Free Republic

American rap music is an industry ruled by machismo. It is a place where reputations are made by shady pasts, the aura of violence and ultra-masculinity. But now an explosive new book is lifting the lid on one of hip hop's most unexpected secrets: that many people in the business are gay.

lbert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose medical discovery inspired — and arguably corrupted — millions in the 1960s hippie generation, has died. He was 102. Hofmann died Tuesday at his home in Burg im Leimental, said Doris Stuker, a municipal clerk in the village near Basel where Hofmann moved following his retirement in 1971. For decades after LSD was banned in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention. "I produced the substance as a medicine. ... It's not my fault if people abused it," he once said. The Swiss chemist discovered lysergic acid diethylamide-25 in 1938...

Exchange: HBO's 'John Adams' (Part 3) Two scholars of early U.S. history debate the high-profile miniseries with its writer. John Patrick Diggins, Kirk Ellis, and Steven Waldman , The New Republic Published: Monday, March 24, 2008 HBO's seven-part miniseries, John Adams, based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning book about America's second president, premiered last weekend. The New Republic asked historian John Patrick Diggins and author Steven Waldman to critique the series. Click here to see their discussion of Parts 1 and 2. This week, Kirk Ellis, the series' writer and co-executive producer, will be joining the discussion. Below, Waldman kicks...

Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella, who turned such literary works as "The English Patient," "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Cold Mountain" into acclaimed movies, has died. He was 54. Minghella's death was confirmed Tuesday by his agent, Judy Daish. No other details were immediately available. "The English Patient," the 1996 World War II drama, won nine Academy Awards, including best director for Minghella, best picture and best supporting actress for Juliette Binoche. Based on the celebrated novel by Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje, the movie tells of a burn victim's tortured recollections of his misdeeds in time of war. Minghella (pronounced min-GELL'-ah)...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Dina Matos McGreevey knows too well what it's like to be a shell-shocked wife, standing by her man, as he confesses his sexual indiscretions on live television. Unlike former Gov. James McGreevey, who told the country he was "a gay American" and would resign in 2004, New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer on Monday neither acknowledged paying high-priced call girls for their services nor offered to resign. He did, however, admit disappointing his family as news reports linked him to a high-end prostitution ring.

A New Jersey Senate leader said he will push legislation to punish businesses who knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney said his decision comes after a federal judge upheld an Arizona law that prohibits businesses from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and yanks the business licenses of those that do.

NATO's future is at stake in Afghanistan, warned Asia's senior statesman, and unless America's European allies abandon appeasement and the United States realizes Afghanistan cannot succeed as a democracy, the world balance of power will shift in favor of Russia and China. In an exclusive interview with United Press International, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, long known as the Kissinger of the orient, took the Europeans to task for balking at casualties in Afghanistan. He blamed "short memories" that have forgotten that "America came to rescue them in two world wars," which has rekindled the "appeasement" of the 1930s. The United...

The collapse of Rudy Giuliani’s presidential bid is surely one of the most striking developments of the 2008 campaign. Strategic mistake? I don’t think so. Rudy lost because he dissed social conservatives. In fact, the reason Giuliani missed those early primaries is because he dissed social conservatives. Giuliani’s attempt to take apart and reconstitute Ronald Reagan’s winning political coalition was his original sin. And Rudy’s primal transgression continues to shape the dynamics of 2008’s Republican presidential race. With Reagan’s erstwhile coalition now cast out of the garden of amity, only recognizing and understanding Rudy’s fault will allow us to find...

Dubai is investing $600m in one of the poorest counties in the US to set up a manufacturing and distribution complex that would serve as a major logistical hub for North America. The long-term aim, according to people familiar with the deal, is to take advantage of a new generation of larger merchant ships passing from Asia through the soon to be widened Panama Canal and docking at ports such as Charleston and Savannah, seen as future primary gateways to the US. The project is being handled by Jafza, a unit of the government-owned Dubai World group, which has bought...

China's trade surplus rose by nearly 50 per cent to a record $262bn in 2007, but import growth exceeded export growth in each of the final three months of the year, suggesting that the period of huge expansion of the controversial surplus might be drawing to a close. In another first, the European Union also replaced the US as China's largest export market. Sales to the expanded EU rose 29.2 per cent in 2007, compared with just 14 per cent to the US - though Europe's bilateral deficit remains much lower than that of the US because it exports more...

