RFID Chips: the Next Big Privacy Concern

Radio-frequency I.D. (RFID) tags are a convenient way to track items and cut costs for companies. But this technology is increasingly being used to track other things, like security badges - or even people - giving it the potential to cause a horrific erosion of privacy. Tracking people with smart tags, their shopping preferences, their activities, and their personal belongings sounds like something from a sci-fi thriller. But If you got your panties in a twist over Walmart's decision to track your undies via RFID smart tags, then you'll be doublely concerned at how close we are to cradle-to-grave surveillance.


RFID tags reached a tipping point with Walmart's announcement that, starting next month, the retailer will place removable "smart tags" on consumer goods. The RFID tags can be read by hand-held scanners to track inventory levels and keep a better eye on loss prevention. Recent drops in the cost per RFID tags have encouraged adoption of this technology. With Wal-Mart publicly embracing RFID, you'll see other retailers quickly fall in line.

If your trash is filled with RFID tags, your trash could be exploited by cybercriminals (driving by with a RFID reader). Perhaps consumers should be advised to trash the offending tag before they leave Walmart parking lot? I’m honestly less concerned that cybercriminals will be cataloging an individual’s purchases via their trash than I am about RFID becoming "spychips" -  using the RFID technology to track the whereabouts of citizens who have no idea they are being tracked. RFID chips are already embedded into passports and other everyday items. These potential privacy-decimating spychips can be the size of a dust speck.

I’m not railing against all creative uses for RFID tracking. There are uses for it that aren’t intended to be violations of your privacy (though in the wrong hands, who knows?) A project called "RememberMe" was started earlier this year as a way of recording memories by tracking clothes and other objects by tagging them with an RFID tag and Quick Response (QR) codes. When the owners of the objects donate them to the shop, a research assistant would record brief stories about the donated objects into a microphone: where they acquired it, the memories attached and any associated stories. Everyone that participates volunteers to do so - so no one’s privacy is violated in this case.

Food is tracked with RFID for freshness and any possible contamination. A company came out with the world's smartest coffee mug that was embedded with RFID to store the owner's account information, purchase habits, and preferences. Perhaps your business has utilized RFID tracking with products such as Microsoft's BizTalk RFID Mobile? Many companies now use RFID tracking, be it in employee badges or for product tracing.

When it comes to using RFID to track humans and our whereabouts, that's when my hackles get raised. Not that this is new either. In 2007, after newspapers reported on a controversial program designed to compile massive dossiers of data on most every American, the website for Total Information Awareness was taken down. People naturally freaked out at the privacy invasion.

But the idea is far from dead. How about if governments started using RFID to issue automated ticket violations? As part of a project called ASSET-Road, VTT Technical Research Center in Finland, has developed RFID license plate tracking. The project began in 2008 and will wrap in June, 2011. VTT attempts to detect traffic congestion but it also achieved the goal of “traffic violations detected in a flash.” And then Arizona-based camera vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS) expanded upon that RFID technology by developing automated tailgating tickets as a feature that can soon be added to existing speed camera programs. Now add in this bit of info: There are also drivers licenses that "come equipped with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags that can be read right through a wallet, pocket or purse from as far away as 30 feet."

Along similar lines is a company using RFID to track employees. An Indian company, Unity Infraprojects, uses RFID employee tags to keep track of so-called "ghost workers." The only way an employee gets paid is by a combination of RFID evidence and physical presence to collect daily payment.

And there are those taking this idea of tracking people a step further. RFID transponders can be embedded as a subdermal implant, similar to a microchip. Microchips for tracking our beloved pets are now common. Microsoft has HealthVault and Google has Google Health for e-health record management services and both are pushing for RFID medical bracelets. Between 2007 and 2009, RFID in the guise of VeriChip implants were given to hundreds of Alzheimer’s patients to help identify them and notify caregivers in case of an emergency.

Since 2008, RFID infant protection systems have been placed on some infants at birth to prevent them from being abducted from the hospital or from being given to the wrong mother. A new RFID product, "guarantees that RFID will follow you straight to your grave." The palm-size stone tablet has an RFID tag that talks with mobile phones to direct users to an Internet memorial archive. And such uses for RFID are only the tip of the iceberg. Thing Magic, a company that builds embedded RFID readers, recently launched 100 Uses of RFID.

In themselves, most of these are "valid uses" of RFID technology. Indeed RFID chips are often an embraced technology due to the good they could do for loss prevention. Then again, RFID technology can be the cause of security vulnerabilities. For instance, security badges with RFID chips can broadcast to the criminals where those badges are located. In an article about Fort Gordon stolen military IDs, embedded with RFID, Pentagon’s Counterintelligence Field Activity released a report stating, “The mere possession of a stolen card could, in fact, pose a security risk.”

Former NSA employee James Atkinson, still immersed in the world of intelligence and counterintelligence, said his business and government clients, "often fail to recognize security holes that to him seem big enough to steer a tank through." In regards to the missing RFID enabled military badges, Atkinson stated, “If a spy can get within 300 feet of where classified material is handled, he owns it. I mean, he owns it big time.”

At this year's HOPE hacker conference, the hackers showed both the good and the bad that comes when a person is attached to an RFID badge. “This badge knows what talks you go to. It knows who you talk to. It knows what places in the conference you go. It knows when you were there,” says Rob Zinkov, of the HOPE badge team. If you use that data to enhance your own conference experience, RFID is good. If someone else uses that data, unbeknownst to you, not good.

Extreme-range RFID tracking (hundreds of meters) will be explored and exploited during DEFCON. Also this year's DEFCON Badge was described as "a full-fledged, active electronic system. Pushing fabrication techniques to the limit and using some components that are so new they barely exist, the design of this year's badge took some serious risks." At last year's DEFCON, some hackers were able to temporarily steal other hackers' and a fed's identity. According to ThreatLevel, when a RFID "reader caught an RFID chip in its sights — embedded in a company or government agency access card, for example — it grabbed data from the card, and the camera snapped the card holder’s picture."

Location-aware apps are scary enough, based on GPS with the broad range they offer. But for the most part you still have to sign up for those. RFID is being implemented all around you. It has slowly been moving to mainstream. It can track infants to senior citizens with Alzheimer’s. In between it can track your clothes, your purchases, your car — even you. RFID is on the verge of tracking us all, cradle to the grave.

WRITTEN BY: Ms. Smith with original article at Network World available by clicking on the title of this posting

Bravo to Bristol

Get married? Why bother?

That's the prevailing attitude of an increasing number of couples who consider marriage, if at all, only after a child arrives. USA Today spotlights Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, and their toddler son Tripp, as symbols of the new trend: child first, marriage second. Recent data shows they have plenty of company: "A record four-in-10 births (41 percent) were to unmarried women in 2008, including most births to women in their early 20s."

Perhaps unintentionally, the best illustration of the growing confusion about marriage comes from another unmarried mom, Davie Melton, interviewed by USA Today. She's conflicted. On the one hand, as "a Christian, I believe you need to get married." On the other hand, marriage "is a piece of paper nowadays, and I don't think you necessarily need it to be a good family."

So, is marriage good for children and families, or not? Does it really matter whether Tripp's parents, Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, get married?

In spite of the drama in Bristol Palin's young life, she knows that marriage matters. Bristol explained her reason for getting back together with Levi quite simply. "We were working on our relationship for Tripp." Her inclination to marry, while certainly intertwined with her feelings for Levi, is rooted in a basic truth: Children do best when they are raised by their married mother and father.

While I have no way of knowing whether Bristol and Levi's relationship will mature into a solid, committed marriage, I applaud their desire to give their son the benefit of being raised by married parents.

