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Daily Archives: April 17, 2017
Conan Exiles to be released for the Xbox One in second half of 2017 – Windows Report
Posted: April 17, 2017 at 12:41 pm
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Conan Exiles is coming to Xbox One in the second half of 2017. Will it successfully stand out witth all the survival adventure games in the picture? The title shares the same engine, gameplay mechanics, and genre with ARK Survival Evolved, for instance, so lets see if theres anything new the game is going to bring on the table in this world of crafting and survivalism.
Conan Exiles is set in the fictional world of Conan the Barbarian. Age of Conan was launched in 2008 and the game is still enjoying updates even now, 10 years after its release. You can currently find Conan Exiles in Early Access on Steam. In Conan Exiles, youll find survival very familiarif you have previously played ARK: Survival Evolved.
The game allows a large amount of visual customization to build abarbarian just the way you desire, and youre provided with some great-looking character options that perfectly suit the Conan world. The games universe awaits you and after youve finished building your character, you find yourself freed from crucifixion by Conan himself and then dumped into a vast desert.
Combat in Conan Exiles consists only of clicking, unfortunately. You only have to click on your enemies and theyll explode into rivers of gore and blood. So, the combat is a bit basic as youll be able to see for yourself. On the other hand, the monsters are awesome: giant spiders, eldritch beasts, even hyenas and gazelles they all create a world abundant in biodiversity.
The games construction engine is awesome and might be the most rewarding element of Conan Exiles. You can practically build anything anywhere as long as its not on someone elses structure. You can even build up on top of rocky pillars and on the sides of mountains!
The game has a rudimentary religion system that allows clans to worship various gods. If theyre provided enough offerings, theyll help you sack enemy settlements. The system looks extremely promising even if its currently in its infancy.
Funcom has promised some future improvements of the game, and they include the following areas: avatar defense, sorcery system, farming systems, The Purge NPC raids, new biomes and more monsters, dungeons and new features.
Follow the upcoming news on Conan Exiles as the game has a lot of potential. You can now find the game on Early Access on Steam for $29,99 and on the Xbox One in just a few months time.
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Conan Exiles to be released for the Xbox One in second half of 2017 - Windows Report
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Debate: Is Ayn Rand right about rights? – Learn Liberty (blog)
Posted: at 12:41 pm
[Here, Professor Matt Zwolinski provides three essays that argue there are problems with Ayn Rands Objectivist philosophy. After each, Professor Stephen Hicks responds with an essay of his own that clarifies and defends the Objectivist point of view.]
Ayn Rand is, quite famously, an advocate of ethical egoism the idea that each individuals own life is the ultimate standard of value for that individual. She is also, quite famously, an advocate of individual rights the idea that each individual has a morally protected sphere of freedom against which other individuals must not intrude. Figuring out how, or whether, these two things fit together is one of the major puzzles involved in making sense of Rands philosophy. If my life is the standard of morality, then why should I refrain from interfering with your freedom if doing so will advance my interests?
In her synoptic statement on rights, Rand makes the following series of claims:
If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational.
But there seems to be a fallacy of equivocation going on here. In the first three uses, Rand uses the term right to assert that certain actions are morally permissible (its not wrong to do them) or even obligatory (it would be wrong not to do them).[i] So, for example, when Rand says that it is right for man to work for his values, she seems to mean at least that it is not wrong for him to do so, and perhaps more strongly that it would be wrong for him not to do so.
Rands fourth usage of the word right, however, is significantly different. When she says that man has a right to live as a rational being, she is not merely saying that it is right for man to live as a rational being. She is saying that man has a right to live as a rational being. And these are two very different claims.
To have a right is to have a certain kind of claim against others. That claim could be a purely moral one (in which case the right is a moral right), or it could be one enforceable by law (in which case it is a legal right). It could be a claim against others that they perform certain positive actions such as repaying a debt (in which case it is a positive right), or it might simply be a claim that others refrain from performing certain kinds of actions like taking ones property without ones consent (in which case it is a negative right).
The important point, for our purposes, is that rights in this sense are claims on other people. To say that one person, A, has a right against another, B, doesnt say much at all about what it would be wrong or right for A herself to do. What it says, instead, is that it would be wrong for B to act (or fail to act) toward A in certain ways.
