Christina Hoff Sommers writes at Time magazine:

Being a boy can be a serious liability in today’s classroom. As a group, boys are noisy, rowdy and hard to manage. Many are messy, disorganized and won’t sit still. Young male rambunctiousness, according to a recent study, leads teachers to underestimate their intellectual and academic abilities.

“Girl behavior is the gold standard in schools," says psychologist Michael Thompson. “Boys are treated like defective girls.”

"These 'defective girls' are not faring well academically," Sommers continues. "Compared with girls, boys earn lower grades, win fewer honors and are less likely to go to college. One education expert has quipped that if current trends continue, the last male will graduate from college in 2068. In today’s knowledge-based economy, success in the classroom has never been more crucial to a young person’s life prospects. Women are adapting; men are not."

Christina Hoff Sommers is author of The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies Are Harming Our Young Men.

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Pearcey Report editor at large Nancy Pearcey will be interviewed today by Leigh Bortins of Classical Conversations at 1 p.m. eastern time. 

Here's the link to listen live at BlogTalkRadio.

"Democrat Terry McAuliffe leads Republican Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II by 4 percentage points in the Virginia governor’s race, according to a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday -- a considerably narrower margin than other recent public polling has shown," reports the Washington Times. Election Day is Tuesday, November 5.

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"Restoring a castle would no doubt require quite a paint job, but those working on a project in Italy quickly found out that Leonardo Da Vinci [1452-1519] got there first," Mia Watkins writes at Al.com.

Watkins is referencing "drawings sketched by Leonardo da Vinci [that] are emerging from the walls of an Italian castle, announced restorers working on an elaborate fresco devised by the Renaissance master," according to Rosella Lorenzi, who reported the story yesterday at Discovery.com.

"One of most original paintings of the 15th century, the mural covers the vault and walls of the Sala delle Asse in the Sforza Castle in Milan," Lorenzi writes. "It depticts a garden pergola made of 16 mulberry trees bound together by a golden, knotted rope. The trunk of each tree rises as a column supporting 16 half-moon-shaped spaces above a Gothic vault, producing an evocative, fictive grove."

Restorers say the "mural is covered by a thick layer of grime" but that their "cleaning tests indicate that it can be easily removed. Leonardo's paint won't be damaged in the procedure." 

The restoration project "will last two years, ending just in time for the Milan's Expo 2015," according to Milan culture councillor Filippo Del Corno.

Sometimes in life, beauty is lost. But it need not be lost forever. "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly," says Jesus of Nazareth, who is something of an expert on restoration projects.

Whether we are thinking of lost beauty in art, science, politics, or human relations, removing thick layers of grime to restore the God-given treasures of life is a high, noble, humane, and holy calling.

That restoration you have in mind may not happen overnight, but it is well worth the effort.

Are there layers of grime on your marriage, creativity, knowledge, and routine? On your politics, your culture, your church, your neighborhood?

Well, as Francis Schaeffer might have put it, "substantial healing" is possible. And you can experience much joy in getting there. Abundant joy, even amid the ruins.

Related 
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Writing at BBC.com, Nicholas Barber takes a shot at explaining why "there's no end of love of zombies": 

It can’t be a coincidence . . . that zombies are in vogue during a period when banks are failing, when climate change is playing havoc with weather patterns, and when both terrorist bombers and global corporations seem to be beyond the reach of any country’s jurisdiction. It can’t be a coincidence, either, that the fourth season of The Walking Dead got off to its hugely successful start just weeks after the United States federal government shut down.

Or it may be that a braindead U.S. federal government -- alive to power but not to the rules of freedom (the Constitution, the Declaration, unalienable rights "endowed" by the Creator, not by Washington, D.C., etc.) -- is of far greater concern to "The Walking Living" than is a merely temporary federal shutdown affecting only part of that nefarious creature from the Potomac lagoon.

Barber continues:

"We’re living in very uncertain times," says Max Brooks, who wrote the book on which the World War Z film is based. "People have a lot of anxiety about the future. They’re constantly being battered with these very scary, very global catastrophes. I think a lot of people think the system is breaking down and just like the 1970s, people need a 'safe place' to explore their apocalyptic worries. They can’t read stories about real plagues or nuclear war. That’s too scary. That’ll make them turn away. Zombie stories give people the opportunity to witness the end of the world they’ve been secretly wondering about while, at the same time, allowing themselves to sleep at night because the catalyst of that end is fictional."

"Zombies embody the great contemporary fear -- and, for some people, the great contemporary fantasy -- that we’ll soon be surrounded by ravenous strangers, with only a shotgun to defend ourselves," Barber concludes. "Compared to that, facing a werewolf or a vampire is a breeze."

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Gavin McInnes co-founder of Vice and often described as “The Godfather of Hipsterdom,” says his three children -- ages 7 years, 5 years, and 9 months -- convinced him to affirm the existence of God and become pro-life.

