Category: Conversation Starters

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – More Florida teachers will be eligible to carry guns in the classroom under a bill Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Wednesday that immediately implements recommendations from a commission formed after the Parkland high school mass shooting.

DeSantis signed the bill in private and didn’t issue a statement afterward. But he made it clear he supports the changes made to the law enacted after a rifle-toting former student walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and killed 17 people in February 2018.

The bill was one of the most contentious of the legislative session that ended Saturday. It expands the “guardian” program that allows school districts to approve school employees and teachers with a role outside the classroom, such as a coach, to carry guns. School districts have to approve and teachers have to volunteer. They then go through police-like training with a sheriff’s office and undergo a psychiatric evaluation and a background check.

The new law expands the program to make all teachers eligible regardless of whether they have a non-classroom role.

Democrats spent hours arguing against the bill, saying it could lead to accidental shootings, or that a teacher could panic and fire during a confrontation with students. Republicans emphasized that the program is voluntary, and that law enforcement in some rural districts could be 15 minutes or more from a school if a shooter attacks.

Broward County, where the Parkland shooting took place, has rejected the program.

The measure also contains a number of other school safety measures, such as wider disclosure of certain student mental health records and mental screening of troubled students. It also mandates greater reporting of school safety and student discipline incidents and a requirement that law enforcement officials be consulted about any threats.

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It’s time to turn your family pet into a star! Send us a favorite photo of your special companion during our Fur, Feather, and Fins Family Pet Photo Contest from April 8—April 19. You could be one of 10 lucky winners who will be chosen to receive a Motorola Moto E5 Play smartphone.

Entering is easy: just visit our contest site here to upload your photo. All pets are welcome: dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, you name it. We love them all! Next, share your entry on social media, and encourage your friends and family to visit our contest site to vote for it. Each day during the contest, we’ll post photos of the “Pets of the Day,” and give visitors to our site a chance to select their favorites. From the top 100 vote getters during the contest, we’ll choose our 10 winners.

The winners will enjoy the Moto E5 Play, a sleek, compact smartphone that’s loaded with features. It includes a 5.2” LCD display, 8.0MP rear camera and 5.0MP front camera, and 16GB of memory. With an Android 8.0 Oreo operating system and 1.4GHz quad-core processing, it has plenty of power for all your important tasks, and is even protected by Motorola’s water-repellent design for rugged durability.

Our contest winners will be announced April 19th on our Facebook and Instagram pages, so be sure to check there to see if your pet made our Top 10. If so, we know you’ll love taking more great photos of them with your brand-new Motorola smartphone!

A couple have died in Mongolia from bubonic plague after eating raw marmot.  The deaths of the Mongolian couple led to a quarantine that left tourists stranded for days.  The pair had eaten raw marmot meat and kidney and a six-day quarantine was imposed on May 1 following their deaths in Mongolia’s wester Bayan Olgii province bordering China and Russia.  The plague was responsible for millions of deaths in Europe and Asia in the 14th century.  Cases are very rare today but can be deadly unless sufferers are treated with antibiotics.  The couple had eaten the meat of the marmot, a type of rodent, as it was thought to be a remedy for good health, it was reported.  The quarantine has now been lifted, allowing tourists to leave the area.  Marmots are a known carrier of the plague bacteria and hunting them is illegal.  “After the quarantine not many people, even locals, were in the streets for fear of catching the disease,” Sebastian Pique, a US Peace Corps volunteer, told the AFP news agency.  The World Health Organization (WHO) said 118 people had come into contact with the couple and had to be isolated and administered antibiotics.  It was reported that dozens of tourists from Russia, Germany and the US were unable to leave the area for a period because of the quarantine.  The plague is usually transmitted from animals to humans via fleas and has a 30% to 60% fatality rate if left untreated.

