Dare You to Move

Happenings in the recent NBA All-Star Weekend:



TBJ AZ 03: The People's Dunk Contest from The Basketball Jones on Vimeo.

Note: Isang paalala sa lahat ng mga camera phone users na maging responsable sa paggamit ng teknolohiya. This is a friendly reminder to all of us camera-phone users out there to be responsible in the use of technology. Story courtesy of the Associated Press. Picture courtesy of Time Magazine.

CHICAGO - Though youth is fleeting, images sent on a cell phone or posted online may not be, especially if they're naughty.

Teenagers' habit of distributing nude self-portraits electronically — often called "sexting" if it's done by cell phone — has parents and school administrators worried. Some prosecutors have begun charging teens who send and receive such images with child pornography and other serious felonies. But is that the best way to handle it?

"Hopefully we'll get the message out to these kids," says Michael McAlexander, a prosecutor in Allen County, Ind., which includes Fort Wayne. A teenage boy there is facing felony obscenity charges for allegedly sending a photo of his private parts to several female classmates. Another boy was recently charged with child pornography in a similar case.

In some cases, the photos are sent to harass other teens or to get attention. Other times, they're viewed as a high-tech way to flirt. Either way, law enforcement officials want it to stop, even if it means threatening to add "sex offender" to a juvenile's confidential record.

"We don't want to throw these kids in jail," McAlexander says. "But we want them to think."

This month in Greensburg, Pa., three high school girls who sent seminude photos and four male students who received them were all hit with child pornography charges. And in Newark, Ohio, a 15-year-old high school girl faced similar charges for sending her own racy cell phone photos to classmates. She eventually agreed to a curfew, no cell phone and no unsupervised Internet usage over the next few months. If she complies, the charges will be dropped.

In Pennsylvania, all but one of the students accepted a lesser misdemeanor charge, partly to avoid a trial and further embarrassment, a public defender in the case said. The mother of one boy is considering fighting all charges.

Whatever the outcome, the mere fact that child pornography charges were filed at all is stirring debate among students and adults.

At Greensburg-Salem High School in Pennsylvania, junior Jamie Bennish says she's not sure the boys in her school's case should've been charged.

"They did not necessarily choose to receive the pictures, although I find it questionable that they did not delete the photos from their cell phones after some period of time," she says. "As for the girls, there is no excuse for exposing yourself in that way, and any charges they receive they have brought upon themselves."

Dante Bertani, chief public defender in Westmoreland County, Pa., where the students went to court, called the felony charges "horrendous." He says such treatment should be reserved for sex offenders, not teenagers who might've used poor judgment, but meant nothing malicious.

"It should be an issue between the school, the parents and the kids — and primarily the parents and the kids," Bertani says. "It's not something that should be going through the criminal system."

These cases do pose a dilemma, concedes Wes Weaver, the principal at Licking Valley High School, where the Ohio girl attends school.

He agrees that pornography charges or other felonies are not appropriate, noting that "the laws have not caught up to technology."

But he says there has to be some way to educate students and their parents about the harm these photos can do — and the fact that, once they're out there, they often get widely circulated. Days before his staff discovered the girl's nude photos, the county prosecutor had been at the school to warn students against sexting.

"I don't think we're anywhere near having a handle on this," Weaver says. "It's beyond our scope as a school."

Parents are also often at a loss.

Some companies, such as WebSafety Inc., have developed software that parents can use to monitor certain activity on cell phones and computers. They can, for instance, block X-rated texting terms or be alerted when their child is using them, says Mike Adler, the company's CEO.

Photos are trickier, though, and often require a parent to manually check a child's phone.

And that's OK to do, says Dr. Terri Randall, an adolescent psychiatrist in Philadelphia.

"It could be part of the contract of having a cell phone, that you really don't get 100 percent privacy. It's just one more way of keeping track, like knowing what your kid is doing and where they are," says Randall, who's also an instructor at Jefferson Medical College.

Randall says she's seeing more issues related to sexting, especially as cell phones with cameras have become standard. One mother brought her daughter in to be psychologically evaluated after finding provocative cell phone photos of the girl.

Other patients tell Randall how sexting and texting explicit messages has caused relationship problems, especially after a breakup, when photos might be distributed out of spite, for instance.

So she reminds her young patients: "Even though it seems like fun and so exciting right now, that person may not always feel the same way about you. And you may not feel the same way about that person either."

But is it porn? That's questionable, she and others say.

Certainly, technology makes it easier to do and say things we might not do in person, says Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher with the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

"But ultimately," she says, "I think this is merely another case of technology extending an activity or action that young people have engaged in for years, if not beyond that." - AP

By Jennifer Chung

Don't you agree
When they all say
"Home is where the heart is."
But do you see
With every step that you take,
You get further away
From where the heart is.

