Deal: Film industry generates $9.5 billion – The Newnan Times-Herald – Newnan Times-Herald

Posted on by

Clay Neely / The Newnan Times-Herald

Camera, lighting and audio equipment, are part of the support services film companies use during production including catering, construction, transportation, accounting and payroll, and post-production, which employs many Cowetans.

The film industry in Coweta County, and the industry shows no sign of slowing down.

Parts of Coweta can frequently be seen transformed into film sets for movies and TV shows.

Gov. Nathan Deal announced Monday that Georgia-lensed feature film and television productions generated an economic impact of $9.5 billion during fiscal year 2017. The 320 feature film and television productions shot in Georgia represent $2.7 billion in direct spending in the state. Georgias film industry supports thousands of jobs, boosts small business growth and expands offerings for tourists, said Deal. As one of the top places in the world for film, Georgia hosted a remarkable 320 film and television productions during the last fiscal year. These productions mean new economic opportunities and real investments in local communities. We are committed to further establishing Georgia as a top film destination and introducing film companies to the Camera Ready backdrops available across Georgia. In addition to the increase in production expenditures, Georgia has experienced significant infrastructure growth with multiple announcements in fiscal year 2017, including the expansion of Pinewood Studios in neighboring Fayette County and the announcement of Three Ring Studios in Covington.

Pinewood studios has 18 sound stages and is expected to grow even more, according to Brian Cooper, Pinewood Studios vice president of operations.

The studio officially started filming in June 2014, and three years later, Pinewood is the second-largest film studio in the United States, behind Warner Brothers.

With the additional infrastructure in Covington can accommodate larger productions with more capacity for multiple film projects. Literally hundreds of new businesses have relocated or expanded in Georgia to support this burgeoning industry creating jobs for Georgians as well as economic opportunities for communities and small businesses, said Georgia Economic Development Commissioner Pat Wilson. Although these support-services companies cannot claim the tax credits, they directly benefit from the increased amount of work in the state, and the fact that the savings from the Film Tax Credit are typically re-invested in the project, creating additional economic impact and activity for these Georgia-based businesses. The economic impact of the film industry can be felt across multiple sectors. In addition to camera, lighting and audio equipment, film companies use a wide range of support services during production including catering, construction, transportation, accounting and payroll and post-production.

Cooper said Pinewood Studios utilizes vendors for various needs such as props and equipment rental, and many people working with the vendors live between Fayette and Coweta County.

Chris Clark, president of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, spoke about the impact of the movie industry in Georgia at a Pancakes and Politics Breakfast earlier this year.

He talked about how the film industry positively affects Coweta and Fayette Counties. Clark said most post-production of films made in Georgia is done in Los Angeles.

Bills were introduced to encourage productions to do their music and post-production of films in Georgia, Clark said.

He said more films may be coming to Georgia because of the recent abolition of film tax incentives in Texas.

Georgias growth in the film industry - from $67.7 million in direct spending in FY 2007 to $2.7 billion in FY 2017 - is unprecedented, not only in production spend, but also in the amount of investment that has been made in infrastructure, said Lee Thomas, deputy commissioner for the Georgia Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Office. The unwavering commitment to this industry by Governor Deal and the Georgia legislature has ensured Georgias place as a top destination for film and television. In 2017, the state Film and Tourism divisions partnered to celebrate the Year of Georgia Film to highlight Georgias film tourism sites, including local communities that have served as backdrops for movies and television productions since the 1970s.

(Kandice Bell contributed to this story. kandice@newnan.com )

The rest is here:

Deal: Film industry generates $9.5 billion - The Newnan Times-Herald - Newnan Times-Herald

Bernie Sanders Obamacare Rally: Not Socialist | Fortune.com – Fortune

Posted on by

US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) addresses a rally in support of the Affordable Care Act in Covington, Kentucky on July 9, 2017.JAY LAPRETE AFP/Getty Images

Bernie Sanders was traveling through Trump country (West Virginia and Kentucky) last weekend in an effort to rally opposition to Republican attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare. These efforts notwithstanding, Sanders still refuses to embrace Obamacare. As soon as we defeat this disastrous bill, I will be introducing a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program, he said during the rally. He hasnt even embraced the Democratic Party, despite his bid to become the Democratic presidential nominee. When asked if he was a Democrat, he responded , Not even remotely anymore. The Democratic Party now is a disaster, an absolute mess. I dont see a party now that represents me.

Sanders still describes himself as a democratic socialist, rejecting the moderate left progressivism of the Clintons, as he emphasized in his presidential campaign. According to Sanders, the Clintons embraced Wall Street, where Hillary Clinton had made hundreds of thousands of dollars giving speeches, following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, who during his presidency had deregulated banks by signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, repealing the Glass-Steagall cornerstone of New Deal banking reform. The Clintons had accommodated consolidations and mergers in the world of banking, they had encouraged the growth of too-big-to-fail big banks, and Sanders was the only candidate willing to take on Wall Street and break up the big banks.

Putting aside the question of the practicality of a break-up-the-big-banks reform agenda, we should pose a simpler, conceptual question first: Why would a socialist want to break up big banks? Socialists want to nationalize banks, not break them up. If anything, socialists prefer bank consolidation to simplify the administrative task of running a nationalized banking system. Nationalization is the only path to provide the collective ownership of the means of production (in this case, the production of financial products). Socialism entails the abolition of private property in business life, but breaking up banks would leave banks as privately owned enterprises still seeking to make profits through the marketplace. Socialists argue that profit-making in a competitive market leads inevitably to exploitation and alienation.

The proposal to break up the banks sounds more like the trust-busting Progressive Era agenda one would associate with Woodrow Wilson than anything socialist. Eugene Debs, not Woodrow Wilson, was the socialist of the Progressive Era, and Debs had been sufficiently schooled in Marxist theory to realize that socialism required the abolition or private ownership of the means of production. Sanders admires Debs (he had a picture of Debs displayed in City Hall when he was mayor of Burlington, Vt., but it isnt clear he understood the radical agenda Debs had embraced. Is it possible that the only prominent national politician who describes himself as a socialist today is clueless regarding the meaning to the term socialism?

Prepared remarks by Sanders on democratic socialism suggest as much. He begins his commentary on democratic socialism by focusing on Franklin Roosevelts 1937 inaugural address, where Roosevelt famously stated that one-third of the nation was "ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. Sanders identifies with FDR and his campaign against the economic royalists, praising New Deal policies for succeeding in putting millions back to work and taking them out of poverty and restoring their faith in government. Democrats would almost universally share these laudatory views of Franklin Roosevelt, but Sanders proceeds to note that almost everything FDR proposed was called "socialist. Does this make FDR a socialist? The implication of Sanders logic, given that he embraces both FDR and democratic socialism, is that because FDRs enemies labeled his agenda socialist, he was a socialist. FDRs political enemies also called him a dictator, especially after he introduced his court-packing bill. Did that make FDR a dictator?

Later in his speech, Sanders finally defines what democratic socialism means to him. Democratic socialism means that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy, he said. Adam Smith, the author of the The Wealth of Nations in 1776 and the father of capitalism, would have said that capitalism intends to "create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy" (Sanders definition of democratic socialism).

Finally, Sanders concedes, I dont believe government should own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth deserve a fair deal.

Sanders isnt a socialist. He is an American progressive. Given the dismal history of socialism in the 20th century, which is inextricably intertwined with the history of totalitarianism, Sanders would do well to start using words with their conventional meaning. The only cause that Sanders idiosyncratic usage of words promotes is his own political ambition.

Donald Brand is a professor of political science at the College of the Holy Cross.

Read the rest here:

Bernie Sanders Obamacare Rally: Not Socialist | Fortune.com - Fortune

Lake County News | California – Bipartisan members of Congress … – Lake County News

Posted on by

WASHINGTON, DC U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-05), U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Bill Cassidy, MD (R-Louis.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and U.S. Reps. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) on Tuesday reintroduced legislation to encourage Medicare beneficiaries to create electronic advance directives, legal documents that allow patients to clearly articulate their preferences for their medical care should they suffer from a debilitating illness or condition.

The Medicare Choices Empowerment and Protection Act would offer a small, one-time financial incentive to encourage Medicare beneficiaries to provide clear legal guidance to their medical providers and family members should they become incapable of speaking for themselves.

This legislation would incentivize Medicare beneficiaries themselves to create and register a certified and secure advance directive online. In addition, the bill would provide beneficiaries with access to a Web site with model advance directives representing a range of options.

According to a 2006 study by the Pew Research Center, 70 percent of Americans have thought about their health care preferences should they be faced with a life-threatening illness or injury, but only one-third have completed an advance directive.

Under the Medicare Choices Empowerment and Protection Act, Medicare beneficiaries would be able to voluntarily create and register an electronic advance directive with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) at any time.

Advance directives would be created through, and maintained by, outside organizations certified by CMS, and could be modified or terminated at any time by the beneficiary.

An advance directive would include any written statement that outlines the kind of treatment and care a beneficiary wants or does not want under certain conditions, and can include identification of a health care proxy. Beneficiaries would also receive a small, one-time incentive for registering an electronic advance directive.

To address concerns about confidentiality, the Medicare Choices Empowerment and Protection Act requires both CMS and outside groups maintaining advance directives to hold the highest standards for privacy and security protection as well as system functionality.

