Free Republic 1st Qtr 2024 Fundraising Target: $81,000 Receipts & Pledges to-date: $74,563
92%  
Woo hoo!! And we're now over 92%!! Thank you everyone!! God bless.

Books/Literature (Bloggers & Personal)

Brevity: Headers | « Text »
  • 'A Wrinkle in Time' Director Ava DuVernay Uses Racism to Explain Away Bad Reviews

    03/15/2018 5:15:46 AM PDT · by Sir Napsalot · 41 replies
    PJ Media ^ | 3-14-2018 | Tyler O'Neil
    Ava DuVernay, a black activist who directed a whole movie arguing that mass incarceration (a multi-racial problem) is a continuation of race-based slavery, suggested that racism explains why her latest movie, "A Wrinkle in Time," got bad reviews. DuVernay gave a back-handed compliment to Vulture's Kyle Buchanan, who wrote about the "subtle, resonant" theme of the black main character's insecurity about her hair. "You were the only Caucasian journalist of any gender to see it, understand it and seriously ask me about it. Appreciate the chat, the sensitivity and the writing," the director tweeted. snip) Hair is indeed a sensitive...
  • Are You Prepared to Throw Acid in Children's Faces?

    03/10/2018 5:33:19 PM PST · by pcottraux · 36 replies
    Depths of Pentecost ^ | March 10, 2018 | Philip Cottraux
    By Philip Cottraux In George Orwell’s 1984, all freedom is a thing of the past and the world is run by an authoritarian government known as Big Brother. People live under misery and oppression, every move they make being watched carefully by the sinister party, INGSOC. Every room of every home is equipped with a telescreen that monitor’s one’s every move, the slogan “Big Brother Is Watching You” playing over and over again. Even showing a facial expression of slight disinterest over one of the Party’s big announcements can cause one to be arrested for suspicion of “thought crimes.” Our...
  • War and Sex: The Power of Women in the Ancient Greek play Lysistrata

    01/22/2018 11:36:01 AM PST · by GoldenState_Rose · 17 replies
    For years men have waged war and, of course, sex is not a novel concept or construct. Lysistrata portrays women in a powerful role, namely in control of their sex and sex in general. They have authority over the men. When the absurdities of war have taken their men away, the women use sex as a weapon in order to obtain peace. By withholding sex, women come to essentially control their men. The men eventually succumb to the women and yield in their determination to carry out a war. This is interesting because in Ancient Greek tradition, the women are...
  • Photo: A.A. Milne, his son Christopher Robin, and the real Winnie The Pooh, 1926.

    01/20/2018 7:26:25 AM PST · by savedbygrace · 10 replies
    Twitter ^ | 1/18/18 | Marina Amaral
    Intriquing story of AA Milne, Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh.
  • Besieged Memory? Heroism and Suffering in St Petersburg Museums dedicated to the Siege of Leningrad

    01/18/2018 1:20:25 PM PST · by GoldenState_Rose · 17 replies
    University of Leicester ^ | Yvonne Porzgen
    "Heroes are not to be criticized..." The official Soviet narrative of the Second World War used the concept of heroism to imbue war commemoration with an obligation towards the State. Such a concept was designed to make subsequent generations feel inferior to their predecessors and obliged to give of their best. Today, the victory serves as the strongest connection between Soviet and modern Russian patriotism. The paper argues that the memory of the Siege of Leningrad (1941-1944) as treated in museums in St Petersburg today is an appropriation by present-day Russian propaganda of the Soviet narrative. Soviet memorial sites are...
  • GPS Declassified - audio version

    The audio version of my book, GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones, was just released.
  • BBC Exposes 'Wolfman Hack' Michael Wolff's 'Fire and Fury' as Hyped-Up Fiction & Gossip

    01/07/2018 10:36:16 AM PST · by Sean_Anthony · 13 replies
    Canada Free Press ^ | 01/07/18 | Judi McLeod
    It isn't the emperor who has no clothes, it's Wolfman Hack Michael Wolff who has none Gossip monger supremo Michael Wolff is convinced that “the story” he told in his book ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House’ is the one that will take down President Donald Trump. Welcome to the promise of Wolfman Hack, the assassin sent by the Democrats to shut up the most outspoken president in all of U.S. history. “In an interview with BBC Radio on Saturday, Michael Wolff, the author of the dubiously sourced gossip book targeting President Trump, boasted to host Nick Robinson...
  • Fire and Fury, If It Doesn't Bleed, Get David Axelrod to Astroturf It