It's so easy to be blinded
& caught up in the clouds where everything's in a haze
Causing you to forget about the days,
Of the common, simple, beautiful ways.

I remember all the times that I had spent with my friends.
Taking BART to San Francisco just for 350 cents.
Talking, laughing, joking - didn't quite k now what was to come.
Years of memories, irreplaceable fun.

I remember telling mom that I'd make her proud one day.
She would smile and knew exactly all the right things to say.
Man, I miss her & can't wait till I get back to the bay.
Back to the common, simple, beautiful ways.

Isn't it nice,
To simply know,
There's somewhere you can go back to.
So it's a big sacrifice
Everytime that you decide
You can't even if you want to.

It's so easy to be blinded
& caught up in the clouds where everything's in a haze
Causing you to forget about the days,
Of the common, simple, beautiful ways.

I remember all the times that I had spent with my friends.
Taking BART to San Francisco just for 350 cents.
Talking, laughing, joking - didn't quite k now what was to come.
Years of memories, irreplaceable fun.

I remember telling mom that I'd make her proud one day.
She would smile and knew exactly all the right things to say.
Man, I miss her & can't wait till I get back to the bay.
Back to the common, simple, beautiful ways.

So even though,
I am happy now,
I'll never forget where I'm from & how I came to be.

What was common, ended up to be
A very unique treasure I have now decided to keep.

I remember all the times that I had spent with my friends.
Taking BART to San Francisco just for 350 cents.
Talking, laughing, joking - didn't quite k now what was to come.
Years of memories, irreplaceable fun.

I remember telling mom that I'd make her proud one day.
She would smile and knew exactly all the right things to say.
Man, I miss her & can't wait till I get back to the bay.
Back to the common, simple, beautiful ways.


- courtesy of Jennifer Chung

Good news! You can now find everything you need to know about the Peace Bureau--including how it started--by visiting their very own website! You can visit the site here.

The site contains back stories from the original Angelfire Chronicles, from the first adventures of the 14 Angels to their battles alongside the 4th Battalion of the Royal Marine Corps, and the end of their tour. It is here where the original Peace Bureau saga picks off--and ends. From here, the story undergoes a "reboot" as the "Sidekicks" story takes over.

You can also watch the first "Sidekicks" videos, which details the start of the new Peace Bureau storyline. And, you can browse through exclusive behind-the-scenes photos of both "Sidekicks" and the first Peace Bureau short film, "Princess Crisis."

What's more, in just a little while, you're also going to be able to watch "Princess Crisis" on this site! And if you wait a little more, you're also going to see where and when you can avail of copies of Princess Crisis on video.

So come on, let's go to Peace Bureau Headquarters!

The Peace Bureau website is maintained by our ministry partner, angelworks media.

Just because you play as a criminal doesn't mean you'll become one.

By Ben Silverman

While their digital pastime is often credited with eroding the state of contemporary literature, gamers have found an unlikely ally within the pages of a new book.

Penned by Harvard Med School researchers Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olsen, "Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do" refutes common conceptions about the causal relationship between violent video games and violent behavior.

In other words, playing a few hours of GTA IV will not result in your kid stealing a car, careening through traffic and gunning down civilians.

"What I hope people realize is that there is no data to support the simple-minded concerns that video games cause violence," Kutner told Reuters News Service in an interview.

Their findings are a result of a two-year study of over 1,200 middle-school students. Unlike most studies set in sterile lab environments using psychological triggers, much of their data was collected by -- brace yourself -- actually talking to their young subjects.

The researchers did note a link between mature-rated titles and aggressive behavior, as a significant number of both boys and girls who played M-rated titles reported getting into more fights over the past year than kids who didn't play M-rated games.

However, Kutner and Olson point out that this simply demonstrates a correlation between violent games and aggression, not that one causes the other, suggesting the possibility that the kids attracted to mature-rated games were naturally aggressive to begin with.

Ultimately, "Grand Theft Childhood" advises parents concerned about their child's behavior to consider a wider range of factors than just their interest in violent games, including bad grades, too much fighting and, of course, obsessive gaming, so you might want to start trimming down those marathon sessions of Halo 3 when mom's around (or better yet, get her to play along with you).

-courtesy of Yahoo! Games. Graphics from Halo 3

Words fail us in the week that was Vacation Bible School 2008.

For more of the adventure God gave us, please feel free to explore our photo gallery and video file. You can also visit these sites for the complete coverage of VBS 2008:

- for more photos of VBS, from the making to the Teachers' Retreat, visit www.vbcya.multiply.com

- for videos of the "Sidekicks" episodes as well as production photos and stills, please visit www.angelworksmedia.multiply.com

- for videos of the "Sidekicks" episodes, you can also watch these on YouTube. Watch out also for exclusive videos of VBS on www.youtube.com (coming soon).