"I'm certain a Liberal Jesus wouldn't have anything to say about two homosexual men coming together in marriage"

Summer homework has increasingly become a popular tool used by teachers to bridge the gap between the end of one school year and the start of another. But some parents worry that the workload is making summer fun slip away.

"I don't know what good this really does," said Sheryl Preiss, a Baltimore, Maryland, mother parent of twin 13-year-old girls entering high school this year. "Life isn't always about a test. I think it's important for children to be children, to be well-rounded.

Some education experts say the "lazy, hazy, crazy" days of summer are over as schools feel increased pressure on accountability for student achievement under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

"It's really going to focus attention on this period of time when kids aren't engaged," said Ron Fairchild, executive director of the Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University.

But parents from Prince George's County in Maryland to Salt Lake City, Utah, are fighting back, questioning the usefulness and legality of teachers piling on summer reading and math problems.

"...despite the liberal lads you've been dating, there is hope out there."

"The 2004 Republican National Convention and MTV's "Choose or Lose: 20 Million LOUD!" campaign today announced Princella Smith of Wynne, AR, as the winner of the "Stand Up and Holla!" essay contest. Princella was announced as the winner on MTV's Total Request Live (TRL) this evening and will join Republicans from across the nation as they convene at Madison Square Garden this month to re-nominate President George W. Bush. Princella will take the stage as an official program participant and address the nation on Tuesday, August 31. Convention officials also announced that each of the top ten finalists for the contest have been invited to attend the convention. MTV's "Choose or Lose: 20 Million LOUD!" aims to get 20 million young voters, aged 18-30, to the polls in November."

"We have the privilege of uniting under a leader, President George W. Bush, who calls us to a higher purpose. Instead of Generation X, he inspires us to be what I call Generations X-ample...our generation of 18-year-old soldiers can take a stand against the horrors of terrorism in order to bring peace and democracy to those who have no hope...The president has called on our generation to move out into the world and adhere to the share of service: to volunteer in school tutoring programs through the No Child Left Behind Act; to get involved with after-school programs; to volunteer with church-sponsored events that aid the shut-ins and assist the needy; and to engage in charity..."

"My parents gave it all they had, but I didn't."

Craig Kingsbury writes:

"I thought your piece on 'graduating slaves' made some interesting points that deserve a lot more attention these days. It's possible that I'm not a great person to get involved in this debate; I'm a 28yo WM whose father put the money away to pay all my bills, so "it's easy for me to say" a lot of things, some of which may even be true. That being said...

1. There is no question in my mind that there is too much college going around these days. This could perhaps be corrected by raising standards; I went to Tufts, which is ostensibly an elite school, but even there the most substantial thing a large (30%?) portion of the kids did was to get in. All downhill from there.

2. Interesting new alternatives are emerging (c.f. University of Phoenix) which change some aspects of the equation by eliminating the full-time-residential aspect of college, which forces people to shoulder the massive opportunity cost of not working fulltime. Which coincidentally guarantees that students graduate with no work experience and thus suffer from huge disadvantages particularly in a down market.

3. If I were President of Harvard (ha!) I'd be inclined to announce that, beginning five years from now, we will not accept any student directly out of high school. You must be out a minimum of one year before you can apply. In practice this would mean a lot more kids going on backpacking trips through Europe and Thailand for a year, but even this would be an improvement. Kids at that age need to blow off a certain amount of steam. I think this worked very well with the baby boomers' parents because they were largely people who had been involved in WWII/Korea, where by your early twenties you'd had enough excitement and were ready to settle down.

