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McCaughey: Sex education is getting too extreme

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:28 GMT

The facts of life haven’t changed, but sex education is entirely different now from what you likely learned in school.Sex ed in middle school now includes graphic lessons on anal sex, oral sex and masturbation, with stick figures to illustrate body positions. Supplemental reading in middle school libraries includes “Sex, Puberty, and All That Stuff,” a book explaining foreplay. Massachusetts’ curriculum tells seventh graders how to use cling wrap as a dental dam around their teeth for safe oral sex.A majority of states now require sex education be labeled as “comprehensive,” thanks to aggressive lobbying by activists. Planned Parenthood, the largest producer of sex ed curriculum for public schools, argues that children are entitled to know how to “experience different forms of sexual pleasure.”Eugene, Oregon, high schoolers were recently assigned to write a sexual fantasy featuring massage oil, flavored syrup, a candle, music, feathers...

Stephen Schaefer’s HOLLYWOOD & MINE

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:28 GMT

Guy Pearce, among the most versatile of actors, costars with Damian Lewis in the current MGM+ series ‘A Spy Among Friends,’ based on England’s notorious Cambridge spy scandals of the 1950s and ‘60s. Pearce, last seen as a romantic possibility for Kate Winslet in the Emmy-winning ‘Mare of Easttown,’ plays Kim Philby, the most notorious among the ‘Cambridge 5’ spies. Philby who spent his final years in Moscow was responsible for, literally, the deaths of thousands with his betrayal of US and UK intelligence operatives to the Russians.  This is an excerpt from Pearce’s interview with the Boston Herald.Q:  Is there a glamour with this — in the sense that they’re from Cambridge, it’s evocative periods that we’re looking back at. Do you feel this is not like the gray, John le Carre kind of spies that came in focus in the 60s or 70s?GUY PEARCE: That’s not really what Nick [Murphy, the director]  was after. He wanted sumptuous but not really ‘beautiful.’ I suppose th...

Cowen: AI about to transform childhood – are we ready?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:28 GMT

With the introduction of GPT-4 and Claude, AI has taken another big step forward. GPT-4 is human-level or better at many hard tasks, a huge improvement over GPT-3.5, which was released only a few months ago.Yet amid the debate over these advances, there has been very little discussion of one of the most profound effects of AI large language models: how they will reshape childhood.In the future, every middle-class kid will grow up with a personalized AI assistant — so long as the parents are OK with that.As for the children, most of them will be willing if not downright eager. When I was 4 years old, I had an imaginary friend who lived under the refrigerator, called (ironically) Bing Bing. I would talk to him and report his opinions to my parents and sister.In the near future, such friends will be quite real, albeit automated, and they will talk back to our children as directly as we wish. Having an AI service for your child will be as normal as having a pet, except the AI service wi...

Hate, struggle & survival collide in winning refugee drama ‘Jacir’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:28 GMT

MOVIE REVIEW“Jacir”Not Rated. In English and Arabic with subtitles. At the AMC Boston Common, AMC South Bay and suburban theaters.Grade: B+A “Gran Torino”-style drama with Lorraine Bracco as the racist next-door neighbor, “Jacir” is the feature film debut of Jordanian-born, American writer-director Waheed AlQawasmi. The film tells the story of Syrian refugee Jacir (Lebanese actor Malek Rahbani), living on his own in Memphis (the film’s tagline is “From Aleppo to the Ghetto”) in squalid circumstances. Jacir’s entire family was killed in Syria during the ongoing war. He lives alone, tormented by violent dreams and by his neighbor “Miss Meryl” (Bracco), a drunk and addict, who has a tragic history of her own and expresses racist sentiments towards Jacir, especially when her “traitor” cat shows him affection.Jacir has no means of transportation and like many Syrian refugees has a college degree. He must walk a long distance from his apartment to get to work, where he is the ...

Dear Abby: He forgives wife’s affair, starts his own

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:28 GMT

Dear Abby: I’ve been married for a little more than 12 years. My wife and I have one child. Unfortunately, like a lot of relationships, we’ve been stuck in a rough patch for a while now. I learned that she was having an affair a few years ago, which rocked me to the core. I recognized there were cracks forming early on, but, admittedly, I didn’t do enough to try to fix them. I ultimately decided to forgive her, and we have tried our best to put things back together.Last year, I met someone through work with whom I connected on an incredibly deep level, and I found myself to be genuinely happy in a way I hadn’t been for ages. It led to an affair that has been going on for a year. This woman desperately wants us to have a life together, as do I, but I’m afraid of what it will do to my child.Walking away from my long marriage, even with everything that has happened, is difficult to fathom, as is the thought of destroying my child’s sense of family an...