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In the text, we find Jesus sharing breakfast with the disciples, shortly after his Resurrection. The Gospel reads as follows:

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”

Again, the fact that Jesus replies to Peter’s answer —“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you”— with a mandate —either “feed my lambs” or “tend my sheep”— has at least two meanings that run in parallel, one being the consequence of the other. One the one hand, this is a clear instantiation of the Great Commandment: if Peter really loves his Lord —Kyrie is the word Peter uses, according to the original Greek text—then he will surely care for those who belong to him. On the other hand, this is a concrete moment of divine forgiveness: despite his three denials, Jesus confirms Peter three times in his role as leader of the church. This gesture suggests God’s love is bigger than our own personal sin, no matter how grave.

In Greek, unlike in English, there are at least five different words for “love.”

But don’t we know from some other passages in the Gospel that confirming something twice is more than enough? Is this not how the classic passage in Matthew, “but let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No,’ for whatever is more than these is from the evil one” has also been commonly interpreted?

Surely, this “let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’” also indicates the “yes” one pronounces must match the “yes” in one’s heart, as to avoid hypocrisy, but it is also read as implying a solemn confirmation of one’s ‘yes’ or ‘no’ suffices, making subsequent oaths, promises, and compromises unnecessary (and thus avoiding swearing in God’s name, as if looking for even further confirmation). Why then would Jesus ask Peter three times instead of just two? Is it really only about revisiting Peter’s denial? The Greek text might provide us with an interesting twist here.

In Greek, unlike in English, there are at least five different words for “love.” The love one feels for friends is philía. The love one feels for one’s family is storge. The love one might feel for one’s betrothed is eros. A fourth kind of love, philautia, is the love one feels for oneself. And a fifth kind of love, agape —at least in its Greco-Christian usage— refers to a transcendent kind of love, a higher form of love commonly conceived as the love of God for man, and that of man for God. What kind of love are Jesus and Peter discussing here?

The first two times Jesus asks “Simon Ioannou, agapas me?” The translation, as can be seen, is a tricky one. Jesus is indeed asking “Simon, son of John” if he loves him transcendentally, unconditionally, divinely, using the verb agapein, referring to divine, transcendental love. But Peter replies “Nai, Kyrie; su oidas oti philo se” (“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you”) using the verb philein, which implies loving yet in a more friendly, “limited” way.

But the third time, Jesus moves from agape to philein: “Simon Ioannou, phileis me?” seemingly pushing Peter further. It is almost as if Jesus is asking his disciple something along the lines of “Really, Peter? Do you love me like you love any other of your friends?” In fact, John’s text tells us that when Peter notices Jesus is not only asking him for a third time but that he is also using another verb, as in going from transcendental to a “simpler” kind of love, “he was grieved (…) and said to him ‘Lord, you know all things; you know I love you” but still using the very same verb, philein. Can we then draw any conclusions from the different usages of these verbs referring to different kinds of love?

Jesus seems to be trying to get Peter to remember not only his denial but, moreover, the very moment they first met by the Sea of Galilee

Here is a suggestion: Jesus seems to be trying to get Peter to remember not only his denial but, moreover, the very moment they first met by the Sea of Galilee, when Jesus told him to “put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Moving from philia into agape is indeed emotionally equivalent to moving from the “shore” into deeper waters, and the condition of possibility of being able to not only tend to a flock but, as Jesus told Peter after that first miraculous catch of fish, to be a proper fisher of men.

A British cage diver has captured a terrifying image of a great white shark heading for the surface – just like the famous poster for Jaws.

The 17ft predator, caught on camera off the west coast of Mexico, shows off its menacing set of jagged teeth as it swims overhead in the photo.

The image has a striking resemblance to the poster used for Steven Spielberg’s 1975 horror classic, which shows a shark rocketing from the deep towards an unsuspecting female swimmer.

Fortunately, unlike Roger Kastel’s poster, there were no swimmers in sight when British photographer and filmmaker Euan Rannachan captured the picture.

