Arizona edges to front of states eyeing blockchain technology – Arizona Daily Star

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Before Arizona could be recognized as a leader in blockchain technology legislation there was one major challenge helping lawmakers get your head around exactly what the technology is.

It was very difficult, you know, trying to explain to people, said Arizona State Rep. Jeff Weninger, R-Chandler. You never want to vote for something that you dont fully understand and this is, to say the least, a tough thing to get your head around.

Weninger sponsored a bill that makes Arizona one of a handful of states to accept electronic signatures on contracts, a law that is made possible through the use of blockchain.

Blockchain is best known as the technology behind bitcoin, the system that lets people use digital currency in place of standard government-issued money. The technology was created in 2009 as a decentralized, replicated, peer-to-peer review network to serve as a public ledger for bitcoin but quickly found other uses in online data verification and the transfer of value.

Weninger called his bill a little stab at getting acceptance and understanding of the new and often misunderstood technology that backers say could ultimately lead to more-secure voting, money handling, identification and more.

Lawmakers have called the new technology bulletproof, saying that it adds a level of trust in the management of records and identity management, among other applications.

One such application is the electronic signature law passed by Arizona. Using blockchain, an encoded, or smart, contract allows the technology to act as a witness to an agreement, validating, overseeing and imposing terms of the contract with no need of a middleman or third-party organization.

In March, Gov. Doug Ducey signed Weningers bill, HB 2417, to recognize signatures and smart contracts secured though blockchain as valid forms of contracts.

Ducey said the smart-contract bill shows Arizona to be a state thats really leading the way in embracing and recognizing these new technologies, said Patrick Ptak, a spokesman for the governor.

Blockchain technology is new and emerging, Ptak said. It kind of started out as an application for Bitcoin but now industries across the spectrum are seeing new applications for it from finance to healthcare to law and its something that we think has a lot of potential. I think that were just barely tapping its potential uses and applications.

Blockchain works by recording transactions whether they be digital currencies, smart contracts or something like an electronic vote as blocks of data, with each updated added to the others chronologically hence a blockchain.

This encryption algorithm of blockchain has been called un-hackable due to the nature in which it distributes information to multiple parties creating a shared database. Because blockchain is decentralized, there is no one central computer that can be hacked. If one computer were to be hacked, every other computer running that database would cry foul.

What makes blockchain appealing is that it allows a standard for trust for online transactions, or a starting point for untrusted parties to carry out transactions without a normal intermediary such as a bank.

In Arizona, lawmakers are looking forward to numerous possibilities that a future with this technology could provide.

It (blockchain) adds a level of trust for a citizen to know that their data is being properly managed, but also having access to knowing who and for what purposes their data is being looked at, said Tommy Leander, a legislative assistant for Rep. David Schweikert, R- Fountain Hills.

Schweikert in February helped launch the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, saying it is critical for members of Congress to begin comprehending both their current applications and future use cases. Weninger also credits Schweikert with inspiring the smart contract bill.

Weninger, who said he shared YouTube videos of TED Talks with fellow lawmakers in an effort to help them understand blockchain, said that despite the confusion his colleagues were eager to be at the forefront of this technology.

Democrats and Republicans like being at the tip of the spear of new technologies and new ways of doing things, he said.

Weninger added that besides business applications, he hopes to see more government applications of blockchain in the future.

I think the technology will get better, I think the proof of concept will get better and here in Arizona well keep expanding, he said

As one of a half-dozen states to embrace blockchain legislation, Arizona hopes to see new companies come to the state, Ptak says.

Arizona, in general, has been a national leader in being the first to recognize and embrace these technologies and youre seeing the result in that a lot of tech companies are now coming to Arizona and coming to the Phoenix area, Ptak said.

Cronkite News reporter Joe Gilmore contributed to this report.

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Arizona edges to front of states eyeing blockchain technology - Arizona Daily Star

Tester talks technology with local business leaders – The Bozeman Daily Chronicle

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A group of high-tech business owners joined Montana Sen. Jon Tester on Thursday at the Bozeman Public Library to discuss how the state could continue to attract and retain high-paying jobs for the state.

The forum, Tester said, was to hear from the technology community about issues important to them. The senator sat alongside a panel of four business owners in the Gallatin County area and heard from each of them before taking questions from the audience.

To the folks out there doing, I want to say thank you, he said.

The panel included Stan Abel, chief executive officer of SiteOne Therapeutics; Bill Stoddard, founder of NorthFork Financial; Pat LaPointe, managing director for Frontier Angels; and Ali Knapp, president at Wisetail. The four presented what their companies do and offered their suggestions on improving the business climate to the senator.

Traditional tech-hubs like San Francisco, San Diego and Cambridge, Massachusetts, are getting crowded and extremely expensive, Abel said. The time to try to attract more businesses in Montana is ideal, he said.

All our competitor states are recognizing this opportunity that there are people that want to get out of those major tech-hubs, Abel said. South Dakota, North Dakota, Utah, Texas, Nevada I mean, theyre all offering aggressive incentives to leave those states and put their business there.

Knapp said the state should extend STEM science, technology, engineering and mathematic programs across the state to rural areas. Montana is really great at having the programs in Bozeman and Missoula, she said, but in rural areas these programs are lacking or dont exist.

She also said that public lands were a big recruiting tool for companies and should be protected.

This has been a huge advantage for us, and its something that we just need to keep in mind to continue recruiting methods, she said.

Other suggestions included upgrading infrastructure, providing more opportunities to seek start-up funding, mental health services in rural areas and bridging the gap to rural parts of the state.

Lance Trebesch, CEO of Ticket River in Harlowton, said that rural Montana is in decline. The company is the biggest employer in its county and aims to employ people from Harlowton, he said.

But its tough, Trebesch said. And its tough because the education. The schools in these rural places, and you know this very well, are not getting enough funding.

Tester praised Trebesch for establishing a business in a rural area like his hometown. He acknowledge that rural school systems need to have better opportunities for kids.

Its a fundamental building block for economic development, Tester said. If you dont have a good K-12 system, no families are going to move there.

The discussion was centered on improving the business climate in the state, but the senator also took the opportunity to talk about the opioid problem in the state. Tester directed his attention to Abel and the companys pursuit of non-opioid and non-narcotic pain medication.

The drug and opioid problem is a social catastrophe happening right now, Tester said. The senator asked Abel if there was anything at the federal level that can be done to help speed up a eight-to-10-year process in developing the non-opioid pain medication.

Its going to take all of us to combat this problem, but it will take us some time, Abel said.

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Tester talks technology with local business leaders - The Bozeman Daily Chronicle

This Entrepreneur is Bridging Small Business Technology Gap – Entrepreneur

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You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

Bengaluru-based G7 CR Technologies India headed by CHRISTOPHER RICHARD is among the most prominent small business technology enablers in India. It helps SMEs with free custom application development for their business process automation even as SMEs pay only hosting charges. The company has built over a dozen applications like payment tracking system, leave management system, and recruitment management system. Richard details out more about his vision for SMEs.

