Free Republic

1. Cry Me a River: A new form of voyeuristic entertainment involving people engaged in a deeply personal physical act on camera — crying — is hot stuff, sort of like pornography only with groans of despair rather than pleasure. Call it sobography. First there was the young man who became a YouTube sensation by videotaping himself tearfully pleading for everyone to "leave Britney alone." Then it was Ellen DeGeneres opening a show in October by breaking down and tearing up over the misadventures of finding a new home for her adopted dog, Iggy. 2. Deja Juice: There he is...

Megachurch Aims to 'Disturb' Christians Saddleback Church’s AIDS summit kicked off Wednesday with hopes to “disturb” the hearts of those in attendance and mobilize congregations around the world to defeat the global pandemic. Thu, Nov. 29, 2007 Posted: 12:44:21 PM EST Saddleback Church’s AIDS summit kicked off Wednesday with hopes to “disturb” the hearts of those in attendance and mobilize congregations around the world to defeat the global pandemic. The third annual Global Summit on AIDS and the Church has attracted about 1,000 people to the southern California megachurch to learn how churches and individuals can help fight the deadly...

Hannity and Colmes

Panel from The Manga BibleYoung Laurel Templeton spends her summer vacation “kidnapped by five cyborg flies and shrunk down to insect size so [she can] travel back in time with them to save the world from an evil spider.” You know, typical stuff.A manga comic character and the star of the new TimeFlyz series, Laurel may be just an average girl, but she has a centuries-old, ancient-Hebrew-speaking friend with whom she can’t communicate, and a Nobel Prize–winning father who has been kidnapped by a deranged arachnid named Darchon. By the end of Pyramid Peril, the first installment of her story,...

A court-ordered-sober Britney Spears applied for a new job on Thursday as a ... wait for it ... bartender!! Sources inside the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica, Calif. tell TMZ Brit checked in Thursday and at around 10:30 PM went downstairs and started talking with a bartender. We're told Spears told the bartender she wanted to do what she did -- then asked for and obtained an application from the night manager to work in the hotel's "Cameo Bar."

The List The Ten Greatest Pop-Culture Devils of All Time 9/25/076:01 PM Tonight marks the debut of the CW's Kevin Smith–directed, Vulture-approved comedy Reaper, in which a 21-year-old slacker (Bret Harrison) finds out that his parents sold his soul to the devil (Ray Wise) before he was born. On the show, Wise does admirable work as the Prince of Darkness, but his is just the latest in a long line of top-notch TV and movie Satans. When our Kid Nation coverage inevitably earns both of your Vulture editors a permanent vacation in the fiery pits of hell, who would we...

Terrorists: We'll cut off head of 'prostitute' Britney Spears Madonna also targeted by jihad leaders who warn of 'spreading satanic culture' Posted: September 11, 2007 9:11 p.m. Eastern Britney Spears and Madonna in their famous 2003 kiss Muslim terrorist leaders threatened to forcibly convert Britney Spears and Madonna to Islam and warned if they resist, their heads would be cut off for "spreading Satanic culture," according to a new book released today. The threats, recorded on audio, come as Madonna is due to arrive in Israel Wednesday to celebrate the Jewish new year with fellow Kabbalah practitioners. "If I meet...

I spend a few minutes each day staying in touch with pop culture and news; Digg, Youtube, and Freerepublic are my mainstays. I have discovered, as I'm sure most readers have, that the comments and discussion of an article or post is as, if not more, interesting, funny, and informative as the original article. The problem is wading thru all the mediocre comments (often 100's) for the real gems among the bunch. I would like to suggest a rating system similar to other sites that allow other readers to rate comments which will allow other users to sort the comments...

Rock fans on Saturday shrugged off criticism of Live Earth for booking jet-setting pop stars to preach action on climate change, insisting the worldwide concerts would have a positive impact. Acts at the London leg of the 24-hour music marathon, aimed at raising awareness of global warming and pressuring politicians to enact legislation, included Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters. But critics have suggested the performers are in danger of appearing hypocritical as they preach about climate change to crowds while themselves leaving a massive carbon footprint with their flights around the world. Fans in the crowd...

