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Ruth King

The Undying Glory of The Ten Commandments By Kyle Smith

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/04/the-undying-glory-of-the-ten-commandments/

Why does Cecil B. DeMille’s retelling of the Moses saga still hold our attention 65 years later?

There are three stages of watching Cecil B. DeMille’s epic of all epics The Ten Commandments.

As a kid I watched it just because it was on. Sprawled out on the floor in front of the TV, I’d always fall asleep before Moses found his way out of the desert. Never once did I make it to the parting of the Red Sea.

As a young adult, I found the movie a bit . . . cringe. Is the double-crossing Hebrew Dathan (Edward G. Robinson) from the Canarsie section of Cairo? Is there a worse actress than Anne Baxter as Nefretiri? Could they have found a less Jewish actor than Charlton Heston to play the Deliverer of the Hebrews? Why is God turning Moses’s staff into a cobra that devours two other snakes, anyway? That sounds more like a Satan kind of thing. And those special effects, which were cutting-edge when the film was released, came to look ridiculous over time.

Still, though: I always liked Yul Brynner’s Rameses, the epitome of an antagonist who inspires respect because he sticks to his sense of honor. “Better to die in battle with a God than live in shame,” he says, as demanding of himself as of others. Baxter’s acting may be campy (“Oh, Moses, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!”) but she makes for one of the era’s classic bitchy vixens. As for that desert scene I never got to the end of as a little kid, it reaches a powerful climax when Moses silently contemplates a lamb who serves as the herald of a life-saving oasis. Is this the holy Lamb of God we all heard of in so many church services? It’s a beautiful, simple image of salvation.

Charlton Heston may have made a preposterously Gentile Jew, but his oaken style of acting grew on me over the years. He’s playing Moses; he’s not supposed to be hip or loose. He shouldn’t come across as a self-questioning, internally tormented Marlon Brando type. He is the Lawgiver, one of the all-time heroes, and he is there to personify fortitude and leadership. Heston is stately, manly, commanding.

Questions The Media Should Ask President Biden About His Call For Economic Sanctions On Georgia By Mollie Hemingway

https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/03/questions-the-media-should-ask-president-biden-about-his-call-for-economic-sanctions-on-georgia/

Given that the United States President has, for the first time in American history, called for an economic boycott and economic sanctions of a member state over dutifully and legally passed legislation, a reader passed along questions he’d like to see the White House press ask of the administration they claim to cover. The questions refer to President Joe Biden’s call for an economic boycott of Georgia over its decision to pass SB202, which will put into place mild election integrity reforms.

Q: Seeing that over the past year, almost 50 percent of small, black-owned business in America have closed for good and seeing how African Americans make up 55 percent of Atlanta, 54 percent of Savannah, and 55 percent of Augusta (where The Masters is played), does President Biden still think calling for an economic boycott and punishment by private companies on all Georgia citizens is a good idea? And will he now call for boycotts of The Masters, the Atlanta Braves, the Atlanta Falcons, and the Atlanta Hawks along with UGA & GA Tech. football? Why or why not?

Q: Does President Biden keep a list of other pieces of state and local legislation of which he does not approve? And over the next few years, if any of that legislation happens to pass and is signed into law, will he always publicly call for an economic boycott/sanctions by private companies so he may punish the local population for what he personally decides are their errors?

Woke capitalism comes to Georgia…but not China Corporations who bow to online mobs in the West should be cutting ties with real authoritarian regimes Stephen L. Miller

https://spectator.us/topic/woke-capitalism-comes-georgia-china-boycott-coca-cola/

Awave of woke corporatism has been sweeping America. The latest example comes courtesy of CEOs being forced to weigh in on SB-202, a Georgia bill to restructure mechanisms of the state’s voting procedures and laws. Spurred on by President Biden — a man seemingly guided by his Very Online chief of staff, who takes his cues from Twitter hashtag campaigns from the likes of the pedophile-enabling Lincoln Project — celebrities and companies are lining up to demand boycotts of Georgia, labeling the new law inhumane and an abuse of basic human rights.

While appearing on CNBC, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey called SB-202 ‘unacceptable’ and ‘a step backward’. He said the company would work to remedy the legislation, through both public and private advocacy. Quincey was born in the United Kingdom, but as a resident of Atlanta he is certainly welcome to his opinion on SB-202. However his virtue-signaling is surface-level.