From a freelance IT consultant to running G7 CR Technologies, how the transition happened?

I started as a technology consultant for leading brands like Microsoft and Accenture. I was brought in as a technology consultant at G7 InfoTech, part of G7 Group of companies and helped it to become a 700-people company. I took over that company in 2012 and rebranded it to G7 CR Technologies India. The organization has seen a growth of 500 per cent with 100 per cent customer retention. I am also the President of Karnataka Small & Medium Business Owners Association to empower, enable and support SMEs.

What differentiates you from existing software development businesses?

We are the only company globally offering software development for SMEs at no cost. Also the charges for hosting are as low as Rs 2k-6k per month. We manage the entire life cycle of digitalizing an SME, starting with building affordable technology solutions, driving adoption and extending support services. Our earning comes from the incentives paid by cloud service providers. My aim is to bring a disruptive change in the technology industry andoffer innovative technology solutions to every SME.

So how do you derive value for yourself?

Deriving value can be subjective to every business. You can only focus on your growth by extracting maximum from your customer or you can do that by making your growth a part of their growth. We choose latter. We have delivered smart technology solution for over 300+ businesses. Since our earnings are from the cloud incentives, each time our customer acquires a new customer or adds an employee, our revenue grows.

GST has opened up tremendous opportunity for software development. Have you tapped onto it?

Yes, we are working with a handful from the first batch of GST Suvidha Providers (GSP) who have hosted with us. We are engaging with two dozen from the second batch. We work with 270 SMEs who are very small in size whom we bill as low as Rs 600 per month. They might not be on radar of large corporations or GSPs but certainly on ours. We have initiated strategic engagement with GSPs to help these SMEs leverage an economical technology platform.

Any innovative solution you are coming up with?

We have built a revolutionary learning platform called Machine for Learning (M4L) which had over 2,000 active users in 60 days of its launch. It gives you virtual machines of any size with the software required for practice preinstalled on it. A lot of investment and maintenance is required otherwise by engineering colleges and corporate to set up such labs for practical training purposes. The charges for using the platform are on pay-as-you-go basis with only per minute billing. In addition, it can be accessed 24*7 from any location and device. M4L is built to help businesses cut capital expenditure, nullify hardware depreciation and administrative efforts.

(This article was first published in the Augustissue of Entrepreneur Magazine. To subscribe, clickhere)

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This Entrepreneur is Bridging Small Business Technology Gap - Entrepreneur

New money means new faculty and technology at FAU, FIU – Sun Sentinel

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South Floridas state universities have added faculty, classes, research and technology after receiving millions of bonus dollars from the state.

Students at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton can expect more instructors and more summer classes. At Florida International University, there will be increased career services for students, including a free post-graduation career course. The Honors Program will be expanded and more scholarships will be offered to undergraduates as well as medical and law students.

The money comes from the $121 million that the Legislature allocated for a world class faculty and scholar program and to improve the states medical, law and business graduate schools. FAU got $6.6 million; FIU got $16 million.

The schools presidents sent letters to Gov. Rick Scott this week explaining how they were using the funds.

Our administrators, faculty and staff continue to work with passion and focus to find new efficiencies and guide our students toward success, first in their academic experience and later in their chosen career, FAU President John Kelly wrote.

He said new faculty were added to work in areas that are a major focus for FAU, including neuroscience, ocean and environmental science and engineering. That has enabled FAU to add more courses, especially in the summer, where credit hours have increased by 10 percent in recent years.

Kelly said he wants to support efforts to increase student success. In recent years, the university has added more counselors and math tutoring programs, while updating its software to better track how students are doing. The efforts have helped FAU increase its graduation rates from 40 percent to 49 percent in the past three years.

The university also wants to expand research opportunities for students. After Kelly arrived in 2014, he initiated a program where undergraduate students work with faculty to conduct research. He said FAU students have been involved in 4,500 research experiences in the past year. He also wants to provide more stipends for graduate students to conduct research.

FIU is using its $16 million mostly on one-time investments to improve graduation rates and faculty recruitment and retention, President Mark Rosenberg said.

This is a holistic approach to ensuring we graduate our students on time, help them succeed in finding a great job and career path, providing world class graduate and professional school opportunities and recruiting and retaining faculty who are excellent teachers and researchers, Rosenberg said.

The $121 million in statewide funding was included in the $82 billion state budget for 2017-18, but a shadow was cast over the new programs when Scott vetoed a policy bill that would have made more permanent the world-class scholar and graduate-school initiatives.

In a letter to each university last month, Scott urged the schools to spend the funds judiciously and invest this funding in initiatives that will help your students graduate in four years with less debt and the ability to get a great job.

And he noted that although the programs were designed to be in place for subsequent years, funding for the future was uncertain.

The News Service of South Florida contributed to this report.

stravis@sunsentinel.com, 561-243-6637 or Twitter @smtravis

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New money means new faculty and technology at FAU, FIU - Sun Sentinel

Carl Bernstein sees progress in quest to have Republicans openly defy Trump – Washington Examiner

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After calling on reporters to investigate "how pervasive" talk is among top GOP officials and members of the military about President Trump's ability to lead, Carl Bernstein noted on Thursday that he is seeing progress as prominent Republicans are openly defying the president.

Bernstein shared an article about Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., about him saying on Thursday that Trump hasn't demonstrated the "competence" or the "stability" he needs to succeed.

"Important Republicans perhaps not so private anymore re: @realDonaldTrump's "stability" and fitness to be POTUS," Bernstein tweeted.

Earlier in the week, Bernstein, best known for his investigative reporting that shed light on the Watergate scandal leading to former President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974, said there is private chatter among top Republicans, conservatives and intelligence and military leaders questioning Trump's fitness to be commander in chief.

"Reporters should find out how pervasive such talk may be," he said.

As Trump has waffled on his willingness to condemn, by the name, the white nationalists and neo-Nazi groups involved in last weekend's violent clash with counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va., several Republicans have joined Democrats in condemning him.

Of those Republicans who have come out and told the media about their dismay with the president was Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who told Vice News that Trump's 'moral authority is compromised' after his latest Charlottesville comments on Tuesday, when he said there is "blame on both sides."

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Carl Bernstein sees progress in quest to have Republicans openly defy Trump - Washington Examiner

Montella happy with Milan progress – FourFourTwo

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Vincenzo Montella is pleased with the state of AC Milan heading into Sunday's trip to Crotone in Serie A.

AC Milan head coach Vincenzo Montella is happy with the progress his new-look side have made ahead of their Serie A opener.

Milan's revolution continued with a 6-0 rout of Macedonian visitors Shkendija in the first leg of their Europa League play-off tie on Thursday.

It has been a busy off-season for Milan, who have overhauled their squad with the signings of Leonardo Bonucci, Lucas Biglia, Andrea Silva, Hakan Calhanoglu, Ricardo Rodriguez, Mateo Musacchio, Andrea Conti, Franck Kessie and Fabio Borini.

