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The ideal father is hardworking, fun-loving, a good provider, understanding, wise, sometimes stern and, above all, inspiring. Yet a century ago, the popular image of the father was less radiant. Groucho Marx observed that in those days, there were many hymns to motherhood, but "nobody ever wrote any song about fathers. Father was the town schlemiel in almost every place."

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, June 2, 2009) -- The Army wants Soldier-dads to know there is a new paternity leave policy available to them and spread the word to military bloggers at the Pentagon today. The policy, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush Oct. 14, 2008, allows new dads up to 10 consecutive days of administrative leave after the birth of a child. Leading the roundtable was Col. Larry Locke, chief of compensation and entitlements for the Army G-1. He said the policy is one way of showing appreciation for Soldier-dads, because leave time can take...

Video here. Great interview with Sarah Palin in her own home kitchen as she prepares dinner and talks about what an awesome father to their kids Todd Palin is and related topics in the best four minutes and twenty eight seconds from the most recent home interview by Greta Van Susteren.

Tim Robbins in Toronto at celebrity hockey game over the weekend...

In the third week of June 1972, Richard Milhous Nixon committed an injustice with which the Western world is still struggling. Yes, two men broke into the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate building - but we're no longer bothered about that. What still affects us today - or rather tomorrow - is that the then President that week brought the American nation together by making Father's Day a public holiday. For this high crime and misdemeanour, his name should live on in the annals of infamy. Now, of course, it's over here. It's just like Hallowe'en - another American...

Walter Dean Myers, a best-selling author of books for teenagers, sometimes visits juvenile detention centers in his home state of New Jersey to hold writing workshops and listen for stories about the lives of young Americans. One day, in a juvenile facility near his home in Jersey City, a 15-year-old black boy pulled him aside for a whispered question: Why did he write in "Somewhere in the Darkness" about a boy not meeting his father because the father was in jail? Mr. Myers, a 70-year-old black man, did not answer. He waited. And sure enough, the boy, eyes down, mumbled...

HAPPY FATHERS DAY, DADS!!! My Father When I was ... 4 years old: My daddy can do anything. 5 years old: My daddy knows a whole lot. 6 years old: My dad is smarter than your dad. 8 years old: My dad doesn't know exactly everything. 10 years old: In the olden days, when my dad grew up, things were sure different. 12 years old: Oh, well, naturally, Dad doesn't know anything about that. He is too old to remember his childhood. 14 years old: Don't pay any attention to my dad. He is so old-fashioned. 21 years old: Him?...

The darker the egg, the better the dad 15:50 12 November 2007 NewScientist.com news service Roxanne Khamsi Male spotless starlings seem to be better dads when eggs are dark (Image: Carlos Navarro) Females in poorer condition tend to lay light coloured eggs (Image: Carlos Navarro)In a dark twist to parenting, it appears male spotless starlings make better dads if the eggs their mate lays look healthier. Male spotless starlings tend to feed offspring that hatch from darker blue eggs twice as frequently as those that hatch from pale eggs, a new study shows. Scientists had wondered why some birds lay...

(AP) WEARE, N.H. First, a father was charged with beating up his daughter's boyfriend last week after learning the two had sex. Now, police are preparing to charge the boy with sexual assault. The 17-year-old boy from Henniker, who admitted to having sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend, will "absolutely" be charged, police said. Weare Detective Lou Chatel said the boy will be charged as an adult and could face up to a year in jail. Both teens admitted to having sex during school hours on Sept. 10, but off school property, Chatel said. That afternoon, he said, the girl's father...

It’s back-to-school time so load up with those pencils, notebooks, rulers and, of course, a bullet-deflecting backpack, if you buy the pitch of the security accessory’s Danvers inventors. Dads Mike Pelonzi, 43, and Joe Curran, 42, dreamed up the bullet-proof backpack, which also blunts knife attacks, to protect their own children after witnessing the Columbine massacre in 1999. “It was after seeing what happened in Columbine that we started thinking about this. I’m a parent and so is Joe and we wanted a way of keeping kids safe at school and this is what we came up with,” said Pelonzi,...

Father's importance no laughing matter http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/berman/422242,CST-FTR-berman11.article http://tinyurl.com/yrp9wc Dad may not always know best, but he knows far more than contemporary TV sitcoms suggest June 11, 2007 BY LAURA BERMAN Black-and-white sitcoms such as "Leave It to Beaver," "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" and "Father Knows Best" constructed Dad as the center of the American family. The fathers in these shows did it all -- they were the breadwinners, the coaches, the teachers, the advice-givers and the loving guides who saved their children from danger. But if you turn on your television today, fathers on recent sitcoms like "Everybody Loves...

