instead agreed to a "postcard" probation in which Wood could simply write to the court once a year. Wood, now 46 years old, has remained free.

The same can't be said for Tyrone Brown, another man who came before Dean.

Back in 1990, when Brown was 17, he and a friend pulled a gun on a Dallas man and demanded his wallet. After taking $2, they handed the wallet back and fled but were quickly caught.

When Brown appeared before Dean, he didn't have a high-powered lawyer. Brown was one of five children who grew up in a poor home and never finished high school. The Baptist church he attended was the little Telstar Baptist Church in Dallas, which cannot claim a single prominent member.

Brown, who had a few minor juvenile offenses on his record, pleaded guilty, and he, too, was sentenced to 10 years' probation.

Like Wood, he also violated probation, although only once, and he only got caught smoking marijuana. But when Brown was called before Dean, what happened to him was markedly different from what happened to Wood. Dean sentenced Brown to life in prison, then added, "Good luck, Mr. Brown." Brown's court-appointed attorney, Matt Fry, didn't protest.

Nora Brown, Tyrone's mother, recalled that she broke down when her son called her with the news. "'Mama,' he said, 'they gave me life.' I just started crying, you know, and I started screaming. And I said 'Baby, how can they give you life. For what?' "

"20/20" correspondent Jim Avila spoke to Dean, who is running for re-election, during a campaign event in Dallas. Avila asked the judge about why he ruled so differently in the two cases. Dean insisted the law and the "ethical code of judicial conduct says I can't talk about any case at any point."

However, Seanna Willing, the executive director of the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct, told "20/20" Dean is incorrect. She said there is nothing to prevent a judge from talking about cases that are no longer pending.

Wood has finished his probation and is a free man. Brown has been in prison more than 16 years. He's struggled with depression, tried committing suicide, and got into trouble after joining a gang and fighting with prison guards. In recent years, he has settled down, and now says he spends time reading and writing poetry. He's eligible for parole in 2009.

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I think John Kerry should come up with excuses for saying all that. like for an example A/ it was Because he was watching too much Oprah B/ he was watching too much Dr. Phil B/ like Mel Gibson he could blame the Jews! it was the jews!

How smart are we as a civilization?

Smart enough to control our destiny and avoid the cataclysms that may end life as we know it?

For thousands of years, different religions have warned Earth about Armageddon and the final days.

We are now living in an age where scientists are adding their voices and their evidence in support of end-of-the-world possibilities.

"Last Days on Earth" is a program that could change the way you see your world and yourself.

The world's top scientists, including Stephen Hawking, considered the foremost living theoretical physicist, describe seven riveting scenarios detailing the deadliest threats to humanity.

Some can destroy the planet, others have the ability to render us extinct, and all have the power to destroy civilization.

How likely are they to occur, and what exactly would happen if they did, and could we survive?

"Last Days on Earth" goes beyond science fiction to science fact.

Using state-of-the-art visual effects, it will take viewers on a journey that is both breathtaking and terrifying, from the outer reaches of the universe to the inner world of DNA, with an around-the-globe tour in between.

"Of all the generations of humans that have walked the surface of the Earth — for 100,000 years, going back when we first left Africa — the generation now alive is the most important," said Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at City University of New York.

"The generation now alive, the generation that you see, looking around you, for the first time in history, is the generation that controls the destiny of the planet itself."

An asteroid colliding with Earth: It's the largest global disaster that has ever happened, and scientists say with 100 percent certainty that it will happen again. The question is not if but when.

Scientists have located more than 100,000 asteroids. Some are tiny, others as large as the state of Texas, and sooner or later, a huge one will crash with Earth.

Astronomers already have their eyes fixed on an asteroid called Apophis, which is scheduled for a close encounter with Earth in 2029.

Scientists have calculated that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass so close to Earth it will actually fly underneath our communication satellites. Depending on the path of the asteroid, scientists say there is a small chance Apophis could collide with Earth on its return orbit in 2036.