Rome, here we come. No, I'm not talking about vacationing in Italy but about the descent into degeneracy that seems to be overtaking American popular culture. The kind of sexual decadence that many feel helped destroy the Roman Empire from within seems all too familiar. With television, movies, the Internet and even local stores and markets acting as conveyers of debauchery, it seems there is no escape. Once confined to the margins of society, depravity has now become mainstream. Those who mistakenly thought television shows geared toward families, such as "American Idol" and its dance version "So You Think You...

If you're looking for another way to make tonight's finale of "The Sopranos" even more suspenseful than it probably will be, perhaps putting a little action on it might help. It's what Tony would want you to do. The folks over at graphpaper.com have created a handy "Sopranos" chart to help make your predictions. Think Christopher will appear in a hallucination? Think Paulie Walnuts commits suicide? Well gather up a few friends and put your money where your mouth is. But be sure you pay up if you lose -- you don't want to be swimming with the fishes.

I have great faith in my fellow freepers. Back in the 1960's (1966-68 I think), there was a show on television in the mornings. There were people on a beach - I remember caves and waterfalls, etc. They had to run around and find giant puzzle pieces. The participants were wearing bathing suits. It was some type of game show and there were other games besides the puzzle. I can't remember the name. Someone told me I'm crazy but it was a REAL SHOW. Anybody remember?

The Seminole Tribe of Florida is buying the Hard Rock business, including its massive collection of rock 'n' roll memorabilia, in a $965 million deal with British casino and hotel company Rank Group PLC, the tribe announced Thursday. The Hard Rock business includes 124 Hard Rock Cafes, four Hard Rock Hotels, two Hard Rock Casino Hotels, two Hard Rock Live! concert venues, and stakes in three unbranded hotels. With it, the tribe acquires what is said to be the world's largest collection of rock memorabilia, some 70,000 pieces including Jimi Hendrix's Flying V guitar, one of Madonna's bustiers, a pair...

Truth scarce in information overload By SALIM MANSUR Toronto Sun Saturday, November 4, 2006 T.S. Eliot was one of the 20th century's most significant and influential poets. Eliot was born in 1888 in St. Louis, Mo., and became a naturalized British citizen when he settled in London before the outbreak of the First World War. Eliot, who died in 1965, gave voice to a range of modern themes, from existential despair to the search for meaning in life, when politics and science -- fascism and the A-bomb -- emptied it for many of belief in traditional faiths. GREAT POETRY...

The rock critic Robert Christgau gave an interview last month to the Web site popmatters.com. Mr. Christgau, who was recently dismissed from The Village Voice after 37 years, talked a little bit about recent history. But he also talked about an old obsession of his: the decline of truly popular music. “When I grew up, there was a monoculture,” he said. “Everybody listened to the same music on the radio. I miss monoculture. I think it’s good for people to have a shared experience.” This week especially, the old musical monoculture seems more obsolete than ever. The annual CMJ Music...

When I go speak to my class at a seminary at one of the top ten universities in the United States, I find that most of the students seeking ordination, even the smartest and most gracious ones, have a deep-seated hatred for their own culture. They hate white males, Christianity and Western Civilization. Entitled “The Enemies in Their Midst,” The Los Angeles Times had a front page article on Sept. 1 talking about Britain's (and Europe’s) homegrown problem – Muslim militants converts "with British passports and the accompanying resources and western ways, as well as links to lethal [terrorist] networks...

Sleepy, Grumpy, Larry, Moe, Krypton -- that's what seems to stick in the national mind-set these days. Americans are more familiar with the Seven Dwarfs, the Three Stooges and Superman than with current events and world leaders, according to yet another poll that reveals our trite side. In a survey released yesterday, veteran political pollster John Zogby determined that although 77 percent of us can identify two of the Seven Dwarfs, only 24 percent could name two Supreme Court justices. "Not surprisingly, Clarence Thomas, whose nomination was marked by controversy, was the most recognized justice -- identified twice as often...

