Free Republic

recrudescence noun Figuratively, a return; a re-appearance: as “The Recrudescence of Imray,” the original title of a story by Rudyard Kipling in “Mine Own People.” The state of being recrudescent, or becoming raw or exacerbated again. Hence A reopening; renewal; a coming into existence anew; a fresh outbreak. Recrudescence derives from the Latin verb recrudescere, meaning "to become raw again" (used, for example, of wounds). Ultimately, it can be traced back to the Latin word for raw," which is "crudus." (If you suspect that "crude" is also derived from "crudus," you are correct; another well-known descendant is "cruel.") In its...

With COVID back, censorship is back, and now it's taken a particularly dangerous form, not just on social media, but on leading academic exchanges. The huge Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN), run by Netherlands-based publishing house Elsevier, is not a site most people know about, but it is a behemoth in academia, extremely important to professors for getting their work out there and advancing within the academic community. That's where censorship on COVID is happening, which could have far-reaching consequences for public policy and the free exchange of ideas. SSRN's plain, bare-bones front page on its site describes itself this...