CMS would only keep track of the certified organization through which a beneficiary has created an advance directive and would not keep a database of these documents. The bill does not interfere with any state laws governing advance directives.

Read a one-page summary of the legislation here.

Every person has a right to determine their own end-of-life care, said Rep. Thompson. This bill will help put Medicare patients in charge their own end-of-life care decisions by providing them with the tools they need to direct their own care. I worked on this issue in the California State Senate, and I am proud to continue this effort to empower patients.

I am proud to introduce this bipartisan legislation with my colleagues to empower patients to make their own health decisions on their own terms, said Sen. Coons. This bill will encourage more Americans to think about what kind of medical care they wish to receive should they not be able speak for themselves, which will reduce confusion and heartache and allow patients to spend their final days as they see fit. The breadth of supporting organizations just reinforces the overwhelming need to encourage people to have these difficult, but critically important conversations.

"This legislation gives patients greater power and incentive to consult with her or his Doctor to decide end of life issues, said Dr. Cassidy.

Empowering patients to control their own health care decisions is an important personal priority of mine. As a doctor, Ive learned that the best patient relationships are partnerships with doctors providing information, so patients can make the best informed decisions, said Sen. Barrasso. This bill will help more Medicare patients communicate their personal decisions to both their families and health care providers. This will ensure that more patients get the care at the end of their life that they want.

Life-threatening illnesses and injuries are devastating for both patients and their loved ones, Sen. Bennet said. Advance care planning would provide seniors the support they need to manage their end-of-life care when they are most vulnerable. By encouraging seniors to make proactive plans, family members will face less confusion and more Americans will have ownership over their health care decisions.

Allowing patients to communicate their wishes with caregivers empowers them to take charge of their health care in the event they are unable to speak for themselves. By encouraging Medicare beneficiaries to plan ahead, their personal wishes are honored and made a priority, said Rep. Black. I am very proud to sponsor a bipartisan piece of legislation that keeps patients rights at the forefront of treatment based on their own values, not the priorities of the government or their doctors. As a nurse, I have too often seen families go through tremendously painful situations while making decisions for their loved one, and it is my hope that this bill offers some peace of mind in difficult circumstances.

This is an important piece of legislation that allows the very personal wishes of an individual to be respected when it comes to their care, said Rep. Collins. This bill will help ease the burden on loved ones and would provide clear guidance to healthcare providers when an individual has lost the ability to make and clearly communicate their desires.

Advance directives empower seniors to specify their health care preferences well in advance of a debilitating or terminal illness, said Rep. Welch. Having this important discussion with families and doctors in advance will give them peace of mind knowing that their wishes will be met should they not be able to make their own treatment decisions.

As staunch advocates for the patients we serve and our profession, we support legislation that empowers patients to plan in advance for the unforeseen and unimaginable. This bill would encourage Medicare beneficiaries to create advance directives to ensure individuals have provided clear guidance to their medical providers and family members about their health care decisions. This is why ANA applauds the reintroduction of the Medicare Choices Empowerment and Protection Act, said ANA President Pamela F. Cipriano, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN.

The bill is supported by the National Right to Life Committee, Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, National Partnership for Hospice Innovation, American Nurses Association, Third Way, Healthwise, MyDirectives, Center for Practical Bioethics, Get Real Health, Coordinated Care Health Network, Cerner and Altarium, American College of Emergency Physicians, and Zen Hospice.

The full text of the bill is available here.

Original post:

Lake County News | California - Bipartisan members of Congress ... - Lake County News

Why tax exemption on personal hygiene products for women is crucial – The Hindu

Posted on by
Why tax exemption on personal hygiene products for women is crucial
The Hindu
I have argued in Parliament on many an occasion to deliberate on issues of women's empowerment using data on the dismal percentage of women in the workforce, the high percentage of school dropouts among girls, and the rise in gender crimes.

and more »

Read the original post:

Why tax exemption on personal hygiene products for women is crucial - The Hindu

Technology can save lives, not just improve them – The Guardian

Posted on by

Bristol Braille Technology, which won the accessibility award, created an affordable braille electronic reader, designed with, by and for blind people. Photograph: AbilityNet

With so much coverage about the dark underbelly of the internet and how many of our technological advances have been hijacked for nefarious activities whether its our computers having the potential to spy on us, Russian hackers interfering with democratic elections or our hospitals IT systems being hacked it was a relief to be asked to judge this years AbilityNet Tech4Good awards. As the name suggests, these awards showcase the people and organisations using technology to make the world a better place. And Im pleased to report that there are many amazing tech entrepreneurs working across the globe to create a brighter digital future.

Among the winners in the eight categories who were announced yesterday, are Bristol Braille Technology, the winner of the accessibility award. The social enterprise has created an affordable braille electronic reader, designed with, by and for blind people. Unlike existing readers which can only display a single line of text, Bristol Brailles device can show a full page of words and numbers. This means users can deliver speeches, use spreadsheets easily and read music notation, scientific and mathematical formulas. Currently being trialled in Britain, Ireland and the US, the social enterprise hopes to launch the device later this year or early 2018 for around 600800.

Chatterbox, another communications aid, was developed by Mursal Hedayat, a refugee from Afghanistan, to provide language tutoring. It recruits, trains and supports talented individuals who are refugees through a website to find work as language tutors. Refugees, who are dispersed across the UK, are linked up with individuals and organisations often based somewhere else which require those language skills.

One of the most inspiring categories this year was the digital health award. The winner, Haiyan Zhang, developed a wireless sensor, Fizzyo, in her free time, to make physiotherapy exercises more fun for two teenage brothers with cystic fibrosis. By connecting the sensor to their physiotherapy equipment, she turned the exercises into controls for video games. Working in conjunction with Great Ormond Street hospital, Zhang is developing the sensor further, so it can be trialled in 100 homes around the UK to study the long-term efficacy of physiotherapy treatment.

Another entry in this category, which also won the public vote for the best entry, aims to improve cancer diagnosis. Co-founded by two doctors based at Kings College London, C the Signs hopes to improve earlier diagnosis of cancer. With over 200 different types of cancer, it is hard for GPs to spot all the potential signs of cancer in a 10-minute appointment. C the Signs, available on smartphones and as a website, allows GPs to enter patients symptoms and see what tests or urgent referrals the patient may need, in under 30 seconds. A pilot launches this week by Herts Valleys and Luton clinical commissioning groups, where the tool will be used by 1,000 GPs covering a population of 850,000 patients.

It was also good to see the Guardian 2014 Charity Awards winner, Sky Badger, pick up an award from the tech community for helping parents with disabled children through its extensive website and social media platform.

A new category, in conjunction with Comic Relief, recognised the contribution of technology to improving lives in sub-Saharan Africa. The winning entrant, Praekelts MomConnect project, allows pregnant women in South Africa with a mobile phone to access vital information and advice to improve maternal health during pregnancy.

Technology can seem remote and tricky to grasp. But as in previous years, the 2017 Tech4Good winners prove that it can not only improve peoples lives, but save them.

See more here:

Technology can save lives, not just improve them - The Guardian

Wisconsin Farm Technology Days kicks off in Kewaunee County – Fox11online.com

Posted on by

by Pafoua Yang, FOX 11 News

Opening day for Wisconsin Farm Technology Days in Kewaunee County. July, 11, 2017. (WLUK/Pafoua Yang)

ALGOMA (WLUK) -- Showcasing the latest advances, Wisconsin Farm Technology Days kicked off Tuesday in Kewaunee County. This year Ebert Enterprises, in Algoma, is hosting the event.

Randy Ebert, the owner of Ebert Enterprises, says he is eager to see the turnout. The most rewarding part, he says, is meeting and educating people.

"Don't just go to the things you normally see, go to things you've never seen before," Randy said.

"It seemed really far away and now it's here. It came too quick," said Renee Ebert, Randy's wife.

The family and county have been planning the event for three years. The event features 600 vendors, nine of those vendors were picked to highlight the newest products in the "innovation square."

Gatr products is one of them. The product was made in Suamico and acts like a wheelbarrow.

Tim Willett, who designed and invented the tool, said, "It really started with my dad's wheelbarrow. He lent it to me and I guess I made it more than what it's normally designed to do."

Amber Hewitt with Kewaunee County says Farm Technology Days brings money into the area.

"About three and a half or four years ago, we lost the big nuclear plant, and it kind of had a little bit of a shallow depression in our economy. This helps boost it," said Hewitt.

Jordan Ebert says another benefit to agriculture is that it feeds the people of the world. Jordan plans to someday take over his family's farm and encourages other young adults to take agriculture seriously.

"The values it instills in younger generations that they live on and pass onto their kids and the further generations, I think that's an extremely important part agriculture brings," Jordan said.

Officials are expecting 45,000 people over the three-day event.

Read the original here:

Wisconsin Farm Technology Days kicks off in Kewaunee County - Fox11online.com

Fed chair Yellen: Technology and globalization are eliminating the middle class – CNBC

Posted on by

Advancements in technology and globalization are chipping away at America's middle class, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Wednesday.

In an appearance before the House Financial Services Committee, Yellen said if the U.S. looks at the flight of jobs and wages from middle-class families, it must take into account how automation has eliminated several lower-skilled jobs.