4. Working in technology in Boston, I have been at the forefront of some of the changes (e.g. off shoring) that are causing many to question (rightly) long-held maxims of how one can obtain the Good Life. I mentioned to a friend, who was desperately unemployed as a low-level computer programmer of the kind now routinely shipped off to South Asia, that he ought to consider becoming an auto mechanic. I knew from consulting for a GM unit that one of the biggest problems all carmakers were facing was that service technicians were becoming largely unable to cope with the complexity for newer cars which had more computers than greasy parts. The result was that diagnosing and fixing problems could take many hours, all of which was being done under warranty at cost to the manufacturer. Now, this fellow absolutely loved high-performance European cars, talked of them day and night, and fantasized about maybe one day being able to afford one. S'truth, he could as a service tech make upwards of $50/hour, with many managers earning well into the 100k range around here, at least a third more than he was likely to make in IT, and besides, you can't have a guy in India fixing a car sitting in Worcester, so your job's more secure to boot. Similar arguments could be made for plenty of other trades, electricians and plumbers in particular.

But! Those are grubby-hands jobs with dirt under your fingernails. and what college-edumacated parent would be proud to say their son was an *auto mechanic*, even if he's got a nicer house than Bob's son the engineer because he didn't have 50k in loans to pay off?"

"Sidestepping parents and school authorities, PETA lures young and impressionable children into radical activism with a coordinated effort including the use of graphic comic books, grotesque toys, schoolyard demonstrations, e-mail alerts sent directly to 65,000 children, and even a classroom lecturer with a felony rap sheet."

"Our campaigns are always geared towards children and always will be." - PETA VP Dan Matthews, Fox News channel, (December 19, 2003)

"Alan Keyes doesn't talk white, he talks GREEN! Am I the only one who hears Kermit the d*** frog when he speaks?"

"Threatened with a sexual harassment lawsuit by his alleged male lover, having appointed him, a thoroughly unqualified man, as homeland security advisor at a time when America, in particular, the New York metropolitan area, is threatened with horrific terror and with any number of other instances of corruption already revealed and more likely to come out, Governor McGreevey saw the future and realized he had to resign from office.

But the way he did it was a masterstroke. He turned opprobrium into compassion.

He did it with one sentence. "I am a gay American."

On the face of it, it is irrelevant to whatever wrongs he may have committed against his state, his wife or his religion. But he did so because he knew that it would immediately deflect attention from his actions to his sexual orientation.

And then he would receive at least as much understanding and compassion as condemnation.
Why?

Because the moment he announced he was gay, people assumed that he did what he did because a homophobic society forced him, a homosexual, to live a fraudulent heterosexual life."

Dear Experts,

Can you be too fat to have sex? I really want to and I'm not fat, but I'm not a size 6. I'm a size 11 and am I too big to have sex? Can sex still be enjoyable if you're not as skinny?

Answer: Sex can be enjoyable for people of any size!

Dear Experts,

Hello, me and my boyfriend are ready for sex but we don't exacly know which protection we need. Do we only use a condom? What protection do we use?

Answer: Congrats on taking the first step to discussing protection - very smart thinking! Communication is one of the most important parts of being in any relationship, especially if it's a sexual one.

You need to decide which risks you are willing to take - and which ones you aren't. Condoms offer good protection against many sexually transmitted infections. Hormonal birth control methods, such as the Pill or the injection Depo Provera, offer the better protection against pregnancy - but they provide no protection against infection.

Dear Experts,

Hi. I am a bisexual, but i dont want people to know. I just want my partners to know. Is this wrong?

Answer: No. Coming out is a very personal decision. It is up to each person to decide if and when to come out, and who to come out to. Just keep in mind that it's totally normal to be bisexual. There are many people who have sex play with both girls and guys.

Dear Experts,

I want to know if it's too young for a 13-year-old girl to get pregnant?

Answer: There isn't a specific age that is the right time for a woman to get pregnant and raise a child...

They [former gang-bangers] also formed an organization, Saving Our Selves, to reduce gang violence. Since then, the group has been working with residents at Baxter Terrace, a public housing development where gang members have been doing neighborhood cleanup.

In a stunning declaration, Gov. James E. McGreevey announced his resignation Thursday and acknowledged that he had an extramarital affair with another man.

"My truth is that I am a gay American," he said.

"Shamefully, I engaged in adult consensual affairs with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony," the married father of two said. "It was wrong, it was foolish, it was inexcusable."

