...Concerned
Women for America (CWA) is highlighting a newly released survey by
the National Science Foundation that reveals an epidemic of
loneliness in America. The recent NSF General Social Survey found
that the number of "socially isolated" Americans has doubled since
1985, with more than a quarter of U.S. citizens saying there is no
one with whom they can talk about their personal troubles. Dr.
Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow of CWA's Beverly LaHaye
Institute, notes that the last 40 years have seen a sharp increase
in society's percentage of unrelated individuals -- defined by the
Census Bureau as those people who do not live in a family group.
This statistic that has risen from six percent to 16 percent
during that 40-year period, and Crouse wonders at what point this
"tide of unrelatedness," fed by unrestrained "narcissistic
individualism," will reach a critical societal flood level. "Our
nation is reaping unprecedented prosperity accompanied,
ironically, by a lack of connectedness," the CWA spokeswoman
laments. "We have enough wealth to ensure compassion and to pursue
justice, but our lack of connectedness is withering both."
According to Crouse, about 70 percent of these unrelated
individuals live alone, with no commitments or shared history to
bind and bond them to others. She has written extensively about
the trend toward loneliness in her report called Gaining Ground: A
Profile of American Women in the Twentieth Century (2000).
...America's
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been the source of many
information "leaks" in recent years, and this fact has some
members of the U.S. legislature worried, including Kansas
Representative Todd Tiahrt. He says the U.S. needs to be aware
of "concerns in Congress and in the American public that the leaks
have been very self-serving, they've been politically motivated,
and they have cost this country millions and millions of dollars;
but more importantly, they've made this country less safe." Tiahrt
says he hopes he is wrong, but he suspects some people have
"returned from retirement for the purpose of letting leaks go to
undermine the efforts of this administration and the effort to
make this country safe -- whether it's the war in Iraq, or whether
it's rendition of people who intend to do harm to American
citizens, or whether it's just the general operations of what's
been going on to try to keep this country safe." In any event,
Congressman Tiahrt has vowed that the leaks will be traced back to
their source.
...A
Pennsylvania woman is determined to do whatever it takes to retire
17-term incumbent John Murtha from Congress. Diana Irey,
who has served ten years as a Washington County commissioner,
believes Murtha is out of touch with his constituents. Now she
wants to move to Washington, DC, to represent Pennsylvania's 12th
Congressional District. Irey says Murtha has angered many members
of the military with his unsubstantiated accusations of Marine
atrocities in the Iraqi village of Haditha. Murtha "declared as
fact that some of our United States Marines had killed innocent
civilians in cold blood," Irey contends. "He said that before a
single Marine had been charged, before a single court martial had
been convened, and before a single soldier had been convicted. And
in doing this, he acted as prosecutor, judge, and jury before the
evidence was in." And Murtha has a long history of appeasement,
the
Pennsylvania
official asserts. She says he told Ronald Reagan the U.S. had to
pull out of Beirut and told Bill Clinton America had to pull out
of Somalia, just as the congressman is now telling George W. Bush
that the U.S. needs to pull out of Iraq. "The way I see it is,
Jack Murtha never saw a towel he didn't want to throw in," Irey
observes. She says she has been amazed at how many people want to
see Murtha out of office. Irey notes that she has received
financial support from every U.S. state and even from military
service members in Iraq.
...An
Oklahoma senator claims the struggle against the Taliban in
Afghanistan is not getting the attention it deserves. After a
recent visit to that country, U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe
returned with worries about how that war is being viewed and
sometimes ignored by many Americans. "Our troops there consider
themselves to be the forgotten war," Inhofe says. "People don't
realize -- all the concentration is on Iraq, and it deserves a lot
of concentration -- but Afghanistan is the success story."
According to the senator, the Afghan National Army is now training
itself and handling its own national security. Inhofe believes
this is a great accomplishment and one that puts the progress in
Afghanistan on a comparable level with what is happening in Iraq.
