A portrait in courage you’ll never forget: How muscular dystrophy child transformed a high school

Copyright (c) 2007 Derek Clontz/4-Page Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

IT WAS A PRETTY CRUEL group of kids who teased and tormented Billy Thomas through the 17 years of classroom study that it took for him to get his high school diploma.

As the length of time he spent in the classroom might indicate, Billy wasn’t quite like those other kids, nor was he quite so well equipped to excel in his classes.

It wasn’t that his intelligence was lacking. After all, he had an above-average IQ of 117.

A more likely candidate for his troubles was the muscular dystrophy that robbed him of his coordination and the simple strength required to turn the page of a book, pick up a pencil to sign his name or even wipe the drool from his own chin.

Of course, the kids Billy grew up with weren’t particularly concerned with the why or the how of it. They just knew  he was different – a “retard” - and something in their foolish hearts told them that tormenting Billy was, in fact, the “right” thing to do.

Looking back, folks say that if Billy ever had a friend, nobody was aware of it.

The one thing he did have was a smile on his face, through thick and thin, through all the teasing, through all the tormenting, until the bitter end, which came, it seemed, in a jarringly grotesque stroke of bad timing – when Billy fell into a coma just hours before the only dream he ever dared to dream was within his grasp: Graduating from high school.

A lot of people have a lot of opinions about what happened in the hours after he lost consciousness. Suffice it to say that the word spread fast.

And in one of those transformational “awakenings” that occasionally occur at times like this, the kids who had done everything in their power to make Billy’s life a living hell suddenly “got it.”

Some say it was the meanest and cruelest kids in school who carried Billy’s limp, comatose body into the high school assembly hall. Others say the meanest, cruelest kids were sobbing in the parking lot.

But the one thing everybody agrees on is this: There wasn’t a single cruel taunt awaiting Billy that night.

In fact, the only sound anyone recalls hearing was the ovation that rumbled like rolling summer thunder for 35 astonishing minutes, an ovation that might have gone on for hours if Billy’s eyelids hadn’t fluttered weakly open, enabling him to see his past, present, and future blending into one great and wonderful thing in the final moments of his life.

And in the whooshing avalanche of sound-becoming-silence that followed, a bone-thin hand wafted up from Billy’s side to accept the high school diploma that was the first and final symbol of achievement in what surely was, from the point of view of a simple “retard” such as Billy, a life damn well lived.

For what seemed like forever, folks say, but surely was just a fraction of a second, Billy held that precious scrap of paper in trembling, disease-weakened fingers, held it fast and tight before the burden of living became too much to bear.

In a time and space so deep, rich, full and heart-rending that tough guys grown men still weep with the simple act of recalling it, Billy’s eyelids closed as softly as a butterfly’s wings flutter for the last time.

 Just then, as you might very well imagine, Heaven’s newest resident – and surely its proudest high school graduate – breathed a shallow last breath, releasing an unconquerable spirit that found perfect freedom, at long, long, last, in a crippled kid’s sweet death.

Now you may think the story ends where it started, in Sydney, Australia, and when it started, on Sept. 12, 1957 – but that isn’t at all the case. Billy’s story continues to this day, you see, with the annual Graduates’ March, a candle-lit, 50-mile walk that has raised money for sick and dying children and their families for the past 50 years.

The leaders of the March are the “cruel” kids Billy attended school with. And the only ones missing year to year are thoe who have joined the brave kid who wasn’t “normal enough” to be their friend, but became their hero – and changed their lives forever.

Feminists want men replaced by robots by 2020, and experts say, ‘It can be done’

Copyright (c) 2007 Derek Clontz/4-Page Media, Inc.

FIREBRAND feminists have issued a startling challenge to scientists: Build us robots to replace men by the year 2020 - or else.

And, amazingly, experts in the fields of computer science and artificial intelligence say it can be done.

“We can make a serviceable male ‘sex-bot‘ right now,” Dr. Pauline Fallington, whose scholarly books on robotics and artificial intelligence are considered standards in the field, told me exclusively.

“But what we’re hearing women say they want is a robot that can perform all the functions of the human male, a machine that can hold simple conversations, perform passably for short periods in bed, do chores around the house, and provide a sense of physical security for those who are uncomfortable living alone.

