Here’s a piece by Ben Smith on kids who had a case of the Obamas in 2008 but have since soured on the president. 

Yes . . . my son is in this category. And, yes, he made me vote for “That One.” We voted for “Huck-a-buck” — his pronunciation — in the primary, though. 

One thing I should clear up though is what I meant by a liberal elementary school. I was referring to the parents here and not the teachers. I have no doubt the teachers were libs, but none of my son’s teachers ever forced any opinion on him. 

Warning: If you adopt a kid from Africa, you might one day find something like this sweet self-portrait in her backpack and be overcome with gratitude for afros and sweet bows. November is National Adoption Month, and some of you reading this have considered adoption, but it’s slipped your mind. Life gets busy, after all, and sometimes it seems too daunting to even begin. Well, what better time to dust off that idea and seriously consider opening up your home to a child?

Last year, I talked to Rita Soronen, the Executive Director of the Dave Thomas Foundation, about how people should go about adopting.  Her response is a helpful, bite-size overview of the process:

A Child is Waiting: A Step By Step Guide to Adoption, a free handbook provided by the Dave Thomas Foundation, helps to clarify the terminology, responds to frequently asked questions, and guides potential adoptive parents through 10 steps to adopt, including:

1.    Decide what type of adoption to pursue: do some self-research and understand adoption and your willingness to accept, love, and commit unconditionally and permanently to a child.

2.    Learn about the cost to adopt and the resources available to assist with the expenses, including adoption subsidies, tax credits, and employer benefits; adopting from foster care costs very little.

3.    Investigate and select an adoption agency: research public and private agencies to understand their processes, policies, and practices.

4.    Work with the adoption agency to complete an application and any required paperwork, attend meetings and orientation sessions, network with other adoptive parents and ask questions.

5.    Complete a home study and any required adoption-preparation classes; learn as much as you can about the dynamics of adoption, childhood development, and the special issues and experiences of children in foster care.

6.    Begin the matching process with a child or sibling group of children, determine what age child you are looking for and how flexible you are in growing your family, learn as much as you can about the child and background of the children with whom you are matched.

7.    Prepare for the child’s arrival: Amend health-insurance policies, obtain original birth certificates, secure new Social Security numbers, finalize school enrollment, negotiate adoption subsidies, make your home child-friendly and support children already in the home.

8.    Bring the child home: Petition the court to adopt, understand the legal process, and work with the adoption agency.

9.    Finalize the adoption in court: Adoption is a legal process and the beginning of your new family — celebrate!

10.    Take advantage of post-adoption services and resources, from parent-support groups and professional services to employer-based benefits.

There are many different ways to approach adoption, but beware. It’s a wonderful, challenging, amazing, painful, beautiful adventure. If you go down that route, someday you might open a backpack and see a sweet “self-portrait” smiling back at you. One that looks nothing like you. 

And it might just bring a tear to your eye. 

My husband went to Iraq in 2007, a year when Veterans’ Day fell on a Sunday.

This might seem strange to you, but it never dawned on me that my husband — my attorney husband who joined the Army Reserves after 9/11 — could be called a “vet.” I mean, he’d been gone just a couple of weeks. Though I was pretty far from my high-school Latin class, I knew that the word came from vetus, meaning “old.” A vet, to me, was a person who had long service in the military, an old guy who seemed to stand more erect than anyone else when the national anthem is played before the high-school basketball game.

When I was getting the kids ready for church that Sunday, it never dawned on me that Veterans’ Day would affect me. In fact, as I struggled to get everyone ready for Sunday school, I wasn’t thinking about what day it was on the calendar.

However, I walked into Zion Presbyterian Church in Columbia, Tenn. holding the kids’ hands and realized that it was going to be even a tougher church service than normal.  