How to save your family from indifference towards marriage.

Like young Davie Melton, our culture delivers two contradictory messages about marriage. We know it's a good thing — the best way, in fact, to raise children. But when our own marriages struggle or our loved ones fail at marriage, it's easy to fall silent about the goodness that marriage brings. We pretend it really doesn't matter whether or not parents are married.

The research is clear, and we should say so. Married couples are healthier, happier, wealthier and live longer than divorced or single people. Even most unhappily married couples who stick it out (often because of the children) rediscover happiness within five years of their marital low point. Children raised by their married father and mother do better than children of divorced or never-married mothers on every measure of well-being. (See the Center for Marriage and Families or "The Case for Marriage" for research data.)

To help our children reject the lie that marriage is merely a piece of paper, irrelevant to raising a "good family," let's reaffirm our commitment to marriage itself, no matter how imperfectly we live it. Let's teach them that God really did know what he was doing when he designed families, starting with a lifelong marriage between one man and one woman.

Husbands and wives, show your children that your marriage matters: Make time for your spouse, and express gratitude for their commitment. Remind yourself of the good you have found in marriage; even difficult marriages may bring personal growth and the blessings of children. If you are in a rocky situation, get marriage counseling. I'm constantly amazed at how much time, work, effort and money people spend on perfecting and enjoying every endeavor under the sun — except their marriages. You can find great counselors at www.FamilyLife.com

Finally, if your own marriage has suffered the pain of divorce, don't give up. Stand firm behind the ideal of marriage, even as you strive to learn from your mistakes and transcend the unhappiness of the past.

And for Bristol, who "believes in redemption and forgiveness to a degree most of us struggle to put in practice," I offer my prayers and best wishes for a long, happy and committed marriage.

WRITTEN BY: Rebecca Hagelin with original article at The Washington Times available by clicking on the title of this posting

Hollywood Shocked (Again) As Family Films Flourish

The surprise box-office boom for the cartoon "Despicable Me" is making it clear again to Hollywood this summer that family films are the most likely to be top-grossing films. "Toy Story 3" is No. 1 for 2010, not only among the critics, but among the people as well. "Despicable Me" already has broken into the top 10 box-office hits for the year to date with almost $130 million in ticket sales.

It happens over and over again. And still the "executives" are caught off guard. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out. Nobody needs a graphing calculator. Bring out the whole family, and you bring out a bigger audience. It's summertime, and the kids are bored. If the whole family doesn't go, the driving-age teenager gets assigned to take the young ones to the movies, sometimes more than once.

(Memo to Hollywood: Really, truly, this is how it works.)

And yet, The Hollywood Reporter finds the movie market gurus slightly embarrassed at what they call the "family stampede." Family films have well outpaced pre-release projections repeatedly since May, and the studio bosses are puzzled over why these movies "outperform" their guesses.

"The simplest answer is that the tracking doesn't include the young kids themselves," Disney distribution boss Chuck Viane said.

"It's just harder to get a handle on what kids are thinking," another brilliant marketer guessed. "Tracking surveys are based on what people express in phone and Internet surveys, and you're not going to find the young kids that way." Pre-release tracking surveys focus on parents. "The nag factor is what drives those kind of movies," a studio executive tartly declared. "The parents might be less inclined than the kids to see a picture, but then the kids pester the parents, and the rest is history."

So why don't the studio bosses start factoring in the possibility of a "nag factor" from young children wanting to go to the movies with parents who demand quality for their children, and make some movies accordingly? No million-dollar marketing exec has thought of that yet?

"There can be a disconnect in tracking sometimes about how far a picture will reach across all audiences," said Sony distribution president Rory Bruer, whose gone-to-China remake of "The Karate Kid" debuted last month with a much-better-than expected $55.7 million. "There's no doubt that word-of-mouth is important in that aspect." Maybe the studio underestimated the affinity of parents for the first version of the film, released back in 1984. It's well on its way to grossing $200 million.

Sometimes, pre-tracking surveys are wrong the other way, overestimating turnout. Last fall, pre-release surveys suggested the Michael Jackson tribute film "This Is It" could ring up "$40 million or more" on its first weekend. The actual figure was a lot less: $23 million.

"Despicable Me" is a great example of the "out-performed expectations" story line. The Universal cartoon with the inept bald-headed villain who learns to love and parent three young girls grossed $56.4 million in its opening weekend, although the "experts" expected a much lower $30 million to $35 million weekend.

"People think it was a whole host of things contributing to the big opening," one executive told the Hollywood Reporter. "You had some fresh-looking characters, funny trailers and a huge boost from running those trailers with other hit family films over the past several weeks." Surveys had suggested "tepid" interest from consumers.

Anyone watching NBC or Universal's cable channels were subjected to repeated on-screen promos during their favorite shows. NBC also ran a 30-minute "behind the scenes" infomercial on the opening night of the film, since Friday night TV in the summertime isn't a hot spot for advertisers.

Only one R-rated movie has grossed more than $100 million this year, the Leonardo DiCaprio horror flick "Shutter Island." It has just been squeezed out of the top ten by "Despicable Me." Three movies have grossed more than $300 million to top the 2010 list: "Toy Story 3" (a daring G), "Alice in Wonderland" (PG) and "Iron Man 2" (PG-13). Three more movies have grossed more than $200 million: "Twilight: The Eclipse Saga" (PG-13) and the family cartoons "Shrek Forever After" (PG) and "How to Train Your Dragon" (PG).

Why can't greedy Hollywood just look at the math and put their money where the American public's eyes want to go?

Here's what should follow: more respect from the movie awards shows for these animated films. "Toy Story 3" drew rave reviews across the board. The St. Petersburg Times said it "isn't merely the best movie of the summer -- even with summer just kicking in -- but an immediate candidate for best of the year." Don't bet the mortgage.

WRITTEN BY: Brent Bozell with original article at Town Hall available by clicking on the title of this posting

'Wildwood Ultimate' Returns This Weekend

This isn’t your typical game of Frisbee.

Teams will race competitively across the sand, tossing the flying disc to teammates in an attempt to score a goal in the opponent’s end zone.

The game is called the Wildwood Ultimate and on July 24 and 25, between Mariner’s Landing and Surfside piers, about 400 teams will showcase their skills in a sport that is steadily gaining popularity on the Wildwood beaches. Players are expected to arrive from all over the country and even from a few other countries.

Tournament coordinators Mike Adlis and Len Dagit can remember the beginning of the grass roots event.

What started with a few teams playing an informal game on the beach has evolved into what they said is the largest beach ultimate tournament in the world.

Adlis said they started with 12 teams the first year, last year the count reached 400.

Ultimate is a variation on the game of Ultimate Frisbee. The game mixes elements of soccer, basketball, and football into a non-contact fast-paced team sport. Teams of four play on a rectangular field.

The offense attempts to work the disc up the field toward the end zone. Players can’t run with the disc, they must throw it to another player. The defending team tries to stop the team with the disc from making it up the field by guarding them and making an interception.

The tournament is co-ed with no referees.

“The players handle all the discrepancies themselves. If there is a foul during play, the players work it out amongst themselves. It is all done fairly quickly because they want to get back to the game,” said Adlis.

Dagit said that Wildwood was an ideal location because of the size of the beach and the attitude of the town.

He credited former Mayor Fred Wager with first recruiting the tournament to come to Wildwood. Things weren’t easy at the start, he said, but “it was a learning experience” and the tournament has become more successful each year.

This year the 18th Ultimate Beach Frisbee Tournament donated funds from the event to the city. In turn the city donated the funds to Wildwood High School and Wildwood Catholic High School.