"The Democrat said his resignation would be effective Nov. 15. McGreevey said he would step down because his secret -- both his sexuality and his affair -- leaves the governor's office vulnerable."

"Another study published on Thursday found that teaching African-American girls how to boost their self-esteem can help them better control their sex lives.
Black teenage girls are more likely have sex and are more at risk of sexually transmitted diseases than white girls the same age, said Laura Salazar of Atlanta's Emory University.

"The changes in politics are rooted in changes in values. Last year, the rate of teen pregnancy dropped to a record low. Better birth control is not the sole explanation; the proportion of teens who had intercourse fell from 56 percent in 1991 to 46 percent in 2001.

Kids don't want casual sex; they want families. Harris Interactive reports that 91 percent plan to marry and, on average, they'd like three children.

Already, Generation X (born between 1965 and 1979) is more traditional than its parents. "The number of married-couple families, after declining in the '70s and '80s," writes Hymowitz, "rose 5.7 percent in the '90s." More brides are taking their husbands' names, and in 2000, the number of women in the workforce with infants dropped for the first time in decades. A study by Yankelovich found that 89 percent of Gen Xers think modern parents let kids get away with too much.

"From the veteran's perspective of Baldilocks to the playful philosophizing of Ambra Nykola, the Internet is suddenly full of great black writers whose views aren't monolithic - you'll find almost-daily disagreements about affirmative action, President Bush or the morality of gangsta rap - but instead offer a vibrant, hip-hop generation alternative to the broken record of the civil-rights establishment.

"Of course, a discussion of black conservative bloggers and the changes they're capable of effecting must include the following caveat, to keep commentators on the Left from getting their knickers any more twisted than usual: Blogging, while growing rapidly, still represents only a small part of the Internet experience. The number of blogs maintained by black Americans is, based on population figures, in all probability a small percentage of the overall total, and of that small percentage, it seems likely that the majority lean leftward. Most black conservative blogs number their visits per day in the hundreds, a far cry from the six-digit traffic generated by the best-known blogs, like Instapundit."

"Well, the good news is that some financially-strapped kids will get to go to college. But on a P.I.M.P. scholarship?

World Entertainment News Network reports that Nelly has put a spin on his infamous "Pimp Juice" song - and its new energy drink namesake - by offering a P.I.M.P. scholarship to disadvantaged students.

Dubbed the P.I.M.P. Scholars Program, (an acronym for Positive Intellectual Motivated Person), the scholarship will award one male and one female $5,000 each."

[...]the Trump Signature Collection, a line of men's suits, coats, slacks and, possibly, golfing gear, that will carry the Trump family crest"

"I do realize you have a choice in reading weblogs and sure do appreciate your business. Buh bye now. Buh-bye"

[...]"20- to 50-something readership of hemp-wearing, bicycle-riding, tofu-snorting, childless, 113-pound Trustafarians, and unreconstructed Deaniacs."

"We can illustrate the mixed messages with an exercise in visualization: a story, if you will, about today's schools.

Visualize two separate classrooms in the same school. In one classroom, "comprehensive sex education" is being taught. The students, (whose hormones, it is understood, dictate that they copulate like rabbits), are being taught how to deploy contraceptive devices. They are also urged to overcome their inhibitions (to what end is not clear) by saying out loud the correct terminology for male and female genitalia -- no giggles, this is serious business.

Meanwhile, in the classroom next door, the school's employees (except the sex Ed teacher, of course) are at a mandatory federally-funded seminar on avoiding sexual harassment. The curriculum carefully covers all of the social niceties these children of the sixties, seventies, and eighties missed under their mothers' tutelage: avoid discussing, touching, making eye contact with, or in any other way taking note of or mentioning genitalia. With traditional moral values having been swept away by the ACLU and Company, we now must erect legal barriers to constrain undesirable behavior. Pity.

These earnest reminders of appropriate behavior and legal boundaries will, no doubt, deter the pedophiles. And the hebephiles, which the new report dutifully identifies as the correct terminology for those who are attracted to seventeen-year-old teenagers, as opposed to those attracted to children.

Whatever.

