The Hindu | Signs and technology The Hindu Shakti (Gautham Karthik) is one of those Ritchie Street computer mechanics who has an easy fix for all technological problems. He is, in his own words, a 'reverse engineer' and that's established quite early, when he's helping out the police find a ... |
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JEFFERSONVILLE Expect a lot of progress in the next two months on New Hope Services affordable senior housing development at 835 Spring St., says the nonprofits president.
The building, which used to be Jeffersonvilles M. Fine & Sons shirt factory before being turned into the Industrial Terrorplex haunted house, has been under construction since around October 2016, said James Bosley, New Hope Services CEO.
Just two weeks ago, work on the development went vertical, meaning construction crews started adding onto the building instead of just rehabbing the existing structure. Around 50,000-square feet of the development will consist of the original structure, while 24,000-square feet of it will be new.
Now, Bosley said, onlookers will notice swift progress. The project is set to finish construction in October with leases becoming available in November.
New Hope closed with an investor and the bank on the approximately $10 million M. Fine project, called M. Fine on Spring, in September of 2016.
M. Fine on Spring will target the over 100 seniors on New Hopes waiting list for affordable housing in Jeffersonville. New Hope serves 20 counties, and one of its main focuses is housing and community development.
M. Fine on Spring will consist of 51 one- and two-bedroom apartments and contain an on-site fitness center, theater, restaurant, community rooms and outdoor roof terrace.
New Hope is also adding 10 units to its Aberdeen Woods apartments for seniors. The fact that New Hopes waiting list will still be large after both projects are finished shows the need for senior housing in the area, Bosley said.
Still, more seniors are invited to add themselves to the waiting list by calling New Hopes Willow Trace Apartments number at 812-282-6350.
New Hope is also working on giving seniors living in M. Fine on Spring things to do. Theyll be able to access senior services at New Hopes downtown office, of course, but the nonprofit is also planning to buy the former Reeders Cleaners building across the street from M. Fine on Spring and turn it into a coffee shop, wine bar or similar development.
The property needs to be decontaminated due to its former use as a cleaners and a gas station. Attorneys with New Hope and the propertys owner are working on getting their insurance companies to pay for the cleanup costs, and Bosley plans to buy the property after decontamination is finished.
M. Fine on Spring and the Reeders Cleaners development should give downtown Jeffersonville a boost, too, Bosley thinks.
Were cleaning up the whole block between 8th and 9th, he said.
Nathan Pruitt, planning and zoning director with the City of Jeffersonville, said that a senior living facility is a perfect use for the old M. Fine building, which stood vacant for years before being turned into the Industrial Terrorplex. Even after that, it was only in use a month or so during the year.
The M. Fine project is rehabilitating a unique building, he said, as well as extending the downtown area, which isnt as busy after Court Street. Finally, it's bringing more housing to an area that Pruitt believes needs it in an area where the other future housing projects target young people.
New Hope is not receiving funding from the city for its project, but it is from three different sources. Its budget comes from $7.86 million in tax credits from the federal government, $1.5 million in historic tax credits. The final piece of funding comes from the HOME Investment Partnership Program from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
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New Hope senior living facility progress moves outward - Evening News and Tribune
The good news for the Cardinals on Friday was that Kevin Siegrist and Dexter Fowler are both on track to make the 10-day disabled list an accurate depiction of how long they will be out. The question it creates is what happens when the time comes for Fowler to return.
John Mozeliak, now carrying the title of president of baseball operations, said that Siegrist (cervical spine strain) and Fowler (right heel spur) had both received anti-inflammatory injections before the teams trip to Arizona, and both were progressing. I think we have some optimism on this being the 10 days, he said.
But in Fowlers absence, Tommy Pham has sparkled in center, with his bat, arm and glove, raising the issue of what to do when Fowler returns. Right now, Mozeliak said, they havent considered those options, but they will.
Any time you sign a free agent of his magnitude and you bring him to do a job, its very delicate to start talking about moving him off, Mozeliak said. Clearly you want to do whats best for the team and finding ways to win and theres no doubt when you look at the last few days with Tommy Pham, hes made some excellent catches and had a positive impact on the team. So we have some time to decide what that next step looks like. Im sure all of us on the decision team will have a talk, but we havent done that yet.
Siegrist is expected to begin baseball-related activities this weekend and is eligible to come off the DL on Monday. Fowler cant do that as easily since his injury is to his heel and the team wants to keep him off that as much as possible so it can heal. Hes working out, Mozeliak said, but not necessarily baseball-related.
Fowler is eligible to come off the DL on Wednesday.
Second baseman Kolten Wong (right tricep strain) also had an anti-inflammatory shot Tuesday, which Mozeliak said had a positive effect but slowed down his return. Wong, out since June 15, is not expected back until after the All-Star break, which would be July 14 at the earliest.
Cardinals first baseman Matt Carpenter was taking grounders and turning double plays at second base during pregame warmups, a precursor to possibly returning, on occasion, to that position.
The Cardinals have an abundance of outfielders, plus a first baseman in Luke Voit, and the easiest way to get an extra one into the lineup would be to put one of them in first and find another place for the versatile Carpenter.
We see the same at-bats you guys see too, manager Mike Matheny said before the game, and watching Jose Martinez, watching Luke Voit, how do we keep them engaged, and is there flexibility? Jose has been one of those that has given us options in the outfield, but when you have a (Randal) Grichuk going like he is and (Stephen) Piscotty and Pham, then Dexter gets mixed back in, its going to be tough to figure out how that fits, so first base is an option. Thats really the only position that Luke Voit plays. If were faced with a tough lefty, thats something were going to at least make sure we have covered. Carp has been taking ground balls all season, all over the place. It was just a little more concentrated work at second today that might give him a little bit more opportunity.
Speaking of tough lefties, Gio Gonzalez, with a 2.87 ERA, is scheduled to start for the Nationals on Saturday.
Carpenter mostly played second in 2013, his breakout season, before moving to third base and, this season, almost exclusively, to first.
The move also works because Wong is out, leading to a variety of players filling in that spot.
We just have to think were at that point with our club to keep our eyes open, keep our options open, Matheny said, and if something looks like it may work, not be afraid to think outside the box.
Two days after former Cardinal Jhonny Peralta was signed to a minor-league contract by the Red Sox and was assigned to the teams Class AAA affiliate in Pawtucket, the Red Sox released another former Cardinal, Allen Craig. Craig, traded to the Red Sox along with Joe Kelly for John Lackey in 2014, was hitting .253 with one home run in 47 games for Pawtucket. (His slugging percentage was .316.) Craig, who hasnt played in the majors since 2015, is in the final year of a five-year contract he signed with the Cardinals in 2013 that pays him $11 million this season, and has a $13 million option for 2018 with a $1 million buyout. The Nationals put shortstop Trea Turner, the major-league leader in stolen bases with 35, on the 10-day disabled list with a fracture in his right wrist and called up infielder Adrian Sanchez.
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Fowler, Siegrist are making progress | St. Louis Cardinals | stltoday ... - STLtoday.com
NICOSIA, Cyprus Progress has been slow in high-level talks to reunify the ethnically divided island of Cyprus, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday, with security issues in particular standing in the way of a peace accord.
Guterres, whose presence on the third day of talks at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana is intended to give the discussions a boost, also played down suggestions that the body is getting weary of the drawn-out problem, which has been in its in-tray since 1964.
