Crisis in Iraq - five things you can ACTUALLY do to help, Published 08 August 2014 | Martin Saunders Christianity Today

A few weeks ago, I changed my social media profile photo. Like many others, I was responding to the awful situation in Mosul, Iraq, where my fellow Christians are reportedly being forced to convert to Islam, or otherwise being threatened with execution. It was a vague attempt to do something - anything - to help. I was standing in solidarity, if nothing else, and hopefully encouraging others to do the same.

The trouble of standing in solidarity however, is that when it's done from being a laptop screen in a cosy branch of Costa Coffee, it achieves pretty much nothing.

Fast forward a few weeks, and the situation is worse than ever. I don't need to recount here the horrible stories of forced conversions, people starving up mountains and beheaded children.

Here's the thing: we can't stand by while this happens. We just can't. If we call ourselves Christians - or even just human beings - we have to care enough to put down whatever we're doing and take a few minutes to engage.

So what, practically, can we do? I've spent a little while thinking, praying and asking others about that question, and here is a start.

Read more here:

Further Reading

The last Christian flees Mosul as ISIS continues its reign of terror in Iraq

Key Iraqi Christian leader: 'ISIS is worse than Genghis Khan'

The rise of ISIS: how an unknown splinter group came to dominate Iraq

Iraq persecution: The hidden minorities targeted by IS

Eric Pickles's appointment as Faith Minister is bad news for secularists, The New Statesman, The appointment of Eric Pickles to Faith Minister causes a right pickle for atheists

The Communities Secretary is a fierce defender of religious privilege. 

Earlier today, as Westminster reacted to Boris Johnson's announcement that he will stand for parliament in 2015, David Cameron carried out the mini-reshuffle necessitated by Baroness Warsi's resignation. Baroness Anelay, previously Lords Chief Whip, has replaced the Tory peer as Minister of State at the Foreign Office (attending cabinet), and Lord Taylor has taken Anelay's old post. Lord Bates has replaced Taylor as Under Secretary of State at the Home Office.

But the most eye-catching change is the transfer of Warsi's faith brief (which she hung onto after her demotion in 2012) to Eric Pickles. The Communities Secretary has regularly used his platform to attack secularists, declaring earlier this year that Britain is a "Christian nation" and that "militant atheists" should "get over it". That outburst was prompted by a legal bid by the National Secular Society to prevent local councils including prayers as part of their official agenda. He said:

I’ve stopped an attempt by militant atheists to ban councils having prayers at the start of meetings if they wish. Heaven forbid. We’re a Christian nation. We have an established church. Get over it. And don’t impose your politically correct intolerance on others.

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Homeowners fed up with council's refusal to repair road outside their houses order ton of tarmac and fill in the potholes themselves. Daily Mail

  Fed up residents forced to fix their own potholes after a year long dispute

  The 100 metre stretch of road had 100 potholes, some were 6ft wide 

  Homeowners, some in their 90s, said the potholes were 'dangerous'

  The pensioners, with an average age of 75, filled the holes themselves 

  Council refused to mend potholes due to a wrangle over road ownership 

Homeowners were fed up with their council's refusal to fix potholes outside their houses - so they ordered the tarmac and did it themselves.  

After a year long fight to fix 100 potholes on a 100 metre stretch of road, six pensioners, of Pudsey, Leeds, took matters into their own hands and repaired them themselves.

The men refused to take no for an answer when Leeds City Council highways bosses declined to carry out the work on the basis it is a private unadopted road.

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Further Reading here:

A hero for our time: Inspired by the man who built his own toll road? He's one of countless Britons rising up to solve problems the State's too useless to fix Daily Mail

Businessman sets up private toll road just 340 yards long charging motorists £2 a time to bypass closed section of main road. Daily Mail.

Militant Spanish mayor plans invasion of Gibraltar in anti-British protest, Daily Express

A MILITANT Spanish mayor has announced plans to occupy Gibraltar with thousands of supporters in a one-day protest to claim the disputed territory for Spain.

