I have my doubts about high school students going to the nurse for certain things, but perhaps I'm reacting too much based on my own recollections and not taking into account how kids have changed:
Without discussion, the Milwaukee School Board voted 7-0 Thursday night to make condoms available at many of the city's high schools, paving the way to make Milwaukee Public Schools one of the relatively few districts in the nation to provide contraception to students.
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I don't think the "keep Christ in the closet where he belongs" folks need any help in their efforts to ruin Christmas, but it looks like they're getting it anyway:
Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus. And he's a public health menace.
Public health expert Nathan Grills of Monash University in Australia says the beloved Christmas icon should ditch his sleigh and start biking or walking to lose his jelly belly.
There they go again, being reckless with both our money and our national sovereignty:
COPENHAGEN — As hopes faded for a strong climate deal, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to put new life into flagging U.N. talks today by announcing the U.S. would join others in raising $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with global warming.
Oral Roberts died yesterday at 91, which just goes to show that God might be slow but eventually gets around to it:
At the time of his death, however, Mr. Roberts' ministry and celebrity had been in decline for years, a drop accelerated by a prophecy the preacher made 22 years ago that "God will call me home" unless $8 million was raised for scholarships to Oral Roberts University by March 31, 1987.
Indiana gets millions every year from the "master settlement" with tobacco companies reached in 1998 -- more than $600 million this year alone. In fact, it will have gotten billions over the 30-year course of the settlement. Yet it keeps cutting the paltry funding for tobacco cessation programs:
It's a tough year to be one of Santa's helpers:
As a longtime Santa Claus at a suburban Chicago mall, Rod Riemersma used to jokingly tell children they would get socks for Christmas if they were naughty.
This year, he stopped telling the joke. Too many children were asking for socks. "They've probably heard their parents say, 'Geez, I wish I had some money to get them clothes,' " says Mr. Riemersma, 56 years old.
I know there are a lot of you Santa deniers out there. How can one person possibly keep track of all the boys and girls in the world? How can he make all those toys? Most absurdly, how can he deliver all those toys in one night? The people trying to sell this nonsense must have cooked the data.
But, I tell you, the science is settled, OK? He uses the Internet. A lot of the Elves are really automation. Santa makes use of science and technology the rest of us just don't have at our disposal yet:
It's nice to know not everyone is suffering because of the lousy economy:
The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.
Ever see "Anatomy of a Murder?" It's a great, gritty courtroom drama from Otto Preminger, considered pretty daring for its time (1959) and featuring one of Jimmy Stewart's best performances. At the heart of the story is the character played by Lee Remick, a boozy, cheerfully amoral slut of an Army wife ("slut" in the film noir movie sense, I hasten to add, not in the 21st century making moral judgments sense).
I hate to be caught on the side of an environmental group that might turn out later to be full of nuts, but I have to say this is a good point:
A Boston-based consumer and environmental group is bringing its campaign against bottled water to four states, urging them to cut hundreds of thousands of dollars from strapped budgets by ending their purchases of water in plastic containers.