Montella is pleased with where Milan are at heading into Sunday's trip to Crotone as they look to dethrone Italian champions Juventus.

"I'm not kidding myself that the hard work is done, because this is practically a whole new squad, but the lads are working hard and I am happy," Montella said.

"There are players who need to integrate and let's not forget Serie A is more tactical and therefore more difficult than many other leagues. It'll be a real battle against Crotone on Sunday.

"I am very happy with the way this team is developing. We are only at the beginning, but it's a promising start. It's also gratifying to see the visceral enthusiasm of the fans in the stadium. It gives us an extra boost.

"Naturally the game immediately got on the right track and was perhaps better than we expected, so we had some dips in concentration that we ought to avoid in future. In general, it was a very positive evening. We won't take the second leg for granted, as every game is an opportunity to improve.

"The only negative of the evening was Jack Bonaventura's injury, but we hope it's nothing serious. He had a twinge in his thigh."

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Montella happy with Milan progress - FourFourTwo

Carrying candles and singing, thousands gather to reclaim the Rotunda – The Daily Progress

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It was a secret message. A phone call, a text or an invitation in real life, perhaps whispered: Come to Nameless Field at 9 p.m. and please pass this message on to anyone who might be interested, and please do NOT pass it on to anyone who wont be.

The goal was to rally Charlottesville for a peaceful candlelight march on the University of Virginia Grounds. Thousands of community members sought to reclaim the power of a flame-lit gathering several days after white nationalists gathered at the Rotunda.

This was organic, said Dean of Students Allen Groves, from students and faculty and community members who said they wanted to do something and take back the pathway that these people attempted to take away from them.

In front of the university Lawn, their brightened faces smiling, the crowd sang songs and embraced each other after events that unfolded Friday and Saturday.

Violence had marred the city. Clashes broke out between rally goers and counter-protesters. Police had to shut down the event. People were hurt, and three were killed.

Preparing to enter the processional Wednesday, Francis Caruccio, a father who was with his wife and two children Wednesday evening, said they came to stand up for whats right in Charlottesville.

Asked how he handled explaining why things turned out the way they did Saturday, he said it is generally easy to explain to his children the difference between right and wrong.

+5

More than 1,000 people gathered at the Paramount Theater in downtown Charlottesville to remember Heather Heyer, 32, who was killed Saturday.

Weve had a lot of conversations about it. Some of them started before this last week, he said, but they certainly got a lot harder this last weekend.

We dont want these neo-Nazis and white supremacists in our community, said University of Virginia professor Walt Heinecke. They committed murder.

Unlike in May, when white nationalists held a surprise rally in Charlottesville that ended with a short nighttime torchlight protest at the foot of the citys Robert E. Lee statue, people died last weekend Heather Heyer and two state police troopers, H. Jay Cullen and Berke M.M. Bates.

The two state officers, who were aiding law enforcement efforts by helicopter, were killed in a crash hours later in Albemarle County. Officers patrolling the city Wednesday could be seen with black bands covering their badges in honor of their two compatriots.

I think that people have been looking for a place to come together in the spirit of unity and to show that this is still our town, said Tom Perriello, a former congressman and candidate for governor and district congressman.

Our town is a diverse and inclusive place. And I also think its one where you see town and gown come together here in a very powerful way, he said. We want this to be the picture of who we are and who were going to be.

The previously appointed attorney is one of 13 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the city over its decision to remove the Lee statue.

Heyer was killed when a car plowed into a crowd of protesters during the Unite the Right rally Saturday 19 others were injured. The alleged murderer is said to have shown Nazi sympathies in the past, and had come to Charlottesville to participate in the rally.

Throughout Wednesday, starting with a memorial service at the Paramount Theater in the morning and at the candlelight procession, people wore purple in honor of Heyer.

It all started Friday, when approximately 300 white nationalists and their supporters marched through Grounds, once again chanting white supremacist and Nazi rhetoric such as You will not replace us, blood and soil and Jew will not replace us.

Heinecke, who is currently out of town, was among the dozens of reporters and other observers who saw the white nationalists come upon a group of students who had locked arms and surrounded the statue of Thomas Jefferson at the front of the Rotunda.

A day of twists and turns by local and state politicians underscored how Saturday's white nationalist rally is rapidly resetting the politics of memorials.

Within moments, violence erupted. A video of the incident shared by the student activist group UVa Students United shows a woman frantically crying for help, alerting people that torches were being thrown.

Heinecke said he and Groves students had been there and that Groves was hit by one of the torches.

I saw a lot of violence that night. I was scared to wade into that mob of Nazis, Heinecke said. I have to say those students were the heroes of that particular action. They were yelling Black Lives Matter while they were screamed at and beaten.

Groves declined to say much about the events Friday but said he was moved by the community coming together.

This is a moving tribute to the real community that we know Charlottesville is, he said. This means a lot of me, and I think it means a lot to everyone in this community.

A roundup of events and stories following the violence in Charlottesville on Saturday.

A student who was there, Ken King, said that it wasnt just students there. She said a coalition of about 30 students from across Virginia were joined by activists involved with the Black Lives Matter and anti-fascist movements.

As soon as we saw the torches on top of the Rotunda, it was actually horrifying, she said. They were spitting at us and slurring at us.

King said she was affected by pepper spray that was used after a brawl broke out next to her. She said that the fighting started when of the white nationalist torchbearers shoved someone and inadvertently had the tiki torch knocked out of his hand.

It set that guy off, she said. He just began throwing punches.

It was moments later that the fighting stopped. The white nationalists took over the Jefferson statue and celebrated by giving fascist Nazi salutes and raising their torches, whooping and hollering. The police then declared an unlawful assembly and cleared the plaza.

Wednesday afternoon, King and several students who participated in the counter-protest met with Groves to present a list of demands for the university to be more proactive in preventing racialized political violence and hate speech on Grounds.

The list includes a call for the university to ban white supremacist hate groups from the university and denounce leaders like Richard Spencer, an alumnus of the university.

We need next concrete steps to be taken, she said, adding that shes glad that the university demonstrated support by allowing the candlelight vigil Wednesday.

A vigil is always a good way to show support and solidarity while theres mourning.

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Carrying candles and singing, thousands gather to reclaim the Rotunda - The Daily Progress

Houston backs bullet train, inks deal to help progress – Chron.com

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Texas Central Partners said the train will likely use elevated tracks in urban areas, such as Dallas, shown in the rendering.

Texas Central Partners said the train will likely use elevated tracks in urban areas, such as Dallas, shown in the rendering.

Houston backs bullet train, inks deal to help progress

Backers of a Texas high-speed rail line on Thursday announced for the second time this week what they called significant progress on the controversial line, inking an agreement with Houston officials, detailing the work to come.

At City Hall, Houston and Texas Central Partners announced the signing of an memorandum of understanding, which commits both sides to share environmental surveys, utility analysis and engineering related to the project and surrounding area and work together to develop new transit and other travel options to and from the likely terminus of the bullet train line.