"Wages and jobs of middle class families that have seen diminishing opportunities and downward pressure on middle class wages, we have to take effect of the technological change that have eliminated middle income jobs and globalization that has reinforced the impact of tech," said Yellen.

That "has to be an important piece to understand what has happened," she said.

Yellen acknowledged that it's possible that certain sectors, like retail, have eliminated jobs in order to bring greater returns to their investors.

"For many years, many American companies have been sitting on a lot of cash and have been unwilling to undertake investment in the scale we would ideally like to see," Yellen said.

Several prominent leaders and executives have acknowledged the impact robots have had on jobs. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for example, warned that humans must merge with machines in order to become relevant when tasks become increasingly automated.

"Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence," Musk told an audience in mid-February.

The U.S. job market surged in June, with a better-than-expected 222,000 new positions created while the unemployment rate held at 4.4 percent. Wage growth remained muted with few signs of accelerating. And the labor-force participation rate edged higher to 62.8 percent.

Also read: Fed stands ready to slow down rate hikes if inflation stays low, Yellen tells Congress

Visit link:

Fed chair Yellen: Technology and globalization are eliminating the middle class - CNBC

Crews make progress against dozens of fires across western US – Las Vegas Review-Journal

Posted on by

Relief was arriving after a rough stretch of wildfires all around the U.S. West, with firefighters slowly surrounding once-fierce blazes and evacuees starting to stream back home.

OROVILLE, Calif. Relief was arriving after a rough stretch of wildfires all around the U.S. West, with firefighters slowly surrounding once-fierce blazes and evacuees starting to stream back home.

Authorities surveying the damage from a blaze in Northern California said Tuesday that at least 41 homes and 55 other buildings had been destroyed near the town of Oroville.

Some residents had returned home after fleeing the flames in the grassy foothills of the Sierra Nevada, about 60 miles north of Sacramento, but thousands remained evacuated as the fire entered its fifth day. The blaze burned nearly 9 square miles and injured four firefighters. It was 55 percent contained.

Crews were making progress against dozens of wildfires across the western U.S.

In Colorado, crews were winding down the fight against a wildfire that temporarily forced hundreds of people to evacuate near the resort town of Breckenridge. Firefighters built containment lines around at least 85 percent of the blaze.

In Arizona, recent monsoon rain has helped stop the growth of a wildfire in mountains overlooking Tucson and an evacuation order for the summer-retreat community of Summerhaven has been lifted.

In Nevada, fire crews were getting the upper hand on a wildland blaze that shut down U.S. Interstate 80 along the Nevada-California line most of Tuesday.

Three new California fires made trouble Tuesday.

One of them, just east of San Jose, destroyed two homes before its growth was stopped.

Another broke out in San Diego County and quickly surged to over half a square mile. It forced the temporary closure of Interstate 8 and the brief evacuation of 15 families in Alpine, a town of 15,000 people about 50 miles northeast of San Diego.

In Northern California, the Placer County Sheriffs Office issued mandatory evacuations along four roads near a 2-acre fire burning north of Auburn.

In Santa Barbara County, at least 3,500 people remained out of their homes due to a pair of fires. The larger of the two charred more than 45 square miles of dry brush and has burned 20 structures since it broke out. It was 60 percent contained. To the south an 18-square-mile wildfire that destroyed 20 structures is 48 percent contained.

Read this article:

Crews make progress against dozens of fires across western US - Las Vegas Review-Journal

District makes progress in discipline equity, superintendent says – Post-Bulletin

Posted on by

Two years into its agreement with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, Rochester Public Schools say the district is making progress.

Superintendent Michael Muoz read through a seven-page, 18-item update to report to the school board that the district is in compliance with the federal office's requirements for monitoring how it handles discipline and other things during a three-year period.

The agreement stems from a September 2015 finding that students of color in the district were disproportionately disciplined compared with their white peers.

Muoz said the district still needs to talk with OCR about how it analyzes discipline data at each school building and has to make additional updates to policies in the student handbook.

While specific details of how both of these will be resolved weren't provided at Tuesday's meeting, Muoz said he's confident in the district's progress.

"We see this as a very good report," Muoz said. "But that doesn't mean our work is done. We'll continue looking forward on the work that we're doing, but it's good to know that we're meeting the requirements of the agreement."

School board members were pleased with the progress, and asked the district to make the letter public by posting it on the district's website.

"I think you get an idea of the depth of reporting ... and how we're doing this systematically throughout the whole district," school board member Gary Smith said. "I think sharing it would be a good thing."

School board members added that even though requirements of the agreement were met, it doesn't mean the work of the district will stop.

"I know that we feel strongly that we're just beginning," said school board member Jean Marvin. "But until we can we can really show that our kids have equity, both in terms of achievement, and referral, that this district is not going to rest."

Read the original here:

District makes progress in discipline equity, superintendent says - Post-Bulletin

ESCAP Report Assesses Regional SDG Progress – IISD Reporting Services

Posted on by

10 July 2017: The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) launched a report that presents baseline data for the regions progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and identifies key development gaps that need to be addressed to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. ESCAP launched the report at a side event co-hosted by Fiji and Pakistan, which took place on the sidelines of the 2017 session of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).

The Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2016: SDG Baseline Report presents the SDG baseline at regional and sub-regional levels for selected SDG targets, representing the first regional measurement methodology for establishing a baseline for the SDGs. The report aims to highlight regional gaps and challenges in achieving the SDGs and inform intergovernmental and inter-agency decision-making to support SDG implementation in the Asia-Pacific.

Speaking at the report launch, ESCAP Executive Secretary Shamshad Akhtar, said the region is making progress on SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), and SDG 14 (life below water). She cautioned however, that the region is seeing slow progress on ending hunger, achieving food security and delivering agricultural sustainability, as called for in SDG 2 (zero hunger), as well as slow progress on SDG 3 (good health and well-being) and SDG 5 (gender equality). Deputy Permanent Representative of Fiji to the UN, Luke Daunivalu, praised ESCAPs strong commitment to SDG 14, noting this Goal is one in which data is still insufficient to monitor progress on a regional basis. Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi, highlighted the regions intergovernmental road map to implement the 2030 Agenda, saying the region will review implementation progress on an annual basis to identify areas where cooperation priorities may need to be adjusted over time.

The report launch also highlighted negative trends on SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), with participants observing these trends must be reversed to achieve the SDGs. The report further highlights SDG 15 (life on land) as a Goal on which the region needs to reverse negative trends, particularly on biodiversity loss and declining areas of natural forests.

The SDG Baseline Report assesses regional progress on each Goal since 2000, when the region began implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and identifies areas where the region needs to accelerate its efforts to achieve the SDGs by the 2030 deadline. A dashboard illustrates gaps between a business as usual scenario and the pace of progress necessary to achieve the Goals.

On data and statistics, the report stresses the contribution of regional improvements in the availability and quality of development statistics in assessing the Goals. The report explains, for example, that the baseline report used 50 indicators from the global SDG monitoring framework and supplementary sources, compared with 2000 and 2005 when regional estimates could only be produced for less than half of these indicators. Still, the report cautions that a transformation in statistical systems is necessary for SDG follow-up and review, recalling agreement at the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development on the importance of integrating statistical planning into development planning. The report observes that ill-informed policies could be much more expensive than investment in data and statistics. The report identifies several areas where there is insufficient data to measure SDG progress on a regional basis, emphasizing the importance of disaggregated data to ensure no one is left behind.

The report concludes that Asia-Pacific has not completed half of the work it could or committed to do since 2000 on several SDGs.

The report finds that the region has not completed half of the work it could or committed to do since 2000 on several SDGs. Within this context, the report recommends, inter alia: stronger high-level political commitment and synergies by high-level policymakers in the region; right-based and people-centered planning; and effective financing for development (FfD).

The 2017 session of HLPF is taking place at UN Headquarters in New York, the US, from 10-19 July. [ESCAP Press Release] [ESCAP Report Webpage] [UN Press Release] [IISD RS Coverage of HLPF]

More:

ESCAP Report Assesses Regional SDG Progress - IISD Reporting Services

Queued Up: ‘The Lego Batman Movie,’ ‘XX,’ ‘Logan,’ and More – Aquarian Weekly

Posted on by

THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE (2017)

The set-up: Despite being the cowl with the scowl who triumphs over Gotham Citys criminal element, narcissistic Batman (voiced by Will Arnett) is a lonely individual without love or family in his life. Now his world is turning upside down: new police commissioner Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) wants to hamper his vigilante behavior, The Joker and other criminals have turned themselves in, and he has unwittingly adopted a young orphan Dick Grayson who idolizes him and his alter ego Bruce Wayne. But its not all puppydogs and rainbowsthe Joker is up to something big that Batman will not be able to handle alone. Can the Dark Knight overcome his isolationist stance to work with others and save Gotham?

The breakdown: The Lego Batman Movie is a blast. A sharply satirical take on Christopher Nolans Dark Knight trilogy and the superheros long-running cinematic history, Chris McKays animated adventure is crammed with one-witty liners, DC Comics in-jokes, and guest appearances by non-DC villains like Sauron, Voldemort, and the Daleks. Its also the most over-the-top, ridiculous, and family friendly Batman rendition ever, and one that could never be done convincingly in live action. Thats why it soars in this format. The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack includes five additional LEGO short films, a look into the making of the movie, deleted scenes, and more.