Church was hard anyway.  Something about walking into the old little building caused my social skills to simply disappear. Even casual greetings at church immobilized me. I detested the automatic responses which fall from everyone’s mouths — as if “How are you” is a quarter in the Presbyterian vending machine and “fine” is the conversational candy, all dusty and stale. It doesn’t matter if the dog died, the rent check bounced, or the in-laws are staying an extra week, it seemed the only appropriate response was “fine.” And, frankly, I wasn’t.

Greg, forget any “Kate Plus Eight, Minus One” drama. The real family-math news is that Michelle Duggar is pregnant again . . . with her 20th child.

“Jim Bob and I are excited to announce that we’re pregnant with baby number 20. We’re due in April and I’m feeling great. All of the children are thrilled and we’re looking forward to welcoming this precious new addition to our family.”

As expected, people are having some pretty strong reactions to the news, especially considering her last child was born three months prematurely. But more than the shock, disgust, horror, and — yes — support people are showing for the family, the real question remains: What on earth will they name this one?

As I found out recently when I saw my first show, they name their children with names beginning with “J.”  Here is their current roster:

Joshua, Jana, John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jedidiah, Jeremiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johannah, Jennifer, Jordyn-Grace and Josie

When I watched this with my daughter, she was aghast. “You mean they chose Jason only after they selected ‘Jedidiah?’”

Whatever you think of the Duggars, this is one mystery I suppose will be solved soon. God bless this baby, and leave your best “J” suggestion below.

Kate Gosselin is getting criticized for letting her kid play under her van. You can’t see it in the picture, but Kate is behind the wheel when this happened. What say you parents: people making more out of it than it is or a real issue?

A self-described “Cool Mom” has a blog site to help young men and women hook up smarter, “Hooking Up Smart.” She explains:

I came of age during the 70s and 80s, witnessing (and enjoying) the effects of the sexual revolution.  Our generation straddled the line between traditional dating and hooking up, and I’ve experienced the pros and cons of each.  In recent years, I’ve been a mentor and counselor to young women trying to navigate the hookup culture and find love in a hostile climate.  I’ve learned firsthand that smart, young women are capable of great things armed with encouragement and good information.

“HUS” is the kind of place on the world wide web where “Sex Before Commitment” is a “Tough Call.” At least it’s a question? 

Back in February, the first lady lauded the benefits of breastfeeding, saying “kids who are breastfed longer have a lower tendency to be obese.” She’s right. Breast milk is magic. Not only does it reduce the likelihood of childhood obesity, it contains vital disease-fighting antibodies critical to new babies. And, of course, there are a variety of health benefits for mothers as well.

I breastfed all three of my children, and while it wasn’t always easy, it was free and I knew my kids were getting the best food possible — the food I was designed to provide them. Did I mention it was free?

The first lady isn’t the only government official singing the praises of breastfeeding; the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC, and the office of the surgeon general endorse exclusive breastfeeding for six months, as do the leading pediatric organizations. The IRS announced in February that breast pumps and other nursing supplies could qualify for tax breaks. Similar breastfeeding incentives were included in Obamacare; requiring employers to provide “lactation breaks” to their female employees.

Why then, given all of these pro-breastfeeding statement and programs, does the Obama administration continue to support a massive entitlement program that encourages poor women to skip breastfeeding altogether and instead turn to formula for their children’s nutrition needs? Of course, tackling entitlement programs isn’t really the Obama administration’s strong suit, is it?

That entitlement program — the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (commonly called WIC) — encourages many moms to skip breastfeeding. Initiated in the mid-70s as a modest program to provide poor mothers with food assistance, the program is now a massive entitlement program that feeds 2.17 million infants a year. That’s approximately half of all infants in the United States.

Because these WIC mothers know that they have access to free formula, there’s an obvious incentive for them to go ahead and use it rather than bothering to breastfeeding — which can be more time-consuming that bottle feeding. 