Last week, MTV celebrated its 25th anniversary, marking a quarter of a century after having conceived of the first actually new thing in popular television entertainment since "American Bandstand" and "Soul Train." The music video became a big deal through MTV and not only updated the old "soundies" once shown in movie theaters to feature singers and instrumentalists. It also revolutionized the making of films by acclimating its audience to the extremely fast crosscutting that had been pioneered in television commercials, where the faster the message arrived, the better. In the process, the MTV audience learned to see much more...

On Saturday, Gibson released a statement apologizing: "After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed. I drove a car when I should not have, and was stopped by the L.A. County Sheriffs. The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person. I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am...

American icon - tall, built, brave. And hot. But now, as Superman is set to fly onto the big screen next week, bringing truth, justice and rippling muscles to a new generation of moviegoers, there comes word that the Man of Steel has a secret. The man behind the red cape is a Yeshiva boy. Superman - Jewish? "Only a Jew would think of a name like Clark Kent," says Brooklyn Rabbi Simcha Weinstein. "He's the bumbling, nebbish, Jewish stereotype. He's Woody Allen. Can't get the girl. Can't get the job - at the same time, he has this tremendous...

LOWER BURRELL, Pa. -- A Lower Burrell school student is facing a three-day suspension for sharing gum with a classmate. Jolt chewing gum has caffeine and ginseng. The Lower Burrell school superintendent said consuming and passing out the gum violates the school's drug awareness policy. That's because caffeine is considered a stimulant. Parents told Channel 11 they did not understand the suspension. Resident Elizabeth Grombacher said, "I think it's stupid. Everything's getting too politically correct it's so wrong." "It's probably just like Mountain Dew or something like that. If it's got a lot of caffeine in it and they probably...

TV dramas hardly ever float my boat. Two reasons: I don't see myself, or other people of color, lookin' back at me. Besides, the vast majority of television entertainment is dreck. For years, friends have been badgering me to watch the hit HBO series "The Sopranos." I just sneered, Tony Soprano style. Finally, in the sixth season of this critically acclaimed show, I'm hooked. Last week I watched the latest episode. Then I watched it again. Then I watched it again. It got more delicious with every iteration. Then it hit me. We need a black "Sopranos." The show is...

High School is supposed to be a time of growth and learning and that turned out to be especially true for me.  In fact, I've written this article with the hope of sparing other teenagers the pain of what became of my most important lesson.  I've also written it so that parents and grand-parents can help their children and grandchildren avoid the pain of rape.I was raised in a good Catholic home. As a Catholic, I was entirely devoted to remaining a virgin until marriage. Nevertheless, like too many teenagers, I got caught up in popular culture.  My senior...

VH1 proves that you are never too old to love toys with its latest countdown of the 100 most famous toys from your childhood. From board games to dolls to video games and those gadgets you couldn't live without, VH1 will count down the top 100 toys of all time with "I Love Toys," premiering Monday-Friday, starting March 6 at 10PM.* From Lego to Mr. Potato Head to Barbie and Candy Land, the offbeat nostalgia show will bring viewers an in depth look at the wonderful world of toys that defined pop culture during their youth.

Horsefeathers has lamented the decline of quality in American popular culture. We wonder what the ghosts of Jo Stafford and Frank Sinatra would have to say about this year's Oscar winning song, a ghastly assault on the senses, depicting the hard life of a pimp. This decline has been evident in other spheres as well: one that particularly bothers Horsefeathers is the quality of newspaper sports writing. We long ago ceased reading the New York Times sports pages because the writing had less to do with sports than with politically correct social agendas. The writers seem aggrieved affirmative action hires,...