Dagit presented two checks for approximately $1,500 each, calling it “a beginning.”

He also presented Wildwood with an official Frisbee.

Gingrich 2012 Prez Run Now Plausible

Unless or until he announces at some point that he is not running, I am coming out two years early in support of Newt Gingrich for President in 2012. Here is the first of a series of articles regarding this potential Republican hopeful, a true Conservative who, if he really wants it, is the best person for the job in this man's opinion.

Let me first do what some in this business fail to do: Reveal a potential conflict of interest and remind readers that I served as Newt Gingrich's political chairman before and while he was speaker of the House. I've known him 30 years. But those who follow this column, including Gingrich, have not always enjoyed my views on some of his words or actions.


Newt knows I am an independent thinker, and while I'm not on his level of political genius, I might be a bit more in touch with the daily grind that faces most Americans every day.

So what's my take on this week's disclosure from Newt that he might run for president in 2012? First comes an initial, perhaps superficial reaction: Mitt Romney seems more charismatic, better organized and hungrier for the job than any other potential 2012 candidate. Sarah Palin is attractive, also charismatic and an ambitious potential candidate. Even Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is not well known, has a lot of "curb appeal" as a young candidate on the rise.

But I don't discount a Gingrich run. The presidential campaign of 2008 was about style over content. John McCain won GOP the nomination because Mike Huckabee, who shocked the Republicans by winning in Iowa, was viewed as perhaps too socially conservative. Romney seemed stiffer and "slicker" that year. He was too closely aligned with the unpopular George W. Bush camp. The GOP voters went for the image of "the maverick" in John McCain. It didn't work.

As for the Democrats and ultimately the nation, the elegant, charming and oratorically gifted Barack Obama represented a "change" as much in style as in substance. Oh, yes, there ultimately was plenty of substance in the change Obama brought to the nation as president. It just has not been the kind of change that many independent voters who supported him were expecting.

I have seen Newt Gingrich reinvent -- or perhaps better to say, "evolve" -- many times in his career. First, he was the bright new Republican conservative thinker in an overwhelmingly majority Democratic House in the late 1970s and the 1980s. By the early 1990s, he was the bomb-throwing, take-no-prisoners fighter who helped oust Speaker Jim Wright from power. By the mid-1990s, he was still a "revolutionary," but one with a detailed plan of action and a band of Republican "brothers and sisters" in the House willing to follow his lead to a huge 1994 electoral takeover of that chamber.

Then there were the years in the "wilderness," a term once used to describe Winston Churchill after his having led his nation through World War II, only to be later tossed out of power, at least for a while. Gingrich resigned after much internal GOP fighting. Yes, there is always the "he has baggage" argument. But years have passed, and Americans have short memories and forgiving hearts.

Now we see Newt Gingrich the "elder statesman." When Gingrich speaks, not only do cable news, talk radio and conservative popular news and opinion sites take note, so too does the "media establishment" that once ruled the airwaves and print journalism in America.

No, Gingrich will never match a Palin or Romney in a contest of style or youthful appearance. But in 2012, he will be the same age as Ronald Reagan was when he won the presidency for the first time. In that contest, the dashing John Connally and the elegant George H.W. Bush were viewed as the early frontrunners in the GOP race, along with other younger stars like Howard Baker.

Remember how Reagan moved from being viewed as an elder conservative also-ran to frontrunner status. It was one debate held in New Hampshire where the establishment GOP tried to keep Reagan from speaking. "I paid for this microphone," Reagan blasted as the moderator attempted to have him silenced.

And while I often discount the power of debates, it was the CNN/YouTube debate late in 2007 that catapulted Mike Huckabee toward a win in Iowa. And if you really want to reach back in time, I can name several presidential contests in which the debates turned the tide and the outcome of the election.

I can see Gingrich potentially playing roles like these. He is not an unappealing man. His grey hair and the calm manner in which he analyses issues gives those who view him a sense that there is still around at least this one bright, able -- and stable -- statesman. Do you really think any of the Republican contenders -- to say nothing of Barack Obama -- would want to debate Newt Gingrich?

A Gingrich run is more plausible than many think. Depending on an assortment of factors, it could just work for the Republican Party.

WRITTEN BY: Matt Towery at Human Events with the original article available by clicking on the title of this entry

Weekend on the Delaware

It is an impressive sight, almost medieval. A 30-foot moat surrounds the castle-like structure, whose granite walls - up to 30 feet thick - rise three stories above the water.


Fort Delaware was built on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River in the mid-19th century to defend Wilmington and Philadelphia, but it became famous as a Civil War prisoner-of-war camp.

Now it is a historic state park visited by sightseers who travel by ferry from Delaware City, Del., south of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, to the island where tens of thousands of Confederate POWs were held.

It is also part of an economic development plan - with two sister forts, Delaware City, and the ferry - to encourage tourism.

In 1997, Fort Mott in New Jersey and Fort DuPont in Delaware - once parts of a three-fort defense system - were added to the route of the Delaware River and Bay Authority ferry, then dubbed the Three Forts Ferry.

Now a coalition of New Jersey and Delaware state, county, and city officials has taken the next step, jointly planning the first "Weekend on the Delaware" event, set for Saturday and Sunday, with tours and living history demonstrations.

"The Three Forts Ferry provides a tourism link," said Beth Timberman, a Salem County freeholder and chair of the county Transportation, Tourism, and Agriculture Committee.

"Through joint marketing partnerships, we believe that we can leverage the coalition's limited financial resources to increase usage of the ferry, which will bring more tourism revenue to both sides of the Delaware River."

Delaware City is "emerging as a destination for both heritage and ecotourism," said Mayor John W. Martin.

The three-fort excursion provides a "unique and exciting experience for visitors that spans two centuries and two states," he said.

Working together is crucial, said Salem County Deputy Administrator Robin Weinstein. "We need to promote everything from a regional perspective," he said. "We're tying the area together with different packages to see what works - biking, birding, living history."

Fort Delaware was not always a tourist spot.

About 33,000 Confederate troops, high-ranking officers, and political prisoners were held on the narrow piece of land from 1861 to 1866. About 2,700 died there.

The heat and humidity could be stifling and flies were everywhere. Dysentery and scurvy, even smallpox, ravaged hundreds of gray-clad prisoners of war in their crude barracks.

"Am on guard duty at the Rebel Barracks, disagreeable because of the stench," Union Pvt. A.J. Hamilton wrote of standing watch over the lice-covered Confederate prisoners he called Johnnies (short for "Johnny Reb"). "Many of the Johnnies are sick, three of them died."

The following day, June 15, 1863, Hamilton penned another diary entry: "Went over to Jersey to bury some Rebs."

Years ago - when Forts Delaware, Mott, and DuPont were active - ferries connected them, transporting people and supplies. Today, the Three Forts Ferry carries sightseers.

Fort DuPont is located at the original Chesapeake and Delaware Canal near Delaware City. During the War of 1812, its cannons were mounted on the shore to defend the Delaware River against the British.

Permanent fortifications were added during the Civil War and strengthened in the 1870s with 15-inch Rodman guns and a concrete powder magazine. During World War II, it held 1,000 German and Italian POWs.

On the New Jersey side, in Pennsville Township, Fort Mott was built in the 1870s with two gun emplacements and two magazines. Troops were stationed there until 1922, and the fort was acquired by the state as a historic site and park in 1947.

"Fort Mott's staff and volunteers will be demonstrating what life was like at the fort during the years it was in operation" this weekend, said the fort superintendent, Vince Bonica.

