At the end of our first year, we want to thank our readers for your encouragement and support. It’s been only six months since our first print-edition appeared last June. We’ve definitely increased the diversity of thinking and the tolerance for new ideas in Massachusetts, although it is clear that this will be an ongoing challenge.  

Same-Sex Marriage 

The Massachusetts Family Institute warns that in the wake of the Vermont Supreme Court’s decision that unanimously approved the concept of same-sex marriage, we must not remain a member of the minority of states that have not passed a law defining marriage as limited to the union of a man and a woman. If we fail to pass such a law and the Vermont legislature approves marriage between homosexuals, we would have lost our right to make a decision about the matter. A bill to affirm marriage in Massachusetts, House Bill 472, is now stalled in the legislature where it is "in study."  

"Abstinence" Is From "Religious Groups"? 

The desire that teenagers remain abstinent comes only from "conservative" and "religious groups" according to the Associated Press. It wrote, "Abstinence has been promoted by conservative and religious groups who argue that talking about birth control sends teenagers a mixed message, suggesting that nothing is wrong with premarital sex." Perhaps we should send our poll to AP. It’s a lot more than religious "nuts" and conservatives who believe that. 

Channel 2 Director Gives $422,000 to Democrats 

Alan D. Solomont, Weston, is in second place in the state in personal political contributions with $422,000 given to Democrats from 1997-1999. Yet he maintains it was not political when Channel 2 caused a national scandal by giving its list of donors to the Democrats last year. He remains entrenched as a director and powerful figure at the television station. 

Says Drunks Are More Violent 

The New England Journal of Medicine has published two studies which show that men who abuse alcohol and drugs are more likely to batter their wives and girlfriends. Well, we must wonder what portion of our taxes paid for those insightful studies. 

New Video: "Women Are Lying and Manipulative" 

If you saw a video with that title, you would say it was from a bunch of bigots. And you’d be right. Yet our tax-funded UMASS is promoting a video to its students and the world with the message that men are violent creatures.  

Even though the evidence is mounting that women are more violent than men, UMASS is continuing to tell its students the opposite. All this despite the fact that one of the women who was "attacked" there last month has admitted that the "attack" was a hoax. Even though the school has spent nearly $100,000 on the matter, the student who is in her 30s will not be prosecuted for making the false report. "She is extremely remorseful," a spokesman said. Her name will not even be revealed. We will never know what led her to such a bizarre tale (she even cut her face to make it look authentic) or whether she is friends with the other women. 

Meanwhile, Chancellor David K. Scott announced a film, featuring Jackson Katz, "that examines violent behavior in men. It is titled, "Tough Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis in Masculinity." Both Katz and the UMASS professor who directed the film were at the showing to answer questions. 

We at Massachusetts News believe that rape is a very serious crime that should be prosecuted to the fullest extent, but we do not believe that men are violent and women are not. The evidence does not show that to be true. Let’s stop the tax-funded prejudice and bigotry. 

Channel 4 News Against Tax Cuts 

The television anchor for Channel 4, Jack Williams, is against tax cuts. He thinks you’re "greedy" if you’re for them. He wrote in a column in the Boston Herald, "This next year, we will have several opportunities in the voting booth to let politicians know that appealing to greed is not a guarantee of success….[Gov. Paul Cellucci] is doggedly going ahead with a plan to reduce the state income tax." Will somebody please tell Williams that almost every mother who is working today is forced to do so just to pay the family taxes. They’re up to 40% of the average family’s income as compared to only 5% back in 1950. No wonder that most mothers didn’t have to work back then. 

Feds Give $500,000 To Track Vaccinations in Springfield  

Sen. Kennedy has announced that a half-million dollars is being given by the federal government to a private group to track the vaccination of Springfield’s children in one central, computerized registry, according to the Union-News. It’s part of a pilot program. The larger goal is a statewide registry of children. A spokesman at the city’s Department of Public Health said it will also enable them to know which children are receiving preventive care and not just going to the doctor when they are sick. Does your school think you take your kids to the doctor enough? The children are given up to 18 shots by the time they are two, but boosters are needed to update the shots before they can enter school. 

Psychiatrists Endorse Ritalin 

Most psychologists say that their cousins, the psychiatrists, rely too much on drugs to sedate patients and not cure them. So it came as no surprise to see a headline in the New York Times, "Study Backs a Drug for Hyperactive Children." The lead sentence was, "In one of the largest studies of its kind ever conducted, researchers have found that the drug Ritalin, the subject of sharp debate for three decades, was more effective than behavior-modification therapy in treating children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder." 

