Free Republic

French screen legend, Brigitte Bardot, was born on the 28th of September, 1934, in Paris. She has, in different ways, and for two very different sets of beings, been a great libertarian all her life. I believe her own words prove that: “I’m a girl from a good family who was very well brought up. One day I turned my back on it all and became a bohemian ……. I have been very happy, very rich, very beautiful, much adulated, very famous and very unhappy ……” “It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen ………. I gave my...

Patsy Cline was born on the 8th of September, 1932, in Winchester, Virginia. As her words attest, she is a country music great: “You want me to act like we’ve never kissed, you want to forget; pretend we’ve never met , and I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but I haven’t yet… You walk by, and I fall to pieces.” “I’m gonna walk a little bit of dog.” “Oh, I offended you with my opinion? You should hear the the ones I keep to myself.” “Carnegie Hall was real fabulous, but you know, it ain’t as big as the Grand Ole...

Anne Boleyn was a beautiful woman who died for an effectively polygamous man, Henry the VIIIth. In 1532, on September the first, he made Anne the Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry created this title for her. These words attributed to her suggest she was very much a woman who was ready for a man: “Seduce me. Write letters to me. And poems, I love poems. Ravish me with your words. Seduce me.” Anne married Henry but when he did not have a son by her to be heir to his throne he had her executed. She spoke...

Ingrid Bergman was one of her photographer father’s favourite subjects. She once said, “I didn’t choose acting. It chose me.” When she was two and a half years old her mother died and when she was 14 her father died. Later she said, “The theater was my mother and my father.” and “I have had my different husbands, my families. I am fond of them all and I visit them all. But deep inside me there is the feeling that I belong to show business.” She died at midnight on her birthday, August 29, in 1982. Does that mean something?

Ruby Keeler was born into a catholic family in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, on this date in 1909. She worked hard in tough times: "Dancing in speakeasies was a job, and none of us knew for sure who were gangsters. No one told us, so how could we know? My mother used to come and take me home. We thought nothing of walking home together at two in the morning." She supported Eisenhower's campaign in 1952. In the movie “Dames”, Ruby Keeler’s character Barbara Hemingway said, “I’m free, white, and 21. I love to dance AND I’m going to dance.” Those...

Arma Virumque Me Cano. Rewriting Vergil, I sing of weapons, and of myself as a man. In this land where, as freedom fighter Steve of Wonthaggi tells it, " ......... men have been decommissioned of traditional roles. ....... (Some people) want us to be demonised as non accepting, small minded , woman-bashing shits." That isn't what we are. It is misandry. Lest We Forget.

Sharpshooter Annie Oakley, born On August 13, 1860, Was A Very Tough Woman. In this century, Oakley, for me, is a beacon of deeply American and female toughness and freedom. She said: "God intended women to be outside as well as men, and they do not know what they are missing when they stay cooped up in the house." "I would like to see every woman know how to handle guns as naturally as they know how to handle babies." "Any woman who does not thoroughly enjoy tramping across the country on a clear frosty morning with a good gun...

Melbourne Freedom Fighter Pauline is shocked at the torture of Julian Assange for telling truths. All we mortal human beings usually seem to need to speak our truths as best we can. Godless tyrants now frequently destroy what's best in themselves and too many innocent victims. “I do not play games," Mila Kunis has said, "but always just say what’s on my mind. Ostentatious Godless tyrants now frequently destroy what's best in themselves and too many innocent victims. – for fools. If a man's afraid of your honesty, it means that he is not the one you need."

Norma Shearer (121st birthday today on august 11, tomorrow, American time) said "A woman today is good, or she is bad, according to the way she does a thing - and not because of the thing itself." And “The morals of yesterday are no more. They are as dead as the day they were lived. Economic independence has put woman on exactly the same footing as man.” This is easy to disapprove of. And to be drawn to. Freedom works. Morality? Whose?

