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TGIFF! Its Fiddle Friday and we have Earl Garner playing Crazy Horse (1972). THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Forty years ago this week, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining was released into a handful of theaters and was met with a blizzard of chilly reviews. Most critics in 1980 agreed: Like the director's previous film, 1975's period epic Barry Lyndon, it was all flash and no substance. Pauline Kael wrote in the New Yorker that Kubrick's devotion to technique distanced the audience from the domestic horrors of his story. The Washington Post called it "elaborately ineffective." Gene Siskel said it was "boring" and occasionally "downright embarrassing." Toronto's Globe & Mail: an "overreaching, multi-levelled botch." In its first year of existence,...

A University of Minnesota Law School professor, Francesco Parisi, has won a nearly $1.2 million defamation case against a woman who had falsely accused him of rape. In his blistering ruling on Tuesday, Hennepin County Judge Daniel Moreno wrote that Parisi’s former lover, Morgan Wright, had pursued an “untruthful narrative crusade,” and her “accusations were false, and made with malice.” It is believed to be the largest defamation judgement in Minnesota. The vast majority of the judgement, $814,514 is for economic losses, as well as reputational and emotional damages. Only $100,000 was for punitive damages. Parisi walked out of jail...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw a political tantrum on Twitter, scolding Republicans in the Senate for putting “lives and livelihoods” at risk by not holding a vote on her party’s $3 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the bill “reads like the Speaker of the House pasted together random ideas from her most liberal members and slapped the word ‘coronavirus’ on top of it.” Democrats are trying to keep the hysteria level about the coronavirus ratcheted up in order to panic the Senate into passing trillions in new spending that may not even be necessary —...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump won at least a temporary reprieve from the Supreme Court earlier this week in keeping secret grand jury materials from the Russia investigation away from Democratic lawmakers. The president and his administration are counting on the justices for more help to stymie other investigations and lawsuits. The high court is weighing Trump’s bid to block subpoenas for his tax, banking and financial records. It will soon be asked by the administration to kill a lawsuit alleging that Trump is illegally profiting from his luxury hotel near the White House. And a dispute over Congress’ demand...

The Atlantic appeared to have the right ingredients for a successful 21st-century publication: strong journalism, a thriving digital operation and the enthusiastic backing of a multibillionaire, Laurene Powell Jobs. But on Thursday the 163-year-old publication announced that it would lay off 68 employees, or 17% of its staff, evidence that even the most robust media businesses are vulnerable to the crisis that has ravaged news organizations nationwide. The announcement followed a burst of layoffs in the news media business last week: 155 jobs lost at Vice, 100 at Condé Nast, 90 at The Economist, 80 at Quartz. The cuts at...

NEW YORK - More than 4,300 recovering coronavirus patients were sent to New York’s already vulnerable nursing homes under a controversial state directive that was ultimately scrapped amid criticisms it was accelerating the nation’s deadliest outbreaks, according to a count by The AP. AP compiled its own tally to find out how many COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals to nursing homes under the March 25 directive after New York’s Health Department declined to release its internal survey conducted two weeks ago. It says it is still verifying data that was incomplete. Whatever the full number, nursing home administrators, residents’...

WASHINGTON - “A Trump enemy statement,” he said of one study. “A political hit job,” he said of another. As President Donald Trump pushes to reopen the country despite warnings from doctors about the consequences of moving too quickly during the coronavirus crisis, he has been lashing out at scientists whose conclusions he doesn’t like. Twice this week, Trump has not only dismissed the findings of studies, but suggested - without evidence - that their authors were motivated by politics and out to undermine his efforts to roll back coronavirus restrictions. First it was a study funded in part by...

On its face, an interview of George Soros by the people at Project Syndicate seems a curious set of affairs. Project Syndicate, which describes itself as “The World’s Opinion Page,” occasionally has some good material even though you’re never going to see, say, Ben Shapiro or Douglas Murray contributing a piece. That’s not quite the reason the interview was so curious, however. Instead, there was the fact that Soros’ Open Society Institute played a critical role in establishing Project Syndicate in the immediate post-Soviet era in Europe. It’s a bit like Oprah Magazine publishing an interview with its eponymous founder,...

