Free Republic

After Star Wars author Chuck Wendig called Star Wars fans white supremacists and The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson referred to them as manbabies, Star Wars author Paul Kemp believes certain Star Wars fans are “detestable.” Kemp has written a number of Star Wars novels including Lords of the Sith, Star Wars: The Old Republic – Deceived, Crosscurrent, Riptide, and more. Over the weekend, Kemp decided to attack certain Star Wars fans calling them “detestable human being[s]” if they use the terms “forced diversity, SJW, or politically correct, or whatnot.” Paul S. Kemp ✔ @Paulskemp 11 Jun Since I follow...

________________________________________________________________________________________ In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". demimonde [dem-ee-mond; French duh-mee-mawnd] noun 1. (especially during the last half of the 19th century) a class of women who have lost their standing in respectable society because of indiscreet behavior or sexual promiscuity. 2. a demimondaine. 3. prostitutes or courtesans in general. 4. a group whose activities are ethically or legally questionable: a demimonde of investigative journalists writing for the sensationalist tabloids. 5. a group characterized by lack of success or status:...

The body representing Serbia’s Albanian minority denied asking to include Hillary Clinton’s autobiography in Albanian pupils’ curriculum after a Serbian minister expressed fury about Bill Clinton’s role in bombing Yugoslavia. The Albanian National Council said on Wednesday that it did not ask the Serbian Education Ministry to make the former US Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s autobiography mandatory reading for Albanian high-school students, after the reported request caused anger among officials in Belgrade. “This was not asked for… We believe that autobiographies can’t be made school reading,” the Albanian National Council’s secretary Enver Mehmeti told BIRN. Mehmeti said that...

The publication of Albert Einstein’s private diaries detailing his tour of Asia in the 1920s reveals the theoretical physicist and humanitarian icon’s racist attitudes to the people he met on his travels, particularly the Chinese. Written between October 1922 and March 1923, the diaries see the scientist musing on his travels, science, philosophy and art. In China, the man who famously once described racism as “a disease of white people” describes the “industrious, filthy, obtuse people” he observes. He notes how the “Chinese don’t sit on benches while eating but squat like Europeans do when they relieve themselves out in...

Years ago, I'd post a quarterly thread asking Freepers what they were reading now. I made mention of the fact that I thought Freepers had to have been some of the more well-read people on the 'Net. I have decided to resume that post. What are you reading? It can be a best seller, a trashy pulp novel, a biography - heck even a technical journal. Just don't answer the post by saying "I'm Reading This Thread". It lost its originality a really long long time ago. I'll start. I'm reading a classic biography from 1970. It's called "Huey Long"...

Robert Mueller Asks Judge To Hide Russian Election Evidence From The Russians Godfrey Daniel! You've GOT to be kidding me. Do I smell a Hollywood comedy coming up after this is all over? "Dumb & Dumber" meets "Zero Dark Thirty"? The characters are a bumbling crusty-but-benign FBI agent who's always getting heat from his incompetent AG; an ugly female desk jockey who sends love twitters to our hero; an accident prone IT technician who is computer illiterate; an aging weed-smoking, ex-hippie detective who sees Russians everywhere (even in his sleep); and a clueless, sex-crazed blonde bimbo TV anchor who can't...

In one of the most well-known classics of British Literature, Pride and Prejudice, the author Jane Austen offers a morality tale. She describes the slow realization of the heroine, Elizabeth Bennett, that her much-vaunted intelligence failed to give her an accurate reading of the man who eventually emerges as the hero of the tale. Mr. Darcy, the wealthy landowner who arrives new to town with his likable friend Mr. Bingley, is at first regarded with some appreciation. He’s a rich man, considered handsome, and: “… he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening; till his manners...

hough his impact during the Korean War was significant, Michael Drake said his father, Dale, was not a volunteer. "He was drafted into the Army to serve as an anesthesiology physician. That was his first job," said Michael, who himself is an anesthesiologist in Evansville. Dr. Dale Drake, who passed away on Tuesday, was stationed in the 8055 MASH unit in Korea. He was 93 at his death. Dale, along with his wife, Cathy — who worked in the same unit — would later help Hollywood shape the way America saw the Korean War. About 10 years after Korea, the...

aeolist Noun (plural aeolists) (rare) A pompous person, pretending to have inspiration or spiritual insight. _________________________________________________________________________________ Rules: Everyone must leave a post using the Word for the Day in a sentence. The sentence must, in some way, relate to the news of the day.

18th century map of the Inner Austrian districts of Görz and Trieste created between 1789 and 1797. Credit: University of Bristol ====================================================================== A lost world in a former empire in Europe has been brought to life thanks to University of Bristol researchers who used artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to analyse 47,000 multilingual pages from newspapers dating back to 1873. The study, published in Historical Methods, aimed to discover whether historical changes could be detected from the collective content of local newspapers from the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca. The findings reveal a series of political and cultural events...