In March 2020, a Congressional Executive Commission on human-rights abuses in Xinjiang listed Coca-Cola as a major American company with ties to forced labor camps in the Chinese province. Other companies on the list included Nike, Adidas, Calvin Klein, Campbell’s Soup Company, CostCo, H&M (who has since distanced themselves from China and paid a price for it), Patagonia and Tommy Hilfiger. The report went on to specifically name Coca-Cola’s COFO Tunhe sugar facility in Xinjiang as having direct ties to forced labor. It was reported in the New York Times in November of last year that Coca-Cola was one of the primary companies lobbying against congressional legislation targeting companies who engaged with China’s forced labor policies. The New York Times piece said ‘Lobbyists have fought to water down some of its provisions, arguing that while they strongly condemn forced labor and current atrocities in Xinjiang, the act’s ambitious requirements could wreak havoc on supply chains that are deeply embedded in China.’

Quincey will likely not have to answer for these corporate hypocrisies while appearing on friendly media outlets who also do not want to see Chinese threats to their valuable media markets.

NOW HE TELLS US! HUNTER BIDEN TALKS. BYRON YORK

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-now-he-tell-us-hunter-biden-talks

For months Hunter Biden has maintained strict silence about allegations involving his business dealings in Ukraine and China, both when his father was vice president and after. Nothing could make him talk. But now, he’s submitting to media interviews, probably several of them. What changed? The younger Biden now has a book to sell. That’ll do it every time.

In his first interview, with CBS Sunday Morning, Biden admits that the laptop that was the subject of reporting in the New York Post in the final weeks of the presidential campaign could, in fact, be his. Remember that Biden’s defenders denounced the story as “Russian disinformation,” social media giants Twitter and Facebook suppressed it, and many big media organizations did their best to ignore it. Now, though, with a book to sell, Biden says it “certainly” could have been his laptop.

In a true tease, CBS has released just a snippet of the interview between Biden and correspondent Tracy Smith. Here is the entirety of that exchange:

SMITH: Was that your laptop?
BIDEN: For real, I don’t know.
SMITH: I know, but you know this —
BIDEN: I really don’t know what the answer is. That’s the truthful answer.
SMITH: You don’t know, yes or no, if the laptop was yours?
BIDEN: I don’t, I have no idea whether —
SMITH: So it could have been yours?
BIDEN: Of course, certainly. There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was Russian intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me.

How ‘Neanderthal’ Texas and Mississippi defied dire COVID predictions by David Hogberg,

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mississippi-texas-not-seeing-cases-mask-mandates

Mississippi and Texas are defying the national trend of rising COVID-19 cases, despite the fact that they eliminated mask mandates and other restrictions in March.

Gov. Tate Reeves lifted the mask mandate in Mississippi on March 3, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott followed on March 10.

Cases have fallen in Mississippi from a seven-day average of 465 on March 13 to 211 on April 1. In Texas, the current seven-day average is 3,688, down from 4,461 on March 16.

President Joe Biden was harsh in his criticism of the states’ decisions at the time.

“The last thing — the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything’s fine, take off your mask, forget it. It still matters,” Biden said.

One possible reason that the states have seen declining cases even as the pandemic has worsened in states such as Michigan and New Jersey is that the variant from the United Kingdom, known as B.1.1.7, has not yet spread through Mississippi and Texas as it has in other states. That variant is estimated to be 40% to 70% more transmissible than the original virus.

“The reason you’re not seeing a rise in states in the South is that the variant did not seed there as it did in the North,” said Dr. Manoj Jain, an infectious disease physician at the Rollins School of Public Health. “It is almost certain that we will see the same rise in the South that we are seeing in the North.”

The first known cases of the U.K. variant in the United States were reported in Colorado and California.

On Wednesday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said that the U.K. variant now accounted for 26% of new cases and was the predominant strain in five regions — but she did not specify which regions. Chances are that Mississippi and Texas are not in those regions. Confirmed cases of the variant in Mississippi are about 1.3 per 100,000 population, and in Texas, it is 1.4. By comparison, in New Jersey, it is about 4.4 per 100,000, in Colorado, it is 8.1. and in Michigan, it is 12.4. In California, where cases have been declining, variant cases are 2.1 per 100,000.

It is also likely that much of the population in Mississippi and Texas are still wearing masks.

As Biden Readies Iran Talks, Appeasement Is in the Air By Benny Avni

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/as-biden-readies-iran-talks-appeasement-is-in/91466/

As members of President Biden’s team are packing for a Vienna trip next week, eager to reinstate a 2015 deal that was the diplomatic crown jewel of the Obama era, three House members are raising questions about Washington’s involvement in a sanctions-busting deal funneling cash to Iran from South Korea.