"There is still a lot of work to be done," Guterres told reporters after lunch with the east Mediterranean island's Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and the leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots, Mustafa Akinci.
"It is slow progress and many outstanding issues are still to be resolved," the U.N. chief said.
Guterres said "new positions showing increased flexibility" in some issues had been relayed and that some gaps between the rival sides have narrowed.
"We're not impatient and we're not threatening the parties in any way," said Guterres, adding that putting a deadline on talks would invite the collapse of the process.
Top diplomats from Cyprus' "guarantors" Greece, Turkey and Britain were also at the summit.
Anastasiades said morning talks chaired by Guterres offered possible ways out of deadlock. Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias echoed Anastasiades, calling the U.N. chief's input "useful and beneficial."
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu repeated his view that Crans-Montana is the final stop for Cyprus talks.
"This is the final conference, the last conference and we need to reach a settlement," Cavusoglu told reporters. "So to reach a settlement, we need to agree on all outstanding issues."
Central to negotiations are opposing views over the island's future security agreement on that issue has the potential of unlocking an overall peace accord.
Turkey is rebuffing Greek and Greek Cypriot calls to remove all troops from breakaway northern Cyprus after the island is reunified as a federation. It insists that any peace accord should grant Turkish citizens the right to relocate and transfer money, services and goods to the European Union member island.
Although Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, only the Greek Cypriot southern part that is the seat of the island's internationally recognized government enjoys full benefits.
The island was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup staged by supporters of union with Greece. Turkey has since stationed more than 35,000 troops in the north.
Turkey and the minority Turkish Cypriots want at least some of the troops to remain and enforce the peace after reunification under revised military rights accorded to the guarantor nations under Cyprus' 1960's constitution.
Greece and the Greek Cypriots want military rights abolished and all Turkish troops removed, replaced instead by a U.N. Security Council-backed international police force.
"We won't allow anyone to ask for all or nothing," Kotzias said before the start of talks Friday.
Cavusoglu on Thursday scolded Greece and Greek Cypriots to "wake up from their dream" that Turkey will withdraw all of its troops from Cyprus and give up military rights there as part of any agreement.
Other unresolved core issues, including a Turkish Cypriot demand to hold the island's future federal presidency on a rotational basis, are being discussed concurrently. But movement on those matters hinges on overcoming the security hurdle, officials said.
___
Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, and Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece, contributed to this report.
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UN chief: Progress in Cyprus talks, much more to be done - Fox News
Charles Davis, a cornerback on the Virginia football team, recently won $100,000 playing the Virginia Lottery.
Davis was returning from an early morning workout when he stopped to pick up coffee for his mother, Tiffany, at a 7-Eleven in his hometown of Ashburn. He played the lotterys Cash 5 game, selecting numbers on his ticket that his grandmother suggested.
The winning numbers for that drawing were 1-3-4-7-9.
I looked at the numbers on the website after the drawing and said, I won! he said.
Davis, an American Studies major at UVa, played defensive back and wide receiver at Broad Run High School in Ashburn. He then played a postgraduate season (2015) at Fork Union Military Academy for head coach John Shuman. Davis began his collegiate career at Nebraska, participating in the Cornhuskers spring practices in 2016 before transferring to Virginia.
He sat out last season due to NCAA transfer rules.
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Virginia football player wins $100000 playing lottery - The Daily Progress
Demarest Farms' fall parking plan includes street parking for its customers. Residents who live in the vicinity of the farm say that street parking for the farm's growing customer base is not safe. Catherine Carrera/NorthJersey.com
Demarest Farms is on Wierimus Road in Hillsdale.(Photo: Anne Caruso/NorthJersey.com file photo)
HILLSDALE No agreement was reached Friday but there was "progress" in the negotiations over Demarest Farms' parking, according to the farm's attorney.
The borough and Demarest Farms representatives met Friday morning to negotiate a resolution on parking for patrons of the farm, officials said.
"We aired our views and some progress was made," the farm's attorney, David Marcus, said. Hesaid further details could not be disclosed as the negotiations are ongoing. The representatives plan to meet again July 18.
The issue of where the farm's patrons can parkhas gotten contentious in the borough after recent "pick your own" seasons have drawn thousands of visitors to the 34-acre farm that sits on the corner of Hillsdale Avenue andWierimusRoad.
Farm co-owner JasonDeGisesaid the farm has been using off-site parking for 16 years. After nearby farms closed down, such asDePiero's Farmin Montvale, the number of customers has increased, Marcus has said.
The Borough Council recently passed an ordinance prohibiting parking on the 37 streets surrounding the farm on weekends during business hours from Aug. 30 through Oct. 30.
But the farm, which can accommodate 210 cars on-site, relies on street parking during that time for an estimated 600 vehicles.
The farm is currently seeking approval from the Bergen County Agriculture Development Board foraparking plan that calls for street parking for 600 patrons.
The borough recently offered to allow the farm to use its municipal lot downtown, which the farm would need to place a bid on, borough officials have said. The councilalso recently askedthe school board to allow Demarest Farms to use the 130 spaces at the parking lot at nearby Smith School.
A previous agreement between the school board and farm was terminated after public protest.
"We're working as best we can to support their application," Mayor Doug Frank said Friday.
Email: carrera@northjersey.com
Read or Share this story: https://njersy.co/2tzlg6S
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No agreement but 'progress' in Demarest Farms parking dispute - NorthJersey.com
The investigation into the June 2016 murder of a Parsons man is advancing, Labette County Sheriff Darren Eichinger said.
David N. Ellis, 23, was found dead early on Friday morning, June 3, 2016, outside his apartment at 1722 24000 Road, Apt. D. He had been shot.
Labette County 911 dispatch received a call at 1:34 a.m. that day reporting that several people entered into Ellis apartment armed with guns. The group had left at the time the call was made.
Deputies responded and discovered Ellis lying on the ground a short distance from the apartment.He was dead and deputies observed that Ellis had what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the abdomen. In June 2016, former Sheriff Robert Sims said Ellis had been shot multiple times by a semi-automatic weapon. Sims would not provide specifics about how many times or where Ellis was shot or the caliber or type of weapon used.
The crime is believed to be drug related because multiple kinds of drugs were found in the apartment. The suspects initially were described as a white male, a black male and a black female.
Sheriff Eichinger said Friday the case has been actively investigated since he took office in January.
We are making progress, Eichinger said.
Since March, the sheriffs department has had two detectives on staff and they are working on the homicide as well as other cases as they come up.
Eichinger said he could not release more details about the case for fear of tainting the investigation, but he did say detectives continue to work on it and interview potential witnesses.
If you have information on the case, call the sheriffs department at (620) 795-2565.
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Published on June 30th, 2017 | by James Ayre
June 30th, 2017 by James Ayre
The UKs progress towards achieving its climate change goals has been stalling, according to a new report from the UKs Committee on Climate Change advisers. The report argues that new policy initiatives and strategies are needed if the UK is to meet its ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reductions goals.
As a reminder here, the UK government is currently pursuing a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 (as compared to 1990 greenhouse gas emissions levels).
As of right now, the UK has reduced official greenhouse gas emissions by around 42% as compared to 1990 levels, according to the new report.