Here's a speech we would like to hear from an Academy Award winner: I thank you for this wonderful award. Receiving an Academy Award gives the recipient an almost unique opportunity to speak to hundreds of millions people around the world, so I would like take this once-in-a-lifetime moment to say this:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Most Americans have an easier time naming members of the cartoon Simpson family than listing the five freedoms granted by the nation's founders, a survey by a museum released on Wednesday said. Here's a hint: one of them is not the right to own and raise pets, an error committed by one in five respondents. Half of 1,000 Americans randomly surveyed by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum could name at least two of the five members of Fox Television's Simpson family, the stars of the network's long-running show. But just 28 percent of respondents could name more...

Western society is suffering a crisis of masculinity, or lack thereof, and responding to this crisis is Dr. Philip Mango, Catholic psychotherapist and founding member of the New-York-based St. Michael’s Institute of the Psychological Sciences. According to Dr. Mango, the present catastrophe has “multiple complex causes;” one is the Industrial Revolution, that seismic cultural shift that saw men desert home, farm, shop, and guild for a factory wage, thus resulting in “a radical separation of fathers and sons.” It is commonly accepted now, he says, that “the basis of development of a secure masculine identity comes from a positive father/son...

The "Libido's" rising. Catchy coital anthem "Disco Libido" has debuted at No. 37 on Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart - proving a song comprising actual sex sounds isn't just an aural tease. With lyrics such as, "Now we must dance, so later we f-," the not-so-subtle single comes from "The Sex Album" by Jessica Vale, released in October. The album's music is composed of sounds of live couples copulating - with some acts performed by the vocal vixen herself. "People have gotten over the fact that it's made out of sex," says Vale, 27, who heard about her chart...

North America appears to be the only place on earth where someone who hasn’t finished high school, but can sing or dance, can make political pronouncements and have everyone listen as if they were profound. The latest in a long line of entertainers who are choosing to yak instead of sing is Harry Belafonte, who, while cuddling up to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and claiming to be a great admirer of Fidel Castro, pronounced George W. Bush to be the world’s most fearsome terrorist.

Why do I read stupid "women's" magazines, like Glamour and Cosmo? So you don't have to. I tell you what your wives, girlfriends, and maybe even (if you are a woman) you are reading. The February (Valentine's Day) issue is most interesting. In addition to featuring a picture of Mary Cheney and her "partner" and gushing over how cool it is that they appeared together at an official White House Dinner, Glamour gives us "Rescue Me!--Your Most Intimate Problems, Solved: Big Worries, Little Worries, Weird Worries." And guess what February's lead "worry" is?: Q: I recently reconnected with a childhood...

Dan Brown clearly enjoys playing with legends, history, symbols and secrets. And readers' minds. In his best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code, Brown wove all these - real and imagined - into a breathless mystery about Christianity, Mary Magdalene and the Divine Feminine that has spawned an industry of de-coders eager to separate fact from fiction.     Now that he has turned his attention to the mysteries of Freemasonry, the centuries-old fraternal order, the new book also might deal with Mormonism.    But rather than announce the Da Vinci sequel in a news release, Brown embedded tantalizing clues to its subject...

Parents feel a greater threat to their adolescent child's values from the media than from peers, and are therefore more controlling in response to these influences than to peer influences, according to a new Brigham Young University study. The study, "'Peers I Can Monitor, It's Media That Really Worries Me!' Parental Cognitions as Predictors of Proactive Parental Strategy Choice," published in the January issue of "The Journal of Adolescent Research," looks at how parents react to the conflicting values of media and peer influences. According to the research, during the transition to adolescents, youth often use media as a tool...

1) “And there’s a wino down the road” -- Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven 2) "Tempted by the fruit of your mother" -- Squeeze's Tempted 3) “All your Cocoa Puffs. Eat them, eat them all up, yum!” -- Santana’s Oyo Coma Va

Current ads for Svedka Vodka feature a fembot made of steel, sporting a curvy backside and a come-hither posture. "The future of adult entertainment," reads the tag line. There's something deeply disturbing about these ads. It's not the animatron with the blank, moldable expression; she's merely a video-game version of the inflatable sex dolls guys get at stag parties. What's so unsettling is that the tag line could very well be right. Thirty-odd years ago, women across the United States burned their bras and carried picket signs advocating free love and the Equal Rights Amendment. Today, many of that generation's...

