Yorktown Heights, NY: Progress and Preservation – New York Times

Posted on by

That is one reason Erin and Andres Alvarez chose to remain in the hamlet when they realized that the cottage they had moved to in 1999 was no longer big enough for them and their two sons. Last summer the Alvarezes bought a five-bedroom contemporary for $425,000. Besides the good schools, they appreciate the wealth of outdoor offerings, like swimming at two town pools and the sandy Sparkle Lake beach, and bicycling along the North County Trailway, a 22-mile-long paved pathway.

And they have developed strong friendships and a feeling for the community. Of the summer concert series held at Jack DeVito Memorial Park, Ms. Alvarez said, Even if we went on our own, we would absolutely run into, and catch up with, a lot of people weve gotten to know.

Much is happening in Yorktown Heights in terms of development and revitalization, according to Michael Grace, Yorktowns town supervisor. He cited the restoration of the former Yorktown Heights railroad depot, once a station on the New York Central Railroad and now a local, state and federal landmark. He mentioned the pending construction of a rental apartment complex aimed at both millennials and older adults, touting the value of an intergenerational community. He spoke of aesthetic improvements replacing burned-out streetlights, hanging dozens of flags with Yorktowns motto, Progress With Preservation to engender pride. You create the character of the town through its physical appearance, he said.

Yorktown Heightss socioeconomic diversity is reflected in its housing options. Most are single-family raised ranches, split-levels, Cape Cods and colonials, along with some pre-Revolutionary homes. There are a few condominium complexes and rental apartments.

FRANKLIN D.

ROOSEVELT

STATE PARK

Yorktown Heights

Railroad Depot

TURKEY MT.

NATURE

PRESERVE

In the southern portion of the hamlet, the lots are larger and the homes are more expensive, said Wayne Kokinda, a broker with William Raveis Real Estate.

Yorktown Heightss commercial center bustles with small businesses and strip malls. The hamlet, bordered to the south by the expansive New Croton Reservoir, contains thousands of acres of parkland.

Data from the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service indicate that as of Monday there were 92 single-family homes on the market. They ranged from a one-bedroom, 680-square-foot ranch built in 1929 on less than a fifth of an acre, listed for $157,500, to a 7,758-square-foot, four-bedroom estate built in 1800 on 20 acres with pool and pond, listed at $12 million.

The median sales price for single-family homes during the 12-month period that ended June 7 was $430,000, up from $411,000 the previous 12 months.

While Yorktown Heights does not have a quaint downtown, it does provide shopping convenience, with local stores like Turcos grocery and national chains. The surrounding areas are a quieter mix of residential neighborhoods and parks, including the Turkey Mountain Nature Preserve, which affords scenic vistas from its summit, and Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park, where visitors can swim in a gigantic pool and fish in two bodies of water.

Farm produce and other treats are sold at the county-owned Hilltop Hanover Farm and Environmental Center and the family-owned Wilkens Fruit and Fir Farm and Meadows Farm. Alpacas roam the fields of Faraway Farm.

Among dining choices are Jewel of Himalaya for Tibetan fare, and Peter Pratts Inn, set in an 18th-century former barn.

As for culture, the Yorktown Community and Cultural Center houses Yorktown Stage, which presents musicals and childrens theater; the Westchester Ballet Center for the Performing Arts, offering dance classes; and the Yorktown Museum, featuring displays of Yorktowns history.

Most Yorktown Heights residents send their children to Yorktown Central School District schools: Brookside Elementary and Mohansic Elementary for kindergarten through third grade, Crompond Elementary for Grades 4 and 5, Mildred E. Strang Middle School for Grades 6 through 8, and Yorktown High School.

On 2016 third- and fourth-grade state assessment tests, 52 percent met English standards, compared with 38 percent statewide, and 59 percent met math standards, compared with 39 percent statewide.

About 1,200 students who live in the northern part of Yorktown Heights are served by the Lakeland Central School District. Its 5,800 or so students attend one of five elementary schools, Lakeland-Copper Beech Middle School and either Lakeland or Walter Panas High School.

In 2016, average SAT scores for Yorktown High School were 533 in critical reading, 558 in mathematics and 538 in writing; for Lakeland High School, 519 in critical reading, 517 in mathematics and 508 in writing; and for Walter Panas High School, 514 in critical reading, 513 in mathematics and 506 in writing. Statewide equivalents were 489, 501 and 477.

There is no train station in Yorktown Heights, which is about 40 miles from Manhattan. The Croton-Harmon and Cortlandt Metro-North Railroad stations, on the Hudson line, are 15 to 20 minutes away, as is the Mount Kisco station on the Harlem line. Rush-hour trains between Croton-Harmon and Grand Central Terminal take 45 to 71 minutes; to and from Cortlandt 52 to 58 minutes; and to and from Mount Kisco 51 to 68 minutes. The monthly fare is $311 from Croton-Harmon and $369 from Cortlandt and Mount Kisco.

Yorktown has three free Westchester County park-and-ride commuter lots, including one that connects with the Bee-Line bus to the Croton-Harmon station.

In April 1781, the Continental Armys First Rhode Island Regiment was stationed at the Davenport House in Yorktown Heights. The unit was made up of freed slaves and Native Americans led by colonial officers. The men were charged with defending Pines Bridge, a strategic crossing over the Croton River.

On May 14, the British waged a surprise raid, defeating the unit and killing many soldiers. A planned monument commemorating the event, called the Battle of Pines Bridge, will feature three eight-foot-tall bronze soldiers: one African-American, one Native American, one European-American. The Davenport House, built in 1750, still stands on Croton Heights Road.

Follow this link:

Yorktown Heights, NY: Progress and Preservation - New York Times

UN warns ‘no progress’ on 260 million missing school places – BBC News

Posted on by

BBC News
UN warns 'no progress' on 260 million missing school places
BBC News
Global pledges to provide education for all young people show little chance of being achieved, according to annual figures from the United Nations. There are 264 million young people without access to school, with few signs of progress, says Unesco.

and more »

Read the rest here:

UN warns 'no progress' on 260 million missing school places - BBC News

1st Cavalry commanding general talks progress of Afghanistan war – kcentv.com

Posted on by

Channel 6 military reporter Jillian Angeline talked with Major General J.T. Thompson about the progress of the War in Afghanistan.

Jillian Angeline and KCEN Web Team , KCEN 6:53 PM. CDT June 20, 2017

(Photo: Angeline, Jillian, KCEN)

FORT HOOD - Major General J.T. Thompson was at Fort Hood for the 1st Cavalry Sustainment Brigade change of command ceremony Tuesday.

He praised outgoing Col. Chris Colavitafor not letting the November suicide bombing on his brigade define his formation.

Channel 6 caught up with the 1st Cavalry commanding general about the progress of the war in Afghanistan as well.

A lot has changed in nearly 16 years.

2017 marks the third year in which the Afghan law enforcement is leading their own country. Right now, the U.S. Army is training, advising, and assisting the Afghan police and military forces.

Thompson said there are some bright pockets among the Afghan forces, but there is still work to be done. Thompson remains concerned about the recent attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan--called green on blue.

"It's been down in previous years, but one is one too many," Thompson said. "The Afghan leadership, starting with President Ghani, are very concerned about it, they're serious about it. Green on blue is a simple term but it can be Taliban infiltrating, it can be someone re-radicalized, it can be a righteous person whose family is held hostage and so it's a very complex problem set."

The War in Afghanistan is the longest war in American history.

Thompson insisted he'd rather fight the enemy in their own backyard instead of on American soil.

"We have to remember what emanated out of that part of the world," he said. "There are a lot of bad terrorist organizations there that want to do damage to our homeland and attack us here."

2017 KCEN-TV

Read more from the original source:

1st Cavalry commanding general talks progress of Afghanistan war - kcentv.com

Lawmakers react to updated medical marijuana program progress – ABC27

Posted on by

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) A dozen applicants that applied to grow and process medical marijuana in Pennsylvania have been approved by Pennsylvanias Department of Health.

The major step in developing a medical marijuana program in Pennsylvania will be followed by an announcement next week about the first round of dispensary permits.

We live in a world of seizures, and epilepsy, and medications that dont always work, Cara Salemme said at the Capitol on Tuesday.

Salemmes son has epilepsy. She says they have been fighting the disease and for medical marijuana for five years.

We know hes a complicated case and were going to need more access to comprehensive medication, Salemme said.

On Tuesday, the Department of Health announced the 12 permits to businesses looking to grow medical marijuana.

These are the creme of the crop, the folks who won. The people who have every T crossed, and every I dotted, Sen. Daylin Leach said.

Leach sponsored the medical marijuana bill, which was signed into law last year.

In the south central region, growers in Fulton and Franklin County were awarded permits. Ilera Healthcare in Waterfall and Grassroots Cannabis in Chambersburg.