“I was an atheist most of my life and now I am a God-fearing Catholic, because of the miracle of life. And I’m pro-life,” he said, noting that he used to be pro-choice and became pro-life with the birth of his first child.

McInnes also lamented media portrayals of fathers as “the idiot of the family.”

“If it gets a laugh, fine, but we all have to check ourselves and go: ‘How about some reverence, for a change?’ We revere single moms and we revere drug dealers like Jay Z -- how about we revere the people who put on food on the table?”

McInnes is taking the most flak, however, for agreeing (in somewhat earthy language) with a study from last year finding that despite 40 years of feminism, “women's happiness had fallen 'both absolutely and relatively to that of men'.”

“I see a lot of women without kids, in their 40s, who are miserable and I see a lot of women after they have children saying, ‘what the f---- was I doing? Why was I doing fashion PR? I was doing seating plans for a fashion show telling what people sit in what chair. Now I’m shaping human life,’” he explained.

“I see the housewife as a far superior vocation to mine, and to most,” McInnes continued. “I mean I make commercials, and funny videos, and T.V. shows or whatever, film projects that people will watch for ten minutes and go ‘heh’ and get on with their day. I essentially . . . make comic books. You flip through it and you’re done. My wife creates life from her vagina and then -- that’s just the beginning -- then she shapes this human life.”

McInnes explained how much more fulfilling his wife’s day -- making memories with their children -- than his, working on a cheese commercial.

“Who is changing the world more?” he asked.

Read more here.

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Lucy Kinder reports at the UK Telegraph:

University students in America have been told not to wear "offensive" Halloween costumes including cowboys, Indians, and anything involving a sombrero.

Students at the University of Colorado Boulder have also been told to avoid "white trash" costumes and anything that portrays a particular culture as "over-sexualised" -- which the university says includes dressing up as a geisha or a "squaw" (indigenous woman).

According to Kinder, "A university spokesman called cowboy costumes a 'crude stereotype'."

Also of Interest
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Megan Fox writes at PJMedia:

October 4th, 2013, will forever be known as the day I fell into a giant porn hole. Imagine my surprise when I took my children for an outing with a friend to the Orland Park Public Library to look at books, surf the web and just have a relaxing afternoon. Instead I discovered an adult "masturbation lounge" lurking within a few hundred feet of the unsuspecting teen area.

Fox's experience that day at the library "launched what is now going on a month-long investigation that has revealed some extremely disturbing and possibly criminal activity going on at the Orland Park Public Library (OPPL), paid for by the taxpayers of Illinois," she writes.

"The library’s internal reports show that there have been at least four instances of sex crimes committed in the library and library staff chose not to call the police. In fact, in two instances they sided with the offender instead of believing witnesses. One of these reports involved a man allegedly viewing child pornography" online, Fox writes.

"Because of . . . bad library policies, the computer histories delete automatically when the computers are turned off," Fox explains. "Thus, the evidence was lost forever. And if they had found the illegal activity, they would not have been able to trace it to a specific user since there are no requirements to show an ID or a library card in order to get an anonymous login number where no one will ever know what you do. (Psssst . . . al-Qaeda! Orland Park Public Library is the perfect place to plot your next attack! Not even the NSA can figure out who you are!)," Fox notes, recognizing a clear weakness that terrorists might be foolish not to capitalize upon.

"My colleague Kevin DuJan (who was with me that day) and I scheduled an opportunity to speak about what we witnessed at the next library board meeting," Fox continues. "The library held all the requested documents until the day of the meeting so I wasn’t able to read all the incident reports and speak about them at that meeting (and that’s fine. They don’t know yet that I’m coming to the next one). We were met with open hostility and stony silence."

Here is Megan Fox's concluding paragraph: "For your viewing pleasure [see Youtube video here], I submit to you my great adventure in front of the OPPL Board of Trustees. Pay close attention to the derision and sneering hurled at me at every opportunity. And stay tuned for much, much more in the coming days and weeks. I have barely scratched the surface of this cesspit."

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Billy Hallowell reports at The Blaze:

An Ohio pastor says he was savagely beaten after Sunday’s church service by a man one local outlet called a "self-described militant atheist," who left him with a broken nose, cuts, stitches and bruises.

Rev. Normon Hayes of the Bridge Community Church in North Hampton, Ohio, says he feared for his life during the attack, which unfolded inside the house of worship. The 57-year-old preacher apparently drew the ire of James Maxie, 28, after asking the man’s girlfriend after the service if Maxie was abusing her, Dayton’s WHIO-TV reported.

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Patrick Howley reports:

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz received an eight-minute standing ovation upon his return to Texas this past weekend, despite an extended, hostile campaign from Democrats and the mainstream media to portray him as a dangerous extremist.

"After two months in Washington, it’s great to be back in America," Cruz said Saturday to approximately 750 people at an appearance in a San Antonio hotel ballroom, enjoying an eight-minute standing ovation for his dogged efforts to defund or delay Obamacare in the recent continuing-resolution budget fight.

Cruz also criticized members of his own Senate caucus for "failing to stand with House Republicans against the train wreck that is Obamacare."