...A key
conservative says President George W. Bush's trip to Hungary has
helped make up for one of the most shameful periods in American
history. Free Congress Foundation founder and director Paul
Weyrich says he was glad to see Bush's recent trip to Hungary,
as the trip helped pay a debt the U.S.
has long owed the Hungarians. "Having encouraged the Hungarian
Revolution of 1956," Weyrich notes, "we then stood by and watched
the Soviet tanks roll in and did nothing. We did nothing to help
the very people that we encouraged." The Free Congress Foundation
spokesman says this unfortunate incident in America's history
happened during the Eisenhower presidency and will always be a
stain on Republican administrations.
...The
president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious
Liberty Commission says a third political party won't work in the
United States. Many Christian voters have expressed their
disappointment with a variety of Republican policies. Recently
"values voters" were upset over the GOP-led Senate's failure to
even permit a vote on a constitutional amendment protecting
traditional marriage. Consequently, some of those who are
disgruntled are calling for alternative political party. But Dr.
Richard Land says a third party is not feasible. In fact, Land
says it would be "a dumb idea on steroids" to have a third party
in the 2008 election cycle. "Our political system is very biased
toward two parties," the Southern Baptist spokesman explains.
"History is littered with the good intentions and high hopes of
failed third parties." Instead, he encourages people to try to
make a difference within the current system. "You need to get
involved in one of the two parties and make it more what you want
it to be and quit trying to follow the false dream of a third
party," he says. Part of that involvement, he continues, would be
to start preparing now for the 2008 presidential election. Land
notes that for the first time since 1952, neither party has a
definite frontrunner -- but that there are "many fine candidates"
out there. "In the Republican Party you've got Senator [Bill]
Frist who's going to run, who I think would be an excellent
president," the ERLC leader says, adding the same comments about
Senators Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum. "I personally don't
think [Senator] John McCain would make such a great president," he
states. And on the Democratic side, notes Land, there is Senator
Hillary Clinton, who he does not feel is a shoe-in, and former
Governor Mark Warner of Virginia, who Land expects to be "a
significant player" among Democrats. "Everyone needs to be
involved," counsels Dr. Land. "They need to be registered to
vote, they need to vote -- and when they vote, they need to vote
their values, their beliefs, and their convictions." Last year
Land was appointed by Senator Frist to the U.S. Commission in
International Religious Freedom. It was third time Land had been
appointed to that group, the first two times by President George
W. Bush.
...A
liberal political organization is calling for progressive family
values -- but a conservative group isn't buying it. MomsRising is
a new organization founded by the creators of MoveOn.org. The
group is calling on the Democratic Party to work for child care
and health care for all children, equal job opportunities for
women, and other family benefits. MomsRising says it is trying to
provide progressive solutions to family issues. But Dr. Janice
Crouse, a senior fellow with the Beverly LaHaye Institute, says it
is old left-wing ideology repackaged. "These are ideologues who
really have a skewed view of human nature," says Crouse, "and what
they are trying to do is be very politically correct to look at
the issues today that have become aligned with the progressive
point of view, and they're trying to make inroads into that group
of people." In essence, she continues, MomsRising is "dressing up
the old, tired liberal politics and ... policies and cloaking them
in something that they hope will sound very conservative, sound
very evangelical even, and try to tap into the values voters.
Unfortunately -- or fortunately, in my point of view -- it's not
going to work." Crouse says the American "values voters" are
savvy and will not buy into progressive family values. The
feminist National Organization for Women (NOW) is among the groups
behind MomsRising.
...A
pro-family activist and former presidential candidate says he's
frustrated by a recent report showing that since 1999 the number
of prosecutions of employers hiring illegal immigrants has
dramatically dropped. Gary Bauer of American Values has seen the
recent report in the Washington Post showing that between 1999 and
2003 work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent
by the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service. Bauer says
the politicians put pressure on the law enforcement officials
after receiving complaints from business interests. The
conservative spokesman says "the jury is out" on whether
enforcement is going to get any better. "I think the most
frustrating thing about this debate has been that the public is
overwhelmingly in one direction, but the political elites in both
parties tend to go in the opposite direction," observes Bauer.