And in fact, only about one third of WIC mothers breast feed their babies for six months and account for between 57 and 68 percent of formula sales, which suggests that they are more likely than non-WIC moms to turn to formula. Sadly, this is the exact demographic — minorities and poor women — whose children are at highest risk for obesity, and would therefore likely benefit from breast milk the most. 

Few politicians want to hazard criticism of a program like WIC, which is supposed to help just about the most sympathetic subset of society: infants and new mothers. Yet it’s important to recognize how programs like this can backfire on the intended beneficiaries.

— Julie Gunlock is a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the percentage of men between the ages of 25 and 34 living at home rose from 14 percent in 2005 to 19 percent in 2011. Women, on the other hand, are doing just fine. Not only do they dominate today’s college campuses, they have little trouble staying away from mom and dad’s place. That’s because women are flourishing in the workforce while men are not. Writers and pundits blame this phenomenon on the economy, but the trend reflects a much larger sociological problem. America is in the midst of a sea change: Never before has it been more difficult for men and women to find their way to one another, settle in for the long haul, and build strong families together.

To read about it, you’d think the entire mess is out of our hands. You’d think the circumstances involving the roles of men and women in society have happened to us, rather than the other way around. The truth is that we created this new world — and while we may not be able to undo it, we can certainly stop the freight train from running off the tracks.

Hardly a day goes by that we aren’t made aware of this heartbreaking reality. It is so acute we now have not one but six new television series dedicated to men’s social demotion. In these programs, husbands are made to look like fools — while the wives wield a power so ugly it’s no wonder marriage has become so elusive. The modern generation has been sold a bill of goods about human nature, and the result is that men now have no idea how to be men. Why? Because women won’t let them.

There is a large and powerful group of women who see this shift in gender roles as a good thing. Hanna Rosin’s provocative piece in The Atlantic, called “The End of Men,” and Kate Bolick’s new piece “All the Single Ladies” (which may now become a TV series) make light of the demise of masculinity and the role men once played in society. They represent the kind of movers and shakers who help lead the feminist fight. Pointing to the latest statistics about men, they’d be likely to respond, “See how hopeless men are? Everything we’ve been saying about men all these years has proven to be true.”

But the laugh will be on them — if not for their own families, then for their children’s. The feminist policies that were put in place to help women flourish outside the home have suffocated men’s opportunities for economic self-sufficiency. In short, men’s desire to be good workers and family providers has been undermined. This is more than unfortunate; it is a loss of catastrophic proportions, for it is men’s consistent, full-time, year-round work that women depend on in order to live that ever-coveted “balanced life.” What too many women don’t understand (because they’ve been unduly influenced by feminist groupthink) is that male nature is ultimately beneficial to them, for women continue to put family — not career — at the center of their lives and are thus dependent on men to pick up the slack at the office.

It is a dangerous thing to create a society of frustrated young men. Feminists have no idea what a can of worms they’ve created — and what it’s about to do to our nation.

— Suzanne Venker is co-author of the new book The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know – and Men Can’t Say. Her website is www.suzannevenker.com.

I glimpsed a quote from Kati Haycock yesterday, kicking off the Education Trust annual conference, saying that we can’t let “bad parenting” be an excuse for poor educational results. She’s absolutely right, of course. It’s not as if our schools are running on all cylinders (especially schools serving poor kids), and if only parents were doing their jobs too, achievement would soar. And we’ve got several examples of school models that are making a tremendous difference in educational outcomes for kids, regardless of what’s happening at home.

That said, it strikes me as highly unlikely that we’re ever going to significantly narrow the achievement gap between rich and poor unless we narrow the “good parenting gap” between rich and poor families, too. (And yes, I know I’m going to catch a lot of grief for saying that.)

Let’s admit it: The broader/bolder types are right when they say that a lot of what influences student achievement happens outside of schools, and before kids ever step foot in kindergarten. Where they are wrong, I believe, is in thinking that turbo-charged government programs can compensate for the real challenge: what’s happening inside the home.