“A tall order, it would seem, but certainly within the realm of what’s possible. I’d say it’s quite likely that we can create robots that will compare quite favorably with men if not surpass them.“

Male advocacy groups are outraged by the suggestion that men can be replaced by machines, especially in the bedroom where imagination and creativity play as much of a role as “mechanics.”.

But growing numbers of women are thrilled by the prospect – and they’re pressing for it.

“It’s been a man’s world long enough,” fumes Marilyn Foste, British author of the controversial new book, Real Women Don’t Wear Tampons (Foste Sisters Press, London).

“Women are making gains in the workplace, so we don’t need men to support us. About the only thing we do need them for is sex, for companionship, for protection and to help out with the kids.

“Talk to any woman with a significant other and ask her about her guy. She’ll tell you he’s uncouth, demanding, lazy, seldom talks or offers support, and is only a marginal player in the sack.

“So how sophisticated does a robot have to be to top that? I would suggest to you, not very.”

Amazingly, gay men are jumping on the “replace men with robots” bandwagon, too.

“We figure if women get the robots, we’ll get the men,“ chortles gay activist Roger Delacourt, also of London.

“This could do wonders for the gay movement.”

While gay men and feminists lick their chops over what the future might bring, men who subscribe to traditional views of sex, marriage and the family unit are preparing to fight back.

“Contrary to what some women might say, men are still in control,” says Rev. Dr. Paul Mort, Dallas, Texas-based clergyman with a shortwave ministry. “We might be a silent majority now, but if you press us too far, I think you’ll see us bring the little fillies back under control.”

Rev. Billy Graham’s End Times Prophecies – Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are riding now, says famed evangelist

Copyright (c) 2007 Derek Clontz/4-Page Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 

The Bible’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are riding now, as you read this, in the fulfillment of Bible prophecy that proves the end of the world is at hand.

That’s the word from famed evangelist Dr. Billy Graham, who declines to give an exact date for the end but flatly states: “I have heard the distant sound of hoofbeats and seen the evil riders on the horizon of our lives.

“There is serious trouble ahead for our world, for all of us who live in it. It will be a time of nuclear conflagrations, biological holocausts and chemical apocalypses rolling over the Earth, bringing man to the edge of the precipice.

“History will ‘bottom out’ in the battle of Armageddon,” he continued. “We already see its shadow creeping over the Earth. It is estimated that 40 wars are going on somewhere in the world at any given time,” continued the evangelist. “Any one of them could be the beginning of the beginning of the end.”

Dr. Graham expressed hid grim but ultimately hopeful vision of man’s future in his landmark book, Approaching Hoofbeats, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Avon Books, New York, $4.95).

The hope, as he points out, is found in the words of Jesus Christ, who promised to return to Earth before mankind is annihilated–and establish Heaven on Earth.

The problem, continues Dr. Graham, is the period if trial and tribulation, of pestilence, plague and world war, that we face before Christ returns.

In fact, in Matthew 24:22, Christ Himself said: “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive.”

For those who think the end will come “out of nowhere,” Dr. Graham points out that the end, in many ways, has been creeping up on mankind for years.

From the poisoning of the environment with pollutants of every description to the stockpiling of enough nuclear warheads to destroy the world 17 times over, the seeds of our own horrifying destruction have already been sown.

And yet, he notes, quoting 2 Peter 3:9, 10: ” The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The Heavens will disappear with a roar. The elements will be destroyed by fire and the Earth and everything in it.”

Before that cataclysmic event horrifyingly comes to pass, said Dr. Graham, mankind faces the terrible lies and wrath of Satan who, according to Revelation 6:8, will kill one quarter of the population of Earth–over a billion people. The spiritual death of billions more will impoverish the world. Drought, famine and pestilence will contribute to global starvation and suffering.

Millions will go mad with pain and terror. Disease even worse than AIDS will sweep the globe, contributing to the horrifying scenario that eventually leads to Armageddon itself.

And then, “Suddenly chaos grips the universe,” said Dr. Graham. An earthquake shakes the entire world, no Richter scale could measure its fury. There is a complete eclipse of the Sun. In fact, reports John (in Revelation), “The sun turned black….the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to Earth as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind.”

Only then, said Dr. Graham, will the misery turn to joy–after God closes the books on human history and establishes Paradise on Earth.

“Before judgement falls, however, God always warns,” said Dr. Graham. “And lest you be frightened by the specter of misery to come, you should really rejoice, because Christ tells us in the next to the last verse of the Bible: ‘I am coming soon.’”