Free Republic

When the federal Liberals lose the next election and Stephane Dion is forced to resign, the words "Green Shift" will no doubt appear prominently in the first paragraph or two of his political obituary. As a cautionary tale, it will rank right up there with John Tory's disastrous religious school funding proposal in Ontario. Ironically, the legacy of this self-described green zealot will be to kill serious environmentalism in this country for years to come. That's too bad, because the concept of a carbon tax actually makes sense --even, dare I say, to conservatives. I am talking here about a...

Black conservatives conflicted on Obama campaign By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Black conservative talk show host Armstrong Williams has never voted for a Democrat for president. That could change this year with Barack Obama as the Democratic Party's nominee. "I don't necessarily like his policies; I don't like much that he advocates, but for the first time in my life, history thrusts me to really seriously think about it," Williams said. "I can honestly say I have no idea who I'm going to pull that lever for in November. And to me, that's incredible." Just as...

Obama Praised Wright, Criticized Traditional Black Churches on Homosexuality By Penny Starr CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer May 29, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - In an Apr. 10 interview with The Advocate magazine, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said "homophobic" messages are coming from the pulpits of black churches because blacks attend church more regularly than other people and interpret the Bible more traditionally. In the same interview, Obama praised the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor and long-time spiritual adviser, for being on the right side of the homosexual debate. "There's plenty of homophobia to go around, but you have a unique...

Fisherman’s Shoes Find Target by: Malcolm A. Kline, April 24, 2008 Despite what you may have been lead to believe by the so-called mainstream media, the Pope delivered an address to Catholic college presidents that could be summarized as My Way or The Highway. The Pope addressed the United Nations in an approach that longtime students of the UN might characterize as one of rapprochement. Nonetheless, his remarks to the college presidents, according to attendees at that meeting were, if not remonstrative, then at least reminders of the need to pass on actual Catholic teaching in universities that bear that...

According to this AOL internet pol of 215,000. Every State in the Country feels that Barak Obama is a fake Christian except for Washington D.C.

Anybody know if there are sites similar to "FR", sites where Christians/conservatives can post, discuss? Thank you. John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com JLof@aol.com

CINO Prep by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 07, 2008 Although Catholic schools look good when compared with their public counterparts, they don’t fare as well in contrast to the way they used to be. In the wake of Vatican II, “Radical reformers tore at every aspect of Catholic life, questioning time-honored practices and beliefs,” Phillip F. Lawler writes in The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture. “Catholic schools jettisoned their religious education programs; the old reliable Baltimore Catechism quickly became a collectors item.” “In parochial high schools, religion classes became freewheeling discussion sessions, with students encouraged to reflect...

~EXCERPT~ Hillary Rodham Clinton has run away with the votes of Roman Catholic Democrats in nearly all the primaries, often beating Barack Obama by two to one or better, exit polls show. In New York, she received 66 percent of the Catholic vote to his 30 percent. “I didn’t go to bed until 1 in the morning waiting on the results,” said Joe Quinn, a Catholic who is a building superintendent on the Upper West Side. “I slept very well, let me tell you.” Does it matter whom Catholics like Mr. Quinn voted for in the Democratic primaries? By November,...

There is head-scratching in the political marketplace over a looming contradiction. The candidates for president of the United States include a man identified as a Roman Catholic, and among the voters there are, of course, many Catholics. It would be reasonable to suppose that Candidate Giuliani would get the presumptive backing of the Catholic population. But there are a couple of caveats. First, is Giuliani a Catholic other than nominally? Because his name is Italian, one assumes that he subscribes to the faith associated with the Italian people. As a boy, he went to Catholic schools, and he was apparently...

Pelosi: Sadomasochistic Last Supper Ad Doesn't 'Harm' Christianity By Nathan Burchfiel CNSNews.com Staff Writer September 28, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - A controversial advertisement for a San Francisco festival that depicts the Last Supper as a sadomasochism party falls within the First Amendment and is not harmful to Christianity, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday. The ad for the Folsom Street Fair - to be held in Pelosi's district on Sunday and which is partly funded by San Francisco's Grants for the Arts program, which is funded by the city's hotel tax - sparked outrage from Christian groups because it mirrors...

