Free Republic

NEW YORK — Racial justice. Obstruction of justice. Social justice. The Justice Department. Merriam-Webster has chosen "justice" as its 2018 word of the year, driven by the churning news cycle over months and months. The word follows "toxic," picked by Oxford Dictionaries, and "misinformation," plucked by Dictonary.com. Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor at large, told The Associated Press ahead of Monday's announcement that "justice" consistently bubbled into the top 20 or 30 lookups on the company's website, spiking at times due to specific events but also skating close to the surface for much of the year. While it's one of those...

I remember reading one of her books in which the following question was asked: I have to paraphrase as do not remember the exact words. Someone asked if America was ripe for plucking yet. The answer given was "No, first 3 things must happen. Get away from the gold standard, 2. Get the populace hooked on social programs. I forget the third. I read the book in the 80's and whatever was said hit me hard enough to remember to this date. I would love to reread the book. Please advise if anyone remembers it.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, pundits offered a variety of reasons for its failure: economic, political, military. Few thought to add a fourth, more elusive cause: the regime’s total loss of credibility. This hard-to-measure process had started in 1956, when Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave his so-called secret speech to party leaders, in which he denounced Josef Stalin’s purges and officially revealed the existence of the gulag prison system. Not long afterward, Boris Pasternak allowed his suppressed novel “Doctor Zhivago” to be published in the West, tearing another hole in the Iron Curtain. Then, in 1962, the literary magazine...

I was born into a family of famous gay pagan authors in the late Sixties. My mother was Marion Zimmer Bradley, and my father was Walter Breen. Between them, they wrote over 100 books: my mother wrote science fiction and fantasy (Mists of Avalon), and my father wrote books on numismatics: he was a coin expert.

I'm looking for a large-print Bible with a large-print commentary (preferably NKJV). I've seen many large-print Bibles that include a commentary. But the commentary is always in small print. And that kind of defeats the whole purpose. So if anyone knows of a large-print Bible with a good large-print commentary, please let me know.

Snow and rain mix falling at 2,100' elevation south of Asheville.What's going on in your area?

PBS’ Masterpiece has released the first trailer for Les Misérables, the upcoming six-part event adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel, set for premiere on Masterpiece in 2019. A co-production from Lookout Point and BBC Studios, the drama stars Dominic West as Jean Valjean, David Oyelowo as Javert, Lily Collins as Fantine and Adeel Akhtar and Olivia Colman as Monsieur and Madame Thénardier.

Once upon a time, we lived in leaf huts, with interiors that looked a lot like our outdoor environment. Soon we moved to round houses, then square houses and finally to air-tight apartments in cities. Now we close our windows, use products that claim to kill 99% of germs and have unknowingly domesticated bedbugs—so they adjust their workdays around ours. Our homes no longer resemble the garden outside but have a weird human-centered microbial signature that is also found on the International Space Station, and that’s not a good thing. The problem, according to Mr. Dunn, “is not what is...

All attempts to find a way out of the plight of today’s world are fruitless unless we redirect our consciousness, in repentance, to the Creator of all: without this, no exit will be illumined, and we shall seek it in vain. ...We must first recognize the horror perpetrated not by some outside force, not by class or national enemies, but within each of us individually, and within every society. This is especially true of a free and highly developed society, for here in particular we have surely brought everything upon ourselves, of our own free will. We ourselves, in our...

I am SO deeply saddened. I wanted to write a glowing (as in radioactive crater) review of the lady's (?) best selling book ..Becoming (Human). {I wanted to point out but they forgot to put the second word of the title on the picture that I saw.} I was willing to give it 1 out of 5 stars to recognize the fact that for the first 80% of her life she was apparently not proud to be an American. However, before I could write even the first letter of my review I was confronted with this notice: Sorry, we are...

Margaret Atwood is working on a sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the most popular and influential feminist novel ever written. Her sequel, titled “The Testaments,” opens 15 years after the conclusion of “The Handmaid’s Tale” and is narrated by three women, according to a statement released by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday on Wednesday. In a note to readers, Atwood wrote, “Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.” “The Testaments” will be published on Sept. 10, 2019, with a...

Voting day Posted on November 28, 2018 Raven Standing on a Gallows with a Swinging Noose on a ... You have lied and betrayed To get your way You sit in power And still get paid But there are footsteps Marching Beat by beat This time On a different street And they are coming Coming for you To cast their vote Around your throat

Hundreds of Steampunk fans have gathered in the quiet Yorkshire town of Haworth today for the annual gathering to celebrate the sub-culture. Revellers spared no expense on dressing up for the occasion, as fans of the science fiction sub-genre were pictured wearing Victorian-style clothing with a steam-powered twist. The culture is inspired by industrialised 19th century civilisation but comes with a metallic, retro technological addition to the clothing.

Tarzan (John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan first appeared in the novel Tarzan of the Apes (magazine publication 1912, book publication 1914), and subsequently in 25 sequels, several authorized books by other authors, and innumerable works in other media, both authorized and unauthorized. The film version of Tarzan as the noble savage (“Me Tarzan, You Jane”), as acted by Johnny Weissmuller,...

Michelle Obama's "Becoming" has become a massive hit. Crown Publishing told The Associated Press Wednesday that the former first lady's memoir has sold more than 1.4 million copies in all formats in the U.S. and Canada in the seven days since it was released Nov. 13. Based on demand from retailers across all channels, the publisher has printed 3 million hardcover copies in North America. On its first day, the book sold more than 725,000 copies, making it one of the year's biggest debuts.

According to a report by the Moscow Times, pranksters in Bulgaria are repainting Soviet-era monuments so that Soviet military heroes look like American Superheroes. Needless to say, the Russians are not too happy about it: Russia is demanding that Bulgaria try harder to prevent vandalism of Soviet monuments, after yet another monument to Soviet troops in Sofia was spray-painted, ITAR-Tass reported. The Russian Embassy in Bulgaria has issued a note demanding that its former Soviet-era ally clean up the monument in Sofia's Lozenets district, identify and punish those responsible, and take "exhaustive measures" to prevent similar attacks in the future,...

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult....

Forty years after Ralph Bakshi's animated classic hit theaters, the filmmaker recalls courting Mick Jagger and Led Zeppelin and speaks candidly about the extreme pressure he was under: "I nearly died." Mick Jagger as Frodo. A Led Zeppelin soundtrack. Battles on the field and behind the scenes before a three-film saga went bust. Forty years after his animated classic The Lord of the Rings hit theaters Nov. 15, 1978, these are some of the things on director Ralph Bakshi's mind during a candid conversation about what happened, and what could have been...

Television personality Bill Maher penned an op-ed on his blog railing against the comic book industry in the wake of the passing of former Marvel Comics publisher Stan Lee. Maher dropped lines like "I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to suggest that Donald Trump could only get elected in a country that thinks comic books are important," along with mocking fans who were mourning the loss of the beloved comic creator. "But then twenty years or so ago, something happened – adults decided they didn’t have to give up kid stuff," Maher ranted. "And so they pretended comic books...

On Friday I was back behind the Golden EIB Microphone on America's Number One radio show. (You can find a few moments from my guest-hosting stint here.) We were preoccupied, as apparently we will be well past Thanksgiving, by the third Broward County hand count of the fifth Palm Beach machine count, or whatever rubbish we're up to now. But I also mentioned, towards the end of the show, my ambivalent feelings about Stan Lee, the phenomenally successful Marvel Comics impresario who died a few days ago at the age of 95. Meeting him was one of the great moments...