Free Republic

Our offspring and culture is the most successful feature of the History of Mankind. Ancient Rome and Greece have nothing on Scandinavia of today, nor what we did some centuries after Rome came down. No, I'm not a Racist - and I furthermore am more than a true friend of Italy and Greece. But I do not believe there's a point in denying the fact that Viking Culture has played a major role in shaping the World of today. Have a look at it. Britain, North America, Scandinavia, Germany, etc. in one way or another, all were formed by the...

Bring Spoken Word to CPAC Conservatives constantly clamor that they need to find a way to approach more demographics – particularly minorities and the youth. Yet, when events like the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) come around, you see mainly old, rich, white men speaking on stage for hours and hours. Sometimes, they spice it up with my girl Phyllis Schlafly. Don’t get me wrong, I love listening to speakers as much as the next conservative. However, why not try a tactic that the left uses so well? The arts.Hear me out before you write me off as a right-brained...

Outdoors advocate & defender, Judge Bob Moon, 60 Popular Hamilton County (Chattanooga, Tenn.) General Sessions Court Judge Bob Moon, known for his outdoors advocacy and strict dealings with game law violators, died Wednesday from an apparent heart attack. He was 60. In 2008, Judge Moon made national headlines when he advised a woman who had been pulled from her car and beaten in the head to "purchase a weapon, obtain a gun permit and learn to protect yourself." He will be missed. Richard Simms at Nooga.com.

In 2005, my husband and I started the process to adopt a little girl from China. It was a brand new scary process that we knew nothing about. All we knew was that we wanted a child. When I am passionate about something, I want to know everything I can about it. So, I did a lot of reading about China and adoption. One of the people I read about was a woman named Gladys Aylward. She was a poor woman from London who wanted to go to China in the 1930's to be a missionary. but she had no...

Earlier this week, a Virginia-based organization came under fire for leading 3rd grade students at Woodbrook Elementary in Charlottesville to write a song titled “We Are Part of the 99.” The song, with its reference to the 1 percent and 99 percent was obviously talking about the Occupy protests that occurred around the country. According to the school district’s story, the students wrote: I used to be part of the 1 percent I worked all the time Never saw my family Couldn’t make life rhyme Then the bubble burst When I was in 3rd grade, I knew about bubbles in...

Michele Bachmann’s husband Marcus played an active role during day one of the Minnesota congresswoman’s 99-county tour of Iowa. During each of the campaign’s seven stops in northwest Iowa, Mr. Bachmann chatted with attendees and advocated on his wife’s behalf. He went even further during the last event of the day, telling an Iowa voter he should not support Rick Santorum for president because he is not viable. “Santorum can’t win,” Marcus Bachmann said to Andy Wobbema of Storm Lake. Wobbema had just finished grilling Michele Bachmann about an interview she did three months ago with Jay Leno. During that...

Forget the books. This semester, Georgetown students might need to bring woofers and turntables to class instead. According to USA Today, the university is offering a sociology class focusing on the career of one of rap music’s biggest stars: WASHINGTON – Michael Eric Dyson parses Jay-Z’s lyrics as if analyzing fine literature. The rapper’s riffs on luxury cars and tailored clothes and boasts of being the “Mike Jordan of recording” may make for catchy rhymes, but to Dyson, they also reflect incisive social commentary. Dyson, a professor, author, radio host and television personality, has offered at Georgetown University this semester...

Its the Christmas Season. A recession has long been on. And if those humbugs on PBS get their way, Your money will soon be gone. It is for you that they the all knowing claim, They make these droll shows of glory and shame. The News Hour will debrief you each day, One look at Gwen Ifil will scare any man away. Sesame Street has been on forty plus years, And Elmo that little fluffy tard will reduce all to tears.

Twas the night before Christmas, and he lived in a crowd, In a 40 man tent, with warriors so loud. I had come into the tent with presents to give, And to see just who in this rack did live. I looked all about, and a strange sight I did see, No tinsel, no presents, not even a tree. No stockings were hung, just boots close at hand, on the locker hung pictures of far distant lands. He had medals and badges and awards of all kind, And a sobering thought came into my mind. For this place was different,...

Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry Relax. This won't last long. Or if it does, or if the lines make you sleepy or bored, give in to sleep, turn on the T.V., deal the cards. This poem is built to withstand such things. Its feelings cannot be hurt. They exist somewhere in the poet, and I am far away. Pick it up anytime. Start it in the middle if you wish. It is as approachable as melodrama, and can offer you violence if it is violence you like. Look, there's a man on a sidewalk;...

I am putting together a photo album. One consisting of my own photographs taken by the DSLR camera I own. I've already created one album, paying ~ $42 for a book of 26 pages (13 sheets) of my color photographs. Expensive, but worth it. (The service, which I selected after thorough online investigation, was Adoramapix. I am not associated with them, and seeing the results I do recommend them, but if you know of a service that is less costly and as good, please do let us know.) The theme and title of my second photo album is to be...

A musing about life.

“A la tarde de la vida te examinarán en el amor. At the end of your life, you will be judged on love.” St. John of the Cross “Love is the fundamental relation of God to the world. … In a chain of acts of love, man strives for the highest end.” St. Thomas Aquinas Both St. John of the Cross and St. Thomas Aquinas teach that each human being is created to love; that the perfection of man’s intellect, will, and emotions is in direct proportion to the deliberate direction of these powers by the human soul to the...

Even President Barack Obama's senior advisor Valerie Jarrett admits the so-called American Jobs Act has not been fully written yet. That fact would have been impossible to ascertain by listening to the president's recent address to a joint session of Congress. His rhetoric delivered before an actual plan even exists and, of course, Edgar Alln Poe have inspired the verses below. Once upon a summer evening, while the Congress was convening Hoping they would get to witness oratory skill In strode a familiar fellow, who before had seemed so mellow, Now began to speak in tones bordering on shrill Perhaps...

Just a little poem, from the heart, on what is a somber weekend for me personally, and for my country...

On Tuesday, Google celebrated the birthday of Nazik al-Malaika, a wonderful female poet, by honoring her with a “Google Doodle.” Al-Malaika was widely known in the Arab world. She passed away in June 2007. Her obituary in the NY Times described her as “one of the Arab world’s most famous poets” and “one of a small group of Iraqi poets who broke away from classical Arab poetry, with its rigid metric and rhyme schemes.” It also illustrated how her poetry often dealt with women’s issues in brave and incredibly compelling ways, quoting from “To Wash Disgrace,” a poem about an...

Earilier this week a a thread was posted here about a gentleman name Frank Glick who took a picture of an eagle resting on a veteran's gravestone at Fort Snelling National Cemetery, The story really touched me and so I wrote this poem to go with the picture. The Eagle’s Watch In a quite river valley, Lies a green and peaceful place, Were warriors come to rest, Having honorably met their fates. No more do they stand the watch Their worthy service done, They’ve passed their duties on To other Fathers' sons. Yet flying high above them, On silent wings...

As the national conversation over our debt reaches an almost screeching crescendo, we here at TalkingSides.com are taking a break to offer a brief respite from the chaos with these snippets of lyrical verse: Congressional leaders are dealing To raise the borrowing ceiling The left wants more debt The right says not yet First get the economy healing.

American Citizen, or U.S. citizen? There appears to be general misunderstanding by people in general as to the difference between a natural person and an artificial person. This document will explain that difference. John Joseph Smith, is a natural, flesh and blood, person, created by God. JOHN JOSEPH SMITH, is a U.S. corporate artificial person, U.S. citizen, created by the government. In basic English grammar, a name spelled in upper and lower case, such as John Joseph Smith, is indicative of a flesh and blood man, a natural person. Person. In general usage, a human being (i.e. natural person), though...

Mexican newspaper Excelsior interviews me on the Phoenix, Tampa & Houston components of Project Gunwalker. Our guesstimate of walked firearms: 5000 Translation: Excelsior July 8, 2011 Houston and Tampa Source of Other Contraband, They Affirm More Agents Assert that There Are More Like Fast and Furious The Link from the Congress to the BATF Informants Could Get to the Crime of Another 3000 Guns Sidebar: Fast and Furious was in Arizona; another like it whose name is still unknown, was directed from the Houston field office of the BATF. Mike Vanderboegh, activist By Carmen Alvarez Operation Fast and Furious which...

