Free Republic

Amid the current efforts to remove the Confederate flag as a symbol from state and federal buildings and to divest from its commercial circulation as a product and commodity, it is also important to remember that a host of products lining grocery store shelves to this day, including Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix and Aunt Jemima Syrup, are also very much linked to Southern racism. Families, including children, still encounter Aunt Jemima on trips to the grocery store where products are marketed under this trademark by the Quaker Oats Company in the 21st century. Numerous writings have examined the development of...

The Confederate flag will disappear from merchandise of the popular 1980s television series “The Dukes of Hazzard.” Warner Bros. announced Tuesday it will no longer sanction the production of any “Dukes of Hazzard” products displaying the controversial emblem. “Warner Bros. Consumer Products has one licensee producing die-cast replicas and vehicle model kits featuring the General Lee with the Confederate flag on its roof – as it was seen in the TV series,” a spokesman for the company told Vulture on Tuesday evening.

<p>FITCHBURG, Mass. — Donald Featherstone, creator of the pink plastic lawn flamingo, the ultimate symbol of American lawn kitsch, has died.</p> <p>His wife, Nancy, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that her husband died Monday at an elder care facility in Fitchburg after a long battle with Lewy body dementia. He was 79.</p>

The online store is offering a baseball cap, a jacket and a range of T-shirts bearing Benedict XVI’s image and the motto of the historic trip – Heart speaks unto heart. One of the shirts, costing £20, can be customised to include the name of the pilgrim’s local church. Also on sale are a flag and an £8 electronic flashing candle, which can be waved during the open-air events just as music fans hold cigarette lighters aloft at festivals. [SNIP] The online store for the first-ever state papal visit to Britain, which coincides with London Fashion Week, is also selling...

Have you seen the Official Papal Visit store yet? Brilliant, isn’t it? By far the most intriguing item on sale is surely the Flashing Candle, an “electronic flashing light that bares [sic] the Official Logo of 2010 Papal Visit”. But it’s not only the Flashing Candle: everything in the store, like the majority of Catholic souvenirs, official and unofficial, is appallingly tacky.Tacky Catholic paraphernalia are a mainstay of Catholic life, so much so that they’ve even spawned knowing – and therefore slightly cooler - mickey-takes. They’re widely available wherever there are large Catholic populations and many Catholic homes are scarred by horrific prints and...

The term kitsch is usually intended as an insult. To call a painting or a musical composition or a piece of decorative art “kitschy” suggests that it’s crude, cheap, unsophisticated, unoriginal, mass-produced, and above all sentimental. It’s Norman Rockwell’s urchins, Soviet-era statues of heroic workers, angels and kittens (especially together), velvet Elvises, flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark, and Kylie Minogue. And, it’s the crucified coat hanger and the Sacred Heart you can see on this page. Such things lack, above all else, nuance. They leave no doubt about how you should respond to them, and they don’t invite...

Thomas Kinkade, the "Painter of Light" and one of most popular artists in America, died suddenly Friday at his Los Gatos home. He was 54. His family said in a statement that his death appeared to be from natural causes. "Thom provided a wonderful life for his family,'' his wife, Nanette, said in a statement. "We are shocked and saddened by his death.'' His paintings are hanging in an estimated 1 of every 20 homes in the United States. Fans cite the warm, familiar feeling of his mass-produced works of art, while it has become fashionable for art critics to...

“An open heart is an open mind”? “Friends, genuine friends, have much more to do with, whether we have a warm heart, not money or power”! “The huge gap between rich and poor, globally and within nations, is not only morally wrong; it is also a source of practical problems”? “Wherever I go, I always give the advice to be altruistic and kind to others”! But note the enlightened one recently referred to our female Prime Minister as a him. So, to be fair and all, he can be a real b*****d. Also, in meditation news, “If you treat people...

California law enforcement officials say well-known Christian painter and artist Thomas Kinkade spent a night in jail last week after being arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. California Highway Patrol officials said Monday that Kinkade was pulled over outside Carmel and arrested by a CHP officer just after 10 p.m. Friday Kinkade "displayed signs of impairment to the officer," California Highway Patrol spokesman Robert Lehman reported. The 52-year-old painter and father of four was released Saturday morning after posting bail. Requests for a statement from the Thomas Kinkade Co. were not immediately responded to, though The Associated Press...

The painter of light has entered a dark period. Thomas Kinkade, the self-proclaimed (and trademarked) Painter of Light™, is beset with legal troubles. Several years ago, art gallery owners successfully sued his Kinkade’s Media Arts Group for millions after it was revealed that he and company officials used invoked God and their “higher calling” to hide the financial risks of the investments. The settlement put such a strain on his company that earlier this month, he filed for bankruptcy protection from his hundreds of other creditors. Adding to his woes, the artist was arrested on a DUI charge outside his...