Communist Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo made headlines two years ago after organising Robin Hood-style raids on supermarkets and handouts of the stolen food to poor families.

Now the left-wing union he leads is preparing for a mass invasion of the Rock on August 29.

Gordillo, mayor of the town of Marinaleda near Seville as well as head of the Andalucian Workers Union, has claimed they will cross the border peacefully.

But he has insisted on keeping secret the details on how he and his supporters will get into Gibraltar, hinting union members could cross by foot and car as well as arriving by plane and boat before staging their headline-grabbing protest.

Around 2,000 people are expected to take part although the union has 20,000 members and is hoping for support on the day from Spaniards who work on the Rock or are visiting as tourists.

Mr Sanchez, who boasts of running his town like a communist utopia, told a Spanish paper: "We will enter Gibraltar from different points and then see what we do. "It will be a peaceful demonstration but a very revindicative one."We have to take advantage of the surprise factor to be able to achieve our aims."

Read more here:

Further Reading here:

Gibraltar rejects Spanish border plans, Daily Telegraph

Gays Are 1 in 50, Not 1 in 4, Michael Brown, In the Line of Fire. Charisma Magazine

According to a 2011 Gallup poll, Americans thought that 25 percent of the population was gay (meaning one out of every four people), while those aged 18-29 put the figure at closer to 30 percent (meaning almost one in every three people). The reality is that less than 2 percent of the population is gay (meaning fewer than one in 50 people), and many gay leaders know this is true.

People of America, you have been duped.

For many years, we were told that "one in every 10 Americans" was gay, a figure based on the massively flawed 1948 study of Alfred Kinsey. (Kinsey actually relied on data from male prisoners to come up with his statistics.)

Even though gay activists knew the figure was inflated, they used it as a convenient lie, since, as two leading gay strategists noted in the late 1980s, "there is strength in numbers." (For details, go here.) As expressed by a gay leader a few days ago, "The truth is, numbers matter, and political influence matters."

In other words, if Americans realized that less than 2 percent of the population was gay rather 10 percent (let alone 25 percent), they would have a very different view of "gay rights."

To be sure, it is wrong to bully or oppress or mistreat anyone based on gender or ethnicity or romantic attractions, so that is not the question. And whether gays are 1 percent of the population or 90 percent, they should not be mistreated.

Read more here:

Further Reading:

Equal Marriage : Just Plain Wrong: A Christian Perspective on the Gay Marriage Debate in the UK Equal Marriage; Just Plain Wrong.

Twitter row as Ed Miliband is ridiculed for stark message on WWI centenary wreath in contrast to David Cameron's handwritten note. Daily Mail

  Labour Leader's wreath message said: 'From the Leader of the Opposition'

  His supporters claim he was handed the wreath and note seconds earlier

  David Cameron and Prince Charles left handwritten messages at Cenotaph 

Ed Miliband was ridiculed today after laying a wreath honouring the First World War dead with a scruffy message that read: 'From the Leader of the Opposition'

.

The note, scrawled with a black marker, was left at the Cenotaph in Glasgow today and has been branded 'pathetic' and 'distasteful'.

But the Labour leader's team say he was denied the chance to write his own message and was only handed the wreath by organisers moments before he put it down.  

In contrast David Cameron's message read: 'Our most enduring legacy is our liberty. We must never forget' and was signed personally by the Prime Minister.

The Prince of Wales also wrote his own note, which said: 'In everlasting memory, Charles'.  

Nick Clegg also put down a wreath with a note in the same handwriting, which only said: 'From the Deputy Prime Minister'. 

The incident has led to a row online with some calling Mr Miliband 'pathetic' and others claiming he had been 'stitched up'. 

Sarah Cochrane wrote: 'I think Ed Miliband's message on the wreath is pathetic. He couldn't even be bothered to write his own name'.

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Alex Salmond's must-win fight for independence played out on live TV as Alistair Darling is urged to 'keep it boring' Daily Mail

 

  First Minister to go head-to-head with former Chancellor tomorrow night

  Salmond wanted debate with Cameron but Darling is leading No campaign

  Voters have their say in the independence referendum on September 18 

Alex Salmond will tomorrow face one of the biggest tests of his political career as he prepares for a TV showdown that he must win to have any hope of referendum victory.

