Free Republic

Check out the YouTube circa 1956. I want to know if life was like that: Congested dance halls, Rock n' roll, a post-War boom? Seems like another world... One you kind of hanker for. Can any Freepers recall the era depicted?

Two deaths in Boulder County, Colorado, in 2023 are the latest in the U.S. to be blamed on the powerful class of synthetic opioids called nitazenes. Most health systems cannot detect nitazenes, so the exact number of overdoses is unknown, but they’re implicated in more than 200 deaths in Europe and North America since 2019, including 11 in Colorado since 2021. One of the two Boulder County deaths is linked to a new formulation called N-Desethyl etonitazene, which was identified by a national laboratory, and is thought to be the first related death. The Conversation interviewed Dr. Christopher Holstege, professor...

polio vaccine, preparation of poliovirus given to prevent polio, an infectious disease of the nervous system. The first polio vaccine to be widely used in humans, known as inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) or Salk vaccine, was developed in the early 1950s by American physician Jonas Salk. This vaccine contains killed virus and is given by injection.

We must have been fifteen or sixteen when we discovered the church visitor’s book. It was an old church, maybe medieval, and I would pass it with my school friends on our way to the town center. I’m not sure what possessed us to go in; it might have been my idea. I’ve always loved old churches. For a long time, I would tell myself that I liked the sense of history or the architecture, which was true as far as it went. Like the narrator in Philip Larkin’s poem “Church Going,” I would venture into any church I found,...

Authorities in Vietnam said Friday they will prosecute 84 people accused of being involved in deadly attacks on two commune offices in central Dak Lak province and ordered them held in pre-trial detention. It isn’t clear who was behind the June 11 attacks, which left nine people dead, or what motivated them. On Friday, the Ministry of Public Security said it had confirmed that “organizations and individuals from overseas” had been involved, without getting more specific. “Materials and evidence collected by security forces show that the incident took place with the support and guidance of several organizations and individuals from...

This is Easter, a holiday commemorating a miracle. That is good, because we are going to need one. On Good Friday, I chanced across a photograph of the lower Manhattan skyline at night from Good Friday in April 1956. Three skyscrapers, dominating the space, feature certain windows illuminated to form gigantic crosses to commemorate that most solemn of Christian holidays. The year 1956 was not that long ago. But how much has changed in those 60-odd years! Can you imagine such a public display of Christian affirmation in New York today? Nor can I. That was then. Now things are...

Proving that their DeSantis derangement syndrome is incurable, Sunday's "Powerhouse Roundtable" on ABC's This Week went after Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis for wanting to protect public school children from perverted groomers and racial arsonists. ABC contributor and former Democrat National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile lashed out at DeSantis and proclaimed he is "running on a 1950s America, not a 2050 America." Moments later Politico associate editor Alex Burns said with a straight face that President Joe Biden was "always more of a centrist." Going from trashing DeSantis to praising Biden within moments is the kind of contrast that makes...

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who has not announced a presidential bid, is “running on a 1950s America,” which she believes will benefit President Joe Biden. Brazile said, “Joe Biden this Tuesday will start to Invest in an American tour where he’s going to spend the next two or three weeks along with his members of the cabinet and the vice president. Once she returns from Africa, they’re going to begin to talk directly to the American people on the anxieties and concerns that everyday Americans have.”

The Biden administration is vacating a decades-old decision to revoke the security clearance of World War II-era scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is known today as the “father of the atomic bomb.” In a written statement first shared with The Hill, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the 1954 decision barring Oppenheimer’s clearance went through a “flawed process” and noted that there was evidence of bias. “In 1954, the Atomic Energy Commission revoked Dr. Oppenheimer’s security clearance through a flawed process that violated the Commission’s own regulations. As time has passed, more evidence has come to light of the bias and...

Weird Foods People Ate During The 1950s

A senior Russian official finally admitted that Stalin's secret police shot dead Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of central European Jews from the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1944 and 1945. For decades the Soviet authorities insisted that Wallenberg had died of a heart attack in 1947 in a Soviet prison, but speculation about his fate grew into a full-blown mystery as gulag inmates surfaced to report sightings of the Swede in Siberia into the 1950s.

President Biden’s approval numbers remain stuck at near-record lows as he faces a series of setbacks, according to a new poll. The latest Gallup survey released Friday finds that roughly 41 percent of U.S. adults approve of the job Biden is doing just over a year into office, about the same as previous surveys showing him underwater among the public.