Conservatives used to talk about this, but for whatever reason they’ve been awfully silent lately. Perhaps that’s starting to change. A new book by Minnesota think tanker Mitch Pearlstein addresses the issue head on. And today, in the Washington Post, compassionate conservative Michael Gerson argues that issues such as divorce and teenage pregnancies are what’s dampening social mobility.

So let’s get specific: What can parents do to increase the chances of their children doing well in school? Let’s just start with the zero-to-five years.

Wait until you’ve graduated from high school and you’re married to have children. Stay married. Don’t drink or smoke when you’re pregnant. Get regular pre-natal check-ups. Nurse your baby instead of using a bottle. Talk and sing to your baby a lot. As you child grows, be firm but loving. Limit TV watching, especially in the early years. Spark your child’s curiosity by taking field trips to parks, museums, nature centers, etc. Read, baby, read.

For virtually all of these items, we’ve got evidence that affluent parents are much more likely to engage in these behaviors than poor parents. And what makes it easier for affluent parents to do these things isn’t mostly money (more on that below) but numbers one and two: Getting married, and staying married. It’s a hell of a lot harder (though not impossible, of course) to be a great parent when you’re doing the job alone than when you’ve got a partner. And in case you haven’t noticed, out-of-wedlock pregnancy rates and divorce rates have reached catastrophic levels for the poor and the working class — but not for the most affluent and well-educated among us.

As mentioned above, the Left’s answer to this challenge is a panoply of social programs. Home visits for pregnant women. Community health centers. Head Start. I’ve got no complaints with these, especially if they can show evidence of working.

But we’re still dancing around the issue if we don’t address the family directly. Imagine we could convince most poor teenagers — whether they be black, white, or Hispanic — to save child-rearing for their 20s, and to get and stay married first. Getting them to adopt healthy parenting behaviors, then, would be much more doable, even on a limited budget. (See the innovative work that GreatSchools.net is doing on this front.) You don’t have to be Richy Rich to nurse your baby, or sing to her, or learn how to be loving but firm. Sure, a few of these items are easier with money. (I imagine that low-income families use TV as a babysitter more because they can’t afford alternative childcare.) But mostly these take commitment, discipline, and practice.

So how do we spark a marriage renaissance, especially for poor and working class families? Honestly, I don’t have a clue. Some argue for family-friendly tax incentives; others think a religious revival is what’s needed. I would vote for middle schools and high schools that are unafraid to preach a pro-marriage, wait-till-you’re-older-to-have-babies message — paternalistic charter schools or religious schools in particular. In other words, this is another strong argument for school choice.

Whatever the solutions, let’s at least start talking about the problem. Pat Moynihan tried to warn us long ago that our national experiment with large-scale single parenthood would turn out badly. He was right, and then some. Let’s not wait any longer to do something about it.

— Michael J. Petrilli is executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Does it taste like chocolate? If not, back to work, nerds:

Popeye might want to consider switching to broccoli. British scientists unveiled a new breed of the vegetable that experts say packs a big nutritional punch.

The new broccoli was specially grown to contain two to three times the normal amount of glucoraphanin, a nutrient believed to help ward off heart disease.

“Vegetables are a medicine cabinet already,” said Richard Mithen, who led the team of scientists at the Institute for Food Research in Norwich, England, that developed the new broccoli. “When you eat this broccoli . . . you get a reduction in cholesterol in your blood stream,” he told Associated Press Television.

An AP reporter who tasted the new broccoli found it was the same as the regular broccoli. Scientists, however, said it should taste slightly sweeter because it contains less sulphur.

The rest here.

On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., we stayed at a comfortable, mid-level hotel that offered free breakfast and didn’t hurt the pocketbook.  However, the woman who helped us check into our room was wearing a black bracelet that read, in large white letters, SAME SEX . . . something. Probably “equality.” I couldn’t read it entirely, but I was annoyed.

What if I’d had my children with me? Imagine having to answer the questions that could follow: What is sex? What is same sex equality?