A modest backlash against the culture Dec 9, 2005by Mona Charen The following is from a new blog: "Waiting to meet an old friend for lunch the other day, my eye fell on the young woman at the table across the aisle. She was attractive, nicely put together in a casual way: T-shirt, jeans, Eskimo-style boots, and a neat ponytail. The lady with her appeared to be her middle-aged mother. Ultimately, I noticed that her T-shirt had some strange writing on it, which is hard to do justice to, while being sensitive to the fact that ModestyZone has some...

Go here to vote. Scroll down and click on the radio button by "other." Then Fill in the title, "Bush was Right," and the band, "The Right Brothers." Put a POLITE (please) comment in the box. Together we can make MTV take notice of The Right Brothers, who BTW have some great music out. Take a moment to visit their web site and listen to samples of their music. I own their CDs and listen to them often. Anyway, this is a campaign organized by Rightmarch.com to get people to the MTV site to attempt to get the conservative message...

CELEBRITY AT THIS MOMENT IN America is epidemic, and it's spreading fast, sometimes seeming as if nearly everyone has got it. Television provides celebrity dance contests, celebrities take part in reality shows, perfumes carry the names not merely of designers but of actors and singers. Without celebrities, whole sections of the New York Times and the Washington Post would have to close down. So pervasive has celebrity become in contemporary American life that one now begins to hear a good deal about a phenomenon known as the Culture of Celebrity. The word "culture" no longer, I suspect, stands in most...

LAWEEKLY entertainment columnist Nikki Finke: ABC/TOUCHSTONE's COMMANDER IN CHIEF series creator Rod Lurie replaced as showrunner by Steve Bochco today because of what sources say was Lurie's wanting to show a 'rough sex' scene between the President's daughter and a Secret Service agent in the back of a limo... Developing...

It was a typical American teen scene: high schoolers watching music videos on a computer, bobbing their heads to the beat. Soon, Thaddeus McDaniels and his San Jose buddies were break dancing -- pops, jackhammers, head spins -- on the living room floor. But their choice of music was anything but American: Drunken Tiger, Rhyme Shark and BoA -- musical missionaries from East Asia who are riding a wave of Korean pop culture that's crossed the Pacific. Buoyed by the popularity of Japanese culture, such as anime and pop music, Korea has emerged as the new cool. Americans young and...

The TV show Dallas helped overthrow Ceausescu. Now gangsta rap and pop culture are driving out corrupt post-Soviet thugs.Mr. Benea, regrettably, is not in. Yes, our 12 p.m. interview was on the calendar, and certainly he appreciates that it was a hot three-hour train trip from the Romanian capital city of Bucharest to Slobozia, a forgettable little transit town halfway to the Black Sea. But Mr. Benea is, um, at an important meeting. Very busy man. The lobby of the Hermes Land Hotel is as deserted as the set of a long-canceled television show. The parking lot outside does not...

Despite high-profile events such as terrorist bombings, the war in Iraq, record high gasoline prices and others, figures recently released by The Audit Bureau of Circulation for the first half of 2005 show a drop in readership of news magazines, while celebrity magazines’ circulations are booming. The statistics are revealing. Circulation of “Time” remained stagnant at 4.5 million with newsstand sales falling 3.4 percent. Sales of “Newsweek” at newsstands plunged 14 percent, although total circulation went up slightly to 3.2 million. But “People” magazine’s circulation rose to 3.8 million and it was the number one magazine seller on newsstands, averaging...