“All hope abandon ye who enter here.” That’s the inscription on the gate to Hell in one of the first English translations of The Divine Comedy, by Henry Francis Cary, in 1814. You probably know it as the less tongue-twisting “Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” which is the epigraph for Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, hangs as a warning above the entrance to the Disney theme park ride Pirates of the Caribbean, appears in the videogame World of Warcraft, and has been repurposed as a lyric by The Gaslight Anthem. But it’s just one line of the 14,233...

The author of the Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy, Chuck Wendig, went on a Twitter rant against Star Wars fans, calling them #GamerGate, #ComicsGate, MRAs, Incels and white supremacists. He started off the rant on May 31st, 2018, exclaiming that he went down a rabbit hole of crappy Star Wars fans after they threatened to boycott his upcoming book and were glad Solo: A Star Wars Story tanked at the box office. Chuck Wendig ✔ @ChuckWendig I help I fell down a weird rabbit hole of [expletive] Star Wars fans oh my god these people Chuck Wendig ✔@ChuckWendig What a weird...

Life's fine but t'aint easy I had seen this movie years ago, a few times, at least parts of it. But I bought it the other night via Amazon Prime and watched it with my oldest son. I knew there were really touching moments in it, but I just thoroughly loved seeing it after all this time. I really don't think I had ever seen the whole thing, to be honest. Gregory Peck was outstanding as the dad. As was Jane Wyman as the mom. And the little boy, Claude Jarman Jr., was so darned good as Jody Baxter. Too...

When the novelist Philip Roth died a few days ago, I thought, briefly, about re-posting an ancient piece of mine from The American Spectator. But de mortuis nihil nisi bonum and all that. Then I picked up The Daily Mail, and figured I might as well hop aboard the bandwagon. I came to Roth via the film of Goodbye, Columbus, with Ali McGraw and Richard Benjamin, who rather spoilt the book for me, and then read Portnoy's Complaint, and thereafter whatever review copy I was obliged to digest for my BBC artsy endeavors. As to the oeuvre, the defining Philip...

In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". jollification [jol-uh-fi-key-shuh n] noun jolly merrymaking; jolly festivity. Origin of jollification First recorded in 1800–10; jolly + -fication Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018 Examples from the Web for jollification Historical Examples Also, there was nothing in their demeanour that savoured of any spirit of jollification. Prairie Flowers James B. Hendryx By jingo, I think he might say ‘splice the main brace’ now, after all this jollification!...

Donald Trump Jr., plagued by personal and professional scandals ranging from alleged philandering to colluding with the Russians to blacklisting his father for a year, is pitching a top-secret book proposal, that could net the First Son a multimillion dollar advance – if he 'fesses up to the secrets he holds', top book executives say. While the title and subject of Trump Jr.'s book is being kept under wraps for now, publishing insiders say the proposed book's greatest value will be his revelations about life inside the controversial Trump family, and his efforts to redeem his tarnished personal and public...

The week of May 8 to 15 closed a chapter in my life whose first pages were written in France before I made my 1947 debut, in New York City. My father’s first cousin, William Friedman, authored those pages by deed. Bill enlisted in the Army in 1938 and made the first of his three first-day World War II landings Nov. 8, 1942, in Oran, Algeria, with the First Division, (snip) Italy (snip) the invasion of Normandy. Like most veterans Bill rarely spoke of his war days. He opened up to me a few times, once showing me letters he...

The week is done, I slip out of the battles of work and into a space that is mine alone. New chores that I decide. The music sets the tone, in the background, as I address my Hopes and Dreams with domestic production. My first album on full play? Everything But the Girl - Amplified Heart Just put it on and let it play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EKOyrKLvM4&t=765s What's your go to full play album?

____________________________________________________________________________________ Ultracrepidarian. Definition: one who is presumptuous and offers advice or opinions beyond one's sphere of knowledge. The meaning of this word comes from a story in antiquity, in which the famed Greek painter Apelles one day heard a cobbler criticizing the way he had rendered a foot in a painting. ul·tra·crep·i·dar·i·an ˌəltrəkrepəˈderēən/ adjective adjective: ultracrepidarian; adjective: ultra-crepidarian 1. expressing opinions on matters outside the scope of one's knowledge or expertise. "“Dad, how do we know the universe is expanding?” inquires your six-year-old. Try answering that without resorting to an ultracrepidarian trick here or there" noun noun: ultracrepidarian; plural noun:...

A list of conventions that have banned science fiction authors - including some they'd put on panels - and the history of what is going on.