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William Sullivan writes at American Thinker: 

Anthony Weiner recently lamented that "if the internet didn't exist," he'd be the mayor of New York. In other words, if John Q. Public weren't so privy to the facts, and so readily able to investigate those facts and exchange opinions about them online, politicians could more easily manipulate their political images and determine the outcome of elections.

Likewise, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is now feeling the stinging disapproval of an informed public that he may not have felt twenty years ago. Like the grand reveal at the end a Scooby-Doo episode, McConnell the "fiscally conservative" Senate leader has been unmasked in the last month's proceedings and identified as what he really is -- a career politician who'd sell his constituents and American taxpayers down the river for a buck (or in this case, a couple billion bucks). And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for meddling Matt Drudge and the like. . . .

Becket Adams reports at The Blaze:

[Sen. Ted] Cruz has taken a lot of criticism for his part in a failed attempt to defund Obamacare by tying it to a bill to keep the government funded. The gambit resulted in a 16-day partial shutdown of the government and ended with the GOP basically conceding defeat to the Democrats.

Many top Republicans said at the outset of the “defund” strategy that they didn’t think it would work -- and told that to Cruz in no uncertain terms.

Cruz, for his part, has responded by placing the blame for the failure of the “defund” strategy on his colleagues, going so far as to accuse certain Republicans of “bombing our own troops.”

In short, Cruz doesn’t believe the “defund” strategy was wrong; Senate Republicans were just unwilling to fight.

“I will say that the reason this deal, the lousy deal was reached last night, is because, unfortunately, Senate Republicans made the choice not to support House Republicans,” Cruz told ABC. “I wish Senate Republicans had united, I tried to do everything I could to urge Senate Republicans to come together and stand with House Republicans.” 

Larry Elder writes:

Urban public school teachers are about two times more likely than non-teachers to send their own children to private schools. . . .

One study found that in Philadelphia a staggering 44 percent of public school teachers send their own kids to private schools.

In Cincinnati and Chicago, 41 and 39 percent of public school teachers, respectively, pay for a private school education for their children.

In Rochester, N.Y., it’s 38 percent. In Baltimore it’s 35 percent, San Francisco is 34 percent, and New York-Northeastern New Jersey is 33 percent.

In Los Angeles nearly 25 percent of public school teachers send their kids to private school versus 16 percent of all Angelenos who do so.

Relate
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Todd Starnes writes at FoxNews.com:

The Pentagon has admitted that information used in an Army briefing that labeled the American Family Association (AFA) as a domestic hate group was not acquired from official sources and does not reflect Army doctrine.

Meanwhile, the president of the well-respected Christian ministry says his organization may file a defamation lawsuit against the military.

“We are probably going to be taking legal action,” said Tim Wildmon, president of one of the nation’s most prominent Christian ministries. “The Army has smeared us. They’ve defamed the American Family Association.”

"The AFA was listed alongside domestic hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam during a briefing last week at Camp Shelby in Mississippi," Starnes explains. "A soldier who attended the briefing recently sent me a photograph of a slideshow presentation that listed AFA as a domestic hate group because of their support of traditional family values and their opposition to homosexuality."

"George Wright, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, tells me the slide was not produced by the Army and it does not reflect their policy or doctrine," Starnes writes. “It was produced by a soldier conducting a briefing which included info acquired from an Internet search,” Wright is quoted as saying. “Info was not pulled from official Army sources, nor was it approved by senior Army leaders, senior equal opportunity counselors or judge-advocate personnel.”

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David Urbanski reports at The Blaze:

One school district in the Amarillo, Texas, area isn’t messing around when it comes to potential intruders.

The Shamrock Independent School District has added two signs warning troublemakers that staff members are armed and may use force to protect its 450 students.

Photos that accompany the news story show that the signs state the following: "Attention. Please be aware that the staff at Shamrock ISD is armed and may use whatever force is necessary to protect our students."

The school district has also "installed 30 security cameras as well as an intercom system and bulletproof windows," and "according to KHOU-TV in Houston, most parents are happy with the stepped-up security," the Blaze reports. 

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Pearcey Report editor at large Nancy Pearcey will be speaking this Friday at Dallas Baptist University on her book Saving Leonardo. 

The event is part of a lecture series organized by David Naugle, author of Worldview: The History of a Concept.  If you are in the Dallas area, come by.  The lectures are held at Rogers Theater, Pilgrim chapel, at 12 noon.   

For more information, click here.

Note also that editor and publisher J. Richard Pearcey and Nancy Pearcey are developing a series of team-taught worldview seminars for universities, churches, and other venues. Further announcements on this new development will appear on The Pearcey Report.

If such events are of interest to you, please contact us at pearcey@thpearceyreport.com.

WND reports:

In a radio interview today, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., fired back at President Obama’s claim that “extreme” Republican lawmakers were holding the nation for “ransom,” blasting what he, in turn, called Obama’s “extreme positions.” . . .