On August 8 in 1967 Vivien Leigh died and in 2011 Betty Ford died. Scarlett O'Hara. Blanche DuBois. Alcoholism overcome. Leigh said: "Sometimes I dread the truth of the lines I say. But the dread must never show." Ford said: "It's always been my feeling that God lends you your children until they're about eighteen years old. If you haven't made your points with them by then, it's too late." She used her freedom.and spoke her mind. God Bless Truth

Lady Godiva and her hubby, Leofric, the Earl Of Mercia were both generous to Christian religious houses. He established a Benedictine monastery in Coventry. She gave gold and silver jewelry to monasteries. One necklace was hung on the neck of the Virgin Mary. The first known Rosary-like string of prayer beads was made by her. That's history. Different times. According to legend, LG was deeply troubled by oppressive taxation of the people by her husband and entreated him again and again to lower taxes but he refused. However she persisted and eventually he gave in on the condition that she...

Poet Emma Lazarus was born on July 22nd, 1849 in New York City. She is most famous for the words: “Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/ The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me ....." She also had some great thoughts about the dangers of anti patriotic crap: "“Let our first care today be the re-establishment of our physical strength, the reconstruction of our national organism, so that in future, where the respect due to us cannot be won by entreaty, it may be commanded, and where...

On the 15th of July, 1606, Golden Age artist Rembrandt was born. He looked back for wisdom to the ancient Greeks. The Greek ideas of society are a crucial part of the foundations of The West. In 1951, also on the 15th of July, Jesse Ventura was born in Minneapolis. He is a modern part of the Western Tradition of freedom. A man whose words show that he is appalled by the horrors big government can create” “I want to make government more directly accountable to the people.” “I believe in the American people’s ability to govern themselves. If government...

This post compares the attitudes of Rembrandt and Jesse Ventura, both born on July 15, to suicide. In 1664, Rembrandt showed genuine compassion in his portrayal of the suicide of the raped ancient Roman noblewoman, Lucretia. Her left hand is raised as if to say no to the attack on her person. Her other hand holding a knife ready to destroy herself. Her sweet, beautiful face is both purposeful and powerless in its sad tilt towards the blade. In modern times, in openly discussing the taboo issue of suicide, Ventura has shown a good combination of tough honesty and human...

Respecting and honoring the purity of women is one of the reasons human beings need to be free. Rembrandt (born 15 July, 1606) knew this. Enid Bennett was born on 15 July, 1893, in York, Western Australia. She went from the stage to an acting career in silent films in America. She was beautiful. Over the centuries, respecting women and admiring them as babes are two sides of the one coin.

Born on the 16th 0f July in 1944, actress Barbara Stanwyck's had a wonderful way with words: "Actors only look at themselves." "Eyes are the greatest tool in film. Mr. Capra taught me that. Sure, it's nice to say very good dialogue, if you can get it. But great movie acting - watch the eyes!" "Egotism - usually just a case of mistaken nonentity." "[on the Golden Age of Hollywood] The amount of security that the star had - Crawford, Gable, Tracy, Taylor - was wonderful. Two or three pictures a year written for them by the top writers. It...

Devout Catholic Norris was born in San Francisco on the 16th July 1880. When she was 19 years old, her parents died and she became the head of her family. She went on to become one of the highest paid female writers in America: "Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine." "For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn't know we needed and take us places where we didn't know we didn't want to go. As we stumble through the crazily altered landscape...

Mary Baker Eddy's religious clarity in English is beautiful: "True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us." "Reject hatred without hating." Mary Baker Eddy's religious clarity in English is beautiful: "True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us." "Reject hatred without hating." "Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should...

Ginger Rogers was born on this date 112 years ago in Independence, Missouri. She captivated the world dancing with Fred Astaire. She said: "My mother told me I was dancing before I was born. She could feel my toes tapping wildly inside her for months." and "Part of the joy of dancing is conversation. Trouble is, some men can't talk and dance at the same time." God Bless Ginger.

On this date, July 13, in 2010, George Steinbrenner died, and, much earlier, in 1865, publisher and Whig politician, Horace Greeley, is said to have advised his readers: “Washington [D.C.] is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.” (Has anything changed?) Steinbrenner was born in Ohio and died in Florida, but is most famous for owning the New York Yankees for 37 colorful years. His brash leadership is said to have been...