Only psychiatrists were quoted. One said, "As a child psychiatrist, it is still surprising that Ritalin remains as controversial as it is. One hopes that this study will put some of the controversy to rest." But another countered that the drug is overused, adding, "Do you give it to a child who talks incessantly in line?" The drug should be reserved for real brain disorders, he said. 

The Times didn’t report that the "disease" wasn’t discovered by the American Psychiatric Association until 1987. It did say that 80% of the patients are boys. These boys are being forced into a female environment at a younger and younger age. Now the establishment is pushing to put them in school at age four. 

Don’t Rush To Believe This Ritalin Story  

Although the Boston Globe/nytimes north printed a major story about attention-deficit disorder on its front page, it was so poor that anyone could see the holes. It said, "if confirmed," a new theory could "help answer skeptics who question whether attention-deficit disorder is a real disorder and not just a poorly defined label placed on very active, normally rebellious children…" It reported that a study has shown that a protein, known as dopamine transporter, is at higher levels with people with the disorder. It says there is speculation the problem may be caused by genes and not by diet and allergies. But a higher level of the protein could also result from diet, allergies or many other causes. One must wonder whether any of this study was commissioned by the drug company which manufactures Ritalin. And why is the NYTimes pushing so heavily for the use of Ritalin? 

Female DA Has Problems With Maternity Leaves 

The District Attorney in Middlesex County, Martha Coakley, is having problems with maternity leaves, according to the Boston Globe. She’s sent a memo to her attorneys, who are more than 50% women, that they must adhere to the standard maternity leave guaranteed by law of three months unpaid leave. Eight of her 62 female lawyers are pregnant, most of them due in the next few months. She told the Globe that she and her top staffers – many of them women – are trying to be realistic about how much work other employees can absorb for those on maternity leave. However, in a letter to the Globe, she disputes the whole story. 

It’s a difficult problem that every company faces. Attorney Coakley should try running a 15-person company where everyone is critical and necessary and she’ll find it’s an even more difficult problem.  

Boston Globe Editorializes for Castro - on Page One 

When the little Cuban boy got caught in a struggle over whether he should stay in the US after his mother died while trying to flee here, the Boston Globe ran a 4-column story with a picture at the top of the front page, with the headline, "In Cuba, a shattered family waits." 

It said the boy "survived a boating accident…" A boating accident? It continued that the accident happened during "an apparent attempt to escape Cuba and illegally enter the United States." Whether it was "illegal" is not that clear. 

"It’s been so long, I can’t take this anymore," said the boy’s grandmother. Maybe the Globe could send some of its reporters around Massachusetts to question the families who have had more children than that ripped from them by the Probate Courts and by DSS. They don’t need to send a reporter to Cuba to discover that type of story. 

Three Year Old Fights for Life 

A three-year-old girl in Dorchester is fighting for her life because she needs a bone marrow donor. The Boston Herald reports that a national computer bank will search for a donor for $90 – but they’ll do it free if she is black or another minority. The girl’s father is black but her mother is Irish-Italian. So what will they charge her, $45? Once we start down this slippery road of race, where do we stop?  

Boston Globe Reacts to Vaccination Stories 

The Boston Globe has finally reacted to our stories about the hepatitis B vaccine for infants, but they wrote about every vaccine except that one. Their headline was, "Doctors aim to quell parents’ fears that vaccines may not be safe." But they did not even say a single word about the controversial hepatitis B in trying to quell the fears of parents. They wrote: "Experts point to the rotavirus vaccine when reassuring parents about safety. A vaccine against rotavirus, the leading cause of severe childhood diarrhea, was pulled off the market earlier this year after it was determined that it carried the risk of causing a rare but dangerous bowel obstruction." Are they saying that a parent will be reassured to know that an unsafe vaccine was tested on his child? 

Why Media Wants ‘Campaign Finance’ Law 

More than a third of the front page of the Sunday Globe on December 19 was a political advertisement against George Bush. It told the tragic story of five men who are sentenced to death in Texas. If George Bush is not allowed to answer that advertisement against him because he can’t raise the money, just think of the increased power that newspapers like the Boston Globe/nytimes north will have. They already have enormous power. "Campaign finance laws" would increase it exponentially.