“I don’t think it is an extreme position to say that government should spend only what comes in,” stated Paul, speaking on Aaron Klein’s WABC Radio show.

“Every American family knows that that’s how you have to lead your life. And so that’s not an extreme position.”

“I think what is an extreme position is that the president has added 7 trillion dollars in debt in five years. By the time he gets through with eight years, it is projected that he will add more debt than all the presidents combined,” Paul said.

“What’s important for our country to succeed, not just the Republican Party but for our country, is that we restore, repair, and continue to revive the American dream," Paul said.

"This isn’t about whether you are currently on welfare, whether you’re currently picking crops or you’re currently poor," the senator explained. "It’s about the dream of opportunity in our country.”

Sen. Paul noted that "people 'have crossed oceans and come on overfull, leaky boats to get here and escaped tyranny around the world," according to WND. "They came, he said, 'for freedom, and they also came and found prosperity'."

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539,676 pageviews helped make September a super month at The Pearcey Report, according to statistics compiled by Awstats.

A big "thank you" to everyone for your ongoing readership.

According to AZCentral.com, students in an Arizona high school performed  

The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? by Edward Albee, an absurdist play in which one of the characters falls in love with a goat. It includes the use of several vulgar sexual terms. . . .

In the play, a middle-aged man leads an ideal life with his wife and teenage son, until he admits that he is also in love with a goat named Sylvia, with whom he has had sex. The play explores themes of tolerance, morality and revenge, and includes scenes of homosexuality and incest.  

I remember this play well -- I wrote about it in Total Truth. But at the time, I did not anticipate that it would filter down to the high school level. Here's what I said there to explain the worldview backdrop: 

In the past, it was Christians who warned that Darwinian evolution would ultimately destroy morality, by reducing it to behavioral patterns selected only for their survival value. Back then, evolutionists would often respond with soothing reassurances that getting rid of God would not jeopardize morality -- that “we can be good without God.” But in recent years, evolutionists themselves have begun bluntly declaring that the theory undercuts the basis of ­morality.

For example, biologist William Provine of Cornell travels the lecture circuit telling university students that the Darwinian revolution is still incomplete, because we have not yet embraced all its moral and religious implications. What are those implications? Provine lists them: “There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will.” Thus evolutionary psychologists are simply completing the Darwinian revolution by drawing out its full implications. They are connecting the dots, by showing what consistent Darwinism means for morality.

The results can be quite abhorrent. A few years ago, conservative commentators around the country gave a collective gasp when an article appeared by a Princeton University professor supporting -- of all things -- sexual relations between humans and animals. The professor was Peter Singer, already notorious for his support of animal rights. (Apparently we ­didn’t realize what kind of rights he meant . . . ­)

The article was titled “Heavy Petting,” and in it Singer makes it clear that his real target is biblical morality. In the West, he writes, we have a “Judeo-Christian tradition” that teaches that “humans alone are made in the image of God.” “In Genesis, God gives humans dominion over the animals.” But evolution has thoroughly refuted the biblical account, Singer maintains: Evolution teaches us that “We are animals” -- and the result is that “sex across the species barrier [isn’t that a scientific-sounding euphemism?] ceases to be an offence to our status and dignity as human ­beings.”

These sentiments do not remain carefully contained within academia, but trickle down into popular culture -- where they have a much greater impact on the public. In 2002 a play opened on Broadway to rave reviews called The Goat, or, Who Is Sylvia? featuring a successful architect who confesses to his wife that he has fallen in love with someone else. The object of his affection turns out to be a goat named Sylvia. Apparently, playwrights no longer feel that they can get enough dramatic tension out of an ordinary affair; to really create drama, they must probe the theme of ­bestiality.

A culture is driven by a kind of logic: It will eventually begin to express the logical consequences of the dominant worldview. If evolution is true -- if there really is an unbroken continuity between humans and animals -- then Singer is absolutely right about what he calls “sex across the species ­barrier.”

Once again, all the dots connect back to your view of ­origins.

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And should be changed. In an article titled "Common Core Assignment," Joe Newby writes at Examiner.com:

A mother in the Bryant School District in Arkansas
-- a district using the controversial Common Core curriculum -- was surprised to learn her sixth-grade daughter was given a team assignment to revise the Bill of Rights, pruning two amendments from the Constitution while adding two others, Twitchy reported Monday, citing a report at the Digital Journal.

The assignment made the assumption that the United States government has determined that the Bill of Rights "is outdated and may not remain in its current form any longer." 

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LifeSiteNews.com reports:

When New Jersey voters go to the polls Wednesday to elect their new U.S. Senator, they won’t have to wonder what the candidates think about abortion or same-sex “marriage.”

In a political climate that has seen many campaigns minimize controversial social issues in favor of popular fiscal catchphrases like “job creation” and “tax reform,” candidates Cory Booker (D) and Steve Lonegan (R) have taken the opposite approach, exchanging frequent verbal blows about social issues ranging from gay adoption to partial birth abortion.

