Free Republic

PRAIRIEVILLE- Seventh grade students at Galvez Middle School got a lesson in extreme politics they and their parents may not have expected. Their social studies teacher prefaced a lesson on political parties with a survey that asked: Are you a Republican or Democrat. "In my opinion the answers were highly skewed in order to promote one party over another," said Terry Stehlik, who's child was given the survey. *** Link to the 'survey': http://www.wbrz.com/files/Galvez_Middle_Survey.pdf

Students in the Los Angeles Unified school district may soon be taught “age-appropriate” curriculum promoting positive images of homosexuals and their contributions to society. The resolution approved on Tuesday directs officials to come up with an implementation plan within 90 days, the Associated Press reported. One mom present at the school board meeting recalled the reaction her son Elliot received at school when he openly declared himself to be homosexual at age 13 in front of hundreds of classmates.

Parents sending children off to college for the first time, beware: Their “freshman orientation” is all too likely to include being herded through a “tunnel of oppression” to learn about the evils of “white privilege,” being lectured about how they’re part of a “rape culture” or being forced to discuss their sexual identities with complete strangers -- before they even meet their first professor. That’s right: For all we hear about faculty ideological or political bias, campus administrators are often worse when it comes to brainwashing students. Consider the shocking account from a student trained to be a dorm supervisor...

This idea isn't going to make a big splash with Rubber Duckie. An online campaign to pressure the producers of "Sesame Street" into having lovable roommates Bert and Ernie get married is gathering steam. Getting hitched would change things for Ernie, who has long sang about how his bath toy, Rubber Duckie, "was the one." More than 700 people have signed on to the petition, posted at change.org. "We are not asking that Sesame Street do anything crude or disrespectful," reads the petition for the muppet merger. "It can be done in a tasteful way. Let us teach tolerance of...

Every few weeks, Aidan Key might get a call: a little boy in school is dressing as a girl — in frilly tops or pink skirts. A girl in first-grade will be returning from a holiday break as a boy.Public- and private-school administrators and the parents of these kids want guidance navigating such sensitive terrain; they want to help children become comfortable calling a classmate by a new name, or know how and when to refer to another student as he or she.There was a time when these calls were almost exclusively about middle- and high-school kids. But increasingly they...

An article appeared in the local (Ishikawa Prefecture) version of Mainichi Shinbun on July 25. The article was about the anti-nuke demonstration in Kanazawa City SNIP Among the participants was Mr. Takumi Aizawa, a school worker at Kusano Elementary School in Iitate-mura in Fukushima Prefecture, which has been designated as "planned evacuation zone" by the national government. Mr. Aizawa told the demonstrators, "After the earthquake there was no information. Then a university professor sent by the government came to the village and said, "You can eat vegetables harvested in the village if you wash them". Children, who had been evacuated,...

California lawmakers on Tuesday sent the governor a bill that would make the state the first requiring public schools to include the contributions of gays and lesbians in social studies curriculum. The bill, passed on a party-line vote, adds lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as well as people with disabilities to the list of groups that schools must include in the lessons. It also would prohibit material that reflects adversely on gays. Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco says SB48 is crucial because of the bullying that happens to gay students. Republicans called it a well-intentioned but ill-conceived...

Sorry, did I say fire? I meant lies. Chariots of lies. They sound, and look, a lot alike. Fuzziness, please remember, is as good as accuracy. For many disadvantaged children, it’s better. They should not have to deal with further rejection and humiliation. You’d understand that if you weren’t a capitalist stooge. This is one of our most important lies. Sorry, I meant truths. Our job is to correct the ills of society, and provide advantages to the disadvantaged. Fuzziness is an important tool in this agenda. Let’s say that A is almost as tall as B. Surely we can...

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will give remarks at the Department’s first-ever Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) youth summit at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, June 7, at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C. The two-day summit, “Creating and Maintaining Safe and Supportive Environments for LGBT Youth,” will take place Monday-Tuesday, June 6-7. Duncan will highlight the administration’s commitment to ensuring equal access to education for LGBT students as it does for all students. He also will discuss the Department’s Office for Civil Rights recently released guidance on the protection against harassment in an education setting based on gender,...