This is what we want for the state of Pennsylvania. We want a smooth transition to this industry, and we want the best people involved in getting this off the ground, Leach said.

The Department of Health will spend the next six months helping the growers become operational. Growers can not grow until the department tells them they are operational. The department also requires the growers to grow medical marijuana in an indoor, enclosed, secure facility.

Im going to stand at the counter and let an employee know that Im there to pick up medicine for my son, finally, Salemme said.

Leach began his fight for medical marijuana following years ago. Following Tuesdays progress update, he said, in the end it is still all about the patients.

Theyre going to leave their homes today and theyre going to start to build a grow facility, and were going to start getting medicine to patients, Leach said.

The Department of Health predicts patients will have access to medical marijuana in 2018.

Medical marijuana is not supported by all Pennsylvania lawmakers. Rep. Matt Baker is chairman of the health committee. He released the following statement to ABC 27 news:

A past evaluation by several Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), concluded that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.

Marijuana should not bypass the US process for drug approvals for medical use. All medications, particularly those containing controlled substances, should become available only after having satisfied the rigorous criteria of the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process. That process has been carefully constructed over the past century to protect patient health and safety. There are compelling reasons to hold medical marijuana to the same standard that has served our nation well for the past century. The state laws that approved marijuana as a medicine did so through a political process rather than through a scientific process. This is unwise not only for medical marijuana users but it sets a dangerous precedent for other medicines seeking to bypass the standard of proven safety and efficacy.

Get breaking news, weather and traffic on the go. Download our News App and our Weather App for your phone and tablet.

Like Loading...

Follow this link:

Lawmakers react to updated medical marijuana program progress - ABC27

Egoism – New World Encyclopedia

Posted on by

Egoism is the concept of acting in ones own self-interest, and can be either a descriptive or a normative position. Psychological egoism, the most well-known descriptive position, holds that we always act in our own self-interest. In contrast to this, ethical egoism is a normative position: it claims that one should act in ones self-interest as this makes an action morally right, such that the claims of others should never have weight for oneself unless their good can serve ones own good. Similarly, rational egoism maintains that, in order to act rationally, one must act in ones self-interest, and the fact that an action helps another person does not alone provide a reason for performing it, unless helping the other person in some way furthers ones own interests.

All these positions deserve to be critiqued: psychological egoism in that people find the greatest happiness and meaning in states where they are self-giving, for example when in love, parenting a child, or contributing to society; and ethical egoism by the challenge of numerous philosophical and religious ethical systems that place self-interest within the context of contributing to the greater good.

Psychological egoism holds that every human has only one ultimate goal: his or her own good (where this good can variously be defined as welfare, happiness or pleasure). This description is verified by widespread and frequent observations of self-interested behavior. For instance, we often motivate people to act in certain ways by appealing to their self-interest in the form of rewards and punishments, while acts which appear altruistic are often shown to be motivated by self-interest. Likewise, one can find a non-altruistic explanation for the apparently altruistic behavior of organisms in general. Worker bees are an interesting case in point: although they seem to act solely for the sake of their hive with no concern for their own welfare, sociobiologists offer an account of this behavior in terms of their genes survival. They hypothesize that natural selection favors altruistic behavior in either cooperative relations in which all members benefit (reciprocal altruism) or familial relations (kin altruism). Both forms of altruism are concerned with the survival of ones genes: acts of reciprocal altruism increase ones chances of survival, and therefore ones genes chances of survival, while ensuring the survival of ones relations ensures the survival of a percentage of ones genes. For a worker bee, ensuring the survival of her sister worker means that she has ensured the survival of half of her genes. Thus, sociobiologists typically claim that, on a genetic level, altruism cannot exist. However, psychological egoism is a stronger position, as it claims that, regardless of what happens on a genetic level, the individual him or herself is motivated by thoughts of self-interest. Thus, while it allows for action that does not accomplish its goal of maximizing self-interest, as well as action that is at odds with ones intentions (a weak will), most forms of psychological egoism rule out both altruistic behavior and acting solely out of respect for ones duty. Importantly, psychological egoism allows for goals other than ones own self interest, but claims that these goals are then means to realizing ones own well-being.

There are in turn two forms of psychological egoism. Exclusive egoism makes the strong claim that people act exclusively out of self-interest, and therefore altruistic behavior does not, in fact, exist. On the other hand, predominant egoism makes the weaker claim that people seldom act unselfishly, and when they do so, it is typically only because their sacrifice is small and the beneficiaries gain is much larger, or when they are partial to the beneficiary in some way: when the beneficiaries are, for example, friends, lovers or family.

Exclusive egoism allows for no exceptions; this means that one instance of someone who does not act exclusively out of self-interest is sufficient to show that exclusive egoisms thesis is empirically false. Imagine a soldier throws himself on a grenade in order to prevent other people from being killed. His motivation for this act of self-sacrifice might quite plausibly be his desire to do his duty or to save the other peoples lives, while attempting to explain his action in terms of self-interest would appear to be a wholly implausible move. The exclusive egoist may want to defend her position by arguing for some kind of ulterior self-interested motive, such as pleasure. Perhaps our soldier believes in an afterlife in which he will be rewarded ten-fold for his apparently selfless act on earth, or perhaps, if he had not hurled himself on the grenade, he would be overcome by guilt and a concomitant sense of self-loathing. In both cases then, he is, at least from his perspective, acting in his self-interest by acting in this apparently selfless manner. There are two problems with this response. The first is that, while it might explain many instances of apparent self-sacrifice as motivated by egoistic concerns, it does not necessarily cover all cases. The psychological egoist must argue that all instances of ostensible altruistic behavior are in fact motivated by self-interested desires. If, for instance, our soldier disagrees with this, and claims that his action was truly altruistic in motivation, the exclusive egoist must respond that he is lying or is deceiving himself. At this point, however, exclusive egoism turns out to be trivially true, which means that it is unfalsifiable, since there is no empirical instance that could in principle disprove the hypothesis. As with the trivially true statement all ostriches that live on Mars have gold and purple polka dotted wings, this version of psychological egoism provides no useful information and therefore fails as an empirical theory. It does not allow us to distinguish, for instance, between our soldier and the soldier who thrusts a child onto the grenade in order to save himself. Whereas we generally think that the latter is behaving selfishly, while our soldier is acting in a selfless manner, exclusive egoism maintains that both soldiers are equally selfish, because both are acting in their self-interest.

Alternatively, the psychological egoist might opt for a non-trivial response to the soldier counter-example. She could argue that, as infants, we have only self-regarding desires; desires for our own well-being, for instance. However, as we grow older, we find that desiring things for their own sake eventually satisfies our self-regarding desires. We then come to desire these things for their own sake. For example, I might detest exercise, but also find that exercising results in physical well-being; after a while, I will begin to desire exercise for its own sake. This would preclude the common objection to psychological egoism, that one must desire things other than ones welfare in order to realize ones welfare. However, then the psychological egoist will have moved away from exclusive egoism. It may be true that our soldier would not have had a present desire to save others, unless saving others was connected in the past with increasing his welfare, but this does not mean that his present desire is selfish. At this point, the psychological egoist could adopt the weaker stance of predominant egoism which allows for exceptions, and thereby forestall counter-examples like our heroic soldier; moreover, predominant egoism is both an empirically plausible and non-trivial position.

In her novel, Atlas Shrugged, Russian emigre Ayn Rand sketches the portrait of a man who feels responsible for himself and no one else. John Galt is the archetype of the individual who practices what Rand calls the virtue of selfishness: a man for whom true morality consists in resisting the temptations of self-sacrifice, sympathy and generosity. In the fictional figure of John Galt we find the embodiment of egoism as an ideal. Similarly, the move from psychological egoism to ethical egoism is a move from a descriptive to a normative position. Ethical egoism claims that for ones action to count as morally right it is both necessary and sufficient that one act in ones self-interest. Precisely how one acts in ones self-interest is a matter of some divergence among ethical egoists. As with psychological egoism, ethical egoism comes in both a maximizing and a non-maximizing flavor: the former holds that self-interest must be maximized for an action to count as ethical, while the latter simply claims that one should act in ones self-interest and thus leaves the possibility for acting in others interest open. There is also a distinction between short-term and long-term interests: I might gain a short-term benefit by stealing from my friends, but experience a long-term loss when they discover the theft and I lose those friends. In addition, ethical egoism can also apply to rules or character traits, as well as acts. Finally, acting in ones self-interest means acting for ones own good, but this good can variously be defined as ones happiness, pleasure or well-being. There are various permutations of these conceptions, but considering that the arguments for and against them are generally relevantly similar, I will very broadly define ethical egoism as the thesis which states that in order for ones actions to count as ethical, one should act to promote ones self-interest, where self-interest is taken to mean ones own good.

