New Beginnings Online

I haven't blogged on a regular basis since I started this page almost two years ago.   I have been moved in recent weeks, to begin anew and offer reflections on life's many stories as well as post some of my many homilies.  It's also inspired by the Church's call for a new evangelization.    Comments, reflections of your own as well as your prayers will all be warmly received..

Malawi child tobacco pickers being poisoned

Children in Malawi who are forced to work as tobacco pickers are exposed to nicotine poisoning equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a day, an investigation has found.

Child labourers as young as five are suffering severe health problems from a daily skin absorption of up to 54 milligrams of dissolved nicotine, according to the international children's organisation Plan.

Malawian tobacco is found in the blend of almost every cigarette smoked in the west. The low-grade, high-nicotine tobacco is often used as a filler by manufacturers, reflecting a long-term global shift in production.

Read the full story on the Gaurdian News website

Web Pries Lid of Iranian Censorship

Thanks to my good friend Bill Amos in Vancouver for pointing out this fascinating article in the New York Times on the the role the web is playing in the current protests in Iran.

Shortly after Neda Agha-Soltan bled her life out on the Tehran pavement, the man whose 40-second video of her death has ricocheted around the world made a somber calculation in what has become the cat-and-mouse game of evading Iran’s censors. Read the full story here.

Igloolik: 69 North, 81 West

If you look at a map of Canada, trace your finger north — way north — up past James Bay and into Nunavut, you'll see a small island just off the northwest coast of Baffin island near the entrance to the Northwest Passage.

That's where you'll find Igloolik, an Inuit community of about 2,000 people. Read about by clicking on this link: Igloolik: 69 North, 81 West

Mogadishu carnage devastates lives

By Mohamed Olad Hassan
BBC News, Mogadishu

Cradling her baby brother in stick-thin arms, eight-year-old Halima Mayow says little about the incident which wiped out their family in Mogadishu. But, at a camp on the outskirts of the Somali capital, the only word she does utter - "Mortar! Mortar!" - sums up the tragedy which has spawned two more orphans in this war-torn country.
Read the full BBC story here!

Gadget Graveyard: 10 Technologies About to Go Extinct

Looking back at the 20th century, it's clear that even the biggest and baddest gadget sensations will one day fall victim to technological evolution.

As each year brings tinier, shinier toys, it's easy to forget that not too long ago typewriters were the professional alternative to freehand, Walkmen ruled the portable-music market and extra-long phone cords would let you speak to friends while standing 10 feet away from the wall-mounted base. Read the full story at FOX News.

Faith in student pays off

Boy succeeds beyond expectations after school saw potential and mobilized support. Read this wonderful story in the April 7, 2009 edition of the Toronto Star by Andrea Gordon, Family Issues reporter. Click here.