If a large enough asteroid did collide with Earth, we would first feel a huge shock wave caused by the asteroid hitting the atmosphere. As the asteroid hurtles through the atmosphere even before impact, the ground in an area hundreds of miles around would be flattened. Seconds later, the asteroid would strike the ground and explode into a fiery ball, packing more energy than the entire nuclear arsenal of all the world's countries.

The last time one of these "civilization busters" hit the planet was 65 million years ago, and it helped wipe out an entire species of dinosaurs. Could the dinosaurs' fate ultimately be ours?

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Two federal agencies are investigating whether the Bush administration tried to block government scientists from speaking freely about global warming and censor their research, a senator said Wednesday.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said he was informed that the inspector generals for the Commerce Department and NASA had begun "coordinated, sweeping investigations of the Bush administration's censorship and suppression" of federal research into global warming.

"These investigations are critical because the Republicans in Congress have ignored this serious problem," Lautenberg said.

He said the investigations "will uncover internal documents and agency correspondence that may expose widespread misconduct." He added, "Taxpayers do not fund scientific research so the Bush White House can alter it."

Messages left Wednesday at the inspector general's offices, which serve as the agencies' internal watchdogs, and the White House Council for Environmental Quality were not immediately returned.

In February, House Science Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., and other congressional leaders asked NASA to guarantee scientific openness. They complained that a public affairs officer changed or filtered information on global warming and the Big Bang.

The officer, George Deutsch, a political appointee, had resigned after being accused of trying to limit reporters' access to James Hansen, a prominent NASA climate scientist, and insisting that a Web designer insert the word "theory" with any mention of the Big Bang.

A report last month in the scientific journal Nature claimed administrators at the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration blocked the release of a report that linked hurricane strength and frequency to global warming. Hansen had said in February that NOAA has tried to prevent researchers working on global climate change from speaking freely about their work.

NOAA has denied the allegations, saying its work is not politically motivated.

Waah! President bush trying to cover up gobal warming SOB how much harm has he alreadly done to the world?

For weeks, Republicans on the campaign trail have been looking for something — anything — to talk about other than the record of the Republican Congress and the way the Bush administration has conducted the war in Iraq.

Monday, they got their wish. While stumping for local Democrats in California, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., addressed students at Pasadena City College and made a comment about education and the war in Iraq that lent itself to much controversy.

"You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq," he said.

It was a rhetorical gift for the embattled Republican Party, which is eager to run against Kerry again. The White House, in an unusual move, notified the media ahead of time that the president would address Kerry's comment in remarks at today's campaign rally in Georgia.

Election Fodder

The Kerry kerfuffle is a prototype for controversies of the new media age. "Thanks to the Internet, all life is on the record now," observed Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at the City University of New York. "Everything a politician says and does is public and the world can see in a second. … that's life now."

After Kerry's remarks were mentioned on the Web sites of local newspapers, including the Whittier Daily News, the video popped up on YouTube and conservative blogs like Newsbusters.org, and then talk radio seized on them.

Though, as opposed to 2004, it didn't take Kerry weeks to respond to attacks against him. Shortly before noon Tuesday, Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, responded, insisting in a statement that he had not belittled the intelligence of soldiers serving in Iraq, but rather that of "the president who got us stuck there."

But it may have been too late. The train had left the station.

"I believe Sen. Kerry owes an apology to many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country's call," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., campaigning in Indiana.

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said, "It tells us what John Kerry himself and the Democratic Party think about the troops and the U.S. military."

By the time Kerry got to a microphone in Seattle this afternoon to explain what he called a botched joke about the president, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans, had already heard about it and Republican candidates were talking about it.

"It disgusts me that a bunch of these Republican hacks who have never worn the uniform of our country are willing to lie about those who did," Kerry added.

What's unclear is if Kerry's comments will help rally Republican voters or help their party portray Democrats as against the troops to score victories next Tuesday. A Democratic congressman told ABC News Tuesday, "I guess Kerry wasn't content blowing 2004, now he wants to blow 2006, too."

 idoits !

 Problems like global warming are so overwhelming that most citizens feel there's nothing they can do to help. That's wrong.

If you want to help, scientists across the country are saying these days, plant a tree. Better yet, work with your city to improve its urban forest.