NEW RULE: Texas ban on texting while driving takes effect Sept. 1

In the memorandum, Texas Central notes the likely end of their Houston-to-Dallas line will be south of U.S. 290, west of Loop 610 and north of Interstate 10. The exact site has been long suspected as the current location of Northwest Mall.

The train will run on its own tracks, separated from roads and elevated in most places in the Houston area. Construction is expected to start late next year or early 2019, company officials said, and take between four and five years. The cost is expected to be at least $12 billion.

The cooperation between Houston and Texas Central is no surprise. City officials, notably Mayor Sylvester Turner, have praised the project, with the mayor citing it among examples of his goal of reducing automobile dependency.

We also look forward to the projects creation of job opportunities and economic development, Turner said in a prepared statement.

The company and others have also touted the lines private financing. Texas Central has said it will not fund the project with public grants, but might seek government-backed loans available to most private companies.

This demonstrates how the free market can play an integral part in addressing Americas enormous infrastructure opportunities, said Houston businessman Drayton McLane Jr., a member of the Texas Central board of directors. The agreement continues the projects momentum and shows the nation and the rest of the world how Texas does big things the right way for the public good.

Despite enjoying robust support in Houston and Dallas where Texas Central also has a memorandum with the city the bullet train project has many detractors in rural areas of the state it will cross. Many skeptics, including some in the Legislature, have said they doubt the companys chances and do not want Texans placed in the position of bailing the company out financially.

Many have also said the private company should not, and in some cases does not, have a right to use eminent domain to acquire land.

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Houston backs bullet train, inks deal to help progress - Chron.com

Kesha’s Liberating New Anthem, Woman – The New Yorker

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Seven years ago, when Kesha made her dbut, doused in glitter, she occupied the role of pops mononymous misfit with charm. Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack, she sang on Tik Tok, a massive, wacky earworm that effortlessly made its way into middle-school dances and bars in 2010. In the videos for Tik Tok and her other hit, Your Love Is My Drug, her jeans were ripped and her hair was mussed. (Back then, she spelled her name as Ke$ha, a joke about how broke shed been before making it big.) On her first album, Animal, she seemed averse to sincerity; for the most part, she strutted past balladry for the thumping hedonism of late-aughts E.D.M. She barely even sang. More often, Kesha rapped, sort of. Interestingly, there seemed to be no sex in her voiceonly brashness, and a buzzing, single-girl aggression.

When she did sing, as when she wrote songs, Kesha was best at sounding anonymous, and many of her own songs featured Auto-Tune. Slowly, though, and strategically, Kesha began to reveal the original rasp of her voice, exchanging vaguely warped trip-hop for sensual rock. There seemed to be a realization, sometime around the 2012 release of Warrior, that Kesha was more than a fun-house mirror of commercially packaged femininitythat she might be the real thing. A listicle about the number of songs that people probably werent aware she had written, for herself and for other artists, became popular on music sites. (Those other artists include Ariana Grande, Flo-Rida, and Alice Cooper; her talents are strangely malleable.) In 2014, she dropped the dollar sign. It became widely known that her mother is Rosemary Patricia Pebe Stewart, the songwriter who penned Old Flames Cant Hold a Candle to You for Dolly Parton. Old demos surfaced revealing Keshas ear for blues and sorrow. Like Lana Del Rey , or the intrepid young songwriters Charli XCX and Bebe Rexha, Kesha was versed both in party clich and heartfelt testimony.

She has also showed strength. For the past three years, the artist has pursued a suite of lawsuits against the producer Dr. Luke (Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald), formerly of Sony, whom she accuses of sexual assault and battery, sexual harassment, gender violence, unfair business practices, and infliction of emotional distress. (Gottwald denies all accusations, and has not faced criminal charges.) Keshas fight to release herself from the terms of her contract has initiated debates about the structural misogyny of the music industry and, more generally, the unchecked ways men may dictate the futures of the women they have harmed. Notably, the ordeal prevented Kesha from releasing any new music. Instead, she has performed covers, sometimes mournfully. Last year, before a court date, she uploaded a video of herself, taken in selfie mode. I cant put out new music, but I can sing a little of someone elses songs, of something that exists, she said, before singing Amazing Grace.

The release of Rainbow, her third album, was facilitated by a court decision allowing Kesha to record without the producer. (The decision upheld the contractual relationship; Dr. Lukes name appears on the albums liner notes.) On the Technicolor cover, Kesha stands like a trippy Venus, naked, in a cartoon pool, her back turned to us. Many have been impressed by the lushness of the albums sound, by the way that her grunts and groans meet soaring piano. Praying, the first single, which came out in July, is, as Rolling Stone put it, triumphant. But Kesha also understands that grungy irreverence has always been her skill, and that it is compatible with the grandiosity of hope. Woman, an anthem track, balances gloss and gravity with a touch of grime. Its an empowerment song of the storied Bills, Bills, Bills ilk, about shaking off no-good men and forging independencethe kind of song that could provide a soundtrack to the sequence in a feel-good romantic comedy in which a woman gets a style makeover. That movie would have an adult rating: no one says the word motherfucker quite like Kesha. On Woman, she sings it and its derivatives over and over again, employing it like a happy cudgel. Im a motherfucking woman, she exclaims, Im a motherfucker. The cursing rings like a genuine release; her profanity lifts the song out of triteness. The funk ensemble the Dap-Kings match her brass, filling the chorus with staccato horns. Around the second verse, Kesha breaks off for a momentprobably giggling about the silly lyrics, loosey as a goosey and were looking for some fun. Its sweet to hear her laugh.

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Kesha's Liberating New Anthem, Woman - The New Yorker

St. Vincent to Direct Gender-Bent ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ Movie – Collider.com

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Some film projects just appeal to you on a personal, spiritual level. For me, this is one of those jams. Annie Clark, better known as her stage name as musician St. Vincent, is set to direct an adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray for Lionsgate. But thats just the start of the good news. Per Variety, he script will come from Elle screenwriter David Birke, who is also set to pen Screen Gems upcoming Slender Man movie, and theyll be putting a twist on Oscar Wildes classic Victorian novel by gender-swapping the titular lead character.

The first and only novel from the prolific Irishwriter behind The Importance of Being Ernest, Salome, and no less than three of your favorite witticisms, The Picture of Dorian Gray follows a beautiful young man concerned with little more than the pleasures of hedonism who sells his soul to retain his youth and beauty. The libertine commissions a portrait that captures his preternatural beauty, and while he never ages a day as he continues his self-indulgent waysthrough the years, his portrait ages in his stead, revealing every vice and depravity he indulges along the way.

