On May 28, 2014, 13-year-old Athena Orchard of Leicester, England, died of bone cancer. The disease began as a tumor in her head and eventually spread to her spine and left shoulder. After her passing, Athena's parents and six siblings were completely devastated. In the days following her death, her father, Dean, had the difficult task of going through her belongings. But the spirits of the entire Orchard family got a huge boost when he uncovered a secret message written by Athena on the backside of a full-length mirror.After removing the mirror from the wall, Dean discovered a 3,000-word letter written all the way down its backside in black pen. "She never mentioned it, but it's the kind of thing she'd do," her father told People magazine. "She was a very spiritual person, she'd go on about stuff that I could never understand – she was so clever." The moving letter revealed her deepest feelings about her fight with the dreaded disease. "Every day is special, so make the most of it, you could get a life-ending illness tomorrow so make the most of every day," she wrote. "Life is only bad if you make it bad."Although Athena is gone, the mirror now serves as a powerful memory of her undying spirit. "We're keeping the mirror forever, it is a part of her we can keep in the house, it will always be in her room," her mother, Caroline, said. "Just reading her words felt like she was still here with us, she had such an incredible spirit."Athena's full message:"Happiness depends upon ourselves. Maybe it's not about the happy ending, maybe it's about the story. The purpose of life is a life of purpose. The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra. Happiness is a direction not a destination. Thank you for existing. Be happy, be free, believe, forever young. You know my name, not my story.You have heard what I've done, but not what I've been through. Love is like glass, looks so lovely but it's easy to shatter.Love is rare, life is strange, nothing lasts and people change. Every day is special, so make the most of it, you could get a life ending illness tomorrow so make the most of every day. Life is only bad if you make it bad. If someone loves you, then they wouldn't let you slip away no matter how hard the situation is. Remember that life is full of ups and downs.Never give up on something you can't go a day without thinking about. I want to be that girl who makes the bad days better and the one that makes you say my life has changed since I met her!Love is not about how much you say I love you – it's about how much you can prove it's true. Love is like the wind, you can feel it but you can't see it. I'm waiting to fall in love with someone I can open my heart to. Love is not about who you can see spending your future with, it's about who you can't see spending your life without… Life is a game for everyone but love is the prize. Only I can judge me.Sometimes love hurts. Now I'm fighting myself. Baby I can feel your pain. Dreams are my reality. It hurts but it's okay, I'm used to it. Don't be quick to judge me, you only see what I choose to show you… you don't know the truth. I just want to have fun and be happy without being judged.This is my life, not yours, don't worry about what I do. People gonna hate you, rate you, break you, but how strong you stand, that's what makes you… you!There's no need to cry because I know you'll be by my side."This article originally appeared on 04.15.19

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Two legendary singers weigh in after fans are growing increasingly concerned.

It has been years since I gave a rip about anything in the Washington Post. Like the New York Times, the Post has become so dreadfully biased that reading it is downright agonizing. There is little point in reading it, other than as an exercise in masochism or for the explicit purpose of finding a cornball leftist perspective. Colleagues here at The American Spectator will attest that if I need a quote from the Times or Post, I’ll ask them (as suffering subscribers not blocked by the paywall) to cut and paste the text for me. Thus, it was largely by happenstance that I read Post owner Jeff Bezos’ statement to readers explaining why the newspaper didn’t endorse Kamala Harris for president. I saw the Bezos statement posted at RealClearPolitics, a rare and genuinely balanced source that daily does a splendid job of posting both liberal and conservative opinions. RCP displays a remarkable nonpartisanship that the dominant mainstream newspapers are clearly incapable of doing, including the Washington Post. And so, I clicked the Bezos statement at RealClearPolitics, and I was surprised and impressed. If you haven’t read it, I think you’ll agree, unless you’re one of the ideologically deranged readers of the Washington Post (more on that in a minute). Here’s what Bezos wrote under the headline “The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media”: In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working…. We [newspapers] must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose.  Spot on, Mr. Bezos. And as I’ll note below, the Washington Post readers raging at Bezos do so from a position of refusing reality and fighting it like petulant preschoolers. Bezos continued: It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility. Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one. Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy. Indeed, when a purportedly unbiased newspaper endorses a political candidate, it reveals its bias in favor of that candidate and against the opponent. In turn, readers naturally suspect biased coverage. How does that help the newspaper portray itself as objective? It would be better for newspapers to stay neutral or at least try to appear so. Bezos’ statement then dealt defensively with various rumormongering by silly progressives accusing him of a conflict of interest. Those progressives had also focused their ire at a chief executive of one of his companies, who is apparently guilty of the unconscionable sin of meeting with Donald Trump or some such blather. It’s laughable that such a transgression would have liberals foaming at the mouth, given how many executives and staff at the Post and other media organizations have obvious conflicts of interests with Kamala and Biden and Hillary and Pelosi and every big-time lib in Washington. In liberal la-la land, they’re all in bed together. Bezos then returned with this strong closing statement: Lack of credibility isn’t unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue. And it’s a problem not only for media, but also for the nation. Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions. The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves.  Yes, they do. Of course. No question. Bezos stated what ought to be obvious: “Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice, and where better for that voice to originate than the capital city of the most important country in the world?” He finished: “Many of the finest journalists you’ll find anywhere work at The Washington Post, and they work painstakingly every day to get to the truth. They deserve to be believed.” In all, it’s an excellent statement. Jeff Bezos is exactly right about what newspapers ought to be. His statement almost makes me want to start reading the Washington Post again. But here’s the most fascinating part of Bezos’ post. At the end of his statement is an astonishing collection of reader comments from the Post faithful. At the time of my writing, there are over 15,000 comments. And really, they are less comments than temper tantrums. Picture a fat, bratty 5-year-old holding her breath and jumping up and down in the kitchen demanding a chocolate donut for breakfast. Actually, I would call the comments childish, but I have eight kids, and none of them talk like these people. I could fill this website with examples, but I’ll let you click and look for yourself. They’re all against Bezos in the most ridiculous ways. It’s like a parody of liberals. If you received an email from one of these crazies, you’d be even crazier to respond. They’re so poisoned by ideology that they’re beyond the ability to dialogue with anyone who disagrees. Here are just three examples from the five lead comments in my most recent look: Mickey Brazil: “I’m not going to tell you [Bezos] to get out of the road, there’s a truck coming, because you might not believe me. He thinks we’re stupid, just like Trump.” Southernpoliticalbelle: “Sounds to me all you have done is listen to OAN and Fox declaring WaPo as untrustworthy. You clearly do not know the American people. Readers are not going to believe you. Sorry but this was a political stunt or you are too uneducated to filter the garbage. Either way you have cause WaPo to be untrustworthy because it is clearly under the whims of your thumb. If your goal was to destroy this paper then you are right on track.” susan.micari: “Mr. Bezos, you are a coward, pandering to those who would destroy our democracy. What do you know about democracy? You are king of your sweat shop empire. Shame on you. Hedging your bets at the expense of the Post’s readers, reporters, and opinion writers. You have decided that these reporters and opinion writers don’t matter, and we will all suffer for it.” Those are merely three examples. And they’re mild. Grab some popcorn or crack a beer and page through them this evening for kicks. There’s one howler after another. But more important, they prove precisely Bezos’ point, which I’ll express more candidly than he could: The Washington Post is a left-wing newspaper for left-wingers. The bias is so appalling, so repellent, that non-liberals flee it like the plague. If you’re not a liberal, there’s no reason to read the Post. It cannot be trusted because of its bias. If Jeff Bezos is truly trying to change that, then good for him. But as he does, the Post’s looney liberals will be kicking and screaming. READ MORE: There Is a Reason Michelle Obama Wasn’t the Nominee. This Is It. Liberals Are in Love With the ‘F’ Word The post The <i>Washington Post</i>’s Looney Liberal Readership appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Spoiler alert: in that joke, “Why did the chicken cross the road?,” neither a chicken nor a road existed. The imagination of the guy who made it up did. It was a joke, after all. At Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Tony Hinchcliffe talked of his mom, an Ohio resident, eating cats and dogs in the wake of the influx of Haitian immigrants. He pondered Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, becoming the next O.J. Simpson. He described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” It sparked the official, non-samizdat media to finally recognize Tony Hinchcliffe’s existence. The New York Times, for example, claimed in one article that Hinchcliffe “may not be widely known” while in another called him a “popular” comedian. And in fake-news fashion, so many journalists pretended as though they do not know the difference between a joke and reality — and, worse still, that Hinchcliffe does not either. An MSNBC headline informed, “Tony Hinchcliffe is part of the right’s humor-to-hate machine.” Swifties, Puerto Ricans, Republicans, Democrats, and dog-eaters took to Twitter to — what else? — complain. Tim Walz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez interrupted a day of playing video games to critique the performance; the former called him a “jackwad” while the latter described him as an “A-hole” (saying it as spelled) and labeled his routine “super upsetting.” Our own Dov Fischer joined the pig pile. Scott McKay hear-hear’d him here. “I guess if the comedian were a top headliner, that could make sense,” Fischer wrote of Hinchcliffe’s appearance. “Instead, they got some podcaster named Tony Hinchcliffe.” Some podcaster, huh? Hinchcliffe’s Kill