Picture a world where your father walks with you down a starlit road, pausing to point out Orion. He recites Robert Frost, knows how a battery works—and all the rules about girls. "The Dangerous Book for Boys," by brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden, is peaking on Amazon's best-seller list (No. 5 last week) by recalling just that world. The compendium of trivia, history and advice is geared toward preteen boys, but it's found a surprising audience in men in their 30s and 40s, too. The book's marbled endpapers, archival illustrations and dry, humorous tone ("excitable bouts of windbreaking will not...

When I had a son of my own six years ago, I looked around for the sort of books that would inspire him. I was able to find some, but none with the spirit and verve of those old titles. I wanted a single compendium of everything I'd ever wanted to know or do as a boy, and I decided to write my own. We began with everything we had done as kids, then added things we didn't want to see forgotten. History today is taught as a feeble thing, with all the adventure taken out of it. We wanted...

Fathers deserve a special salute for all they do http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/06/17/opinion/doc4675cd32b9bbf793658538.txt http://tinyurl.com/2gq4t5 Sunday, June 17, 2007 7:18 PM CDT Fathers don’t always get the respect they deserve — and we don’t just mean children ignoring their pleas to take out the garbage or mow the lawn. On television and in the movies today, the theme seems to be “Father Knows Nothing” rather than “Father Knows Best.” Instead of Ward Cleaver in “Leave It to Beaver,” we have Homer in “The Simpsons.” A larger percentage of Father’s Day greeting cards lean toward humor rather than the sentimental variety more often seen on...

If you believe popular culture, the man we're honoring today is a complete idiot. You don't have to watch much TV to believe that. The dads who populate the small screen are mostly dorks, dunderheads or dimwits. Recent ads show dad as the ineffective homework coach (who only gets in the way, to his daughter's utter contempt), as the immature moron who gloats when he beats his small daughter at pingpong, or as the klutz who falls down the stairs. And wise, gently authoritarian dads like Howard Cunningham (Happy Days ) and Cliff Huxtable (The Cosby Show) are nowhere to...

The father factor: Fathers and sons http://www.antiguasun.com/paper/?as=view&sun=281935077507132005&an=410802067106152007&ac=Opinion http://tinyurl.com/38wf8g Saturday June 16 2007 Men become biological fathers in a moment. Not much is required except the right anatomical equipment and opportunity. The father need not love the mother. The father does not need a course in parenting, nor does he need to even desire to be a parent. The father does not always even know of his progeny. Nevertheless, each child born into this world has two parents, and one of them is, by definition, the father. For many men, that is where their input begins and ends. Children need fathers....

The 'Dangerous' book puts girls on the side http://www.star-telegram.com/408/story/80188.html By JILL LAWLESS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON -- Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. In these frenzied, media-saturated times, the lure of a simpler past is more powerful than ever. That may explain the success of The Dangerous Book for Boys, a deliberately retro tome that has become the publishing sensation of the year in Britain. Exuding the brisk breeziness of Boy Scout manuals and Boy's Own annuals, The Dangerous Book is a childhood how-to guide that covers everything from paper airplanes to go-carts, skipping stones to skinning a rabbit....

First, there was the question of the title: "The Dangerous Book for Boys." HarperCollins Publishers' Chief Executive Jane Friedman just didn't understand what it meant. Sure, the book had been a hit in England and Australia, but that didn't mean it would work in the U.S. But the sales staff urged her to stick with it, and in just two weeks, "Dangerous" has become the breakout hit of the season. The News Corp. unit initially ordered up 91,000 copies. There are now 405,000 copies in print. One senior HarperCollins executive, extrapolating from overseas sales and population data, projects that "Dangerous,"...

The media image of fathers--long portrayed as bumbling, inept and irresponsible--is changing. This has been a good year for dads in the media. One example is Sony Pictures’ new movie The Pursuit of Happyness. Happyness stars Will Smith as Chris Gardner, a homeless, hard-luck single father with a five year-old son. Through sheer force of will, Gardner raises his boy and pulls them out of poverty, eventually becoming a multi-millionaire. The movie is based on a true story and co-stars Smith’s eight year-old son as Gardner’s son Christopher. As Gardner, Will Smith strives to create a ''normal'' environment for Christopher,...

