Daily Archives: March 16, 2012

mailbox / By North Coast Journal Readers

(March 15, 2012) Editor:

If Marcy Burstiners daughter really has a message that she wants to disseminate to the masses (Take the Money and Run With It, March 1), there isnt a damn thing a decision of the Supreme Court can do to stop her. All she needs is a Twitter account.

Twitter rivals the printing press as one of the great revolutionary tools in human communication. Setting up an account is free, as is access to the Internet in the first place (through the use of computers at the Humboldt County Library). Anything you tweet can be seen by any person on the planet with an Internet connection and a computer.

If Burstiners daughter has even half the analytical, persuasive and writing skills that her mom posseses, shell start amassing followers rapidly. To use Marcys example, her daughter could use Twitter to organize other young people who can articulate why mass homework and short recess periods are destructive. Inevitably, adults like myself would start noticing these Twitter discussions, and we would join in. An expanded public discussion of homework and recess, outside the Twitter framework, would soon follow.

Burstiner laments that her daughter can do no better than spreading a message to the viewers of Community Access Television. Marcys wrong. Her daughter can reach the whole world through Twitter. #Twitteris4kids2

Eric Black, Eureka

Originally posted here:
Free Speech? Tweet

, j. staff

While few critics contested the right of conference organizers, the schools Black Student Union, to invite Farrakhan, many condemned the choice, and bemoaned the bully pulpit given the rabble-rousing Farrakhan to spread his message of hate.

The appearance in a packed 700-seat auditorium, billed as a speech about black empowerment, contained anti-Semitic and hate speech, according to students who spoke to the Daily Californian, the campus student newspaper. A petition signed by more than 350 people was circulated after the speech by Jewish student leaders, opposing Farrakhans speech and character, but not the BSUs right to bring him to the school, according to that publication.

Louis Farrakhan

It made this conference a lightning rod, and that detracted from it, he said.

Nancy Appel, director of the ADL for the San Francisco region, also condemned Farrakhans appearance, while upholding the groups right to invite the fiery minister.

For over thirty years, Louis Farrakhan has been notorious as a purveyor of hate against Jews, whites, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, among others, Appel said in a press release. It is unconscionable for the organizers of the ABC Conference to have honored him with this invitation to address their annual gathering. Granting Farrakhan this privilege is a slap in the face to all members of the diverse U.C. Berkeley community who strive to make their campus as inclusive and welcoming as possible for everyone.

The statement also called on campus administrators to unequivocally condemn Farrakhans hate mongering.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, there were no protesters outside Wheeler Auditorium during Farrakhans speech, and only one protester afterward, student senator Noah Ickowitz.

Ickowitz told the Chronicle that Farrakhan had every right to appear on campus, and that he, in turn, had a right to protest a speech he saw as advocating black empowerment at the expense of other groups.

The rest is here:
Farrakhan’s Berkeley talk reignites free speech debate