Free Republic

We finally managed to make it back home after an exciting day, and a wardrobe change, in Selma.It was quite a day, Big Guy gave a moving speech and explained again how We are the Wons we’ve been waiting for: "Look at our history. We are Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, pioneers who braved the unfamiliar, followed by a stampede of farmers  Black “farmer” Shirley Sherrod is consoled by Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack as she learns her share of the entrepreneurial Pigford Settlement is only $13 million. and miners, and entrepreneurs and hucksters. That’s our spirit. That’s who we are.”No...

What has become of the American spirit? We are a nation that prides itself on its independence, but when disaster strikes, Americans sit around and wait for the government to save them – an attitude that not only is corrosive of the nation's character, but which is destined to lead to disappointment and even despair. Last week marked the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. In 2005, the hurricane left a swath of destruction along the Gulf Coast, culminating in the failure of New Orleans' levee systems. About 80 percent of the city flooded, and Americans watched in frustration and anger...

In speeches demanding government reparations for 400 years of American slavery to ruminations on the revolutionary nature of a rose in a woman's hand, black activists Friday took up the the thorny topic of how best to "resurrect" the African-American family. Chicago activist Conrad Worrill urged those gathered at the Shape Community Center for the 28th convention of the National Black United Front to continue to push for government compensation for centuries of slavery. "It's clear they owe us for 400 years of free labor," he said. "They owe us." Worrill, United Front national chairman, was the opening speaker for...

Can you believe this guy?

Retired NFL players discovers football was bad for their bodies. What were they expecting?

The suicide of ailing UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Denton – a pioneer among women scientists – was a wrenching personal tragedy. Unfortunately, however, Denton's death is now being used by another former UC executive to suggest sexism and homophobia helped fuel the bitter controversy of the past year over UC's extravagant, arguably illegal, compensation policies. Denton was one of many UC officials of both sexes to draw fire – in her case because UC spent $600,000 renovating her Santa Cruz home (including a $30,282 dog run for her pets) and hired her longtime partner, Gretchen Kalonji, to a $192,000-a-year...

<p>By all accounts Kenneth Feinberg is a man blessed with large reserves of calm and confidence. Heaven knows the man appointed special master of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund can use all the inner calm and security at his disposal. Mr. Feinberg, who has to decide the amount of the awards to be paid out to the families and victims had an impossible task to begin with--one made the more difficult by the anger and disappointed expectations of the victim families.</p>