Free Republic

GILFORD, N.H. – The New Hampshire father who was disgusted with school officials for assigning a sexually explicit novel to his 14-year-old daughter was arrested at Monday night’s school board meeting and charged with disorderly conduct. Unionleader.com reports William Baer was arrested and taken away in handcuffs from the meeting “because he would not stop protesting” the district’s policy of assigning “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult to its 9th grade English students. In a previous interview with EAGnews, Baer described portions of the novel as “pornography” and said he was appalled that Gilford High School officials assigned the book without...

Welcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a FRink. Will we hear. . . Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic! Call the show: 1-877-381-3811

New Jersey towns have figured out a way to sidestep the highest property taxes in the U.S. Keep children out. Educating a child in New Jersey costs an average of $12,567 a year, the most in the nation and more than double the property tax parents typically pay. So local governments have hit upon a way to expand the tax base without the expense of higher enrollment: age-restricted housing. New Jersey developers have responded by building an estimated one-fifth of the country's adults-only housing, making the state the leader in a national trend spurred by baby boomers seeking new homes...

Student journalists on La Serna High School's newspaper The Freelancer have a track record of tackling serious subjects. Previous issues of the monthly campus paper have looked at such topics as the differences in religions and teen drug use and drug abuse. But the May issue of The Freelancer, in which the staff put a spotlight on teenage sexuality - including a column on homosexuality, a campus sex quiz and a glossary of sexually oriented medical terms - pushed the edgy publication to the extreme in the eyes of some school administrators and parents. In the fallout, the newspaper's advisor...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has attacked violent video games as "a silent epidemic" among children, said she wanted a federal investigation into one of the most popular, "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." Clinton, D-N.Y., is asking the Federal Trade Commission to probe how players can access "graphic pornographic and violent content" for the game from the Internet. In a letter dated yesterday to FTC chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras, she also urged the agency to examine whether the game's rating of "M" for mature should be changed to an "Adults Only" rating. The Entertainment Software Ratings Board, a...