The three state parks and Delaware City are being jointly marketed by a coalition that includes officials from the city and the forts, the DRBA, Salem County, the Pennsville Economic Development Association, Main Street Delaware City, the Delaware Military Heritage and Education Foundation, the National Park Service, the Greater Wilmington Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Delaware Tourism Office.

"This coordinated marketing effort by a united bistate coalition will be more viable and effective in promoting the region," said DRBA Commissioner Ceil Smith. "As a resident of Salem County, I know the region has a lot to offer."

The coalition will reoffer the event in October. On Saturday and Sunday, while living history demonstrations and tours are held at the forts, Delaware City will hold a festival. Fireworks are planned in the city Saturday.

"The connection between these three military heritage sites and their link via the Delaware River provides rich possibilities for further development of tourism in Delaware City and Salem County," said Stephanie Przybylek, executive director of the Delaware Military Heritage and Education Foundation at Fort DuPont.

"Creating new tourism opportunities could certainly attract military history enthusiasts, but also people who enjoy spending time in the natural environment and visiting waterfront locations."

WRITTEN BY: Edward Colimore with original article at The Philadelphia Inquirer available by clicking on the title of this entry

New Look 'Wonder Woman' Behind the Curve(s)

Wonder Woman got a makeover, but she's still behind the curves. Her designers seem not to realize that for decades women have been in the ascendancy in the marketplace, and it's male action heroes who require a makeover, literally and figuratively. Exceptions still rule the imaginations of children, but in the world where most grown-ups live, the male sex seems to need a Wonder Man to idealize possibilities.

Or to put it bluntly, woman is the new man.

For the first time, women make up the majority of the workforce. Women dominate the numbers in undergraduate education and in professional schools. Three women to every two men will earn a B.A. this year. More women than men are studying to become doctors and lawyers. More women than men are managers. Women who were furious when a talking Barbie said, "Math is hard," now have the chance to disprove that. Women now make up 54 percent of the accountants, and they're running about even in jobs of banking and insurance.

Women are accelerating their rise in politics, too, though so far there's no proof that they'll be different from their male counterparts in effectiveness, even though conventional biological wisdom suggests they bring a different way of looking at legislation as well as life. The female speaker of the House hasn't balanced the budget (and shows little interest in doing so), but traditionally "soft," feminine qualities of empathy and cooperation are in demand in the marketplace.

The familiar aggressive male approaches characterized in the sitcom "Mad Men," about cut-throat ad men in the 1950s, are out. Hierarchical structures that governed positions of leadership a half-century ago are rapidly being replaced by horizontal models. The hard edges of the table, with a CEO at the head, have been sanded and rounded for oval-shaped seminars.

"Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer," writes Hanna Rosin in an essay titled "The End of Men" in Atlantic magazine. "Women have everything else -- nursing home health assistance, child care, food preparation."

Obviously, these are traditional women's domains, but what's at work here is that women are now getting paid for work for which there is an increasing demand in a service economy. The nanny, in fact, can demand a high salary as her specialty becomes professionalized, and more upper-middle class women seek educated women to be the substitute mommy as they leave the home to enter the workforce.

Women haven't made breakthroughs in science like their male counterparts, but it's not politically correct (or socially acceptable) for men to say out loud what they think of distaff abilities in the lab. When Larry Summers as president of Harvard did that, he had to give up the academic life in Cambridge for a political one in Washington. (Not necessarily a bad trade.)

Although chauvinist attitudes remain, male scientists are becoming more supportive of women. "They've come around," cellular biologist Elaine Fuchs tells The New York Times. Scientists, like other male professionals, are witnessing changing times and learning how to take advantage of female wallet power. (Who do you think is buying those expensive designer pocketbooks?)

Increasing numbers of wives earn more than their husbands. Automobile salesman who used to ignore women in the showroom now cater to the ladies, consulting their wishes not only on color and comfort but horsepower and miles per gallon. Automobile ads, however, are still aimed at men. The much-remarked Super Bowl commercial for the Dodge Charger challenged the dominatrix-dominated, macho-challenged, pectoral-deficient males, who in the female view need an aggressive car to rev up their own motors. This car was described in capital letters: MAN'S LAST STAND.

Fashion, always quick to reflect a change in power relations between the sexes, shows costumes for men who suffer from premature emasculation. In last week's Paris shows for spring, male models walked down the runway showing off skinny legs in high waist shorts, with a feminine dickey peeking out from the neckline of their sweaters. Especially eye-catching were shorts that looked like skirts with a flap of material inserted between the legs.

Nobody expects a man to wear such things, but lurking beneath frivolous skirmishes in the war between the sexes are the children who suffer because they are raised without fathers and have no masculine model. Increasing numbers of unmarried women prefer sperm from the deep freeze rather than the warm-blooded male in the bed. With men in such apparent retreat, you wonder why women still plot, scheme and sometimes play dirty just to get one. Even Wonder Woman hasn't fixed that.


WRITTEN BY: Suzanne Fields with original article at The Patriot Post avialable by clicking on the title of this entry

Looking Back 25 Years to 'Live Aid'

One of the world's most important rock festivals all came about because a fading Irish rocker was sickened by a television report by the British Broadcasting Corp. on the drought conditions in Ethiopia.

Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats, a band best known for 1979's I Don't Like Mondays, watched the BBC report delivered by reporter Michael Buerk and cameraman Mohamed Amin on Oct. 23 and 24, 1984. Punctuated by frame after frame of dying children and the wails of misery, Buerk called the situation "the biblical famine of the 20th century."

Geldof snapped into action. A month later, the charity single Do They Know It's Christmas was out. And on July 13, 1985, scores of the world's most-popular musicians gathered in London's Wembley Stadium and Philadelphia's JFK Stadium for a 16-hour fundraising concert dubbed Live Aid.

Twenty-five years later, here are some of the enduring memories and forgotten moments of that day.

An early start

The concert began at noon London time, or 7 a.m. here on the East Coast. Princess Diana and Prince Charles, accompanied by Geldof, took their seats to a horn fanfare. The first band to play: Status Quo, which started its set with Rockin' All Over the World. Other concerts were held that day around the world, including shows in Australia, Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union.

Were you watching?

Television coverage was a challenge, as was handling the sound mixing for the bands. Feedback was a constant problem. The BBC supplied the feed from Wembley. ABC broadcast only the final three hours of the Philadelphia concert, while MTV provided a simultaneous feed of the U.S. show. While the BBC version was commercial-free, the U.S. broadcasts included ads and interviews. As a result, several performances weren't seen on TV and aren't included on the DVD version.

The big winners

Phil Collins made headlines for playing both venues; he flew to Philly on the Concorde after his set finished in London. U2's set had only two songs — Sunday Bloody Sunday and a 14-minute long version of Bad. But fans and critics raved, establishing the band as a must-see live act. British rockers Queen, likewise, energized the Wembley crowd with a medley of hits and used the momentum of Live Aid to mount a comeback tour afterward.

The big losers

Among those who declined to participate were Michael Jackson, Prince and Bruce Springsteen, who later said he "simply did not realize how big the whole thing was going to be." Bob Dylan did himself no favors by complaining on stage in Philadelphia that some of the proceeds should go to American farmers instead. His remark inspired the creation of the annual Farm Aid concerts.

Breakups and reunions

Duran Duran broke up after Live Aid; the band's original lineup wouldn't play again until 2003. The Who returned after "officially" disbanding in 1982. And a much-rumored Beatles reunion (with Julian Lennon subbing for dad John) never took place. Instead, Paul McCartney took the stage alone to sing Let It Be.

