Free Republic

IN THE SUMMER OF 1977 the celebrated photographer Slim Aarons was lunching at the Hotel Goldener Hirsch in Salzburg, Austria, with Princess Grace of Monaco and her 20-year-old daughter, Caroline. At one point, as he later recounted time and again, Grace was struck by what she thought was a wonderful idea: “Oh, Slim, why not hire Caroline to work with you? You two could travel around the world together!” Caroline excitedly nodded her approval. As Slim told the story, a devilish smile crept across his face. “Why, what a wonderful idea, Grace,” he replied, making it clear he was on...

“American Heiress,” Jeffrey Toobin’s new book about Patty Hearst, is a clever companion piece to “The Run of His Life” (1996), his book about the O. J. Simpson case. Mr. Toobin has used the same winning formula of delving deeply into an American crime story that had tremendous notoriety in its day and retelling it with new resonance. Ms. Hearst’s tale is much more bizarre than Mr. Simpson’s. And much less of it has to do with legal proceedings, Mr. Toobin’s specialty. But in an age of terrorism, the chronicle of how a sedate heiress named Patricia morphed into a...

When Donald Trump mucks things up, the first person to let him know is usually Republican Party boss Reince Priebus. Almost every day, Trump picks up his cell phone to find Priebus on the line, urging him to quash some feud or clarify an incendiary remark. The Wisconsin lawyer has been a dutiful sherpa to the Manhattan developer, guiding him through the dizzying altitude of the presidential race and lobbying the GOP to unite behind a figure who threatens its future.

After his retirement, Coolidge gave several reasons for his decision, but one stands out. Coolidge suggested that it would be difficult to stay in office for too long without drinking too much of the Kool-Aid (to use a modern phrase)! “It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion,” he observed. “They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness. They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exaltation which sooner or later impairs their judgment. They are in grave danger of becoming careless...

Disney and Selma director Ava DuVernay are setting Oprah Winfrey to star in A Wrinkle In Time, an adaptation of the 1963 Newbery Medal-winning Madeleine L’Engle fantasy classic novel that has a script by Oscar-winning Frozen writer and co-director Jennifer Lee. Winfrey will play the role of Mrs. Which. The studio is moving quickly to cast the film, with actors including Amy Adams and Kevin Hart chief among those circling. Winfrey is in final negotiations. She starred for DuVernay in Selma and played a role behind the scenes in helping to make the movie happen. Winfrey and DuVernay also co-created...

Maclean’s spoke with Eric Walters, author of national bestselling children’s books, to find out how Canadian parents and teachers can explain America’s rowdiest politician to kids. Q: How can adults explain Trump to kids? A: How do you explain a sociopath to an eight-year-old? That’s a hard one. A mean man. A non-Canadian. Darth Vader. Actually, can’t you picture Darth Vader with that hair? But in the end, good does prevail. Show them there are good parts of life. Show them Michelle Obama’s speech. You need to say, “but here is what good people do. Here in Canada, we’re different.”...

President Obama and the foundation helping to plot his path after the White House have selected Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago as the site of his presidential library, ending a debate within his inner circle about the location, a person familiar with the decision said Wednesday. Mr. Obama and his presidential foundation have been deliberating for months over whether to place the library in Jackson Park, which is on a broad expanse of Lake Michigan and borders the Woodlawn neighborhood, or in the Washington Park neighborhood, which is closer to the Obamas’ home in Chicago. …

Get the Kindle version of "Eat The Liberals" for the next couple days for just .99 cents. Synopsis: Winning debates is not easy. It takes work and the skills necessary to become a truly effective debater. This may require years to perfect. As you progress as a debater your clothes, your body language, your voice intonation will work in an organized synchronization with the information in your mind. No one has to tell people to respect the Great White shark as it swims to its destination. Everything about this imposing creature exudes an image of dominance. Strong debaters are the...

If you only read the title of the blog entry, you're wasting your time and missing the important details. I know I just jammed a big huge red button, but this really needs to be written. It's very important for understanding progressive ideology. First, who invented the phrase "American Dream"? It was James Truslow Adams. What, exactly, did he write? See, what the progressives don't want you and I to do is to actually go and pick up some of these books and commit the heinous act of actually reading them. In The Epic of America, Page 404, he writes:...

Donald Trump isn’t a simpleton, he just talks like one. If you were to market Donald Trump’s vocabulary as a toy, it would resemble a small box of Lincoln Logs. Trump resists multisyllabic words and complex, writerly sentence constructions when speaking extemporaneously in a debate, at a news conference or in an interview. He prefers to link short, blocky words into other short, blocky words to create short, blocky sentences that he then stacks into short, blocky paragraphs.

Karl the Great cannot choose but weep, For him hath his host compassion deep; And for Roland, a marvellous boding dread. It was Gan, the felon, this treason bred; He hath heathen gifts of silver and gold, Costly raiment, and silken fold, Horses and camels, and mules and steeds. But lo! King Marsil the mandate speeds, To his dukes, his counts, and his vassals all, To each almasour and amiral. And so, before three suns had set, Four hundred thousand in muster met. Through Saragossa the tabors sound; On the loftiest turret they raise Mahound: Before him the Pagans bend...

Michael Savage, the host of the nationally syndicated “The Savage Nation,” will be inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. Savage told WND he will be inducted Nov. 17 at a ceremony in Chicago in the category of Spoken Word On-Air Personality. “To me, this is the capstone of my life,” Savage said, “all my writing, all my speaking. This is it.” This year, the National Radio Hall of Fame gave listeners a direct voice in selecting the inductees, allowing them to vote via text. The other nominees in his category were Sean Hannity, Diane Rehm and Mike Francesca....

On this day in 1755, a young George Washington becomes the “hero of the Monongahela.” Only one year earlier, he had been given an early command, but then forced into a disgraceful surrender. Now he finally had a chance to redeem himself.

There are just 6 plots in every film, book and TV show ever made: Researchers reveal the 'building blocks' of storytelling From Harry Potter and Romeo and Juliet to the stories of Oedipus and Icarus, almost every tale told conforms to one of just six plots, researchers have claimed. A major new analysis of over 1,700 stories identified the core plots 'which form the building blocks of complex narratives'. Researchers used complex data-mining to locate words linked to positive or negative emotion in each story to reveal the set of arcs. An emotional arc is similar to a plot building...