Free Republic

As the 31st anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision arrives later this month, U.S. newspapers will run a few stories about America's quietly continuing abortion plague. But in India, where cars stop for sacred cows but abortion or infanticide of little girls is rampant, the problem is very visible on streets where young men without women prowl. Skewed birth statistics tell the story. For example, look at the district-by-district birth figures for areas surrounding the ancient pilgrimage region of Madurai in south India. Usilampatti in December 2002 had 910 male births and only 690 female ones. Chellampatti...

This week, Howard Dean, trawling for votes among South Carolina voters who could roadblock his campaign in their Feb. 3 primary, denied that his health care scheme was "some crackpot socialist idea from some liberal state up in the North." (Sure, and Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook.") Dean said, "I want more than anything to bring South Carolina back to its proud tradition of voting Democrat year after year after year." Hmmm: "more than anything." More than being pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality, pro-appeasement of Islam? Is Dean willing to return the Democratic Party to its small-d democratic roots? One...

Looks like the New York Times has another ugly Jayson Blair-like scandal on its hands. This time, the young minority reporter is Charlie LeDuff, a part Native-American, part-Cajun writer, known as a rising star and favorite pet of former executive editor Howell Raines. The hotshot LeDuff is now in hot water over his cribbing of anecdotes from someone else's book about kayaking down the Los Angeles River for his own Page One fluff story about — you guessed it! — kayaking down the Los Angeles River. An embarrassing correction published in the New York Times on Dec. 8 explained: An...

Does the thrashing about of liberal reporters in 2003 signify the death throes of the old media order or a second wind? Look at this howler from Charles Pierce in the Boston Globe on Jan. 5: "If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age." (Kopechne, of course, drowned in Kennedy's submerged car off Chappaquiddick Island in 1969; Kennedy did not report the accident for several hours.) Or what about the latest fugues from Walter Cronkite, long retired...

Two much-discussed recent news developments: Democratic second-tier presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is talking about finding a wife (dozens have applied), and liberals are talking about setting up a new television network (as though they don't have plenty already). Why not combine the two desires by producing a show, "Joe President," in which cuties would compete for the hand of the next president, only to find out later that he's a political loser? I should add a parental advisory, of course: Kucinich must have kinky tastes, since he only wants a wife who demands "universal single-payer health care" -- but that's...

On Thanksgiving two years ago, after an autumn of terrorism and rumors of terrorism, most Americans understood that every day not dated Sept. 11 was a good day. Frustration at work? Dispute at home? Both sad, but not fatal. Many thanked God that we were able to go about our business, although with increased vigilance; that we were able to live our lives, but with increased appreciation of simple pleasures; that we were free to pray and worship, with praise for His everyday, tender mercies. Now, we see a lot of grumbling against those who protect us against terrorism. Instead...

And so it begins. Again. For months, pro-marriage activists have expected a negative decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The closeness of the vote, 4 to 3, was the only real surprise. But more surprises are coming, for as Boston College political science professor Alan Wolfe told The New York Times, the decision "is exactly the right kind of material for a backlash." The New York Times should know. After the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision 30 years ago, the Times stated that the decision provided "a sound foundation for final and reasonable resolution" of the abortion debate....

The Texas State Board of Education will decide early next month whether to require textbooks to include a pinch of criticism in their pages of pro-evolution teaching. But many journalists feel no need to balance Darwinian theory with Intelligent Design perspective, since they see the latter as educational arson. Is that an exaggeration? Look at a recent email exchange between Rob Crowther of the Discovery Institute, the Intelligent Design spearhead, and Houston Chronicle editorial board member James Gibbons. Crowther wrote of his disappointment to find the Chronicle twisting the textbook question and misrepresenting the Intelligent Design position. He asked whether...

SUCK IT UP, FATSO, AND STOP taking 100 pills a day." That was part of shock-talk radio host Don Imus's Oct. 13 rant about Rush Limbaugh confessing his addiction to prescription pain killers: "Rush is a fat, pill-popping loser and an undisciplined slob ... and—as soon as he gets caught—he starts whining." Most WORLD readers probably (and rightfully) abhor such a sentiment. Many are fans of the conservative talk-show host, share much of his viewpoint, and wince that his drug addiction, which began after a failed back operation, gives moral relativists a chance to gloat about "hypocritical conservatives" who purportedly...

"Suck it up, fatso, and stop taking 100 pills a day." That was part of shock-talk radio host Don Imus's Oct. 13 rant about Rush Limbaugh confessing his addiction to prescription pain killers: "Rush is a fat, pill-popping loser and an undisciplined slob ... and -- as soon as he gets caught -- he starts whining." Most readers of World magazine, which I edit, probably (and rightfully) abhor such a sentiment. Many are fans of the conservative talk show host, share much of his viewpoint and wince that his drug addiction, which began after a failed back operation, gives moral...