While that sounds pretty impressive, the report notes that almost all of whats been achieved so far has been in the power and waste sectors. Transport sector and building sector emissions have actually been continuing to rise in recent years.
The good news is we have got half way. But the way we have achieved this is almost entirely focused on the power sector, noted Matthew Bell, chief executive of the committee, in a conversation with Reuters. We cannot extrapolate that to 2050. Power sector emissions have been lowered so much We wont get the remaining distance we need if other sectors dont start contributing.
Reuters provides more: Earlier this week, Britains new climate change minister, Claire Perry, said the government would publish its Clean Growth Plan a framework for how Britain will reduce emissions in the 2020s and 2030s after the parliamentary summer recess. Parliament closes on July 20 and reconvenes on Sept. 5.
The plans release was originally scheduled for late 2016. The delay has been criticized by investors who are looking for policy certainty. Under current policies, Britain is on track to miss its legally-binding emission reduction targets for the mid-2020s onwards, prompting calls for more action in the heat, buildings, industry, transport and agriculture sectors.
The government also needs to present Parliament with detailed measures to address climate risks, such as risks to households and businesses from flooding, so its national adaptation program can be published early next year, the report said.
Itll be interesting to see what exactly the framework in the Clean Growth Plan ends up looking like. While city-level initiatives are in no way sufficient on their own, it is notable that London, and other cities as well, have seemingly begun working harder in recent times to reduce their emissions.
Even though the push is being driven mostly by the significant air pollution problems in London, the eventual imposition of a zero emissions zone in the central part of the city will probably have a pretty notable effect on transport sector emissions there. Its an open question, though, how long well have to wait for that policy to be implemented.
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Tags: climate change goals, UK
James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.
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UK's Progress Towards Climate Change Goals Is Stalling, Advisors Say - CleanTechnica
by Coral Lee, Heritage Radio Network Research & Radio Intern
I sat down with Cynthia Cherish Malaran, AKA DJ CherishTheLuv, this past Friday afternoon at Robertas patio. Swatting away summer flies, we chatted about the music we love, versus music we like, versus the music weve missed. This is how Cynthia, also an ordained minister and self proclaimed music missionary, has come to define her DJing style her creative formula. By mixing nostalgic tracks into todays hits, she touches the mind, heart, and soul, allowing those on the dancefloor to even if just for 3 minutes wiggle away the nonstop stresses of life. Music is a happy pill. One you swallow through your ears.
On surviving breast cancer, Cynthia attributes her wellness to keeping her head in the music. She continued to DJ all throughout chemotherapy, even to other patients through the walls of the chemo suites at Memorial Sloan Kettering. If you're miserable, and getting that kind of hardcore treatment into your body, you will barely survive it. I told myself that if I could project manage my cancer, help others and grow because of it, it would all be worth it. Otherwise, I'd just be destroyed.
DJ CherishTheLuv DJing from her chemo chair to fellow patients at the Evelyn Lauder Breast Cancer suites at Memorial Sloan Kettering
As a result of making her positive attitude public over social media, Cynthia was invited to become a voice on Heritage Radio Network, by then-Executive Director, Erin Fairbanks. She started by producing her first show Primary Food, in which she documented the good things she "fed" herself with. While secondary food refers to what you put in your mouth, primary food, a concept she learned at Institute for Integrative Nutrition, is everything else in life that nourishes you before you eat. So you'll notice, if you had a crappy day, you will go eat some crappy food. DJing is a form of primary food for me when I am DJing, being fed by a great crowd, I always end the night like how did I not eat for 6 hours? Because I was being fed spiritually, psychologically, emotionally and I knew I had to keep this concept first and foremost as I was going through cancer treatment. I knew I had to load my life with really good primary foods: friends, music, art, entertainment, petting my dog, traveling, to keep my happiness levels high, so my body could repair itself.
Refusing to see life as mean and cruel, Cynthia, armed with music, is now working to re-introduce as much good as she possibly can into the world. She recently returned from a 3-week trip to Ecuador, in which she taught young girls at an orphanage how to DJ. Actually, I taught these young teens how to express themselves creatively and loudly, under the guise of DJing. These girls have been traumatized. Silenced. Teaching them how to express themselves gives them the green light to ask for what they want. To say no! To ask for a raise at work. It can change their life. Even save their life. I went there thinking I had something to teach them. But actually, they taught me I came back a few days ago, Cynthia reports, and I was looking at all these sad, unhappy faces here in our awesome New York City, and I was so confused. I came back and realized we have everything. We have everything and yet, we're not happy. The girls at the orphanage have the bare minimum, yet they are so happy. Why? Because they have each other. Here, we have objects and things like cars, smart phones, wifi things we love but they will never love us back. We may have everything but we don't have one another. I learned that the more things I have doesn't contribute to happiness at all. Maybe I even have so much stuff I can't see what my life is really about or like, maybe I have so much stuff I don't really know who I am.
A few months ago, Cynthia got a phone call from Maike Both, founder of the "Unfuck the World movement. Maike asked Cynthia if she would be interested in coming down to Ecuador and meet with legendary recording engineer/producer, Erwin Musper, who has worked with David Bowie, Bon Jovi, Elton John, Metallica, Def Leppard and more, with his name on 80 million records sold, and counting, to spread some good vibes and cheer. When I was asked to fly down to Ecuador and meet the orphans, I immediately pictured myself teaching them some DJing so I jumped at the opportunity to help out.
I packed my portable Pioneer mixer, thinking OK, I'm going to gift these kids ME, Cynthia laughs. Of course you go into something like this, just like with my work at Riker's, thinking you're going in with something to give them. And then you realize it's you who has the deficits, and they gift you so much knowledge, understanding, eye-opening love. I think in the past 2.5 weeks, I've gotten hugged more than in the past two years.
Cynthia shares how teaching the girls products of rape, abuse, neglect, subject to silencing how to express themselves was profound in so many ways. I don't speak Spanish; they dont speak much English, but music is the universal language, and rhythm transcends words. The kids had never heard a song sped up or slowed down before, they were totally shocked! I didn't want to teach them how to be a DJ, but how to express, how to experiment, how to feel free. I didnt learn how to express myself and be free until my thirties, and I'm a born and bred Manhattanite. Even just teaching them to hit pause or play when they wanted to, adjust the volume to their likingI could see it was doing something for them. It was giving them the green light to make a difference. And I know that they'll take that lesson and apply it somewhere.
DJ CherishTheLuv teaching young teenage girls DJing basics at an orphanage in Ecuador.
Cynthia tells of how on one of the last days of her visit, one of the shyest girls became Cynthias student teacher. This student stepped up and would say in Spanish, to the other girls, no, this is how you do it, and would show the other girls while Cynthia just stood back back and watched in awe. Shy and reserved for a myriad of reasons the girl was new to the orphanage she was, for the first time, speaking up and being heard and respected. Through DJing, she had a way to confidently and comfortably socialize with the others at the orphanage.
DJ CherishTheLuv and some of her DJ students at the orphanage.
These girls taught me how to think about survivalism. As a breast cancer survivor, I thought I had the understanding of surviving down pat but there's really so much more. The youngest is a 2 month old orphan who was brought there at 2 days old. Her mom is 12. She was a product of rape by the uncle, and the orphanage is raising this kid like family. It's a paradise there, because they all have each other. There are the mamitas (the women who run the orphanage and keep daily order) and the psychologists on-site. They do everything they can to make sure the kids are really cared for, and the kids care for each other. The way they experience love might not be from their parents, but learnt from this layer of their life.
