Free Republic

When I had a chance, I took a look at some of the beautiful rooms in the White House; I was so excited just to be there. When I looked around, I could feel all the history of the place and I felt like I was having flashbacks into history just by being in these rooms. It was thrilling! When I met President Obama, he shook my hand and told me that he was a big fan of mine. Wow! This made me feel so humbled and honored. I was practically speechless and just mumbled to him that it was...

In some ways Yoko Ono is still an amateur. At “We Are Plastic Ono Band,” mixing concert and tribute at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Tuesday night, her voice could be shaky and her stage patter giggly and unplanned. She looked genuinely surprised when the audience interrupted her and sang “Happy Birthday.” (She turns 77 on Feb. 18.) She’s also untamed. She can still let loose the bleats, wails, yips, howls and shrieks that alienated Beatles fans in the 1960s and inspired avant-rockers soon afterward. Ms. Ono’s well-preserved air of naïveté — and the license it gives her to...

Joycelyn Elders agrees with Barack Obama "to the full capacity."

The first live show for 36 years by Eric Clapton's blues/rock "power trio" may have attracted the attentions of the media, but it has had difficulty snaring anyone under 40; young people are conspicuous by their absence from the bars and foyers of the Royal Albert Hall. The atmosphere is less like a rock concert than a corporate hospitality tent at Wimbledon. Paunchy men in sports jackets clink ice in gin and tonics, and mumsy ladies fan themselves with pricey souvenir programmes. Presumably some of them were here the last time Cream played the Royal Albert Hall, squinting at the...

Age hasn't mellowed Joycelyn Elders, the former U.S. surgeon general who was purged from the Clinton administration for talking often and openly about sex education and the merits of masturbation as a tool in the fight against AIDS. "You know, studies have shown that 70 percent of women masturbate, as do 90 percent of men," she said Monday afternoon, before meeting with students and faculty at Kansas University Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan. "I've often said the rest of them are lying," said the 70-year-old Elders, chuckling at her frankness. She later spoke at KU's Lied Center, a public...