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The Dearth Of Historical Fiction Is A Disservice To Curious Kids Everywhere

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In May of this year, The Nation’s Report Card reported that the average U.S. history score for eighth graders in 2022 was five points lower than the last assessment in 2018. In other words, students don’t know history like they used to.

There are many causes, from forced school closures to the quality of today’s curriculums and teachers. There are also other, less regarded factors that have undoubtedly contributed as well. Namely, as a lifelong reader and almost a decade as a writer, I’ve noticed a glaring deficit in my industry; compared to other genres, there’s not a lot of historical fiction published for teens. Goodreads unofficial list of “The Most Popular Young Adult Books of the Year (So Far)” features only one historical fiction — more romance than historical, as per usual — set in the early 1900s.

Anyone who’s ever read a book that’s made them think, laugh, cry, feel, knows the power of words and the power of stories. We know that communities aren’t only bound by location and meetinghouses but also by the stories we share. Stories as parables. Stories to frame social discussions. Stories to portray heroes and courage and friendship and wisdom to live by. For better or worse, there’s something about books that makes information seem more real and factual. They give authority to arguments. They give space to expand upon and discuss ideas. They allow for conglomerations and variations, argument refutations, and building upon previous works.

There’s not one genre more relevant

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Pro-Life Family Tours Abortion Hot Spots Across The Eastern Seaboard

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One Missouri family of nine returned home this week after a month touring the Eastern Seaboard, visiting roughly 20 states in just over 30 days and exploring some of the most unregulated abortion states in the country.

Brian Westbrook, executive director of the pro-life nonprofit Coalition Life, set out with his family in late May, inspired by David Bereit, the now-retired founder of 40 Days for Life, who visited 89 sites in 40 days with his wife and children during the organization’s first campaign in 2007.

“It was a huge task in front of them … to support these people on the ground,” Westbrook said. “[Bereit’s] last season at 40 Days, he did another tour and visited all 50 states.”

Documenting their journey with daily videos including feature interviews with pregnancy resource professionals, Students for Life leaders, and other pro-life activists, the family traveled from Missouri to Florida and all the way up the coast to New York.

First and foremost, the Westbrooks wanted to incorporate their children, ranging in age from 16 to just under 1 into the tour, providing a powerful testimony as they prayed outside dozens of abortion facilities.

“Secondarily, we wanted to tell the stories of the people who are on the ground,” Westbrook said. “There are a lot of unsung heroes who don’t have the ability or capacity to create a video that highlights their story. So we wanted to do that. Thirdly, we wanted to scout out different post-Dobbs challenges in every state and

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3 Ways Feminism Laid The Groundwork For Transgenderism

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The trans movement is in full bloom. Many are scratching their heads as to how we got here.

A survey of the last two centuries reveals that it was long in the making, with deep roots found in feminist ideology, as discussed at length in my book, The End of Woman. Feminism ushered in significant shifts in thinking about women, fundamentally changing the way Western civilization considers biology, language, and law.

Each of these shifts on its own would have been damaging enough, but like the poisonous tentacles of a jellyfish, when taken together, they were fatal and brought about the triumph of the LGBT movement.

Biological Argument: Make Women More Like Men

One of the earliest efforts of the feminist movement was to help women with the suffering associated with fertility. It is a laudable goal, except that rather than help women as women, the feminist vision was to help women become more like men, namely, rendering their bodies sterile to enable sex without consequences.

The idea was to get rid of the connection between women and motherhood. Among first-wave activists, Elizabeth Cady Stanton said, “The woman is uniformly sacrificed to the wife and mother.” A few decades later, Charlotte Perkins Gilman said motherhood made it “impossible for women to achieve their potential.” And by the 1960s, Betty Friedan completed the transformation by famously encouraging every woman to leave the “comfortable concentration camp” that is the home to do productive work. The message was clear: Career is more important than motherhood.

The biological transformation

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Activist Judge Blocks Law Protecting Minors From Filth Online

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Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Young temporarily blocked enforcement of a new Indiana law requiring porn sites to implement age verification services. 

Young, who has a history of activism from the bench, ruled that the law was “likely unconstitutional” after a lawsuit was brought against the Indiana attorney general by the Free Speech Coalition and several pornography lobbyists. Though several courts have already given the green light to similar regulations — and the Supreme Court has declined to block them — Indiana must now wait for a full review of Senate Enrolled Act 17 by a higher court.

If an adult website consists of more than one-third “material harmful to minors,” or pornography, the bill requires them to institute an age verification method such as a “mobile credential,” or scan of a driver’s license or other form of ID; an “independent third party age verification service” that compares identifying information entered by the individual with a commercial database; or any other commercially reasonable method that “relies on public or private transactional data,” such as what can be provided by a credit card.

In his order granting the preliminary injunction, Young parrots the argument of the Free Speech Coalition, that pornography access is a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment. As a result, he says, laws regulating its distribution must pass “strict scrutiny” or be the “least restrictive means” of accomplishing a compelling government interest.

However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court has already ruled on an equivalent Texas law

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