Please. I wanted to check into a hotel, not go into birds, bees, and the difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality simply because I need a place to rest my head at night.

Come to think of it, it’s annoying to have to know any political statement from your hotel employee. I’d feel the same way if she were wearing an “End the War Now” button, or “Raise the Debt Ceiling,” or “Osama Was Framed” or “Flat Tax Rules” or “Vote for Rick Perry.” Give me a nice place to rest, not some sort of bumper-sticker sloganeering along with the keycard.

When my husband and I got into the elevator, we griped about it. But when the hotel manager emailed us after check-in to make sure we were happy with our room, I took the opportunity to explain to him my concern.

“Can’t you just wait until we check out?” my exhausted husband asked with a smile. We fully expected him to respond with a long defense of free speech. Perhaps an explanation that we were in the nation’s capital, where political expression was not only good and healthy, but an expected part of life. 

However, I felt that if I didn’t say anything, I’d ceded the moral ground (okay, so just a lobby) to people who value their own opinions above their jobs, their customers, and the eyes of children. It had been a hard political week, and I was fed up. Her bracelet was the last thing I wanted to see.

Surprisingly, the manager’s response was fast and amazing:

I completely agree and will address this at once! Being a native Washingtonian, I know there are areas you don’t go and being apolitical is a requirement. . . . I’m on the same page. I purposely do not sell items in our convenience store that most hotels freely display. I have two girls myself and do not want to have “the talk” on what was suppose to be a fun trip because someone wanted to make some extra dollars by putting adult items next to gummy bears (I have seen that very thing).

The issue was addressed in such a wonderful, professional manner that it put a smile on my face as I walked past the White House later that evening. Sometimes you just need a respite from all the political talk, maneuvering, and spin.  And now I know there’s a hotel in D.C. which will provide it.

You’ve got a blessed son, Greg. But, as you are well aware, not every son is so blessed.

Culture matters. And when men are portrayed as bumbling goofs with unserious jobs, unworthy of their brilliant, beautiful, talented wives, it’s sending a message about what we think of men and women and our relationships with one another.

Do I think sitcoms are everything, a cultural make-or-breaker in the lives of all American boys? Of course not, but it’s part of a cultural picture.

I think back to when WFB died. There was such an outpouring of love for him, he was truly a part of people’s lives, people who never actually met him in person. A man wrote in and said that Bill was a father figure to him. He didn’t have a dad who raised him, but he had a stable, weekly, wise, manly presence in his life in the person of William F. Buckley Jr. on Firing Line.

When you put something out there, it can influence lives in ways good and bad. Even while we’re laughing.

And, in the case of the goofball men on TV, I worry about its influence on girls as much as boys, women as much as men. Maybe even more. If manhood has been defined down, it’s not because men all of a sudden started bothering with video games more than courting young ladies. It’s because a cultural revolution defined it down. We had Girl Projects and empowered the women in ways presenting them as somehow victimized by masculinity. If we still held up men in our culture, schools, politics, as potential heroes, as even necessary, the jokes might be less harmful. But when New York Times columnists wonder Are Men Necessary?, the prime-time dopes are further blows. Little Maureen needs to see heroes as much as young Michael does.

I feel as if I’m bringing an intellectual knife to an intellectual gun fight, but I disagree with William Bennett and this CNN piece he wrote entitled, “Men become the target of jokes.“

Here’s the opener:

“That’s the second unmanly thing you’ve done today,” is the punch line of the most frequently played Miller Lite ad during NFL games. It ends with the ultimatum, “Man up.”

In a new McDonald’s commercial, two newlyweds delay their honeymoon after the man hears that McDonald’s is featuring the McRib sandwich again. The woman says in disbelief, “I married a 14-year-old.”

If popular culture is any indicator, manliness is on our minds. Six new TV shows this fall focus on man’s role in society and the family, according to the Wall Street Journal. Three are appropriately titled, “Last Man Standing,” “How To Be A Gentleman,” and “Man Up!” Something is going on here.