When Kevin Lin reached the finish line of a 250km ''ultra-marathon'' in Ant-arctica last year, he wrapped himself in his national flag. It wasn't for warmth. ''I'm proud to represent my country at such a moment - it's as simple as that,'' he says. The Taiwanese endurance athlete, now 31, was the overall champion in the Four Deserts series of races through some of the harshest terrain in the world. Lin is a national hero. His compatriots love him for winning, and for doing it in the name of their country. They have nicknamed the slightly built, ascetic-looking young runner...

For Parisians there is no more sacred space in the history of their city than Les Halles, the old central market at the heart of the Right Bank, near the Seine to the south and the Grands Boulevards to the north. A market has stood here in one form or another since the 12th century, when dockers heaved wine, meat and other goods from the barges that regularly queued up the Seine. The area was first known as Les Champeaux but got its nickname Les Halles because chacun y allait (“everybody went there”). It reached its apogee in the 19th...

New Jersey has the most millionaire households in the country, according to a marketing company's fifth annual ranking. The Garden State moved up from No. 2 in 2005 and 2006 to No. 1 last year on the index, compiled by Phoenix Affluent Marketing Service, which does research for companies that sell luxury products, investments and the like to the wealthy. According to the service, in 2007, 7.12 percent of New Jersey's 3.2 million households had a total of $1 million or more liquid or investable assets. That includes items such as savings, stocks and bonds, precious metals, the cash value...

http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/economics/2007/12/17/Why-Oil-Prices-Will-Drop

"It will be like jumping into cold water." That was the parting shot from my high school classics teacher when, some 15 years ago, I told him I would be leaving Italy to attend university in London. Much to my surprise, that bookish man, whose knowledge of foreign lands had largely been confined to the ancient empires of Homer and Cicero, was right. For me, decamping to an unfamiliar culture and mastering a non-native tongue did have the destabilising effect of being thrust into a pool of icy water. Now imagine starting off as an immigrant not, as I did,...

In another blow to the Motor City's tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St. Louis to become the nation's most dangerous city, according to a private research group's controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBI crime statistics. The study drew harsh criticism even before it came out. The American Society of Criminology launched a pre-emptive strike Friday, issuing a statement attacking it as "an irresponsible misuse" of crime data. The 14th annual "City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America" was published by CQ Press, a unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc. It is based on the FBI's Sept. 24 crime statistics report....

After several days at sea, I have begun to suspect that the US may be in worse shape than I thought. Not only does our economy need imported oil and foreign capital to prosper. It also could be developing a dependence on the kindness of strangers. I left dry land because my mother decided to celebrate her 70th birthday by inviting her children and grandchildren on a cruise – a five-day voyage from Bayonne, New Jersey, to Bermuda and back. Having grown up in the Long Island suburbs of New York, I viewed cruises as the vacation equivalent of a...

Black children left out of Irish schools By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 41 minutes ago Almost all the children who could not find elementary school places in a Dublin suburb this year were black, the government said Monday, highlighting Ireland's problems integrating its increasingly diverse population. The children will attend a new, all-black school, a prospect that educators called disheartening. About 90 children could not find school places in the north Dublin suburb of Balbriggan , a town of more than 10,000 people with two elementary schools. Local educators called a meeting over the weekend for parents struggling...

The end may be near for the immigration laws that turned little Riverside Township into one of the nation's unfriendliest zip codes for illegal immigrants. In a move yesterday that came as a surprise to residents who have seen the Burlington County town's longtime Brazilian residents leave en masse, officials announced they will move tonight to repeal the ordinances that sought to penalize employers and landlords for hiring and housing illegal immigrants. The move comes a month after a federal judge in Pennsylvania struck down a similar but harsher law enacted by Hazleton, a coal-mining community near the Poconos. Riverside...

The horrific, execution-style killing of three teens in Newark last weekend has sparked widespread outrage and promises of reform from politicians, religious leaders, and community activists, who are pledging a renewed campaign against the violence that plagues New Jersey’s largest city. But much of the reaction, though well-intentioned, misses the point. Behind Newark’s persistent violence and deep social dysfunction is a profound cultural shift that has left many of the city’s children growing up outside the two-parent family—and in particular, growing up without fathers. Decades of research tell us that such children are far likelier to fail in school and...