There are several arguments in support of ethical egoism. Ethical egoists occasionally appeal to the findings of psychological egoism as support for their normative claims; however, regardless of whether psychological egoism is true or not, the jump from a descriptive to a normative position is fallacious, as one cannot use supposed existing conditions as justification for how one ought to behave. A more valid move is to argue that, as psychological egoism is true, it is impossible to motivate people on non-egoistic grounds. Thus, ethical egoism is the most practical moral theory, or the most capable of motivating people to act ethically. However, as we have seen, exclusive egoism just seems false, and substituting it with predominant egoism loses the crucial claim that it is impossible to motivate people to behave altruistically. On the other hand, if psychological egoism is true, it follows from psychological egoism that I cannot intend to perform an action which I believe is not in my self-interest. However, if I am wrong, and this action is in my self-interest, then ethical egoism stipulates that I should perform an action that I cannot intend. The appeal to psychological egoism therefore fails to ensure its practicality.

However, this is not necessarily a shortcoming of an ethical theory, as part of the value of an ethical theory may lie in its offering us an ideal for us to live up to. Setting aside the appeal to its supposed practicality, ethical egoists might alternatively claim that ethical egoism best fits our commonsense moral judgements. For instance, it captures the intuition that I should not let others exploit me, and unlike consequentialism, allows me to keep some good for myself, like a house, even though giving this house to someone else might benefit him slightly more. Moreover, it stipulates that it is often in ones best interests to ostensibly take other peoples interests into account so as to secure their cooperation. I derive a much larger long-term benefit if I act generously and compassionately towards my friends, for example, than if I steal from them, even though theft might provide the greatest short-term benefit to me. Nevertheless, it appears that ethical egoism is also at odds with some of our most deeply held ethical beliefs. It mandates that one should only ever help someone else if doing so benefits oneself, which means that one is not morally obligated to help those who cannot help or hinder one. Imagine I can easily save a drowning child, but none of the players in this scenario can offer me any beneficial cooperation in return for saving the child (like praise) or negative retaliation for failing to help (like scorn). Further, say that I am indifferent to the situation presented to me, and regardless of what I do, I will feel no sense of guilt or pleasure, then ethical egoism will remain silent as to whether I should save the child. Moreover, if there is some slight uncompensated sacrifice I will have to make, like getting my shoes wet, then ethical egoism will tell me to refrain from saving the drowning child. However, we generally think that, in this case, there is a moral obligation to save the child, and ethical egoism can neither explain how such a duty might (validly) arise, nor generate such a duty. Ethical egoism therefore appears to be morally insensitive to situations which we ordinarily think demand great moral sensitivity. We can further see that ethical egoism will potentially generate counter-intuitive duties in situations where the individual in need of help cannot reciprocate (like physically or mentally disabled people) or where the sacrifice one might need to make is not compensatable. Ethical egoism will, for instance, condemn the action of the soldier who throws himself on the grenade as ethically reprehensible, precisely because it entails an irreversible sacrifice (loss of life) for the soldier, while we ordinarily think it is an ethically admirable action, or at the very least, not a morally repugnant one.

Furthermore, a number of critics have argued that egoism yields contradictory moral imperatives. There are generally two inconsistency charges against ethical egoism. The weaker of the two lays this charge: say ethical egoism recommends that X and Y buy a particular item of clothing on sale, since buying this item is, for some reason, in the self-interest of each. But there is only one remaining article; hence, ethical egoism recommends an impossible situation. However, the ethical egoist can reply that ethical egoism does not provide neutral criteria: it advocates to X buying the article of clothing for X, and advocates to Y that Y buy the article for Y, but ethical egoism has nothing to say on the value of X and Y buying the same article of clothing.

The second inconsistency argument claims that, in any given situation, the ethical egoist must aim to promote her own self-interest, but if her brand of egoism is to count as an ethical theory, she must simultaneously will that everyone else also act to promote their own self-interest, for one of the formal constraints on an ethical theory is that it be universalisable. Say I am a shopkeeper, and it is in my best interest to sell my products at the highest practically possible profit, it will generally not be in my clients best interests to buy my products at these high prices. Then if I am an ethical egoist, I am committed to recommending a contradictory state of affairs: that I both sell the products at the highest possible price and that my customers pay less than the highest possible price. The ethical theorist, however, can respond that, although she morally recommends that the customers pay less than the highest possible price, this does not necessarily mean that she desires it. Jesse Kalin provides an analogy with competitive sports: in a game of chess, I will be trying my utmost to win, but I will also expect my opponent to do the same, and I may even desire that he play as good a game as possible, because then the game will be of a far higher standard. If the analogy with competitive gaming holds, it is therefore not inconsistent for me to recommend both that I attempt to sell my products at the highest possible price and that my customers attempt to buy them at lower than the highest possible price.

However, this move to making an analogy with competitive games cannot preclude the worry that ethical egoism is not sufficiently public for it to count as an ethical theory. What is meant by this is that ethical egoism is at odds with public morality (which generally appears to value altruism) and one can therefore imagine many cases in which the ethical egoist might find it in her interests not to profess ethical egoism. Imagine I am an ethical egoist and I donate a large sum to a charity because it gives my company a good image and I receive a large tax deduction for doing so. Then it is most definitely not in my best interests to reveal these reasons; rather, it is to my advantage that I pretend to have done so out of a spirit of generosity and kindness. Leaving aside worries of duplicitous and unreliable behavior, it does not seem as if ethical egoism can truly be made public without the ethical egoists interests being compromised. Yet it seems as if an ethical theory requires precisely this ability to be made public. Moreover, although it meets the formal constraints of an ethical theory it must be normative and universalisable as noted above, it also fails to provide a single neutral ranking that each agent must follow in cases where there is a conflict of interests. Just what makes for a moral theory, however, is contentious, and the ethical theorist can subsequently respond to any argument against ethical egoisms status as an ethical theory by claiming that the failed criteria are not really constraints that an ethical theory must adhere to. A more elegant solution, however, is to move to rational egoism, which might provide the ethical egoist with non-ethical reasons for adhering to ethical egoism.

Rational egoism maintains that it is both necessary and sufficient for an action to be rational that it promotes ones self-interest. As with ethical egoism, rational egoism comes in varying flavors. It can be maximizing or non-maximizing, or can apply to rules or character traits instead of actions. Certain versions might claim that acting in ones self-interest is either sufficient but not necessary, or necessary but not sufficient for an action to count as rational. However, as with ethical egoism, relevantly similar objections to and defenses for the various species of ethical egoism can be made. The salient common feature amongst all variants is that all claim that the fact that an action helps another person does not alone provide a reason for performing it, unless helping the other person in some way furthers ones own interests. Stronger versions might also hold that the only underived reason for action is self-interest.

In support of their thesis, rational egoists most commonly appeal to the way in which rational egoism best fits our ordinary judgements about what makes action rational. However, as we saw with the soldier counter-example, both psychological and ethical egoism fail to make sense of his action, and rational egoism will similarly generate a counter-intuitive response to this example. It will classify his action as fundamentally non-rational because it has permanently violated his self-interest. However, we would ordinarily characterize his action as rational, because it realizes his strong non-self-interested preference to save the lives of others. In other words, we take the safety of others to be a legitimate motivation for his action, whereas his hurling himself on a grenade in order to save a chocolate cake would ordinarily be seen as non-rational. Yet rational egoism would not allow us to distinguish between these two cases, because it does not recognize the demands of others as alone providing one with reason to act in a certain way.

Rational egoism furthermore appears to make an unjustified weighted distinction between ones own self-interest and the good of others. Imagine I decide that I should act to increase the good of brown-eyed people over that of others. Justifying this preferential treatment on the grounds that brown-eyed people just are more deserving of preferential treatment is not rational. James Rachels argues that ethical (and here, rational) egoism, makes a similarly unwarranted or arbitrary move, because it claims that I ought to act in one persons interest (myself). The rational egoist might want to respond that non-arbitrary distinctions can be made by ones preferences. The fact that I like oranges and not apples makes my decision to buy apples rather than oranges non-arbitrary, and similarly, my preference for my own good makes my commitment to achieving my own good non-arbitrary. However, as we have seen, there are cases (as with the soldier example) where I might lack a preference for my own welfare. In these instances, rational egoism cannot give me a reason to pursue my self-interest over that of others. Nevertheless, rational egoism might hold that, in these cases I am wrong, simply because we must take it as a ground assumption that our own good comes before that of others. In other words, the preference for ones own good needs no further justification than the fact it is ones own good that one is pursuing. When it comes to the preferential treatment of brown-eyed people, we generally do not accept their being brown-eyed as a good reason for their preferential treatment, but when it comes to acting for our own good, we seem to take the fact that it is our own good as a reasonable justification for doing so; we do not ask why acting in ones own good is pertinent.

