Free Republic

IN 1995, a century and a half after it was founded by supporters of slavery, the Southern Baptist Convention apologised to African-Americans. “We genuinely repent of racism of which we have been guilty,” wrote the group, which had by then become America’s largest Protestant denomination. It was a landmark moment, reflective of a complex and chequered history. American Baptists’ roots lie in the noble struggle for religious liberty. In colonial times they were a tormented minority, their preachers sometimes clapped into prison. Baptists held that only declared believers should be baptised, which offended other Protestants, who thought that infants should...

Do What Thou Wilt;because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden and to desire what is...

Among the entries in a 1999 anthology called The Best American Sports Writing of the Century is a profile of Ty Cobb (1886-1961). It was originally published in True magazine the year of Cobb’s death. The writer, Al Stump, recalls the last, bleak days of the great ballplayer’s life and makes him into a bitter, violent, alcoholic monster. In one passage, he describes a visit to the graveyard in the town of Royston, Georgia, where Cobb had grown up. Cobb wanted Stump, who was ghostwriting his autobiography, to go with him, on Christmas Eve, to see where he would soon...

“Still the Best Hope” by Dennis Prager was written in 2012, but its message of American exceptionalism and analysis of the war of the world views (Islamo-fascist, liberal secular, and Judeo-Christian American) are all the more relevant today.

Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery In The Mediterranean, The Barbary Coast And Italy

Now is the winter of our…frowny face. There’s a new line of “books” that translate Shakespeare for kids. With emojis and text messages.

The design, power, and cockpit foot heaters that make the 747 feel like home to pilots. The 747 has foot heaters. The frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean looks better—everything looks better—when your feet are warm.

You may have seen a poem by Gerard Nolst Trinité called The Chaos. It starts like this:Dearest creature in creationStudying English pronunciation,I will teach you in my verseSounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.In its fullest version, the poem runs through about 800 of the most vexing spelling inconsistencies in English. Eight hundred.Attempting to spell in English is like playing one of those computer games where, no matter what, you will lose eventually. If some evil mage has performed vile magic on our tongue, he should be bunged into gaol for his nefarious goal (and if you still need convincing...

Horror film legend Christopher Lee may have played creatures linked to the occult on screen, but he didn’t want to be linked to the occult off screen. […] During a 2011 interview at University College Dublin, Lee was asked about a popular rumor that he owned a vast collection of books on the occult. […] “I have met people who to claimed to be Satanists, who claimed to be involved in black magic,” Lee continued. “I certainly haven’t been involved and I warn all of you—never, never, never—you will not only lose your mind; you’ll lose your soul.” …

Derek Gilbert interviews Mark Musser with regard to his book "Nazi Oaks" that lays down the startling German links between Monism, Social Darwinism, and environmentalism. In the 1800's, Ernst Haeckel, the father of German Social Darwinism and the very man who coined the term "ecology" in 1866, called Social Darwinism, Monism. He called his Darwinian environmentalist politically active group "The Monist League." "Mono" means "one." The point of Monism is there is no transcendental Creator or God Who stands outside of nature or history to govern the world with eternal values. Sometimes, as was the case with Haeckel (and Hitler...

Here is a list of great quotes left by Anonymous on a major forum. Use them to start discussions at school and elsewhere. Some of these quotes are scarily appropriate to our present situation in Obama's America. Others show how our founding fathers were thinking 200 years ago. What our public schools now call Critical Thinking is usually neither critical nor thinking. It's blind acceptance of politically correct opinions. Debate. Argue. Discuss. Finally, figure out answers for yourself. --- "That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that...

Yesterday, at a neighbor's house, his 4th grade daughter read something very well and I asked her what grade she was in and complimented her on her reading .....

... These Orange County stories could be fact but in this case they’re fiction, plots from a few of our list of the top 10 novels or short story collections set in Orange County ...

In January of 1959, the 600 residents of Lolita, Texas, found themselves in the midst of an improbable identity crisis. The town had been named in 1909 for Lolita Reese, the granddaughter of a Texas patriot. But following the U.S. publication of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel in 1958, “Lolita” had suddenly acquired a whole new set of connotations. “The people in this town are god-fearing, church going, and we resent the fact our town has been tied in with the title of a dirty, sex-filled book that tells the nasty story of a middle-aged man’s love affair with a very young...

Harlan Ellison is still an angry young man, except he'll be 81 on May 27. He has used this anger, fueled by childhood anti-Semitism, throughout his extraordinary career as a writer of speculative fiction. This year saw the publication of his 116th and 117th (so far) books: The Top of the Volcano, a collection of his awardwinning short stories, and a graphic novelization of his original script for "The City on the Edge of Forever," widely considered the best Star Trek episode ever written. Although Ellison's hundreds of published stories contain a wealth of Jewish characters, his most complex creation...

No need to head to the multiplex for big action, special effects and hair-raising thrills, says bestselling author James Patterson, when the CBS adaptation of his novel, "Zoo," promises all that — and rampaging wildlife, to boot. "It should give the summer movies a run for their money," said Patterson, a populist literary star perhaps best known for his Alex Cross franchise, less so for being understated. "There's horror, sci-fi, suspense. It's kind of James Patterson meets Stephen King meets Michael Crichton. It's a scary fable."

Apple is outraged about the conduct of Michael Bromwich, who was assigned to investigate its antitrust practices. On Thursday, the iPhone maker got some vindication. A New York appeals court had harsh words for the lawyer assigned to monitor Apple’s compliance with an antitrust program, which was imposed on the company in the wake of a price-fixing conspiracy between Apple AAPL -0.14% and five book publishers. In a ruling published on Thursday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the conduct of the monitor, Michael Bromwich, gave “pause” and was “the opposite of best practice” but nonetheless refused to...

Most people who visit Calistoga -- a town in the Napa Valley -- come for the wine and the spa treatments; few come for the literary history. But they could: one of the most romantic honeymoon getaways ever written about happened one hundred and thirty five years ago. Instead of mud baths and geysers, picture an abandoned mining shack infested with snakes, poison oak, and rusty nails. Now picture a sickly writer and his new wife spending their first two months of married life living there. Sounds crazy, right? But that’s exactly what Robert Louis Stevenson — author of the...