Free Republic

Sarah Palin may be today’s Elvis, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be the Queen. Vice presidential nominees rarely change the course of presidential politics, and despite last week’s Google records, Palin may well take her place in the nation’s large pantheon of would-be veeps whose names history has forgotten. Still, beware of underestimating Palinsanity, as blogger Ann Althouse has described the storm of comment that the Alaskan governor has aroused. Whatever Palin’s political impact, her cultural significance is profound. For better and for worse, she introduces a new and likely long-running cultural type to the national stage—the red-state feminist. Of...

Desperate Grandmas Kay S. HymowitzNow sexagenarians, narcissistic feminists are still seeking the Best Sex Ever.Time passes, and we get old. Our faces wrinkle, our hair goes gray and MIA, our teeth yellow, our knees ache, we forget the names of people we said hello to just yesterday on the way to pick up the Geritol, and there are days when a nap sounds real nice.At least that’s the way it’s been for most of humanity. But rumors that boomers will be joining the great biological stream turn out to have been greatly exaggerated. Boomers—especially feminist-influenced women of a certain...

...Life expectancy at birth has increased for all socioeconomic groups, with black men making the most dramatic gains, to 68.2 years in 2000 from 60 in 1970.... Partly because of rising female employment, the median income of white households rose 19% between 1980 and 2000 and that of black families 39% from a lower base.... Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg cites a decline in starvation. "In 1970, 35% of the people in developing countries were starving. In 1996, the figure was 18% and the United Nations expects that figure will have fallen to 12% by 2010." Professor Lomborg a few years...