The First Minister is under intense pressure going into the STV debate, with a new poll revealing that only a quarter of No voters expect Mr Darling to win the contest.

Failure to land a killer blow could end Mr Salmond's hopes of splitting the United Kingdom, and he is receiving help from taxpayer-funded civil servants and a lifestyle guru in a last throw of the dice before the referendum.

Campaign leaders in both camps are taking the two-hour TV programme very seriously, right down to the colour of tie the two politicians should wear, and the broadcaster is hoping for an audience in seven figures. However, experts have warned such programmes rarely reshape the political landscape.

As an uneasy truce for the Commonwealth Games comes to an end, there will now be open warfare between both sides for the final few weeks of the referendum battle, with families set to be bombarded by mailshots costing taxpayers more than £850,000.

Time is running out for the SNP, with a new poll for The Scottish Mail on Sunday showing Unionist campaign's lead has increased slightly in recent days.

The findings are a massive humiliation for Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who used a Sunday newspaper interview yesterday to claim that Scotland's stunning success in the Commonwealth Games could give the Yes campaign the 'momentum' to win the referendum. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg last night accused her of 'sullying' the Games.

Read more here:

Further Reading:

Alex Salmond must leave Alistair Darling 'on the floor' in independence TV debate

Scottish Independence, a Vehicle for Alex Salmond's Grandiose Ego ?

Comment:

To put it quite simply,  Scottish Independence would be both an economic and financial disaster for Scotland and it’s people,  The SNP have no sound economic plan and can’t even decide what currency they want to use,  without the Westminster  Block Grant and the Pound,  any post independence  Scottish Government would either have to borrow heavily from the International Financial Markets and/or raise Taxation. 

Blair Humphreys

We've lost the faith of public on immigration, says Clegg: Deputy PM thinks people do not believe what ministers tell them as it doesn't tally with what they see on the ground. Daily Mail

  Deputy Prime Minister due to give a speech on immigration tomorrow

  He will say people are 'repeatedly told one thing only to see another'

  Clegg will speak out in favour of free movement of European citizens

  But he will seek reforms ensuring fewer Eastern Europeans move here if more countries are admitted to the EU in future

  Labour's Rachel Reeves will also call for reforms to freedom of movement

The public has lost faith in government claims about tackling immigration because it does not tally with what they see on the ground, Nick Clegg will admit. 

In a speech on immigration tomorrow, the Deputy Prime Minister will say it is ‘no wonder’ that people do not believe what ministers tell them when they have been ‘repeatedly told one thing only to then see another’.

He will speak out in favour of the free movement of European citizens but seek reforms to ensure that fewer Eastern Europeans move here if more countries are admitted to the EU in future.

Read more here:

Further Reading:

Labour MPs tell Ed to sack Balls or we will lost the next Election: Shadow Chancellor under fire after he blocks extra health tax.

  A whispering campaign against Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has started

  Mr Balls is fighting battle with Andy Burnham over their manifesto policies 

  He has categorically ruled out a ring-fenced tax to boost funding for NHS

  MPs have now put Labour's Ed Miliband under pressure to sack Mr Balls

  A whispering campaign against Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has started

  Mr Balls is fighting battle with Andy Burnham over their manifesto policies 

  He has categorically ruled out a ring-fenced tax to boost funding for NHS

  MPs have now put Labour's Ed Miliband under pressure to sack Mr Balls

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Darling’s ultimate TV test... save the Union in two hours. Daily Mail.

It will be the most important televised clash in British history. On Tuesday night, Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling will debate Scottish independence.

 With only six weeks to go to the referendum, more than a million Scots are expected to tune in. Salmond has two hours to revive the flagging case for Scottish independence – and Darling two hours to secure the Union.

Salmond has been preparing intensively for this debate. The word is that he is relying on a lifestyle coach to help make sure he sounds sufficiently upbeat.