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani visits with local residents during a brief presidential campaign stop, Thursday, September 27, 2007 in Santa Barbara, Calif. Michael A. Mariant Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani visits with local residents during a brief presidential campaign stop, Thursday, September 27, 2007 in Santa Barbara, Calif. WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani compared the scrutiny of his personal life marked by three marriages to the biblical story of how Jesus dealt with an adulterous woman. In an interview posted online Friday, Giuliani was questioned about his family and told the Christian Broadcasting Network, "I...

Participant in previous Folsom Street Fair, which features public displays of nudity and sexual fetishes Asked to respond to a San Francisco "gay"-festival's promo mocking the Last Supper of Jesus Christ, the chief spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a dismissive quip. "As a Catholic, the speaker is confident that Christianity has not been harmed," said Drew Hammill, the San Francisco Democrat's press secretary. WND reported earlier this week the Last Supper poster promoting the Folsom Street Fair replaces the bread and wine with sex toys and depicts Jesus Christ and his disciples as "half-naked homosexual sadomasochists." Scheduled for...

Progressive Baptist women wary of Hillary Clinton's candidacyBy Hannah Elliott Published September 6, 2007 NEW YORK (ABP) -- Many Christian conservatives have put her in the “anyone but” category -- they’ll vote for anyone but Hillary Clinton. However, progressive Christians, who some think should be the senator's natural allies, aren't jumping on her bandwagon either. While Clinton might win some evangelical support if she can portray her faith as authentic, say political observers, she simply must win support from progressive and liberal Christians to have a chance of gaining the White House. Clinton's campaign is aggressively cultivating progressive Christians, who...

A week before the grand opening of Plainfield's first hip-hop house of worship, Church 'N' the Hood, the Rev. LaDana Clark -- also known as "Lady Jam" -- sat in the basement of the Grace Episcopal Church, the place that would soon welcome her future parishioners. She was calm despite the obvious excitement of others in the room, members of the community dedicated to helping with the church's debut. She smiled and listened as they talked about their hopes for the mission. Then she started to talk. "God does not discriminate -- no matter if you're Jewish, Muslim, black, white,...

Pope Benedict XVI is greeted by children on his arrival for his annual holidays in Lorenzago di Cadore, northern Italy yesterdayI STUMBLED upon a Latin Mass last winter. It was grim, joyless, interminable and disquieting. There was no music. Nobody shook hands or brought gifts to the altar. It was as exuberant a celebration of creation as an expired fly left to rot on a window sill. The only fanfare that threatened was the persistent, pedantic locking and unlocking of the little gate in the altar railing. A priest passed through this gateway at one stage, came to the side...

MEDIA ADVISORY, July 2 /Christian Newswire/ -- I have just heard from John O'Gorman, the Fighting Knight of Columbus from Massachusetts, that the 170,000 signature Initiative Petition to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman was thwarted by the Legislature, meeting in joint Constitutional Convention, on Thursday, June 14 2007. The sad part is it would have passed to go on the ballot in 2008 had it not been for the votes of at least sixteen men who call themselves Knights of Columbus who voted against the Church they are supposed to be Knights of, and...

<p>A Roman Catholic nun who leads a social justice advocacy group called Network, Simone Campbell rarely got a phone call from Capitol Hill before the 2006 election. Campbell, based in Washington, D.C., says she "wore her knuckles bare" fruitlessly knocking on lawmakers' doors, particularly those of Democrats who should have been natural allies on issues like raising the minimum wage and comprehensive immigration reform.</p>

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 11, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The ability to destroy human embryos to cure diseases is a “gift from God” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a self-described “devout Catholic”, referring to the recent bill passed to fund human embryonic stem-cell research. “Science is a gift of God to all of us and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “And that is the embryonic stem cell research.” Pro-life and Catholic leaders, however, have found Pelosi’s statement shocking for its suggestion that God would provide so-called...