While I am ever hopeful, sadly, I am starting to feel like Bill Kristol, who believes that conservatives won't be happy with whatever deal is struck. And as I look at the negotiations, I'm starting to understand why. And it's really not difficult to grasp. There are THREE major components to any deal: 1. The SIZE of the spending cuts, and what's cut: 2. The SIZE of the increase in the debt ceiling, and 3. The NUMBER of years for the spending cuts, and whether or not they are backloaded.

Music video by Flipsyde performing Happy Birthday. http://youtu.be/2bQG8v8kTGs Happy Birthday...so make a wish Verse 1: Please accept my apologies, wonder what would have been Would you've been a little angel or an angel of sin? Tom-boy running around, hanging with all the guys. Or a little tough boy with beautiful brown eyes? I payed for the murder before they determined the sex Choosing our life over your life meant your death And you never got'a chance to even open your eyes Sometimes I wonder as a foetus if you faught for your life? Would you have been a little genius...

This morning police in Washington D.C. arrested Yonathan Melaku, a Muslim, for suspicious activity near Arlington National Cemetery and the Pentagon. The twenty-two-year-old Melaku is a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Ethiopia that also serves in the Marine Corp Reserves. He was found carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer and other materials making reference to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The first reports I saw came from the Drudge Report and neither made reference to Malaku’s religion. Then I remembered the stories about Asan Akbar who killed two members of his platoon and wounded fifteen more and Hasan Nidal who killed thirteen...

Gov. Palin Talks Jobs and 2012 tonight on Fox News & Fox Business Greta's guest tonight at 9PM and 12AM*Fox News Insider reports that Sarah Palin will go "On the Record" with Greta Van Susteren tonight on Fox News: (AP Photo) Sarah Palin reveals why Obama’s unemployment plan doesn’t work and which GOP-er can get the job done in 2012! According to C4P's Ian Lazaran, Gov. Palin is also scheduled to be Judge Andrew Napolitano's guest tonight on "Freedom Watch" at 7Pm and 10PM on Fox Business. All times CDST.

The jubjub hole Credit: Media General 1 Credit: Hinkle A. Barton Hinkle By A. Barton Hinkle Published: April 22, 2011 (With apologies to Dr. Seuss.) In the kingdom of Whatsis , on the Island of Ooze, Lived a gaggle of Spendits of two different hues. Each Spendit was feathered, each Spendit was plump, Each walked with a kind of galumpety-lump. They all looked alike, although it is true Some Spendits were Red, and others were Blue.

Paraprosdokian (noun): Figure of speech in which the  latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected  ...frequently used in a humorous situation. "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening... but this wasn't it." —Groucho Marx "If I could say a few words... I'd be a better public speaker." —Homer Simpson "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing—after they have tried everything else." —Winston Churchill "If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised." — Dorothy Parker "(He's) a modest man... who has much to...

Chaim Nachman BialikÂ’s great poem about Russia's Kishinev pogrom of 1903 needs to be read and re-read. In 1903, the Jewish community in the town of Kishinev, the capital of the Russian province of Bessarabia, was decimated by a pogrom, a frequent occurrence in that part of the world. It was triggered by the age-old blood libel, the Jewish inhabitants of the town suspected of murdering a young Christian boy and using his blood in the baking of matzo. The riot lasted three days, killing and wounding hundreds of Jews, destroying houses and looting businesses. As the New York Times...

Happy birthday to Bob Dylan, born May 24th, 1941. I’m not big on birthdays, to be honest. What difference does it really make that on one day you are technically one age, and the next day you’re technically another age? You’re as young as you feel, and the older I get, the more it pleases me to think so. There’s predictably been enormous hoopla over Bob Dylan turning 70, and at least 30 new books have been added to the groaning shelves of tomes analyzing, documenting and distorting his music and/or life. I should talk — I’ve written untold thousands...

Bear Memories The youngest baby was about three, a carbon copy of him in me, When Dad took us all to Yosemite. Not expecting it to become a calamity. The chubby baby smelled of food. He wouldn't share, which the bears thought rude, so when Donnie bopped the bear's brown nose. The bear's unpredictable anger rose. Donnie took off in high gear, wailing. The bear growled, his patience failing. The bear chased the babe. The baby ran. Dad heard him yell near the garbage can. The bear looked around and saw Dad coming But followed the child who kept on...