In all these shows, men have become the butt of the jokes. From weakness to irresponsibility to immaturity, the modern idea of manhood is in doubt. A shift in cultural norms, a changing workforce and the rise of women have left many men in an identity crisis. It makes for good comedy, but bad families.

And . . .

Boys become men through mimesis — the Greek word for imitation. Boys look to role models, from parents to coaches to teachers to fictional characters, for actions they should imitate. The forces of imitation can be either constructive or destructive, making it essential that boys imitate the right kind of men. My brother and I were raised by a single mother, but she went through any pains necessary to put good men in our lives — good priests, teachers and coaches.

The problem with Bennett’s argument that these sticoms are bad for boys is twofold. One, the shows aren’t targeted at boys, and even if boys are watching, there really aren’t a lot of them doing so.

Here are the ratings from last week. On network TV. . .

. . . and from cable. . .

The three shows Bennett mentions are nowhere on the list and How to Be a Gentleman has already been cancelled.

But this brings me to problem two with his argument. The male characters in the shows he does mention are actually the role models he speaks of. In Last Man Standing, for example, Tim Allen is a successful photographer at a sporting-goods store. He saves his job when a rant he puts on the company’s website goes viral and the company makes it a regular feature. Here’s an sample where Allen’s character tells viewers why learning hand-to-hand combat is more important than learning Chinese, Spanish, or poetry. The entire show is about Allen’s belief that manliness is under attack, and he is the “last man standing.”

How bad are sitcom dads really anyway? Fred Flintstone, Ralph Kramden, Ricky Ricardo to the modern-day men of TV like Ray Barone (Everyone Loves Raymond), Doug Heffernan (King of Queens) and Phil Dunphy (Modern Family) are all good role models. All held decent jobs, all were hard working, and none ever cheated on his spouse.

They may have been portrayed as goofballs, but hey, men are goofballs. We laugh, as Homer Simpson often says, because it’s true.

I remember watching a documentary a few years back when they interviewed black kids in Harlem and asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. The girls, for the most part, wanted to be nurses, lawyers, etc. The boys wanted to play in the NBA.

Now, look again at the ratings above and see what are the most popular shows. Football, baseball, and fake wrestling. How many boys watched convicted felon Ray Lewis against Jacksonville? How many boys watched the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series — a team whose hitting coach is disgraced Mark McGwire? It will be interesting to see if McGwire makes the trip to the White House, as his last trip to D.C. — as a babbling, teary-eyed witness in front of Congress, too afraid to “man up” and admit his use of steroids — didn’t go so well.

Bennett ends with this, and I agree 100 percent:

We must teach our boys what is to be loved and imitated. As the writer Tom Wolfe said, we must engage in a great relearning. It is our generation’s task to instruct and train our boys to be men. As Proverbs says, train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

It’s just that as a parent, I’m not going to lose any sleep if my son is watching a sitcom where the male lead is an employed and faithful husband. It’s also my job to make sure as we’re watching the football games on Saturday and Sunday that my son knows who the role models are and aren’t on the field of play. And if my son doesn’t turn out to be the man he should be, it won’t be because of the shows he watched, it will be because I failed as a dad.

Apparently, Kim Kardashian’s marriage didn’t last too long. Who knew? And I am truly sorry to hear that. Truly.

I learned about it when journalists started calling to ask for my thoughts on whether the Kardashian news wasn’t indeed another reason for not giving same-sex marriage a try. I have heard this line of reasoning quite a bit from people thinking the reasoning is sound. It goes like this: “See you heteroes make a mockery of marriage so why not give us a chance?” They offer sky-diving and scuba-diving weddings as examples. Or Erik Menendez’s jail-house nuptials where a twinkie from the vending machine served as the wedding cake.