Take a bow

Each show ended with sing-a-long versions of the charity singles: Do They Know It's Christmas in London, and We Are the World in Philadelphia. In the aftermath of the concert, Geldof has had to defend himself against allegations that much of the estimated $100 million raised was used to pay for weapons for Africa's civil wars instead of grain. "It's possible that in one of the worst, longest-running conflicts on the continent, some money was mislaid," he told a reporter this year. Still, he continues to insist, without Live Aid, "far more than a million people would have died."

WRITTEN BY: Steve Spears with original article at St. Petersburg Times available by clicking on the title of this posting

Spain On Top of the World

Champions of Europe and now champions of the world, Spain captured football's Holy Grail for the first time with a 1-0 victory over the Netherlands thanks to Andres Iniesta’s 116th-minute strike at Soccer City.

The solitary goal came with penalties looming as substitutes Fernando Torres and Cesc Fabregas combined to play in Iniesta and the little midfielder drove emphatically across Maarten Stekelenburg and into the far corner.

With this victory – their fourth successive single-goal win in South Africa – Spain became the eighth name on the FIFA World Cup™ Trophy and also the first European team to have triumphed on a different continent. For the Netherlands, who lost defender John Heitinga to a red card in extra time, there is only the heartache of another tale of what might have been after they completed a hat-trick of Final losses.

This was a match preceded by much talk of two like-minded footballing cultures, of the influence of Dutchmen like Johan Cruyff and Rinus Michels, of 'tiki taka' and Total Football. In many ways, as the first 116 minutes showed, it was also a case of the irresistible force versus the immovable object. The Dutch had won 14 straight games to get to the Final, in qualifying and the tournament proper, and Spain 15 out of 16, their only slip the defeat by Switzerland in their first game here in South Africa.

It was the Spanish found their stride first, living up to their pre-game billing as favourites. Vicente del Bosque's side who dominated possession and created the early chances. With the Dutch penned inside their half, Maarten Stekelenburg had to make a save after five minutes, diving low to stop a Sergio Ramos header from Xavi's free-kick from the right. Gerard Pique looked poised to follow up only to be denied by a combination of Joris Mathijsen and Dirk Kuyt.

Ramos came again in the tenth minute, beating Kuyt on the right and driving in a low centre that Heitinga deflected behind. From the corner came another scare for the Netherlands. Xavi played the ball back to Xabi Alonso whose cross went beyond the far post to David Villa but the in-form No7 sliced his volley into the side-netting.

After those near things, however, both defences got on top with none of the flair players on either side able to take a grip on proceedings. Instead the yellow-card count began to rise with Nigel de Jong becoming the fifth player in Howard Webb's notebook by the time the half-hour mark arrived.

With the orange sections of the 84,490 Soccer City crowd finding their voice, Bert van Marwijk's men almost gave them something to sing about from a corner in the 37th minute. Robben rolled the ball to Mark van Bommel on the edge of the box and although he failed to make a clean connection he unwittingly diverted the ball on to the unmarked Mathijsen but the defender missed his kick. As half-time approached, Iker Casillas had barely had a save to make but entering stoppage time, he had to be alert to deny Robben at his near post as a spell of Dutch pressure ended with the winger spearing in a low shot from the corner of the box.

Puyol, Spain's semi-final matchwinner, showed his aerial threat once more minutes after the restart when he rose above Heitinga and headed to the far post but Joan Capdevila failed to make contact. The game was gradually opening up and the Dutch spurned a golden opportunity in the 62nd minute when Wesley Sneijder sent Robben running clear. Casillas came to Spain's rescue, deflecting the shot behind with his right foot when falling the wrong way.

Spain coach Del Bosque had already sent on Jesus Navas for Pedro on the hour and the winger helped pick a hole in the Dutch defence in the 70th minute. Xavi sent him flying down the right into the box and when Heitinga failed to deal with Navas's low cross, the ball fell to Villa who looked odds-on to score only to see his effort deflected behind. Ramos was equally profligate after 78 minutes when he headed over a Xavi centre when unmarked, after Villa had forced another corner.

Spain were looking the more likely winners and it took Sneijder of all people to foil Iniesta with a smart tackle after his jinking run into the box. Yet Robben's pace was a persistent threat and the Oranje No11 almost embarrassed Puyol in the 82nd minute, speeding clear of the Spain defender when second-favourite to reach a through-ball. Resisting Pique's attempt to tackle too, he was foiled only by Casillas, the captain saving at Robben's feet as the Dutchman tried to round him.

Extra time began with opportunities for Spain. Xavi failed to connect when well positioned and when the ball ran to Villa, his shot went wide off an orange shirt. Substitute Fabregas then broke clear on to Iniesta's through-ball but was foiled by Stekelenburg. Mathijsen headed wide from a corner but like waves, Spanish attacks kept rolling on to the Netherlands back line and Navas was close with a shot deflected into the side-netting.

Torres replaced Villa midway through the extra period and Spain gained a man advantage four minutes later with Heitinga's dismissal for pulling back Iniesta on the edge of the box, the offence earning him a second yellow. Iniesta would not be denied, however, and his fine late strike put Spain in the history books and shattered the men in orange.

WRITTEN BY: staff writers with original article at the FIFA website and available by clicking on the title of this entry

Jersey Shore Acts As Muse For Local Artists

It's her vintage Shore cottage, not her work, that first enchants visitors touring artist Cathleen Engelsen's home studio on Long Beach Island.

"They walk right past the art and want to know about the house," said Engelsen, 70, who grew up in the faded-blue bungalow her father, Capt. Sidney S. Pearce, built of native white cedar and pecky cypress around the time she was born. "They eventually come back to the paintings."

There is an organic connection between the house and Engelsen, one of a number of commercially successful artists - such as Patricia Rainey and Marie Natale in Cape May County - who have found a muse in the Jersey Shore.

It was near her homestead, shrouded by cedars and a bramble of bayberry just yards from Barnegat Bay, where Engelsen first saw the glow on the marshes in the waning sunset. Down the road, she watched fishermen's muscles grow so taut she thought they might burst as the men maneuvered heavy rowboats into the surf to conduct the now-lost art of pound fishing.

In the decades since, Engelsen has seen her island transformed from a string of primitive villages into a place where expensive vacation homes are torn down to build even more lavish getaways.

The tourist season is in full swing at the Jersey Shore, and so is the art scene, with dozens of shows and exhibits scheduled in July and August up and down the coast.

Such activity blossoms nationwide at vacation destinations, where local artists market their works to visitors seeking a meaningful souvenir, said John Villani, author of The 100 Best Art Towns in America. Villani first recognized the Jersey Shore as an arts hub when he placed Cape May on his list in 1996.

Rosalyn Lifshin, executive director of the Ocean City Arts Center, is a fan of indigenous Shore artists like Natale, Rainey, and Engelsen because of the "exuberance" they infuse into works inspired by the places they love.

"It then creates a special memory for the person looking at the work," Lifshin said.

Engelsen is among dozens of area artists showing their works this weekend at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Brant Beach. The show is open 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. She also has a gallery at the Tuckerton Emporium on Main Street in Tuckerton.

Many Jersey Shore artists focus on places that no longer exist and they find that others share their nostalgia.

"I like to share memories . . . about places that are really the favorite place of a lot of people and hold special memories for them," said Engelsen, who has painted historical scenes for decades.

The artist, who studied at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) and the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial in South Philadelphia, has done commissions for such buyers as a McDonald's franchise and Atlanticare regional medical centers.

"Everything about where you are raised goes into what you are doing today as an artist. There are pictures I'll always have in my mind about what this place looked like, how it was," said Engelsen, whose images have made their way onto beach bags and other gift items.