Image via Magnet Releasing

Clark made her directorial debut earlier this year with the female-driven horror anthology The XX, for which she helmed the films most offbeat piece a candy-colored suburban nightmare starring Melanie Lynskey that skirted the lines of the horror label. She showed off a visual acumen as a filmmaker and a refreshing, fluid approach to genre, both of which would suit an update of Wildes oft-adapted tale. More interesting is the gender swap and what commentary the film could reap from it. As it was, Wildes piece was a bit of an inversion on the more conventional Elizabeth Bathory/Evil Queen female tropes of beauty-obsessed villainy. Now, centuries later when both sides of the coin have been so well explored, Im curious if they can find something new to say. Im also very, very curious who theyll cast in the role of the lady libertine.

What do you guys think? Are you as excited as I am? Sound off in the comments.

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St. Vincent to Direct Gender-Bent 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' Movie - Collider.com

Op/Ed: Hate is a dangerous thing – The Times of Chester County

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By U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello, Pennsylvanias 6th District

Ryan Costello

A man drove a car into a crowd of people, killing one and injuring 19 others. It was a despicable act committed by someone motivated by hate.

Some of the commentary on this incident and the Presidents myriad responses misses the mark on what is the bigger picture relating to the character of our country and what we aspire to have our culture nurture for our kids, grandkids, and future generations. No one can take that character and identity from us unless we allow them to.

We should all take pause and acknowledge that hate does not rest solely in a few certain individuals who happen to be really conservative, or really liberal, or agnostic, or faithful to one particular religious affiliation, or that it is rooted solely in one ideology or another. Hate is rooted in a personal decision to decide to be intolerant and cruel toward another individual or group of individuals based on anothers skin color, religion, gender, ethnicity, or other similar type characteristic.

Hate is a dangerous thing, in many, many ways. Hate removes rationalism, temperance, and the ability to forgive, replacing it with emotionalism, anger, and irrational blame. Reason and tolerance get lost and are replaced with a debased sense of good and bad. Hate slowly replaces common decency with disgust. In a civil society we lose our identity when we lose these collective personal values as being the foundation from which relationships and discourse emanate. Hate can fester, and can spread.

And Im really very concerned that it is spreading. The Presidents most recent statement was intended to include other groups as spreading hate on that tragic day. This was wrong. Hate groups are relishing at what is occurring right now. We now find some arguing over whether it was just alt-right hate groups or whether alt-left hate groups were also to blame such a debate is a false debate because no conclusion will actually solve or resolve anything. We are at a very divisive time in the history of our country where some people are so emotional and angry to the point where a bad situation is becoming worse.

We now find ourselves with a horrific death that exposes deeper, more ugly truths about what still festers in the deep and dark underground of our country. I would suggest the best way to move forward is to give hate no mind, no time, and no audience. One of the best things we can do is take a deep collective breath and find wisdom and solace in those preaching kindness and patient resolve in getting beyond the past few days so that we can focus on the challenges and opportunities we have in this country.

Such wisdom and clarity need not come from the words of a President, and at this point they cannot given how unbelievably poorly our President has failed. Such wisdom and clarity need not derive from any politician for that matter, or a clergy member or media figure it can come from within you. We need to do this because we owe it to ourselves and our loved ones, to the men and women who sacrificed to make this Country what it is, and to future generations who rely on us to create opportunity for them to live under the pillars of equality and dignity for all in America.

Our country is way bigger, better, and wiser than to allow the hateful few to rob us of our kindness, tolerance, and essence. So lets not allow those few to do it to us by letting them. This means refusing to parse the words of others to assign them blame for a murder perpetrated by one and instead find truth and meaning in the message of someone whose belief you are proud to stand by, and use those words as your guidance.

U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello (R., Pa.) represents the Sixth Congressional District, which includes parts of Berks, Chester, Lebanon, and Montgomery Counties

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Op/Ed: Hate is a dangerous thing - The Times of Chester County

More Internet Censorship – National Review

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PayPal this week banned at least 34 organizations for promoting hate, violence or racial intolerance, including Richard Spencers group and others apparently involved in the Charlottesville riot. PayPals announcement mentions KKK, white supremacist groups or Nazi groups that have violated its acceptable use policy.

Its a private company (thats not yet regulated as a utility) so it can do as it pleases, and the Nazi/Klan creeps certainly arent going to evoke any sympathy. But as someone whos been at the receiving end of hate group smears, it would be good to know how such decisions are made. PayPals announcement notes that our highly trained team of experts addresses each case individually highly trained in what? Sniffing out heresy? (No one expects the PayPal Inquisition!) When PayPal goes beyond the objective standard of banning activity prohibited by law to banning those it simply doesnt like (however loathsome they might be), all dissenters are vulnerable.

PayPals highly trained experts havent yet targeted my organization, but Twitter has, albeit in a small way so far. You can pay them to promote a tweet thats already been posted, as a form of advertising, and here are three that we submitted for promotion that were rejected:

All three were rejected on the grounds of Hate:

They contain nothing hateful, obviously, but the common thread appears to be that all three refer to the costs to society of illegal immigration, and all three contain the word illegal two refer to illegal immigrants and one to illegal aliens.

When you look at Twitters Hateful content in advertising page, it looks like the very word illegal is indeed prohibited with regard to immigrants (as opposed to the U.S. Code, where its common). It mentions Hate speech or advocacy against a protected group or an individual or organization based on, but not limited to, the following including Status as a refugee and Status as an immigrant.

This is merely a nuisance for me, so far, but it does point to the broader issue addressed by Jeremy Carl in his piece on the homepage this week about regulating the big internet firmsas public utilities. Carl writes What is needed is not regulation to restrict speech but regulation specifically to allow speech regulation put on monopolist and market-dominant companies that have abused their positions repeatedly.

One internet company this week abused its position but at the same time practically begged for the government to step in. Cloudflare is a sort of middleman facilitator between users and the web sites theyre visiting. Because of the companys position in the infrastructure of the internet, its CEO, Matthew Prince, was able to simply shut down the Daily Stormer neo-Nazi website: Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldnt be allowed on the Internet. He explained his decision by noting that the people behind the Daily Stormer are assholes, which they no doubt are.

But to Princes credit, he continued: No one should have that power:

We need to have a discussion around this, with clear rules and clear frameworks. My whims and those of Jeff [Bezos] and Larry [Page] and Satya [Nadella] and Mark [Zuckerberg], that shouldnt be what determines what should be online, he said. I think the people who run The Daily Stormer are abhorrent. But again I dont think my political decisions should determine who should and shouldnt be on the internet.

As Prince wrote in a blog post on the incident, Without a clear framework as a guide for content regulation, a small number of companies will largely determine what can and cannot be online.

The internet is now a utility more important than phones or cable TV. If people can be denied access to it based on the content of their ideas and speech (rather than specific, illegal acts), why not make phone service contingent on your political views? Or mail delivery? Garbage pickup? Electric power? Water and sewer? (I hope Im not giving the SPLCs brownshirts any ideas.)

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More Internet Censorship - National Review

Keep the Internet’s Backbone Free From Censorship – Bloomberg

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Wanting to ban the haters is understandable.

