Sports fans will inevitably remember Chris Mortensen, the beloved “NFL insider” best known for breaking stories, sharing scoops, and becoming a trusted personality on the gridiron and on Sportscenter, among other programs and venues.
Sports fans will inevitably remember Chris Mortensen, the beloved “NFL insider” best known for breaking stories, sharing scoops, and becoming a trusted personality on the gridiron and on Sportscenter, among other programs and venues.
Mortensen died on Sunday after a long and courageous battle with cancer. He was 72.
“Mort helped set the journalism standard in the early days of ESPN,” wrote ESPN’s Norby Williamson. “His credibility, attention to detail and reporting skills catapulted our news and information to a new level. More importantly, he was a great teammate and human being. He personified care and respect for people which became the culture of ESPN.”
Tributes pouring in over the last few days have acknowledged Mortensen’s topflight writing and reporting talents, but they’ve all quickly pivoted from the professional to the personal.
The Washington state legislature on Monday passed a Parents’ Bill of Rights to protect parental involvement in the state’s education system.
Washington’s Initiative 2081 ensures parents can review and oversee what their children are being taught in public schools, and it protects parental rights in several important ways. The initiative:
Ensures parents have the right to examine all textbooks, curriculum and supplemental material used in their child’s classrooms.
Guarantees parents can inspect their child’s academic, medical, mental health, counseling, attendance and disciplinary records.
Confirms parents must receive prior notification when medical services are being offered or arranged for their child, except for emergency medical services.
Gives parents the option to opt their child out of instruction on topics associated with sexual activity, assignments and questionnaires related to the child’s sexual experiences or attractions, or surveys that include questions about the child’s family beliefs, morality, religion or political affiliations.
The passage of Initiative 2081 comes as a rare win for conservatives in the far-left Evergreen State.
Surprisingly, the legislation was approved overwhelmingly by both houses of the Washington State Legislature. The initiative passed the Senate unanimously and was approved by the House in an 82-15 vote.
A New York Times investigation into underage social media influencers uncovered thousands of young girls receiving and soliciting attention from pedophiles — on Instagram accounts supervised by their parents.
“Parents are the driving force behind the accounts,” Times reporters concluded after identifying 5,000 parent-managed Instagram accounts with 1) more than 500 followers and 2) multiple posts of their underage daughters in tight or revealing clothing.
The Times’ findings not only expose a mass failure of parental responsibility, but that some have sacrificed their children’s safety out of greed.
Parents stand to gain a lot of money from allowing sexually deviant men to exploit their daughters online.
Some parents view men stalking their daughters’ accounts as a “source [of engagement] to be tapped,” writes the Times.
Pedophiles provide a steady source of social media engagement — a key part of gaining followers and picking up jobs and brand deals — via likes and sexually explicit comments on photos.
The outlet’s analysis of more than two million Instagram posts found racy pictures of underage girls received more engagement, and accounts posting such images usually had more followers — a higher proportion of them being men.
Several parents also make money directly from pedophiles by selling suggestive images of their children via Instagram’s subscription service.
Here is an obvious fact that is unfortunately, becoming less obvious to people all the time: Mothers and fathers are different. Just think about that.
You exist because of the very fact that a particular woman, your mother, made a very unique and essential contribution to your creation in intimately close cooperation with a particular man, your father, who also made an essential and wholly unique contribution to your creation. If this fact is confusing to you, there is help here.
None of us would exist if fathers and mothers were essentially the same and gender is merely a social construct.
But mothers and fathers bring other very different and essential things, not only to the creation of new human beings, but to their healthy physical and character development.
This is called parenting and it is a gender specific endeavor that is vital to a humanity and social well-being.
And mothers and fathers do this because moms and dads are different in how they see their child in relation to the larger world.
Fathers see their children in relation to the large world, thus helping them safely prepare for the reality and harshness of the real world.
Mothers see the world in relation to their child, being ever driven to protect him or her from the dangers of the world.
Both views are necessary and provide essential experiences as children grow into adulthood.
Lizzy Cohen Bidwell, born a male, stole first place in the girls high jump at the New England Interscholastic Track and Field Championships.
Bidwell’s jump of 5 feet, 9 inches set a Connecticut girls high jump record and was the third highest jump for girls in the nation.
Bidwell was one of two boys competing in the event, pushing out two girls from qualifying and competing at the New England Championships.
Bidwell, a junior at Connecticut’s Conard High School, took a slot from another girl at the championships by qualifying in the girls long jump.
As the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) posted on X, the boys high jump event was won by a jump of more than 7 feet. Bidwell’s jump was 4 inches below the boys’ lowest high jump of 6-1.
The feminist news and opinion outlet Reduxx reported:
“Bidwell was transitioned at an extremely early age, and his parents legally changed his name to ‘Lizzy’ when he was between the age of 9 and 10. His parents appear to have increasingly sought to conceal his biological sex over the years.
“His mother, Carla Rebecca Bidwell, is a mathematics specialist who began her career as a high school mathematics teacher but moved into promoting critical race theory and trans activism.”
Connecticut has been at the forefront of undermining girls sports for years.
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