But here's the hard part. We've all known for years that trees are good for the environment, soaking up air pollutants and greenhouse gases, and a little shade in the middle of what scientists are calling urban heat islands can't hurt. However, not all trees are the same. They all help to clear the air, in varying degrees, but many also contribute to air pollution by emitting volatile organic compounds, such as isoprene, which help form ozone, a health hazard.

That led researchers at the State University of New York in Syracuse to come up with a new angle. There's lots of trees in Syracuse, but many of them are the wrong kind.

Allan Drew, a forest ecologist in SUNY's College of Environmental Science and Forestry, teamed up with several colleagues to see if Syracuse could create a much more effective urban forest. They found that simply mixing the types of trees could make a huge difference.

"We've demonstrated that it's feasible," Drew says.

The researchers took a national program, sponsored by the Forest Service, a step further. For years now, the Forest Service has worked with cities to help local officials understand the complex problems associated with creating an effective urban forest. If you want to clean the air, don't plant willows, for example, because they don't absorb very much carbon as they grow, and they emit a lot of junk.

Syracuse researchers found that if they could replant their city with trees that are great at sequestering carbon compounds, especially carbon dioxide, they could increase the removal of carbon by more than 300 percent. But they also found that air quality would actually suffer from an increase in volatile compounds.

So they looked at mixing the forest, emphasizing trees that are good performers when it comes to carbon sequestration and don't emit a lot of junk. They came up with a list of 31 species, including American basswood, dogwood, Eastern white pine, Eastern red cedar, gray birch, red maple and river birch. That combination, they found, would increase carbon sequestration by 86 percent, and reduce the emission of volatile compounds by 88 percent.

They also eliminated trees that are so invasive they become pests, like the European buckthorn, and the American elm, which is vulnerable to Dutch elm disease.

Drew says the Syracuse plan would probably work in many other areas, but trees can be fickle. They don't perform the same way in different regions, and their ability to clean up the air varies with age, rate of growth, and many other factors.

"You could predict what the emissions might be for a red oak (fairly high) but if that tree is growing in a shaded area, its emissions are going to be less than if it was out in an open, sunny area," he notes. "There's a certain amount of variability."

Emissions increase with temperature.

"The warmer it is, the more of a potential problem you have," Drew says. "It's probably more of a factor in the sun belt, but the potential to vary the species mix and achieve good results are probably better."

Many cities across the country have completed studies of their urban forests, and some of the figures are impressive.

Atlanta has more than nine million trees which soak up 46,345 tons of carbon every year. By contrast, Calgary, Canada, has nearly 12 million trees, but they only sequester 21,422 tons per year. The difference is due largely to different species — many conifers in Calgary, many mature, broad-leafed trees in Atlanta.

According to the Forest Service, large diameter, long-lived, leafy trees tend to be the most beneficial.

This is still a relatively new field, and scientists are finding that it's more complex than it seems on the surface.

Colorado State University researchers studied a eucalyptus plantation in Hawaii to see how good those popular trees are at sequestering carbon. Surprisingly, they found that the eucalyptus performed better if they were interspersed with another local tree, the mimosa. They think the mimosa enriched the soil with nitrogen, stimulating the growth of the eucalyptus. Carbon is absorbed in the new growth.

Not everybody, however, is on this band wagon. Some researchers point out that trees require maintenance, which frequently involves power tools, which gunk up the air.

And water is a big factor. Many plantations around the world now grow trees as part of the fight against global warming, but researchers at Duke University warned recently that there's no free ride here.

"We believe that decreased stream flow and changes in soil and water quality are likely as plantations are increasingly grown for biological carbon sequestration," the Duke scientists concluded.

And, by the way, trees are only a short-term fix. Eventually they die, which is why the Forest Service recommends trees that are expected to live at least 50 years. Dead trees rot, releasing all that sequestered carbon.

So it's not the only answer, and it won't end the threat of global climate change. But it could buy time.

 

please grow trees ! save the world for me & for u and the whole world and our children or GRANDCHILDREN (FOR SOME!)