Family Factors Huge in Avoiding Teenage Drinking

Sure, this is one of those studies in which academics spend a lot of time, money and energy simply to present findings that should be common sense. But common sense isn't all that common anymore and teen drinking continues to wreak terrible havoc including (but not limited to) increased crime and pregnancy rates and, of course, the crippling, killing effects of alcohol-impaired drivers.

Therefore anything that can motivate and assist adults in curbing teen drinking needs always to be trumpeted loud and clear. So here, from the World Congress of Families, is a summation of this study.

Most parents of teenagers know that a problem confined to college campuses a generation ago haunts high school communities today: alcohol use. Yet a study of sophomores in Icelandic secondary schools suggests that the increase of divorce, the lack of parental involvement with their teens, and the decline of church attendance have each strengthened the appeal of the bottle to teenagers.

Parsing data from the 2000 European School Survey on Alcohol and Other Drugs, which obtained responses from 89 percent of all tenth graders in Iceland, three Icelandic and one American sociologist measured both individual and school factors related to alcohol use among teens. In both bivariate and multivariate statistical tests, including what the researchers describe as their "best fitting model," teens living in households without a father, without a mother, or with a stepparent were more likely to drink (all three household arrangements at both test levels were statistically significant). Also statistically significant across the board: Teens were less likely to drink if they reported that their parents knew of their evening whereabouts and if teens reported that they were emotionally close to at least one parent.

Teens also were less likely to drink if they reported that they regularly attended public worship and expressed confidence in getting "support from God" when in need (p< .001 for both variables). While individual parental religiosity did not yield significant correlations with teen drinking in the multivariate tests, among teens that attended schools where parents were more religious, females drank significantly less than did males (p< .05).

For parents anxious about teen vulnerability to drinking, these findings confirm that staying out of the divorce court and taking the family to church each week are powerful tools to keep their teenagers out of trouble.

(Source: Thoroddur Bjarnason et al., "Familial and Religious Influences on Adolescent Alcohol Use: A Multi-Level Study of Students and School Communities," Social Forces 84 [September 2005]: 375-390.)

New Addition to British School? A Happiness Course

When modernism has destroyed the family, drowned the spiritual influences of the Church, and dropped the moral influences of great art and literature, where can you go to find any sense of peace and purpose? Well, for the latter, there's the Nanny State but for the former, we have had to rely on consumer goods, sexual titillation and, of course, the pharmaceutical companies with their various potions to give us "the high life." But now it looks like educators, bless their hearts, are coming to make their contribution too. Coming to a school near you -- Happiness 101.

Outspoken Christian Aaron Baddeley Wins His First PGA Title

Bob Gillespie, writing for South Carolina's state newspaper, described yesterday's big PGA Tour win in the following words:

HILTON HEAD ISLAND — Standing on Harbour Town Golf Links’ 18th green late Sunday afternoon, waiting to attempt the biggest putt of his professional golf career, Aaron Baddeley kept repeating the same mantra inside his head.

The source of his inspiration was a favorite Bible verse, 2 Timothy 1:7. The crucial words from that passage, he said, are “power, love and a strong mind.” Those words, Baddeley said, calmed his spirit and gave him peace.

“Then I said to myself, ‘This is for you, Jesus,’ and knocked (the winning putt) in,” he said.

And just like that, Baddeley not only won the Verizon Heritage for his first PGA Tour title after four winless years, but completed an image makeover almost as long in coming...

...His clutch 7-footer for par to finish 15-under, a shot ahead of gritty Jim Furyk, came at the end of a taut, daylong, one-on-one duel. No one else got closer than a shot. Vaughn Taylor and Billy Mayfair finished two shots back at 13-under, and Jerry Kelly and former USC player Brett Quigley were at 11-under.

It was a breakthrough day for Baddeley, but he said his journey to the winner’s circle was much longer in the making. “An amazing week,” he said. “It’s a win; it’s a relief. But it’s a dream, a goal that’s been reached. So it’s very satisfying.”