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In USAToday film and music producer Mark Joseph reveals that "many, if not most, of the sexually charged female pop anthems of recent decades were based on the wishful thinking of male songwriters who persuaded female singers to express their desires, in the process confusing millions of members of the opposite sex about how women really view sexuality."  (emphasis added)

Joseph continues:

Amid Miley Cyrus' sexual coming out, her record-smashing single "Wrecking Ball" shot to the top of the charts. While a woman is credited as one of the writers, so are four men. Famed producer Dr. Luke, who had a writing hand in Katy Perry's I "Kissed a Girl" ("I don't even know your name; it doesn't matter; you're my experimental game") and Britney Spears' "Lace and Leather" ("Baby take your seat, eyes on me, this is my show; your one and only pleasure") was also involved. . . .

As Joseph points out, "This pattern has a long history." He explains:

Olivia Newton-John, the legendary singer who had delivered one of the sexiest songs of the 1980s, "Physical" [now says], "I didn't want to do it!". . . It turns out that the song -- once ranked as one of Billboard's top 50 sexiest songs of all time and one that, for then-teenagers like me, charted the outlines of female sexuality -- was written by two men. . . .

Even "Like A Virgin," Madonna's signature song of female sexuality, was written by a couple of guys, who returned in the 1990s using another woman to parrot their sexuality, this time with an over-the-top ode to masturbation, "I Touch Myself."

Although The Divinyls' lead singer, Christina Amphlett, was credited as one of four writers on the song, it was born when one of the two primary male writers jotted down the title in his notebook and wrote most of the song with his songwriting partner.

Pop's supposedly sexually liberating female songs, the article says, are "neither feminine nor liberating."

A related story is the surprising and now-notorious open letter from singer Sinead O'Connor warning Miley that she is being prostituted by the men in the music business:

 [They] will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted. . . .

Don't be under any illusions. . . . ALL of them want you because they're making money off your youth and your beauty. . . .

Real empowerment of yourself as a woman would be to in future refuse to exploit your body or your sexuality in order for men to make money from you. . . . I've been in the business long enough to know that men are making more money than you are from you getting naked.

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A CBS affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth reports:

A lot of schools spend countless hours trying to stop bullying. But some question if they are sending the right message.

It started as a simple look at bullying. University of Texas at Arlington criminologist Seokjin Jeong analyzed data collected from 7,000 students from all 50 states.

He thought the results would be predictable and would show that anti-bullying programs curb bullying. Instead -- he found the opposite.

Jeong said it was, “A very disappointing and a very surprising thing. Our anti-bullying programs, either intervention or prevention does not work.”

But how surprising is this, really, especially if some of the "anti-bullying"campaigns are themselves "unsafe"?

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Oliver Darcy reports at The Blaze:

A 26-year-old university graduate [named Ashley Dionne] penned an open letter this week expressing her deep displeasure with President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, saying it has "raped" her future -- and now the letter is going viral.

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Excerpt from Saving Leonardo : 

In our own day, the evolutionary worldview has filtered down through all levels of society. In 2005 the London Zoo offered a provocative exhibit with a sign that read: “Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment.” The exhibit featured men and women dressed in bathing suits with green fig leaves attached.

The humans cavorted, posed on the rocks, and pretended to groom like baboons, picking parasites out of one another’s hair. Several children were heard asking, “Why are there people in there?” That’s exactly the question the zoo was hoping to spark, a spokeswoman replied: “Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals . . . teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate.”

What are the implications of seeing humans as “just another primate”? Even Hollywood actresses know the answer to that question. In an interview, Scarlett Johansson was once asked to respond to rumors that she had a reputation for being sexually promiscuous.

Her reply was unfiltered naturalism: Humans are merely biological organisms and therefore the practice of monogamy -- being sexually faithful to one person -- is just not natural. “I do think on some basic level we are animals,” Johansson said, “and by instinct we kind of breed accordingly.”

Actress Sienna Miller was more caustic. “Monogamy is . . . an overrated virtue,” she told Rolling Stone, “because, let’s face it, we’re f------ animals.”

Obviously, Darwinian evolution is not just a scientific theory. It has worldview implications that percolate from classic literature down to Hollywood and into our living rooms.

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Todd Starnes writes at Fox News:

Restaurant owner Glenn Helseth joined the ranks of Americans who’ve decided to defy the strong-arm tactics of the National Park Service.

For the past 11 years Helseth and his wife have operated the Carrot Tree Kitchens Restaurant [photo] inside the historic Cole Digges House in Yorktown, Va.

The National Park Service owns and operates the building. So when the government shut down on Oct. 1, the Helseths were given 48 hours to pack up and move out.

The couple also owns a restaurant on Jamestown Island. They had to close that restaurant after the National Park Service blocked access to the island.

"We’re upset on a number of levels -- not the least of which is the impending financial doom that Carrot Tree faces,” Mr. Helseth is quoted as saying. 

