SecondVersion

I’ve been following the news lately, and it’s sad to see what’s happened in Iowa. If you’ve not heard, a tornado hit a Boy Scout camp in Iowa, killing four Boy Scouts. Apart from that, there’s all the flooding in the state. Here’s part of the news story, my heart & prayers go out to all those affected.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Four people were killed and 48 injured when a tornado tore through a Boy Scout camp in western Iowa on Wednesday night, according to a spokeswoman for the Iowa Homeland Security Division and news agency and local newspaper reports.

Three 13-year-old scouts and one 14-year-old scout were killed, said Lloyd Roitstein, an executive with the Mid America Council of the Boy Scouts of America, according to The Associated Press. He did not release the names of the victims.

Tornadoes also touched down in Kansas, Minnesota and Nebraska on Wednesday, according to The A.P. Those tornadoes killed at least two people in northern Kansas, destroyed much of the small town of Chapman and caused extensive damage on the Kansas State University campus, according to The A.P… rest of story

Well, tomorrow (5/20/2008) is our primary here in Kentucky. This will be my first time voting! So I’m nervous, and not too sure why really. Oh well, I’ll get over it I guess.

Over the past few months, I’ve been watching both Clinton and Obama - speeches, debates, etc. I’m a Democrat, btw, let’s get that out of the way first.

I’ve been joking over the past few months how I would never vote for Clinton, cause she’s a woman. Well, that’s not the truth. When it comes down to it, it’s not because Clinton is a woman, it’s because I don’t feel she’s the best candidate. And honestly, I don’t think she could win it for us against McCain (that crazy bastid!).

So, all things considered, I will be voting for Obama (if my “network bar” Obama ‘08 didn’t make it clear to you ). Not only am I voting for him in the primary, but I will be voting for him when it comes November as well. (kind of a “duh!” there eh?)

Who are you voting for?

The New York Giants have won Super Bowl XLII!!!!!!!!!!!!

This had to be one of the greatest Super Bowl’s ever. I told everyone from the beginning, that the Giants would win, and look what happened!

Not only have the Giants won the Super Bowl, but they ended the Patriots’ perfect season.

TAKE THAT ALL YOU PAT FANS!

Just terrible. My prayers out to the victims, their friends, and their family.

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, in a classroom across campus Monday, killing at least 30 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history, government officials told The Associated Press. The gunman was killed, bringing the death toll to 31.

“Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,” said Virginia Tech president Charles Steger. “The university is shocked and indeed horrified.”

It was not immediately clear whether the gunman was shot by police or took his own life. His name was not released, and investigators offered no motive for the attack. It was not known if the gunman was a student.

The shootings spread panic and confusion on campus, with students complaining that the university did not warn them about the first burst of gunfire until more than two hours later.

Witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. Students and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive.

The massacre took place at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory that houses 895 people, and continuing at least two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building about a half-mile away, authorities said.

Police said they were still investigating the shooting at the dorm when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.

Some students bitterly questioned why the gunman was able to strike a second time, two hours after the bloodshed began.

“What happened today this was ridiculous. And I don’t know what happened or what was going through this guy’s mind,” student Jason Piatt told CNN. “But I’m pretty outraged and I’ll say on the record I’m pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 o’clock in the morning and the first e-mail about it - no mention of locking down campus, no mention of canceling classes - they just mention that they’re investigating a shooting two hours later at 9:22.”

He added: “That’s pretty ridiculous and meanwhile, while they’re sending out that e-mail, 22 more people got killed.”

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington said there was no evidence to suggest it was a terrorist attack, “but all avenues will be explored.”

Up until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard drove his pickup into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.

Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state’s largest full-time student population. The school is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.

The rampage took place on a brisk spring day, with snow flurries swirling around the campus. The campus is centered around the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets - who now represent a fraction of the student body - once practiced. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.

A gasp could be heard at a campus news conference when Virginia Tech Police Chief W.R. Flinchum said at least 20 people had been killed. Previously, only one person was thought to have been killed.

Investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began marking and recovering the large number of shell casings and will trace the weapon used, authorities said.

A White House spokesman said
President Bush was horrified by the rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia.