"Suck it up, fatso, and stop taking 100 pills a day." That was part of shock-talk radio host Don Imus's Oct. 13 rant about Rush Limbaugh confessing his addiction to prescription pain killers: "Rush is a fat, pill-popping loser and an undisciplined slob ... and -- as soon as he gets caught -- he starts whining." Most readers of World magazine, which I edit, probably (and rightfully) abhor such a sentiment. Many are fans of the conservative talk show host, share much of his viewpoint and wince that his drug addiction, which began after a failed back operation, gives moral...

WATCHING THE MAJOR-LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYoffs on television is different from roaming fields and locker rooms with a press pass, as I did at seven games this year. Here are three scenes that TV doesn't show. First, batting practice: I used to see BP just as hitters taking cuts, but I've come to enjoy its careful choreography. Batters typically form four groups, with each group given 15 minutes and each player during that period receiving the same number of pitches in countdown order. At a California Angels batting practice I watched, for example, each of four batters per group receive eight...

When baseball's playoffs begin next week, Barry Bonds will probably show why he's the National League's most valuable player on the field. Off the field, though, he's a study in contradictions, as three scenes indicate. Scene 1: Sunday morning in the visiting team's clubhouse before a game in Atlanta. As I was asking questions of his San Francisco Giant teammates, Bonds was watching a teen make-out film on a big screen TV. Typical scene: One high school boy has been trying to get a girl to sleep with him, and when she decides that she will, she whispers to him...

'Defense of liberty is not evil' INTERVIEW: Ashcroft on 9/11 and Patriot Act criticsBy Marvin Olasky On Sept. 9 a booing and hissing crowd of about 1,200 people greeted Attorney General John Ashcroft's arrival at Faneuil Hall in Boston with fists and middle fingers upraised, cries of "Shame," and the playing of the "Imperial Death March" from the movie Star Wars. On Sept. 11 he spoke with WORLD about the criticism he has received and the USA Patriot Act— When you spoke in Boston on Tuesday, demonstrators carried signs saying "Ashcroft more evil than Steinbrenner." Did you ever expect...

These days, finding New York Times lies and cover-ups is like shooting fish in a barrel, but Navy Lt. Cmdr. Mike Beidler has told me about one fish story too obnoxious to pass up. Beidler, on his way to Iraq in January, was walking with his family toward the end of Naval Station Pier 2 in San Diego when the Times' Charlie LeDuff asked him for his view of war protesters. Beidler recalls offering a couple of sentences defending the rights of protesters and stating his hope that they offer reasonable solutions. The article LeDuff wrote, though, had Beidler attacking...

MARVIN OLASKY New York state of mind A Navy officer's encounter with The New York Times says a lot about the condition of the old gray ladyBy Marvin OlaskyJUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THE NEW YORK TIMES could not go any lower, it outdid itself in the lead of a news feature about theories of human development. Reporter Nicholas Wade wrote last month, "the one safe prediction about the far future is that humans will be a lot further along in their evolution." The "one safe prediction"? It seems that the truly safe prediction these days is that Times writers...

Now that the Ten Commandments monument is removed from its Alabama rotunda, could we all take a deep breath? Yes, Justice Roy Moore has put on the front burner -- and the flames are hot -- many vital questions concerning the intersection of religion and American society. But it's not right that the Alabama governor and attorney general, the eight associate justices of the Alabama Supreme Court, and Christian leaders like Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention and Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, who have advised Justice Moore that he's trying to defend a...

Beyond the fight-or-flight reactions to the Alabama Ten Commandments controversy, questions about strategy have gone undebated-here's a start ... Deadline day in Montgomery, Ala., was polarizing: Federal judges on Thursday, Aug. 21, were persisting in their order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building. Police were handcuffing and leading away demonstrators defending the monument. Eight of the nine Alabama Supreme Court justices agreed to comply with the federal order. They directed the building manager to "take all steps necessary to comply ... as soon as practicable." But on one sentiment many from all...

Say what you will about Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court, he does know how to restart a vital national debate that had been stalled. Facing head-on the problems inherent in removing reverence from public spaces, two years ago he dropped into the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building in downtown Montgomery a two-and-a-half ton block of granite topped by an etched copy of the Ten Commandments. Alabama citizens who elected him chief justice in 2000 knew what they were getting. He kicked off his campaign in the local courtroom where he had hung a plaque of the Ten...

In Fort Apache, a Western directed by John Ford in 1948, Henry Fonda is a martinet Army officer sent West against his will and full of disdain for the Apaches he would be fighting. He comments to an experienced frontiersman played by John Wayne that he saw a few of the Indians hanging around the fort and they didn't look particularly tough. Wayne's reply is, roughly, "If you saw them, they weren't Apaches." That's the way it increasingly seems when Muslims, Buddhists, or Hindus engage in "interfaith dialogue" with Christians. Such dialogue is good as long as the Christians defend...