As one of his opponents observes: ‘If shouty Salmond turns up, he’ll turn off women.’

Darling is under a different kind of pressure. One big slip and he puts the entire Union in jeopardy. He will spend this weekend conducting mock debates against people playing Alex Salmond.

His team feels that after two years of public meetings and interviews on independence, he knows what he wants to say and how he wants to say it.

But this hasn’t stopped nervousness in London about how Darling will perform. Some Cabinet Ministers are fretting that Darling isn’t Scottish enough.

This might seem a bizarre thing to say about someone who went to school and university in Scotland and sits for Edinburgh South West in the House of Commons.

But in Salmond’s world, Westminster is a foreign country.

‘Salmond will play dirty,’ warns one Cabinet Minister. ‘He won’t hesitate to try to portray Alistair as an English lackey.’

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Red Len’s right-hand man backs the pro-Putin rebels: Unite union’s chief of staff brands Kiev rulers ‘fascist’ Daily Mail

  Andrew Murray is chief of staff of Britain’s largest trade union Unite

  Mr Murray was chairman of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 until 2011

  ‘We must demand that our government stops supporting EU and Nato expansion' 

The chief of staff of Britain’s largest trade union Unite has launched a group supporting pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

Rebel groups are now widely suspected of shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in the east of the country.

Andrew Murray, right-hand man to the Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, spoke at the inaugural meeting of a campaign called Solidarity With The Antifascist Resistance In Ukraine (SARU) in June.

‘We must demand that our government stops supporting EU and Nato expansion and stops supporting the Kiev government.’

Since the airliner was shot down last month, with the loss of all 298 people on board, SARU has held a demonstration outside the Ukrainian Embassy in London, against ‘repression in Eastern Ukraine’.

A posting on the SARU website read: ‘Protesters also spoke up against the media coverage of the downed Malaysian flight MH17 over Eastern Ukraine, criticising the haste [sic] attribution of guilt to Russian President Vladimir Putin.’

Elsewhere it suggested that the airliner flew ‘lower than usual over the danger zone at the request of the Ukrainian dispatchers’.

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Businessman sets up private toll road just 340 yards long charging motorists £2 a time to bypass closed section of main road. Daily Mail.

  The A431 Kelston Road between Bath and Bristol was shut in February following a landslip and won;t be repaired until the end of the year

  Local resident Mike Watts put up £150,000 of his own money to build bypass

  The route which opened yesterday is first privately run toll road to be built since cars became a familiar sight more than 100 years ago

  The toll road is just 340 yards in length but avoids a 10-mile detour

  Local council about road unhappy citing health and safety concerns 

A savvy grandfather who was sick of roadworks near his home has defied his council and built his own bypass toll road - the first for more than 100 years.

Businessman Mike Watts decided to open the thoroughfare - made of a mix of asphalt and chippings - to bypass a closed section of the A431 between Bath and Bristol.

The Kelston Road was shut in February following a landslip and officials say that it will not be repaired until the end of the year.

But a new makeshift road, which costs £2 a time to use, re-opens the important 'back road' - which is used by commuters going between the two cities.

Local villagers in nearby Kelston have repeatedly criticised Bath & North East Somerset Council for not re-opening the main road sooner and say it has caused major traffic problems in the area.

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Defiance of the pregnant gipsies: A judge has blocked the eviction of 150 gipsies from a playing field because three are expecting. SUE REID found them with swanky cars, flash TVs - and not a hint of shame Daily Mail

Wearing a tight white cotton top that shows every curve of her pregnancy, Jane Lee stands at the door of her caravan on a pretty Staffordshire town’s playing fields. 

It is a perfect summer evening and the 27-year-old is puffing relentlessly on a cigarette just a few days before having her fifth baby.

A tall blonde, she watches contentedly as her children (aged eight, six, four and two) play on the grass. Occasionally, one of them darts into the caravan to sit on the sofa and watch the cartoons blaring out from a big flatscreen TV inside.