Start with his 5-under 66 on Saturday — the first anniversary of his marriage — which vaulted him into a tie for the lead with Furyk, the 2003 U.S. Open champion and winner of 10 PGA Tour titles.

Then there was a 7:30 a.m. Easter Sunday service, held at that same 18th green, where the 25-year-old gave testimony about how his Christian faith helped him confront his self doubt. Afterward, Baddeley and his wife, Richelle, “power-walked” for an hour in Sea Pines Resort to clear his mind for the task ahead. “He’s worked so hard,” said Richelle, who met Baddeley in Scottsdale, Ariz., where they now live. “We knew (winning) would come. And 10 hours (after the 18th-hole service), here we are holding the trophy.”

His faith, Baddeley said, has helped him deal with pressures since he was 13. As a young golf star growing up in Australia, “I struggled for three or four years, didn’t live up to my expectations and (those) of other people,” he said. “It was frustrating at times and hard at times, but I really felt my relationship with the Lord helped get me through that.”

It wasn’t always a smooth passage. Three years ago Baddeley was best known in the U.S. for a TV commercial for MacGregor golf clubs in which the then-shaggy-haired player drove a convertible with three young women waving their arms in the air and chanting his nickname, “Badds!” His portrayal as a womanizing “bad boy” was one Baddeley regrets fostering. “I felt funny going along with that,” he said. “In hindsight I wish I had never done it, but hindsight is 20-20.”

Sunday, that image was as dead as Baddeley’s other reputation: as a player with more style than substance, one who hadn’t won despite a pair of runner-up finishes...

Gilliespie's is a good story. But if you'd like the "Badds story," click the title of this post to go to Aaron Baddeley's own web site to see just how bold is his testimony for Jesus Christ, complete with his conversion account, daily Scripture readings, an explanation of his Bible study technique (SOAPS), and more. Congratulations, Badds!

Attacking Christianity Is Part of Australian Primary School Project

Kevin Donnelly writes a penetrating op-ed piece for the Australian about "educational practices" that are all-too-common throughout the West. Here are a few excerpts from his article:

...One of the scenes shows a medieval village where a heretic is about to be burned. Close by is a religious figure holding a cross incorporating the figure of Jesus; after clicking on the cross it changes into what appears to be a witch's broom. Whether intended or not, the implication is that Catholicism equates with witchcraft and superstition. In the same scene, several religious figures are shown looking at the figure tied to the stake. On clicking on the head-piece of what appears to be a senior member of the church, it changes into a dunce's cap.

That students are expected to see the church as the villain is confirmed when they click on the word "heretic" inscribed above the victim's head. It changes to "heroine" and there is no doubt where the allegiance lies of those responsible for the material.

The most unsettling thing about the Jacaranda book's treatment of Christianity is that it illustrates, once again, how left-wing thought police have succeeded in their long march through the education system. Forget Woodstock, Vietnam moratoriums and flower power; the cultural revolution of the '70s and '80s was also about the way education was identified as a critical instrument to overturn the status quo...

...Even science teaching has fallen victim to cultural relativism. Instead of recognising the primacy of western science, the South Australian curriculum argues that different versions of science are simply socio-cultural constructs.

The consequences of the long march are clear to see. Students leave school culturally illiterate, with a fragmented view of the world. Worse still, given the politics of envy and the spiritual emptiness of postmodernism, many students also leave school ethically challenged and morally adrift.

(Note -- Surfing around a little netted the discovery of another excellent op-ed piece by Kevin Donnelly in which he deals again with the SOSE Alive 2 school curriculum but several other examples of the West's new zest for religious bigotry as well. It too was first published in the Australian but the easiest spot to find it is right here. By the way, Donnelly is a former English and History teacher who then took a position in the Australian government. He now is an author and the Executive Director of Education Strategies, a Melbourne-based consulting group.)