    01/05/2018 10:02:43 AM PST · by Sean_Anthony · 6 replies
    Canada Free Press ^ | 01/05/18 | Judi McLeod
    Fire and Fury: When you’re trying to pass off outrageous claims in a book planned to make you rich, make sure you get David Axelrod to “astroturf” it before it’s ready to launch. The formula is as surefire as it is simple. Write all the rot you can possibly think of while holed up in the White House West Wing; make claims you have videos to back it up, then get former Obama advisor David Axelrod to astroturf it as legit.
  • Michael Wolff's Trump book hits #1 on Amazon, publisher speeds up rollout plan

    01/03/2018 1:42:25 PM PST · by Berlin_Freeper · 31 replies
    money.cnn.com ^ | January 3, 2018 | Brian Stelter
    The first tell-all of the Trump presidency is out -- but it's not by a former Trump aide. Instead, it's by Michael Wolff, the controversial media columnist who embedded himself inside the White House during the chaotic early months of the Trump administration. Wolff's book "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" will be released next Tuesday, but some copies have already reached booksellers. That's how The Guardian newspaper says it snagged an advance copy -- by buying it from a bookstore somewhere in New England. The Guardian posted a story with some of the highlights on Wednesday morning,...
  • 10 explosive revelations from new Trump book

    01/03/2018 12:56:45 PM PST · by Berlin_Freeper · 46 replies
    bbc.com ^ | January 3, 2018 | BBC
    Donald Trump was "befuddled" by his election win, did not enjoy his inauguration and was scared of the White House, according to a new book. Journalist Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House also purports to lift the lid on Ivanka Trump's secret presidential ambitions. The book details Mr Trump's regard for media titan Rupert Murdoch, though the admiration was apparently not mutual. Michael Wolff's book was reportedly based on more than 200 interviews. But White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the book was filled with "false and misleading accounts". The author says he was able...
  • Ethical Confusion at the University Level [semi-satire]

    12/26/2017 9:24:21 AM PST · by John Semmens · 2 replies
    Semi-News/Semi-Satire ^ | 24 Dec 2017 | John Semmens
    Osaka University’s Kazue Muta alleges that the princes in Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were guilty of sexual assault. “Stories about kissing a comatose person without her permission promote sexual violence,” Muta said. “This is the wrong message for children to hear. These men had no right to force themselves on these women. A better lesson would be a story where these men respect the women’s right to be left alone.” The University of California San Diego is weighing whether to impose disciplinary sanctions on Gregory Lu, a student who who put up posters of Kate Steinle (the young woman...
  • Being there in spirit on Christmas Eve

    12/24/2017 12:33:16 PM PST · by Sean_Anthony · 1 replies
    Canada Free Press ^ | 12/24/17 | Judi McLeod
    “Felicem Natalen Christi!” “Christus Rex” My friend Kathie in Indialantic, Florida, who wrote me that she would be at Midnight Christmas Mass tonight and as usual would be in tears when the priest carries the figure of the Christ Child up the church aisle to place in the Nativity Scene manger, can expect to find me standing there with her, if only in spirit. This Christmas is a special one for Kathie as only weeks ago, she was taken seriously ill from toxins left by kidney stones.
  • The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 and the Breakdown of the Black Family

    12/22/2017 6:54:39 AM PST · by x1stcav · 14 replies
    American Thinker ^ | 12/22/17 | Antonio R. Chaves
    Conservatives tend to regard the growing trend of single-parent families as an issue of personal responsibility, but what if the liberals who blame society are partly right? What if they can point their finger to a bill sponsored by two Republicans and signed into law by a Republican president? Prior to the 1930s, the labor force participation rate for black Americans was roughly equal to that of whites. Following passage of the first federal minimum wage in 1931, these rates started to diverge, and from the 1950s to the present, national black unemployment has remained at double the rate for...
  • Clinton Appointee Tosses Lawsuit Claiming Trump Violated Constitution’s Anti-Corruption Provisions

