In the past months I had noticed that my clothes were shrinking and this has had me most worried. Is the shrinking of my clothes affected by a change in the climate.. Or is it the clothes dryer that is shrinking everything I own… Everything has gotten tighter. Nothing fits well..I have gone on the internet to see if others were suffering the same as me.

I know that those who make appliances plan for them to only last for a limited period of time.. Thus the machine will begin breaking down and soon you will have to purchase a new one. so I began to think that perhaps the Clothing Manufacturers were putting something in the clothes so that after a year that they might begin to shrink…I was and am worried .or could it be other circumstances that would make my clothes fit tighter .. Could somebody have exchanged my clothes for a size smaller..???

Thinking this was possible I quickly went to my closet to check out all of the sizes of my shirts and pants…

Then one day my friend Heri came to visit .. took one look at me and said LENO YOU ARE GETTING FATTER..

WHAT? I questioned.

SI, MAS GORDO.. MUCH FATTER! JUST LOOK AT YOUR FACE AND YOUR STOMACH… YOU LOOK AS IF YOU ARE GOING TO GIVE BIRTH

BUT I HAVENT HAD SEX I said and smiled at her

LOOK IN THE MIRROR she insisted

So I went to the Mirror and asked MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL WHOSE THE FATTEST OF THEM ALL

The mirror showed me the awful results.. A chubbier face and a very large stomach

I was in shock!!!! There in the mirror I saw my baked potatoes, salt, chips, steak, burritos and tamales.. They had slipped down my mouth and decided to take up residence in my body

What a shock!!!! I could not blame the clothes that were getting smaller… it was me that was getting larger…

I will be on a fast in DC for four days at the end of June to protest the Death Penalty. This will take place on the steps of the Supreme Court… But before then I must begin cutting out some items that are making me larger. I also decided to go swimming more often. Perhaps this will help..Oh yes I will also drink more water and eat more Jalapenos.

HOW ARE YOUR CLOTHES??? ARE THEY GETITNG SMALLER??

NOW FOR MY VIEW OF THE NEWS

1. What to do
2. Bugleme
3. Initiative 1098
4. Planting for Peace
5. World coalition against the death penalty

What to do..WITH BP

This is the most horrific disaster of our time and we can’t figure out what to do .. For years we did not regulate the industry and now we are paying for years of neglect. The republicans have led the charge to give these polluters a free license to destroy our world…

Some of the most disturbing images is of birds suffering covered with oil.. what we don’t see is what gives me the biggest night mares is at the bottom of the gulf and in the various currents that will destroy ocean animals and plant life for years to come . Not to mention the marsh lands and poisoning the people who work and live near the gulf.

I wonder why we have not heard from the government of Mexico? Why are they silent when their beaches and fishing industry will also be damaged?

The effects of this Oil Tsunami will be felt for years both by the environment and the economy.

Some small businesses will receive some compensation for their losses but the workers of these businesses will probably not receive anything.. They will just have to sit and starve. When Crops have been devastated by a storm Farmers have crop insurance or get aid from the government but the farm workers get nothing… And the same will happen to the workers who will lose their place of employment due to the BP DISASTER.

The White House needs to do more and/or let us know what is being done. We don’t and shouldn’t trust BP.

Perhaps we should camp outside the homes of the officers of BP and outside their office building.. And perhaps we should follow their family members where ever they go and remind them that their parents are destroying an important part of our world.

Bugleme ..Its new and exciting way to communicate

I want to introduce you to a new and exciting program called Bugleme. By joining up on this system you can get my actual voice and get a backstage pass into my activities on a regular basis. I will be telling you what I am doing and in many cases asking you to help me to work on behalf of Human Rights. Please go to the Web page listed below and accept the one month free trial period. Once you have received some Bugles let me know what you think. Below is the link for you.

http://magdaleno.bugleme.com/celebrity/home

Why Faith Leaders Support Initiative 1098

sponsored by Washington Association of Churches and Lutheran Public Policy Office of Washington

As people of faith we are called to protect the vulnerable, to change systems that are unjust, and to create a world in which everyone is treated fairly and equitably. Washington State’s tax system fails on all of these values. That is why the Religious Coalition for Tax Reform is organizing support for Initiative 1098.

