Free Republic

The youth of Philadelphia are in danger. There are as many as 3,900 homeless families in Philadelphia. Only about half of Philadelphia ninth-graders graduate from high school within four years, and last year's state standardized math and reading tests came back to 11th graders in Philadelphia public schools with 70 percent of scores below proficient. In 2006, 1,030 young Philadelphians between the ages of 7 and 24 were shot; 179 kids were murdered. On such a battlefield, it would make sense for the City of Philadelphia to partner with churches and non-profit organizations to provide after-school programs, youth sports leagues,...

The death of manlinesshttp://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52283 Posted: October 5, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern Mark Foley is a sick man in a sick culture. He apparently was abused by a priest as a child, and then he, too, abused House pages (how extensively is uncertain) before it ruined him. By the way, as his attorney affirmed on Tuesday, Mark Foley "is a gay man." Aside from the political tides generated by Foley's resignation, there are much larger cultural tsunamis swashing round. The Foley scandal intensifies the strain on relationships between youth and adults. It is particularly damaging for relations between old men and...

The Calling of Our Generationhttp://magic-city-news.com/article_6655.shtml By Hans Zeiger Sep 18, 2006, 10:43 "The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation." These are the words of President Bush on September 11, five years after the attacks. If Baby Boomers doubt that this present war is the calling of their generation, the children of the Boomers-at least the rising leaders among them-have little doubt that it is theirs. On the eve of September 11, 2006, nearly 150 Hillsdale College students gathered for a...

Fickle Philly punishes Boy Scoutshttp://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51251 Posted: July 27, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Hans Zeiger It is a violent summer in Philadelphia. Drug-related gang violence plagues the streets of the City of Brotherly Love. But one of the most outrageous attacks comes from the office of Philadelphia Mayor John Street. It is aimed at the Boy Scouts. Nearly eight decades ago – 1928 – the city of Philadelphia granted the local Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts Council property at the corner of 22nd and Winter Streets "in perpetuity." Now, because the Boy Scouts believe as much in moral principle as...

Good turns' ought to counthttp://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/15140277.htm http://tinyurl.com/n2kxw Posted on Fri, Jul. 28, 2006 Hans Zeiger In 1928, the City of Philadelphia made a promise to the Boy Scouts "in perpetuity." That was the city's arrangement for its leased land to the Scouts at 22d and Winter Streets, where today sits the headquarters of the Cradle of Liberty Boy Scout Council. In exchange for the city property, the Boy Scouts have contributed countless "good turns" to Philadelphia. A good turn is an act of kindness, a volunteer project, a daily decision to invest in the lives of others. Scouting teaches boys to...

Testimony, not Biographyhttp://scoutoath.tripod.com/id17.html By Hans Zeiger I once went to a car race where most of the cars were marked with the names and logos of their sponsors and drivers. Only one car stood out. This one was a sprint car, and it carried a simple message on the side: “Jesus is Lord.” As I watched the racers zoom around the track, I reflected on the difference between that car and all the rest. The race is now but a flash of memory – the dust settled, the fans went home, perhaps the prize money was spent – but that...

Episcopal boredom http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50644 http://tinyurl.com/p3s8y Posted: June 15, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Hans Zeiger Let me see if I can capture the mood at the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Columbus, Ohio. The main thing about it is the generation. It is a gathering, chiefly, of baby boomers on the older end of their cohort. If they preceded the boom, they at least participated in the '60s. I half expected the long hair and dope to flow with the crowds that came yesterday to hear the debates about homosexuality and the consequently precarious relations of the Episcopal...

COLUMBUS, OH: Gay Eucharist attracts 1,000+ By Hans Zeiger VirtueOnline Correspondent COLUMBUS, OHIO (6/16/06)-Over 1,000 homosexual and pro-homosexual clergy, bishops, and laymen of the Episcopal Church celebrated Eucharist Friday evening at Trinity Episcopal Church, just blocks from the site of the 75th Episcopal General Convention. "This is a small taste of what heaven must be like," said the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, as he began his sermon to the prolonged cheers of the adoring congregation. Then Robinson was brought to tears as he thanked his homosexual partner Mark, three years after the Episcopal Convention at...

The Episcopal Church in America is dying. A recent Gallup poll shows that Episcopals have the lowest weekly church attendance rate of any Christian denomination; only one in three Episcopals go to church every week. Only the non-religious and Jews register lower religious service attendance than Episcopals. Gallup interviewed 11,000 adult Americans between 2002 and 2005 to find that 44 percent of Americans attend church weekly or almost weekly. Episcopals are not only far below the national average, they are far below the average for mainline Protestant denominations. Episcopal in-house statistics tell the same story. In the Blue Book for...