XX (2017)

The set-up: The first ever horror anthology of entirely female writer/directors (hard to believe its taken this long) presents four eerie tales from Jovanka Vukovic (The Box), rocker St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark, The Birthday Party), Roxanne Benjamin (Dont Fall), and Karyn Kasuma (Her Only Living Son). It also features animated interstitial sequences from Sofia Carrillo featuring a living doll house.

The breakdown: Despite their varied themes, most of the XX stories tap into a strong emotional core. In The Box, a young boy mysteriously stops eating when he peers inside a gift box held by a mysterious stranger on the subway. The Birthday Party for a young girl becomes complicated when her mother finds her father dead in his study then tries to hide the body. The visceral Dont Fall dishes out demonic vengeance on young campers who unwittingly invade a dominion of evil, while a mother grapples with the reality of her teenage progeny embracing his devilish roots in Her Only Living Son. While these are all good stories, Vukovics The Box is the most enigmatic and compelling particularly because it stirs your imagination and avoids spelling things out. You will likely ponder and re-watch it, a feat that great horror achieves. The bonus materials take us behind the scenes of each entry in this creepy quadrilogy.

LOGAN (2017)

The set-up: In the year 2029, mutants are essentially extinct. Now an aging, deteriorating alcoholic who drives a limo, Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is squirreling away cash so he and the sickly Professor X (Patrick Stewart), who is hidden away south of the border, can escape to a safe place. But his already depressive life gets disrupted further when he gets caught up in a pursuit of a young girl with abilities by a devious military agency bent on using her for nefarious purposes. Now Logan must make a choice between survivalism and rescuing a young mutant who needs his help.

The breakdown: Hugh Jackmans final turn as Wolverine is one of his most compelling. Co-writer/director James Mangold, who helmed Wolvies previous installment, boosted the franchise and has delivered a gritty, unglamorous, existential superhero film that is highly intimate and personal amid the intense battle action. It is the most vicious weve seen Logan onscreen (and the closest to his comic book alter ego). The black and white Noir version is also included, but the film works quite well in color. It is the best of the three-film series.

THE LODGER (1927)

The set-up: At a time when a mysterious murderer is offing fair-haired women in London, a weird lodger shows up at a familys house. His furtive, late night outings, strange quirks, and gradual romancing of their daughter, who is the intended bride of a local cop, not only ruffles their feathers but hints that he may indeed by the killer on the loose.

The breakdown: While this silent black and white film was Alfred Hitchcocks third film, the Master Of Suspense reportedly considered it his first real movie. Some of his trademarks began to emerge heredramatic camera angles, shadowy set-ups, an urgent sense of paranoiaalthough much of it plays like a film of its time. Hitchcock aficionados will enjoy this early work featuring a compelling new score by Neil Brand. Criterion really stocks up on the bonus goods, including his next full-length film with the same star, Ivor Novello, entitled Downhill which also features a new score from Brand.

LASSASSINO (1961)

The set-up: After his mistress is murdered, an unscrupulous antiques dealer (La Dolce Vitas Marcello Mastroianni) falls under the glare of the police spotlight. The investigating detective seems convinced of his guilt, despite the protestations of the potential culprit. But is he really innocent or has he convinced himself that he is?

The breakdown: Directed by Elio Petri, who helmed the off the wall caper film Property Is No Longer A Theft, LAssassino (The Assassin) is a crime thriller that plays out more like a melodrama, with flashbacks to moments in the lovers life that may or may not illuminate the murder mystery. The point of the film is not necessarily to ratchet up the tension but rather show the stern process by which the cops try to break down their prime suspect. The film is as much about indicting the Italian criminal system as the dubious behavior of the beleaguered suspect, and it scrutinizes the moral fabric of many of its chief characters. Petris work is further analyzed in the bonus features, which offer great insight into a career not as well known to American audiences.

GHOST WORLD (2001)

The set-up: After high school ends, a listless punk teen named Enid (Thora Birch) struggles to find a clear path in her life. Stuck taking a summer art class to graduate, she becomes alienated from her ineffectual father (Bob Balaban) and his girlfriend, starts to drift apart from her best friend (Scarlett Johansson), and befriends an older lonely man (Steve Buscemi) whom she initially plays a mean prank on. But as the lives of those around begin to progress and she becomes stagnant, Enid battles growing despair over her uncertain future.

The breakdown: Based on the indie comic Eightball by Daniel Clowes, Terry Zwiggoffs Oscar-nominated film is both enlightening and irritating. On the one hand, the rich characters and their very real if modest quandaries are easy to relate to and go deeper than stock movie caricatures. On the flip side, Enids self-jeopardizing attitude and purposeful detachment from her environment becomes overbearing at times. The rebellious teen in you can relate, while the mature adult in you screams, Snap out of it! (Ghost World explores that gray area well.) The 41-minute bonus feature with Birch and co-stars Johansson and Illeana Douglas delves into the films core, while the accompanying, art-heavy booklet and small-scale reproduction of an Eightball story pull us deeper into Clowes source material.

SPOTLIGHT ON A MURDERER (1960)

The set-up: A dying man plays a trick on his greedy heirs by locking himself in a hidden room in his expansive chateau to die. At the reading of the will they learn that without the body of their patriarch they must wait five years to claim their inheritance as well as maintain the grounds during that time. While they transform the chateau into a tourist attraction, bodies start to pile up as desperate family rivals seek to claim the future fortune for themselves.

The breakdown: This lesser seen film from director George Franjus (Eyes Without A Face, Judex) serves up an unusual murder mystery that underplays some genre conventions while cozying up to others. Instead of exploiting a noir-like atmosphere, Franjus executes this like an intense family drama with a generous helping of homicide. It is quirky fun, and the bonus interviews from the actual filming show how much fun the cast had while they made it.

Read more from the original source:

Queued Up: 'The Lego Batman Movie,' 'XX,' 'Logan,' and More - Aquarian Weekly

Exploring the world’s first dog glamping site at NOS Alive music festival – Metro

Posted on by

A snuffle, a snort, and a scratch and there she is.

Thats Lua, up there, poking her head through the gate a resident at the worlds first dog glamping site at NOS Alive festivalin Lisbon, Portugal.

The hills are well and truly alive round here. A few miles down the road in the citysPasseio Martimo de Algs, theyre alive with the sound of music, a stellar line-up of big hitters like Foo Fighters, Depeche Mode, The Weeknd and The xx and providing one of Europes most vibrant and colourful destination festivals.

Up here though, its a chorus of barks and howls that flood Tiago Patels doggy daycare site.

Announced back in June, NOS Alives link-up with Tiago Patel was borne of a simple idea: why should humans be the only ones allowed a little escapism over a music festival weekend?

Dogs need this space they need to be dogs, Tiago tells metro.co.uk, gesturing to a group of pooches squabbling over a pine-cone nearby.

Its like a child, as soon as they are naughty it is seen as a problem that must be solved, but its natural they need to be a child, to get it out of their system.

The premise is foolproof. Bring your dog to the festival gates at the start of the festival, and theyre whisked off to Tiagos farm, which hosts lucky pups all year round.

While youre enjoying the music and madness of NOS Alive, the canines get to roam their very own festival site, getting back to their natural instincts in the same carefree, hedonistic ways their owners are enjoying down the road.

With eighteen dogs on-site for the festivals duration, everywhere we go were followed by a tail of at least three eager-for-a-petting pups.

Theres all ages and breeds here, from a shuffling, podgy old beagle to a grand Alsatian.

One golden dachshund is particularly amorous, flopping herself on anyone wholl give her some attention. Free love, indeed.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

Luas a new arrival, only getting a day ticket for the festivals closing day.

She might have missed out on the likes of Fur Fighters, Bone-obo and Royal Bloodhound over the last few days, but the Saturday night do plays host to De-paw-che Mode and, er, Fleet Foxes (that one does the terrible punning all by itself).

Shes in her element, leaping about and legging it around the place like a novice festival sesher, trying to catch everything at once.

Tiago himself, meanwhile, is as much of a character as each of the pups in his care. Coming off like a Portuguese long-lost-relative of TVsDog WhispererCesar Millan, as he walks us through the ten-acre site, his heels swarmed by doting doggies, he enthuses about his surroundings.

Its not hard to see why from a wide open plain of grass, to a rope swing and a big old fire-pit nestled in the heart of the tiny woodland, theres more for the dogs here than there are in most humans festival campsites, and decidedly fewer pint cups and bottles of wee.

Hes a staunch believer of allowing dogs to live out their natural instincts, sitting by as they develop their own hierarchy around him.

At one point Lua gets a swift telling off from the other dogs clearly theyre not too keen on their new mate peaking too early.

Tiago and his handful of helpers camp on-site for the weekend, in a fenced off corner of the woods.

As we go to leave, one more night of Heineken-fueled hedonism ahead of us, he invites us to come bring a tent one time, and spend a full weekend with the dogs.

As lovely as our Lisbon hotel may be, a night with the pooches might just be enough to drag us back to the tinned lager and festival tents of our youth. Wed be barking mad to say no.