According to Starnes, "At least 20 of his longtime employees are facing the unemployment line. They can’t make rent and some are faced with choosing between buying food or buying medicine."

It was crunch time. "So Glenn decided it was time to take some action," Starnes writes.

"And at 11 a.m. ET he reopened the Carrot Tree Kitchens Restaurant
-- in defiance of the federal government," Starnes continues.

"I intend to serve everybody that wants to dine with me," Helseth is quoted as saying. "I don’t intend to close my doors. I am occupying Carrot Tree Yorktown."

Starnes writes that the restaurant owner "is well aware that he is breaking the law -- but he told me enough is enough."

"I’m serving Brunswick stew, ham biscuits and carrot cake,” Helseth said. "If that gets me put in jail, I’m going to jail."

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At Frontpagemag.com:

At last! A multi-media campaign that will take the battle to the demagogues who spin the nation’s news. This is TruthRevolt, a brainchild of Ben Shapiro, that is designed to expose the hypocrisies and mendacities of the leftwing media, and confront them with a counter-attack they won’t be able to handle.

Exhibit Number One -- Al Sharpton.

But why Al Sharpton? Because "Sharpton is one of the most pernicious racial demagogues of the last half-century," Frontpagemag states.

For example, Frontpagemag continues:

He is a liar who falsely accused a district attorney and five other innocent whites of raping 15-year-old Tawana Brawley in 1987 and then hounded the men, although Brawley made up the story herself.

Sharpton is the man who raged against the "white interloper" who owned a store in Harlem, after which one of his followers torched the store, causing a fire that killed eight people, all of them Hispanic and black.

Sharpton is the lynch mob leader who challenged Jews in Crown Heights to "pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house"; soon after, riots broke out in Crown Heights, and an Orthodox Jew was stabbed to death by a jeering mob.

Sharpton is the demagogue who helped gin up racial hatred against three innocent Duke lacrosse players, and who helped turn Trayvon Martin into a martyr and George Zimmerman into the target of race-baiting vigilantes.

"In other words," Frontpagemag argues, "Sharpton is a racial extortionist who has instigated racial animosities, violence, and division in America for the last forty years. In better times, Sharpton would be stigmatized and condemned for the damage he has done. But today he is a primetime host on MSNBC -- the charter cable news network for NBC News, and a favored outlet for the Obama administration’s spin doctors."

For more about TruthRevolt, visit its website here.

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Penny Starr reports at CNSNews.com:

The Very Rev. Gary Hall, chief ecclesiastical leader and executive officer of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., said in a sermon on Sunday that "homophobia" and "heterosexism" are sins.

"In its wisdom, the church came to its senses and labeled both racism and sexism as sinful," Hall said. "And now we find ourselves at the last barrier -- call that barrier homophobia, call it heterosexism."

"We must now have the courage to take the final step and call homophobia and heterosexism what they are," Hall said.

"They are sin."

"Homophobia is a sin," Hall said. "Heterosexism is a sin."

"Shaming people for whom they love is a sin," Hall said. "Shaming people because their gender identity doesn’t fit neatly into your sense of what it should be is a sin."

"On the National Cathedral’s website, under the Equality of Marriage banner’s FAQ section, it states the church will perform same-sex weddings following the law passed in the District of Columbia allowing same-sex marriage," according to CNSNews.

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David Klinghoffer writes at Evolutionnews.org:

A chemistry professor at the University of Iowa got slammed recently by colleagues for voicing the view that Darwinian evolutionary theory has "holes . . . that are big enough to drive a semi-truck through."

The professor, Ned Bowden, was writing in an official university publication, Iowa Now, and 25 of his fellow faculty members took umbrage.

They signed a collectively authored letter chastising him, reminding Dr. Bowden that Evolution Is a Fact -- "we no longer debate the central principles of evolutionary theory as a scientific framework for understanding Earth's diversity" -- and chiding Iowa Now for publishing the piece and thereby doing "a disservice to the university."

Klinghoffer notes that "Bowden's remark about the semi-truck is actually in the context of a very mild article, 'Common Ground: A Case for Ending the Animosity Between Science and Religion,' expressing the general view that science and religion need not conflict.

In the article Bowden "makes crystal clear that he is no Young Earth Creationist -- 'I have utter confidence in radioactive dating'," Klinghoffer quotes Bowden as saying.

"There's not a word about intelligent design either," Klinghoffer observes. "In fact he uses a standard theistic evolutionary formulation about how 'it is highly possible that evolution was the tool that God used to bring humans into being.'

"Poor guy!," Klinghoffer writes. "Many theistic evolutionists -- not, I'm sure, Dr. Bowden, who seems very sincere -- embrace the idea because it's supposed to protect you from attack by Darwinists. So that's a prophylactic, like some others I can think of, that's not 100 percent effective after all."

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Ryan Mauro writes at Frontpagemag.com:

When you can’t beat them, join them. That’s what the Soviet Union did to curtail Christianity’s anti-communist influence.