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The twelve apostles included "Matthew the tax-gatherer" (Matt. 10:3). God can use you despite your sinful past. I remember reading a notice in a local newspaper announcing the opening of a new evangelical church in our community. It gave the date and time of the first services, then added, "our special guest star will be . . ." and named a popular Christian celebrity. In its attempt to appeal to unbelievers or simply draw a large crowd, the church today commonly uses that kind of approach. Jesus, however, used a different approach. None of His disciples were famous at all....

Five thousand five hundred metres above sea level, the Indian Air Force Mi4 medium-lift helicopter fought its way over the great ice sheets shrouding Ladakh, its single radial engine rendered asthmatic by altitudes its Soviet designers had never designed it to perform. Evading bursts of small-arms fire sent their way by People’s Liberation Army patrols perched along the Galwan river, the pilots slowly made their way to the Indian Army’s eastern-most outpost in Ladakh. There was, the pilots would report that morning of 21 October, 1962, no sign of life: Galwan Post, India’s most remote outpost in Ladakh, had been...

By: Hassan.Mahmoudi Elderly people who have experienced World War II say that the Coronavirus outbreak is like a world war because it attacked the whole world. But the war with Coronavirus is more brutal than World War II because in World War II we could go to shelters and escape the German bombing. But, in this war, neither the shelter nor the escape from the cities is useful. However bad that was, though, an Iranian citizen has said that their situation is even worse. “In addition to the coronavirus”, he said, “we are also dealing with a second Coronavirus called...

PADUCAH, KY - Paducah police have charged a man released from prison a year ago with murder, after they say he shot and killed a local special education teacher.

Since the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) established diplomatic relations in 1979, United States policy toward the PRC was largely premised on a hope that deepening engagement would spur fundamental economic and political opening in the PRC and lead to its emergence as a constructive and responsible global stakeholder, with a more open society. More than 40 years later, it has become evident that this approach underestimated the will of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to constrain the scope of economic and political reform in China. Over the past two decades, reforms have slowed, stalled, or...

A chief operative for TIME’S UP Now donated the maximum amount possible to 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign in April, according to Federal Election Commission records. TIME’S UP Now Chief Strategy and Policy Officer Jennifer Klein donated $4,600 to the former vice president’s campaign on April 22, FEC records show. Klein, who has worked for TIME’S UP Now since April 2019, previously worked under former President Barack Obama and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

ATLANTA, GA—CNN has praised Governor Andrew Cuomo's "brilliant" nursing home strategy as it ended in the deaths of thousands of senior citizens, who skew conservative and Republican. The station's hosts said that forcing nursing home residents to admit COVID-19 patients was a "stroke of genius" that all other state governors really should start looking into. "A genius move, brother," said Chris Cuomo as he interviewed Andrew Cuomo, which is not weird or biased at all. "Really inspired. How do you come up with it? You're so great." "Aw, shucks," said Andrew Cuomo. "Stop it!" "No, you stop it." "You stop...

ATLANTA, GA—Sitting at the governor's desk at the Georgia state capitol, Stacey Abrams told reporters she would step down from her governorship if asked to run for vice president. "If Biden asks me to run, I'll need to focus on that full-time," she said. "As much as I love running this great state, if the country needs me, I'll be there." A security guard patrolling the capitol building then entered the governor's office. "Come on, Stacey. Time to go. How many times do we have to have this talk?" "Classic Greg," she said, laughing. "He's a real jokester. Anyway, yes,...

Former Democrat presidential hopeful Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) is set to introduce a bill on Thursday that would create a new federal organization to assist with elections. According to released statements, the legislation would create a “DemocracyCorps” of people who would help individuals register to vote, serve as poll workers, and assist with voter education campaigns. Booker said in a statement: The right to vote is sacred and we should make exercising that fundamental right as easy as possible. Unfortunately, the global pandemic has placed that right in peril, and unless decisive measures are taken to provide safe voting options,...

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, continues to allow nursing homes to admit COVID-19 positive patients even though nursing home residents make up 81 percent of all coronavirus deaths in the state. No state has a higher percentage of COVID-19 deaths from nursing home residents than Minnesota. The Star-Tribune reported the details on Thursday: State health officials and long-term care industry representatives have defended the practice of discharging some COVID-19 patients to nursing homes, saying it is part of a broader strategy to conserve critical hospital beds during the pandemic. Long-term care facilities can provide treatment for coronavirus patients who...