Cynthia told me about a typical day at the orphanage. They wake up 4 or 5 in the morning, they start preparing food, take care of their own needs (showering, fixing up their space, getting dressed), and get their school supplies together. Kids that are old enough, go to school regular schools. They come back at 2pm to the orphanage. They eat. There's playtime. Erwin Musper has set up English classes (taught by volunteers), and guitar classes where Erwin teaches them how to play Beatles songs and more. Each week the mamitas choose a few of the girls to have a special night on the town on the Muspers. I got to go along for pizza night. The girls were drinking soda after soda after soda, so happy it was so sweet.
One evening, Cynthia remembers, a taxi cab pulled up with a young woman. Erwin explained that she was raised in the orphanage, got old enough to leave and go to university to become a social worker, and she returns to visit her younger sister, living at the orphanage. Their system works! All these boys and girls have transcended their traumatic pasts enough to now envision a future with dreams to be something: one girl wants to be a marine biologist. They know what they want to do. They have dreams because of all this incredible love and support. I want to keep helping them get support.
Erwin collected funds to help them get a refrigerator; they just recently got ceiling fans because the orphanage is made of cinder blocks and metal tin roofs that trap the heat when the sun is out, making sleep very miserable. The older boys live in a place called Gandhi a bit down the road. Cynthia has donated money from her earnings DJing at Whole Foods Bryant Park, for the construction of raised beds, so that each of the older boys can have their own garden and learn how to grow food, feed one another, share, and learn about responsibility.
Erwin Musper and half of the children at the orphanage.
Erwin photographs everything; kids are able to watch themselves grow. If you're already robbed of your identity who you are and where you're from and then you're able to get pictures, physical pictures, and see yourself grow... these kids are going to value this so much decades from now. This is the stuff they can look back on. The good stuff.
Going to the orphanage was another piece of healing for Cynthia. Yes, going through cancer was heavy, scary for me, but if I also experience really great stuff, it crowds out the bad. Being at the orphanage teaching DJing outweighed other negative experiences. I feel like everyone needs to see that genuine love, happiness, and care exists. This is a place where the kids are happy, dancing and celebrating everyday, because if you have 60 kids and there are 52 weeks in a year, there's going to be a birthday all the time. You cant just focus on the bad; you're going to see this world as mean and cruel. But instead, see the good: Erwin being there, me being there, the kids eating birthday cake every week, singing happy birthday more than you'll ever do in a month's time. I feel like my family grew. I never gave birth to children in my life, but I feel like I have 60 kids. That's really something.
Meet the children in this video created by DJ CherishTheLuv and Erwin Musper. Consider donating to the orphanage and becoming a part of the family by visiting this link.
Cynthia Cherish Malaran, Rev. DJ CherishTheLuv, is host of Primary Food and Wedding Cake on Heritage Radio Network. She is a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutritions Health Coach Training Program, where she learned about Primary Food and other nutrition and health coaching concepts. Learn more about the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
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In graduate school, a friend and I, both Hemingway aficionados, would try to stump each other by quoting lines from the famous writers fiction. I had a bit of an advantage because I was a few years older than my rival and had already taught Hemingway to high school students. And so, familiar with even obscure works like A Man of the World, which adolescents enjoyed, I never lost one of our good-natured contests. Yet despite my devotion to the Nobel Laureate, I never thought two decades later I'd be praying for his soul.
My devotion influenced my first published story, The Man Who Thought He Was Hemingway, and the summer after graduate school another friend and I made a pilgrimage to northern Michigan, retracing the steps young Ernest would have taken when vacationing with his family. We went to Walloon Lake in Petoskey, to Horton Bay where he loved to fish, and then on to the Upper Peninsula, to Seney and the nearby Fox, a.k.a. Big Two-Hearted River. After visiting Hemingway shrines during the day we would spend our evenings in the local taverns, and then around 2:30 a.m., back in the tent while my poor friend tried to sleep, I would turn on a flashlight and read Hemingway stories aloud as if they were Compline.
I was not Catholic then and had never heard of Compline; I did not know the Scripture verses prayed at night were selected by the church to encourage peace in the soul. Yet in my own fumbling way I sought this peace through what I was reading. And to some extent, I succeeded. For it is impossible to encounter the best of Hemingways stories, Indian Camp or Now I Lay Me, The Undefeated or In Another Country, without being soothed by their transcendence. Fiction is not divinely inspired, but Ralph Ellison thought so much of In Another Country he could recite its opening paragraph verbatim.
A few years after that pilgrimage I converted to Catholicism, and as I tried to move closer to God I found myself moving away from Hemingway. For a long time, before, during and after graduate school, I did not have any faithin spite of having been blessed with a solid Lutheran upbringing. In retrospect I partially blamed the man who, in The Sun Also Rises, taught me a bottle of wine was good company. I knew my atheism had been a response to my mothers rheumatoid arthritis, which struck her at 55 and turned her into an old woman overnight. I had watched her exhaustingly take care of her own mother, afflicted with the same disease, and the irony of my mothers suffering, commencing just a year after my grandmother's death,could not be reconciled with a loving God.
Still, hadnt Hemingway also played a role? In addition to the lousy example he set as a hard-drinking womanizer, hadnt he, in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, penned the nihilistic and blasphemous lines of the old waiter? They are as sharp and clear as anything he ever wrote:
It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and lightwas all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it andnever felt it but he knew it all wasnada y pues nada y nada y pues nada.Ournadawho art innada, nadabe thy name thy kingdomnadathy willbenadainnadaas it is innada. Give us this nada our daily nada andnadaus ournada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada butdeliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing iswith thee.
As a writer, I understood a characters words and actions cannot be ascribed to their author. The old waiter is a fictional invention. He is not Hemingway any more than the Misfit in A Good Man is Hard to Find is Flannery OConnoreven if the Misfits lament, I cant make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment, might well have been echoed by OConnor or my mother and grandmother. More importantly, the old waiters insomnia could be viewed as resulting from his nihilism, and a reader could interpret the tale as a condemnation of that philosophy. Nonetheless, those lines from A Clean, Well-Lighted Place haunted me.I felt guilty for having taught that story to impressionable students.
So I avoided Hemingway like the other fishermen avoid Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea. Now, however, roughly a decade later, I realize I did so out of ignorance. I had bought into the myth of Hemingway propagated by our culture and, indeed, many of his biographers, rather than the truth revealed in his life and work. Far from being a nihilist, he had an interest in Catholicism even before his 1927 marriage to Pauline, and though he practiced the faith imperfectly, to say the leastfour wives, several affairsit always remained important to him and permeates much of his fiction. Santiago, after all, means St. James, and in 1954 Hemingway formally presented his Nobel Prize Medal to Our Lady of Charity, the Patroness of Cuba.
Yet I do not pray for Hemingway because he was Catholic, butrather because through his writing he has been a friend of mine, and in 1961, two years before I was born, he put the twin barrels of a shotgun against his forehead and committed suicide. He had received electro-shock treatments to combat depression, and these, combined with the serious concussions he had previously suffered, left him unable to think clearly, much less pursue the craft for which he won the Nobel. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that psychological factors like this can mitigate ones culpability. Furthermore, it says: We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives (No. 2283).