NOS Alive returns to Lisbon, Portugal from 12th-14th July 2018.For more information on Tiago Patel, head here.

MORE: Just so you know, theres a tropical island where you can play with puppies all day

MORE: Watch: The amazing surfing dogs at Australias Noosa Festival of Surfing

MORE: Puppy drags his new blanket outside so that a homeless dog could sleep on it

Read this article:

Exploring the world's first dog glamping site at NOS Alive music festival - Metro

Wimbledon 2017: The tech behind the world’s top tennis tournament – Ars Technica UK

Posted on by

Sebastian Anthony

The second room. This one deals more with uploading content to the Web, security, load balancing, etc.

Sebastian Anthony

IBM's presence at Wimbledon is entirely transient - they turn up, run things for a couple of weeks, then disappear. As such, the "servers" are all just ThinkPad and MacBook laptops.

Sebastian Anthony

A server rack - containing more laptops.

Sebastian Anthony

A highlights screen showing that commentators, players, and other behind-the-scenes people get access to.

Sebastian Anthony

A cool map showing all of IBM's various data sources across the venue.

Sebastian Anthony

A shot of (apparently) the IBM software generating highlights from tennis matches. You see the four variables it tracks...

The Championships at Wimbledon, which consumes some 28 tons of strawberries, 10,000 litres of cream, and 320,000glasses of Pimm's per year, is notable for its seemingly unchecked luxuriant hedonism. But while most companies, organisations, and institutions are looking to cut costs, Wimbledon has stuck to itsmantra. Don't do things cheaper; do things better.

Case in point:Wimbledon's use of technology is really quite impressive. I've been lucky enough to follow Wimbledon's techover the last three years, and it's been very encouraging to see a massive endeavour like The Championships dive deeper and deeper into technology. You might think that after 140 years Wimbledon could be stuck in its ways, but far from it. When technology is the only viable way of providing consistent, significant gains for players, visitors, andhundreds of millions of people spectating remotely, you don't try to fight it; you embrace it.

Of course, Wimbledon is embracing tech in a distinctly Wimbledon way. This year, for example, The Championships aretrialling free Wi-Fibut because they don't yet know how people will behave with free Wi-Fi, it's only available in three specific locations (near the food court, in the ticket resale area, and on the west side of court 12). The tournament continuesthrough this weekend, but its team has already started analysing the data. It turns out that, thankfully, the Wi-Fi users on court 12only use their phones between points. When play begins, Wi-Fi usage stops. If the trial is a success, Wi-Fi could be rolled out across Wimbledon in 2018.

When the overall excitement level crosses a threshold (0.8?), the software goes back through its video bufferand creates a highlight clip of the point. For now, a human editor still goes through every clip before being published. A human editor is still required to tease out video clips from more nuanced matches, too; the IBM software doesn't yet understandthe context of individual matches or player pairings. But given that other IBM software at Wimbledontracks match contextmostlyso that commentators can add some extra flavourit seems like an obvious improvement to the auto-highlight tech in future years.

Sebastian Anthony

Perhaps most excitingly, Wimbledon is now storing the 3D state of tennis matches via the Hawk-Eye camera system available on some of the courts. Hawk-Eye, which uses multiple cameras to track the ball and resolve line judging disputes, outputs a constant stream of data that IBM can process into a useful format.But actuallydoingsomething with that data is a risky affair, because it isn't clear who owns it. Some tennis players, as you can imagine, aren't keen for some wily big data/machine learning software to reveal the secrets of their play styleto the world.

Sebastian Anthony

On a simpler level,if Wimbledon blankets the All England Lawn Tennis Club withWi-Fi, it will be able to use each device's unique MAC address to track the movement of most visitors aroundthe venue. Not for creepy reasons, I'm assured, but to iron out bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Should there be another toilet here? A strawberries-and-cream stand there? An everlasting font of Pimm's here? Venue-wide Wi-Fi wouldalso allow Wimbledon to push notifications to visitors as they move around, beacon-style.

Two years ago, an IBM engineer told me they were in discussions with the UK's mobile network providers to trackvisitors through cellular triangulation, but this year I was told that no such partnership was ever struck. Doing it via Wi-Fi (and perhaps augmented with Bluetooth) is probably more sensible, anyway.

Finally, Wimbledon has released a significantly overhauled mobile app for this year's Championships. Over the last few years, there has been a big shift from people following Wimbledon on a desktop browser to their mobile devices. The mobile app is meant to provide a better experience than the mobile websitebut to be honest, if you're into tennis, you should probably just download the free app (iOS/Android) and see what you think.This year there's a new feature called Ask Fred that apparently uses some IBM Watson-type tech to answer your questions. The app also has the ability to look through some 360-degree cameras that have been placed on each court.

Now read about how evolution can only take us so far in sports, but embracing technology would be far more exciting...

See the article here:

Wimbledon 2017: The tech behind the world's top tennis tournament - Ars Technica UK

An explosive compound: RSS’s latest plan to mix science and religion – Catch News

Posted on by

Did aircraft really exist at the time of the Vedas? Was there a plastic surgeon who expertly attached an elephant's head on Hindu god Ganesha's body, as claimed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

Well, India's scientists in the making could well go on to research on these ancient Indian 'scientific marvels' and enlighten the world about the Vedic sciences.

With several ministries on board and a pool of 10,000 scientists, Vijnana Bharati (VIBHA) the science wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will soon launch a digital mentoring initiative for school students to promote scientific research.

Named the Science India Portal, the initiative will kick off 15 October, the birth anniversary of late President and India's 'missile man' APJ Abdul Kalam. It will be supported by the Union Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Earth Sciences and Department of Biotechnology while the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) Hyderabad will be the knowledge partner.

VIBHA boasts of former Atomic Energy Commission chairperson Anil Kakodkar and ISRO ex-chief G Madhavan Nair as patrons. It advocates the synthesis of physical and spiritual sciences, and spearheads the movement for swadeshi sciences, including vaastu-vidya.

The development of the country is dependent upon its scientific and technological advancement. Unless there is an environment and adequate infrastructure, the country cannot have good scientists. This initiative is aimed at creating that. It is to identify and nurture students into scientists, said VIBHA Secretary-General A Jayakumar.

As much as regular sciences, the mentoring initiative would also focus on Vedic sciences and traditional Indian practices like Ayurveda and Siddha.

The aim is to develop scientific temper in the country. But at the same time, the young generation should also know about traditional Indian sciences and the country's rich history in the fields of science and technology. So, the agenda is also to promote Vedic sciences, said VIBHA member Arvind C Ranade, who is also a scientist in Vigyan Prasar (VP), a Government of India initiative to promote and propagate scientific and rational outlook.

Besides the Centre pushing for promotion of Vedic sciences in leading educational institutions, Modi and the saffron brigade have increasingly been raving about the country's scientific prowess in ancient times.

At an event in 2014 Modi cited Karna and Ganesha's cases from mythology in his bid to highlight India's past achievements in medicine.

The Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother's womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time, he had said.

There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant's head on the body of a human being, and began the practice of plastic surgery.

His Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh prescribed 'yogic farming' to empower the seeds with the help of positive thinking.

We should enhance the potency of seeds by rays of Parmatma Shakti, Singh was quoted as saying by the Indian Express in 2015.

The Science India Portal programme aims to reach out to at least two million students between Classes 6 and 12, who will be able to digitally interact with scientists and technocrats from various fields.

The portal will also contain detailed information on various scientific and mathematical theories, with special emphasis on Indian contributions. It aims to provide verified and authentic information about the country's achievements, including the Vedic period.

There are only bits and pieces of information available about Vedic India's achievements in the fields science and technology. We will accumulate and compile all the information that is there on these subjects. The students, thus, will be able to access verified and authentic information about them, said Saibal Das, senior scientist at the IICT.

VIBHA will also conduct Vidyarthi Vigyan Manthan (VVM), an all-India examination for students of Class 6-12, to identify bright minds keen on taking up science.

With a syllabus based on study material provided by VIBHA, the VVM will be conducted on 26 November.

Rationalists though see this project as an attempt to saffronise the scientific community, and warn about the consequences of mixing religious ideology with science.

You can either promote scientific temper or Vedic sciences. They are diametrically opposed, said D Raghunandan of the Delhi Science Forum.

Besides being a blatant attempt to saffronise the scientist community, it is also an attempt to influence young minds with Hindutva ideology. People who believe existence of aircraft in the Vedic period, who swear by Mahabharata's plastic surgery, they are now talking about scientific temper. What can be more outrageous? said Raghunandan.

The team of scientists is likely to have Dr BG Matapurkar, who was awarded a US patent on adult stem cells used for organ regeneration. He had earlier claimed that the science of cloning and test-tube baby was known to Indians of Mahabharata age.

The Kolkata-based Science and Rationalists' Association of India (SRAI), which promotes rationalism, expressed concern over the initiative.

Instead of the Wright brothers, our students will now perhaps will read about Vaimanika Shastra. Instead of stem cells, they will be influenced to learn about how to create designer babies. After changing school text books to distort history, it's now science. The RSS-BJP brigade's march towards Hindu Rashtra continues, SRAI General Secretary Prabir Ghosh said.