President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, CIA director William Burns and Iran pointman Robert Malley put forth a rosy picture, publicly. These architects of the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action insist that before allowing further concessions they’d like to address some of the deal’s weak points.

Can they?

The Senate has yet to confirm as deputy state secretary the nomination of the original deal’s top negotiator, Wendy Sherman. Even now, though, the dynamics that allowed Tehran’s negotiators to dictate terms to her in 2015 are back. As then, the mullahs play hard to get while the administration tempts them with cash.

In late March, Washington reportedly authorized South Korea to release $1 billion in frozen oil funds that went, via Switzerland, into the mullahs’ coffers. Earlier Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps had seized a Korean ship, demanding a release of frozen funds in return for releasing it.

That’s the deal Representatives Bryan Steil, Gregory Steube, and Jim Banks address in a March 25 letter to Secretary Blinken. Will the State and the Treasury Departments allow such transactions “before Iran re-enters into compliance with the JCPOA?” they ask.

Right. Remember the much ballyhooed impasse so widely reported in the administration’s early days? Iran demanded an end to all Trump-era sanctions before negotiations could restart, while Mr. Biden’s negotiators insisted Iran first needs to reverse all its JCPOA violations.

Opinion: The Man Behind China’s Raging Nationalist Campaigns Against the US

tps://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/the-man-behind-chinas-raging-nationalist-campaigns-against-us_

Though it may not be clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is collapsing for many westerners, the Chinese are quite certain the crash of the Chinese regime is imminent as over 375 million Chinese have quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations.

The CCP—which is on the verge of a crisis—has again raised the banner of nationalism in order to save itself.

It has been a regular tactic over the past century when it has been cornered and has had no other choice.

The latest nationalist campaign started with the CCP’s diplomatic system when Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on March 18 that the United States had “deep concerns with actions by China, including Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber-attacks on the United States, [and] economic coercion toward our allies.”

In the midst of the diplomatic dilemma, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League (CYL) joined in to initiate a heated boycott of foreign goods, with the CCP’s official mouthpieces provoking nationalist sentiment along the way.

Taken altogether, this incident shows that Wang Huning, a current member of the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee, who controls not only the CYL but also the CCP’s Publicity Department, and has the official media as one of his tools, that he is controlling the diplomatic system from behind the scenes.

Staged Confrontation in Alaska

At the two-day senior-level Alaska talks between China and the United States on March 18 and 19, the two sides to the talks, led by Chinese foreign policy official Yang Jiechi, and Blinken for the United States, respectively, crossed fire with full force at the beginning of their talks, bringing their conflict under the international spotlight.

Yang spoke for 17 minutes without giving time for translation in between. The most surprising remark he made was: “the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength. The U.S. side was not even qualified to say such things even 20 years or 30 years ago, because the Chinese people don’t buy it.”

CHRISTOPHER RUFO: ON WOKE EDUCATION

https://www.city-journal.org/christopher-rufo-on-woke-education

In an ongoing investigative series, City Journal contributing editor Christopher F. Rufo reports on the spread of critical race theory through American schools.

Senator Cotton’s Stand
The Arkansas lawmaker is introducing a bill to protect the military from critical race theory indoctrination. March 24, 2021
Subversive Education
North Carolina’s largest school district launches a campaign against “whiteness in educational spaces.” March 17, 2021
Revenge of the Gods
California’s proposed ethnic studies curriculum urges students to chant to the Aztec deity of human sacrifice. March 10, 2021
Critical Race Fragility
The Left has denounced the “war on woke,” but it is afraid to defend the principles of critical race theory in public debate. March 2, 2021
Critical “Race” to the Bottom
10 Blocks podcast with Brian C. Anderson, February 26, 2021
Failure Factory
Buffalo’s school district tells students that “all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism”—while presiding over miserable student outcomes. February 23, 2021
Gone Crazy
A New York City public school principal calls on white parents to “subvert white authority.” February 18, 2021
Bad Education
In a Philadelphia elementary school, teachers are putting a premium on radicalism, not reading. February 11, 2021
Spoiled Rotten
Students at the United Nations International School launch an anonymous social media campaign denouncing their teachers as “racists” and “oppressors.” January 28, 2021
“Antiracism” Comes to the Heartland
A Missouri middle school forces teachers to locate themselves on an “oppression matrix” and watch a video of “George Floyd’s last words.” January 19, 2021
Woke Elementary
A Cupertino elementary school forces third-graders to deconstruct their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.” January 13, 2021
Radicals in the Classroom
San Diego’s school district tells white teachers that they are guilty of “spirit murdering” black children and should undergo “antiracist therapy.” January 5, 2021
Teaching Hate
The Seattle school district claims that the U.S. education system is guilty of “spirit murder” against black children. December 18, 2020

“A Certain Madness Amok” In Canada, trans “justice” has gone haywire. Bruce Bawer

https://www.city-journal.org/canadian-father-jailed-for-speaking-out-about-trans-identifying-child

At this moment, a Vancouver postman named Rob Hoogland is sitting in a jail cell in British Columbia. He will be there until at least April 12, when he’s scheduled for a court date. At that time, he may be ordered to remain behind bars for a period yet to be determined.