It was inevitable that the fallout from violent protests in Virginia organized by white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups would extend to the virtual world of the web. The internet is our modern commons. But the past few days have shown how fast we can glide down the slippery slope to web censorship.

Facebook and Twitter were perfectly within their rights, legally and ethically, when they banned accounts of certain hate groups and their leaders. These are private companies enforcing their own rules about how their services and platforms can be used. Providers of web infrastructure, however, must be held to a stricter standard since they act as choke points that can prevent an individual or group from being able to express themselves online.

Soon after the Charlottesville events, domain name registrars GoDaddy and Google separately decided to no longer serve the Daily Stormer after the neo-Nazi site wrote a disparaging story about Heather Heyer, the woman who died after being struck by a car while protesting the Charlottesville rally. Registrars act as a sort of phone book for the internet by turning a raw IP address -- like 62.23.150.94 -- into a line of text, like "Bloomberg.com." Without GoDaddy or Google, it would be impossible for people to find the Daily Stormer online. Shortly afterwards, CloudFlare, which offers firewall services for websites to help them ward off attacks, kicked the Daily Stormer off its servers.

In a refreshingly candid email to his employees and blog post, CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince admitted that his decision was "arbitrary" and "dangerous," and departed from years of maintaining strict neutrality about the content of the sites his company protected. As Prince told Gizmodo: I think the people who run The Daily Stormer are abhorrent. But again I dont think my political decisions should determine who should and shouldnt be on the internet.

It's hard not to cheer Prince's courage and his motives. But his decision and those of the registrars have big implications for the debate over how the internet should be regulated. To reach web users, publishers of content small and large rely on a complex machinery of web hosts, domain registrars, transit providers, platforms, proxy servers and search engines.

While the companies that provide the back-end services of the web are less well known than the Facebook and Snapchats of the world, they're indispensable to its smooth functioning; they are effectively the plumbing that allows the whole system to function. When they take sides, everyone loses.

Many may be happy to see the Daily Stormer pushed into web oblivion, myself included, but we probably wouldn't feel the same way for publishers of content we agreed with. What if a dissident politician or a corporate whistle-blower got similar treatment?

Currently there are no U.S. laws or regulations to prevent web infrastructure providers from taking such actions. Under federal law, private corporations can deny service to groups or individuals, as long as it's not because of their race, religion or sexuality. Nor does the principle of "net neutrality" really apply since that just calls for broadband providers like Verizon or Comcast to treat all data equally.

We may need new rules in the U.S. that specifically bar web infrastructure providers from cutting off services to publishers based on their content. This would limit firms like GoDaddy's ability to use their terms of service to silence people with controversial views.

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It would be preferable to keep efforts to eradicate hate speech at the platform level and not among the providers of internet infrastructure services. After long resisting, platforms like Facebook and Twitter now acknowledge that they bear some responsibility for what people post.Since they are governed by local laws where they operate, they fall under the jurisdiction of elected officials with the legitimacy to regulate. Just look at Germany's tough new law that levies fines up to 50 million euro ($58.5 million) if social networks don't remove hate speech promptly.

Regulators will make mistakes and may even overreach. But they have more standing to make tough calls on free speech than the internet's plumbers.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story: Leila Abboud at labboud@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Therese Raphael at traphael4@bloomberg.net

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Keep the Internet's Backbone Free From Censorship - Bloomberg

judge Nap: Censorship Worse Than Hate | The Daily Caller – The Daily Caller

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Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said private industry has a right to censor opinions but its a very dangerous business.

The First Amendment restrains the government. It reads Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. Congress has now been interpreted [that] to mean no government shall abridge the freedom of speech, Napolitano said during a Fox and Friends interview Thursday. And Facebook and the other high tech companies are not owned by the government so they are free to censor. They can do whatever they want, but censorship is a very dangerous business.

They will lose market share, they will lose a lot of customers. They will lose their identity as a marketplace for ideas and then these hateful ideas will go somewhere else.

Napolitano argued that although hate speech is detestable and wrong, its better to suffer through it than to sacrifice the right of free expression.

Which is worse in the American icon of values? Hate speech or censorship? I would argue that censorship is worse, he said. The remedy for hate speech is not censorship. Its more speech. Its speech to challenge and expose it.

He added he doesnt believe it will be easy to change the minds of those who peddle hate speech, but its preferable to driving them into hiding and obscuring the threat.

I am not naive. I dont think that we could all stand on a street corner and talk to a bunch of haters and change their minds. Some of them, a legion of angels coming from heaven telling them theyre wrong would not change their minds, he said. But it is better we know who they are, where they are, and what they say, than they be driven underground.

Once we get into the censorship business it will just keep getting worse. So if they can censor something that I say because its hate to them, it might be music to your ears, he concluded.

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judge Nap: Censorship Worse Than Hate | The Daily Caller - The Daily Caller

Team Trump accuses CNN of censorship – Washington Times

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The Trump campaign accused CNN Tuesday of censorship for refusing to broadcast a paid advertisement highlighting President Trumps achievements.

Today, CNN provided further proof that the network earns this mistrust every day by censoring President Trumps message to the American people by blocking our paid campaign ad, said Michael Glassner, executive director of Donald J. Trump for President Inc. Clearly, the only viewpoint CNN allows on air is CNNs.

The commercial says Democrats are obstructing the presidents agenda, and the media are attacking him.

The presidents enemies dont want him to succeed, the ad states. But Americans are saying Let President Trump do his job.

CNN refused to air a previous Trump campaign ad in May after the campaign declined to change a reference in the commercial to fake news. Mr. Trump again called the network fake news Monday in a showdown with a CNN reporter at the White House.

Mr. Glassner said one reason so many Americans support Mr. Trump is because of their complete mistrust of the mainstream news media, and the presidents refusal to allow their biased filter to interfere with his messages.

While CNNs censorship is predictable, this will not stop or deny our message that President Trumps plan is working for the American people, he said.

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Team Trump accuses CNN of censorship - Washington Times

Vegas radio station apologizes to Golden Knights for censorship – Yahoo Sports

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The Vegas Golden Knights announced in April that Lotus Broadcasting would be the official radio broadcast partner and radio home of the NHL expansion team for the next few seasons.

This meant they opted not to go with CBS Radio Las Vegas, home to six highly-rated stations including CBS Sports 1140am. Which did not set well with Tony Perlongo, senior vice president and market manager for CBS Radio in Vegas, who instructed everyone on air not to ever mention the hockey team, going forward.

From Perlongo, in an email published by Ron Futrell:

A decision has been made that effective immediately, there are to be no further mentions of the Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey team on any CBS/LV radio stations or any of our social media platforms. This includes, but not limited to, on sale ticket mentions, player/coaches interviews, plugging locals to sing national anthem, TV broadcast schedule, etc. It is now the responsibility of the Golden Knights chosen radio partner to help accomplish their goals, not ours.