Providence, RI (LifeNews.com) -- A Catholic bishop has issued public comments rebuking Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, who is Catholic, for his pro-abortion position. Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island described Giuliani's position on abortion as "pathetic," "confusing," and "hypocritical." The critique came in his weekly column 'Without A Doubt' that runs in 'The Rhode Island Catholic' newspaper. In his column Bishop Tobin exposes the hypocrisy of the "personally opposed, but ... " position employed by many Catholic politicians. "Rudy's explanation is a classic expression of the position on abortion we have heard from weak-kneed...

Schwarzenegger: "I am a Catholic and a very dedicated Catholic, but" I support Research on Human Embryos TORONTO, June 1, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Speaking at a press conference at the MaRS Discovery District research centre in Toronto yesterday, actor-turned California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger defended his support for embryonic stem cell research seen as controversial in light of his self-professed Catholic faith. "I always said that you should not have your religion interfere with government policies or with the policies of the people," said Schwarzenegger. "I am a Catholic and a very dedicated Catholic, but that does not interfere with my...

CHICAGO, May 28, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – DePaul University in Chicago, one of the largest and most important Catholic universities in the US is hosting the second “Out There” conference on homosexuality and Catholic education. The conference, whose full title is the Conference of Scholars and Student Affairs Personnel Involved in “LGBTQ” (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer) issues on Catholic Campuses, is being organized through the DePaul Women’s and Gender Studies department. It is scheduled for October 19-20, 2007 and is calling for submissions for papers and workshops. The first Out There conference was held at Jesuit-run Santa Clara...

WASHINGTON, May 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered the commencement address this morning at the University of San Francisco's McLaren School of Business. Below are her remarks as prepared: "Good morning. Thank you, Dean Johnson for your warm welcome. Father President Privett, trustees, faculty, staff, and families and friends of the graduates, especially to graduates: it is an honor to join you today to extend congratulations to the Class of 2007 of the McLaren School of Business at the University of San Francisco. "Father Privett, may I thank you publicly for the honor you extended to me by offering...

FRONT ROYAL, Va., May 17 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, STL, president of Human Life International, (HLI) today said "Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3) and seventeen other members of Congress who describe themselves as Catholic not only are ignorant of their faith but also need a civics lesson." Father Euteneuer was responding to their rebuke of Pope Benedict XVI in a press release from DeLauro's office which stated that the Pope's recent comments that Catholic politicians risk excommunication and should not receive Communion by saying, "Such notions offend the very nature of the American experiment and do...

Giuliani's words have hollow ring Presidential hopeful keeps flip-flopping Steven Edwards, National Post Published: Wednesday, May 16, 2007 With flip-flopping a sure way to ensure rejection at the polls, what's a presidential candidate to do when his political record clashes with the bedrock beliefs of the party he seeks to represent? Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, is taking on the Republican rank-and-file when he asks them to nominate him despite his refusal to renounce his support for abortion. He claims this shows he has the courage to state his views frankly, regardless of their popularity. It's a...

THE NEW WORLD DISORDERReport: 'Free trade' enslaves poor nations Globalization benefits wealthy exporters at expense of farmers, workers, says Oxfam World Net Daily March 31, 2007 WASHINGTON – So-called "free trade" agreements are not free at all, victimizing the poor while benefiting the wealthy, says a new report by Oxfam International, the coalition fighting poverty, suffering and social injustice around the world. Nevertheless, a trend toward regional agreements and globalization continues, with an average of two bilateral or multilateral investment treaties being signed every week, according to the study. "In an increasingly globalized world, these agreements seek to benefit...

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 3, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney, Australia, delivered at the conference sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Life and held in the Vatican last Friday and Saturday. The theme of the conference was "The Christian Conscience in Support of the Right to Life." * * * The moral conscience in ethics and the contemporary crisis of authority 1. The voice of conscience 1.1 What conscience is not It might scandalize you to hear that I keep a lady in my car to instruct me on which way to go in...

