Free Republic

Long before the rest of us were talking about blue and red America, Tom Wolfe not only recognized the cultural divide; he bridged it. When he began his career in the 1960s, the liberal establishment was more dominant and even smugger than it is today. There were no pesky voices on cable television or the web to challenge the Eastern elites’ hold on the national media. Then along came Wolfe, a lone voice celebrating the hinterland’s culture, mercilessly skewering the pretensions and dogmas of New York’s intelligentsia—and somehow triumphing. How did he get away with it? The most entertaining analysis...

His commission’s work vindicated hours earlier by judges of the state’s highest court on both sides of the aisle, University of Pittsburgh chancellor emeritus Mark Nordenberg said Wednesday evening that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to uphold the newly drawn state legislative maps — the work of his reapportionment commission — made for a “very satisfying moment.” In an exclusive interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mr. Nordenberg, chair of the Legislative Reapportionment Commission, said after an “intense and grueling process” that included 10 months of work and a touch of partisan fury over the results, he hopes his commission’s...

Governor Tom Wolf to announce later Tuesday that masks will be required in all public and private schools starting Sept. 7 HARRISBURG- Masks will be required in all Pennsylvania K-12 schools, Gov. Tom Wolf is set to announce later Tuesday, reversing course amid a statewide COVID-19 resurgence that is filling hospital beds just as students return to class. The state Department of Health order will take effect Tuesday Sept. 7--the day after Labor Day--and will require students, teachers and staff to wear masks when inside, according to two people briefed on the plan....

ERIE — About 150 unaccompanied children found at the southern border of the U.S. have arrived in northwestern Pennsylvania and will be housed at a dormitory at the Pennsylvania International Academy. The children landed Tuesday night at Erie International Airport and were screened by a physician, dentist and nurse, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said. The Pennsylvania International Academy is designated as an emergency intake site by the department. Six children were assigned to each room in the 648-capacity dormitory, with more children expected in the future, the department said. A department spokesperson told the Erie Times-News...

Twitter Users LIVID as ‘Families & Businesses Are Suffering. WATCH VIDEO...

If the nation’s police officers walked off the job today, it would be hard to blame them. Sunday’s anti-cop riots in Lancaster, Penn., have made the current de facto rules of engagement clear: Officers may never defend themselves against lethal force if their attacker is a minority. They should simply accept being shot or stabbed as penance for their alleged racism. In Lancaster, an officer responded to a domestic violence call at a residence where a man had stabbed four people last year. As the officer approached the house, a female escaped out the front door. A man — the...

Wow. Big, big news today coming out of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. There, the County Board Chairman, Jeff Haste, issued an open letter to the people of the state that he was making the decision to re-open his county in defiance of Democrat Governor Tom Wolfe’s absurd, illogical order extending statewide lockdowns through June 5. Several things to note here: Dauphin County is home to Harrisburg, the state’s capital city. It is not some rural backwater, but a robust county with roughly 280,000 residents. Haste himself appears to be a Republican, although his bio page does not list a party affiliation....

When pondering the enormity of the short-term and long-term effects of this destruction and how our government, absent strong intervention, will become increasingly a police state, read this letter from the speaker of the House of Pennsylvania, Mike Turzai, to get a sense of how we were lied to about the impetus for such drastic action. Sadly, 3,106 of our citizens have died due to Covid-19. The average age of those that have passed away is 79 years old.To date, of these 3,106 deaths, 2,108 of these persons lived in nursing homes, personal care homes and assisted living residences. That means 67.9%...

Pennsylvania Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday vetoed a bill to protect unborn babies with Down syndrome from discrimination. The Down Syndrome Protection Act (House Bill 321) passed the state Senate on Wednesday in a 27-22 vote. The bill would prohibit an abortion solely based on a diagnosis of Down syndrome. It would add to a state law that also prohibits discriminatory sex-selection abortions. The Pennsylvania House previously passed the measure by an overwhelming, bipartisan margin. But Wolf today vetoed the legislation to protect babies with Down syndrome. In a statement, the governor called the legislation a “restriction on women...

It seems that the final days of the presidential campaign have made Erica Jong and her friends more than a little anxious. A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention by the reliably sharp-eyed Christian Rocca, the U.S. correspondent of Il Foglio, who published excerpts on his Camillo blog. Basically, Jong says her fear that Obama might lose the election has developed into an "obsession. A paralyzing terror. An anxious fever that keeps you awake at night." She...