    12/22/2017 5:24:03 AM PST · by x1stcav · 17 replies
    The Stream ^ | 12/22/17 | Kevin Daley
    A federal court in New York City has dismissed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump that alleged his failure to divest from the Trump business empire violated anti-corruption provisions of the Constitution. U.S. District Judge George Daniels, a Clinton administration appointee, ruled Thursday that the case could not proceed because the plaintiffs could not prove that Trump’s actions tangibly harmed their businesses. The lawsuit was brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), an anti-Trump watchdog group formerly led by Clinton ally David Brock. A number of accomplished lawyers and legal scholars participated in the effort, including Professor...
  • ESPN chief becomes 41st to lose a feud with Trump

    12/22/2017 5:00:47 AM PST · by x1stcav · 12 replies
    Don Surber Blog ^ | 12/22/17 | Don Surber
    Not everyone who feuds with Donald Trump loses his job or reputation. But enough do that no prudent person would risk the humiliation. John Skipper, skipper of ESPN, was not prudent. He did not fire Jemele Hill after she called Trump a white supremacist. Skipper fired Curt Schilling after he called Obama Hitler. But not Hill.
  • Ben Rhodes Muses About Pence, Ryan And McConnell’s Death. Scalise’s Response Shut Him Down

    12/21/2017 2:18:41 PM PST · by x1stcav · 19 replies
    The Daily Caller ^ | 12/21/17 | Jack Crowe
    Former Obama deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes mused about the deaths of top Republicans on Twitter Thursday before being scolded by GOP Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, who was severely injured in the June Congressional baseball practice shooting. Rhodes issued the inflammatory tweet in response to fellow Obama White House advisor Dan Pfeiffer, who joked that he hopes President Donald Trump’s Instagram photo celebrating the passage of the GOP tax reform bill appears on the front page of The New York Times when Trump is indicted. Pfeiffer didn’t specify what Trump would be indicted for.
  • 5 years for ex-Chicago journalist for bomb threats to Jewish groups

    12/21/2017 5:46:26 AM PST · by x1stcav · 2 replies
    AP - Chicago Sun Times ^ | 12/20/17 | Staff
    A former Chicago journalist who admitted cyber -talking an ex-girlfriend and terrorizing Jewish groups with bomb threats has been sentenced in New York to five years in prison. Juan Thompson, who’d been charged in early March in connection with at least eight threats against Jewish institutions in the United States and a bomb threat to New York’s Anti-Defamation League. was sentenced Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. Calling Thompson’s crimes domestic terrorism, Judge P. Kevin Castel sentenced the St. Louis man to a year longer than the federal sentencing guidelines recommended. He cited the eloquence of a victim statement delivered by...
  • Massive Scribal Hangovers: One Ninth Century Confession

    12/17/2017 8:40:13 PM PST · by ameribbean expat · 6 replies
    Medieval Irish scribes were habitually recording their emotional and physical state as they labored at the task of copying manuscripts. These scribal glosses range from pious prayers ("God bless my hands today" Laon MS 26, f18v) to curses on pens, parchment, and careless work by fellow scribes. ***** One Irish ninth century copy of a Latin grammar, the Institutiones grammaticae by Priscian (c. 500), contains alongside the usual prayers and complaints a curious marginal gloss in ogham script. Ogham script was used by the Irish possibly as early as the fourth century AD, mainly in grave monuments scattered over Ireland...
  • Help! Need Help With German Translation

    12/15/2017 6:11:21 AM PST · by notdownwidems · 57 replies
    15 DEC 2017 | David Kielek
    Freepers: I am in the process of translating, for the first time, a non-fiction book from it's original German into English. As a non-German speaker, I am attempting to use Google Translate, and a painstaking paragraph-by-paragraph mode. However, there are some letters in the original text that are not present on an English keyboard. Particularly a letter that resembles a stylized capital B. Not knowing what sound this iteration represents, I have been using guesswork to try to overcome my ignorance, with only mixed results. For instance, the sentence "Junge Burgersohne, die bisher Sportseglermutzen getragen hatten, lie(stylized B)en sie jetzt...
  • Appearance on the John Batchelor Show

    I was on the John Batchelor Show last Thursday talking about Project Vanguard, GPS and my book GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones. www.gpsdeclassified.com