In a new book titled Disinformation, a covert campaign to discredit Pope Piux XII is revealed. In addition, the Soviets tried to influence the church with a Marxist-friendly version of Christianity.

The communists’ strategy against the church had three pillars: A propaganda offensive; the implanting of agents of influence, and the promotion of Liberation Theology, an anti-Western spin on scripture.

Disinformation is written by Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet bloc defector, and Ronald Rychlak, Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi. A related documentary has also been released, titled Disinformation: The Secret Strategy to Destroy the West. They disclose how a primary target of Soviet "active measures" was Pope Pius XII.

The third leg promoted an "anti-capitalist, anti-Western brand of Christianity," Mauro writes. "If the KGB could not eliminate Christianity, it reasoned it might as well manipulate it. Liberation Theology was born."

According to Mauro, "Pacepa recalls hearing Khrushchev say in 1959, 'Religion is the opiate of the people, so let’s give them opium.' He flatly says that Liberation Theology is 'KGB-invented.' He has first-hand knowledge of secret Romanian agents being dispatched to Latin America to spread it among the religious masses."

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James Lewis writes at American Thinker:

Obama thrives on crises, not solutions. That's the key to this whole administration.

The budget crisis today is the direct result of five years of over-the-top deficit spending, all demanded by Obama, who doesn't really care if the economy gets better or not.

Either way, he will blame the Republicans, with the unanimous support of our Soviet-style media.

He believes that politically he can't lose with a completely obedient media spinning everything his way.

As long as Americans are suckered by our monopoly media, we will never solve any real problems.

Instead, we will be drawn into phony crises instigated by Obama and the Democrats. Any real dangers, like nuclear proliferation and the Jihad War, will be ignored as long as Democrats are in power.

The only permanent solution is to fire the mendacious media, and that is up to you.

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Rahm Emanuel when he was chief of staff for president-elect Obama in 2008. "What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before."

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United States v. $35,651.11 -- Can the federal government "use civil forfeiture to take your money when you have done nothing wrong -- and then pocket the proceeds?" asks the Institute for Justice (IJ). "The IRS thinks so."

"For over 30 years, Terry Dehko has successfully run a grocery store [Schott's Supermarket] in Fraser, Mich., with his daughter Sandy," IJ states. Then, "in January 2013, without warning, the federal government used civil forfeiture to seize all of the money from the Dehkos’ store bank account (more than $35,000) even though they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. Their American Dream is now a nightmare."

According to IJ, "Federal civil forfeiture law features an appalling lack of due process: It empowers the government to seize private property from Americans without ever charging, let alone convicting, them of a crime. Perversely, the government then pockets the proceeds while providing no prompt way to get a court to review the seizure."

On Sept. 25, 2013, "Terry and Sandy teamed up with the Institute for Justice to fight back in federal court. A victory will vindicate not just their right to be free from abusive forfeiture tactics, but the right of every American not to have their property wrongfully seized by government," IJ concludes.

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It depends on which church. 

Research shows that "mainline" (read: liberal) churches are losing their youth (2.2% decline from 1991-2012). But evangelical churches actually gained over the same period (0.6% increase). 

These numbers are from a Pew Forum study, reported by Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family in First Things.  

Another factor that skews the numbers is that many who are counted as "leaving" church are simply switching to another church. Stanton writes: 

Young adults who are merely moving from one faith tradition to another, such as from Lutheran to Presbyterian, or Anglican to Catholic, are simply counted among the "leaving." Professor Byron Johnson from Baylor’s Institute for Studies on Religion confirms this, "Switching is not an indication that Americans have abandoned or lost their faith, as many in the media and, unfortunately, a number of Christians would have us believe." Changing lanes from one Christian tradition to another cannot honestly be categorized as "leaving" their faith.

Finally, among those who do lose their faith, most never had much to begin with. Stanton explains: 

When considering those who do leave the faith in young adulthood as a category, only 11 percent said they had a strong, meaningful faith as a child. A whopping 89 percent said they did not. 

What the numbers really show, then, is that liberal churches are shrinking, while evangelical churches are growing. Of course, we've known that since 1972 when Dean Kelley wrote Why Conservative Churches Are Growing. Kelley, an executive with the liberal National Council of Churches, realized you could not just lump all churches together. But the news media, Christian and secular, have been doing just that.

The lesson is that parents and churches who teach and exemplify Biblical convictions in credible ways are very likely to succeed in passing along those convictions to their children. As Stanton writes, what these numbers suggest is "that young people respond positively to a call to substantive discipleship and scriptural study. They are looking for something that calls them to be radically different."

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The Daily Caller has the story:

Far from being a mistype, that’s the official number that Health and Human Services wants Americans to dial when seeking health care. 

Obamacare’s national call center really did list its number as 1-800-318-2596, helpfully spelling out President Barack Obama’s tendency to blatantly flip the bird in plain view.

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At Investor's Business Daily:

The Obama administration's decision to barricade the open-air and otherwise unguarded World War II memorial is just the latest sign that the president will do anything to get his way. Is the public finally getting wise?