We have a chance right now to put our faith values into practice. After decades of inaction — as our state falls further and further behind in our ability to fund core priorities — Bill Gates Sr. and many other faith and civic leaders are stepping forward to help lead a campaign to enact real tax reform in Washington State. This proposal will not just make our tax code fairer, empower small businesses, and create jobs; it will raise more than $1 billion per year to fund core education and health care priorities – priorities the faith community values.

Dedicated Funding for Quality Education and Health Care

Initiative 1098 will raise $1 billion per year to help us build a more vibrant economy and better opportunities for our children. That new revenue will go to a special trust fund dedicated to funding education and health care priorities like reducing class sizes, lowering tuition costs at our colleges and universities, and funding the voter-approved basic health plan and long-term care for vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities.

For more information please contact YES ON 1098 by calling 206-225-4610 or by email at infor@yeson1098.com. Petitions needed before July 2^nd.

World Coalition Against The Death Penalty

This important conference will be held this weekend at the Hastings Law School in San Francisco. For information contact http://deathpenatly.org/june12

Leno along with Michael Radelet, Mike Farrell and many others will be speaking.

PLANTING FOR PEACE

Yep, I got some plants into the ground… I almost had a heart attack digging and planting… I planted cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro, jalapenos, bell pepper, squash and pumpkins. Now will see how they do.

Why is it called a Peace Garden?? One reason is because I am doing something good and it helps me come to peace with my world when I am out there digging and doing… better than going to a shrink… in about 2 weeks I should get some flowers and then by mid July I should have some production of something…

This is the first time in Seattle where my plants can get a lot of sunlight… and this is good. My roommate Maru and her daughter have their own plot going… and while we are not competing… I do want my plots to do well.. After all somewhere in my life I was a farm worker…

My best

leno

MEXICO AND ARABS

Once I was attending a conference in El Paso Texas which is just across form Juarez, Mexico where I happened to have many relatives whom I visited almost every night. When you cross the border they randomly search cars for contraband. But my car was being searched each and every time. Sending the men and dogs through my car.
One night I asked the guard…

WHY IS MY CAR ALWAYS BEEN SEARCHED

WELL he replied… YOU ARE AN ARAB AND WE ARE INSTRUCTED TO SEARCH THE VEHICLES OF ALL ARABS (and this was in the early 80’s) WE KNOW THAT YOU ALL ARE INVOLVED WITH ARMS

BUT I AM A CHICANO… I protested…

YA BUT YOU FIT THE PROFILE AND YOU LOOK ARAB SO WE HAVE TO STOP YOU…

I became an Arab in their eyes and no conjugation of Spanish verbs or history would get me out of that bind… so I enjoyed being Arab and often praised Allah in the presence of those who searched my auto…

Suitcases in Detroit.

I was at a major convention in Detroit with the Chair of the Democratic National Committee and in those days I was his special assistant. He had asked me to go down and find our contracted limo driver so that when he came down we could leave immediately for the next meeting across town. He promised to come down in ten minutes… From experience I knew this would not happen knowing the calls he had to make and the complicated conversations that would follow.

I went down to the driveway and located our limo and told the driver to be on the lookout for my signal so that he could then bring our limo to the head of long line of limos which were either delivering or waiting to pick up passengers.

There I was a brown man in a dark suit.. I noticed that the luggage traffic was extra heavy and that there were not enough bell men to handle it all. Some customer seeing me in my black suit assumed that I was a bell man… I whistled to the Bell Captain an African American who was close and when he looked at me I yelled

My brother what should I do …should I take his bags?

HEY WE NEED THE HELP AND GO AHEAD AND DO IT.

I soon was busy taking bags to the registration desk and picking up others and taking them to waiting limousines and getting good tips…

About 40 minutes later the Chairman came down to the drive way looking for me and my limo. Well he found me with two bags under each arm.

WHATS GOING ON LENNIE he asked.

WELL… WHEN YOU GOT TIED UP … I GOT ANOTHER JOB… LET ME JUST TAKE THESE BAGS INTO THE LOBBY AND WE WILL BE ON OUR WAY…

By then I had earned over $200 in tips, made many travelers happy, relieved the bell men and had yet another experience of MISTAKEN IDENTITY.