When she picks up a paintbrush and records her thoughts in watercolors, acrylics, and oils, what emerge are breathtaking coastal scenery and everyday places such as the old Ship's Wheel shop in Harvey Cedars, where she bought art supplies as a girl; the docks at Viking Village; and one of the island's favorite watering holes, Kubel's.

In contrast, Rainey, whose home and studio are steps from the Delaware Bay in North Cape May, didn't begin to paint until well into adulthood. She was so moved one day by the beauty of Cape May's architecture that she bought brushes and paint and taught herself to convey her impressions on canvas.

The result is a 16-year watercolor study recently published as Patricia Rainey's Victorian Wonderland, which showcases nearly 100 Cape May landmarks, including Congress Hall, the lighthouse, and dozens of historic homes and bed and breakfasts.

Rainey has painted other coastal places, such as the rugged coast of Maine, but now prefers to stick close to home.

"When I first came to Cape May, I was so impressed by all the incredible Victorian architecture," said Rainey, who also paints in oils. "I just wanted to take in all that I saw and then share it with others because it's so remarkable here. It's this amazing place with all these buildings, but it's really a small seashore town."

A senior citizen who prefers not to disclose her age, Rainey maintains a busy summer schedule, exhibiting her work at museums and shows including the 46th Annual Cape May Promenade Art Show, under way this weekend.

She will be at Art in the Park in West Cape May on July 24 and the celebration of National Lighthouse Day on Aug. 7 at the Cape May Lighthouse. Her work is in a number of galleries and shops at the Jersey Shore and in New England.

Egg Harbor Township's Natale - the focus of the exhibit "Ocean City: Through the Eyes of an Artist" at the Ocean City Arts Center through July 30 - keeps a similarly ambitious schedule that includes teaching painting in Ocean City, Island Heights, and Cape May.

"I think there is something so unique and special about Ocean City. It's such a fun, happy environment that holds so many important memories for so many people," said Natale, who started painting at age 12 when a teacher recognized her potential.

She earned a master's degree in art education from Rowan University and taught in public schools. She then created a line of children's clothing and branched out into industrial design, creating garden containers for retailers such as Lowe's and Wal-Mart.

Natale has now returned to her roots, she said. She specializes in Shore scenes and Ocean City landmarks such as the Chatterbox restaurant, Mack & Manco pizza, and the 4th Street Cafe. One of her recent favorites is a watercolor of the iconic Ninth Street Bridge, which will be taken down as part of the Somers Point-Ocean City causeway project.

"I like to be able to show a side of a place that people know and love, but that they may not have noticed," Natale said.

"On the bridge," she said, "I saw how the amber glow of the rust of the old structure was reflected in the water around sunset. I just loved the color and the texture. And when I put the colors all together, they bleed and run together on paper and create a look at something in a way that hasn't been seen before."

WRITTEN BY: Jacqueline L Urgo with original article at The Philadelphia Inquirer available by clicking on the title of this entry

Teen Activists Champion Life

James Balch has had female friends tell him that abortion is none of his business, nor anyone else’s.
But Balch, 15, makes it his business.

“This is not just a women’s issue,” he told Our Sunday Visitor. “This is a human issue, and the effects of abortion are incomprehensible.”

Balch, who lives in Fredericksburg, Va., is a member of his local Teens for Life chapter, and in June, he joined young people from across the country at the 38th Annual National Right to Life Committee’s Convention held in Pittsburgh, Pa.

It also was the 25th anniversary of the founding of National Teens For Life, part of NRLC based in Washington, D.C. Guest speakers included Jack St. Martin, of Maryland, the founding president of NTL when he was 16.

Humanitarian issue

“There’s a lot that young people can do to support pro-life,” Balch said. “It’s an issue so fully integrated into our society that any of us on the front lines, when we speak to our friends and peers, can have an effect on them now and in the future.”

His parents, Burke and Mary Balch, are pro-life, and both spoke at the Teens for Life convention. His sister, Bridget, 18, was president of a pro-life group in high school and is a member of another group in college.

“I was always taught to appreciate the value of life, and I know the very harmful effects that abortion and other things that degrade life have on our society,” Balch told OSV. “My Catholic faith has played into this, to a certain extent, but this isn’t strictly a religious issue. This is very much a humanitarian issue.”

Armed with facts

One of the biggest challenges for a pro-life teen, he said, is facing “animosity, preconceived, judgmental and even extreme” reactions from peers who are pro-choice. So NTL members are prepared with solid facts — for instance, accurate details about the stages of development of an unborn child.

“I know how to respond to these people,” said Bethany Schumacher, 19, of Menasha, Wis., who will be a junior at University of Wisconsin in Madison this fall. “Our organization encourages members to be loving, compassionate and calm, and I have an answer and a fact for every argument that my peers can throw at me. Getting past their emotional defense is probably the hardest part.”

However, she added, “apathy is their biggest defense.”

“They say that they would never have an abortion, but that they wouldn’t stand in the way of someone else’s rights,” she said. “Obviously, that’s not how we [in pro-life] feel about it. It really is an injustice that needs to be corrected, no matter who is involved.”
Schumacher comes from a “big Catholic family” of nine children, including two who are adopted. Her parents are Phil and Karen Schumacher.

“I really didn’t know much about pro-life and abortion when I was little,” she said. “When my sister Maria was a freshman in high school, they started learning about it, and she asked our mom and started investigating on her own. To her, abortion seemed inherently wrong.”

Maria Schumacher became involved in a pro-life group for teens, and when she died at age 14 after being struck by a car while walking with a friend, Bethany Schumacher, then in the sixth grade, joined the movement. She is a member of the Fox Valley chapter of Wisconsin Right To Life, and is involved in teen leadership camps for state members.

“This movement is the most important issue of our day,” she said. “There’s poverty and there’s war, and there are injustices all across the world. This is a fundamental issue that’s happening in our neighborhoods, our schools and in our churches. It’s so easy to get involved and to share the simple message of life, love and hope. You can impact so many people.”

Derrick Jones

Derrick Jones of Washington, D.C., grew up in the pro-life movement and came of age moving up the ranks. At 14, he co-founded a teen group in Springfield, Ill., served on the national board and in 1994, at 16, was president of National Teens for Life. He is now NTL communications director and co-adviser.

“Our adult chapters mentor the younger generations, and many of those teens go on to help lead the movement, myself included,” he told OSV during the convention in Pittsburgh. “There really is a continuity, and it’s training the next generation to one day take over the leadership reins and take the movement further into the 21st century.”

The teens, he said, are very educated on end of life, euthanasia and assisted suicide issues, too.

“The issues we deal with are very challenging and there are different ones every year,” Jones said. “We are not battling just political or legal reality. We are dealing with a cultural reality as well, and it’s a battle to change hearts and minds. But I am confident that we will see the day that legal protection is returned to unborn children.”

Jones, raised a Catholic, has a personal interest in the pro-life movement. His mother, he said, was young, unmarried and pregnant — “a prime target for the abortion industry.”

She chose life.

“You realize that you are one of the lucky ones,” he said. “A lot of us have stories like that and become pro-life almost as a sense of duty. You realize that something has to give, something has to stop, so you get involved and educate your peers about what abortion has done to our generation and what it has done to our friends.”

Joleigh Little

Joleigh Little didn’t have a strong opinion about pro-life issues when she was in high school, she said, “But I started researching it and talking about it, and I realized how important it was. I prayed about it and told God that if he wanted me to do something about it, I would. And 25 years later, I still am.”

In 1984, Little, now 39, of Solon Springs, Wis., was one of the founders of a pro-life group for teens in her area. She is now a co-adviser for National Teens For Life and also the Teens For Life director for the Wisconsin Right To Life.