Now, you may ask yourself how a Las Vegas sports radio station intended to ignore the inaugural season of the first major professional team to play in the city, and honestly we dont have a clue. Other than that its hockey, which means its probably not being discussed on an American sports talk radio station to begin with.

Anyway, Futrell reached out to Perlongo to find out if this giant crybaby act-as-professional guidelines thing was in fact accurate, and he confirmed that it was.

We have a lot of other things to cover, the Knights dont work into our coverage, said Perlongo. We support their (the Golden Knights) success in the marketplace, but that will depend on their partnership that theyve already developed.

This censorship lets call it what it is went more viral than an off-the-strip motel pool, and the backlash was harsh.So Perlongo informed the Washington Post on Wednesday evening that the Golden Knights will in fact be mentioned and discussed on his sacred airwaves:

With six radio stations in Las Vegas we have always prided ourselves on informing, educating and entertaining listeners and supporting the local communities we serve. However, we missed the mark in an internal email that instructed our stations to no longer report on certain aspects of the Golden Knights, the citys first and only major league sports team, Tony Perlongo, CBS Radio Las Vegas senior vice president and market manager, said in a statement provided to The Post. This was an error in judgement on our part and we deeply regret it. We will of course cover the team, first and foremost on Sports Radio 1140 and on our music and news/talk stations as it makes sense for those formats and audiences. We apologize to the Golden Knights, their fans and our listeners and look forward to rooting the team on when the puck drops in a few weeks.

And an apology to boot!

Look, this idiotic decision was bound to be short-lived, but we didnt expect it to have the lifespan of your average White House Communications Director.

The swift reversal of policy speaks to three things: That ignoring a local team, especially one with that new car smell, is bad business; that public shaming for said idiocy is a handy way to affect change; and that we wish hockey fans would take a lesson from this and realize that if you arent happy with the amount of coverage your sport gets from a given station in a given market, let your voices be heard.

It may not forceJimbo and The Goofball to stop talking about LaVar Ball or whatever long enough to preview the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but it could annoy the program director just enough to carve out a little time for our beloved sport here and there. And thats a start.

Greg Wyshynskiis a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him atpuckdaddyblog@yahoo.comorfind him on Twitter.His book,TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK,isavailable on Amazonand wherever books are sold.

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Vegas radio station apologizes to Golden Knights for censorship - Yahoo Sports

Tensions grow inside ACLU over defending free-speech rights for the far right – Los Angeles Times

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It was 1934 and fascism was on the march not only in Europe but in America. People who admired Adolf Hitler, who had taken power in Germany, formed Nazi organizations in the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union, represented by lawyers who were Jewish, faced an existential question: Should the freedoms it stood for since its founding in 1920 apply even to racist groups that would like nothing more than to strip them away?

Ultimately, after much internal dissent, the ACLU decided: Yes, the principles were what mattered most. The ACLU would stand up for the free-speech rights of Nazis.

We do not choose our clients, the ACLUs board of directors wrote in an October 1934 pamphlet called Shall We Defend Free Speech for Nazis In America? Lawless authorities denying their rights choose them for us. To those who support suppressing propaganda they hate, we ask where do you draw the line?

Once again, the ACLU is wrestling with how to respond to a far-right movement in the U.S. whose rising visibility is prompting concerns from elected officials and activists.

In response to the deadly violence at a rally in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend, the ACLUs three California affiliates released a statement Wednesday declaring that white supremacist violence is not free speech.

The national organization said Thursday that it would not represent white supremacist groups that want to demonstrate with guns. That stance is a new interpretation of the ACLUs official position that reasonable gun regulation does not violate the 2nd Amendment.

Officials in Charlottesville had initially denied organizers of the Unite the Right rally a permit to hold the event at the site of a Robert E. Lee statue. But the ACLU filed a lawsuit defending protesters rights to gather there. The rally ended with one woman killed and dozens of people injured as neo-Nazis and other far-right groups that had come armed with shields, helmets and even guns clashed violently with counter-protesters.

Now, with more far-right events scheduled in California, the states ACLU affiliates are warning that there are limits to what they will defend.

We review each request for help on a case-by-case basis, but take the clear position that the 1st Amendment does not protect people who incite or engage in violence, said the statement, which was signed by the executive directors of the ACLU affiliates of Southern California, Northern California, and of San Diego and Imperial Counties.

If white supremacists march into our towns armed to the teeth and with the intent to harm people, they are not engaging in activity protected by the United States Constitution, the statement continued. The 1st Amendment should never be used as a shield or sword to justify violence.

That statement drew some criticism from former ACLU board member Samuel Walker, a history professor at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, who supports the ACLUs historical stance on far-right groups. He called the remarks irresponsible.

How is the 1st Amendment being a shield for violence? he said. They need to be clear on that, and this statement is not clear.

Ahilan Arulanantham, the legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, said it was not the organizations perspective on civil liberties that had changed, but the nature of the far-right groups themselves a willingness to come to events ready for violence.

The factual context here is shifting, given the extent to which the particular marches were seeing in this historical moment are armed, Arulanantham said.

For decades, the ACLU has defended the speech rights of far-right groups like neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan on the principle that if those groups rights are not upheld, the government will try to restrict the free-speech rights of other groups as well.

Most famously, the ACLU successfully defended the rights of neo-Nazis to march in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Ill., in 1978, which was home to many Holocaust survivors.

But the ACLUs stance was costly. The groups membership and donations which had soared during the Nixon administration declined sharply after the Skokie case, with thousands of supporters abandoning the group. A left-wing civil liberties counterpart, the National Lawyers Guild, accused the ACLU of "poisonous evenhandedness.

The group has seen its membership and its donations soar under the Trump administration as left-leaning Americans embrace the organization as a bulwark against the administration.

But some emerging factions of the left do not share the ACLUs values on free speech and assembly. Surveys have shown that young people are more likely than older Americans to support a government ban on hate speech, which is constitutionally protected.

Leftists who call themselves anti-facists and in many cases endorse illegal violence, viewing it as a morally just tactic to prevent neo-Nazis from gathering publicly, have also seen their numbers grow since Trumps election, which was supported by far-right groups.

The ACLUs decision this month to file a 1st Amendment lawsuit on behalf of right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos whose rhetoric about immigrants and minorities has made him a target of violent protests prompted a high-profile ACLU attorney to publicly object.

Though his ability to speak is protected by the 1st Amendment, I don't believe in protecting principle for the sake of principle in all cases, wrote Chase Strangio, who stressed he was speaking in a private capacity. His actions have consequences for people that I care about and for me."

The outcry from the ACLUs California affiliates prompted the groups national leader, Anthony D. Romero, to respond with a statement of his own.

We agree with every word in the statement from our colleagues in California, Romero said. The 1st Amendment absolutely does not protect white supremacists seeking to incite or engage in violence. We condemn the views of white supremacists, and fight against them every day.

But, Romero added: At the same time, we believe that even odious hate speech, with which we vehemently disagree, garners the protection of the 1st Amendment when expressed non-violently. We make decisions on whom we'll represent and in what context on a case-by-case basis. The horrible events in Charlottesville last weekend will certainly inform those decisions going forward.

