Free Republic

Being a Jewish fella, I don't hold much brief for white supremacists and neo-Nazis. But until this Saturday, I hadn't seen a lot of them around lately. And I've been going about the country quite a bit for the last couple of years, hitting roughly half the states, including some like Mississippi where the Klan was once riding high. I'm happy to report that on my visit to the black-owned Two Sister's Kitchen in the capital of that state, Jackson, blacks and whites were both equally, and contentedly in my eyes, braving the criticism of their cardiologists for what is...

Egyptian forces say they are fighting the “Tora Bora Battle of Sinai” against a new al Qaeda mountain stronghold. Our military sources reveal the battle is raging on Jebel Magharah, 22km SW of El Arish and west of a former al Qaeda base on Jebel Hilal (alt. 654 meters). The fortified al Qaeda stronghold on Jebel Magharah is beating back an Egyptian assault on the mountain site. Signals passed among the troops describe the operation as the “Tora Bora of Sinai,” naming it after the fierce epic US-al Qaeda engagement in Afghanistan three years ago. Both sides have sustained casualties....

LONDON - A porcelain urinal is the most influential work of modern art, according to a survey released Wednesday. The poll of 500 arts figures ranked French surrealist Marcel Duchamp's 1917 piece "Fountain" — an ordinary white, porcelain urinal — more influential than Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," Andy Warhol's screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and "Guernica," Picasso's searing depiction of the devastation of war. Duchamp pioneered the use of everyday objects as art, an aesthetic that questioned the nature of art itself. Art expert Simon Wilson said the choice of Duchamp's urinal "comes as a bit of a shock."...

"The greatest threat to truth today may well be from my profession." -- Legendary reporter Carl Bernstein It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. While some in the mainstream media were finally paying attention to an important story as it was unfolding (rather than waiting three years, ala the New York Times), others were taking the usual safe and tired tact. It all started on Monday, Nov. 7, when, inspired by a Cincinnati Enquirer story on how Warren County Ohio officials had "locked down" the administration building on election night and restricted open access to...

Second of two parts. What is the artist's role in society? Artists have been debating the question throughout history. The former U.S. poet laureate said he thought about the election results all day -- "when I could think." "The question of how the rest of us should behave seems pressing," he said. "Erosion of civil liberties? The courts? Further and deeper predations on the environment? It's hard to see how the Endangered Species Act will survive, except perhaps in name. An interesting indicator of the intentions of that Bush clique will be to see whether they punish Republican dissenters like...

Every war has them. The combat bullshit artists who go to elaborate extremes aggrandizing their military exploits for profit or promotion. In the Battle of the Little Big Horn, there were hundreds of these pathetic individuals but none with the creative flair of Theodore W. Goldin. Mr. Goldin enlisted as a private in the 7th Cavalry on April 8th, 1876, just two months before that fateful Sunday when Custer's five companies would face off with 3000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. He would be assigned to Company G, commanded by Lieutenant Donald MacIntosh who served under Major Marcus Reno during the...

Why A Naked Bike Ride? Every day we are bombarded with countless messages demanding our obedience to the corporate dictates of a consumption dependent society. Little regard is paid to the future of our planet and generations left with a legacy of waste and environmental contamination. How many countless times each day do our media masters spin the same message: Unless you buy this, you are not worthy. Unless you look like this you should be ashamed. By cruising naked down the spending frenzy capitals of the world, we are saying.NO! ...a fancy new car is not a mark of...

The owner of a toy museum is calling on the public to boycott an art exhibition that features the charred and mutilated bodies of teddy bears. Deady Bears, which forms part of a wider work entitled A Walk on the Darkside at the Artlounge gallery in Lytham St Anne's, Lancs, features cuddly toys that have been variously dismembered, pierced with 6in nails and daubed with red paint intended to resemble blood. Irena Thompson, who runs the nearby Toy and Teddy Bear Museum, is outraged. "This exhibition is simply dreadful, and I do not see what the artist is trying to...

When ART Becomes InhumanKarl ZinsmeisterReprinted from the ART Renewal Center Origionally published in TAEmag. Many of today’s avant-garde artists, I’ve decided, have modeled themselves on that well-known societal fixture, the snot-nosed teenager. Since the 1960s, the hippest modern art has aspired to exactly what every garden-variety 13-year-old brat aims for: maximum opportunities to shock, flout, insult, and otherwise chuck rocks at polite society. And so “artists” spread American flags on the floor and invited gallery and museum patrons to walk on them. “Sculptors” stacked bricks in low heaps and convinced collectors to pay bags of money for something they...