Twenty years on, reflection and regret on 2002 Iraq war vote

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:28 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow was sitting in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s conference room at the Pentagon, listening to him make the case that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.At some point in the presentation — one of many lawmaker briefings by President George W. Bush’s administration ahead of the October 2002 votes to authorize force in Iraq — military leaders showed an image of trucks in the country that they believed could be carrying weapons materials. But the case sounded thin, and Stabenow, then just a freshman senator, noticed the date on the photo was months old.“There was not enough information to persuade me that they in fact had any connection with what happened on Sept. 11, or that there was justification to attack,” Stabenow said in a recent interview, referring to the 2001 attacks that were one part of the Bush administration’s underlying argument for the Iraq invasion.“I really thought about the young men and women that ...

DeSantis team welcomes contrast with Trump ‘chaos’ candidacy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:28 GMT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Jim McKee is standing at the end of a line that snakes through five aisles of fiction inside the Books-A-Million store in Florida’s capital city.He is smiling because in a matter of minutes, the book he’s holding will be signed by its author, Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor who McKee believes should be the nation’s next president. But as a former Donald Trump loyalist, the 44-year-old Tallahassee attorney almost whispers when he first says it out loud.“Personally, I’d rather see DeSantis win the Republican primary than Trump,” McKee says softly, having to repeat himself to be heard. His voice soon grows louder.“Trump has upset so many people,” McKee says. “DeSantis is more palatable. He has a good story to tell.”Indeed, conversations throughout Tallahassee’s book stores, conference rooms, state house offices and sports bars reveal that DeSantis’ allies are gaining confidence as Trump’s legal woes mount. The former president faces a possible indictment ...

Harris to meet Ghana’s president as she begins Africa trip

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:28 GMT

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will meet Monday with Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo, a show of support for the West African leader who is facing rising discontent over inflation and fresh concerns about regional security.Harris is just beginning a weeklong trip to the continent that will also take her to Tanzania and Zambia, part of a concerted effort to broaden U.S. outreach at a time when China and Russia have entrenched interests of their own in Africa.Akufo-Addo oversaw one of the world’s fast-growing economies before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the cost of food and other necessities has been skyrocketing, and the country is facing a debt crisis as it struggles to make payments. In addition, sporadic fighting has increased in Ghana’s north, which borders the more tumultuous nation of Burkina Faso and the Sahel, a region where local offshoots of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have been operating. “Ghana is experiencing a very tough momen...

Black, Hispanic investors struggle with faith in crypto

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:28 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A software developer twice invested his savings in cryptocurrencies, only to lose it all. But he still promotes it to the Black community and would like to get back in himself. A recent college graduate and a single mom are dabbling hopefully in bitcoin after attending a crypto workshop sponsored by rapper Jay-Z at the public housing complex where the hip-hop star grew up. But a former executive at a cryptocurrency exchange feels disillusioned by the false promise of crypto helping her family in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region. All were drawn by the idea of crypto as a pathway to wealth-building outside of traditional financial systems with a long history of racial discrimination and indifference to the needs of low-income communities. But crypto’s meltdown over the past year has dealt a blow to that narrative, fueling a debate between those who continue to believe in its future and skeptics who say misleading advertising and celebrity-fueled hype have drawn ...

Timberwolves re-insert themselves into discussion for top-six seed in West with win over Warriors

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:28 GMT

Kyle Anderson has been Minnesota’s clutch king all season, directing the offense with precision in key moments.But it was what Anderson did on the defensive end late Sunday that sealed the deal on a massive victory and put Minnesota firmly in the race for a top-six seed in the Western Conference.With Minnesota down one in the final 20 seconds Sunday in San Francisco, the Timberwolves were seemingly trying to commit a pair of fouls to put the Warriors on the free-throw line. But no calls came, setting up a bit of a scramble drill. Golden State got the ball out to an open Draymond Green near midcourt. Green collected the pass and tried to quickly redirect the ball to Klay Thompson.One problem: Anderson’s long paw was in the way.Anderson caught a piece of the ball, collected the steal and made his way down the floor in transition to set up a 2-on-2 fast break. Green and Klay Thompson sagged into the paint, and Anderson passed over to Karl-Anthony Towns.Towns struggled from ...