"So I think the pressure's going to have to stay on, and perhaps
we're going to have to see it become more of an issue in election
campaigns before something is really done that makes a
difference." Bauer says this administration and future
administrations are going to have to get serious about work-site
enforcement, even if it irritates some in the business community.
...Claiming
the media can't get it right or won't get it right, supporters of
adult stem-cell research attempted this week to educate the press
to the truth about stem-cell treatments. The National Pro-Life
Action Center held a symposium on Capitol Hill this week showing
that 70 maladies are being treated with adult stem cells -- while
30 years of research has produced not one single treatment with
embryonic stem cells. Center spokesman Paul Schenck says the
struggle over this issue is the fault of the media. "Because the
national media fails to distinguish between these two types [of
research], it is consistently presented that embryonic stem-cell
research is the only research that holds the promise of cures,
which is false," says Schenck. "Our major challenge is the
national media." Schenck says the media also presents those
opposed to embryonic stem-cell research as being opposed to all
stem-cell research -- and that, he says, is another falsehood.
...An
author and associate professor of psychology says today's young
people are more self-centered than previous generations -- and
their parents and teachers are helping. Jean Twenge, author of
Generation Me, says that children today are constantly being
bombarded with "feel-good" messages and being told to have a high
self-esteem. Twenge says that has backfired a bit. "There are
programs that are designed to boost children's self esteem, but
what they actually end up doing is building narcissism," Twenge
shares, "so they have things like telling kids that they're
special." In addition, she says, media messages are very
pervasive about self focus, telling youngsters: "You can be
anything you want to be, believe in yourself, never give up on
your dreams." Such messages, says Twenge, "just encourage very
high expectations and a focus on the self." The result, she
explains, is that young people end up putting themselves first,
with no consideration of other people. Twenge says encouraging
children to aim high is not a big thing -- but the emphasis on
self-love is the problem. She says that in previous generations,
people worked hard to benefit their families and communities, but
now it is now more common to find young people working for public
recognition and self-actualization.
...A
Democrat from
Louisiana
is training inner-city youth to be entrepreneurs. Every year
State Representative Roy Burrell spends 50 weeks raising raising
$20,000 -- and two weeks spending it to run a business camp for
inner-city children. Burrell says that learning to create and
maintain their own businesses changes young people's lives. "Let
me tell you, it changes their whole outlook on themselves," he
shares. He acknowledges that young people often wonder why they
have to take such academic courses as mathematics, English,
marketing, or accounting. "But see, when you put all those things
together and [train youth to] live in a free-market,
free-enterprise system, then they now understand why they need to
take these courses," says Burrell. According to the state
lawmaker, a couple of young people he taught have used his
training to put themselves through college. Burrell explains that
his love for children came from his mother, who kept as many as 30
needy children at a time. Before entering the political arena
Burrell helped young gang members to leave that activity and find
jobs instead. As a single parent he raised four children who are
now in various career fields -- medicine, chemistry, engineering,
and the railroad system. Burrell says helping young people is his
way of giving back to God.
...Concerned
Women for America (CWA) is highlighting a newly released survey by
the National Science Foundation that reveals an epidemic of
loneliness in America. The recent NSF General Social Survey found
that the number of "socially isolated" Americans has doubled since
1985, with more than a quarter of U.S. citizens saying there is no
one with whom they can talk about their personal troubles. Dr.
Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow of CWA's Beverly LaHaye
Institute, notes that the last 40 years have seen a sharp increase
in society's percentage of unrelated individuals -- defined by the
Census Bureau as those people who do not live in a family group.
This statistic that has risen from six percent to 16 percent
during that 40-year period, and Crouse wonders at what point this
"tide of unrelatedness," fed by unrestrained "narcissistic
individualism," will reach a critical societal flood level. "Our
nation is reaping unprecedented prosperity accompanied,
ironically, by a lack of connectedness," the CWA spokeswoman
laments. "We have enough wealth to ensure compassion and to pursue
justice, but our lack of connectedness is withering both."
According to Crouse, about 70 percent of these unrelated
individuals live alone, with no commitments or shared history to
bind and bond them to others. She has written extensively about
the trend toward loneliness in her report called Gaining Ground: A
Profile of American Women in the Twentieth Century (2000).