However, although this may be so, this argument does not demonstrate that acting to promote ones own good is always sufficient or necessary for an action to count as rational. There are instances where we take an action to be rational, but where the agent makes no reference to pursuing his own good as justification for performing the action. The villagers of Le Chambon provide us with a real-life example of this. Le Chambon was a pacifist French village responsible for saving the lives of several thousand Jews from the Nazis, often at a great risk to the inhabitants. The reason they gave for this altruistic behavior was that it was simply their duty to help anybody in need. Here, no reference is made to their own good (and indeed, their own welfare was often severely jeopardized by their actions), and we generally take their concern for the others welfare as a good reason for their actions.

At present, there seems to be no good reason to accept the theses of psychological, ethical or rational egoism. Nevertheless, egoism in general presents us with a useful insight into the moral life by pointing out that, contra what many of us might suppose, morality and self-interest do not necessarily conflict. Indeed, there may be many cases in which there are good self-regarding reasons for acting ethically and egoism forces us to question whether we pay sufficient attention to legitimate self-interest when assessing moral situations.

A small selection of literature in popular culture dealing with ethical egoism and altruism.

All links retrieved September 14, 2013.

This article began as an original work prepared for New World Encyclopedia and is provided to the public according to the terms of the New World Encyclopedia:Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Any changes made to the original text since then create a derivative work which is also CC-by-sa licensed. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.

Here is the original post:

Egoism - New World Encyclopedia

Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art – E-Flux

Posted on by

Tue Greenfort Tue Greenfort Eats Den Frie June 16August 13, 2017

Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art Oslo Pl. 1, 2100 Kbenhavn Denmark

denfrie.dk

A section of industrially farmed land and a fertilizer fountain. Prototaxitesa 400-million-year-old fungus, the primeval fungus and fungus of all fungi. The Periphylla Periphylla jellyfish, a barometer of the state of the ocean. Wasteland, terrain vague, vacant lotall terms for areas that are not earmarked for any specific purpose, but bear the marks of human activity and random remains. In the exhibitionTue Greenfort Eats Den Frie, the galleries are infiltrated by living organisms and organic processes in dialogue with their surroundings and their human audience. With great precision, Tue Greenfort draws our attention to the complex relationship between human self-perception and nature. Fascinated by the mechanisms and mysteries of the natural world, he challenges the economic, social, political and biological realities that challenge our apparently persistent view of an omnipotent humankind, superior to its surroundings. It is with great pleasure that we open the doors to the large-scale total installationTue Greenfort Eats Den Frie, which extends throughout all six galleries of Den Frie. Greenforts title refers to the French philosopher and science historian Michel Serres classical textThe Parasite. Serres compares human relations with the parasites relationship to the host body. The relationship between host and guest, the gestures of invitation and acceptance, are a recurrent theme for Serres. For Greenfort, it is the exchange between the art institution and artist that comes into play. In accepting the invitation to exhibit at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, he ingests and eatsliterallyDen Frie and eats his way into the very innards of the art institution. In doing so he tampers with the division of roles, asking: who gives and who receives? Who is the parasite and who is the host? Who is eating who? When Greenfort focuses on issues like the loss of biodiversity in Danish agriculture, or oxygen depletion in the oceans, he does so without any pedantic finger pointing. What is at stake here is not that clear-cut, and the artist is more interested in localising and identifying the complexities that form the foundations of our mindset. Numerous artists have addressed climate issues in recent decades, but Greenfort distinguishes himself by having a nuanced, philosophical and far-reaching view of our perspective on nature and what he terms "the crisis of the Enlightenment." The wider theoretical context for the exhibition is Greenforts interest in post humanism and the Anthropocene epoch.According to numerous theorists, we now live in the Anthropocene age, a new geological epoch in which the planet has been shaped as much by human presence as by nature itself. Humans have left such marked traces on earth that they will be visible in the geological layers of the future, making any conventional distinction between nature and culture increasingly blurredand increasingly irrelevant.Greenforts work goes beyond them, setting the stage for a renegotiation of the concept of nature and what he calls a post-Anthropocene political, ecological approach. Here he draws inspiration from the art historian T. J. Demos and his critical here-and-now analysis of theoretical, contemporary artistic and curatorial views of Anthropocene thinking and climate issues.

Tue Greenforts interdisciplinary practice addresses the relationship between the public and the private, nature and culture, formulatingoften with aesthetic effecta direct critique of the current climate debate, as well as economic and scientific methods of production. The issue of the artists role in society and their unique autonomy are both key points of departure for the exhibition. Greenfort works with what he calls an open work category, i.e. processual works of art that focus more on relations than concluding statements. With inspiration from the dynamics of nature, he problematises and thematises urgent contemporary issues surrounding ecology and its history. In keeping with SerresThe Parasite, here it is Greenfort who becomes the parasite, the outsider, who infiltrates the art institution to stir things up and provoke a public debate. As the artist himself says: Art has the ability to elaborate on and open up discourses without being labelled and categorized as this or that political faction.

Tue Greenfort has become a key voice on the international art scene with a large number of major exhibitions to his name, including his participation in dOCUMENTA 13 and Skulptur Project Mnster 2007 as well as solo exhibitions at SculptureCenter in New York and Secessionen in Vienna. This is, however, the first time Greenfort has been given the opportunity to have the exclusive use of so much space, makingTue Greenfort Eats Den Friehis largest solo show in Denmark to date.

For more information, please do not hesitate to contact curator and head of press Kit Leunbach atkl [at] denfrie.dkor on T +45 23326870.

See the original post here:

Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art - E-Flux

Zulkifli Dahlan died young but he left behind an immense legacy in art – Star2.com

Posted on by

Thelate Zulkifli Dahlan (1952-1977) was a trailblazing visual artist that tragically had his life cut short.

KL-born Zulkifli, or better known as Jo to his fellow artist friends, died aged 25 of lymphoma cancer in August 1977, and left behind an artistic legacy over 1,000 pieces of works that has yet to be truly appreciated and reappraised until now.

The Bumi Larangan: Zulkifli Dahlan exhibition at the National Visual Arts Gallery (NVAG) in KL takes a look back at the promising and legendary talent, who was a true individual and team player in the local art community.

Zulkifli, who never received formal art training, was one of the founders of the Anak Alam art collective, which promoted multi-disciplinary arts and culture in the 1970s, and he also was the first artist to win the Young Contemporaries competition award launched by NVAG in 1974.

The Bumi Larangan show isnt short on Zulkiflis popular paintings, especially works like Kedai-Kedai (1973) and Realiti Berasingan: Satu Hari Di Bumi Larangan (1975), which communicate his beliefs and diverse ideas about the human experience and freedom.

His visions about humans, humanity, nature and the future are certainly amazing and staggering, writes Nur Hanim Khairuddin, an independent curator, in the Bumi Larangan catalogue.

In Bumi Larangan, there are many sketches and studies that have never been shown before, which add to the exhibitions comprehensive overview on Zulkiflis career.

Zulkifli Dahlans Untitled (lino print on paper, 1970s).

Many of the works exhibited focus on Zulkiflis fusion of hybrid humans, flora, fauna and machines cramming surreal landscapes, while several detached, unconnected side narratives and scenes in the artworks will leave viewers amused and curious about the artists thoughts and concerns.

The gallery walls, filled with cartoonish, caricatural figures in surreal landscapes, bring to light Zulkiflis imaginative yet contemplative mindset. Bumi Larangan, from a curatorial standpoint, nails the artists history and the wild visual demands of his creativity, which bridges naive art and the graphic schema of cartoon (art).

The themes that he dealt with, particularly those relating to the discourses of humanism and post-humanism as well as socio-cultural issues, reflect profound contemplation and visionary thought of a young artist, she adds.

The many sketches and studies that have never been shown before add to the exhibitions comprehensive overview on Zulkiflis career, which began in eccentric earnest in the late 1960s, before he explored more unconventional work tinged with humour, hope and cynicism in the 1970s.

The exhibition is the result of a project, which started in 2015, to study and document a collection of Zulkiflis work kept by his family.

Bumi Larangan: Zulkifli Dahlan is on at the National Visual Arts Gallery, Jalan Temerloh, off Jalan Tun Razak in KL till July 2. The gallery is open daily from 9am to 5pm (during Ramadan).

All comments are moderated. Your comment may not show up immediately. Please keep it clean and on topic. Offensive comments will not be published.

Read the original:

Zulkifli Dahlan died young but he left behind an immense legacy in art - Star2.com

More Details Surface About Carrie Fisher’s Death – Gizmodo

Posted on by

Carrie Fisher on the set of Empire Strikes Back. Image: YouTube

My mom battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life. She ultimately died of it, Carrie Fishers daughter Billie Lourd told People this weekend in a compassionate statement about her mothers passing. Fishers autopsy has, tragically, confirmed her struggle continued right up to her death.

