Free Republic

When Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president in January 1981, the country was at low ebb. Jimmy Carter had spent the four previous years running the nation into the ground, leaving unemployment above 10%, inflation above 15%, Communist operatives laughing at our perceived weakness, and Iranians holding 53 of our fellow citizens hostage for 444 days. When Republican Chris Christie was sworn into office as governor of New Jersey earlier this year, the situation he faced was somewhat similar. His predecessors, among them Democrat Jon Corzine, had run the state into the ground. Because of this, Christie literally inherited...

If you’re concerned about violent political rhetoric, perhaps you should pay more attention to the New Jersey Education Assocation. According to the Bergen County Record, the powerful teachers union circulated a memo that added Christie to an “attack” list and prayed tongue-in-cheek for his demise: Bergen County representatives of the state teachers union have ratcheted up the campaign against Governor Christie’s agenda in a fiery memo that encourages members to “get some dirt” and “go public,” and adds the education commissioner to the “attack list.” But it’s the memo’s closing “prayer” that is sure to ignite controversy: “Dear Lord …...

Forbes magazine's ninth annual list of top-earning dead celebrities was unveiled Wednesday, and surprise, surprise: Neither Michael Jackson nor Elvis Presley held court at the top. Late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent debuted in the No. 1 spot with an estate that earned $350 million in the year after his death from brain cancer in June 2008. To place on this year's list, "delebs" -- industry speak for dead celebrities -- had to earn at least $6 million between October 1, 2008, and October 1, 2009. Saint Laurent earned well past that. A February Christie's auction sold most of...

A "poem" purportedly written by a teenage Bob Dylan and up for auction at Christie's is actually a song written by the late Canadian country singer Hank Snow, the auction house said on Wednesday. Christie's announced on Tuesday the sale of the hand-written poem believed to have been written in 1957 when Dylan was 16 and away at Jewish camp. But Christie's failed to detect that the words, with a few minor variations, matched those of a song previously recorded by Snow, who died in 1999 at age 85.

Beijing swiftly moved to punish auction house Christie's with tightened customs rules Thursday after its protests failed to stop the sale of two imperial bronze sculptures taken from China nearly 150 years ago. The move signals China's resolve in its campaign to rescue pieces of its cultural heritage now scattered around the world - but the impact of the new rules on the auction house, if any, was not clear. The disputed 18th century fountainheads - heads of a rat and a rabbit - were sold to an unidentified telephone bidder or bidders Wednesday for 28 million euros ($36 million)...

Memorabilia from some of punk rock's biggest acts and seminal moments -- including a scrawled flier for one of the Clash's first shows and publicity photos signed by the Sex Pistols -- is headed for a November 24 Christie's auction. The event, announced Tuesday, includes more than 120 records, photos and promotional pieces for such punk, garage rock and new wave legends as the Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, the Ramones, David Bowie, Blondie, the Cure and the Smiths. The auction is Christie's first to focus on punk mementos, signaling the collectible status of a brash, anti-authoritarian rock movement that largely...

NEW YORK (AP) — Rare works by Charles Dickens including a page from the original manuscript of "Pickwick Papers" and an illustration of the "Oliver Twist" character Bill Sikes are going on the auction block. The Kenyon Starling Library of Charles Dickens is expected to fetch more than $2 million when it is sold at Christie's on April 2. Among the highlights is "The Uncommercial Traveller" (1861), inscribed by Dickens to novelist George Eliot. Its pre-sale estimate is $100,000 to $150,000. A page from the original manuscript of Dickens' first novel, "Pickwick Papers," containing a comedic scene between Pickwick's valet,...

Early Dylan poems sold at auction Poems written by Bob Dylan in his college days have fetched $78,000 (£45,000) in a New York auction. The 16 pages of poems are the first known time Robert Zimmerman used the Dylan name and come from his stint at the University of Minnesota in 1959-60. The selling price was the highest auction price to date for the acclaimed songwriter, according to Christie's. The European buyer was not identified. Eric Clapton's 1959 electric guitar sold for $36,000 (£20,970). The Fender composite Stratocaster was sold to an American buyer. Medallion The title page to Dylan's...

It seems the L.A. Weekly wants to seek out and destroy Christianity itself instead of any particular sect thereof. I can say this because the newspaper has admitted as much in a recent column (go here). More on that later. This June 10 column has identified Christians as “Christers,” the kitschy new hate word created by anti-religionists in the U.S.A. to describe their foe: you and me. The Weekly uses this pseudo word some 16 times in the Op Ed even going so far as to make it appear as if the word was used in a Wall Street Journal...

...And 20 grand seemed reasonable compared with another Friedman piece being sold at the same auction. This one, also untitled, is a two-foot white cube with a barely visible black speck set right in the middle of the top surface. Would you like to guess what that black speck is? You're advised to think outside the box. To again quote Christie's, it is ".5mm of the artist's feces." Yes, Tom Friedman put his poop on a pedestal, and last week Christie's tried to sell it, with bidding to start at $45,000. Auction season in Manhattan is a two-week spending spree...

Iranian history to go under hammer at Christie’s 4/19/05 TEHRAN, Apr. 19 (MNA) -- A collection of Iran’s historic and ancient artworks are to be sold at Christie’s auction house in London during three sales entitled “Faces from the Ancient World, a European Private Collection”, “Islamic Art and Manuscripts”, and “Oriental Rugs and Carpets.” An Achaemenid era bas-relief depicting the head of a soldier, which had been severed from the eastern staircase of the Apadana Palace in Persepolis, will be sold in Faces from the Ancient World on April 20. The bas-relief was smuggled from Iran about 70 years ago...

A classic Gibson guitar used by George Harrison on the Beatles' "Revolver" album and by John Lennon on the "White Album" sold Friday to an anonymous bidder for $567,500, Christie's auction house announced.