Barack Obama’s speech on race, given to expiate the offensive race baiting rhetoric of his pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was the angry rhetoric of a politician or his propagandist who told us just what he would do if and when elected, and he is doing just what he said. The syntax, choice of words, and use of grammatical devices suggest to me that a white man wrote Obama’s March 18, 2008 speech that now is his. White House play book. Having taught very diverse students for 30 years, I never heard an American of African Descent using...

If any administration was going to invite to the White House a rapper whose lyrics have supported a cop killer and advocated the killing of President George W. Bush, it would be this one, as demonstrated by its hosting this week of rapper Common. But why should rap “music” be the preserve of thugs who preach violence. How about a conservative rap song, like this: He’s a socialist prez and his name is Barack; he has American freedom under attack. He was elected on speeches that mesmerized, but his lips are betrayed by his lying eyes. He came with a...

This is a perfect example of what the left thinks of the Catholic Church. In their eyes the church is an evil entity that abuses and molests children. And, now they’re smearing the pope as the molester in chief. Obama lackey, Huffington Post contributor and author Keli Goff compared cop-killer promoting poet Common, a member of Barack Obama’s former radical church, to the "child molester enabling" Pope Benedict. What an outrageous statement.

First Lady Michelle Obama has invited a rapper who called for the burning of George Bush to perform at the White House. Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr, who uses the stage name ‘Common’, will be welcomed at an event celebrating American poetry on Wednesday. He is expected to take part in rap workshops with schoolchildren in the afternoon before performing in the evening. In footage on YouTube he is seen calling for the burning of the former president. ‘Burn a Bush cos for peace he no push no button,’ the hip-hop artist raps in one video, which has more than 800,000...

Ed Schultz just said: President Barack Obama, he waves the flag, too. Come on, Nashville! Give me a song! If you won’t do it, we’d like to hear from our viewers. If you have a patriotic song or even a rendition of another song already in the can and ready to go, you can go to our blog at Ed.MSNBC.com and leave a link to it. We’ll check them out and maybe even play it on the air, because I think President Obama and the SEALS deserve a song from those fun loving American rednecks in Nashville, Tennessee who love...

Along the line of, “some things never change”, we have now entered a realm similar in to the passage of the Health Care Bill. Recall at that time, Madam Pelosi posited that because the bill was so large and unwieldy, and there was so little time to read it, it would be necessary to, “pass the bill, so we would know what was in it.” Now, at a time when the UN is full of itself in the absence of an American-interest protecting President of the United States, at a time when the world is waiting expectantly to see which...

What might the phrase “natural-born citizen� of the United States imply under the U.S. Constitution? The phrase has always been obscure due to the lack of any single authoritative source to confer in order to understand the condition of citizenship the phrase recognizes. Learning what the phrase might have meant following the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, requires detective work. As with all detective work, eliminating the usual suspects from the beginning goes a long way in quickly solving a case. What Natural-Born Citizen Could Not Mean Could a natural-born citizen simply mean citizenship due...

Oh, my BFF Fabia Sheen, who is an Attorney, told me about these legal things called Requests for Admissions, where one side in a lawsuit gets to ask the other side to Admit or Deny something so that the process can move along faster. Sooo, since I write poetry and she writes all this legal stuff, we wrote the following like it was from the Obotski, who are just convinced that the ONLY reason people don't like Obama is because he is Black and we are just a bunch of racists. OH, do we ever get them back!!! Tee Hee!...

As the deadline rapidly approaches for a deal to keep the government running, President Obama and the Democrat leadership in Congress have made it clear that the political game is more important that providing the country with responsible leadership. Sen. Harry Reid has drawn a line in the sand, setting the spending cut bar at the Cowboy Poet level. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has expressed her concern that cutting the federal budget will cause old people to starve, and President Obama has made it clear to all that he will not let efforts to pay the salaries of our...

I bin hittin' the greens Gittin' down in the polls I bin scopin' the scenes Reassessin' my goals There's some drama over there Momar pissed off the French 'cause he ain't playin' fair Gonna be his monkey wrench Busta cap in the air Ratatatatat Busta cap in the air Blangblangblangbababalbang Busta billion dollar Heat seakin' sea-to-air pilot-freakin' cap Ain't gonna take no more crap From m'man Farrakhan's posse-punk Moamar.