Tony seat-kill sold out Madison Square Garden twice this summer. He stole the show at the roast of Tom Brady, the most-watched program on Netflix this year. His YouTube page boasts 376 million views — for context, more than double the number viewers of the YouTube page of the president of the United States. Hinchcliffe sounds like he’s not Fischer’s bag. That’s fair (Jerry Lewis is not mine). But it seems unfair to dismiss arguably the hottest comedian in the United States as not a “top headliner.” He gets it right in regarding this type of comedy as a bad fit for a political rally (most good comedy is bad politics). He gets it right in placing the blame primarily on Donald Trump’s people for inviting an insult comic to a campaign event (maybe invite a peckish Siberian tiger next time and see what happens). And he grasps something in comparing Hinchcliffe, albeit unfavorably, to Don Rickles (Exhibit A that Hinchcliffe roasts better). But Fischer and Hinchcliffe’s other critics miss who he really takes after in a much more important way: Johnny Carson. The Tonight Show once catapulted struggling comedians to success. Political correctness and a celebrity obsession nudged comedians if not off that show then toward its periphery. Kill Tony filled the void created once late-night programs featured fewer up-and-coming standups and Saturday Night Live seemingly attached political litmus tests to new hires. One could glean the impression from such programs that the younger generation lacks a sense of humor or that woke hysteria destroyed comedy. Kill Tony quickly disabuses viewers of such mistaken notions. This man platformed a type of comedy (the funny kind) deplatformed from network television. If you laugh, you love him for this. Stars created by Kill Tony include bespectacled Belgium stick-figure Ric Diez, whose first joke out of the gate involved his reaction to the microphone stand. “Oh, wow!” he meekly exclaimed. “A statue of me.” Diez’s rival, Hans Kim, went from an unknown to a hot nightclub and theater attraction because of Kill Tony. “A lot of people make fun of Asians because we like to eat dogs, which I understand is very shocking because in America, dogs are treated like family members,” he observed. “But in Asia, we treat our family members like family members.” “In ’hood monopoly,” David Lucas explained, “every space is: go to jail.” The game pieces, he noted, include a Chuck Taylor, a pit bull, and a Cadillac with a spare tire. Nobody gets to buy Atlantic Avenue or Park Place — they can only rent. Most of the names pulled from a bucket for a chance at 60 seconds of comedy do not “kill” Tony but instead bomb. It at times recalls The Gong Show or Make Me Laugh. Sometimes Hinchcliffe and the panel of celebrities and comedians laugh at rather than with the wannabes, which helps explain Fischer’s assessment: “This guy is genuinely vicious and hurtful.” If that were so, then why does everybody leave his shows smiling? Are so many people really sadists? Kill Tony clearly runs as an entrepreneurial enterprise, but not to a degree that altruistic motivations, or outcomes, do not come into play. Leave aside the happy audience. Dreams come true on the stage. And, for whatever reason (pain brings a sort of gallow’s humor?), some of the funniest comedians showcased on the series endure debilitating diseases. Ahren Belisle suffers from cerebral palsy. He can’t talk. Yet the mute Canadian somehow parlayed his Kill Tony spots to a run on America’s Got Talent. Fiona Cauley, a standup comedian who cannot stand up due to Friedrich’s ataxia, calls herself “a big ramp enthusiast” in using her condition for comedic effect. Martin Phillips generally forgoes jokes about his muscular dystrophy and instead explores such topics as how monstrous Big Bird appears to his kind and how Texans pay a lot of money to look gay. The currency of Kill Tony is funny. Nobody laughs at Phillips, Cauley, or Belisle’s routine out of sympathy or solidarity. They laugh because they are funny. Where else but Kill Tony would their talents have received such exposure? So, even if one dislikes Hinchcliffe’s brand of insult humor, his primary significance comes not in his own comedy but in exposing tens of millions of people to other deserving comics — comics who care about laughter and not striking the right ideological tone — otherwise toiling in obscurity at comedy night at the local Holiday Inn bar. “There was a fellow by the name of Casey Rocket,” a previously depressed attendee at the Forum Kill Tony show in Los Angeles told an interviewer. “He made me laugh so hard for about seven minutes I forgot I was sad, I almost peed my pants, I couldn’t breathe. I realized the power of comedy. It’s more than just jokes, you’re changing lives out there, you’re changing the chemical balance of people’s brains.” It would be terrible if Tony Hinchcliffe’s jokes at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden event hurt Republican electoral outcomes. It would be worse if political concerns hurt comedy more than they already have. Cutting the top marginal rate from 37 percent to 35 percent matters. It does not matter as much as laughter. Some things are more important than politics. READ MORE: There Is a Reason Michelle Obama Wasn’t the Nominee. This Is It. Liberals Are in Love With the ‘F’ Word The Left Threatens Violence If Trump Wins The post In Defense of Tony Hinchcliffe appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

It's officially Cotton Candy grape season, and we don't just mean in the produce section. Aldi's famed frozen Cotton Candy grapes are heading back to stores!

from Gold Seek: In a recent episode of the Money Metals podcast, host Mike Maharrey interviews economist Judy Shelton, a prominent advocate for returning to the gold standard and a former economic advisor to President Trump. Shelton, who has a new book, Good as Gold: How to Unleash the Power of Sound Money, shares her views […]