A newly released coroners report confirmed the legendary actress died of sleep apnea and other undetermined factors. It also revealed she had cocaine, heroin, and other drugs in her system at her time of death although it could not be determined if those substances played a role in her passing. Ms. Fisher suffered what appeared to be a cardiac arrest on the airplane accompanied by vomiting and with a history of sleep apnea, the report continued.

Lourds statement was a reminder of how Fisher openly discussed her addiction issues, shedding a compassionate light on a topic frequently considered somewhat taboo.

She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases, Lourd said. She talked about the shame that torments people and their families confronted by these diseases. I know my Mom, shed want her death to encourage people to be open about their struggles. Seek help, fight for government funding for mental health programs. Shame and those social stigmas are the enemies of progress to solutions and ultimately a cure. Love you Momby.

In the years before her passing, Fisher spent a good chunk of her time spreading awareness about mental illness and addiction. In 2001, the National Alliance on Mental Illness gave her an award for her work. In 2016, Harvard University gave her the Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism. You dont just get honors like that, 15 years apart, without truly spreading your message and leaving an indelible mark.

Lourds statement deserves to be read in full, and its a moving tribute to her mother and how she used her problems to help others facing the same struggles. Fishers final film appearance will be in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which opens December 15.

[Associated Press]

Go here to see the original:

More Details Surface About Carrie Fisher's Death - Gizmodo

Donald Trump thanks school students for ‘standing up’ to yearbook censorship – The Indian Express

Posted on by

The Indian Express
Donald Trump thanks school students for 'standing up' to yearbook censorship
The Indian Express
Donald Trump thanks school students for 'standing up' to yearbook censorship. A student wore a sweater vest featuring Donald Trump's campaign logo on the school's picture day. But in the yearbook, his photo was cropped. 0. Shares. Facebook · Twitter ...

and more »

See the original post here:

Donald Trump thanks school students for 'standing up' to yearbook censorship - The Indian Express

Trump thanks teens for ‘standing up’ to yearbook censorship – USA TODAY

Posted on by

USA Today Network Mike Davis, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press Published 7:24 a.m. ET June 21, 2017 | Updated 31 minutes ago

Grant Berardo, a Wall High School junior, saw his image digitally altered with a plain black T-shirt in his yearbook. Mike Davis

Grant Berardo's T-shirt was digitally altered in the Wall (N.J.) High School yearbook. He wore a Donald Trump campaign shirt for his portrait. On Thursday, June 15, 2017, the school district superintendent said the yearbooks will be reissued.(Photo: Provided by Joseph Berardo Jr. via Asbury Park (N.J.) Press)

WALL, N.J. The scandal over censorship of merchandise and quotes from President Trump in a New Jersey high school yearbook has reached the White House.

President Trump and the director of his campaign thanked Wall High School students Montana and Wyatt Dobrovich-Fago, who reported a quote and logo featuring Trump's name removed from their class yearbooks.

The campaign also sent the teenagers a care package with shirts, hats, pins and patches.

More: Trump shirt censored, now school has to re-issue yearbook for everyone

"Thank you Wyatt and Montana two young Americans who arent afraid to stand up for what they believe in. Our movement to #MAGA is working because of great people like you!," Trump posted on Facebook.

In a letter, campaign executive director Michael Glassner commended the students for "voicing their support" for Trump.

"It is more important than ever that we, as Americans, stand up for our beliefs and hopes for a better country," Glassner wrote. "And, as you know, it takes courage to do so. But freedom of expression should never go out of style let's not forget that!"

Wyatt, a junior at the school, wore a sweater vest featuring a Trump campaign logo on the school's picture day. But in the yearbook, his photo was cropped and the logo was barely visible an act Superintendent Cheryl Dyer has ruled was not intentional.

More: N.J. teacher suspended over Trump yearbook censorship

His sister, Montana, picked a quote from Trump to run alongside her freshman class president photo: "I like thinking big. If you are going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big," Trump's quote read.

Traditionally, all Wall class presidents can pick a quote. Montana's was submitted before the deadline and it's not yet clear whether it was purposely excluded, Dyer said last week.

Another student, junior Grant Berardo, saw his picture digitally altered before being published in the yearbook. Instead of the navy blue Trump campaign shirt he wore during the photo shoot, his yearbook photo featured a nondescript black T-shirt an "intentional" alteration, Dyer ruled.

The school board Tuesday voted to formalize a suspension handed down to digital media teacher Susan Parsons, who Dyer suspended through the end of the school year last week.

The board is expected to continue discussing the case in executive session at future meetings, board attorney Michael Gross said.

Parsons, 62, was included on a list of re-hired teachers for the 2017-18 school year with a $92,000 salary, but that list was finalized before the yearbook censorship came to light.

More: Teen's Trump T-shirt censored in yearbook photo

She has not returned multiple calls to her home seeking comment.

In response to the censorship scandal, Dyer last week ordered new yearbooks to be printed and reissued. Private, anonymous donors have contributed "at least $10,000" to cover the cost, Dyer said after Tuesday's board meeting.

But some members of the Wall school community have said it's not enough. Dyer has come under fire for handling the investigation despite last year posting a New York Times opinion article about "bullying in the age of Trump" on the school website.

Wyatt also criticized Dyer for the "blatant anti-Trump stuff that's caused concern" for him.

"I feel like there's something else to the story. One person wouldn't just do this," Wyatt said. "There needs to be a proper investigation into this."

School Board President Allison Connolly disagreed, applauding Dyer and district administrators for "facing this situation head-on."

"We find the allegations of censorship disturbing and are taking the charges that students have had their rights compromised seriously," she said.

Follow Mike Davis on Twitter:@byMikeDavis

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2tsRhum

See the article here:

Trump thanks teens for 'standing up' to yearbook censorship - USA TODAY

Alarmed by torrent of censorship imposed by administrators? Support student journalists – The College Fix

Posted on by

Alarmed by torrent of censorship imposed by administrators? Support student journalists

This week I saw a preview screening of a documentary about Syrian citizen journalists who chronicled the rise of ISIS before anyone in the West gave a damn about the propaganda-fueled jihadist group.

The heroes of City of Ghosts, which releases commercially next month,are ordinary internal people whose lives are threatened not words are violence threatened, but mortally threatened every time they secretly record the daily atrocities in Raqqa, the ISIS capital.

They feed it out to their still-endangered external compatriots who manage the news operation, known as Raqqa is Being SlaughteredSilently, from abroad.

The first leader of the group, Naji Jerf,who put these young journalists through a crash course in war reporting, was tracked down by ISIS in Turkey and executed during the documentarys filming. Thats how dangerous unfiltered information is to propagandists.

He looks like a college journalism adviser, I thought as I watched the screening, organized by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. (Two of the citizen journalists made a surprise visit. Our questions for them kind of sucked because we were stunned they made it here.)

Naji Jerf was basically working with people many of whom appear to be college age who had non-journalism livelihoods, but felt compelled to shine a light on their besieged city when no one else would.

For those of us safely reporting on absurd things in America, where the main victim is sanity and common sense, our work feels puny compared to the daily life-and-death struggle of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.

But there are faint shadows of the Syrian citizen journalists struggle in many towns in America, where youngsters operate under the constant threat of punishment and censorship for reporting on their communities.

The Washington Post profiles the important work of the Student Press Law Center, which we occasionally feature and consult for College Fix stories, and its outgoing executive director, Frank LoMonte, who is headed to the University of Florida to do journalism law.

I feel a certain kinship to SPLC because were both tiny shoestring-budget nonprofits working with journalism newbies who are vulnerable to pressure and intimidation from administrators, especially when students are covering their own schools.

As Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan notes, the problems cut across ideology and political lines when SPLC swoops in to defend student journalists:

LoMonte helped a reporter at the student newspaper at New Jerseys Kean University as she tried to pry loose a surveillance video that the universitys police department was wrongly withholding.

At an Omaha high school, the student newspaper wanted to publish a column suggesting that teachers keep their politics out of the classroom. (It observed that some of them were trash-talking Trump, using words such as Nazi and Hitler.)

The school administration found the column unacceptable. Then, when students tried to write about the censorship, that article was killed, too. With SPLCs intervention, both pieces were published and won a state high school journalism award.

Ive gotten people out of jail, Ive gotten cameras back from police this is an urgent-level service, said LoMonte

SPLC is also leading the charge at the state level for statutory protections for student journalists, and it sends out 200-odd lawyer-volunteers who run journalism workshops for students.

LoMonte makes a great argument when he faces off against administrators who want to suppress reporting:

That schools would be acting in their own self-interest to let students publish because, in the social-media era, theyll find a way to get their message out in some other (perhaps less accurate) form, anyway.

Its a little easier for High Schoolers Being Censored Silently to circumvent the powers-that-be than for the brave journalists of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, thankfully.

Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter

IMAGE: Shutterstock

About the Author

Associate Editor

Read the original:

Alarmed by torrent of censorship imposed by administrators? Support student journalists - The College Fix

Senate Panel Wrestles With Free Speech Issues – Inside Higher Ed

Posted on by

Washington Post
Senate Panel Wrestles With Free Speech Issues
Inside Higher Ed
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized the decision making of campus administrators in a hearing Tuesday but didn't suggest any new federal responses to issues of free speech on college campuses. Although Congress has examined free ...
Senate hearing examines free speech on college campuses after incidents at UC-Berkeley, MiddleburyWashington Post
Assembly bill on UW free speech threatening expulsion set for vote amid First Amendment debateMilwaukee Journal Sentinel
When your First Amendment rights offend me: Senators considers free speech on campusFort Worth Star Telegram
The Seattle Times -Fox News
all 31 news articles »

Visit link:

Senate Panel Wrestles With Free Speech Issues - Inside Higher Ed

Free Speech at the Supreme Court – New York Times

Posted on by

In Packingham v. North Carolina, the court struck down a North Carolina law that prohibited registered sex offenders from visiting social-networking websites that allow minors to become members of those websites or to create personal web pages. This would include sites like Facebook, Twitter, WebMD and The New York Times online locations visited regularly by billions of people.

One of those people was Lester Gerard Packingham, who was prosecuted under the law after he posted a Facebook message in 2010 giving thanks for the dismissal of a parking ticket. Mr. Packingham had been convicted eight years earlier for having sex with a minor. The state did not argue that he had used Facebook or any other site to seek out sex with minors or for any illegal activity at all; the fact that hed visited a prohibited site as a registered sex offender was enough to convict him.

The justices rightly reversed the State Supreme Courts decision upholding that conviction. States have a compelling interest in protecting children from sexual abuse, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his opinion for the majority, but the law went far beyond what was needed to achieve that goal barring access to what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking ads for employment, speaking and listening in the modern public square, and otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge.

GERRYMANDERING On Monday the court also agreed to hear a case involving partisan gerrymandering, or the skewed drawing of legislative district lines to benefit one political party. The courts decision, which would be issued in the first half of 2018, could transform American politics.

The case comes from Wisconsin, where Republicans won control of the state government in 2010, just in time to draw new maps following the decennial census. They were extremely efficient: In 2012, Republican assembly candidates received less than half the statewide vote and yet won 60 of 99 assembly seats. They took even more seats in 2014, while winning just a bare majority of the vote.

This distortion of the voters will is one of the oldest and dirtiest practices in American politics, and while both major parties are guilty of it, the benefits over the past decade have flowed overwhelmingly to Republicans.

The court has agreed that partisan gerrymandering could in theory become so extreme that it violates the Constitution, but it has never settled on who should make that determination or on what standards to use.

In the meantime, because the court voted to stay the lower-court decision ordering Wisconsin to redraw its district lines before the 2018 elections, the states Republican-friendly maps are likely to remain for at least one more cycle. The stay also raises doubts about whether a majority believes the court should ever resolve partisan gerrymandering claims. If not, voters will remain at the mercy of self-interested politicians, with no help in sight.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

A version of this editorial appears in print on June 20, 2017, on Page A26 of the New York edition with the headline: Free Speech at The Supreme Court.

Visit link:

Free Speech at the Supreme Court - New York Times

Schools are watching students’ social media, raising questions … – PBS NewsHour

Posted on by

JUDY WOODRUFF: But first: Schools are paying a lot more attention to what students post online, and that can have severe consequences for students and schools.

Harvard University withdrew the admittance of at least 10 incoming freshmen who had reportedly posted violent, racist and sexually explicit content in a private Facebook group.

High schools are cracking down, too, with some hiring outside companies to police social media posts.

But monitoring online behavior is difficult, and civil rights groups are watching.

Special correspondent Lisa Stark with our partner Education Week visited a school district in Arizona.

LISA STARK: Its just before summer break at Dysart High School in Surprise, Arizona, outside Phoenix. Students are eating lunch, signing yearbooks, and theyre immersed in social media.

Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube. More than 90 percent of teens say they go online every day, and nearly a quarter are online almost constantly.

Let me ask you, first of all, do you all have phones?

STUDENT: Yes.

STUDENT: Yes, we do.

LISA STARK: Do you ever not have a phone with you?

STUDENT: No.

STUDENT: Its always on.

LISA STARK: We sat down with four Dysart students to talk about how they use social media.

Snapchat, I post every single day, like, every day, all day.

STUDENT: I always like post my thoughts, certain way Im feeling. Depends on how Im feeling that day.

STUDENT: When Im done with all my work, and if I dont have any work from other classes, I just go on my phone and see whats going on.

STUDENT: I dont really care who sees it. Like, Im just posting it because I think its public. Like, Im open about it.

LISA STARK: The problem for schools, what happens on social media doesnt always stay on social media.

ALYSSA WAMSLEY, Student, Dysart High School: I see a lot of bullying on Facebook that it transfers to the school. And then, like, at the beginning of this year, this girl got into an altercation on Facebook, and she ended up fighting the girl at school.

AMY HARTJEN, Principal, Dysart High School: When somethings posted on social media and its being talked about on campus and it disrupts learning, thats when we have to step in and decide if theres something that we need to react to.

LISA STARK: Nationwide, a growing number of districts are watching whats posted online for anything that might impact their schools.

Principal Amy Hartjen says the number one concern is safety.

Whats like, OK, we have to get involved here? Bullying, would that be a red line?

AMY HARTJEN: Absolutely, threats, intimidations.

LISA STARK: What if someone posts something that is offensive language, racist, sexist?

AMY HARTJEN: Absolutely.

LISA STARK: Really? And why would that be a red line?

AMY HARTJEN: Because that is just its against the campus culture.

LISA STARK: Students threatening to harm others or themselves sometimes telegraph that on social media, and districts have been sued for not paying attention to online posts.

These days, the schoolyard has new boundaries.

ZACHERY FOUNTAIN, Communications Director, Dysart USD: The information space is just as important as the physical space anymore, because it has that ability to snowball at a really rapid pace.

LISA STARK: Zachery Fountain is the Dysart District Communications Chief, and point man on social media. He trains staff on how to document troublesome posts.

ZACHERY FOUNTAIN: Thats teaching them things like asking for a screen shot of what has happened, understanding that a message could disappear in five seconds, as soon as its brought to their attention by a student.

LISA STARK: Nationwide, both public and private schools keep tabs on social media in a variety of ways: hiring firms to actively monitor students accounts, encouraging students to report anything worrisome, friending students to gain access to posts that may not be public, and through simple alerts every time the district and its schools are mentioned in any type of media.

Theres anecdotal evidence, but no hard data, to show that early identification of troubling social media posts can help schools head off problems.

School officials here insist they are most concerned about safety. Theyre not trying to pry into students lives. But civil rights and privacy groups say it can be a slippery slope and that some districts have gone too far, that they have violated students constitutional rights.

Students have been disciplined for liking other posts, for private online chats that others made public, for forwarding racist posts, even in order to denounce them.

CHAD MARLOW, American Civil Liberties Union: Schools need to think about, how do we take on these issues in an appropriate way that doesnt have kind of the collateral damage effect of destroying students privacy and free speech rights?

LISA STARK: Chad Marlow is with the American Civil Liberties Union. He says, first and foremost, school shouldnt have open-ended access to students social media accounts.

Youre saying no fishing expeditions?

CHAD MARLOW: No fishing expeditions. And the way to do that is by not allowing passwords to be turned over, what we call shoulder surfing. Log onto your account, and the teacher will stand over the students shoulder and say, scroll, scroll, scroll.

LISA STARK: Are you asking students for passwords?

WENDY KLARKOWSKI, School Resource Officer, Shadow Ridge High School: No.

LISA STARK: Or log-in information or anything?

WENDY KLARKOWSKI: No.

LISA STARK: School resource officer Wendy Klarkowski is assigned to Shadow Ridge High School in the Dysart district. Her morning routine includes searching for school-related posts on social media. Shes uncovered criminal activity.

WENDY KLARKOWSKI: A young man had decided to bring some marijuana-laced brownies to school, and he advertised them on Twitter and, meet me in the cafeteria. We got him with all the brownies still on him.

LISA STARK: And possible campus disruptions.

WENDY KLARKOWSKI: Some kids were going to protest something they thought was unfair, and it was all over Twitter, so we were able to get the kids that were leading it, actually, the night before, so that they put an end to that, so it didnt disrupt the campus.

LISA STARK: But why isnt that their free speech right to protest something theyre not happy about?

WENDY KLARKOWSKI: It is their right to protest, but it is not their right to disturb an educational institution.

LISA STARK: The ACLUs Marlow worries about districts stifling free speech.

CHAD MARLOW: It is very important to draw the line between punishing an action that occurs on social media vs. thoughts that are expressed on social media. Once you start policing and punishing thoughts, you are into very, very dangerous territory.