“This is the greatest cause of our time, and it’s a privilege to see young people standing up and speaking out, because it’s their generation that’s being destroyed by abortion,” she said.

Little, who belongs to a non-denominational church, has praise for the unity that binds pro-life people of different faiths, and even no faith at all.

“There are a lot of denominational differences among Christians,” she said. “But when it comes to life, you don’t notice who’s Catholic, Protestant, or anything else.”

WRITTEN BY: Maryann Gogniat Eidemiller with original article at Our Sunday Visitor available by clicking on the title of this posting

Teens Flood Summer Youth Conference

Father John Amsberry, pastor of St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Portland, Ore., paused halfway across the stage and looked out at the young audience.

"It's 2:58 p.m. and ...?" he asked.

"We are loved!" they yelled back.

More than 1,700 teens piled onto Franciscan University's campus for the first High School Youth Conference in Steubenville to hear the Gospel, sing with Bob Rice and his band about God's love, and encounter Christ in word and sacrament.

The teens came from 14 states, from as far away as Oregon and South Dakota, and as close as Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia. Participants also included youth ministers, parents, chaperones and priests

Twenty teens participated in a weeklong Leadership, Evangelization and Discipleship retreat held prior to the June 18-20 conference, which had as its theme "The Word Became Flesh."

Throughout the weekend, the retreat-goers testified to their fellow teens about the power of confession and Eucharist, of finding God in the church's ancient rites and sacraments.

"It is all about you and me receiving the blessing of the Father. How many of us are dying for a word of approval from our heavenly Father?" Deacon Ralph Poyo told the teens.

Founder of New Evangelization Ministries in Steubenville, the deacon described getting married and learning to give himself to his wife, and then his daughters, totally, sacrificially, to help them to heaven.

"How awesome it is to share in life together," he said. "At some point, we have to realize we're all about relationship. It's what we're designed for. It's what we are made for.

"I'm here to tell you one very important thing. Jesus died for you. Jesus came for you. Jesus loves you. Why would he choose to become man? For you and for me," he said.

"He knows everything that we've done. He was there—he saw it. And you know what? He doesn't leave you. He chose to die for you anyway. He loves you anyway," Deacon Poyo added.

Speaker Tammy Evevard challenged the teens to discover the truth about themselves, to know who it is that God loves.

"You were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness."

She went through some assumptions often made in the broader culture.

"There's a continuous stream of people telling us over and over how the world is. They teach us to say,

'What I see around me is normal. This is the best I'm going to get.' It's a lie. "If we are made in the image and likeness of God, then we deserve better than the new normal. We can live in God's freedom," she said.

Evevard emphasized that both men and women were created in the image and likeness of God, who described them as "very good." "Men and women are equal in dignity, and value, and purpose."

Conference workshops covered practical ways of living the Catholic faith. Topics included "Genuine Prayer," "Sharing Christ over Coffee" and "The Holiest Place on Earth: Praying the Mass."

"The greatest thing in life," said Father Amsberry at his workshop, "is our sacred friendship with Christ and sharing that relationship with others. We become a place where people encounter paradise in this world. "We are the daughters and sons of God. The more we incarnate that, the more attractive we become," he said.

To live life as sons and daughters of God, said author and musician Chris Padgett, people have to know the God-bearer. "In order for you to be the saint you are called to be, you must be Marian," he explained. "God calls us all, and he knows ahead of time that we are weak and broken," he said in his keynote talk.

"Our problem today is not that we don't have enough information, or that we don't want to say yes. The real question is how can we be saints with all the crap in our life?" he asked.

The answer, Padgett said, is God's mercy. "If we confess our sins, he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We know Jesus will take us and embrace us and strengthen us. It's not information, but transformation we need."

Franciscan University is sponsoring 19 youth conferences in 14 locations across the United States and Canada this summer.

WRITTEN BY: the Catholic News Service with original article available at American Catholic by clicking on the title of this entry

America's Pro-Life Movement Gaining Steam

There is little doubt that abortion is a complex and multifaceted issue. With divergent viewpoints and a muddled “middle ground," it is common for public opinion polls to yield seemingly contradictory results.

Despite the perceived difficulties in definitively determining abortion perspectives, recent developments expose a public that is steadily growing warmer to the pro-life point of view. If this trend continues, there will be intriguing social and political implications, especially considering the surprising stance Millennials are taking on the issue.

One could argue that the nation's ongoing abortion debate re-fueled and intensified following President Obama's controversial speech at the University of Notre Dame in May 2009. Since the widely publicized event, journalists and researchers have attempted to qualify recent polls that corroborate an increase in pro-life sentiments. In May 2009 Gary Langer, the director of polling at ABC News, wrote, abortion is “a highly fraught subject—and one of those on which a single polling number does not begin to describe the complexity of Americans' attitudes.”

Langer says that the majority of Americans are actually pro-life and pro-choice simultaneously. For instance, some people may believe that abortion should be legal, but only in specific cases (i.e. rape or if the woman's life is in danger). In this case, the stance calls for legal abortion (pro-choice sentiment), but only in very specific circumstances (pro-life sentiment). In either case, an individual who subscribes to these beliefs is essentially aligning him or herself with both poles of the abortion debate—albeit, to different degrees.
Interestingly, Langer is not alone in his conclusions. In May 2009, New York Times journalist Dalia Sussman urged readers to be cautious when jumping to the conclusion that America may actually be embracive of pro-life tenants. According to Sussman, “[Asking if someone is “pro-life” or “pro-choice”] creates absolutes, when in reality, abortion really represents an issue in which there aren’t any absolutes for many (if not most) people.”

While this may be a valid argument in terms of recognizing complexities in perception, it is entirely possible that a slight majority of Americans are still avoiding absolutes, while sliding, albeit slowly, toward a more pro-life world view. Statistics from multiple sources corroborate this notion. One does not have to be “absolute” in a belief to lean more in one direction than another.

Imagine a line on which one charts his or her support on a scale from zero to 10 (10 being “extremely favorable” of abortion rights). Now, picture millions of people plotted along this continuum. While individuals may hold diverse beliefs on the subject, chances are that a majority would find itself on either end (this is to say before or after the five, or middle ground, placement) of the spectrum. For instance, an individual who opposes abortion, yet thinks that it should be legal in cases of rape, may choose a three on the continuum, instead of a zero. Here, this person clearly opposes abortion, while possessing some sense that it should be permitted in select circumstances. Even though his or her opinion isn't an extreme (a zero or 10), the individual still leans more in favor of pro-life sentiments.

Despite resistance from some journalists and researchers who cannot fathom a reduction in support for pro-abortion arguments, public opinion polls continue to reflect a collective, albeit slow, movement away from pro-choice-ism. In Oct. 2009, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life was one of many reputable sources to recognize a drop in support for abortion. Pew found that, while abortion supporters outnumbered foes in 2007 and 2008, the two sides are now equal in number. Additionally, Pew wrote that “there have been modest increases in the numbers who favor reducing abortions or making them harder to obtain.” And most surprisingly: “Less support for abortion is evident among most demographic and political groups.”
Perhaps most intriguing is the closure in the generational gap. According to Gallup, those Americans aged 18 to 29 and 30 to 49 were most supportive of abortion rights in the late 1970s. This pattern has evolved since 2000, with all age groups aside from seniors (65 and older), sharing similar views on abortion. Not surprisingly, seniors remain the “least likely to favor legal abortion.”

Now for the bombshell:

Gallup found that between 2005 and 2009, among those individuals who are 18 to 29 years of age, there has been a nine-percentage-point increase in the belief that abortion should be “illegal in all circumstances.” This essentially means that young Americans are nearly tied with seniors in their belief that abortion should be eradicated.