Journalism got a lot smaller last week. The media lost two of their biggest names – author and journalist Tom Wolfe and Interview Magazine. Wolfe, who wrote “The Right Stuff,” spent decades making people appear larger than life. Interview, founded by pop culture icon Andy Warhol, used its larger-than-normal format to make its subjects grow in stature. The industry is diminished, left with its war against President Trump as journalists battle over whether an informant sent to spy on the Trump campaign is actually a “spy.” That is part of their larger anti-Trump crusade, but it’s also tied to how...

In 1965 Tom Wolfe visited Princeton University for a panel discussion of "the style of the Sixties." The author of The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, published that year, was scheduled to appear alongside Günter Grass, Allen Ginsberg, and Paul Krassner. Grass spoke first. The German novelist's remarks, Wolfe wrote later, "were grave and passionate. They were about the responsibility of the artist in a time of struggle and crisis." And they were crudely dismissed by Krassner. "The next thing I knew," Wolfe wrote, "the discussion was onto the subject of fascism in America." Wolfe was flummoxed, Grass silent as their...

It's couched in oh so delicate terms, as pretty much everyone mourns the death of the great Tom Wolfe: Tom Wolfe was a reporter, Tom Wolfe was an observer. Tom Wolfe eyed status-seeking. Tom Wolfe skewered the establishment. And through his incredible mastery of words, he entertained the hell out of us. Yes, true enough. But somehow he never got a Nobel prize in literature, despite vastly outranking almost everyone else who has. So I guess I am corrupting things a little when I state the obvious about Wolfe: He did write, he did observe, he did skewer, and by...

 “Dear Mother, I meant to write you before this and I hope you haven't been worried.... I have met some Beautiful People...” ― Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test R.I.P. Tom Wolfe, the wickedly clever writer who viewed American culture with a clear eye, a steady gaze and chronicled it with a creatively fanciful tongue. Although not a Boomer himself, he did designate them as the “Me Generation.” He also coined some 150 additional  terms as cited in the Oxford English Dictionary.  In just one book, published in 1970, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, Wolfe coined three...

Tom Wolfe, the white suit wearing iconic author of works such as “Bonfire of the Vanities” and “The Right Stuff” has died on Tuesday in New York City.

Tom Wolfe, an innovative journalist and novelist whose technicolor, wildly punctuated prose brought to life the worlds of California surfers, car customizers, astronauts and Manhattans moneyed status-seekers in works like “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,” “The Right Stuff” and “Bonfire of the Vanities,” died on Monday in a Manhattan hospital. He was 88.

I’ve decided to reread a Tom Wolfe book during my week away from fake news. But which one? He’s such a prolific writer and the choices span both genres and generations: Bonfire of the Vanities, The Right Stuff, From Bauhaus to Our House…since I just reread - and reported on - The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test last year, during The Occupation, so that’s out: Interestingly, what was “new” journalism then – injecting yourself into the story and relating the facts as you  fancifully see fit, is now just journalism. Once the purview of Fine Arts and English programs, non-fiction today...

PITTSBURGH (NewsRadio 1020 KDKA/AP) – Donald Trump continues to insist that there’s a lot of fraud in the U.S. voting system. Yesterday, Trump lashed out at Republicans who’ve tried to tone him down, calling his own party’s leaders “so naive.” A study by a Loyola Law School professor found that out of 1 billion votes cast in all American elections between 2000 and 2014, there were only 31 known cases of impersonation fraud. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf tells the “KDKA Morning News” that Trump’s claims are “dangerous” and that, “It really could undermine the legitimacy of our system.” “We have...

GOV. WOLF SIGNS PENNSYLVANIA MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL INTO LAW HARRISBURG, Pa. (WPVI) -- Gov. Tom Wolf has signed a bill legalizing medical marijuana in Pennsylvania into law. The bill will go into effect in the next month. Wolf sat surrounded by a crowd of supporters Sunday, including law makers from both sides of the isle, who in a bi-partisan effort lobbied to make medical marijuana legal. "We stopped being liberals and started being problem solvers, and we stopped being conservatives and started being compromisers," said Sen. Daylin Leach (D-Pa.). "And we stopped being politicians and started being human beings." Patients...

Voters in Pennsylvania chose first-time candidate Tom Wolf (D) over Gov. Tom Corbett (R) as their new governor on Tuesday. Multiple outlets called the race for Wolf immediately after polls closed on Tuesday evening. With the loss, Corbett became the first governor in the state’s modern history to lose a reelection race. Wolf, a longtime businessman who turned around his family’s cabinet company, had maintained a strong and steady lead in polling ahead of the election, though the incumbent’s campaign claimed that the tide was shifting and momentum had turned in his favor in recent days. Corbett’s approval ratings in...