The painter of light is having a dark period. Thomas Kinkade, the Placerville native who became one of the world's wealthiest artists with his sentimental landscapes and Christian motifs, has had a string of legal troubles. His company owes millions of dollars to art gallery owners who successfully pressed fraud claims. Earlier this month the firm filed for bankruptcy protection from those gallery owners and hundreds of other creditors. And on Friday, the 52-year-old Kinkade, who calls himself "the painter of light," was arrested on a DUI charge outside Carmel, where he owns a home.

"Successories is proud to present the first in our new and exclusive line of inspirational figures....It is our hope that you will want to have one of these inspiring prints proudly displayed in your office or home..."

I don't get to the lower level of Washington's Union Station much, but today I passed through and saw "My Obama Shop" — that's the actual name of an entire store devoted to all things Obama. My phone takes lousy pictures, but a blogger at Cato has a photo. Obviously there's a market for this sort of thing (I'm assuming it's not a government-owned business, at least for now) is a way there never would be for "My Bob Dole Shop" or "My John McCain Shop," but it's still kind of creepy. In fact, the very fact that there is...

It's sexy, it's sacrilegious, it's scandalous, and it's just in time for Christmas. LA's hottest art curator Lenora Claire has done it again with a new collection of saucy art pieces guaranteed to get folks hot and bothered. Mixing Christmas themes with ample female breasts...Claire chose not to rest on her laurels of the hugely successful Golden Gals Gone Wild collection of this summer, but instead opted to pump up the volume with a new group of art that's poised to get viewers hot under the collar. We were lucky enough to interview the Los Feliz curator who will present...

In today's expanding global economy we often don't think as American Catholics about global problems regarding human rights and workplace violations. For the most part American Catholics don't think about where religious objects are manufactured in the world, as long as they have their artistic representations of Jesus, Mary and Joseph to display in their homes. However last week the secular press was reporting about the horrendous working conditions of laborers in Chinese factories that manufacture religious objects and goods. The protests were staged outside of the venerable St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and it was even suggested...

Kosovo Builds Statue To 'Saviour' Clinton Last Updated: 2:35am BST 24/05/2007 Kosovo Albanians plan to honour their “saviour” Bill Clinton by erecting a statue of the former United States president in the capital of Serbia’s breakaway province. Izeir Mustafa was thrilled to be asked to sculpt a statue of Bill Clinton The 10ft tall monument is still under construction in a studio in Podujevo, 40km north of Pristina. “He is our saviour. He saved us from extermination,” Izeir Mustafa, the sculptor, said. “I was thrilled by the work because I know what he did for us.” Kosovo has been under...

The FBI is investigating allegations that self-styled "Painter of Light" Thomas Kinkade and some of his top executives fraudulently induced investors to open galleries and then ruined them financially, former dealers contacted by federal agents said. Investigators are focusing on issues raised in civil litigation by at least six former Thomas Kinkade Signature Gallery owners, people who have been contacted by the FBI said. ADVERTISEMENTThe ex-owners allege in arbitration claims that, among other things, the artist known for his dreamily luminous landscapes and street scenes used his Christian faith to persuade them to invest in the independently owned stores, which...

Eurovision in Athens on Saturday night The 51st Eurovision song contest will be held at OAKA's Olympic indoor hall in Athens on Saturday night and will be broadcast live at 10 p.m. by state-run NET television station. Thousands of specators saw the rehearsals at the indoor hall and applauded all the participants, especially Greece's Anna Vissi who will sing "Everything". The ten countries which qualified in Thursday night's semi-final were Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Lithuania, Finland, Ukraine, Ireland, Sweden, Turkey and Armenia. Cyprus and Belgium, among others, were knocked out of the competition. The ten best...

Entrepreneur artist who hangs in one in 20 US homes accused of fraud and drunken antics "There's over 40 walls in the average American home," a business manager for the artist Thomas Kinkade once said, "and Thom says our job is to figure out how to populate every single wall in every single home and every single business throughout the world with his paintings." Kinkade's luridly idyllic landscapes, full of quaint cottages and glowing firelight, already hang in an estimated one in 20 US homes. "In the often hurried, unsympathetic and complex world we live in, the images Thomas Kinkade...

An arbitration panel on Thursday awarded $860,000 to two former Thomas Kinkade Signature Gallery owners who accused the self-proclaimed "Painter of Light" and his company, Media Arts Group Inc., of fraudulently inducing them to invest in the business — and then ruining them financially. While not singling out Kinkade in its finding of fraud, the panel ruled that the Morgan Hill, Calif.-based company and one of its executives, Richard F. Barnett, "failed to disclose material information" that would have dissuaded Karen Hazlewood and Jeffrey Spinello from investing $122,000 to open the first of their two Virginia galleries in 1999.