“The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed,” spokeswoman Dana Perino said

After the shootings, all entrances to the campus were closed, and classes were canceled through Tuesday. The university set up a meeting place for families to reunite with their children. It also made counselors available and planned an assembly for Tuesday at the basketball arena.

After the shooting began, students were told to stay inside away from the windows.

Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, said the shooting happened on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston dormitory, one floor above her room. Kanode’s resident assistant knocked on her door about 8 a.m. to notify students to stay put.

“They had us under lockdown,” Kanode said. “They temporarily lifted the lockdown, the gunman shot again.”

“We’re all locked in our dorms surfing the Internet trying to figure out what’s going on,” Kanode said.

Maurice Hiller, 21, a mechanical engineering student from Richmond, saw police and SWAT team members with guns drawn going toward Norris Hall. “This is something just totally beyond anybody’s expectations,” he said.

Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks by authorities but said they have not determined a link to the shootings.

It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting.

Last August, the opening day of classes was canceled and the campus closed when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff’s deputy involved in the manhunt was killed on a trail just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/virginia_tech_shooting;_ylt=AulCBHGZMPBXDoN6q2DjjJWm1OFF

’tis very sad, I used to watch his show on occassion. Still in shock. Thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

He was killed in a freak accident in Cairns, police sources said today.

It is understood he was killed by a stingray barb that went through his chest and reportedly into his heart .

He was swimming off the Low Isles at Port Douglas filming an underwater documentary when the tragedy occured.

The Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) was called about 11am (AEST) and an emergency services helicopter was flown to the crew’s boat on Batt Reef, off the coast near Cairns, with a doctor and emergency services paramedic on board.

Irwin had a puncture wound to the left side of his chest and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Irwin’s body is being flown to Cairns.

One report today said his American-born wife Terri was trekking on Cradle Mountain in Tasmania and was yet to be told of her husband’s death.

The Irwins have two children - a daughter, Bindi Sue Irwin, eight, and a three-year-old son, Robert (Bob) Clarence Irwin.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20349888-2,00.html
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/09/04/1157222051494.html?from=top5
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14663786/

Many of you will visit this blog and see a “pop-up” talking about a young woman named Christine. What’s that about? Maybe this will shed some light on it.
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Drastic Shortage of Filipinos in Bone Marrow Registry
Filipina has 3 Months to Find Donor: Christine’s Story
By Jasmin Mizal Alcantar

** “Emergency, 911″?
“Please help me, my friend is dying! She’s in a lot of pain, and I don’t know what to do!”?
** “Stay calm. Everything will be okay, someone will be there shortly”?
“Help us, please! She’s dying, she’s dying”?

Life-threatening situations, as the one just depicted, happen every day, and we live in our communities knowing that help is just a phone call away. Just dial 911, and in minutes, someone will come to save us.

The safety of our children, siblings, parents, and friends is always in the back of our minds. If we are among the fortunate, we can ensure the safety of our loved ones, and do our utmost to make sure nothing dangerous threatens those nearest to us.

For the Pechera family, the story is different. The urgency and helpless fear associated with a life-threatening emergency has been drawn out into hours, days, months. Help is beyond just a phone call away. In fact, tremendous pleas have been made, and extreme suffering has been endured, but no hero has come to the rescue yet.

To put yourself in their shoes, imagine being a parent and helplessly watching your child die. Imagine being a brother, a sister, a cousin, and a best friend, and losing that special loved one right before your eyes. Now imagine all these stories weaved into one family. Three of the four Pechera children share something dark in common. Francis Rex, Jocelyn, and Christine were stricken with the terrible and incurable disease, cancer.

Cancer chooses its victims randomly and mercilessly, no matter how innocent. The Pechera family was cruelly struck three times, and lost its battle once with Francis Rex, diagnosed at age 12 and having lost his life to cancer at age 16. Francis Rex was fortunate, however, to have had a matching bone marrow donor - - his older sister, Christine. She selflessly gave him a dose of her marrow, and won him four more precious years. The Pechera family suffered another serious panic attack when the oldest daughter, Jocelyn (now a successful dentist and fellow-Atlantan) was struck by Hodgkins disease during her college years. She caught it early, valiantly beat it, and has been in remission ever since.