Ho-Hum. Another Democrat Fund-Raising Scandal

The facts are clear. Even though the reporter calls the campaign contributions "questionable", there is no question about it. They were illegal contributions, money given that was more than the law allows. But, not to worry -- no heads will roll; no stink will be raised; no shining light from the MSM will rout out the miscreants. After all, it's not like it was Republicans who were caught!

No Fetal Pain Claim Made by Planned Parenthood Pal

It turns out that the researcher who recently made waves by claiming unborn kids are incapable of feeling pain (see the Vital Signs Blog post from a few days ago) is not as much of an independent mind as the reporters suggested. Stuart Derbyshire, a University of Birmingham lecturer not in biology, not in neurology, not in physiology, but in in psychology has, in fact, played the consultant to Planned Parenthood affiliates in Virginia and Wisconsin as well as the Pro-Choice Forum back in England. Those are a few quite relevant connections dug up by Forbes magazine but, of course, carefully omitted in the wire stories of the other day.

Beware the Proliferation of "Junk Science"

Robert L. Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland at College Park and the director of public information for the American Physical Society, is the author of Voodoo Science: The Road From Foolishness to Fraud (Oxford University Press, 2002). For the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dr. Park has written a very readable, very helpful article that gives a few nuggets from his book. It is entitled "The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science" and I highly recommend it to you.

Israel Will Be Annihilated, Says Iran's Head Thug

The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.

"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm..."

And these folks now have nuclear weapons? The time for intervention here is already overdue.

Pope Benedict XVI: Good Friday Prayers Confront the World's Evil Fashions

Here's a Times' (U.K.) story with a surprisingly clear and uncluttered perspective...

...In a series of Good Friday meditations that he will lead in Rome, the Pope will say that society is in the grip of a kind of “anti-Genesis” described as “a diabolical pride aimed at eliminating the family”. He will pray for society to be cleansed of the “filth” that surrounds it and be restored to purity, freed from “decadent narcissism”.

Particular condemnation is reserved for scientific advances in the field of genetic manipulation. Warning against the move to “modify the very grammar of life as planned and willed by God”, the Pope will lead prayers against “insane, risky and dangerous” ventures in attempting “to take God’s place without being God”...

...While some will regard their emphasis on sin and the dark side of human nature as retrograde, others will welcome them as a sign of the strong and conservative leadership that Pope Benedict XVI was elected to provide. All Roman Catholic churches and many others, including Anglican churches in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, celebrate a liturgy around the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday...

The 14 stations begin with Jesus’s condemnation to death, take Christians through meditations of the “Way of the Cross” and the Crucifixion and end with the laying of Jesus’s body in the tomb. The Pope wrote the meditations himself for last year’s Way of the Cross in Rome. But today’s Catholic prayers, published in Italian this week and in English on the Zenit website yesterday, go further than most in their thorough denunciation of contemporary culture.

At the Third Station of the Cross, where Jesus falls for the first time, Archbishop Comastri has written: “Lord, we have lost our sense of sin. Today a slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil, a senseless cult of Satan, a mindless desire for transgression, a dishonest and frivolous freedom, exalting impulsiveness, immorality and selfishness as if they were new heights of sophistication....”

Ohio State Political Correctness Goes to New Extreme

This is one of those stories you find absolutely unbelievable...until you pause and remember all of the other unbelievable acts of injustice, intolerance and moral rot that you know are all-too-real. This one deals with a university librarian (Ohio State) who is being investigated for sexual harassment because -- get ready -- he suggested 4 conservative titles be included in a freshman reading program.

Uh, Kyle-- Wrong Place, Wrong Time

You think these brothers might want to get a grip on where and when to hit the gas? From the AP story...