ROUND 7 OF THE '50S TOURNAMENT OF CHART-TOPPERS II COMMENCES!ROUND 7 – THE FINAL Votes due: Sunday, March 6 @ 12:00 pm Eastern. 2 songs, 1 pair, 1 winner! Vote for your favorite. Any ties will be broken via Billboard annual ranking, then back to Round 1 ranking (seed), then Round 1 point total, then Round 1 vote count. See the pair in my next reply post. Format in survey: Poll seed – year - song title – act The survey is at 1950s survey Final My YouTube playlist is at 1950s playlist Final

(VANITY) TOURNAMENT OF CHART-TOPPERS II ('50S) - ROUND 6 ROUND 6 OF THE '50S TOURNAMENT OF CHART-TOPPERS II COMMENCES!ROUND 6 – THE FINAL 4 Votes due: Sunday, Feb 20 @ 12:00 pm Eastern. 4 songs, 2 pairs, 2 winners! Vote for your favorite in each pair listed. Any ties will be broken via Billboard annual ranking, then back to Round 1 ranking (seed), then Round 1 point total, then Round 1 vote count. See run-down of the pairs in my next reply post. Format in survey: Poll seed – year - song title – act The survey is at 1950s...

ROUND 5 OF THE '50S TOURNAMENT OF CHART-TOPPERS II COMMENCES!ROUND 5 – THE GREAT 8 Votes due: Sunday, Feb 20 @ 12:00 pm Eastern. 8 songs, 4 pairs, 4 winners! Vote for your favorite in each pair listed. (You may abstain from any pairs, but please don't overdo it!) Any ties will be broken via Billboard annual ranking, then back to Round 1 ranking (seed), then Round 1 point total, then Round 1 vote count. Past Rounds: Rounds 1A and 1B: Rd 1A, Rd 1B Round 2: Rd 2 Round 3: Rd 3 Round 4: Rd 4

ROUND 4 OF THE '50S TOURNAMENT OF CHART-TOPPERS II COMMENCES! ROUND 4 – SWEET 16 Votes due: Sunday, Feb 13 @ 12:00 pm Eastern. 16 songs, 8 pairs, 8 winners! Vote for your favorite in each pair listed. (You may abstain from any pairs, but please don't overdo it!) Any ties will be broken via Billboard annual ranking, then back to Round 1 ranking (seed), then Round 1 point total, then Round 1 vote count. Past Rounds: Rounds 1A and 1B: 1A, 1B Round 2: 2 Round 3: 3

ROUND 3 OF THE '50S TOURNAMENT OF CHART-TOPPERS II COMMENCES! Votes due: Sunday, Feb 6 @ 12:00 pm Eastern. 32 songs, 16 pairs, 16 winners! Vote for your favorite in each pair listed. No reply, no vote. (You may abstain from any pairs but please don't overdo it!) Any ties will be broken via Billboard annual ranking, then back to Round 1 ranking (seed), then Round 1 point total, then Round 1 vote count. Format in survey: Poll seed – year - song title - act Rounds 1A and 1B: ToCT Rd 1A, ToCT Rd 1B Round 2: ToCT Rd...

(VANITY) TOURNAMENT OF CHART-TOPPERS II ('50S) - ROUND 2 ROUND 2 of the greatest hits of the '50s begins! DUE DATE: Sunday, Jan 30 @ 12:00 pm (Eastern) Round 2 is the start of the play-off tournament style. It starts with 32 pairs of the best 64 songs as chosen by YOU, from Rounds 1A and 1B. Round 1A and 1B: Round 1ARound 1B

TOURNAMENT FOR THE GREATEST SONG OF THE '50S! ROUND 1B – ‘50sThe baseline for the survey is the top 10 hits of each year of the '50s, as compiled by BILLBOARD. This is NOT based on personal preferences, biases, prejudices, or counter-culture fringe-element reactionism. Nor based on weekly charts.Round 1 involves ranking candidate songs in order of preference for each year. Part B, as before with A last week, will be 5 years’ worth of rankings, so hunker down again because that’s 50 songs to handle! (The remaining rounds are handled as play-offs, starting with 32 pairs of songs to...

FREEPERS, LET'S START THIS CONTEST FOR THE GREATEST SONG OF THE '50S! ROUND 1A – ‘50s The baseline for the survey is the top 10 hits of each year of the '50s, as compiled by BILLBOARD. This is NOT based on personal preferences, biases, prejudices, or counter-culture fringe-element reactionism. Nor based on weekly charts. Round 1 involves ranking candidate songs in order of preference for each year. Part A (as well as B next week) will be 5 years’ worth of rankings, so hunker down because that’s 50 songs to handle! (The remaining rounds are handled as play-offs, starting with...