LISA STARK: Two of the Dysart students we spoke with say they tread more carefully online after each posted a disparaging remark about one of their teachers.

ALYSSA WAMSLEY: I made a reference to one of my teachers last year on Facebook, and I almost got a referral for it, for what I said about her. And then me and the teacher ended up talking, and now shes my favorite teacher ever.

HADIN KHAN, Graduate, Dysart High School: It was funny at first. Then I was like, OK, I need to take some precautions for next time, when Im angry about something, not mention names or anything. I could say English teacher, as opposed to saying their name.

LISA STARK: So, you are censoring yourself in a way, right?

HADIN KHAN: Yes, kind of. Yes.

LISA STARK: How do you feel about having to do that?

HADIN KHAN: I dont really have a problem with it, because its not that serious of an issue.

LISA STARK: Superintendent Gail Pletnick insists the district is careful not to violate free speech or privacy rights.

GAIL PLETNICK, Superintendent, Dysart Unified School District: Were not crossing that line. Were not monitoring people 24/7. Were not the social media police. But we are concerned about anything that we feel will be harmful to our students.

LISA STARK: Pletnick says technology changes so quickly that schools can find themselves operating in a gray area.

GAIL PLETNICK: Those laws, those rules, those guidelines that were going to have to use are being developed. So, were really not only flying this plane while we build it, while its being designed.

LISA STARK: It can be a rough ride, so Dysart and other districts are increasingly starting to teach digital citizenship, the responsible use of technology, to impress upon students to think before they click.

STUDENT: I like that. Thats cute.

LISA STARK: For the PBS NewsHour and Education Week, Im Lisa Stark in Surprise, Arizona.

Original post:

Schools are watching students' social media, raising questions ... - PBS NewsHour

Left-wing smear group scorched as ‘enemy of free speech’ – WND.com

Posted on by

Theres been asurge in recent months of violence andthreats on university campuses from left-wing activistswhointend to silence opposing viewpoints.

It happened when conservative commentator Ann Coulter was scheduled to speak at the University of Californiaat Berkeley. Activiststhreatened violence and school officials closed down the scheduled event.

So on Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, held a hearing to take testimony about how school officialscan protect freedom of speech as well as their students.

The committee took comments from Richard Cohen of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Thats thegroup cited by Floyd Corkins as his source of informationwhen he attempted to commit mass murder at the evangelicalFamily Research Council office in Washington, D.C.

Get the Whistleblower Magazines revelations about SPLC in its The Hate Racket issue, which shows how the group fools government into equating Christians and conservatives with Klansmen and Nazis and rakes in millions in the process.

Its also the group that was liked on social media by James Hodgkinson, the man who tried to kill Republican members of Congress last week at a baseball practice.

Hodgkinson was merely swimming in the pond created by the SPLC and other groups like it, said Lt. Gen. William Boykin, FRCs executive vice president.

Boykinwrote a letter to the committee on the occasion of the SPLC testimony, warning members of the groups true agenda.

I have provided this background information in order to disabuse the committee of any notion it may have that the SPLC cares about the preservation of free speech rights on college campuses for those with whom they disagree on key issues, he explained.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The hearing, titled Free Speech 101: The Assault on the First Amendment on College Campuses, took testimony from students, college officials and others.

It is extremely ironic that one of your witnesses is actually an enemy of free speech, wrote Boykin. I write here of Richard Cohen of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The retired officertold senators SPLC has refined a method of defaming its political opponents that is extremely effective when combined with the massive war chest it can rely upon an amount that totals over $319 million as of late 2016.

He said the organization targets victims with hate and extremist labels.

The SPLC bullies and dehumanizes many ordinary Americans by calling them names and portraying them grotesquely in terrible photographs and sketches, he wrote.

The group does not want open debate,said Boykin.

One of the targets of SPLCs hate label in 2016 was then-presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson.

Boykin pointed out that in2007, SPLCs Mark Potok gave an address in which he made this observation about SPLCs modus operandi: Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate crimes and so on . I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them.

Boykinsaid SPLC has no interest in an exchange of ideas, even with peaceful, mainstream groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM), the Family Research Council (FRC), and the Pacific Justice Institute whose views may differ greatly from theirs.

He cited the Corkins case that linked SPLC to domestic terror.

Corkins came to the FRC building with the intention of using a semi-automatic pistol to kill everyone there and then place Chick-fil-A sandwiches by 15 of those bodies. In a chilling interrogation video released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and played in court, Corkins said he picked his targets by relying on the SPLC websites Hate Map.

Boykin said it was not surprising then that Hodgkinson had liked SPLC on Facebook.

Boykin chargedthe depth to which the SPLC will sink knows almost no bottom, citing an SPLC attack on human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who opposes a darker, violent side of Islam.

Ali suffered female genital mutilation as a child and wrote about it in her book Infidel.

SPLCs characterization was that she says she sufferedFGM.

Boykin said: It is mind-boggling that a progressive organization like the SPLC would cast doubt on her claims in a personal matter like this.

In his comments, Cohen claimed presidential politics and growing white nationalist activity are making campuses increasingly polarized.

WND reportedHodgkinson, who was killed by police when he shot at members of Congress, apparently was a fan of SPLC.

Hodgkinson also liked many anti-Republican, far-left Facebook pages, including Dump Trump, Liar, Liar, Republican campaign on fire, Republicans ARE the problem, Berniecrats United to Resist Trump and Fire the Republican Government.

Overtly anti-Republican groups were not the only things he liked on Facebook. His liked TV shows favored by the left-wing such as Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO, The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Comedy Central.

Get the Whistleblower Magazines revelations about the SPLC, in its March 2015 edition of The Hate Racket, the complete story of how one group fools government into equating Christians and conservatives with Klansmen and Nazis and rakes in millions doing it.

The legal team at Liberty Counsel, criticizing SPLC for falsely and recklessly labeling Christian ministries as hate groups,' noted SPLC is responsible for the first conviction of a man who intended to commit mass murder targeted against a policy organization in Washington, D.C.

On August 15, 2012, Floyd Corkins went to the Family Research Council with a gun and a bag filled with ammunition and Chick-fil-A sandwiches. His stated purpose was to kill as many employees of the Family Research Council as possible and then to smear Chick-fil-A sandwiches in their faces (because the founder of the food chain said he believed in marriage as a man and a woman). Fortunately, Mr. Corkins was stopped by the security guard, who was shot in the process. Corkins is now serving time in prison. Mr. Corkins admitted to the court that he learned of the Family Research Council by reading the SPLCs hate map.

WND reported a video showed Corkins entering the FRC offices and confronting Leo Johnson.

Corkins later was sentenced to prison for domestic terrorism. It was during an interview with FBI officers that Corkins named SPLC as his source of information.

Central to the case, according to the governments document, was that Corkins had identified the FRC as an anti-gay organization on the Southern Poverty Law Center website.

FRC officials repeatedly have explained that they adhere to a biblical perspective on homosexuality but are not anti-gay.

SPLC also exhibited behavior so egregious that it was reprimanded by the far-left administration of Barack Obama.

Judicial Watch, citing a letter to Michael M. Hethmon, senior counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, and others, said the DOJ reprimand came in 2016 but was kept quiet at the agencys request.

[It] involves the SPLCs atrocious behavior during immigration court proceedings. Two groups that oppose illegal immigration, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), were the target of personal, baseless and below-the-belt attacks from SPLC attorneys during official immigration court proceedings. The SPLC filed a motion attacking and defaming the two respected nonprofits by describing them as white supremacist, eugenicist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Catholic. In its reprimand the DOJ says it is troubled by the conduct of SPLC lawyer Christopher Strawn and that his conduct overstepped the bounds of zealous advocacy and was unprofessional. Furthermore, SPLC made uncivil comments that disparaged FAIR and its staff, the rebuke states, adding that the language constitutes frivolous behavior and doesnt aid in the administration of justice, Judicial Watch explained.

The Obama administration kept the reprimand confidential and asked FAIR and IRLI to keep it under wraps. In the meantime, SPLC continues to publicly trash the groups and escalate attacks against them by putting them on the official hate list. The executive director and general counsel of IRLI, Dale Wilcox, says his nonprofit and FAIR will keep fighting for immigration policies that put America first. The SPLCs latest tactic in its never-ending witch-hunt and the federal governments resulting reprimand should send the following message to the mainstream media, Wilcox said: Stop using the SPLC as a legitimate hate-watch source in your news coverage. That a cabal of biased list-keepers can play such an important role in distorting the immigration debate in this country is testament to the utter failure of much of the mainstream media which frequently publishes their inflammatory commentary and refuses to question their baseless methods or financial motivations,' Judicial Watch said.

The letter explained the DOJ stopped short of formal disciplinary proceeding[s], instead opting for the rebuke in the letter.