Too late to give my son the Airfix fix http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/09/01/do0102.xml http://tinyurl.com/h8gzw By Tom Leonard (Filed: 01/09/2006) Although he is only four, it is already clear that my older son has inherited two character traits from me: a fascination with militaria — ships, planes, tanks and soldiers, especially soldiers — and an unfortunate impatience, specifically a tendency to hurl stuff across the room when things don't go right. Or glue right. For if there was one area where these two facets of my personality clashed most spectacularly, it was when I turned my hand to the fiddly task of putting together...

The Dangerous Book for Boyshttp://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20058973-5003900,00.html http://tinyurl.com/or3b2 Christopher Bantick 12aug06 The Dangerous Book for Boys By Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden HarperCollins, 400pp, $39.95 UNAMBIGUOUSLY blokey, The Dangerous Book for Boys will have many fathers, or even grandfathers, remembering their days with crystal sets and billycarts. But are such things dangerous? According to the brothers Iggulden, who have in place of an introduction a piece called I Didn't Have this Book When I Was a Boy, boyhood "is all about curiosity". But the kind of curiosity here is of a certain age and time. There's nothing wrong with a fair swish...

Family welcomes 12th Eagle Scouthttp://www.tmnews.com/articles/2006/07/16/sections/news/news74.txt http://tinyurl.com/rwvkn Sunday, July 16, 2006 Last modified: Sunday, July 16, 2006 6:46 AM CDT By Jason Mullis, Hoosier Times BEDFORD - There are 12 virtues the American Boy Scouts espouse to the youth in their charge. Similarly, when Travis Scherschel earned the highest rank of Eagle Scout Saturday, he became the 12th Scherschel to do so. "Becoming an Eagle Scout is an outstanding achievement, which requires hard work and dedication," Mark Scherschel, Travis' father, read from a letter from President George W. Bush. "Your accomplishment serves as an example of excellence and a source of...

In the name of the fatherhttp://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1033732006 http://tinyurl.com/ozefu DANI GARAVELLI Sun 16 Jul 2006 ONCE upon a time, I believed it didn't matter a whit whether a baby was born into a family with one parent or two. Or with two mothers or two fathers rather than a mother and a father. Why should it? What was important was not the number or gender of the parents, but whether or not they were loving and attentive. That was, of course, before I had any of my own. Now I realise that bringing up children is a challenge even for two well-meaning...

Boys will be boyshttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2230571,00.html http://tinyurl.com/n3g5a DJ Taylor June 18, 2006 Why are fathers snapping up an old-fashioned book of boyhood lore? DJ Taylor looks at the gap in almost every father’s life -- Like practically every human relationship these days, fatherhood has become horribly institutionalised. A condition that was once thoroughly ad hoc and made up as one went along is now caught up in bureaucracy’s stifling grasp. Father’s Day (an American import that didn’t exist in my youth), fathers’ support agencies, parenting classes: on all sides comes evidence of a natural state hedged about with all kind of wholly...

I'm always drawn to stories about dads and sons who share a hobby or passionate pursuit. A few months ago, I read a story about a couple of father-son pairs in the Dallas area who have climbed three of the seven summits – the highest peaks on each continent. Jackson, my 10-year-old son, and I have done some indoor rock climbing at our community recreation center. But like a lot of boys these days, his passion is video games. He's always asking me to play – bad as I am at it. I usually choose NBA Live 2005 because I...

Protesters seek justice for dads in custody battles Sunday, June 18, 2006 Bill Bush THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH In 1953, Kris Slaughter’s father got full custody of her and her older brother after her stepfather was accused of sexually molesting a child from their neighborhood. It was the right decision, she said, although it was almost unheard of then for a father to get custody over a mother — and it was rare for couples to get divorced in the first place. Although her mother was accused of nothing, Slaughter didn’t see her again until adulthood. "She never came back, except...

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Amid all the hand-wringing surrounding Gov. George Pataki's fiscally responsible budget vetoes, a major policy initiative advanced by him, and agreed to by the state Legislature, has been largely ignored. The governor is one of the few, if not only, elected officials nationwide to attack the next frontier of anti-poverty policy by confronting the growing problem of poor, unemployed, predominantly minority, noncustodial fathers in urban and other communities. With few skills and extremely low employment rates, these young fathers are often disconnected from their children both financially and emotionally. Their struggle is seriously undermining the stability of low-income communities and...