They are saying that the next GOP presidential candidate might very well be a pro-abortion Republican who promises not to push that issue and is strong on other issues. They hope that pro-lifers will “be reasonable,� not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and go along quietly. We won’t. Republicans and Democrats in 1980 took radically different approaches to the right to life. Republicans wrote into their party platform that all abortions should be outlawed. Democrats wrote into their party platform that not only should abortion be legal, but families should be forced to pay for others’...

— Frances Kissling, go-to gal for media quotes about all things Catholic, has stepped down as head of Catholics for a Free Choice. Religion reporting just got a whole lot harder. Catholics for a Free Choice is a Catholic group of abortion activists’ dreams. If you hit the CFFC Web site, you’ll read: “Ask Pope Benedict to Lift the Ban on Condoms!� And in a closing salvo in the group’s magazine, “Conscience,� Kissling asks, “Is abortion a morally neutral act? Is it, as some have said, an unambiguous moral good?� Usually a group with the word “Catholic� in its name...

During a heated debate in a class I teach on social justice, several US Marines who had done tours in Iraq told me that they had "sacrificed" by “serving” in Iraq so that I could enjoy the freedom to teach in the USA. Parroting their master’s slogan about “fighting over there so we don’t have to fight over here,” these students proudly proclaimed that they terrorized and killed defenseless Iraqis. They intimated that their Arab victims are nothing more to them than collateral damage, incidental to their receipt of some money and an education. Sunday, February 11— A room full...

Washington, D.C., - Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good Executive Director Alexia Kelley issued the following statement today in response to the controversy over the John Edwards campaign’s hiring of netroots consultants who had made insensitive remarks regarding Catholicism: “Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good condemns these anti-Catholic remarks, all anti-Catholicism and all religious intolerance. We accept Senator Edwards' assurances that he too was offended by comments made by recently-hired staffers and that religious intolerance has no place in his campaign. Catholics comprise more than one quarter of the U.S. public, and neither John Edwards nor any other...

WASHINGTON - The Rev. Robert Drinan, a Jesuit who — over the objections of his superiors — was the only Roman Catholic priest elected as a voting member of Congress, died Sunday. Drinan, 86, had suffered from pneumonia and congestive heart failure during the previous 10 days, according to a statement by Georgetown University which said he died at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington. "His death was peaceful, and he was surrounded by his family," said the Rev. John Langan, rector of the Georgetown University Jesuit Community where Drinan lived. An internationally known human-rights advocate, Drinan was elected on an...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- With one Muslim and two Buddhist members, the 110th Congress is the most religiously diverse ever. Catholics remain the largest denominational group in Congress, with 155 members -- 25 in the Senate and 130 in the House. But there are fewer Catholic Republicans in both houses since the 109th Congress and many more Catholic Democrats. In the last Senate, Catholic members were nearly evenly split between the parties, with 11 Republicans and 13 Democrats. Now there are 9 Catholic Republicans and 16 Catholic Democrats in the Senate. In the House at the start of the 109th Congress,...

 Printer Friendly Version   A Catholic Speaker in the House January 5, 2007 In the run-up to last November's mid-term elections, San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi frequently countered the charge that she was the embodiment of radical, West Coast liberalism by reminding the interlocutor that she was a "Catholic grandmother." With her Party's victory locked up, the pro-abortion, pro-gay "rights" and pro-embryonic stem-cell research politico is now Madame Speaker. Pelosi made it clear that as House Speaker, one of her top priorities in the first 100 hours of Democrat Control would be the introduction of a bill that would...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Nashville pastor is questioning why Gov. Phil Bredesen chose to paint a picture of a teenage Muslim girl for his annual Christmas card.Bredesen's card shows a young Muslim girl that he met in Afghanistan last March. Pastor Maury Davis of Cornerstone Church told WKRN-TV in Nashville that the governor's message is convoluted and could be interpreted as an insult to Christianity. On the back of the card, Bredesen wrote that it may seem odd to put a portrait of a Muslim on a Christmas card. But he said that the season should serve as a reminder...