NOW FOR MY VIEW OF THE NEWS

a.    Who reads AHORA
b.    Rope a Pope
c.    DPF annual dinner
d.    Juan an innocent man Speaks

Who reads the Teachings and Preaching’s of leno?

Every week I find individuals who I did not know who are reading my AHORA messages. I would invite you the reader to send a note to others about why you read my AHORAS and if you have shared these articles with others.
As you know you can invite you family and friends to get their own AHORA by signing up through the “mailing list” tab up on the banner.

The Cardinal and the 2004 Elections..And now he is the pope ..POPE BENEDICT XVI

Today the Vatican and the Catholic Church is again embroiled in the never ending examination of answered questions of the mishandling of sex abuse cases.

I first heard of the Cardinal when we were in the midst of the 2004 elections and had a candidate John Kerry a Catholic as presidential candidate. This was when the right wing church groups still had more power.

So the Bush campaign began lying about Kerry’s military record, and got the Catholic Church to get involved and used Cardinal Ratzinger to fuel the flames about who should or should not receive communion. Ratzinger’s memo on this issue I believe kept certain people from voting for Kerry and involved the church in an American election which is wrong. And the pope at that time should have clipped his wings .. I have attached a news article of years past to help jog your memories of the actions the Cardinal took.

The now Pope should be re-questioned about his politics, about elections and the abuse of children.

The then Cardinal while asking priests to refuse communion to those who are PRO CHOICE  then should have asked priests not to give communion to all those
a.    Involved with sexual abuse ..
b.    Those who promote and believe in the death penalty
c.    Anyone who promotes war and vengeance
d.    Those who take food, healthcare and protection from the hungry, the poor and jailed in favor of the rich and the powerful

Now this list could be expanded to some of the many moral lessons of the bible. If you want to promote the moral authority and involve the church in politics then you should push all of teachings.

Cardinal Ratzinger (known to some years ago as Cardinal Rottweiler) and now known as Pope Benedict is a very political animal who has let his politics guide him instead the heart and the teachings of the church.

Today I do not see the right wing church leaders from the 
Evangelical groups rushing to the defense of the Pope.. They used him and the church in the 2004 elections and now they have abandoned their old ally.

I would like an independent body .. To investigate the current scandal and find out who knew what, when did the know it and more importantly what action did they take.

Cardinal Ratzinger lays out principles on denying Communion, voting

By John Thavis

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In a recent memorandum, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger laid out the principles under which bishops or other ministers may deny Communion to Catholic politicians who consistently promote legal abortion.

At the same time, he said it is not necessarily sinful for Catholics to vote for politicians who support abortion, as long as they are voting for that candidate for other reasons.

Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent the six-point memorandum to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, who heads an episcopal task force on Catholic politicians. It was designed to offer guidance to the U.S. bishops when they discussed the Communion/abortion issue at their mid-June meeting near Denver.

The text of Cardinal Ratzinger’s memorandum was published online July 3 by the Italian magazine L’Espresso, and a Vatican official said it was authentic. But it apparently was accompanied by a cover letter that has not been published.

Cardinal McCarrick said in a statement July 6 that L’Espresso’s story was the result of an “incomplete and partial leak” that did not reflect Cardinal Ratzinger’s full advice to the U.S. bishops.

The cardinal said he would not release Cardinal Ratzinger’s “written materials” because the cardinal asked him not to.

”Through this continuing process, the Holy See has constantly emphasized it is up to our bishops’ conference to discuss and determine how best to apply the relevant principles and for individual bishops to make prudent pastoral judgments in our own circumstance,” Cardinal McCarrick said.

Cardinal Ratzinger’s comments on Catholic voters — in private communication briefly outlining principles for consideration rather than exploring them in depth — came at the end of the memorandum. It touched on an evolving issue that is important to many Catholics during the 2004 presidential election campaign: The presumptive Democratic candidate, John Kerry, is a Catholic who supports legal abortion.

Two U.S. bishops — Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis and Bishop Michael J. Sheridan of Colorado Springs — recently said that Catholics who knowingly vote for pro-abortion politicians would be committing a grave sin.

Cardinal Ratzinger’s note underlined the principles involved for the Catholic voter.

”A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia,” Cardinal Ratzinger wrote.

”When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons,” he said.