The second oldest, Christine, once the hero who fought cancer for her brother, now needs a donor herself. Three years ago, cancer struck the Pechera’s a third time when Christine was diagnosed with a rare, very aggressive form of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. The doctors gave her a single month to live, and her father wanted to bring her home to New York to die. But she stayed in L.A. and fought hard, bravely undergoing almost-lethal chemotherapy and risky cutting-edge treatment using her own good bone marrow for transplantation. Recovery was excruciating as her body literally rebuilt its immune system from ground zero. The transplant worked, and Christine celebrated the 1-year anniversary of her remission last August. Feeling blessed, this young lady treasured her newfound life, falling in love and pursuing a successful career in film-making.

But darkness fell once again last December. During a routine check-up, doctors discovered the cancer was back worse than ever, spreading quickly and invading Christine’s organs. Unlike before, they are not able to salvage any of her own bone marrow for transplanting. Her only hope is finding a matching donor. Without a matching bone marrow donor, Christine was given less than 1 year to live.

Plainly and simply, Christine has 3 to 4 months to find a match; otherwise, any attempts at transplantation will not likely succeed, and she will most certainly die. The donor must have Filipino blood. Chances of finding a match are 1 in 20,000 because there are that many different types of bone marrow. To date, no donor for Christine has been found in the National Bone Marrow Registry (in which Filipinos are the most underrepresented minority). Without a combined effort from every possible donor (at the very least, 20,000 more Filipinos), the Pechera family will spend next Christmas mourning the loss of their beloved Christine.

How many losses does one family have to endure? How much pain does one family have to suffer? How could a family go home to a Christmas dinner with warm smiles on their faces, when there are only four people present instead of six? It is difficult to contemplate, and unbearable to fathom.

We belong to the Filipino Community of Atlanta, a young family enjoying our precious baby boy, and expecting a little girl in May. Experiencing parenthood for the first time makes Christine’s story even more poignant, more earth-shaking to us. My husband uses a very vivid description of experience, called a “brain smell”?. For instance, there is a smell that a baby has that lets you know he is yours. It’s that sweet baby smell that never leaves their clothes no matter how many times you wash them, and after many years you can pull those clothes from storage and still smell that special scent. Our son cries, and we comfort him. He laughs, and we laugh with him. Many years from now, we will remember and re-live that smell, that cry, that laugh. I’ll remember when he clings onto my leg, shy because all other kids want to play with him; or when I take him outside and the cold crisp winter air hits his face as he digs his chubby little hands into my arms, laughing with excitement. We lock these memories away for safe-keeping, and pray that nothing will rob us of our dreams of watching our children grow and thrive.

But memories are all that Mr. and Mrs. Pechera have of their son, long gone. They have, and are currently experiencing, that which lurks in every parent’s worst nightmare - outliving their children. They outlived Francis, helplessly watching him become consumed by cancer and infection. They are now outliving Christine, as time ticks away and her body holds off the cancer, waiting for the miracle donor to empower her battle. With each passing day, her chances grow slimmer, and by this summer, there will be none.

We’ve never met Christine; she is the sister of our dear friend, Dr. Jocelyn Pechera. However, she may as well be our own sister and loved one. As a community, and more definitively, as an extended family, it is our hope that everyone would join in helping beat this evil, insidious monster. Anyone can be a donor. But if you are of Filipino blood, please realize that your small but precious donation could likely give Christine, and similar beautiful souls, another chance at life, while ensuring the salvation of our loved ones against cancer, now and in the future.

And perhaps one bright sunny day, Mr. and Mrs. Pechera will receive that long-awaited answer in a phone call, stating, “Yes, we’ve found a match. Everything will be okay, someone will be there shortly”?

For more information, please visit SaveChristine.com, or call 1-800-MARROW2 to find out how to join the National Registry. Registering will make your blood sample automatically available for Christine, as well as other patients who are waiting desperately for a donor.

This is the best way to help Christine, and the only way to register for free. Also, to expedite the process for finding Christine’s match in time, please identify yourself as a friend of Christine Pechera when you register.

Thank you.
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I encourage you to post this elswhere..anywhere you can. Forums you’re a part of, blogs, etc. Please help in the fight to save Christine’s life. If you are infact filipino, register! See if you are a match! You could help save this woman’s life! There’s no waiting, we have no time to wait…