In short, there is hope for Ernest Hemingway, for all suicides, and this hope is rooted in Gods timelessness as well as his mercy. Our prayers are effective because everything stands before God in an ever-present now. God has always known that I would offer prayers in 2017 for that terrible moment in 1961. He can, therefore, assign the grace of those prayers to Hemingway in that moment, in the final millisecond of life after the trigger was pulled. My petitions before God, even 56 years after Hemingways death, can foster a disposition of the writers soul that will lead to salvation.
Dorothy Day understood this and prayed frequently for suicides, and we should do the same. These are souls on the margins, spiritual outcasts in need of our compassion.We should have Masses said for them, pray the Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet for them and offer up our trials so they may attain the beatific vision. And whether we are tied to them by kinship, friendship, admiration for their brilliantwriting, or just the metaphysical bond of our shared humanity, we must trust in the boundless love of God whom we know desires all men to be saved (1 Tim 2:4).
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When Bob Dylan tells the story of Bob Dylan, he often starts at a concert by rock n roll pioneer Buddy Holly in the winter of 1959.
At least, thats where he started in his recent Nobel Prize for Literature lecture.
Terry Mattingly | On Religion
Something mysterious about Holly filled me with conviction, said Dylan. He looked me right straight dead in the eye, and he transmitted something. Something, I didnt know what. And it gave me the chills.
Days later, Holly died in a plane crash. Right after that, someone gave Dylan a recording of Cotton Fields by folk legend Lead Belly. It was like Id been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me, said Dylan.
That story probably sounded rather strange to lots of people, said Scott Marshall, author of the new book Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life.
What happens when somebody lays hands on you? If people dont know the Bible, then who knows what theyll think that means? ... Dylan is saying he felt called to some new work, like he was being ordained. Thats just the way Dylan talks. Thats who he is.
For millions of true believers, Dylan was a prophetic voice of the 1960s and all that followed. Then his intense embrace of Christianity in the late 1970s infuriated many fans and critics. Ever since, Dylan has been surrounded by arguments often heated about the state of his soul.
The facts reveal that Dylan had God on his mind long before his gospel-rock trilogy, Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love.
One civil rights activist, the Rev. Bert Cartwright, catalogued all the religious references in Dylans 1961-78 works, before the born-again years. In all, 89 out of 246 Dylan songs or liner notes 36 percent contained Bible references. Cartwright found 190 Hebrew Bible allusions and 197 to Christian scriptures.
Also, Dylan told People magazine in 1975: I didnt consciously pursue the Bob Dylan myth. It was given to me by God. ... I dont care what people expect of me. It doesnt concern me. Im doing Gods work. Thats all I know.
What does that mean? Marshall collected material from stacks of published interviews and has concluded that two words perfectly describe Dylans approach to answering these questions: inscrutability and irascibility. Plus, its hard to know when Dylan is being serious, cranky or playful.
Nevertheless, faith language always plays a central role. Marshall cites waves of examples, including a time when Dylan was asked if his raucous Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 with its everybody must get stoned chant was code for getting high. Dylan wryly noted that many critics arent familiar with the Book of Acts.
In his Nobel lecture, Dylan also stressed the role great literature has played in his life, dating back to grammar school days. Once again, there were religious themes.
Moby-Dick, for example, combined all the myths: the Judeo-Christian Bible, Hindu myths, British legends, St. George, Perseus, Hercules theyre all whalers.
All Quiet on the Western Front mixed politics, nihilism and horror, and Dylan noted that he has never read another war novel. In that book, Youre on the real iron cross, and a Roman soldiers putting a sponge of vinegar to your lips.
With The Odyssey, he said readers have to live the tale, wrestling with gods and goddesses. Some of these same things have happened to you. You too have had drugs dropped into your wine. You too have shared a bed with the wrong woman. You too have been spellbound by magical voices, sweet voices with strange melodies.
In the end, said Dylan, a songs impact on each person is what matters. I dont have to know what a song means, he said. Ive written all kinds of things into my songs. And Im not going to worry about it what it all means.
Marshall believes one thing should be obvious: If Dylanologists want to understand Dylans life and art, they will have to wrestle with all of his songs, including those drenched in God-talk. Biblical literacy is an essential skill in that work.
The bottom line is clear, according to Hollywood director Scott Derrickson, writing in the books foreword: Dylan has never recanted a single line from a single song.
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A Torah scroll. Photo: Rabbisacks.org.
As if we are not cynical and jaded enough, enter the latesttrendin fake news: the miracle survivor story that turns out to be a lie.
This week, the BBC was forced to apologize after publishing a breaking news story on its website, claiming that a babyhad miraculously been discovered alive in the ruins of Grenfell Tower, 12 days after the London building was destroyed in a devastating fire .
But rather than focus on the sick motivations of the click-bait website that came up with the story, lets consider something else for a moment: if the story had been true, would the BBC have been accurate in describing the babys survival as a miracle? After all, if the baby did survive (and for 12 days, no less), it might better be described as exceptionally good luck. No laws of nature were broken, and no oneclaimedthat the child was protected or fed by an angel, so why would the story be labeled a miracle?
June 30, 2017 1:13 pm
US President Donald Trump was vindicated this week, after CNN Supervising Producer John Bonifield was caught on a hidden camera...
This question cuts to the core of religious faith, and has vexed philosophers and theologians for millennia.
The first person to formally wrestle, as a rationalist, with the existence of the supernatural was the Greek philosopher, Aristotle. He believed that supernatural miracles defied reason, and that anything that defied reason was, by definition, impossible. The great medieval Jewish philosopher and rabbi Moses Maimonides, was an avid devotee of Aristotelian philosophy, and he went to great lengths to reconcile Aristotles views with the numerous stories of supernatural events in the Torah not always very convincingly, it must be said.
Interestingly, although they never openly debated the veracity of miracles, the Talmudic sages in Abot (5:8) acknowledged this theological challenge by proposing that certain supernatural events recorded in the Torah were conceived of by God at the dawn of creation, but only crystallized at a particular time and place when thecircumstances were right. Abot lists 10 such phenomena, including Moses staff, Miriams well, and the mouth of Balaams talking donkey.
My own ancestor, Rabbi Judah Loew, the Maharal of Prague, offered a compelling theological compromise to reconcile Aristotles rationalism with numerous biblical occurrences of the supernatural. His theory is an intriguing alternative to the proposition in Abot. Just as there is an order to nature, he wrote, so too there is an order to the miraculous.
In the Maharals opinion, miracles do not defy natural lawbecause Gods creation was never set up to be a binary system of nature and the supernatural. Instead, miracles have their own set of laws, in parallel to nature, although these laws cannot be subjected to the rigid empiricism demanded by Aristotelian philosophy. That is because miracles are self-evidently extremely scarce, requiring very specific circumstances to trigger them, and even the slightest deviation from those circumstances will prevent the supernatural manifestation from occurring.
Perhaps this explains an anomaly in the episode of Miriams well that is found in the Torah portion of Chukat. When Moses approached God to ask Him how he might resolve the water crisis, God told Mosesto draw water out of a rock. According to the medieval commentator Rashi, Moses attempted to find the exact rock that God wanted him to use, but was somehow unable to locate it. Irritated by the delay, the thirsty nation of Israel began to get restless. As far as they were concerned, any rock would do surely if God wanted Moses to produce water from a rock, it would make no difference which rock it was.
