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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) on Monday flagged the possibility of a series of harsh restrictions to be imposed on revelers heading to Times Square to welcome in the New Year. The crackdown threat follows an announcement last month from de Blasio that prohibited unvaccinated individuals from attending the annual mass public event. “Right now, it is on, fully vaccinated, outdoors of course,” de Blasio told ABC on Monday. “That’s the plan. And if we need to make any more modifications, we will decide that within the course of this week.” De Blasio is an avid supporter...

Happy New Year 2021. What are your hopes for 2021? What are you fears for 2021?

Thousands of people have signed up for a New Year’s Day protest in Philadelphia. With the yearly Mummers parade canceled, some 2,600 people plan to go to the Mummers protest march. “Mayor Jim Kenney has tried for years (like every Philly Mayor in the past) to cancel the Philadelphia Mummers Parade, a tradition preceding the birth of our nation. What he can NOT do is cancel our First Amendment right to peacefully protest his erroneous taxes and restrictions on our freedoms and liberties. It should go without saying that everyone will be on 2nd Street New Years Day, strutting their...

As part of my helpful “How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions For Sure This Time” tutorial I would like to post this public service announcement. It’s a gentle reminder that the most important part of accomplishing any resolution is, well:Henceforth Wednesdays are dedicated to actually doing all those things you put on your “To Do This Year List” - the one’s you’ve been wanting to do, meaning to do, threatening to do or just feeling guilty about not doing. For example, #1 on my list: re-grouting the shower. Yeah, that’s not happening today. Maybe not even this year. Next!Posted...

It's a presidential election year, as you no doubt can't escape knowing. The anger and conviction during such tumultuous times can be quite overwhelming. Speaking of being overwhelmed, my office tends to be overrun with books. I've purged many times -- we've had at least two moves in my 20-some years here. For some reason, two oldies rose to the top of a pile on the first day back in the new year. "What's Wrong With the World" by G.K. Chesterton and "My Love Affair With America" by Norman Podhoretz. They clearly have something to offer us in this agitated...

Troops, Veterans, Families, Allies, and FRiends.....The FReeper Canteen Presents..... Showing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. “May Light always surround you; Hope kindle and rebound you. May your Hurts turn to Healing; Your Heart embrace Feeling. May Wounds become Wisdom; Every Kindness a Prism. May Laughter infect you; Your Passion resurrect you. May Goodness inspire your Deepest Desires. Through all that you Reach For, May your arms Never Tire.”-D. Simone Please remember that The Canteen is here to support and entertain our troops and...

We are beginning the Year of the Lord [2020]. The marking of the dawn of a new year is no secular holiday, because time and history have been drawn into the coming of God into the world. We keep track of our time as either BC (Before Christ) or AD (Anno Domini) to demonstrate that Christ is the center of history, the one through whom we judge all that came before and is going to come. New Year’s teaches us how properly to measure time, how to mark the coming of salvation into the world in light of its progressive...

VIDEO All things are pointing to 2020 becoming the WILDEST year of our lives. Events are heading in that direction as I explain in this video. And to all of you out there, have a HAPPY NEW YEAR! And strap on your seatbelts because 2020 is going to be one WILD ride!

It goes against every piety of the liberal elites to portray the hippies as evil, but Quentin Tarantino points out that the new liberation spawned a murderous cult in Hollywood. The nearly closed 2019 was a surprisingly good year for conservatism at the movies, thanks to work by Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, James Mangold, and Roland Emmerich. Famous directors made wonderful movies, some successful at the box office, some likely to gain more prestige in awards season than popularity and therefore likely to be remembered.Most recently, Eastwood’s “Richard Jewell” continued his series of true stories about citizen-heroes. Audiences apparently have...

After canceling a planned Christmas trip amid the ongoing government shutdown to stay at the White House with her husband, First Lady Melania Trump left Washington, D.C., to enjoy New Year’s Eve at the family’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Mrs. Trump posed for photos with various other revelers, including Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt and Paolo Zampolli, the United Nations ambassador of the Commonwealth of Dominica. The first lady made the trip to Palm Beach without President Donald Trump, who remained in D.C. as the government shutdown approaches its third week. She previously canceled her Christmas plans at Mar-a-Lago to return...

The song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is an English Christmas carol. From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of the Church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember. To fit the number scheme, when you reach number 9, representing the Fruits of the Holy Ghost, the originator combined...

Happy New Year to all of my most favorite deplorables!No, I didn’t make it till midnight, but then I barely remember the last New Year’s Eve I did. In addition to being tired around 10:30 or so I also had zero interest in watching any of the network buffoons assembled on various rooftops and concrete canyons of New York City waiting on the drop of a crystal ball. Nevertheless, 2018 was a pretty awesome year. Expect more of the same from 2019. Here is my primary prediction for the coming year: Dozens of dolts will announce they’re running as the...

For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning. ~T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

“In my end is my beginning.” – T.S. Eliot, East Coker As we come to the end of another year, we remember that endings are merely beginnings, as Eliot reminds us. “In my end is my beginning” is the final phrase of his poem East Coker, second of the Four Quartets. We are reminded that for the new to come in, the old must be released. So as we enter a new year, a new experience, we remember to stand in the field of possibility. A new year is an opportunity to begin again. In Rent, Jonathan Larson reminds us...

Happy New Year, fellow Freepers. Think most of us have had some ups and downs in 2018. Believe the ups outweighed the downs. Let’s have a great 2019! PS This is an unofficial celebration, comment, and prayer thread for 2019. Have at it!

Celebrating the end of 2018, with hope for 2019. It's been fireworks all year, so reasonable to go out with the same.

Things I never knew about when I was young enough to fully enjoy them: December 30th is International Bacon Day. When I was younger I could eat all the bacon I wanted with neither short or long term consequences. Now I must indulge my bacon urges only periodically.Butt if you can still afford to do so, by all means go ahead and enjoy bacon all day long.  Breakfast:Brunch: Lunch: Dinner: Snacks: And nightcap:IBD (that’s International Bacon Day, not Irritable Bowel Disease) is sort of a combination of the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday tradition of overindulging in food and the New Year’s Eve...

I've just heard it announced that one of the "highlights" of the New Year's Eve celebration in NYC's Times Square will be a performance of John Lennon's "Imagine," this time by one Bebe Rexha.  I'll admit to being "culturally deprived"; I've never heard of that person.  And it turns out that "Imagine" has been performed at other Times Square New Year's Eve celebrations since 2005 (2012 and 2016, for example, by other performers of whom I'd never heard), with videos of the crowds enthusiastically waving their arms and singing along. Now, I'm a big fan of The Beatles, and I happen...

Father Frost didn’t drop presents off for Russian children on Dec. 25. And he won’t on Orthodox Christmas (Jan. 7), either. Rather, Ded Moroz and his lovely snow maiden assistant, Snegurochka, are attached to New Year’s Eve, which in Russia is the new year and the secular bits of Christmas like trees and presents all rolled into one. Initially, the Soviets tried to replace Christmas with a more appropriate komsomol (youth communist league) related holiday, but, shockingly, this did not take. And by 1928 they had banned Christmas entirely, and Dec. 25 was a normal working day. Then, in 1935,...