NASCAR driver Kyle Busch was ticketed for reckless driving in a Richmond suburb Wednesday night. The misdemeanor charge carries up to a year in jail, a $2,500 fine and a driver's license suspension, said Sgt. Don Lambert, with Henrico County police. The charge also calls for a mandatory court appearance; Busch will appear in Henrico County General District Court on May 23...

...Busch's older brother and NASCAR star, Kurt, had his own legal problems because of a traffic incident last year. Kurt Busch was sat down by Rousch for the final two races last year and authorities ordered him to perform 50 hours of community service after he became belligerent with Phoenix area police during a 2005 traffic stop. He was charged with reckless driving.

On Fetal Pain Story, Only Pro-Abort "Expert" Gets the Headline

Even this strongly slanted story admits that there are "experts" who contend that the human fetus can feel pain. But only the "expert" who claims there's no such thing gets the star billing in the headline. But, there's no bias here, right?

For some scientifically sound research into this matter, check out this NRLC article. It is only one of many that is around, but it is an excellent one.

Education By Example: Professor Leads Students in Vandalism of Pro-Life Display

A college professor at Northern Kentucky University encouraged her students to vandalize a pro-life display members of the campus Right to Life group set up to oppose abortion. Not content with urging students to trash the memorial, Dr. Sally Jacobsen participated in the vandalism and was caught on camera by reporters from the student newspaper.

Members of the Northern Right to Life, the campus pro-life group, set up hundreds of crosses on a campus lawn to memorialize the babies who have died from abortion since Roe v. Wade.

After Dr. Jacobson and NKU students destroyed the display, members of the group decided to put new crosses up in their place and camp out overnight on Thursday to make sure they weren't vandalized again. The student group also told The Northerner student newspaper it plans to press charges with local police.

LifeNews.com has the whole sad story right here.

Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?

In one of today's Town Hall columns, Tony Snow, does an excellent job of stating the basic case for the physical resurrection of Jesus and also for the ramifications that miracle creates for mankind. It's a very good read.

However, Tony wrongly attributes the survey that started his meditations to the Standard of London. Now there might be such a publication (even though I can't find it around) but the survey he refers to must, in fact, be one I'd just read a few hours earlier over at the Spectator of London. Registration is required to get into the site -- it's free and relatively quick -- but, after reading Tony's very good column, I thought you might be interested in some of the answers of that survey. The Spectator's survey actually consisted of one simple question: ‘Do you believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead?’ Here are a few of the responses:

Taki Theodoracopulos, the conservative writer, critic and bon vivant

I like to believe it. No, I do believe it, and I believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. I was brought up as a very strict Greek Orthodox. I don’t think about it much. I don’t intellectualise it. I am very pagan that way.

The Most Reverend Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury
Thursday. Archbishop’s assistant: ‘He’s very busy but I’ll see what I can do.’
Friday. Archbishop’s assistant: ‘I’m afraid we don’t take part in compare-and-contrast surveys.’
The Spectator: ‘But we’re not comparing or contrasting anything. Please at least ask him.’
Monday. The Spectator: ‘Any luck with the Archbishop?’
Archbishop’s assistant: ‘Archbishop Rowan said to put him firmly in the “yes” camp. What were the follow-up questions?’
The Spectator: ‘No follow-up questions. Just the one about the Resurrection.’
Tuesday. Another assistant: ‘I’m afraid there won’t be a [further] quote from the Archbishop.

Keith Ward, Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London, and emeritus student of Christ Church, Oxford

I am certain the apostles had visionary experiences of Jesus after his death. I think these were genuine. But though Jesus appeared in physical form, his mode of existence after death was not in physical space-time as we know it.


Edward Stourton, reporter, broadcaster and author
Yes. I am pretty liberal in most Catholic matters, but I am old-fashioned about the Resurrection, because if it’s not true, what’s the point? Actually, it’s a non-controversial belief. If God intervenes in human history, there is absolutely nothing peculiar about his raising his son from the dead.


