Free Republic

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, one of the most immediate consequences was also one of the most severe: a spike in hunger. Those who lost jobs had less money to buy food. Supply chain disruptions led to empty store shelves. With fewer transportation options, even simple things like traveling back and forth to the grocery store became a lot harder. Suddenly, millions of additional families were having a much more difficult time putting food on the table.

There’s an incredible new viral sensation sweeping the internet, and it’s both powerful and thought-provoking, offering a compelling snapshot of Biden’s America in disarray. So, what’s this intriguing online phenomenon?Norman Rockwell paints modern America.It’s a disturbing yet profoundly provocative modern AI tribute to Norman Rockwell, reimagining today’s disgraceful USA in Rockwell’s iconic style. Whoever conceived this idea is truly ingenious. These images are striking because they place the everyday propaganda we’re exposed to within the context of normal life, revealing the extent of how far we’ve fallen.

Even the bestselling novelist in the world isn’t being spared woke rewrite treatments to spare the delicate sensitivities of modern readers, with Agatha Christie’s works getting the full treatment from her publisher. Christie is famous for creating such timeless sleuths as Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, and the Daily Telegraph reports new editions based on both these investigators have had original passages amended or excised by publisher Harper Collins.

I have been thinking a lot about portraiture over the past few years because of the changes that artists of color have made to what has long been regarded as a conservative undertaking. Museum surveys of Kerry James Marshall, Jordan Casteel, and Jennifer Packer have upended the long-held presumption that portraiture is the domain of White artists and White subjects. As I see it, there is still much to be done in this area to increase self-definition and the visibility of people of difference.

Joe Biden's first press conference as president this week was style over substance. He took advantage of softball questions from friendly media to run through a list of Democratic talking points. It was reminiscent of another president who infamously emphasized style over substance: Jimmy Carter. In fact, Biden's presidency is in many respects the modern reincarnation of Carter's.

There is a popular legend that 19th-century Italian priest Don Bosco, the founder of the Catholic Salesian Order and a revered saint, had a prophetic dream in 1883 that predicted a flourishing, futuristic city between parallels 15 and 20 in central Brazil. Many Brazilians believe the dream of Dom Bosco, as they call him, found fulfillment in the modern capital city of Brasilia, built between 1956 and 1960. Indeed, even before Brasilia was completed, a shrine, located directly on the 15th parallel, was sculpted and dedicated to Dom Bosco. Today’s Brasilia is filled with references to him, including the Santuario...

The office building, located at 51 West 52nd Street at the corner of Sixth Avenue, has served as CBS’ headquarters since it was completed in 1964. ViacomCBS will look to divest Black Rock, the New York headquarters of CBS. ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish made the announcement at the UBS Global TMT Summit in New York Monday. “Black Rock is not an asset we need to own and we believe that money would be put to better use elsewhere," he said. The Eero Saarinen-designed office building, located at 51 West 52nd Street at the corner of Sixth Avenue, has served as...

How Accurate Are Today’s Rifles? by Bryce M. Towsley - Friday, July 5, 2019 More SUBSCRIBE The internet is one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind. It allows us to share the knowledge of the world and to communicate throughout that world. It’s allowed life saving surgery to be performed in remote locations and has brought the truth of freedom to repressed countries. It probably is the single biggest technological and social advancement in the history of man.So why do so many of us use it to argue endlessly with people we don’t know? The internet has...

Meet JFK's first on-airport hotel—complete with midcentury modern guest rooms, a 10,000-square-foot rooftop deck with pool, and a Jean-Georges restaurant. An abandoned airport terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport has been reborn as the TWA Hotel, a stylish stay channeling the jet age. While the once-groundbreaking Trans World Airlines ceased operations in 2001, and the terminal closed in October of that year, the luxe hotel pays homage to the original architecture of the 1962 building designed by architect Eero Saarinen.

A century ago, as Germany was still licking its wounds from World War I, the Bauhaus school of design opened its doors in the eastern city of Weimar. The legendary name still resonates: If you have €237,000 ($273,000) in spare change, you can buy yourself a turnkey “Bauhaus” home, all set to be constructed on a piece of empty land. The ready-made abodes – prefabricated, modern, stylish and typically bright white in color – vaguely reflect the popular conception of the Bauhaus label. But what does it actually stand for today?

Pretty good 20 minute video that breaks down how and why changes to the music industry are killing good music.

Herb Meyer would be commended by the intelligence community for his extraordinary 1983 memo predicting that America was going to win the Cold War — this at a time when virtually no one (other than Ronald Reagan and Bill Casey) thought winning was possible. Today his task remains the same. It should come as a revelation to those glued to the 24-hour news cycle that things aren’t as bad “out there” as we think. The evening news never reports the countless airplanes that land on time and unharmed, or the daily billions who walk through malls and shopping centers without...

The Federalist Society's Georgetown Student Chapter presented its Seventh Annual Lifetime Service Award to Professor Richard A. Epstein on April 1, 2010.His address was titled "Natural Law in Ancient and Modern Guise".

Back from the dead! He has a lot to say to us. LISTEN!

Prager U Video link 5:49 minutes

Those planning to visit New York’s Park Avenue Armory this summer may be overwhelmed by the urge to plug their ears, shield their eyes, or breathe deeply into a paper bag--not what we typically associate from the grand and elegant historic space. But these physical and emotional responses won’t surprise anyone familiar with the British artist Martin Creed, who has invaded the Armory’s entire first floor with the largest-ever retrospective of his work in the U.S.

A teenage prankster has fooled scores of art lovers into believing his glasses were a modern masterpiece in a hilarious stunt at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. TJ Khayatan, 17, was visiting the gallery with friends on Monday when he said he was left unimpressed by some of the modern art on display. He even described one lackluster exhibit as little more than a 'stuffed animal on a gray blanket'. '(We) questioned if this was really impressive to some of the nearby people,' he told Buzzfeed News.

Unlike professional athletes, actors (Gene Hackman) and some novelists (Philip Roth), visual artists don’t usually retire. Or if they do, they don’t announce it. But in 2011, Maurizio Cattelan — one of the most expensive living artists, then at the peak of his career and the subject of an uproarious retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum — told the world that he was finished, fatigued both creatively and by the velocity of the money-fueled art world. During the last couple of years, though, Mr. Cattelan found himself itching to make things in three dimensions again. “Actually, it’s even more of a...

In an art market governed largely by pretense and money, does a masterpiece have any intrinsic value? That question has emerged from a civil case brought by Sotheby’s chairman of Domenico de Sole and his wife, Eleanore, against Ann Freedman, former president of the Knoedler Gallery, the oldest and most respected gallery in New York until it closed in 2011 amidst a massive forgery scandal. Knoedler had sold some forty paintings claimed to be by abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko, all of which turned out to be forgeries created in Queens by a female artist...

Author of a masterful study on the CIA and the cultural Cold War, British historian Frances Stonor Saunders provided a detailed account for The Independent of the CIA’s covert role in sponsoring Abstract Expressionist painting in the United States. The CIA exploited this artistic movement as a showcase of freedom and free enterprise, and to counteract the influence that communist ideology still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West. For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art...