Has Hoogland killed or robbed somebody? Is he an arsonist? A rapist? No. What did he do, then? Short answer: he tried to save his emotionally unstable daughter from self-destruction.

The long answer begins in the 2015–16 school year, when, as Hoogland recounted in a talk last October, his then fifth-grade daughter (he also has an older son) was getting into trouble at school and Hoogland and his estranged wife (whom he divorced in the spring of 2015) decided it might be good for her to see her school counselor. Since it’s forbidden by the British Columbia Supreme Court to make her name public, she’s referred to in legal documents as “A.B.” (Hoogland is “C.D.,” and the girl’s mother is “E.F.”)

Unknown to Hoogland, A.B. continued to see school counselors well into seventh grade, when one day she suddenly cut her hair very short. At the end of that school year, Hoogland saw that she was listed in her yearbook under a male name. It turned out that the school had been feeding her transgender ideology, and that she’d already begun “socially transitioning” to a male identity under the direction of a psychologist, Wallace Wong, who was encouraging her “to take testosterone.” To this end, Wong referred her to an endocrinologist at the Gender Clinic and Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.

It used to be understood that gender dysphoria is vanishingly rare, typically afflicts boys, and almost always begins to manifest when a child is extremely young. In recent years, however, there’s been an epidemic in many Western countries of older girls who suddenly claim to be in the wrong body. This “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” as Abigail Shrier argues in her important 2020 book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (which I reviewed), is a fad rooted in a number of contemporary social factors.

Many have expressed concern about this trend. Yet transgender activists, eager to increase their visibility and clout, have embraced these girls as real cases of gender dysphoria and have pushed for them to be “transitioned,” pronto. Such transition usually starts with the administration of puberty blockers, continues with massive doses of testosterone, and concludes with “gender-affirmation surgery”—known to today’s self-identified trans teenagers, rather innocuously, as “top surgery” (mastectomy) and “bottom surgery” (metoidioplasty and phalloplasty, which transform the clitoris into something resembling a penis).

A decade ago, subjecting minors to these protocols would have been seen as malpractice and child abuse. But in the last few years, the practice has won widespread political, cultural, media, and judicial support. Never mind that puberty blockers, while presented as harmlessly allowing young teens a “pause,” so that they can ponder their options, can in fact be quite harmful and are almost always followed by hormone therapy; that testosterone, which can cause sterilization, osteoporosis, heart disease, and stunted growth, invariably results in such irreversible symptoms as sterility, facial hair, and a deeper voice; and that “gender-affirming surgery,” of course, destroys healthy body parts that can never be restored.

Taking Notes as the Rot Began Rafe Champion

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/education/2021/03/making-notes-as-the-rot-began/

After his work on culture and racism, Jacques Barzun spent his sabbatical leave in 1943-45 on a study tour to “take the temperature” of education across the nation.  “Under every meridian on this continent I have been privileged to attend meetings of the curriculum committee which was, it seemed, sitting continuously from coast to coast.”

Back in his office, his head full of information about the finance, culture and politics of education, he wrote Teacher in America (1945) in burst of energy. This was a tour de force of the challenges and difficulties in the education system, such as the notion that learning has to be “fun”, misguided fads promoted in teacher training schools and the soul-destroying drudgery of the PhD “octopus”.

The preface of the 1981 edition is a mournful reflection on several decades of regression in the public education system, much of it driven by the graduates of the courses in Education which he deplored in the first edition.

Thirty-five years have passed, true; but the normal drift of things will not account for the great chasm. The once proud and efficient public-school system of the United States, especially its unique free high school for all—has turned into a wasteland where violence and vice share the time with ignorance and idleness, besides serving as battleground for vested interests, social, political, and economic.

This “heartbreakingly sad” development flowed from misguided moves to expand the scope of the schools with a wave of additional responsibilities and progressive innovations to promote personal development, citizenship and sociability.