Christopher Howse, author and arts critic for the Telegraph

Yes. He rose bodily, so you won’t find any bones around. I don’t suppose many people would take ‘physically’ to mean ‘naturally’. The point was rather that, unlike the revivification of the mythical phoenix, Jesus’ resurrection was not just a wonderful thing but was completely above any natural power to perform. Jesus Christ dies and takes up his own life, in union with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Resurrection demonstrates that Jesus has told the truth and has the ability to keep his promises. Otherwise we are all sunk.
(By the way, I posted earlier today a Christopher Howse book review on the Da Vinci Code over at The Book Den.)

Sir Cliff Richard, pop music pioneer

Yes. For me the validity of the Christian faith stands or falls by the Resurrection. If it didn’t happen, then all we’ve got is a code of ethics. Good ones certainly, but we need more than ethics to change lives.

Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist

No. People believe in the Resurrection not because of good evidence (there isn’t any) but because, if the Resurrection is not true, Christianity becomes null and void, and their life, they think, meaningless. From this it is grotesquely false logic to conclude that therefore the Resurrection must be true. The alternative — that their religion is indeed null and void — may be unpleasant for Christians to contemplate, but there is no law that says the truth has to be pleasant. And nature does not owe us a meaningful life. It is up to us to make it so.

Charles Moore, the former Editor (23 years) of the Telegraph

Yes: he overcame death, body and soul. However, this is a statement of belief, not science. If archaeologists could prove (which they won’t) that they had found the bones of Jesus in Jerusalem, Christianity would still be true. This sounds like a contradictory statement, but I do not think it is.

Paul Johnson, acclaimed historian and author

I believe Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday and later appeared to St Peter, the other apostles and over 500 of the brethren, as recorded in St Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians. This triumph over death is an adumbration of our own entrance into eternal life.

"If Only Roosevelt Would Have Told Stalin, 'No.'"

Oliver North comments on Romanian history, the Allies cave-in to Josef Stalin, and the prospect of an Iran armed with nuclear bombs. Just click on the title of this post to read Col. North's revealing column.

Switzerland Joins EU Visa Ban on Belarusian Officials

A couple of days ago Switzerland imposed a travel ban on thirty-one Belarusian officials including President Lukashenka. The move came just two days after the European Union made the same decision. Though not a member of the EU, Switzerland's move was (like the EU's) in reaction to the rigged presidential elections in Belarus last month as well as Lukashenka's ongoing failure to respect basic freedoms of Belarus citizens.

Who's the Best Candidates for a Near-Death Experience?

I like tripping over to Live Science.com every once in a while, mainly to see what kind of "junk science" stories are being taken seriously by these folks. Today I found the usual stuff: a scare piece predicting the demise of one quarter of the world's animal species in 45 years; another emphasizing that global warming is going to endanger igloos (no kidding); and some simulated pictures designed to illustrate how fish first started hunting prey on land. Regarding the latter, I think Gary Larson had better illustrations in his Far Side cartoons but I'll let that pass.

Anyhow, my favorite "junk science" story today from this site is the one about a study trying to help determine who is a likely candidate for a "near death" experience and who (by default, I guess) is more likely to pop off without such warnings. The key, by the way, is in one's REM sleep patterns.

Of course, the important point to be made in this context is that every one of us is an excellent candidate for the sure-death experience. No way around it. As the Bible says, "It is appointed unto man once to die and then comes the judgment." So, rather than worrying too much about seeing a bright light in some near-death vision, it only makes sense to first guarantee that you'll see the Light of the World before you when the real thing comes along.

And that is easily done. Jesus Christ paid the penalty of our sins through His sacrificial death on Golgotha's cross. He did it willingly because He loves us so. And His forgiveness with its truimphant reward of life in His heaven after our death is offered to all. Jesus said," He who believes in Me will never die."

Near-death experiences? Who knows and who cares. But escaping the forever curse of spiritual death by trusting Jesus Christ as your Savior? That is the matter to make sure of!