Prof. Bikramaditya Kumar Choudhary from Jawaharlal Nehru University added: It is dangerous to mix religion with science, something which this project appears to be aiming to do. Students should be exposed to all kinds of knowledge. As much as one knows about a subject, he grows the ability to question it, analyse it and choose whether to believe it, follow it or otherwise.

The aim should be to foster and satiate students' inquisitiveness. But today, we see this tendency to kill this inquisitiveness. One might be killed for asking a question, and killers will justify it, saying the question hurt their religious beliefs.

It is about whether you want to make someone aware about a certain knowledge or imprint it on their minds.

Continue reading here:

An explosive compound: RSS's latest plan to mix science and religion - Catch News

Ralph Hancock: Trump’s speech in Poland hit the right balance between tradition and innovation – Deseret News

Posted on by

Evan Vucci, AP

President Donald Trump speaks at Krasinski Square at the Royal Castle, Thursday, July 6, 2017, in Warsaw.

The liberal reaction to Trumps Warsaw speech shows the element of truth in tribalism.

Trumps cheerleading for Western civilization in his recent speech in Poland might seem to be unremarkable boilerplate, anodyne boosterism in the service of uncontroversial platitudes. Certainly skepticism would be understandable concerning the messenger in this speech that included praise of women as pillars of our society and of our success and a pious reference to faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, (as) the center of our lives. The fundamental significance of the speech is clear only in light of the extreme liberal critiques that it provoked. If we had any doubt that Trump (or his speechwriter) was deeply right in calling for a defense of the West, such doubt was removed by the hollowness of the liberalism of his respondents.

Trumps speech connected somewhat vaguely, to be sure geo-political and military/security concerns with fundamental moral and cultural matters. He warned against forces from inside or out, from the South or the East, but judged our enemies to be doomed because our alliance is strong, our countries are resilient, and our power is unmatched. We are the fastest (?) and the greatest community. But beneath the economic and military power of the West he evoked a deeper strength of civilization: a fecundity that manifests itself in symphonies as well as in innovation, and that is grounded finally in the hope of every soul to live in freedom. The fate of our community of Western nations, he said, depends on the priceless ties that bind us together.

The liberal alarm in response to a speech that might not long ago have passed for pretty vanilla is a significant sign of the times. Peter Beinart in The Atlantic drives right to the extreme liberal judgment and minces no words: since Trump defends a certain civilization, the West, he is a religiously prejudiced racist. The West is a racial and religious term. Using what is becoming the liberals favorite term for lumping together all kinds of bigotry, Beinart concludes that Trump is speaking as the head of a tribe.

Well, that some tribe, isnt it! Socrates and Jesus, Dante and Dostoevsky, Aquinas and Einstein. But for our pure modern liberalism, any taint of identity, any preference, however reasoned and reasonable, for one way of life or one frame of thought over another puts the defender of civilization on the same level with the most vulgar ethnic nationalist or the most vicious racial supremacist.

The irony is that the openness and universalism that inspire the liberal critics of pro-Western sentiments are very much products of Western civilization, and specifically of the complicated alliance between Greek rationalism and Christianity. As Damon Linker noted in the most intelligent liberal assessment of the Warsaw speech, the West is a civilization that has come over the past century to identify the achievement of its highest ideals with the negation of its own distinctiveness. And that very tendency is itself an expression (in secularized and radicalized form) of a very Western idea that first arose with Christianity.

The reaction to Trump (and not only to this speech) demonstrates that we have now reached the limit of this self-negating capacity of the West, a key source of our unique richness and dynamism. The strength and diversity of the West has depended upon a certain equilibrium between its distinctive openness and universalism and its grounding in the traditions of distinct sovereign peoples. In however elementary a fashion, Trumps speech expresses this equilibrium. He praises innovation, free speech and expression, our tendency to debate everything challenge everything know everything.

At the same time, he hails the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. The spirit of this delicate equilibrium that defines Western civilization is best captured in Trumps reference to the hope of every soul to live in freedom not just every person, or every individual, but every soul. Freedom is a transcendent spiritual and philosophical ideal before it is a political claim or individual assertion.

As Linker writes, democracy, moral universalism, and egalitarianism are goods very much worth defending, but they are not the only goods worth defending. There is no simple formula for maintaining the Wests equilibrium; being open to the new and different while cherishing and preserving what is tried and true will never be easy. One thing is clear though. Todays liberal elites have proved themselves incompetent and unworthy to nurture this equilibrium of Western greatness. By embracing a pure and therefore hollow liberalism that is hard to distinguish from self-hatred, they make it clear how right Trump was in Warsaw to tout the culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. Thats my kind of tribalism!

Ralph Hancock is a professor of political science at Brigham Young University and president of the John Adams Center for the Study of Faith, Philosophy and Public Affairs. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of BYU.

Excerpt from:

Ralph Hancock: Trump's speech in Poland hit the right balance between tradition and innovation - Deseret News

VIVA ARTE VIVA: The Venice Biennale in an Anxious Age – HuffPost

Posted on by

After all, art may not have changed the world, but it remains the field where it can be reinvented.

Christine Macel, Biennale Art 2017: Viva Arte Viva1

There is an enormous and perhaps nave expectation that mega-scale art exhibitions will illuminate our global reality. In this regard, the Venice Biennale is always widely anticipated. But such an exhibition will inevitably disappoint, revealing more about the person whose taste and intention are driving the curatorial agenda than about the state of the world.

Equally problematic for the curator is that she or he must develop an organizing principle for the exhibition some years before it is actually mounted. Given the speed at which events unfold, it is almost impossible to be as timely as one would wish. Could anyone have anticipated such a derailed U.S. presidency, Brexit, the scale and tragedy of mass migration, the exponential increase in terror threats, accelerated climate change, or its accompanying anxieties? Added to this complexity is the format of the Biennale itself. The curator controls the content of the Central Pavilion and the Arsenale but has no control over the 36 national pavilions in the Giardina or the other 50 national pavilions in the surrounding vicinity. Nonetheless, the work in all of these pavilions cumulatively contributes to the overall experience of what is called La Biennale.

Without full knowledge of what the world would be like in 2017, Christine Macel, the curator of this years 57th International Venice Biennale, chose the very optimistic and elusive concept Viva Arte Viva, which, she explains, is an exclamation, a passionate outcry for art and the state of the artist. As Macel describes it, Viva Arte Viva is a Biennale designed with artists, by artists and for artists, about the forms they propose, the questions they ask, the practices they develop and the ways of life they choose.2

The exhibition, we are told, is a journey that unfolds over the course of nine chapters, or families of artists. Macel calls these chapters Trans-Pavilions. They are designed to be transnational but also transgenerational, bringing together artists from various places of origin, with ages ranging from 25 to 97. Of the 120 artists shown, 103 have never before exhibited in the Venice Biennale and will be unknown to many visitors. Perhaps most significant to Macels framework is that the exhibition is intended as an experience, an extrovert movement from the self to the other, towards a common space beyond the defined dimensions, and onwards to the idea of a potential neo-humanism.3

Her goal is not just to call attention to the objects but also to the nature of artists lives. The decision to become an artist, Macel writes, in and of itself, requires taking a stance in society, one that is today broadly popular and widely acknowledged, but is perceived nevertheless as an act of calling into question work and its by-product moneyas the absolute value in the modern world.4

As Macel explains, although the artist produces work for commercialization, within the studio the modes of production include an alternative within which the need for inactivity or rather non-productive action, for mind wandering and research remain paramount. This position inevitably has consequences on the way in which free time is perceived by society: it is no longer a time to be spent or even consumed, but a time for oneself.5 Reflecting on that idea, Macel opens her exhibition in the Central Pavilion with images of artists lounging, sleeping, and perhaps dreamingartists engaged in utilizing unstructured time in their beds but also in the studio space for thought and production. Mladen Stilinovis Artist at Work, Franz Wests Asleep, Dawn Kaspers The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, and Rachel Roses film, Lake Valley, are examples of works that explore the complexity of dreams and the centrality of process.

This privileging of the artists values and practice recalls Hannah Arendts distinction between laborers and workers. According to Arendt, laborers have no choice but to labor in a never-ending process of production and consumption without opportunity for originality or creativity. Workers, on the other hand, have the potential to create original concepts, and their work allows for dreamtime, leisure time, and playtime, within which workers can imagine the world anew. The artist, Arendt writes, is the only worker left in a laboring society.6 This emphasis on the making of things and its effect on human experience is the strength of the show but also its weakness.

Macel attempts to get at the state of the world through examining the, at first, internalized and then externalized processes that artists engage in as they reimagine their experience of the world and give it form. Explorations of the unconscious and of hidden aspirations are central to Macels mission. Artists reveal their thought processes through materiality, metaphor, color, texture, play, and abstraction. They choose form and scale to affect the unconscious, to overstate and to understate and often to disarm. So we should not be surprised when we turn a corner in the Pavilion of Time and Infinity and encounter Liliana Porters installation, El hombre con un hacha y otros situaciones brevasa narrative of rage, disorder, lost history, and turbulence orchestrated (it would seem) by a male miniature protagonist wielding an ax and destroying his world.