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Bryan Caplan is an economist and a dad who has thought a lot about the joys and stresses of being a parent. When I asked him whether there is an ideal number of children to have, from the perspective of parents’ well-being, he gave a perfectly sensible response: “I’m tempted to start with the evasive economist answer of ‘Well, there’s an optimal number given your preferences.’”  When I pressed him, he was willing to play along: “If you have a typical level of American enjoyment of children and you’re willing to actually adjust your parenting to the evidence on what matters, then I’ll say the right answer is four.”

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – When two local teens skipped school for a beach senior skip day, their adventure turned into a fight for their lives, and their savior was heaven-sent.  Tyler Smith and Heather Brown, both 17 years old, have been friends since the fourth grade.

They began to pray.

“I cried out, ‘if you really do have a plan for us, like, come on. Just bring something.’” Smith said.  Then a boat sailing from South Florida to New Jersey spotted the teens in distress.  “I started swimming towards it. I was like, ‘I’m going to get this boat. Just stay here. I’m going to get this boat. We are going to live.’” Brown said.  Their prayers were answered in the form of a boat, a God send, named ‘The Amen’.

“The first words that came out of my mouth were, ‘God is real.’”

The men in the boat brought the teens on board carried them safely to shore.  The teens are thanking God and the men who saved them.  “There’s no other reason, no other explanation in the world other than God,” Smith said.

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The study of an ancient tablet that dates back nearly 3,000 years suggests that the biblical King Balak may have been an actual historical figure.

Published in Tel Aviv: The Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, the study looks at the Mesha Stele and makes the determination that after looking at new photos of the cracked tablet, Balak existed, though the researchers are not 100 percent certain of it.

“After studying new photographs of the Mesha Stele and the squeeze of the stele prepared before the stone was broken, we dismiss Lemaire’s proposal to read  (‘House of David’) on Line 31,” the researchers wrote in the study’s abstract. “It is now clear that there are three consonants in the name of the monarch mentioned there, and that the first is a beth. We cautiously propose that the name on Line 31 be read as Balak, the king of Moab referred to in the Balaam story in Numbers 22–24.”

‘s Line 31 that is tempering the researchers’ enthusiasm. There are “[a]bout seven letters are missing from the beginning of the line [31], followed by the words (“sheep/small cattle of the land”),” the study’s abstract adds.

The abstract continues: “Next there is a vertical stroke that marks the transition to a new sentence, which opens with the words (“And Hawronēn dwelt therein”). Evidently a name is expected to follow. Then there is a legible beth, followed by a partially eroded, partially broken section with space for two letters, followed by a waw and an unclear letter. The rest of the line, with space for three letters, is missing.”

The Mesha Stele, which is also known as the Moabite Stone, is an inscribed tablet that dates back to 840 B.C. and was discovered in 1868 by researcher Frederick Augustus Klein.

It had previously been theorized that Line 31 was a reference to the House of David. However, the researchers, led by the study’s lead author, Israel Finkelstein, believe the letter “B” is there and it is not a reference to “beth,” the Hebrew word for “house,” but rather Balak.

Although the study’s authors, Finkelstein, Nadav Na’aman and Thomas Römer, have theorized that Balak may have been an actual person, their “proposal is very tentative,” Ronald Hendel, a professor of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, told Live Science. Hendel was not involved in the study.

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On an extremely hot summer day, the humble shepherd Gaspard Ricard was parched with thirst. His flask of water was dry and he was no where near a stream or body of water. Ricard sat down on the grass in agony.

At that point an older man suddenly appeared to him and said, “I am Joseph. Lift it and you will drink.”

Joseph was pointing to a large boulder nearby, a rock that Ricard knew he couldn’t lift by himself. Yet, he tried, and somehow he was able to lift the boulder with ease. Underneath it was a fresh spring of water.

Overjoyed, Ricard looked up to thank the mysterious stranger, but he had already vanished.

Ricard rushed to the village to tell everyone about the miraculous spring. Soon enough the spring became associated with countless miracles, both physical and spiritual, and a shrine was built at the location.

The spring of St. Joseph in Cotignac has been a pilgrimage site ever since, and a nearby shrine was eventually combined with a separate apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph that occurred in 1519 under the title of Our Lady of Graces.