The Issue Really Changes When Its Your Own Unborn Child

It all depends on your perspective.

In this very interesting story from (now, don't giggle) Lost Budgie Blog, we learn how a very liberal TV program from Canada has begun broadcasting the most delightful pro-life news reports. The reason? The host is pregnant! Thus, viewers are learning neat stuff about the humanity of the preborn child including videos of the 3D ultrasound showing the host's child moving around her soft, safe world. Very cool.

It is an example of how technology has dramatically helped shift public attitudes about abortion. The lines "It's not really a baby" or "It's just a bunch of parasite tissue" no longer are tossed around in the debate...except perhaps by Planned Parenthood folks. But thinking people who are honest and at least a little warmhearted are finding that such things as the "windows to the womb" provided by ultrasound, the remarkable developments in fetal surgery, the ever-increasing ability of doctors to bring even extremely premature babies to healthy outcomes, and so on, have changed forever the argument in favor of the baby -- and, albeit too, in favor of those who have for decades stood in the babies' defense.

Nice post, LBB!

Yet Another Abortionist In Trouble

Abortion will always be an extremely dangerous and dirty business - no matter how clean the facilities, how conscientious the employees, or how competent the doctor. But, of course, it is for the very reason that abortion is such a dangerous and dirty business, that it attracts the absolute worst the medical profession has to offer.

Here then is but another example of an abortionist having his license yanked...but only after being given several previous chances to go on hurting women by the Virginia Medical Board AND after South Carolina had revoked his license.

Just imagine what it would be like if abortionists had to undergo the accountability that other physicians experience.

Moving Against Greed and the Culture of Consumerism

...In order for us to effectively move against the illusion of overpopulation AND against the terrible needs facing the world's populations, we must confront the god whom we most worship in the West. The god of materialism. As a philosophy, materialism is much more than the acquisition of goods; it is a way of life that distracts you from the needs of others. Materialism, with its dedication to comfort and pleasure, distracts the Westener from focusing in on the most immediate targets of ministry for others. Indeed, materialism, in its concentrated attention to things, actually devalues human beings.

The consumer culture that has been established in Western Europe and the U.S. and which we are now exporting into lesser developed nations devalues the individual by its concentrated attention to advertising, consumerism, emphasis on gadgetry, artificially heightened dependence on toys, etc. So when a woman tells you in front of an abortion clinic that she cannot afford another child and yet she has driven in with a new car and is dressed in finery and jewelry, one should ask, "What has happened here?" People have been devalued by things - in this case, devalued in the greatest extreme. Luxuries have become necessities to such a degree that we won't even consider even the sacredness of human life to be a priority over things.

Materialism breeds greed. In the old Westerns that I watched while growing up, there was often a scene where the bandits are figuring out how to divide their booty from the stage robbery or whatever. You remember the scene. There's always one of the guys that looks at the weakest member of the party as he wonders if he can do away with him in the night. And what do his partners say? "Hey, that will be more for the rest of us! That will be one more share that goes to us!"

This very attitude is a key plank in the platform of many of the population controllers but, worse yet, it becomes an unconscious motivation for the rest of us. Whatever rhetoric is used to assage our consciences, we intuitively understand that sharing goods or space or time with others costs us! So, rather than bear the costs of others, we end up being protective of our "share of the stuff."

In Southeast Asia, a traditional monkey trap consists simply of putting a date or some nut other treat inside a coconut. The monkey reaches in the coconut, grabs the date, and he's caught because the size of his fist inside the coconut is larger than the hole in which he inserted his open hand. The goofy little thing will not let go of the treat even to pull his hand out. He keeps his hand gripping his reward even though it means his capture and doom. This is exactly what is happening to the Western World. Our greed blinds us to the needs of others, and endangers the future security and peace of all...

(An excerpt from "Population Problems", an address delivered by Denny Hartford at a Vital Signs Ministries "Frontier Issues" conference.)