Macels framing of arts relationship to society in an indirect and often playful way stands in distinct contrast to Okwui Enwezors uncompromisingly political 2015 Biennale, All the Worlds Futures, in which Enwezor exhibited artists who addressed contemporary issues head-on. That Biennales audience was captive to an unrelenting narrative confronting the problematic state of the worldpostcolonialism, racism, sexism, the abuses of capitalismin each corner of the Arsenale and the Central Pavilion. Performances included readings of Das Kapital. Enwezor received a great deal of criticism for his stridency. Artnet News described his Biennale as the most morose, joyless, and ugly biennale in living memory, which, in the name of global action and social change, beats the visitor up with political theory rather than giving us the pleasures and stimulation of great art.7

This years Biennale leads us on a meanderingand often seductivejourney with many detours. But the concern for the state of the world is never overt enough either to alienate or to satisfy the need for revelation as to where we might go from here. As a result, it has generated much frustration. Barbara Casavecchia writes in Art Agenda that the curator avoids tackling distressing universal subjects like politics, populism, racism, or identity, preferring instead to group 120 individual positions in accordance to vague, conservative, and elementary (school) categories such as earth, traditions, colors, time, the common, books, joys and fears.8

In the London Evening Standard, Matthew Collings described much of the show as awfully lightweight.9 New York Times critic Holland Cotter likewise experiences the show as bland, unconvincing, and strangely untimely. The Pavilion of Shamans particularly distressed him. At the opening, the space was populated by Amazonian Indians playing indigenous instruments in a performance of religious rituals. Cotter found the musicians presence disconcerting, a reprisal of the primitivism debate about the Wests complicity in a global economy that imports the Other for our pleasure while destroying the Others world. True to this Biennales frustratingly muted politics, Cotter continues, no curatorial statement appears acknowledging these issues.10

It is as if Macel has skipped over the contemporary art worlds decades-long conversations about postcolonialism, gender, difference, and so forth. Rather she intends to reflect on a theory of neo-humanism through artistic practice. To this end, she has created a series of conceptual pavilions in which the demarcations are indistinct and the terminology romantic, vague, and, at times, retro in its archetypal universality, neither illuminating the present nor moving us forward. In the Pavilion of the Shamans, dedicated to those who subscribe to the definition of the artist as shaman, Macel hopes to create a new dimension at a time when the need for care and spirituality is greater than ever; the Dionysian Pavilion is a hymn to sexuality and inebriation and celebrates the female body; the Pavilion of Time and Infinity is designed to ask, What form would a metaphysical approach to art take?11

A more deliberate attempt to define neo-humanism might have led Macel to examine what it actually means to be an artist in the world today, when the life of so many artists in troubled societies is unbearable, repressed, and even life-threatening and where the stakes for the survival of the species and the planet are under increasing duress. In this Robotic Age, when the concept of the human demands much more examination, as we create a hybrid race of machines that will leave the species without work, Macel might have asked, What will this talk of leisure and reflection come to mean when humans are replaced in the workforce and leisure is all we have to occupy our time? What will define humanness if the millions who have lost their homes to climate change and mass migration can never establish them again? Artists live in this world as citizens and have a great deal to contribute to debates around such questions, but these questions, which might have moved this exhibition, with its emphasis on artists, meaningfully into the present, are not addressed.

At a time when the threat of autocratic rule, so dependent on the simplification of complex issues and nostalgia for the past, casts shadows on many parts of the world, Macel precariously chooses to leave contradictions vague and unexamined. In presenting the eighth pavilion, for example, she writes, the Pavilion of Colours can be described as the fireworks at the end of the journey through the Arsenale, where all the questions presented in the preceding pavilions come together to provide what might be described almost as an out of self experience prior to the final chapter. There is no doubt that Sheila Hickss Escalade Beyond Chromatic Lands is a glorious eventa wall of brilliance and texture. But, when disarmed by such vibrancy, do we actually come to transcend ourselves and find revitalized comradeship with others?12

In spite of these abstractions, there is much that surprises and excites in this Biennalethe love of process; the passion for craft, skill, and materiality; the gorgeousness that offers relief from the world. For this we are grateful. But the exhibition is lacking in urgency.

Many will suffer or already are suffering from an inflicted worldlessness, to use Hannah Arendts phrase (a state of being that she, as a historically displaced person, well understood).13 Macel goes back to find artists like the fabulous Anna Halprin and her Planetary Dance or David Medalla and his A Stitch in Timeartists and work that tries to heal and create communality. But she does not then go forward to those contemporary artists who are also deeply engaged in the public sphere and who, collaborating with scientists, technologists, futurists, sociologists, urbanists, climate change experts, and diverse societal networks, are trying to create a more sane and communal sense of the world, while also developing new knowledge across disciplinary barriers.

This liminal space of possibilitythis crossing of bodies of knowledgecould help articulate a future role for artists in society. But artists working with such new methodologies are not clearly in the forefront of Macels project, and when they are presented (as Olafur Elliason and his Green Light: An Artistic Workshop), they remain isolated and inadequately contextualized.

To truly explore her idea of a potential neo-humanism related to artistic practice, Macel might have framed a greater part of this exhibition around those artists who are helping our species understand that we must become the caretakers of the earth and of each other, now, before it is too late.

Notes 1. Christine Macel, introduction to Biennale Arte 2017: Viva Arte Viva, Short Guide (Venice, Italy: Marsilio Editori, 2017), 39. 2. Macel, Biennale Arte 2017: Viva Arte Viva, 38. 3. Ibid.

4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 126127. 7. Benjamin Genocchio, Okwui Enwezors 56th Venice Biennale is Morose, Joyless, and Ugly, Artnet News, May 8, 2015, https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/okwui-enwezor-56th-venice-biennale-by-benjamin-genocchio-295434. 8. Barbara Casavecchia, 57th Venice Biennale Viva Arte Viva, Art Agenda, May 13, 2017, http://www.art-agenda.com/reviews/57th-venice-biennale-viva-arte-viva/. 9. Matthew Collings, Venice Biennale 2017: The Verdict on the 57th Edition of the Worlds Biggest Art Event, London Evening Standard, Friday, May 12, 2017, http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/arts/venice-biennale-2017-the-verdict-on-the-57th-edition-of-the-worlds-biggest-art-event-a3537376.html. 10. Holland Cotter, Biennale: Whose Reflection Do You See? New York Times, May 22, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/arts/design/venice-biennale-whose-reflection-do-you-see.html. 11. Macel, Biennale Arte 2017: Viva Arte Viva, 42. 12. Ibid. 13. Arendt, The Human Condition, 54.

Excerpt from:

VIVA ARTE VIVA: The Venice Biennale in an Anxious Age - HuffPost

India’s censors now won’t allow the word ‘cow’ in a documentary about Harvard economist – Washington Post

Posted on by

NEW DELHI He may have won a Nobel Prize, but renowned Harvard economist Amartya Sen cannot say the word cow in a new documentary, Indias movie censorship board has ruled.

The documentary, called The Argumentative Indian, is named after abookof essays written by Sen thatdwells (rather ironically) on Indias long history of intellectual pluralism and public debate. The movie will not get a license for public screenings in India unless the cuts are implemented.

Censors have not said why the word cow is objectionable. The documentary at one point talks about the Hindu nationalist, self-styled cow protectors who attack people, mainly Muslims, for carrying or eating beef. Hindus consider the cow tobesacred.

The move comes against the backdrop of a rising nationalistic fervor in India after the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014. The party has pushed policies in line with its conservative view of Hinduism, the predominant religion in this diverse nation.

Director Suman Ghosh told IndiasTelegraphnewspaper that the censorship underlines the relevance of the documentary in which Sen highlights the growing intolerance in India.

He added, There is no way I would agree to beep or mute or change anything that one of the greatest minds of our times has said in the documentary.

It wasnt just cows that caught the censors attention.Ghosh was also asked by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to remove words such as Gujarat, the name of an Indian state, Hindu India, and Hindutva view of India, referring to the nationalist Hindu ideologyespousedby the BJP.The filmmakers face a lengthy appeals process through which they will attempt to fight the censorship boards decision.

In India, where films draw audiences numbering in the millions, nationalist ideology has slowly seeped into the experience of going to the movies. In 2016, the Supreme Court ordered that thenational anthembe played before every screening and that audiences must stand during it.

The CBFC has increasingly comeunder firefor overzealous censorship and moral policing under the leadership of Pahlaj Nihalani, avocal supporterof the BJP, who appears to take offense at any implied criticism of India or Hinduism.

Recently, the board asked directors to remove all references to the northern state of Punjab in a crime drama called Udta Punjab, meaning Flying Punjab or High Punjab. Instead, the board demanded, the movie should be set in a fictional land. Censors made no comment at the time as to why references to Punjab were objectionable.

In the recent James Bond movie, Spectre, a kissing scene was cut short. Another controversy involves an upcoming Bollywood romantic comedy called Jab Harry Met Sejal, playing on the title of When Harry Met Sally, in which censors objected to the word intercourse.

The threat of violence from right-wing mobs also has resulted in censorship in recent months. In the Bollywood blockbuster Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, the role ofPakistani actor Fawad Khan was allegedly trimmed after a right-wing groupthreatenedto burn cinemas down.

The Argumentative Indian, which centers onSen, shows clips of his conversations with former World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu.