Pop culture heroes help recruit priests By Julia Duin THE WASHINGTON TIMES August 11, 2005 An edgy poster showing a somber Catholic priest in full black cassock and sunglasses posed like "The Matrix" star Keanu Reeves is proving so popular that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has snapped up 5,000 of them. They'll be distributed starting Monday to the thousands of young people attending World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, not only as guests of Pope Benedict XVI, but as targets for some gentle recruiting. The poster's creator, the Rev. Jonathan Meyer, 28, associate director of youth ministries for...

What an Independence Day holiday. I attended three free concerts on three different days that – if I had to pay to listen to these performers - would have cost thousands of dollars. On Saturday, July 2, my wife, my youngest daughter and I were among the approximately one million people on Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway listening to Black Eyed Peas, Bon Jovi, Destiny’s Child, Will Smith, Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, and others perform for the Live 8 concert. On Monday July 4, I returned to that same location – along with about a half a million people - to...

Burger King has yanked some sexually suggestive material from one of its chicken-hawking websites, but denies its actions were prompted by any public outrage. In order to promote its chicken fries, the fast-food chain created "CoqRoq.com," which features a fictitious rock band wearing chicken heads. In the photo gallery section of its site, Polaroid-style pictures of young women appeared with captions that read, "Groupies Love the Coq" and "groupies love Coq." "Just the name Coq Roq in general is offensive to families," Aliza Pilar Sherman, an author on women and the Internet, told Advertising Age. "I can't imagine if...

The innocuous carton of eggs, the milk, and bread moved along the black conveyer belt as my daughters surveyed the candy on the rack behind me in the checkout line at the grocery store. As they excitedly begged peanut M&Ms, my eyes drifted up and went wide as my jaw dropped at the sight of the licentious magazine cover before me. Public Shock and Private Failure I hastily flipped the magazine over and embarked on a quest to find the store manager, groceries in hand and daughters in tow. “Have you seen this?” I queried, showing him the magazine cover....

The Popularity of Black Culture Among White Adolescents Brent Staples in his article, “The Politics of Gangsta Rap” explains, “Tom Wolfe’s essay “Radical Chic”, published in 1970, is still the best window into the notion that magical nobility is somehow conferred upon the dispossessed. The essay lampoons the party thrown by conductor Leonard Bernstein for a group of Black Panthers at which the Panthers were fawned over by New York’s elite” (79). The idea of ennobling the dispossessed has a distinctly American ring to it. America, a country that is steeped in the lore of bootstrap ascents and rags to...

RECESSIONAL On June 22,1897 - 108 years ago - the great Rudyard Kipling wrote: " The tumult and the shouting dies- The captains and the kings depart-" My mind flashes back to the very recent television news coverage of the Michael Jackson trial. The verdict is in : " Not Guilty !" The watching crowds outside the courthouse scowl with disappointment - or exchange "high fives" and shouts of joy. Behold ! The Great One - now acquitted - rushes from the courthouse, surrounded by his entourage ! He waves, and enters a black SUV ,which drives away ...followed by...

"No matter what happens in the future, rock and roll will save the world," said The Who guitarist Pete Townshend. The Live 8 concert may not quite put his forecast to the test, but it once again raises the question of whether microphone diplomacy and a pair of wraparound sunglasses cuts any ice with world leaders. The first Live Aid centred on fundraising in the wake of television pictures of African famine. Twenty years on, the rock campaigners are more political. Geldof's "just give us your f-ing money" cry is aimed not at the public but at the leaders of...

If ol' Barney Fife, Andy Griffith's deputy, were critiquing contemporary popular culture, he'd pop out his eyes, get that tremor in his voice and warble, "This is big! I mean, this is really big!" The vast breadth of what we call pop culture is astounding. From Tony Hawk to Tony Soprano, 50 Cent to Nickelodeon, Harry Potter to Paris Hilton, "World Series of Poker" to "Grand Theft Auto," there's so much of interest to talk about that no wonder we sometimes end up yelling about it. For some, the culture wars are an even bigger tent that covers political issues...