Down the hallway in the principal's office, a new teacher is being hired. Unbeknownst to the leadership of the new school, this teacher has a history of sexual abuse with students. Unfortunately, this information was expunged from his record. Thanks to the efforts of his teachers' union, of which he is a member in good standing, identification of sexual predators is blocked.

What a kerfloogle.

"The soundest criticism I hear about Affirmative Action is that it essentially fights fire with fire. That it establishes a racial preference and that this sort of discrimination is flatly wrong. I accept that criticism, but only in the case of integrated applicants. A black kid from the integrated 'burbs doesn't need to be integrated again. A kid from a segregated neighborhood is defacto discriminated against on the basis of race (which established the ghetto in the first place) and that needs to be countered. This is important point. I'll return to it.

On balance, however, I still support Affirmative Action. It's still a good idea and it's still useful. However I don't think it is as important an issue as many folks make it out to be. It's not as important, for example, as school vouchers which would affect a great deal more people. It is not as important as the minimum wage. It is not as important as amnesty for illegal immigrants, tax reform, health care reform or (of course) our occupation of Iraq and War on Terror. It's not as important as the continuing debate over abortion rights, civil liberties vis a vis Homeland Security, police abuse, the drug problems, HIV/AIDS or the separation of powers."

"Letourneau's friends, lawyers involved in the case and officials at the State Department of Corrections say they've been fielding daily telephone calls from the "Today" show, "Oprah," "Primetime," "Inside Edition" -- even a British magazine and television stations in France and Germany."

"In Federal Way, a Seattle suburb, a teacher was convicted of child rape for loving a kid too well, namely her 15-year-old special-ed student. Over at Puyallup High School, south of Seattle, a 44-year-old teacher merely kissed a 16-year-old boy in her American Sign Language class, which turns to be a misdemeanor. No fuddy-duddy, she also took him to see Shrek and got a "Goth" tattoo. He praised her for "showing me another side of life." Just across the border in British Columbia, a 30-year-old teacher has gone to jail for ten months for sleeping with her 17-year-old student.

Evidence that female teachers across the country are showing boys another side of life comes most recently from Charlotte, N.C., where a 39-year-old was found in a van, naked from the waist down with a 13-year-old from her science class. She pleaded guilt to taking indecent liberties with a minor.

At age 22, James Joyce left his family, his church and his country for the European continent, in order to become a writer.

At age 22, Caresse Crosby, became the first person to patent a brassiere, which was made of two handkerchiefs and ribbon sewn together.

"Obviously, there are many low-income minority kids who strive and manage to do well in school despite their disadvantages. But sadly, they're not the majority. Too many of them -- and especially the boys -- accept the idea that school is a white-oriented institution that doesn't offer anything they need or want. The boys' attitude is to idolize millionaire rappers and basketball stars, to believe that you can't be a real man and a student at the same time and that if you study you're a sellout. This set of ideas is so strong and prevalent that it often affects even middle-class or lower-middle-class students.

For much of my childhood, I led a compartmentalized life. My day job included attendance at a predominately white school. I learned to cope. I'd never known anything different so it wasn't too hard. The rest of my life took place in the predominately black neighborhood in which my parents chose to raise us, my predominately black church, dance classes, track meets, and other extra-curricular activities. I got the best of "both worlds" so to speak. It sounds simple but it really wasn't at all. Attending an all-white school while the rest of my friends were in more racially diverse public schools often put me at the center of ridicule and in a perpetual state of proving my "blackness" (instead of "blackness" insert whatever stereotype you should be fulfilling). If you've ever tried this, you know it will turn you into a schizophrenic loony.

"Reka Barton, who will attend the University of Virginia in the fall...And the problem isn't limited to boys. I see a lot of focused, determined African American girls like Reka. But I'd be less than honest if I didn't admit that there is a group of hard-core girls who are the antithesis of young women like her. These girls are so crass that they are a source of both embarrassment and amusement to sophisticated black girls. Shouting, cursing, talking a garbled blue streak and threatening other girls are their trademarks."