In other words, if a Catholic thinks a candidate’s positions on other issues outweigh the difference on abortion, a vote for that candidate would not be considered sinful.

On the question of Communion for Catholic politicians, Cardinal Ratzinger outlined a process of pastoral guidance and correction for politicians who consistently promote legal abortion and euthanasia. That process could extend to a warning against taking Communion, and in the case of “obstinate persistence” by the politician, the minister “must refuse to distribute” Communion, he said.

After discussing the issue in Colorado, U.S. bishops overwhelmingly passed a statement that sharply criticized Catholic politicians who support legal abortion. The bishops also said denying Communion to those politicians is a complex question involving “prudential judgment” in each case.

The report in L’Espresso and some other media have characterized that as a rejection of Cardinal Ratzinger’s advice. But Vatican sources said the Vatican was generally pleased with the U.S. bishops’ statement, and that Cardinal Ratzinger was not trying to dictate a policy to the bishops.

”It is right to leave a margin for prudential judgment in these cases,” said one Vatican source.

”Cardinal Ratzinger’s point was not that bishops have to use (denial of Communion) in every circumstance, but that there are principles that would allow for this to happen,” the source said.

In his memorandum, Cardinal Ratzinger began by noting that, for any Catholic, the practice of going to Communion simply because one attends Mass is “an abuse that must be corrected.”

He said that in judging their own worthiness to receive Communion Catholics should recognize that abortion and euthanasia are grave sins, and that it is never permitted to cooperate in them in a formal way.

Whatever the individual decides about his or her worthiness to receive Communion, sometimes the minister of Communion “may find himself in the situation where he must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone,” Cardinal Ratzinger said.

Citing church law, he said those cases include people whom the church has declared excommunicated, as well as those who show “obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin.”

In the case of abortion or euthanasia, Cardinal Ratzinger said a Catholic politician manifests “formal cooperation” in those grave sins by “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws.”

In that case, the cardinal said, the politician’s pastor should “meet with him, instructing him about the church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.”

Cardinal Ratzinger then cited a principle of church law that is used to justify the denial of Communion to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.

”When ‘these precautionary measures have not had their effect or in which they were not possible,’ and the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the holy Eucharist, ‘the minister of holy Communion must refuse to distribute it,’” he said, quoting from a 2002 ruling on divorced-and-remarried Catholics issued by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.

His apparent implication was that the same principle applies to Catholic politicians who consistently campaign for and vote for legal abortion or euthanasia: that, like Catholics who have divorced and remarried, the public nature of their situation makes possible an objective judgment on their unworthiness to receive Communion.


Cardinal Ratzinger said that denial of Communion in these circumstances is not, properly speaking, a sanction or penalty.

”Nor is the minister of holy Communion passing judgment on the person’s subjective guilt, but rather is reacting to the person’s public unworthiness to receive holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin,” he said.

The 2002 Vatican ruling on divorced Catholics has been a topic of discussion in Rome, in view of the Communion issue in the United States. Some canon law experts think it is more difficult to apply it in a categorical way to Catholic politicians on the abortion issue. They note that the politician’s situation may be much more complex than that of divorced Catholics who because of remarriage are considered to be living in a state of sin.

END
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Death Penalty Focus 18th Annual Dinner

Please share and ask our friends to attend or donate

Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Beverly Hilton Hotel
9876 Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, California 90210
6:00 p.m. Reception • 7:15 p.m. Dinner and Program • Business Attire

For information, please contact Michael Teta Associates at 818-906-0240 or DPF@mtaevents.com.
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Witness to Innocence Speaker Featured at Portland April 14, 2010 Event

Submitted by trodello on Tue, 03/30/2010 – 02:30

It is hard for anyone to imagine spending seventeen years, eight months and one day on death row for a crime he did not commit.  That is the story that Juan Melendez-Colon will tell when he speaks on Wednesday April 14, 2010 7 PM, at the First Unitarian Church in downtown Portland. Mr. Melendez, one of 139 people exonerated for capital crimes they did not commit, will be the featured speaker at an event focused on the death penalty, sponsored by the Lewis & Clark Law School National Lawyers Guild.

Note: Juan is good a friend of Leno and an important voice you should go and listen.
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The Flowers

The spring flowers are coming out.. enjoy them .. take time to enjoy them and if possible share them with others..

My best
leno