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Tensions grow inside ACLU over defending free-speech rights for the far right - Los Angeles Times

The far-left strikes another blow against free speech – Washington Examiner

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On Wednesday afternoon, a Canadian university, Ryerson, decided to immolate its educational principles. It cancelled a discussion between conservative journalist, Faith Goldy, and Professors Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad.

Let's be clear, the excuse the school offers is fake. What's really going on here is that Ryerson has decided to sacrifice intellectual curiosity at the altar of far-left fascism.

Declaring that it is "prioritizing public safety" over free speech, Ryerson is offering a false choice. For one, Ryerson is in Toronto, a city with more than 5,000 police officers and named the safest city in North America in 2015. Had Ryerson sought to preserve free speech, it could have requested and enacted a security envelope around the event.

A warped sense of political correctness is at blame here. The individual who led the effort to force Ryerson to cancel the event, Christeen Elizabeth, explained that "Transphobia is violence, Islamophobia is violence. Violence is contextual."

Sure.

Regardless, to sabotage the discussion, Elizabeth told the National Post that she "inundated Ryerson with calls and emails protesting the panel. She said she also collaborated with the school's student union, who added to the pressure." The pressure campaign worked as Ryerson yielded to the threats and abuse.

Still, what's most troubling here is the degree to which this situation shows how far the far-left's "no speech" platform now extends. After all, the panelists who were no-platformed are hardly neo-Nazis.

For one, Faith Goldy bears nothing in common with Hitler. She works for an online conservative media outlet, The Rebel, which revels in being controversial and cheeky. But that website is not a malevolent entity. Indeed, this week, Goldy gave a compelling defense of her viewpoints. "I do not bathe in tears of white guilt, that doesn't make me a white supremacist. I oppose state multiculturalism and affirmative action, that doesn't make me a racist. I reject cultural marxism but that doesn't make me a fascist."

Indeed.

Similarly, Professor Jordan Peterson isn't Himmler, he's a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. His great crime against social justice? Making intellectual arguments against the subjective appropriation of gender pronouns. But search for any video of Peterson.

And Gad Saad? His topic is consumer choices.

In the end, there's only one takeaway from what's just occurred. Goldy, Peterson, and Saad, are far better people than Christeen Elizabeth, her fascists, and Ryerson's administrators. Professor Peterson proved as much when he offered a very measured response to the cancellation of his event. He told the National Post that "We're drifting into a scenario of increased polarization, and it's not an advisable time to contribute to that, wittingly or unwittingly."

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The far-left strikes another blow against free speech - Washington Examiner

Free speech might be coming to Berkeley in a shocking turn of events – Washington Examiner

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The University of California at Berkeley is a place where right-wing provocateurs such as Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos know they can get a rise. But maybe less so, starting now: On Tuesday, the school's recently-appointed chancellor, Carol Christ, declared this year to be a "Free Speech Year" on campus, and marked that the school would be doubling down on not only protecting speech, but also teaching the value of discourse to college students that seem to have forgotten.

In February, campus protests became violent, shutting down a Milo Yiannopoulos appearance. This upcoming academic year, he's slated to speak again. A less controversial (but still somewhat cringe-worthy) Ben Shapiro will be speaking on campus later next month. This time, though, new policies will be in place to bolster security and event preparation, regardless of viewpoint. "We have not only an obligation to protect free speech but an obligation to keep our community safe," said Christ.

Other Berkeley events during this upcoming year will center around core constitutional issues, the school's history as the forefront of the student activism movement, and employ a "point-counterpoint" format for panels, where participants can practice civil exchange of ideas in a public forum.

In Christ's own words, Berkeley "would be providing you less of an education, preparing you less well for the world after you graduate, if we tried to protect you from ideas that you may find wrong, even noxious."

She's completely right, and it's wonderful to see a university administrator choosing not to mince words when it comes to defense of free speech, especially at a place such as Berkeley. If administrators were more fervently clear that hateful, offensive speech is protected under the First Amendment too, we might see more ideologically-tolerant college students.

Of course, Christ isn't claiming that every year can't be devoted to free speech rather, she's making it abundantly clear that there is, and will always be, immense value to civil discourse. And she is making it clear that the birthplace of the student free speech movement shouldn't be desecrated by violent protesters who don't understand the most challenging aspects of a liberal democracy that one should extend free speech rights to those you find abhorrent, lest your own be taken.

Perhaps Berkeley will, once again, lead the campus free speech movement.

Liz Wolfe (@lizzywol) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is managing editor at Young Voices.

If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.

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Free speech might be coming to Berkeley in a shocking turn of events - Washington Examiner

Frog Pond to close Saturday because of ‘free speech’ rally – The Boston Globe

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According to a post on the Frog Ponds Facebook and Twitter accounts, the pool and surrounding areas will remain closed for the entire day.

The Boston Common Frog Pond, a popular splash park and fountain for children, will be closed Saturday because of a controversial rally scheduled at the nearby Parkman Bandstand.

According to a post on the Frog Ponds Facebook and Twitter accounts, the pool and surrounding areas will remain closed for the entire day, as attendees of the so-called Boston Free Speech rally descend on the public park.

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Notice! Saturday, August 19, 2017: Frog Pond will be closed for the day, the post said.

The Frog Pond spray pool, which is operated by the Skating Club of Boston, is typically open daily, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., during the summertime and is a draw for families and tourists.

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Doug Zeghibe, executive director of the club, told the Globe they decided to shut down due to an abundance of caution.

He said that recent events in Charlottesville, Va., where a woman was killed as white nationalists and counterprotesters clashed on the streets, prompted the decision.

We have full faith in the Park Rangers and Boston police, but I think what you saw in Virginia is just evidence that you never know what might happen, he said. Random people can get injured sometimes fatally.

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Zeghibe added, These days you cant exercise too much caution.

Saturdays event, organized by the Boston Free Speech Coalition, is expected to draw both counterprotesters and a heavy police presence to the park.

Some speakers have dropped out of the planned rally, but at least two right-wing extremists, including a Clinton conspiracy theorist and a founder of a group dubbed by hate watchdogs as an Alt-Right Fight Club, will still address the crowd.

Commissioner William B. Evans and Mayor Martin J. Walsh on Wednesday issued a permit to organizers of the rally but set down zero tolerance rules: No bats. No sticks. No backpacks.

If anyone gets out of control at all it will be shut down, Walsh said this week.

Ryan Woods, a spokesman for the citys Parks and Recreation Department, said that almost everything is closed at the park Saturday because of the rally, including the Earl of Sandwich and the Swan Boats at the adjacent Public Garden.

Woods said the parks department also asked this week that vendors not set up shop on the Common amid the protest.

He said getting vendor carts into the park requires the use of vehicles, which will be banned from entering Boston Common Saturday.

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Frog Pond to close Saturday because of 'free speech' rally - The Boston Globe