Obama Administration Holds LGBT ‘Youth Summit’ – Gov’t ‘Has Finally Come Out of the Closet,’ Official Says Monday, June 06, 2011 By Penny Starr (CNSNews.com) – Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius spoke at the first “Federal LGBT Youth Summit” on Monday after being introduced by a homosexual on her staff, who said the secretary “gets us” and is “tireless” in her support of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender youth. “Your federal government has finally come out of the closet in support of LGBT youth,” said Pam Hyde, HHS administrator for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services. “It’s great...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. adults, on average, estimate that 25% of Americans are gay or lesbian. More specifically, over half of Americans (52%) estimate that at least one in five Americans are gay or lesbian, including 35% who estimate that more than one in four are. Thirty percent put the figure at less than 15%. Just your best guess, what percent of Americans today would you say are gay or lesbian? 2002 and 2011 Trend The findings, from a Gallup poll conducted May 5-8, 2011, mark the second time Gallup has asked Americans to estimate the gay population. In 2002,...

There is a difference between an open mind and an empty head.  But not everyone agrees.  At Harambee Elementary in Maplewood Minnesota, kindergarteners are starting their indoctrination early.  The Star Tribune reports that at this school, "A 'community cultures specialist' tours classes to make sure students are working across racial lines and learning about multiple world view perspectives." This absurd social engineering could be an object of humor and ridicule, if we weren't all paying for it.  That's right: The Star Tribune reports that "federal grants" help fund this aggressive indoctrination of small children. Harambee Principal Kristine Black says,...

Don’t. Just don’t. It’s not worth the heartburn. It was a great temptation, though, Sunday night when the most satisfying news of the current round of Islam vs. Everybody Else started breaking. Osama bin Laden wasn’t just captured, he was dead and the U.S. had the body. Okay, kudos to the person who gave the order to go in: the current resident of the White House. The vast majority of thinking and fair Americans out there have no problem with that. It’s the rest of what the brainwashed have to say that’s a problem. Like everyone else who grows up...

Young people who gathered for the International Youth Conference on Youth Awareness of Climate Change held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia recently implored governments to increase awareness on climate change. They challenged governments to actively promote climate change issues through incorporating climate change education into both the formal and informal education system. The conference proposed that youths should engage in community projects aimed at reducing their vulnerability to Climate Change by researching, exchanging knowledge and experience, involving media in disseminating success and inspiring stories, organizing campaigns, actively participating in climate change events and to facilitate the analysis at the community level on...

While other students spent their weekend at VEISHEA, 19 ISU students headed to Power Shift, a nationwide, green energy conference in Washington, D.C. Keynote speakers came to address students about various environmental issues plaguing our planet, including Al Gore, activist Van Jones, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, and 350.org founder and author Bill McKibben Jones said the United States is powering a civilization on death itself that's both detrimental to our health and the environment, because the fuels we are using are from dead organisms. That is why coal, oil and natural gas are all called "fossil fuels." "We burn death...

Thanks to a controversial legislative maneuver, Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker's plan to end collective bargaining for his public employees passed the state senate Wednesday night. Now, in a stunning show of solidarity with their teachers—who, as union members, now have no bargaining rights—Wisconsin's high school students are planning a grassroots school walkout, and they want to take their protest national. Wisconsin Students in Solidarity is asking for the nationwide walkout to happen this Friday, March 11, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. local time. Less than 12 hours after being formed, the Facebook event, Nationwide Student Walkout, has almost 2,000 "attendees"...

Part one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ9z4uIUBJk&NR=1 Part two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s2J6JW1yI4

The Met Office is urging people to blow bubbles and spot vapour trails as part of a national survey of Britain's climate.The research, led by scientists at the Met Office and the Royal Meteorological Society, will look at various aspects of how humans are affecting the climate, and how people may adapt to rising temperatures. People are being asked to look out for aeroplane trails, or contrails, which may be contributing to climate change and which can only be recorded by the human eye. Researchers are also urging schoolchildren to blow bubbles to measure wind speed and direction near the...

The MIT economist credited with crafting President Barack Obama’s national health care overhaul law has reportedly started work on his latest venture: a comic book that explains the law in the simplest of terms. Jonathan Gruber, a health economist who devised Obamacare’s economic structure, says his children inspired him to use the comic format to explain the law to Americans in plain language. “I’m going to use the facts to tell the story,” Gruber, 45, said Monday. “I’m the narrator guiding the reader through the law. It’ll have lots of pictures and text.” According to the Boston Herald, the publishing...

The Savior, the Master Teacher    By Elder Jay E. JensenOf the Presidency of the SeventyJay E. Jensen, "The Savior, the Master Teacher", Ensign, Jan. 2011, 42–47   We are to feast upon the words of Christ—the scriptures—and, as He did, use them to teach and strengthen others.  Under the direction of His Father, Jesus Christ created worlds without number. He was the great Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament. He was born of a mortal mother, Mary, and of God the Eternal Father. He was the greatest being to live on earth. He said He came “to do the will of him...