U.S. Marine Corps Pfc. Daniel M. Knight, 19, from Simpsonville, S.C., looks at names on the Beirut Memorial at Camp Lejeune, N.C., March 30, 2006. Knight is preparing to deploy to Iraq for the first time. His father, Morris, is a Vietnam veteran and said he is extremely proud of his son. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Lucian Friel U.S. Marine Corps Pfc. Daniel Knight Marine Prepares for First Deployment By Lance Cpl. Lucian Friel 2nd Marine Division CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C., April 5, 2006 —“My father, a former Marine, served in Vietnam,� said Pfc. Daniel M. Knight,...

On Wed,March 22, there will be a hearing in Essex County Court in Massachusetts, which could result in the banning of a book by Fathers rights(Pro-Family) activist, Kevin Thompson. Kevin Thompson has been fighting a long and lonely battle in the Essex Probate and Family Court to try to be able to be a father to his son. Several months ago, the court impounded the records of the trial and Judge DeGangi has recently granted a restraining order forbidding Kevin from distributing his book, EXPOSING THE CORRUPTION IN THE MASSACHUSETTS FAMILY COURTS.

Jeremiah Clayton Jones discovered that his former fiancée was pregnant just three weeks before the baby was due, when an adoption-agency lawyer called and asked if he would consent to have his baby adopted. "I said absolutely not," said Mr. Jones, a 23-year-old Arizona man who met his ex-fiancée at Pensacola Christian College in Florida. "It was an awkward moment, hearing for the first time that I would be a father, and then right away being told, 'We want to take your kid away.' But I knew that if I was having a baby, I wanted that baby." Mr. Jones...

F4J UK Christmas Chaos - Friday, 12/09/05 At around 10 AM GMT Dads dressed as Santas gathered at Tufton Street, Westminster and marched from the Church of England's HQ, past Parliment, Downing St., to St. Paul's - all the while ringing Christmas bells... At St. Paul's, many of the Santas left a toy donation... Teri from Cali got some pictures up.. You could just skip my lame blog and go see Teri's...Slide show here (Xmas and Bedlam demos)...

Writing recently in National Review Online, Wade Horn, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), describes the huge social costs of family breakdown and the benefits to children and society of marriage. He also points out that his agency spends $46 billion each year on programs "the need for [which] is either created or exacerbated by the breakup of families and marriages." He rightly argues that we need to address this costly "family breakdown" problem. In fact, one could look beyond his Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and even HHS and make a similar point about virtually all...

One of the more fatuous beliefs that has been foisted off by self-proclaimed feminists and other politically correct lamebrains is that children don’t really need fathers. I used to say that American women, thanks to increased salaries and well- stocked sperm banks, had reached a point where they only needed men to open ketchup bottles and get stuff down from high shelves. Ladies, I was joking! I had no idea that so many women took the line to heart. Thanks to my good joke and Gloria Steinem’s bad one – that crack about fish needing bicycles – women have become...

Everyone knows about Spring Cleaning - but what about fall? What do you do in the fall? Prpare for winter? Recuperate from summer? In the next week or so I'll be borrowing a tiller, pulling all the finished stuff out of the garden and clearing it out for the winter. Hubby has gotten a start on the siding. We are hoping all the insulation and drywall he put up in the attic will make a difference in the heating bills this winter. While our furnace is very effecient - the price of fuel oil is staggering so we are also...

In late spring and early summer we shared our plans and likes and dislikes for summer plans. Please share with the rest of the table what you did on your summer vacation.

I had a light hearted topic picked out for today - but am just not in the mood. Everyone please have safe holiday weekend, and keep our fellow oAmericans of the Gulf Coast in all of your thoughts and prayers.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Perhaps one out of every 25 dads could unknowingly be raising another man's child, a finding that has huge health and social implications, according to report released Wednesday. Exposing so-called paternal discrepancy -- when a child is identified as being biologically fathered by someone other than the man who believes he is the father -- could lead to family violence and the breakup of many families. On the other hand, leaving paternal discrepancy hidden means having the wrong genetic information, which could have health consequences. A UK-based research team reviewed scientific research dealing with paternity...

Two weeks ago we discussed those items that we can't live without, that were worth every penny we paid for them. Let's go in the opposite direction today. We all have items we have purchased, often with high hopes for it's usefulness, that we regretted purchasing shortly after the fact. Regale us with your stories of duds, or warn us about things not to purchase.

Today's topic was to have been the first topic for me when I took the apron strings from Grellis - but it had slipped my memory.......so now I have returned to it! GRELLIS wrote: BizzeeMom suggested "Worth Every Penny," discussing items which our families constantly put to good use. I think it is a great idea--there are a lot of things other families have probably invested in (which would never occur to me) that are worth their weight in gold. Let's have some fun guys and gals!