CAIR of course is short for the Council on American Islamic Relations. The groups fashions itself as a sort of NAACP for Muslims, but as I've remarked before, civil rights groups usually don't hound organizations into firing people, as CAIR seems to have done in the Thomas Klocek case. DePaul University, in terms of student enrollment, is the nation's largest Catholic university. The president of the school is Father Dennis Holtschneider, a member of the Vincentian order. From a TC Public Relations press release: Newly released evidence has revealed that the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) worked privately to...

On Sunday, C-Span 2 featured former three-term republican Senator, John Danforth, to talk to Chris Haynes of the First Amendment Center, to discuss his new book entitled “Faith and Politics” that assails what he sees as the sinister dominance of the apocryphal “religious right” within the Republican Party. It was noted and discussed that he is an “ordained Episcopal priest.” Ann Coulter has already made an observation that most people accept that the Episcopal Church is “barely a church.” They have homosexual marriages, homosexual priests, homosexual bishops, and it represents one of the decaying mainline denominations that have surrendered and...

It's not discomfort with religious values in public life that's behind his new drive, the senator insists, but concern that religion is being used to deliberately divide Americans. Politics practiced rightly is the glue that keeps a diverse nation together and the catalyst that moves it forward, he believes. Yet today the political arena is plagued by rancor and incapable of resolving the most crucial issues confronting America. He sees a link between that unhappy state and the power of Christian conservatives within his own party. He's stirring a ruckus, he hopes, so that others will speak up. This week,...

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who supports abortion rights, on Monday during a speech at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., said both abortion-rights supporters and abortion-rights opponents sometimes use "misleading and unconstructive" language and urged both sides to find "common ground," on the issue, the Boston Globe reports (Klein, Boston Globe, 9/19). Kerry during an interview in July 2004, while running for president, said, "I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception. ... But I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or...

Here is some background as well as some related posts on the Klocek case. Neil Steinberg and the Chicago Sun Times: In September, 2004, Professor Klocek read this Steinberg column. What Neil wrote was the intellectual basis of Klocek's ill-fated discussion with the Muslim students at DePaul. That column was based on this op-ed by Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of the al-Arabiya television network. This is the opening sentence of that article: It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims. March...

KITCHENER, ON, July 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - LifeSiteNews.com has learned that former US President Bill Clinton is to speak at a fundraiser for the Catholic Family Counselling Centre in Kitchener Ontario.  His scheduled November 8 address will mark the second time Clinton has been employed by a Catholic institution for a fundraiser in the same diocese.Andrew Wilding, the Director of Resource Development for the Catholic Family Counselling Centre told LifeSiteNews.com that while the speaking engagement has been confirmed, they have not yet secured a location for the event.  Wilding also confirmed that the Counselling Centre was founded by the...

The SPME petition to reinstate Thomas Klocek, the Roman Catholic faculty member who was fired by DePaul University without due process for challenging Muslim students' assertions of Israeli treatment of Palestinians to the Nazi's treatment of Jews, has already amassed nearly 1000 signatures in three days. The petition, which can be viewed and signed at http://www.spme.net/cgi-bin/display_petitions.cgi?ID=3"> calls for his complete reinstatement without prejudice or penalty. Morry Fiddler, a professor at DePaul University, writes, " If I'm not there for a colleague, then who will be there for me?" Other DePaul professors signing the petition to date are Allan Berele, Gary...

Related To Story The Christ Church of Peace is publishing the names and addresses of the 400,000 people who support a ban on same-sex marriage. WJXT-TV image.   Petition Signers Against Same-Sex Marriage Exposed   POSTED: 9:40 am EDT June 23, 2006 UPDATED: 12:29 pm EDT June 23, 2006  JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A Westside church is defending its Web site publishing of a list of Floridians who signed a petition against same-sex marriage, according to a WJXT-TV report.   The Christ Church of Peace is publishing the names and addresses of the 400,000 people who support a ban on...

