Note:  In a humble effort to help keep busy people, including mamas, informed–I’m starting a new series of regurgitated news blogs to share interesting tidbits from around the world gleaned from a variety of sources from online, printed newspapers, magazines, et cetera. Enjoy!

April 14, 2013: Marcella Pattyn, 92, Deceased and Beguines Extinct After 800 Years

When I flipped to the last page of my recent The Economist magazine, April 27th-May 3rd 2013 edition, I learned something new.  I never knew there was an institution that allowed women to live out their days in prayer, chastity and service and yet not be bound by vows like every other convent.  They were like nuns in every way except that that they were free women to leave if they wanted to, they ran themselves by themselves without a patriarchy managing their every move. Amazing!  Why don’t we have more of these in existence?

Marcella Pattyn was evidently the last of the Beguines in Belgium.  As The Economist says about the story of the Beguines, “they had caught the medieval longing for apostolic simplicity, lay involvement and mysticism that also fired St Francis; but the male clergy, unable to control them, attacked them as heretics and burned some alive.  With the Protestant Reformation the order almost vanished; with the French revolution their property was lost, and they struggled to recover  In the high Middle Ages a city like Ghent could count its Beguines in thousands.  At Courtrai in 1960 Sister Marcella was one of only nine scattered among 40 neat white houses, sleeping in snowy linen in their narrow serge-curtained beds. And then there were none.”  See full story at http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21576632-marcella-pattyn-worlds-last-beguine-died-april-14th-aged-92-marcella-pattyn

World’s First 3D Printed Gun Has Been Fired in Texas Says Defense Distributed

3D printing has caught my special attention as nanotechnology did when it first emerged–reading the newspaper this morning I caught my breath as I read that Defense Distributed has created the Liberator, a gun that can be printed on a 3D printer except for the metal firing pin and a nonfunctional part.  The rest of the 16 parts of this gun can be printed on a 3D printer that reproduces the design with a heat-resistant plastic result to assemble this sure-to-stir-up-ire gun.

Hopefully you are aware of 3D printing technology, if not I highly suggest you conduct some personal research now. 3D printing for professional and personal usage has the possibility to become more a way of life than the general public is ready for since most Americans I know are pretty engrossed in their iPhones or other touch-screen devices to notice this rapidly growing technological advance that will make regulations for anything really meet their match in defiance.

A few links on this latest bit of news: http://www.forbes.com/sites/nigamarora/2013/05/06/3d-printed-guns-stir-up-governments-shoot-air-into-3d-printing-bubble/

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/05/06/shots-fired-from-world-first-3d-printed-gun/

Be well,

R.V.S.B.