...America's
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been the source of many
information "leaks" in recent years, and this fact has some
members of the U.S. legislature worried, including Kansas
Representative Todd Tiahrt. He says the U.S. needs to be aware
of "concerns in Congress and in the American public that the leaks
have been very self-serving, they've been politically motivated,
and they have cost this country millions and millions of dollars;
but more importantly, they've made this country less safe." Tiahrt
says he hopes he is wrong, but he suspects some people have
"returned from retirement for the purpose of letting leaks go to
undermine the efforts of this administration and the effort to
make this country safe -- whether it's the war in Iraq, or whether
it's rendition of people who intend to do harm to American
citizens, or whether it's just the general operations of what's
been going on to try to keep this country safe." In any event,
Congressman Tiahrt has vowed that the leaks will be traced back to
their source.
...A
Pennsylvania woman is determined to do whatever it takes to retire
17-term incumbent John Murtha from Congress. Diana Irey,
who has served ten years as a Washington County commissioner,
believes Murtha is out of touch with his constituents. Now she
wants to move to Washington, DC, to represent Pennsylvania's 12th
Congressional District. Irey says Murtha has angered many members
of the military with his unsubstantiated accusations of Marine
atrocities in the Iraqi village of Haditha. Murtha "declared as
fact that some of our United States Marines had killed innocent
civilians in cold blood," Irey contends. "He said that before a
single Marine had been charged, before a single court martial had
been convened, and before a single soldier had been convicted. And
in doing this, he acted as prosecutor, judge, and jury before the
evidence was in." And Murtha has a long history of appeasement,
the 
...An
Oklahoma senator claims the struggle against the Taliban in
Afghanistan is not getting the attention it deserves. After a
recent visit to that country, U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe
returned with worries about how that war is being viewed and
sometimes ignored by many Americans. "Our troops there consider
themselves to be the forgotten war," Inhofe says. "People don't
realize -- all the concentration is on Iraq, and it deserves a lot
of concentration -- but Afghanistan is the success story."
According to the senator, the Afghan National Army is now training
itself and handling its own national security. Inhofe believes
this is a great accomplishment and one that puts the progress in
Afghanistan on a comparable level with what is happening in Iraq.
...The
president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious
Liberty Commission says a third political party won't work in the
United States. Many Christian voters have expressed their
disappointment with a variety of Republican policies. Recently
"values voters" were upset over the GOP-led Senate's failure to
even permit a vote on a constitutional amendment protecting
traditional marriage. Consequently, some of those who are
disgruntled are calling for alternative political party. But Dr.
Richard Land says a third party is not feasible. In fact, Land
says it would be "a dumb idea on steroids" to have a third party
in the 2008 election cycle. "Our political system is very biased
toward two parties," the Southern Baptist spokesman explains.
"History is littered with the good intentions and high hopes of
failed third parties." Instead, he encourages people to try to
make a difference within the current system. "You need to get
involved in one of the two parties and make it more what you want
it to be and quit trying to follow the false dream of a third
party," he says. Part of that involvement, he continues, would be
to start preparing now for the 2008 presidential election. Land
notes that for the first time since 1952, neither party has a
definite frontrunner -- but that there are "many fine candidates"
out there. "In the Republican Party you've got Senator [Bill]
Frist who's going to run, who I think would be an excellent
president," the ERLC leader says, adding the same comments about
Senators Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum. "I personally don't
think [Senator] John McCain would make such a great president," he
states. And on the Democratic side, notes Land, there is Senator
Hillary Clinton, who he does not feel is a shoe-in, and former
Governor Mark Warner of Virginia, who Land expects to be "a
significant player" among Democrats. "Everyone needs to be
involved," counsels Dr. Land. "They need to be registered to
vote, they need to vote -- and when they vote, they need to vote
their values, their beliefs, and their convictions." Last year
Land was appointed by Senator Frist to the U.S. Commission in
International Religious Freedom. It was third time Land had been
appointed to that group, the first two times by President George
W. Bush.
...A
Democrat from 
