Free Republic

Recently I watched the harrowing 2023 survival thriller Society of the Snow, based on the book of the same name about the real-life 1972 plane crash in the Andes that left a rugby team and families and friends to fend for themselves in the unforgiving elements. Over the following two-and-a-half months after the crash, as search efforts were unsuccessful and then abandoned, the dwindling number of survivors (only 16 out of 45 passengers and crew were ultimately rescued) were forced to resort to cannibalizing the bodies of the dead in order to survive.The movie (pictured above) captures, with an unflinching...

Not to be outdone by tiny Lithuania (which claims to have officially weaned itself off Russian gas imports by building an LNG terminal), the European Commission has devised a controversial proposal to ban imports of Russian coal, along with a host of other measures comprising a new sanctions package to be introduced on Tuesday, according to reports from WSJ, Reuters and a host of other media outlets. Along with banning imports of Russian coal, the package also calls for an import ban on rubber, chemicals and other products from Russia worth up to €9 billion a year. If passed, the...

Amid a nationwide movement to remove statues, symbols, and words in the name of inclusion, Campus Reform rounded up recent examples of words that have been banned on college campuses.1. MSU eliminates the terms 'foreign' and 'alien'Michigan State University announced it would no longer use the terms “foreign” and “alien” in order to create a more inclusive environment. In October, Provost Teresa Woodruff addressed the Associated Students of MSU general assembly to announce the new “non-pejorative” language. Woodruff stated that moving forward, international students should be referred to as “non-domestic” or “international” to help “create a culture of not us...

Since cannibalism is found throughout the animal kingdom and therefore is something natural, perhaps it is time for humans to rethink the “ultimate taboo” against eating human flesh, Newsweek proposes in an article Wednesday. There is nothing necessarily unethical or unreasonable about eating human flesh, declare psychologists Jared Piazza and Neil McLatchie of Lancaster University, but careful reasoning over the merits of cannibalism is often “overridden by our feelings of repulsion and disgust.”While not going so far as to recommend cannibalism, saying “there is no need to overcome our repulsion for the foreseeable future,” the two authors suggest that humans could master their...

There is no more unifying experience among women around the globe than menstruation. All women understand what it feels like to have their period—even if they don’t exactly understand what it is. And yet, the topic of menstruation continues to hold significant stigmas, and embarrassment or hesitation to discuss this vital function of the female body has created gaps in our knowledge of how the menstrual cycle affects a women’s overall health. Therefore, it was a welcome shock to discover that the May 2019 issue of Scientific American magazine is primarily dedicated to the science of women’s reproductive health—or rather,...

One of my favorite 1960s anecdotes comes from legendary broadcaster Larry King, who tells of attending his first roast at New York City’s Friars Club. There, French actor Maurice Chevalier dared to utter the F-word live on stage. King was practically blown out of his seat. “I thought I’d die,” he recalls. Today, as King himself has noted, the F-bomb — once known as the ultimate forbidden verbal lightning bolt, the Utterance That Must Not Be Named, or at least the word of last resort to use when you’re really hopelessly mad — might as well be growing out of...

Money Observations: Living within Your Means. The movies and Television broadcast over and over to live on other-peoples-money and to live beyond your means. But in the "Everyday Millionaires" book by Chris Hogan and on the "Millionaire Theme Hour" with Dave Ramsey, millionaires say over and over again to live within your means and to get debt out of your lives. Indeed, I did not. for the first 20 years of work, I dabbled in credit and did not have an emergency fund. Soon I found myself living paycheck to paycheck while having a decent salary. I saw something I...

Donald Trump is a “racist” who has used the “N-word” repeatedly, Omarosa Manigault Newman, once the most prominent African American in the White House, claims in a searing memoir. The future US president was caught on mic uttering the taboo racial slur “multiple times” during the making of his reality TV show The Apprentice and there is a tape to prove it, according to Manigault Newman, citing three unnamed sources.

As desperate presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tries to match the momentum of opponent Donald Trump, she’s also battling two shocking secret health issues! In a bombshell exclusive, The National ENQUIRER has learned the 68-year-old Democratic front-runner is suffering from the early stages of the debilitating disease multiple sclerosis — and has endured a series of strokes! “Hillary’s past health problems are down to MS,” a political insider close to both Hillary and husband Bill Clinton told The ENQUIRER. “She’s been working with her staff to keep the medical drama under wraps, and she’s doing her best to deal with it.”...