The word cow, which the board wants removed from the film, is heard in an answer to Basus question about the context of Sen'sbook, according to the Telegraph. As part of his answer, Sen says, There was a kind of grandness of vision there, and an integrated picture which hangs together in trying to embrace each other, not through chastising people for having mistreated a cow or some other thing, but dealing with people in terms of argument.

Speaking tothe Telegraph, Harvard historian Sugata Bose, who also features in the documentary, lambasted attempts to block the film. It is a preposterous and unacceptable assault on the freedom of expression. The film ought to be given a certificate immediately. It is an academic film primarily where every word has been carefully weighed, he said.

Follow this link:

India's censors now won't allow the word 'cow' in a documentary about Harvard economist - Washington Post

The ACLU of Oregon Has Emerged as Portland’s Most Consistent Free-Speech Fundamentalists – Willamette Week

Posted on by

In a year when the First Amendment seems under threat from all sides, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon has emerged as Portland's most dogged and consistent defenders of free speechno matter who's talking or what they're saying.

"We think that the First Amendment rights are the cornerstone of all of our other rights," says ACLU spokeswoman Sarah Armstrong. "But it can be complicated because we often have strange bedfellows when we're talking about free speech."

Strange bedfellows indeed. The ACLU of Oregon chided Mayor Ted Wheeler for asking the federal government to revoke a permit allowing far-right activists to hold a Trump Free Speech Rally. Just nine days before, Jeremy Christianwho had attended marches held by the same activistshurled racist insults at two Muslim teenagers on a MAX train and then stabbed three men who came to the girls' defense, killing two of them. Wheeler said the city's wounds were still too raw.

But the ACLU wasn't having it.

"The government cannot revoke or deny a permit based on the viewpoint of the demonstrators. Period," the ACLU tweeted in response. "If we allow the government to shut down speech for some, we all will pay the price down the line."

In March, the ACLU had been just as firm in its opposition when the Portland City Council voted to instate a rule banning "disruptive" leftist gadflies from council meetings.

"Free speech is an indivisible right, and everyone has to have it for the whole thing to work," Armstrong says.

Recently, the ACLU of Oregon stood up for those who have very little power to raise their own voices, by taking on laws that bar homeless people from panhandling in Portland and Gresham. The cities settled the case and are currently changing their laws against panhandling after the ACLU challenged them on the grounds that they illegally outlawed an entire class of speech: speech asking for money.

The civil liberties group's most recent free speech victory, on June 28, helped a coalition of conservation groups exercise the right to buy ads in Portland International Airport after the Port of Portland refused to post anti-clearcutting billboards because of their political message.

And there's more: The ACLU had a major victory in April when Portland and Gresham settled in a case involving a woman who livestreamed the police in 2013. A Gresham police officer grabbed Carrie Medina's phone, twisted her arm and detained her, effectively censoring her. The free-speech champions have also put pressure on Portland police to use a lighter touch when policing protests and to stop targeting protest leaders and political activists.

"Being known as a place where people regularly take to the streets, people are surprised when they see what the police response to protest is like here," Armstrong said. "You'll definitely see more from us on protest rights. We're clearly not done."

Originally posted here:

The ACLU of Oregon Has Emerged as Portland's Most Consistent Free-Speech Fundamentalists - Willamette Week

What Does Facebook Think Free Speech is For? – Harvard Crimson

Posted on by

Who should decide what is hate speech in an online global community? Thats the question Richard Allan, Facebooks Vice President for Policy in the Middle East and Asia, is asking in the wake of reporting on the social networks content moderation guidelines. Reporting group ProPublicas headlineFacebooks Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men from Hate Speech But Not Black Childrencaptures our almost dystopian fear of an all-powerful corporation rigging political discourse to serve shareholders, advertisers, and procrastinators the world over. Just imagine the 7,500-strong community operations team as uniformed propagandists searching for content that bucks the party line, and your Orwellian masterpiece is off to a fine start.

At first glance, removing hate speech might seem to depend exclusively on moderators ability to judge which posts cause serious harm to usersa task difficult only because determining that harm is so tricky. Yet as Facebook acknowledges, its own categories of hate speech dont function purely as immunizations from feeling threatened by others online.

For example, categorically demeaning African arrivals to Italy violates the social networks rules, but advocating for proposals to deny refugees Italian welfare does not. And this remains true even if both actions cause comparable suffering to their migrant subjects. As Allan explains with reference to German debates on migrants, we have left in place the ability for people to express their views on immigration itself. And we are deeply committed to making sure Facebook remains a place for legitimate debate. In other words, Facebook will permit some legitimate posts in spite of their potential to harm shielded groups.

What kind of debate qualifies as legitimate in Facebooks eyes? The company doesnt say. One approach is to classify hateful content, like much-scrutinized fake news, as a subset of false speech. Group-focused hate speech contains generalizations or arguments that take no time to debunk, while more involved political content requires prohibitive resources to fact-check properly.

However, even if removing egregiously incorrect posts were a good idea, Facebook uses other variables to decide the boundaries of legitimate discussion. When then-presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, he likely ran afoul of the sites rules against calling for exclusion of protected classesbut reports indicate that Facebook CEO Mark E. Zuckerberg, a former member of the Class of 2006, permitted the content to remain on his platform because it was part of the political discourse. The companys efforts to exclude hate do not amount to eradicating falsehood.

Facebooks selective moderation suggests that legitimate content for the company is not necessarily true or respectful content, but material whose publication it deems valuable from the publics point of view. Even if the social network could have stopped users from hearing Trumps Muslim ban speech, for instance, doing so would have prevented voters from learning something important about the candidates policy preferences.

This desire to inform citizens just illustrates how any outfits censorship practicesor lack thereofreflect a normative set of ideas about what best serves the interests of users. When Facebook, Google, or others frame content regulation as concerned with the safety of users, they mask the extent to which that safety is just one piece of a broader, and possibly controversial, conception of how we should lead our digital lives.

A social network that helps to structure the discourse of nearly two billion individuals ought to justify the design it chooses for them. And to its credit, Facebook seems more interested than just about any other technology company in giving explicit voice to its vision of building global community. But the fact that the companys moderation guidelines were developed ad hoc and without user input over the span of several years is worrying and hard to defend. When we stop pretending that online platforms are amoral structures, we also see the urgent need to scrutinize their foundations.

As it stands, the question of who ought to define and regulate hate speech is a moot one. With the exception of some European authorities, Facebook and other companies are already answering it for us, whether or not we accept their verdicts. Undoubtedly, many well-intentioned technologists envision a future in which online platforms guide political and social debate to be as robust as possible. But absent major changes, we can only hope that their utopia is not our dystopian future.

Gabriel H. Karger 18 is a philosophy concentrator in Mather House.

Eliot House Moves Facebook On-Line

It's late at night. You're surfing the Internet, staring at your own reflection in the screen, when you notice your

Yale To Give Professors Facebook Access

At Yale, the days of quietly slipping into the back of a classroomand promptly dozing off to your professors muted

techTALK

Matching faces to names is a Harvard pastime, thanks to the Freshman Register and the various House facebooks. Student demand

Safe Spaces and Free Speech

While the University of Chicago may have overstepped in issuing a blanket condemnation of safe spaces and content warnings, its letter was also a reaction to the suppression of speech that has every right to be heard on university campuses everywhere.

BGLTQ Office Prepares For Visit of Anti-Transgender 'Free Speech' Bus

Read more from the original source:

What Does Facebook Think Free Speech is For? - Harvard Crimson

US free-speech group sues Trump for blocking Twitter users – Reuters

Posted on by

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A free-speech group on Tuesday sued U.S. President Donald Trump for blocking Twitter users from his @realDonaldTrump account, arguing the practice violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit, brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York and joined by seven individual Twitter users, claims Trump blocked a number of accounts whose owners replied to his tweets with comments that criticized, mocked or disagreed with the president.

Trump's blocking of the accounts amounted to an unconstitutional effort to suppress dissent, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York.

Because Trump frequently turns to Twitter to make policy statements, his account qualifies as a public forum from which the government cannot exclude people on the basis of their views, according to the lawsuit. Twitter users are unable to see or respond to tweets from accounts that block them.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Last month White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump's tweets were considered "official statements by the president of the United States."

The suit names Spicer and Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media, as defendants in addition to Trump. It asks for the blocking to be deemed unconstitutional and seeks an injunction to require the president to unblock users.

The complaint follows a letter from the Knight Institute to Trump last month warning it would sue if users were not unblocked.

"Everyone being able to see the president's tweets feels vital to democracy," Joseph Papp, one of the seven Twitter users involved in the suit, said in a statement.

Papp, an author, said he had been a registered Republican for 10 years and did not join the suit for political reasons, but that he "felt a deep sense of unease" when he was blocked.

Trump's Twitter use has drawn intense interest for his unvarnished commentary about his agenda and attacks on critics. His tweets often lead to tens of thousands of retweets and comments and can shape the news.

The Knight Institute's arguments may have merit, independent free speech and internet law scholars say, in part because Trump's tweets are used to announce policy decisions or can influence legislation. Previous cases involving politicians blocking users on Facebook may bolster its case.

The federal suit, case number 1:17-cv-05205, was filed in the Southern District of New York.

Editing by Bill Rigby and Jeffrey Benkoe

More:

US free-speech group sues Trump for blocking Twitter users - Reuters