"Conservative youth" was once considered an oxymoron. The British Social Attitudes Survey published in 2004 demonstrated that young Brits born around the time of Margaret Thatcher's conservative term as prime minister are personally conservative. They side with their parents on many issues, causing the Guardian to declare that "the age of teenage rebellion is over" in its Dec. 7, 2004, issue. The British press calls them "Thatcher's Children." "Thatcher's Children" was coined to describe England's economically conservative young people. The Adam Smith Institute polled British youth that were between the ages of 16 and 21 at the turn of the...

2006: Turning point for young conservatives Posted: January 5, 2006 By Hans Zeiger Something big is going on in America, but few are yet aware of it. It is a generational shift comparable to that of the infamous '60s, and it will involve as much revolt and upheaval. In this case, revolution is desperately needed, for the previous revolution has almost destroyed the country. The new revolution will repair the country. Yet 2006 will not be the beginning of the revolution – it has already been gathering steam now for several years. But it will, I predict, commence the vigorous...

If, as President Bush said last year, it is to be “liberty’s century,” the members of the Fourteenth Generation are the appointed guardians. The first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel opens the New Testament with a genealogy. It is a Christmas list -- not a wish list, but a Providential list. It is the outworking of God’s Hand in the generations through history, culminating in the birth of Christ. Matthew 1:17 summarizes the genealogy. “So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying...

This week, hundreds of young conservatives from college and university campuses across America are gathering at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., for the annual Young America's Foundation Conference. They are hip, intelligent, politically savvy, and the most determined group of campus activists since the 1960's radicals. As the hippie professors' pony tails wax grayer and grayer, the rising generation of conservative students grows stronger and stronger. No one knows the burgeoning power of the conservative movement on America's college campuses like the far-Left activists whose efforts these days are consistently less persuasive, less civil, and less consequential. "Liberals do...

The year 2007 would have marked the 100th birthday of Boy Scouting in England. Unfortunately, the British Boy Scouts, founded by Lord Robert Baden-Powell as the first Scouting group in the world, is now a dead organization. The recent decision by U.K. Scout Association executives to make chaos of the Scout Oath mangles the program far beyond anything Baden-Powell might recognize. Instead of being required to pledge their loyalty to "God and the Queen," members of the Scout Association can now opt to swear allegiance to any combination of things. Muslims can pledge to Allah, Hindus to Dharma, and atheists...

The Boy Scouts is not a hate group comparable to Hitler Youth (“brown shirt” has become common epithet against the Scouts) or the Ku Klux Klan, or a militant terrorist corps like the Taliban (as the Philadelphia Daily News editorialized). Neither is it a church (as federal Judge Napoleon Jones defined it) or a public accommodation (as several courts have defined it).

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 Free birth control for kids? Posted: December 21, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Hans Zeiger © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com I returned to my old high school Friday for its annual Alumni Assembly. It was my first visit to Puyallup High School since pledging in a letter to the editor of the school newspaper last March that, "should the Vanguard continue offering [advertising] space to Planned Parenthood in its pages, this alumn[us] will seek recourse at the administrative and district levels." Handed a copy of the student newspaper, I opened it to find not one, but two advertisements for "family planning"...

When I was younger, I dreamed of someday being a radio talk show host. I distinctly recall the evening in 1993 when, at the age of 8, I turned on the Kirby Wilbur show on Seattle's "Hot Talk" 570 KVI. Talk radio thereafter became a sort of second classroom for me, a weighty counterbalance to the moral neutrality and civic illiteracy of my public school. I count among my teachers Mr. Wilbur, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, John Carlson, Michael Reagan, Floyd Brown, and others who came over the airwaves at various times during my growing-up years. Rush calls his...

When I was younger, I dreamed of someday being a radio talk show host. I distinctly recall the evening in 1993 when, at the age of 8, I turned on the Kirby Wilbur show on Seattle’s “Hot Talk” 570 KVI. Talk radio thereafter became a sort of second classroom for me, a weighty counterbalance to the moral neutrality and civic illiteracy of my public school. I count among my teachers Mr. Wilbur, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, John Carlson, Michael Reagan, Floyd Brown, and others who came over the airwaves at various times during those formative years. Rush calls his program...

The National Abortion Rights Action League's youth coalition, Generation Pro-Choice, dispatched an email this week with the headline "Rumors of Gen Pro-Choicers demise are greatly exaggerated." Interestingly, it didn't say that the "rumors" were false, only that they were exaggerated. It is increasingly clear to NARAL, though subtly expressed, that the demise of the Left is imminent. I am convinced that the political strength of conservatives, so evident in the gains of the 2004 election, is a reflection of a more permanent conservative impulse that runs deeply in the American character. But conservatism is not the chief threat to liberalism;...

Nearly a century has passed since Lord Robert Baden-Powell founded the Boy Scouts in Great Britain. It has been a century filled with radical ideologies that recruited young men into Hitler Youth and the Communist Party, that populated the American youth cult with hippies and druggies, and that replaced fathers with fanaticisms and mores with MTV. Young men might have annihilated this world had it not been for the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts have always been a great threat to the utopian dreams of the ideologues. In the 1920s, the national secretary of the Young Communist League warned Lord...