This explains Moses cryptic response to the nation when they began to protest (Num.20:10): are we to produce water for you out ofthisrock?Namely, who said that this is the rock set up within the laws of miracles to produce the required water? God does not indiscriminately break the laws of nature. The conditions have to be exactly right, or the miracle will not occur.
Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica, one of the 19th centurys most original Hasidic thinkers, took this even further. He believed that the Torah attributes Gods refusal to allow Moses entry into the Promised Land as a reaction to this episode. But rather than being a punishment, it was simply based on Moses own rationale. Circumstances had to be exactly right, Moseshad told the people, and if they were not, the miracle could not occur.
Moses had known for quite some time that it was going to be Joshua who led the nation into the Promised Land, and that once the40-year period in the wilderness was over, his time was up. Nevertheless, Moses was hoping that God would reverse the natural order and allow him to enter the land in defiance of his destiny a miracle, as it were. So how was God going to break the news to him that his destiny was irrevocable?
After the confrontation over the rock, God had the perfect explanation for Moses. Asked to produce water out of any rock, Moses had responded that the rock had to be exactly the right one. Similarly,Moses entry into the Promised Land did not fit into the exactorder of things, and after the incident with the rock, this sad reality would finally make sense.
Ultimately, supernatural law is no different than natural law; it follows strict criteria that cannot be overruled. The refreshing consequence of this brilliant idea is that both the natural and the supernatural emanate equivalently from Gods will, making science and mysticism cousins in one family rather than mutually exclusive foes.
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In a design world so obsessed with all things "curated," surprisingly little time is devoted to the actual curators. Meet Maria Cristina Didero, the Milan-based design curator behind many of todays hottest happenings. "I believe design is about people, not about chairs," says the fiery redhead, who moved to Milan rather on a whim in 1999 when she couldnt get on a flight to Rome. That distinct point of view has manifested in a wide range of projectslast year she assembled a Nendo retrospective at the Holon Design Museum and curated Fendis presentation of work by young talent Cristina Celestino at Design Miami. During Milans Salone del Mobile furniture fair this spring, she worked with Atelier Biagetti on the presentation of "God" (the third of three provocative furnishings collections) and wrote the curatorial text for "Foundation," Formafantasmas buzzy lighting exhibition at Spazio Krizio.
Photo: Delfino Sisto Legnani
Photo: Courtesy of Fendi
Beyond curating shows, Didero is an expert in Italian Radical design (a period from the 1960s to mid-'70s that thumbed its nose at International Style rationalism). As such, she has contributed to Maurizio Cattelans Technicolor tome 1968 and has curated several exhibitions of design, art, and architecture from the period. Currently, shes working on a project called "Over-Curated," in which she will collaborate with four other curators on a show of design.
Photo: Takumi Ota
As for the current state of the design scene in Milan, Didero explains: "Italy, and therefore Milan, underwent a great crisis when the economy collapsed. But with every crisis comes a huge resource: Even with less money around, a new generation of designers came about, and a new spirit and a fresh international pride have invaded the city. What I like about Milan is that when you have an idea it can actually become possible."
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Morgan Library & Museum, New York, is currently hosting, 'Poussin, Claude, and French Drawing in the Classical Age', on view through October 15, 2017.
The show explores the work of some of the most celebrated artists of the time. More than fifty drawings largely from the Morgans collections including works by Claude Lorrain (16001682), Nicolas Poussin (15941665), Jacques Callot (15921635), and Charles Le Brun (16191690) are featured in the exhibition. Together they demonstrate the eras distinctive approach to composition and subject matter, informed by principles of rationalism, respect for the art of classical antiquity, and by a belief in a natural world governed by divine order.
The French refer to the seventeenth century as the Grand Sicle or the Great Century. Under the rule of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, the period saw a dramatic increase in French political and military power, the maturation of French courtly life at Versailles, and an unparalleled flourishing of the arts.
The exhibition is on view at Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA.
For details, visit: http://www.themorgan.org
Click on the slideshow for a sneak peek at the exhibition.
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Tubelights general celebration of the values of friendship and humanism over those of brute nationalism is appreciable. But the presentation of these ideas is puerile and dumbed down to the extreme
Jul 1, 2017-
Another Eid, and like clockwork, theres another Salman Khan biggie out on screens. This time, the star has reteamed with director Kabir Khanthe man who had helmed two of the actors more recent hits in the form of 2012s Ek Tha Tiger and 2015s Bajrangi Bhaijaanto bring to us the new Tubelight, a reworking of a 2015 Hollywood anti-war drama, Little Boy. Tubelight takes that poorly-received story of a young childs desperate desire to bring his father home from the battlefield in World War II and repurposes it to fit the context of the Indo-Sino War in 1962.
However, while the shift in setting is achieved smoothly enough, and the films overall message about inclusion and tolerance is both timely and well-intentioned, it is in execution that Tubelight, in a manner reminiscent of one of its own much-derided knock-kneed characters, trips, fails wildly and tumbles face-first to the ground.
Rather than the feel-good lesson on the power of belief that it seeks to be, this slow-moving, synthetic and incredibly simplistic excuse for a film will feel, by the time you reach end credits, more like a brutal test of the power of your patience.
Ever since hed been a child, Laxman (Khan) had, by his own admission, been a little slow on the general uptake, earning him the unimaginative moniker of tubelight from his ever-sneering contemporaries. Fortunately, younger brother Bharat (Sohail Khan) has always had his back, fighting off the bullies andmore so owing to the early loss of their parentsbasically hand-holding Laxman through his travails in life.
Until the day the army arrives in their picturesque little town in the Kumaon hills, and calls upon the young men therein to enlist in order to stop the potential Chinese encroachment along the border.
Bharat aces the tests and is almost immediately drafted, and so he heads off, leaving behind a distraught and utterly helpless Laxman.
It should come as no spoiler that the entire point of a story such as this one is to show our hero gradually coming into his own, learning to rely on himself and demonstrating his worth to an otherwise dismissive society.
Playing a major part in that evolution in this case is a friendship Laxman strikes with a little boy (Matin Rey Tangu) and his mother (Zhu Zhu) who have just moved into the neighbourhood, and whose distinctive appearancetheyre Indian, but their ancestors were from Chinaearns them instant ill will. Laxman, then, finds himself caught between defending the pair, and the prospect of losing his only brother to Chinese forcesand struggling not to conflate the two, as his fellow townspeople have so easily done.
The attempt to say something, anything, about distrustful and often downright discriminatory attitudes and behaviour towards people from the North-East in India,
particularly at this point in time, is appreciable, as is Tubelights general celebration of the values of friendship and humanism over those of blind, brute nationalism.
But the presentation of these ideas is puerile to the extreme, more a page out of a sixth grade Moral Science book than a film that isnt targetedat least not to my knowledgespecifically at under-12s. Indeed, that sense of having ones intelligence underestimated lingers throughoutparticularly when the kindly Banne Chacha, played by the late Om Puri, is giving Laxman a crash course on Gandhian ideals, scenes that are so over-earnest, they make you cringe.
Thats the trouble with the constant sermonising in Tubelightits too dumbed down to really evoke any sort of response, essentially just a load of numbing noise.