Canadian Conservative MP Calls Christian Political Activists “Taliban” and “Flowers of Evil” By John Jalsevac HALTON, ON, June 9, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The verbal sparring match began on May 28, when Conservative MP Garth Turner appeared in a television interview, alongside pro-marriage/Christian political activist Charles McVety. The issue at hand was homosexual “marriage” in the RCMP. During what McVety—who is involved in or represents the views of groups including Defend Marriage Canada, the Canada Christian College, and the Canada Family Action Coalition—calls a “spirited” debate, it came to the fore that one of the goals of Christian political activists is...

Eucharistic coherence of politicians and lawmakers is a serious problem in quite a few nations and parliaments. Today the projects for laws and the choices made or to be made seriously imperil “the wonderful news”, that is, the gospel of the family and life, which form an indivisible unity.[1] The future of man and society is at stake and, in many aspects, the genuine possibility for integral evangelization. As can often be heard, a spurious argument is made for a so-called free political choice, which would have the primacy over evangelical principals and also over the reference to right reasoning....

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The U.S. Senate will vote this week on the Marriage Protection Amendment, a bill which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. Senator Edward M. Kennedy was quoted today as saying, "A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry pure and simple." Kennedy, who claims to be Catholic while opposing the Church on every major tenet of morality, was blasted by Catholic League president Bill Donohue. "A vote for the Marriage Protection Amendment is a vote to maintain the traditional understanding of marriage as it has been accepted for...

Would Republicans regret the day they stood against amnesty for illegal immigrants? In the New York Times, columnist David Brooks asked of conservatives, "Do they think the GOP can have a future if it insults even the Hispanics who are already here [by opposing amnesty proposals]?" Mr. Brooks was echoing the sentiment of more than a few normally clear-sighted conservatives who suggest that unless the Republican Party gets behind liberal immigration reform plans it will alienate Hispanics and soon be relegated to minority status. Former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie recently warned: "Anti-immigration rhetoric [read: border-security-first legislation] is a...

The House and the Senate are no closer to agreement on immigration reform, but maybe we're making incremental progress on getting a little civility in the debate. Only a few days ago, anyone who wanted the president to enforce the law protecting the nation's borders was "a racist," "a bigot" or a "nativist." The president himself has sometimes thrown the word "nativist" around in the debate over immigration and, before that, in the controversy over outsourcing the security of the nation's ports to suspicious former enemies. "Nativist," like "Hitler," is the slur of the season when you're losing the argument....

Bible supports homosexual partnerships, says bishophttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/28/nchurch28.xml http://tinyurl.com/lb2b9 By Jonathan Wynne-Jones (Filed: 28/05/2006) One of the country's most senior bishops has reignited the Church of England row over homosexuality by claiming that same-sex partnerships are supported by the Bible. The Rt Rev Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford, said that traditionalists in the Church needed to be "converted" to see that homosexual unions are confirmed by the scriptures. He reaffirmed his controversial belief that an openly gay man should be allowed to be appointed a bishop. His remarks have angered traditionalists and are set to rekindle the debate on homosexual "marriages"...

It hasn't been as far back as the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, but it sure seems that long since we've had a great debate about ideas. Today's politicians seem too caught up in hanging on to power (Republicans) or getting it back (Democrats) to care much about which ideas are better than others. Once people actually debated such things, but in a day of focus groups, polling, fund-raisers, blogs, talk radio and hyperventilating cable TV hosts, ideas and ideology seem in short supply.

Are you surprised that girls at a Catholic University would consider ordering a male stripper as part of their Lacrosse Team's initiation? Frankly, I was surprised. I assume that this "tradition" was adapted after hearing that other teams, perhaps Boys LAX teams had hazings which involved strippers. Although I believe in women's liberation, I believe that this is taking equality to an extreme. It is also against the concepts of the women's movement, which taught young women to respect their bodies, and not to treat themselves or others as sex objects. Perhaps I expect too much. I thought that role...