They say they are sick of the pitch being besieged by gipsies, who they claim use the bushes for lavatories, drop litter and churn up the grass with the wheels of their caravans, lorries, quad bikes and large cars.

There is also the constant hum of generators feeding power into the caravans, with cables spread across the ground.

One woman with a house overlooking the pitch has made unproven claims of theft — which the gipsies indignantly denied to me. There is talk of house prices nosediving.

A football match scheduled during a previous visit by the travellers in March was abandoned, and a one-day children’s tournament later this month, involving 90 teams from all over the country, must be cancelled if the gipsies don’t move on. No wonder tempers are running high.

One of the tournament’s organisers, Roland Hulse, has criticised the local Newcastle Borough Council for failing to stop the gipsies getting on the land in the first place, then failing to kick them off once they had arrived a fortnight ago.

Yesterday he said angrily: ‘This is the biggest one-day football tournament of its kind but it’s in jeopardy if the gipsies don’t leave soon.

‘More than 400 kids will be without their football. If these were ordinary people on this land, they would be arrested for criminal damage and have their quad bikes confiscated. What makes them any different?’

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Scientist who claims fracking is dangerous and argues against drilling applications is a 'fraud who has lied about his credentials' Daily Mail

·        David Smythe accused of being less than totally honest over his credentials as shale gas expert

·        Retired geologist has been prominent in highlighting dangers of fracking

·        Professor at his old university accuses him of 'pseudo-scientific scaremongering'

·        Geological Society demands he stops claiming to be chartered geologist

·        Mr Smythe insists he has done extensive research into unconventional energy extraction

• 

 The retired geologist and former punk rock guitarist has been prominent in highlighting the dangers of fracking and last week helped to persuade a county council to reject an application to drill an exploratory shale well.

But a professor at his old university now accuses him of ‘pseudo-scientific scaremongering’.

The Geological Society has also written to Mr Smythe – who has the title ‘Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, University of Glasgow’ – demanding that he stops claiming to be a chartered geologist.

Glasgow University, where he last worked in 1998, has told him he must not suggest that its academics share his views. And Prof Paul Younger, Glasgow’s professor of energy engineering, said Mr Smythe – who played bass guitar in the 70s punk band The Rezillos – was unqualified to give expert evidence on fracking, having retired 16 years ago.

’He has published nothing on (shale gas) in any proper scientific forum – no doubt because he knows he would never get past peer review with his pseudo-scientific scaremongering

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How mass migration hurts us all: No, it's not the Mail saying this, but the verdict of a top Left-wing economist from Cambridge

The findings are a major blow to claims that immigration has and will continue to bring major economic benefits. Over the past decade, widely-publicised studies by academics and liberal think tanks have repeatedly said that immigration will make us better off.

Among those reported by the BBC have been claims by the Labour-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research that immigrants are paying a disproportionate share of the nation’s taxes, and that they bring economic benefits because they do jobs that Britons will not take.

Last November the BBC reported a study by two senior academics at University College London as saying immigrants who have arrived since 2000 have made a ‘substantial’ addition to public finances.

However, since Tony Blair introduced an effectively open-door immigration policy after the 1997 election the Daily Mail has been reporting on the impact of migration on population; on the social make-up of cities; on unemployment, worklessness, and declining wages for low-skilled workers; and on the pressure it has brought on housing and services.

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Isaiah 58:6-12 Nasb

“Is this not the fast which I choose,
To loosen the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the bands of the yoke,
And to let the oppressed go free
And break every yoke?
⁷ “Is it not to divide your bread ^[c]with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, to cover him;
And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
⁸ “Then your light will break out like the dawn,
And your recovery will speedily spring forth;
And your righteousness will go before you;
The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
⁹ “Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
You will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you remove the yoke from your midst,
The ^[d]pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness,
¹⁰ And if you ^[e]give yourself to the hungry
And satisfy the ^[f]desire of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness
And your gloom will become like midday.
¹¹ “And the Lord will continually guide you,
And satisfy your ^[g]desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not ^[h]fail.
¹² “Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins;
You will raise up the age-old foundations;
And you will be called the repairer of the breach,
The restorer of the ^[i]streets in which to dwell.