Another major contributor to the films overall manufactured, inauthentic air isand hardcore Salman fans can opt out from reading here on outthe lead performance, possibly the weakest link, and very possibly Khans worst avatar to date.
For a long time now, the actor has been coasting on roles that involve very little acting per se, mostly big-budget vehicles where it seems he only needs to show up, shake a leg or two, spout a few dramatic put-downs, in between taking on relentless action set-piecesand if it hasnt earned him the love of critics, its been more than enough for his legions of admirers.
One cant really blame him, though, for wanting to try something different, partly to distance his public image from that distinct brand of shirtless machismo hes long been peddlinga desire thats increasingly crept into his most recent outings on screen.
But what he does in Tubelight is a misfire of epic proportions: For one, although its never expressly told how old Laxman is, its still stretching belief a quite bit to have him played by a 50-something actor.
And Khan, seemingly channeling Hrithik Roshans already-questionable portrayal of an adult man witha developmental disability in Koi...Mil Gaya, botches this stint so bad its actually hard to watch, especially when hes trying to come off all childlike and innocent, or even worse, when crumpling his face up to shed some tears.
Never, ever, have the actors limitations been more evident than they are here, and not once do you believe in his ridiculous caricature of a character. In fact, everyone, including real-life brother Sohail Khan, who, lets admit, isnt the heftiest of performers by any other account, and the diminutive Tangu, who is basically given to alternating between cutesy posturing and yelling his linesare still a vast improvement on Khan.
One of the few positives in Tubelight is the incredible scenery that it captures, shot in various locations around north India, including Manali. However, when we zoom into the little settlement where Laxman lives, with its overly-colourful houses and characters, theres an artificial quality to the wholesome small-town camaraderie on display,a little too perfect, a little too practiced to truly feel real.
If I were you, Id skip this one. Then again, given that Khans films are, by his ownestimation, critic-proof, if youre a fan, you probably wont take my advice.
Published: 01-07-2017 09:28
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June 30, 2017 BerlinGerman lawmakers approved a bill on Friday aimed at cracking down on hate speech on social networks, which critics say could have drastic consequences for free speech online.
The measure approved is designed to enforce the country's existing limits on speech, including the long-standing ban on Holocaust denial. Among other things, it would fine social networking sites up to 50 million euros ($56 million) if they persistently fail to remove illegal content within a week, including defamatory "fake news."
"Freedom of speech ends where the criminal law begins," said Justice Minister Heiko Maas, who was the driving force behind the bill.
Mr. Maas said official figures showed the number of hate crimes in Germany increased by over 300 percent in the past two years.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter have become a battleground for angry debates about Germany's recent influx of more than 1 million refugees, with authorities struggling to keep up with the flood of criminal complaints.
Maas claimed that 14 months of discussion with major social media companies had made no significant progress. Last week, lawmakers from his Social Democratic Party and Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Union bloc agreed a number of amendments to give companies more time to check whether posts that are flagged to them are illegal, delegate the vetting process to a third party, and ensure that users whose comments are removed can appeal the decision.
But human rights experts and the companies affected warn that the law risks privatizing the process of censorship and could have a chilling effect on free speech.
"This law as it stands now will not improve efforts to tackle this important societal problem," Facebook said in a statement.
"We feel that the lack of scrutiny and consultation do not do justice to the importance of the subject. We will continue to do everything we can to ensure safety for the people on our platform," the company said, noting that it is hiring 3,000 additional staff on top of 4,500 already working to review posts.
Aside from the hefty fine for companies, the law also provides for fines of up to 5 million euros for the person each company designates to deal with the complaints procedure if it doesn't meet requirements.
Social networks also have to publish a report every six months detailing how many complaints they received and how they dealt with them.
Among those cheering the law was Germany's main Jewish organization, which called it a "strong instrument against hate speech in social networks."
Germany has long had a law criminalizing Holocaust denial a response to the country's Nazi-era history of allowing racist ideas to become genocidal policy.
"Jews are exposed to anti-Semitic hatred in social networks on a daily basis," the Central Council of Jews said. "Since all voluntary agreements with platform operators produced almost no result, this law is the logical consequence to effectively limit hate speech."
The nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which has frequently been accused of whipping up sentiments against immigrants and minorities, said it is considering challenging the law in Germany's highest court.
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Germany passes censorship law to fight online hate speech - Christian Science Monitor
By Susan Corke and Emma Bernstein
In a blow to free speech, German lawmakers today passed a bill requiring social media companies to remove illegal content, including hate speech. Sites with more than two million users could face fines of up to 50 million.
Over the last two years, as Germany has welcomed more a million refugees, the debate over migration has played out on social media, and there has been an increase in racist and anti-refugee comments. And with elections coming up in September, German lawmakers are increasingly concerned with the role of social media in the electoral process, although this bill will not take effect till October.
The bill requires social media companies to remove obviously illegal content within 24 hours. (Companies have seven days to deal with more ambiguous content.) Because of the threat of hefty fines and quick timeline for removal, social media companies would be incentivized to remove content first, then review later. Add this dynamic to the lack of appeals process afforded by social media companies, and it becomes likely that legal content would be wrongfully removed. This is a threat to free expression.
Facebook has argued that its not its job to be carrying out state responsibilitiesand its correct. Governments shouldnt ask, much less require, private companies to make determinations about the legality of content.
Although Justice Minister Heiko Maas supports the bill and believes it will deter acts of hate both on and offline, eight out of ten experts who testified at hearing for the bill in late June, argued that the bill was technically unconstitutional and would,not withstand constitutional scrutiny.The U.N. Special Rapportuer on Freedom of Expression,David Kaye, believes that the vague and ambiguous language of the bill could force companies to remove content before it could be legally deemed hate speech.
Finally, efforts by the German government to silence those who propagate hate could give other more repressive regimes the idea that censorship is acceptable and might lead to the silencing of dissent. Human rights advocates in countries such as Turkey, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan have made this very point. Many countries view Germany as a leader in the fight against extremism and for human rights, especially with their recent welcoming of refugees. It is for this reason that Germanys social media law might set a disturbing precedent as regimes cite it to try to justify similar-but-worse restrictions of free speech.
In order to remain a champion for human rights and basic human freedoms, the German government should combat online hate speech in a way that does not create opportunities for repressing free expression and emboldening repressive regimes.
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German Lawmakers Pass Restriction on Free Speech - Human Rights First (blog)
Attempts to stifle or censor free speech in the United States are constant. The latest comes from the Republican governor of Arizona.
This week state legislators approved a bill that would protect the free speech rights of journalism students. Members of both the Arizona House and Senate felt it was unfair and inappropriate for the journalists to be penalized for what they write or say.
The legislation would have forbidden school officials from restricting the distribution of media and imposing disciplinary measures in retribution for critical content.
Nationwide, conservative and Christian students complain their speech and ideas are often suppressed by liberal professors and administrators. On some campuses (Berkley) leftists have turned to violence to impose their politically correct thought and speech on students.
Surprising is that a conservative Republican governor would back away from his earlier commitments to protect free speech. Governor Doug Ducey vetoed the legislation saying the bill would, "create unintended consequences, especially on high school campuses where adult supervision and mentoring is most important."
Governor Ducey is up for re-election soon. He may feel the need to garner more support from Arizonans who feel journalists and members of the media are going too far in their reporting.