This strikes me as similar to the the tobacco companies begging, “Listen mom and dad, your kids already consume more junk food and sugar drinks then they should. Why not give us a shot at them?”

Who makes an argument for their particular deeply held self-interest by appealing to someone else’s failure to meet the ideal?

Hillary and Julie Goodridge, the plaintiffs who fought for and gave us our nation’s first same-sex marriage law (Massachusetts) separated two years after their wedding and divorced in 2009. It is no more right to pile onto the Goodridges than it to pile on the Kardashians or anyone else whose marriage fails. But our goal should not be to bring marriage down to it’s least common denominator, but to strengthen it. How will redefining marriage to say the “husband/wife” part of marriage is merely personal choice strengthen marriage?

If same-sex marriage proponents are really about taking marriage seriously — as we are told they are — is getting married on Conan’s show the way to show that seriousness? You would go to Charlie Rose for that.

As a blogger.

Happy Halloween!

This week, after a glorious thrill ride for Americans who enjoy our national pastime — baseball — we must endure another political attack, this time on Herman Cain. I’ll resist talking about the obvious: an ad hominem charge against a black conservative who, to a lefty, represents the lowest of the low. Instead, I’ll focus on the real issue: In response to the two women who claim they were sexually harassed by Herman Cain, Erin Matson, a vice president for the National Organization for Women, had this to say: “It is deeply insulting that this is being called political. . . . Sexual harassment allegations are always about a woman who is simply trying to go to work.”

In fact, that is rarely what sexual harassment allegations are about.

Thanks to feminists’ well of grievances (hence Matson’s use of the word “insulting”), sexual-harassment allegations are about women’s feelings — and nowhere is this more evident than in the accusations against Cain. According to Politico’s sources, the incidents in question include descriptions of gestures that were not overtly sexual but made the women who experienced them “uncomfortable.”

That women now have the power to ruin men’s lives using a boatload of resentment but no evidence to speak of tells you all you need to know about feminism and its effect on our society. Once a free country, in which a person was innocent until proven guilty, America has devolved into a country hell-bent on getting even with men — and what better way to do this than using sex as a weapon?

Not only have our sexual-harassment laws threatened the reputation and livelihood of countless unsuspecting college guys, adult men and fathers are equally victimized. As Missouri judge Robert H. Dierker Jr., explains in The Tyranny of Tolerance: A Sitting Judge Breaks the Code of Silence to Expose the Liberal Judicial Assault, claims of sexual harassment have become a means by which feminists vent their malice toward men. He wrote that feminism’s “confluence” with the Left has “spawned a truly horrible jurisprudence.” Feminists have determined that the law should not treat women the same as men but bette — —to compensate women for centuries of oppression. “Sexual harassment law threatens to become a weapon by which [feminists] ensure the oppression of men.”

My heart goes out to Mr. Cain. As a black conservative, I’m sure he imagined the attacks that would come when he decided to run for president. But he may have greatly underestimated a feminist attack — that’s the worst kind of all.

I challenge any reader to find a worse one: a 13-year-old boy dressed up as a baby, complete with bonnet, pacifier, and diaper.

I’d love to meet the proud papa of this imbecile.

As a parent of a child who was in the NYC public-school system, I can offer an observation on whether sex-ed should be taught in middle school: Hell no.

Kathryn links to a N.Y. Daily News story that quotes parents from Middle School 391 in the Bronx. GreatSchools.org gives the school a one out ten ranking, ten being best. Although the school gets a “B” grade under Bloomberg’s grading system, that actually means this school is one of the better, horrible schools. For the real story, look at student achievement, which is a “D.”

Schools chancellor Dennis Wolcott was quoted in the article:

A significant percentage of our teenagers have had multiple sexual partners, so we can’t stick our heads in the sand about this.

Let’s also not stick our heads in the sand and be honest and say the truth: Any time spent not teaching the basics to kids at M.S. 39 is time wasted. 

how old is too old for trick-or-treating?