Free Republic

America seems to be in big trouble. Not only are there demonstrations that at times turn violent and destructive, differences are impacting families and friendships that previously have weathered many divisive elections. It may not yet be a red vs blue civil war, but anger is real. Disagreement has given way to distance and heated dissension. Daniel J. Boorstin, the University of Chicago American historian, wrote: “Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension. Dissent (which come from the Latin, ‘dis’ and ‘sentire’) means originally to ‘feel apart from others.’ People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have...

A German opera house is to unveil a provocative new production staged in the ruins of New York's World Trade Centre. It features naked pensioners and Mickey Mouse masks, Hitler salutes and Elvis impersonators. The self-consciously outrageous September 11th staging of Verdi's 'A Masked Ball' has been dreamed up by Austrian director Johann Kresnik. He has described the concoction as a populist critique of modern American society, aimed at showing up the disparities between rich and poor, which attracting a large audience. "It will be a different, a provocative masked ball on the ruins of the World Trade Centre," he...

The recent criticism of hate speech on campus is entirely appropriate. But we ought to make one exception to this rule: the “religious right,” a retrograde coterie of unattractive common folk who seek to impose their irrational beliefs on the rest of us. These fundamentalists lie awake at night, plotting the imposition of the truths they have received by revelation from God. God has decreed the necessity of prohibiting abortion and gay marriage, lest the land be scourged by His wrath, so the unquestioning hordes of Jesus-freaks flood the polls on election day. The few who are at Yale (here...

The thought of Sarandon "playing" Sheehan woke me up...