Interestingly, this group is also frequently pointed out by the left to be strongly in favor of more liberal social and political policy. However, young people appear to be moving more in line with conservatives on this issue, further corroborating the notion that Millennials may not be sold on progressive policies.

Make no mistake, opinions about abortion have not shifted radically on the whole. That said, public perception appears to be sliding in the pro-life direction. In 2001, Gallup asked respondents if they saw abortion has morally acceptable or morally unacceptable; 42% said that abortion is morally acceptable, with 45% stating the contrary. In 2010, this same poll found only 38% claiming that abortion is moral, with 50% stating the opposing view, that abortion is immoral.

Abortion will continue to be a highly controversial topic in American political and social circles, as both sides argue in support of their respective stances. With Millennials poised to inherit future leadership posts, the generation's less-favorable abortion perspective offers an intriguing conundrum to the left. In the end, it is the Millennial generation that will create the laws and monitor the policies that govern this highly contentious subject.

WRITTEN BY: Billy Hallowell with original article at Human Events available by clicking on the title of this blog entry

The Declaration of Independence

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

The Legacy of the Declaration of Independence

This Sunday, July 4th, we will once again celebrate our nation’s founding, marking the day in 1776 that the Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence.


The Declaration of Independence was intended to be an official statement explaining why the 13 American colonies had declared their independence from Great Britain. In the years following its passage, however, this statement of principles about the rights of man grew to mean much more.

America became the only country in history founded, as Leo Strauss explained, “in explicit opposition to Machiavellian principles,” by which he meant crass, power politics. Instead, America was founded on a set of clearly expressed “self-evident” truths. Thomas Jefferson said the Declaration was “intended to be an expression of the American mind,” and indeed, no document since has so succinctly and so eloquently spelled out the spirit of America.

Our country has evolved out of the timeless truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence to develop a distinct character and set of values that distinguishes us from even other Western democracies.

This holiday, it is worth taking a look at how several key phrases from the Declaration of Independence have served as definitional statements about the aspirations of America, and how those words of our Founding Fathers’ have affected America in the 234 years since they were written.

“…all men are created equal”
The Founding Fathers who authored the Declaration were the first people in the history of the world ever to express our natural equality as a principle of government in such an unqualified way. Though neither the Constitution that followed nor the Founders personally quite fulfilled the promise of those words, it has since been the project of our country to accomplish them.
America came though to recognize that we are not all literally equal—we are born with different capabilities and attributes, and to different stations in life—the words of the founders capture the truth that we must treat each other as equals. We are “created equal” in the sense that all men (and, we now recognize, all women) have the same natural rights, granted to them by God. We are all the same under the law.
This powerful statement of universal rights was used by abolitionists as a moral cudgel to rid the United States of slavery, an institution explicitly at odds with the truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln consistently evoked the phrase in his famous Peoria speech against the Kansas-Nebraska Act and later during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. As President, Lincoln again included the phrase in the Gettysburg Address as the moral underpinning by which the union should be rededicated. Later, during the women’s suffrage movement and civil rights struggles of the 1960s, leaders such as Martin Luther King used the powerful phrase as a reminder to America that separate (treating people differently under the law based on their race) was not equal.

Leaders such as Lincoln and King believed that as America’s founding political document, the Declaration of Independence is our moral guide with which to interpret the Constitution. They saw that we cannot divorce the law from the moral underpinnings that legitimize it.

But by what authority does that moral underpinning exist?

“…endowed by their Creator”

The core contention of the Declaration of Independence and the principle of natural rights upon which America was founded is that there is a higher moral order upon which the laws of man must be based. The Declaration asserts the existence of “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” which had a clear meaning in 18th Century England and America. It referred to the will of God as displayed by the natural order of the world.

John Locke, who was widely read by the leaders of colonial America, wrote in his Second Treatise on Government: “Thus the law of nature stands as an eternal rule of all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men’s actions, must ... be conformable to the law of nature, i.e., to the will of God.”

William Blackstone, who was arguably the single greatest influence on the creation of the American legal system, wrote in Commentaries on the Laws of England, “As man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should at all points conform to his maker’s will.”

America’s founding was heavily influenced by the English and Scottish enlightenment, which specifically included a space for God and religion in its conceptions of rights, freedom and human reason. This gave the American Revolution a distinctly different character than the French Revolution, which in its most radical phase sought freedom by casting off all authority and remnants of the existing order -- especially God.

In the American formulation as declared by our founders, man’s rights come from God, not from man’s ability to “reason” them into existence. Man does not depend on government to grant him rights through a bureaucratic process, but instead to secure those rights that have been granted to him by God.

In other words, power comes from God, to you, which is then loaned to government.

Thus, the Declaration states, “That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The English and Scottish enlightenment’s conscious inclusion of a space for God and religion had another key influence on the American system of government. Whereas the French Revolution believed it could create a “new man” through government education and indoctrination, the American Founding Fathers had a profound sense of the fallen nature of man. Thus, they created a system of checks and balances that would serve as a restraint on those in power.

“…the pursuit of happiness”

Here again we see the influence of the English and Scottish enlightenment on the Founding Fathers. For writers such as John Locke and Francis Hutcheson, the term “happiness” meant something close to “wisdom and virtue.” It did not mean hedonism or other shallow pleasures as the term is too often confused to mean today.

It is also essential to note that the Declaration does not say that we have a right to have happiness provided to us. It says we have the right to pursue happiness – an active verb. As I point out in jest to audiences in my speeches, the Declaration says nothing about a right to redistribution of happiness. It says nothing about happiness stamps. It does not say some people can be too happy and that government should make them less happy out of a sense of fairness.
The Founding Fathers understood that government could not give people happiness, that it was instead up to government to create an environment where the people could best work to achieve their dreams. As AEI’s Arthur Brooks has pointed out, polls of wealthy and successful people show that the harder one works for that success, the greater happiness one derives from it.

America is a land where through hard work, determination, and entrepreneurialism, people can achieve their big dreams. The right of “the pursuit of happiness” spelled out in the Declaration is a definitional statement about the nature of America that has attracted people from all over the world to come here to pursue those dreams.

Who We Are This July 4th

A bedrock belief of American conservatism is a respect for the established traditions and values of American culture. Conservatives believe from the time the first colonists landed in Jamestown, America took on a unique culture and set of values that have set us apart from our European cousins: a belief in natural rights, strong religious faith and values, the importance of the work ethic, and a spirit of community that manifests itself in a belief in limited government and strong civic participation. It is this set of beliefs – truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence – that have made America so successful, and they deserve to be protected.

The modern Left – what I describe in my book To Save America as a “secular-socialist machine” – is using every lever of power at its disposal to dismantle our unique American civilization and replace it with a secular, bureaucratic culture in which government is big, citizens are small, and our rights are defined by the state rather than endowed by our Creator. Equality under the law is being discarded in favor of equality of results; consent of the governed is being subverted by an increasingly overbearing federal bureaucracy and imperial judiciary; and the pursuit of happiness is being undermined by a redistributive welfare state that kills the can-do, entrepreneurial spirit of America.
This July 4th, I hope you will take time to read the Declaration of Independence and consider the truths about our rights and freedoms contained within. I hope you will take time to appreciate the sacrifices made by the founding generation and generations since to secure our liberty.
But most of all, I hope you will take time to appreciate the greatness of America and how hard we must be willing to work to preserve that which makes it so special.
Happy Independence Day.
 
WRITTEN BY: Newt Gingrich and original article available by clicking on the title of this blog entry