Free Republic

Bruce Brown, longtime surf filmmaker and director of the seminal “Endless Summer” just passed at 80 years old. Drew Kampion wrote the following for our Surfing A-Z entry on Brown: Prior to 1964, the media saw surfers as rebellious thugs, and Hollywood made them out to be a bunch of idiots. Filmmaker Bruce Brown single-handedly changed that with The Endless Summer. It portrayed the wave as a kind of Holy Grail and surfers as knights on a quest. In one stroke, he replaced Hollywood's buffoonery with the popular mythology that endures today.

Apologies in advance for this humble vanity post, but I thought this was an important topic that might otherwise slip under the proverbial radar. Earlier today I had FOX News on in the background and heard the newscaster speculating about the need for Obama's unscheduled vacation detour back to DC when, as we are so often reminded, he can not only discharge his duties from remote locations, but can actually do his job while putting on the fairway or lounging in a jacuzzi. It occurred to me that anything distracting him from his vacation would have to meet two criteria:...

The Rev. Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson are sitting on a couch and in walks Al Gore. This isn't a joke. It's the plot of a new commercial in the former vice president's fight against global warming. Gore and his nonprofit agency, the Alliance for Climate Protection, are pitting odd couplings - think Sharpton and Robertson - in a series of public-service announcements to draw attention to the environment. The $300 million campaign is expected to launch next week, CBS News reported. Gore talks up his views in a "60 Minutes" interview set to air Sunday.