Free Republic

Dear Mr. Murdoch, I have two kids, ages 18 and 19, so I've got a lot of young people stomping through our house on an almost daily basis. Young adults aged 18-22 are the most common demographic, with the occasional outlier. For the last couple of weeks, I've been asking them, "so who do you like in the next election?" The conversation takes off from there. To my horror, I've found that these kids don't know ANYTHING about our government or political system and very little about our history. Here are a few of the things that have made me...

Teen talks about jail-cell beating Auto-theft charge awaits By SCOTT GUTIERREZ P-I REPORTER The 15-year-old girl might have been sassing the officer, and the sneaker she kicked off could have hit his shin. She might have, as accused, even stolen a car. Yet, scores of people around the world who have watched on the Internet and television a veteran King County Sheriff's deputy beating the girl last fall say they don't care. The outrage has become as viral as the holding-cell video clearly displaying the act.

DETROIT -- The Detroit Institute of Arts is stuck with having to repair a painting worth $1.5 million. It has to remove a stain left by a wad of gum stuck on the painting by a 12-year-old visitor. It happened Friday. Museum officials said the boy was with a group from Holly Academy in Oakland County, Mich., when he took the gum out of his mouth and stuck it on Helen Frankenthaler's 1963 abstract painting "The Bay." The gum didn't stick to the fiber of the canvas, but left a stain the size of a quarter. Museum experts are researching...