What do Arizona journalism students and others think of the governor's veto and the effort to suppress free speech rights on campus?
The Global Lane got the inside scoop from Campus Reform's Hannah Scherlacher Take a look:
Many on the American leftand some on the political right try to silence speech they deem offensive. But how we respond to speech is totally subjective. For example: when someone takes the Lord's name in vain, I am offended, yet many people don't seem to blink an eye when people utter such words.
Sure, we live in a time of fake newsDonald Trump will give you many examples of untruthful media reports about him. But some are true, and while the president may find some remarks offensive, the U.S. Constitution guarantees us the right to speak our minds.
If our speech offends, we'll be criticized and may lose our job, or damage our reputation.
If our words are untruthful, we may face a lawsuit for libel or slander.
If our speech incites people to acts of violence, we may get arrested.
Yes, there are consequences to free speech, but in America we have the right to speak openly and freely and then we let the chips fall where they may. That right should not be denied anyoneincluding journalists--whether in the public square, at high schools, or on college campuses.
Link: https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9363
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Free Speech Right Under Fire in Arizona | CBN News - CBN.com - CBN News
Dive Brief:
Administrators and school leaders can often be caught in a difficult and politically fraught position, as campus issues about controversial speakers can quickly become political battles playing out on a national level. College freshmen are reportedly more politicized than in previous decades, reflecting the public at large. Administrators must be cautious of how lawmakers wield political power, as their suggestions could provoke unintended consequences.
State legislatures across the country have considered bills purportedly promoting free speech, but it becomes difficult in determining when an individual is no longer protesting a speaker they deem to be offensive or inflammatory, and when that protestor is encroaching on the free expression of that speaker and the free assembly of their audience. Most of the legislation touts the right to assemble and the right to protest, but political remarks have been leaning in the defense of the former. College presidents and administrators must also be cautious, as the audience they must satisfy is not only the general public, but students on campus many of whom might be among the crowds that would protest a speaker seen as inflammatory. The partisan lines drawn between typically conservative speakers and liberal protesters make it an even more difficult needle to thread for administrators, as the external nastiness of the nations partisan debates increasingly encroaches on these questions.
Top image credit: Getty Images
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Campus 'free speech' bill rejected by Louisiana governor ... - Education Dive
The American concept of free speech was built into the Bill of Rights in 1789 and forged into laws over the past 100 years to become a global icon of freedom.
AFTER a century of building free-speech rights into our laws and culture, Americans are backing away from one of the countrys defining principles.
Set off by the nations increasingly short fuse, students, politicians, teachers and parents are not just refusing to hear each other out, were coming up with all sorts of ways of blocking ideas we dont agree with.
In high schools across the country, teachers say they stay away from hot topics such as immigration and health care because so many parents complain when their kids encounter emotional issues in class.
At colleges from Berkeley to Middlebury, a year of protests, many aimed at blocking controversial speakers, led to congressional hearings last week that could end up in sanctions against some of the schools.
On the internet, scores of anonymous posters are drumming targets into silence. In one case, actress Leslie Jones temporarily fled Twitter, feeling like she was in a personal hell from an onslaught of hacks and hateful posts. In another, a congressional candidate in Iowa quit the race in early June after receiving calls and emails that included death threats.
The American concept of free speech was built into the Bill of Rights in 1789 and forged into laws over the past 100 years to become a global icon of freedom. Those who study history and the Constitution worry that in the past year, weve done real damage to a notion at the heart of democracy.
I do think the First Amendment tradition is under siege, said Jeffrey Rosen, president of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Pamela Geller, a firebrand commentator and founder of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, added, Freedom of speech has never before been so poorly regarded by such large numbers of Americans.
Where will this country be if its speech tradition falters? We can already see an awkward dynamic taking shape. In social settings, when we come face to face, were hesitant to say what we think, while online in mostly anonymous exchanges all manner of spite and bitterness pours forth.
This raises a question worth thinking about as we celebrate Americas birthday this week: What are the chances of resolving the countrys differences if we no longer talk or listen to one another?
We cant lose sight of the fact that the ability to speak our minds is one of the fundamental freedoms in self government, said Gene Policinski, chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute in Washington, D.C.
A mix of developments, incidents and trends put us on this path.
At many colleges and universities, students say they shouldnt have to put up with views they find offensive, racially insensitive or wrongheaded. The thinking arose over time, and then gained momentum with the Black Lives Matter movement and the stormy politics of the year.
The sometimes-violent protests have drawn lots of reaction, condemnations and solutions but not much consensus.
I find this really hard, said Edward Wasserman, dean of the graduate journalism school at Berkeley, where protests earlier this year blocked conservatives Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking. But I dont think the world is a worse place because Ann Coulter doesnt get to say something shes already said a thousand times.
Others see a fundamental failing at work.
Its hard not to conclude that too many of our students havent had a civics course in junior high school, said Floyd Abrams, the pre-eminent First Amendment lawyer who handled cases from the Pentagon Papers to Citizens United and just published a new book, The Soul of the First Amendment.
If the high-school curriculum is part of the problem, that may be because teachers are hesitant about their roles. David Bobb, head of the Bill of Rights Institute, funded by industrialist Charles Koch to provide training to schools, said he hears regularly from teachers who avoid topics for fear of backlash.
They have to wonder, If I get into this controversial topic, am I going to be backed up by my department chair, or the principal? he said. Or are the parents going to come after me and say its not your place to talk about this?
The internet is helping fuel whats happening by creating a mob mentality and adding enormous speed and reach to what people say. Its become so much more chaotic, said Lee Rainie, who directs Pew Research work on technology, science and the internet.
Almost every conversation on the state of free speech ends up on the question of what can be done.
Embarrassed by whats happened, universities are writing new student codes and rules of engagement for visiting lecturers. Were working hard to get our act together, said Wisconsin political science professor Donald Downs, who has led a push for civility.
Organizations such as the Constitution Center and the Bill of Rights Institute see solutions in education programs and better curriculum for schools. In 18 states, legislatures think the problem rests in the unruly protests and are preparing laws that would limit mass gatherings.
Still, more than a dozen observers from every perspective interviewed for this piece said we should expect more rocky times ahead.
They cite a political climate with a historic level of rancor, a president whos been mostly on the attack since his inauguration and a media thats embraced the conflict with a fervor that has brought record viewership and readership.
When people quit listening to each other, theres that lack of discussion and a lack of understanding, said Bradley A. Smith, the former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and professor at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio. Thats when theres a growing tendency to think the other side shouldnt be able to say what they think.
If America becomes torn against itself, I think free speech sort of goes out with it, said Downs, the Wisconsin professor.
Sometimes Im genuinely anguished over the kind of society were going to have if this keeps going, said Christina Hoff Sommers, an author and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. Its easy to take it for granted and not recognize that were jeopardizing these freedoms.
Summing up: Its worth remembering that free-speech rights were built over decades of conflict. Theyve been tested in every generation, through wartime, civil rights, the rise of new technologies and the threat of terrorism, and have been solidly supported by U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
Todays conflicts are the most complicated yet and show no sign of easing. But as more than one scholar has pointed out, free speech is the starting place for all our other rights. We shouldnt lose sight of whats at stake: Without the free flow of ideas, the American experiment cannot succeed.
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Do we still believe in free speech? Only until we disagree - Seattle Times