Anyone who's ever visited Washington, D.C., knows that while the National Mall is technically a federally owned park, it can't be closed. There are no fences around its 309 acres. No entrances. No guard posts. Just wide open spaces dotted with monuments and museums. There's the Washington Monument, which requires a guide to get to the top. But that's closed for repairs.

So the administration decided instead to put barricades around various other popular open-air Mall monuments to score political points in the budget shutdown standoff. That required, in turn, posting freshly printed signs explaining why they're off limits, and a police presence to guard the barricades.

"This isn't the first time Obama has purposefully hurt Americans to gain leverage in a political fight," notes IBD.

"During the sequester battle earlier this year, he warned that the flyspeck budget cuts would force the administration to lay off flight controllers and border agents, turn criminals loose and deny families child care. It would, Obama said, be 'a huge blow to middle-class families.' To drive the point home, he canceled White House tours."

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"A former Methodist minister-turned-atheist has been fired from her high-ranking post at Harvard University last week after it was discovered that she had falsified her resume," reports the Christian Post.

"Teresa MacBain was formerly a United Methodist pastor in Florida before announcing at the American Atheists convention in 2012 that she had lost her faith and had decided to become an atheist. MacBain's announcement led to a large amount of publicity, including the American Atheists organization naming her the 'Atheist of the Year' for 2012. Additionally, she was named the organization's public relations director in the same year," CP reports.

"Earlier in September, Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., offered MacBain the job of project director for the college's Humanist Community Project. The purpose of the newly-created project was to form local communities for humanists across the nation through schools and various organizations. MacBain's job would have been to travel to these various places to start the communities," according to the Christian Post.

"The New York Times profiled MacBain on her new position at the high-ranking university in an article that appeared earlier this month. The article claimed that MacBain had received a Master's of Divinity from Duke University. After the article ran, the newspaper was contacted by the university to clarify it had no record of MacBain's reception of a master's degree," CP reports.

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Martin Daubney, formerly editor of Loaded, discusses in the Daily Mail (U.K.) a study he conducted with Dr. Valerie Voon of Cambridge University. Daubney explains that their study focused on . . .

. . . a particular brain region called the ventral striatum -- the "reward centre" -- where our sense of pleasure is produced. This is one of the areas where an addict will show a heightened response to visual representations of their addiction -- whether it's a syringe or a bottle of vodka.

What we discovered was a revelation. When shown porn, the reward centre of normal volunteers barely reacted, but that of the compulsive porn users lit up like a Christmas tree. 

The compulsive porn users' brains showed clear parallels with those with substance addictions.

Everybody on the project was astounded. . . .

If porn does have the insidious power to be addictive, then letting our children consume it freely via the internet is like leaving heroin lying around the house, or handing out vodka at the school gates.

And this toxic effect is filtering down directly into young girls' lives.

The most shocking testament came from Professor Gail Dines. Regarded as the world's leading anti-pornography campaigner, she has interviewed thousands of men and women about sex and pornography.

"When you interview young women about their experiences of sex, you see an increased level of violence: rough, violent sex," she says.

"That is directly because of porn, as young boys are getting their sexual cues from men in porn who are acting as if they're sexual psychopaths. Pornography is sexually traumatising an entire generation of boys."

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Jason Howerton reports at The Blaze:

While Carson stopped short of accusing the IRS of targeting him because he openly criticized policies implemented by President Barack Obama or due to his outspoken conservative views, he did note that the tax agency’s visit wasn’t very surprising.

"I had my first encounter with the IRS this year, unsurprisingly after the Prayer Breakfast," he said at the annual Business Council of Alabama Chairman’s Dinner. 

Carson had managed to avoid gaining the attention of the IRS prior to his now-famous speech.

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Hans Bader writes at OpenMarket.org, the blog of the Competitive Enterprise Institute:  

On the Obamacare health insurance exchanges, being married can cost you a lot.

Get divorced (or avoid getting married, if you live together), and you save $7,230 per year if you are a fairly typical 40-year-old couple with kids (example: the husband working full-time, and the wife working part-time, with the husband making $70,000, and the wife making $23,000).

If you are a 60-year-old couple with equal incomes and no kids, and you make $62,041 a year, you save $11,028 a year by getting divorced or remaining unmarried.

These are the amounts of money you will lose if you get married, since you will lose this amount of taxpayer subsidies due to Obamacare’s discriminatory treatment of married versus unmarried couples.

That’s the reality confirmed by an Obamacare “calculator” provided by the pro-Obamacare Kaiser Family Foundation showing how Obamacare’s “tax credits” work.

This calculator is not designed to make Obamacare look bad: Indeed, it has been touted by Obama’s own proxies at BarackObama.com, known as Organizing for Action: “In a September 13 email, Erin Hannigan of Organizing for Action’s ‘Truth Team’ bragged about” this “cool calculator” showing how Obamacare’s “tax credits” work, and encouraged everyone to “share it on Facebook or Twitter.”

HT: Wintery Knight

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