Ten coastal towns get £8.5m for projects, BBC News

Ten coastal towns have been given £8.5m in government cash to help create nearly 1,400 jobs and repair storm-damaged areas.

Schemes set to benefit include the Jubilee Pool in Penzance, Old Portsmouth's historic arches, and the South West Coastal Path.

The cash will be used to create tourist attractions, regenerate historic sites and provide new flood defences.

The awards come from the Big Lottery's Coastal Community Fund.

Continue reading the main story

Funding award list

• ·        Jubilee Pool, Penzance, Cornwall - £1.95m
• 
  
• ·        Historic arches, Old Portsmouth, Hampshire - £1.755m
• ·        South West Coastal Path, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset - £999,000
• ·        Historic Fruit Market, Kingston upon Hull - £800,000
• ·        Waldringfield Flood Defence, Suffolk - £633,000
• ·        Maltings Building, Wells-next-the-Sea, near Cromer, Norfolk - £610,000
• ·        Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Spurn Point - £498,000
• ·        RSPB Nature Reserve, Bempton Cliffs, Humberside - £452,000
• ·        Youth Hostels in Brighton, East Sussex, and Robin Hoods Bay, North Yorkshire - £401,000
• ·        Park View 4 U, near Lytham St Annes, Lancashire - £395,000
• ·        Coastal Communities minister Penny Mordaunt said the money was set to make a "big difference" to towns affected by the winter storms.

British taxpayers help fund £20billion EU handout to struggling Portugal, Daily Express

Jose Manuel Barroso

FURY erupted today after the EU gifted cash-strapped Portugal a £20 billion handout to help boost its crumbling economy.

Most of the money will be spent on training and education in a bid to cut rampant unemployment and revive Portuguese economic fortunes by the end of the decade.

Critics warned it means British taxpayers' will be effectively forking out up to £2.7 billion over the next seven years to help prop up one of Europe's basket case nations.

Unemployment in Portugal is currently surging at 14.3 per cent, while one of its biggest banks is teetering on the brink following massive losses.

It was also suggested that the 'growth fund' was a parting gift from Portuguese European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso before he leaves later this year.

Ukip MEP and the party's Economy spokesman Patrick O'Flynn blasted the deal, saying that it was "tipping money down the drain".

He added: "There is only one way for Portugal's economy to recover and generate new jobs and investment and that will be to leave the Euro and restore its own national currency.

"This must amount to the most expensive sticking plaster in history and British voters will be outraged."

Read more here:

The Myth of Mary Seacole

Lessons in lies: How  the BBC, school text books and even exam boards have twisted history to smear Florence Nightingale and make a saint of this woman, Daily Mail  by  PROFESSOR LYNN MCDONALD

·         Commemorative statue of Mary Seacole was unveiled in London last month

·         Seacole has been treated with huge reverence - but is surrounded by myth

·         Presented as medical pioneer - though she was never even a nurse

·         Even school exams award marks for repeating falsehoods about Seacole

·         Florence Nightingale - an actual pioneer - is often denigrated in comparison 

Across the river from the Houses of Parliament in London, a small yet significant ceremony took place last month.

As a few dignitaries looked on in the gardens of St Thomas’ Hospital, a Church of England chaplain blessed the ground where a 10ft statue is to be erected next summer.

While few public artworks are treated with quite such reverence, all the great and good who gathered for the event were conscious that the £500,000 bronze will be the first public memorial to celebrate the ‘black pioneer nurse’ Mary Seacole.

Although some would say she was morally deserving of recognition –- and indeed a statue - for her warm heart and personal courage, the story of Mary Seacole has been spun out of all proportion, her memory hijacked and her achievements embellished in order to provide a role model.

Read more here:

Further Reading:

The black Florence Nightingale and the making of a PC myth: One historian explains how Mary Seacole's story never stood up

Florence Nightingale, Nursing Legend, British Icon