We take this opportunity to remind the attorney practitioners involved in this misconduct that practitioners before EOIR should be striving to be civil and professional in their interactions with each other, the public, the board and immigration courts. Attorneys owe a duty of professionalism to their clients, opposing parties and their counsel, the courts, and the public as a whole.

To really understand the war zone America is becoming, read the June issue of WNDs acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, RAGE AND VIOLENCE: Why the Left has gone insane in the Age of Trump.

Read this article:

Left-wing smear group scorched as 'enemy of free speech' - WND.com

The comfort of atheism and the consolation of faith – Aleteia EN

Posted on by

Aleteia EN
The comfort of atheism and the consolation of faith
Aleteia EN
Fortenberry wishes she were as certain as her atheist friends. She doesn't quite say so, but she suggests that if she were certain that God doesn't exist, she'd be happier with herself. Catholicism comforts us, sure, but weirdly enough, it's not as ...

See the original post:

The comfort of atheism and the consolation of faith - Aleteia EN

Why do public atheists have to behave like such jerks? – The Sydney Morning Herald

Posted on by

Seriously gents: just because Richard Dawkins says weird things about women on the internet doesn't mean you have to as well.

Dear god, it's hard to be an atheist sometimes.

That's not just because Australia's non-atheist community get to have cozy little get-togethers in Parliament House, in which a subset of a subset of a subset of Australian Christians buddy up with politicians that continue to ensure that LGBTIQ citizens have fewer civil rights and less protection from schoolyardbullying.

No, it's also because atheists have failed to make a strong organisational case to become a meaningful lobby group because we have a tendency to well, act like a bunch of jerks.

On the face of it there's nothing super-controversial about atheism. After all, it's basically just a statement along the lines of "I don't believe in the supernatural".

The greatest exponent of this sort of worldview was the late, great Carl Sagan via his groundbreaking science and cosmology series Cosmos in the earlyeighties. When talking about the still-unknown origins of the universe in the episode 'The Edge of Forever', he laid out a case for scientific thought that struck me then and now as having a gentle humility to it:

"In many cultures, the customary answer is that a God or Gods created the Universe out of nothing," he explained. "But if we wish to pursue this question courageously, we must of course ask the next question: where did God come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the Universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God always existed, why not save a step, and conclude that the Universe always existed?"

However, that attitude - that the unknown is a wonderful thing to explore, not something to be closed off by adhering to dogma - has been less in evidence in recent times as atheism seems to have become less a travelling companion to science and knowledge and morean excuse to jump on the Islam-creates-terrorists bandwagon(out of which the US atheist author Sam Harris has made a career) orto express remarkably misogynist opinions.

Get the latest news and updates emailed straight to your inbox.

It's become a massive problem in the international atheist community, due in no small part to comments made by the likes of Richard Dawkins, whose ill-considered "Dear Muslima" letter basically told women that since they didn't experience the level of repression of those in Muslim theocracies they should shut the hell up when guys get pushy - and though he later apologised for that, he did subsequentlytweet that women that drink can't be trusted when they claim to have beensexually attacked.

Harris, for his part, weighed in to let women know that "There's something about that critical posture that is to some degree instrinsically maleit doesn't obviously have this nurturing, coherence-building extra estrogen vibe." In his defence, "Estrogen Vibe" would be a pretty decent name for a jam band.

Even sceptical pioneer James Randi, a personal hero of mine, has rationalised reports of an employee making unwanted advances at Randi's annual Amazing Meeting in 2008 as "he misbehaved himself with the women, which I guess is what men do when they are drunk."

Thus in recent times there hasbeen a concerted, deliberate effortto overcome the not-inaccurate perception that atheism is exclusively a boys' club. And there has been predictable pushback from members of said community who are deeply concerned that this progressive attitudemay yet expose them to dangerous levels of girl germs.

The latest example came on Tuesdaywhen the upcoming Atheist Global Convention in Melbourne announced that feminist author and commentator Clementine Ford would be one of the speakers.

Predictably, this made a few people unhappy - but the venom levelled at Ford and the conference generally for daring to have a line up of speakers which approached gender parity was a shock.

And that's despite the moderators on the Facebook page makingclearthat "we have been deleting specific rape and death threats as they occurthere have been substantial numbers", just in case there was any doubt about the calibre of awesome dudes weighing in with their important opinions about the line up.

And this breaks my little non-theistic heart, because this is exactly why women and men who aren't terrified cowards think twice aboutjoining atheist groups. It also means such groups end up much like the Australian Christian Lobby: filled with reactionary voices that don't remotely represent the diverse community for which they're claiming to speak.

The likes of Sagan made atheism seem like a welcoming way to escape from the dangerous constraints of superstition and enter a wider, more spectacularuniverse. These sorts of atheistsreduce it to a tatty ideologyexactly as small, petty, violent and exclusionary as their own cartoonish portrayal of religion.

It's also proof, if any was needed, that faith - or not-faith -isn't what makes people behave like jerks: it's an excuse that jerks use to justify their jerkiness.

Follow this link:

Why do public atheists have to behave like such jerks? - The Sydney Morning Herald

Reg Radicals lecture encompasses far right, libertarians, and mushrooms… – The Register

Posted on by

Reg Lectures If the recent elections clash of centre right and a bit left leaves you cold, perhaps the prospect of libertarians versus transhumanists might make you sit up and take notice.

Those were just two of the alternatives Jamie Bartlett highlighted in his Register Lecture, covering his latest book, Radicals, which details two years of researching, and occasionally living with, a range individuals and groups proposing radically different ways to organise society.

Over the course of the talk, Jamie covered his experiences travelling with the US transhumanist party, reported from inside the echo chamber with groups like the EDL, and explained the reasons why a century-old border dispute between Serbia and Croatia could result in the worlds first ultra-libertarian state.

You can see the full lecture below.

Youtube Video

What you wont see is the Q&A, where topics like psychedelic and polyamorous communes were thrown into the mix - after the usual Reg lecture nibbles and top-ups break.

But dont worry. Were cooking up some more lectures that will run in the autumn. To ensure your space, watch this space.

In the mean time, check out our entire archive of Reg lectures here.

Read the original post:

Reg Radicals lecture encompasses far right, libertarians, and mushrooms... - The Register

Russian Military Plane Confronts NATO Aircraft Over Northern Europe: Reports – Newsweek

Posted on by

A Russian military fighter aircraft flaunted its firing capabilities to chase off a NATO jet as it triedto escort Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's plane above the Baltic Sea, multiple Russian agencies report.

A NATO F-16 neared the state liner carrying Russia's top state defense official on Wednesday, in a common maneuverfor aircraft moving near allied airspace, particularly in the high traffic area over the Baltic. Last week, NATO escorted 32 Russian military jets above the region, according to Lithuania's Ministry of Defense.

Read More: How serious is Russias threat to the U.S. in Syria?

Daily Emails and Alerts- Get the best of Newsweek delivered to your inbox

During Wednesday's approach, however, the Russian liner and the two Su-27 naval aviation fighters flanking it did not appreciate NATO's attempt to track them closely, state and non-state media reporters on board the state liner reported.

One of the Su-27 jets moved its wings to present the arms it was carrying, according to the on-board correspondent of Russia's Interfax news agency, who said the NATO jet fled shortly afterwards.

Shoigu was flying to the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, theon-board correspondent of state news agency Itar-Tass reports. ButNATO's attempted escort took place in international airspace, a Russian Ministry of Defense source told state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

The incident took place after another tense encounter on Monday between allied and Russian aircraft in the Baltic, during which a U.S. reconnaissance jet reportedly came within five feet of a pursuing Russian jet.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to CBS, confirmed the close call between the U.S. RC-135 and a Russian Su-27 fighter, calling it an unsafe intercept. Russian state news agencies accused the U.S. aircraft of turning abruptly and causing the dangerous pass. U.S. Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. aircraft did nothing to provoke this behavior.

U.S. and allied forces are currently undergoing their annual, month-long defense drills in the Baltic, called Saber Strike. Russia and its nearby ally, Belarus, plan to conduct a mass drill in the region in September. NATO ally Lithuania has expressed concern that Russia will, as it has in the past, dramatically increase the number of troops participating in drills closer to the exercises date and effectively simulate out and out warfare against NATO.

NATO did not immediately respond to Newsweek's request for comment.

See the original post here:

Russian Military Plane Confronts NATO Aircraft Over Northern Europe: Reports - Newsweek

Secretary General visits NATO battlegroups training together in Lithuania – NATO HQ (press release)

Posted on by

NATO HQ (press release)
Secretary General visits NATO battlegroups training together in Lithuania
NATO HQ (press release)
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg watched two of NATO's battlegroups train in Lithuania on Tuesday (20 June 2017). Mr. Stoltenberg observed a river crossing by Allied forces and then met troops taking part in Exercise Iron Wolf. Germany leads the ...

Visit link:

Secretary General visits NATO battlegroups training together in Lithuania - NATO HQ (press release)