Congressman Steve King of Iowa violated the greatest taboo in mainstream American politics. He defended White people, and said their contributions to civilization were greater than other groups. His remarks were in response to a leftist political commentator, Charlie Pierce, who said that Republicans should stop being the party of old White people. Here is a story on the controversy: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rep-steve-king-clarifies-remarks-white-people-civilization/story?id=40687050

Germans are more interested in Adolf Hitler that at any time since the end of the Second World War, a new study has concluded. The German Media Control research group, which monitors broadcasting, found that documentaries about Hitler are aired twice a day on German television channels and that books and films about the Nazi leader are being produced in record numbers. It established that 242 programs dealing specifically with Hitler had been shown on television during the first four months of 2013, while 500 other films and documentaries that had dealt with the Nazi era in general had also...

A school dropout from a poor family in southern India has revolutionised menstrual health for rural women in developing countries by inventing a simple machine they can use to make cheap sanitary pads. Arunachalam Muruganantham's invention came at great personal cost - he nearly lost his family, his money and his place in society. But he kept his sense of humour. "It all started with my wife," he says. In 1998 he was newly married and his world revolved around his wife, Shanthi, and his widowed mother. One day he saw Shanthi was hiding something from him. He was shocked...

Watch commercial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QPU_FPgqiQ Another sick TV ad, this time brought to you by National Geographic. As if mocking American traditions wasn't bad enough, they had no choice but to air this on Memorial Day?

For most mothers, the love they have for their child is unconditional. And if that wasn't the case, few would dare admit it. Which perhaps explains why a woman breaking that social taboo has chosen to write under a pseudonym. In an article published today in the latest issue of REDBOOK, the mother-of-two, who calls herself Jennifer Rabiner, confesses how she has never been able to love her eldest child.

Belinda Luscomb, writing for feminist mouthpiece Time Magazine, exposes the fact that young women make more than young men in virtually all big cities in the United States. The triumphalism so clearly on display in the article shows the feminist claim that all they want is “equality” for the bald-faced lie that it is. No, they want supremacy, and they have demonstrated time and again that they will use the state to achieve it. In fact, it is through government interference that young women have gained the upper hand over men. Not only do public schools favor female learning styles,...

The half-dozen contestants, 20-something aspiring artists all, enter the famous Phillips de Pury art auction house. Mr. de Pury himself ushers them into the special room where they are presented with a collection of paintings by Andres Serrano, the man who came to fame in 1989 with the ghastly painting, sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts, depicting a crucifix dunked in a jar of urine. They are hugely impressed. The final painting they are shown is just that -- the original "Piss Christ." They are in awe, quietly expressing their amazement at the talent. And then the door...

Claire Berlinski A Hidden History of Evil Why doesn’t anyone care about the unread Soviet archives? Though Mikhail Gorbachev is lionized in the West, the untranslated archives suggest a much darker figure. In the world’s collective consciousness, the word “Nazi” is synonymous with evil. It is widely understood that the Nazis’ ideology—nationalism, anti-Semitism, the autarkic ethnic state, the Führer principle—led directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz. It is not nearly as well understood that Communism led just as inexorably, everywhere on the globe where it was applied, to starvation, torture, and slave-labor camps. Nor is it widely acknowledged that Communism...

Remember when certain words or phrases meant good things to Americans? Many of these words have been singled out by groups as hateful to other Americans so they have become taboo. I would like to see what kind of list of taboo words, phrases or figures who were once positive but which have become or are becoming outlawed by the thought police. If possible also post the group it would be offensive to and why.

Everybody who has thought seriously about the Obama candidacy, including me and probably including the Senator himself, have reflected on the horrible possibility that he would be assassinated. One cannot think about Obama, the Kennedy-esque candidate without worrying about his safety. But we all observe the discipline of not raising the issue in public. We all worry that to do so would be to encourage some maniac to take a shot. Now Hillary has violated this unstated but heretofore universal taboo and brought up the possibility. That is not to say that she is hoping for a murder. But it...

FORT WORTH -- The Trans-Texas Corridor is now so controversial, merely uttering the words in most political circles is taboo. "We're calling it a 'regional loop' because you can't say 'Trans-Texas Corridor' in the state of Texas anymore," said Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments. "The Trans-Texas Corridor is a lightning rod," he told visiting state representatives this week while explaining how the corridor would connect to regional highways by 2030. Opposition to the proposed construction of a $184 billion network of toll roads during the next 50 years is so strong statewide that...