Howdy folks.......so sorry for the late night ping and lack of imaginiation on a topic. I have been a space cadet most of this week and just remembered about our FRiendly FRiday get-together, and I'm not going to be here tomorrow. Our emergency preparedness topic of last Friday did me absolutely no good last Friday night. The simple act of turning on a light would have prevented my problems - but hindsight is always 20/20. About 8:30 last Friday night, I was headed for the bathroom and by not turning on the dining room light I didn't notice my portable...

TALLAHASSEE — Just before Father's Day, Gov. Jeb Bush announced that he wanted every public school in Florida to host a Christian-based program designed to increase fathers' participation in their children's lives. The program, All Pro Dad, combines a biblical foundation with the draw of popular professional athletes to promote the belief that "the father is the head of the household" and that men should rely on God to help them be better parents and keep their marriages intact. It also encourages Bible reading. "This is a really great program," Bush said at a news conference last month, though he...

I hope everyone had a safe and pleasant Independence Day weekend. Being scattered all over the country, we all encounter different forms of the wrath of mother nature, be it hurricanes, blizzards, tornados, earthquakes, flooding or what have you and we all deal with them differently. In honor of the fact that Dennis the Menace is now on the verge of becoming a Category 5 Hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, I thought sharing preparation plans would be a good idea, not just for 'canes, but anything else Mother Nature dumps in your neck of the woods.

For various and sundry reasons lots of people do not go away on "vacations" per se. It's very rare that we even spend one night away from home, let alone a week or two at a time............but we do plan lots of day trips. Personally I find it less stressful for planning/packing and because we can find lots of things to do within a 2-3 hour drive, it spreads the "vacation" funds over the course of several months. Since we are scattered all over the map, let's share favorite places for day trips be it beaches, museums, amusement parks, whathave...

I was participating in a thread the other day started by a FReeper who has started to grow his own tobacco because of the ever escalating increases in tobacco taxes. The fact his "crop" is tobacco is neither here nor there and I only mention it as way of introduction to the idea for the title of today's thread theme. We all got talking about the benefits of making and or growing our own things as a means of saving money and were called on the carpet by a bean counter who claims that when one adds in the time...

If his job on TV is any guide, "dad" is earning more than twice what he used to. This Father's Day, Salary.com has revealed what the most popular TV dad characters of all-time would bring home in real-life. The results may surprise you. The average TV dad salary, in today's dollars, has more than doubled since the early days of television. This increased income for TV dads is fueled by the popular TV dad jobs of today, such as lawyer, neurosurgeon, psychiatrist, and real estate developer.

I didn't want to be guilty of letting this day pass without a special salute to the fathers on this forum. All too often Dad's are the invisible champions in our society. If they are portrayed in the media, they are most generally used as the butt of jokes or a prop to make someone else look superior. This is your day Dads. Thanks for stepping up and taking on the challenge. I'd like to see this thread used by folks to champion their fathers, spouses, brothers or other special dads that have made a difference in your life, the...

Cinderella Man A Father’s Day Message BreakPoint with Charles Colson June 17, 2005 The children are huddled together in one bed, trying to keep warm. The gas and electricity have been turned off; the last of the milk is gone. What stands between these children and complete disaster? Their father. That their dad would do almost anything to save his family is the ultimate message of Cinderella Man, a wonderful new film starring Russell Crowe. Based on the life of legendary boxer James J. Braddock, the film is a celebration of a man who models sacrificial love for his...

Dad, we need you Rebecca Hagelin townhall.com June 17, 2005 Dad, we need you. It's a simple message, but one rarely heard in today’s culture. The sad reality is that we live in a society where the message to fathers is, “You’re irrelevant. You’re useless. You are a loser.” Just flip on the television: commercials and sitcoms portray fathers as wimpy and ignorant. Men are depicted as lazy, uninvolved, unwanted, and/or impotent. Dads, I’ve got news. Your family needs you. Society needs you. Your sons and daughters need you. Good dads have been the backbone of strong families, the...

Men Can Also Offer Their Babies a Nipple Infants in the 'Sucking' Phase of Development Are Also Soothed by Father's Breast By SHANNON ROGAN and EMILY KAGAN Jun. 16, 2005 - It's Father's Day and daddy has taken the baby for a walk. A few steps from the house the baby starts to fuss, so daddy picks her up and offers her … his nipple? Strange as it may sound, an article published in the The Times of London suggests that when mom is not around, a man's nipple may be just as comforting to a crying baby.