Free Republic

While coronavirus lockdowns caused many men across the world to grow their hair longer than usual, none compare with Vietnam’s Nguyen Van Chien who has gone almost 80 years without a trim. The 92-year-old from the southern Mekong Delta region is the proud owner of 16.4 foot-long dreadlocks, owing to his belief in a faith that prescribes leaving untouched what a person is born with. “I believe if I cut my hair I will die. I dare not to change anything, not even combing it,” Chien told Reuters in his village about 50 miles west of Ho Chi Minh City.

Brother viciously beaten in Dong Chiem, a parish under siege J.B. An Dang In a statement to be read in all churches until next Sunday, the archdiocese of Hanoi speaks of hundreds of police agents and soldiers forcibly blocking anyone who tries to reach the Dong Chiem parish church. Those who dare approach are threatened and can be arrested. Hanoi (AsiaNews) – Vietnamese authorities appear to have opted for a violent crackdown. In Dong Chiem parish, a man religious was viciously beaten (pictured), many people have been threatened, some arrested, whilst the local church is under siege, no one allowed...

Political Hay Unfit to Soldier In the 1970s, John Kerry complained of Nixonian pols intimidating Vietnam veterans into silence. Now Kerry has become one of those intimidating pols himself. Kerry seeks to confiscate Unfit for Command with a zeal rarely seen since Richard Nixon went after the Pentagon Papers. When an old rebel like Kerry becomes the authority, woe to the new rebels who challenge it. Kerry's nostalgia for the unruly free speech of his youth has evaporated. He almost sounds ready to ask George Bush to send the National Guard into Barnes & Noble. Max Cleland, Kerry's emissary to...