Colleges and universities pride themselves on producing erudite citizens. Nevertheless, by nearly available benchmark, they are failing in this regard, although they don’t seem to realize it. “While M. B. A. students’ quantitative skills are prized by employers, their writing and presentation skills have been a perennial complaint,” Diana Middleton wrote in The Wall Street Journal on March 3, 2011. “Employers and writing coaches say business-school graduates tend to ramble, use pretentious vocabulary or pen too-casual emails.” “Meanwhile, the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the Graduate Management Admission Test, says average essay scores on the GMAT fell to 4.4...

Papa Possum'sNew World Nursery Rhymes Political Poetry for Traitorous Times The Bones of BolívarToma! How deluded dares a despot?         How desperate and bizarre? Sit back and hear the sad tale of         The Bones of Bolívar. A man named Simón once there was,         General in Freedom's War, e'er marked down by Historia         as El Libertador. For Sovereign Rights, Natural Law,         and Private Property, he rallied forces against Spain,         these Things to guarantee. Like Heroes in The North, he fought         and soon both near and far The Southern Continent was freed         by Simón Bolívar. But as time passed he saw his...

If If you can keep your smile when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But feel superior because OF their doubting too; If you can claim you are the one for whom we're waiting, Or, throw others under the bus, yet deal in lies, Or, watch Reverend Wright for twenty years and not see hating, And keep cred both in the 'hood, and midst the wise; If you can Dream - with a book "Dreams From My Father"; But writing for Harvard Law Review just...

St. Patrick's Day is the perfect time to tell some liberal limericks!---------- The lefties think that they're progressive A name change thats really obessive Liberalism ain't right Socialism shines a light That the devil would find more impressive Joe Biden has said "see you later" To anything resembling good behavior It's a big effing deal That he outsmarts a wheel But he's not smarter than a 5th grader Pelosi used to be the House Speaker With eyes that bug out like tweeker Her sense of disgrace Is as loose as her face When her botox is watered down weaker...

Today is the 107th anniversary of the birth of Ted Geisel, the American-born writer best known for writing children’s books under the pen name, “Dr. Seuss.” A fan of his classic books, including Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Horton Hatches the Egg, Horton Hears a Who! and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I decided to pay tribute to Geisel by imitating his style Geisel by imitating his style with a decidedly-political twist. Barack O’Bam.Barack O’Bam. I do not like Barack O’Bam. It’s not because O’Bam is black. It’s...

On Feb 10, while addressing a question about the Muslim Brotherhood from the House Intelligence Committee, James Clapper Director of National Intelligence responded, “The term ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ …is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam. In the case of Egypt, [it is] a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam…” This isn’t the first Gen Clapper’s public faux pas. In an interview...

Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.

This is the cutest video I have seen in a long time. A little girl with huge eyes tells a story about monkeys, a witch and crocodiles. It's in French, but the subtitles makes it easy to follow. If you like little girls then you will fall in love this little darling. Here is the link to the video; Sweet Story Told By a Young Child

Papa Possum'sNew World Nursery Rhymes Political Poetry for Traitorous Times Leviathan(The Left's Ultimate Social Contract) All the fruit of your labor         is full forfeit to Its will. The bread earned for your infant's mouth,         instead Its maw must fill. Those guilty of ability         serve sentence to Its need. A new day has arisen and         Leviathan must feed. Of, by, and for The People         is a quaint concept of old. The Stewards you elected         have Your Constitution sold. So bow to Its New Order         and Its sovereign mandate heed: All things exist for It alone,         Leviathan must feed. Don't bleat...

A disheartening report from the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property better know as TFP reveals that 101 (41%) of putative Catholic Colleges carry pro-homosexual organizations among their sponsored student activities. Worse still was the news that every single Jesuit university and college was on the pro homosexual school list. These student “clubs” sponsor events presenting and promoting homosexual conduct and culture as well as the redefining of marriage in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Georgetown University, America’s first Catholic college, promotes such anti Catholic activities as “weeks” for National Coming Out,...

Yesterday morning was Thanksgiving, and the first snow of the season. Across the street from our house is the historic Old Union Church building, Audubon Road at Pawlings, Audubon, PA, built in 1820. The old square building is crowned with a high pitched roof pinnacled in the center with a steeple. As the flakes began to fall, a man arrived who was readying the old sanctuary for its annual sacred use. I had never seen it used before living in this home less than a year. The flakes started coming down harder while more and more peoplearrived, resembling some natural...