If any person has a right, then as a matter of moral logic, some other person must have a corresponding obligation.
And this is the puzzle for Rand and her followers: Where exactly are these obligations supposed to come from? In order to remain consistent with egoism, it seems that Rand must claim that As right against B must be grounded not in As interests, but in Bs. In other words, B only has an obligation to refrain from interfering with A if it is good for B to do so. But as Mike Huemer has argued, its very hard to see why this restraint will always turn out to be in best interests of B.
It certainly doesnt look that way in lifeboat cases like the situation described in Joel Feinbergs story of the lost hiker cases that I think are not as easily dismissed as Rand believed them to be. But we dont need to go to the lifeboat to find cases that give us reason to doubt Rands claim. Even in ordinary life, there would seem to be plenty of situations in which B can advance his real, rationally defensible interests by violating As rights: stealing her lost wallet, lying on a resume he submits to her business, or littering on her property.
We dont need to go to the lifeboat to find cases that give us reason to doubt Rands claim.
Objectivists must, for each and every one of these cases, deny either that (1) the action is actually a rights violation, or (2) that Bs interests would actually be advanced by the violation. In certain cases, this might work B might not correctly anticipate the guilt he will feel after stealing, or his chances of being punished. But whether the expected costs of a rights-violation outweigh the expected benefits is an empirical question. And as far as I can tell, neither Rand nor her followers have given us sufficient reason to believe that the answer to that question is always going to be that they do.
Two points are most important here, one about content and one about method.
At first sight, rights do seem egoistic: I have a right to my life, my liberty, my property, and as a matter of robust, jealously-guarded principle I want those rights to be respected by others.
At first sight, rights do seem egoistic.
Rand in particular argues that our rights are based in our needs and capacities as human beings. Human life is a process of thinking, producing, and consuming, and to survive and flourish each individual must take responsibility for the process. The creation and consumption of human value requires freedom of thought and freedom of action individuals need to think and discover what is good for them, they need to act on their knowledge to produce those good things, and they need to consume the goods they produce.
In a social context, other people can be beneficial to the process: we can learn from each other, act jointly to be more productive, and trade to mutual advantage as consumers.
But other people can also be threats to the process: censorship, kidnapping, enslavement, theft, and so on undercut the affected individuals ability to think, act, and consume. Those actions are therefore social wrongs, on principle, so their opposites are social rights.
That is what Rand means in the lines in which right is repeated, which Professor Zwolinski sees as problematic (paragraph 2): rights are a type of moral principle; they are part of a family of concepts that link individual right to social right to political right. The connection is maintaining the identification of what is moral in each increasingly-narrow context.
But, as Zwolinski questions (paragraph 6), why does it follow egoistically that I should respect others rights? I want my rights to be respected by others, yes but why should I want others rights to be respected by me? Where does the principled commitment to universal and symmetrical application come from?
Rand argues that as human beings we are not able to survive by instinct or by range-of-the-moment action. We are rational beings, and we survive and flourish by making principled, categorical identifications and acting on them. I need to be self-responsible. I need to be productive. I need to plan long-range. And I need to do all of that in a world in which much of my living is social. So what principles should I adopt in my dealings with others?
So the relevant questions about respecting others rights are these:
Rands answer to all of those questions is Yes. Moral self-education, then, hopefully guided and encouraged by good parenting and other socialization, is a matter of thinking through those questions and testing various answers to them in ones dealings with family members, neighborhood kids, schoolmates, and others as one growsuntil one is in a position to conceptualize and commit to principles as a mature individual.
Rational egoism is thus Rands grounding of political rights.
(This is not yet to presuppose answers to questions about emergency situations, whether to be a selective predator, how to deal with non-respecters of rights, determining degrees of violations of rights, or the status those not capable of grasping principles. Rands theory of rights is about contextual principles applied with practical wisdom; its not one of contextless absolutes to be mechanically followed. So more needs to be said.)
Rands theory of rights is about contextual principles applied with practical wisdom.
The emphasis on rational above indicates that for Rand epistemological matters are central to normative issues, for Rand is in a minority of thinkers who so emphasize the importance of fundamental philosophy. This brings us to a second important point.
Permissible to Whom? In characterizing Rands position, Zwolinski asks at one point (paragraph 3) whether the claim of rights is to be interpreted as permissible or obligatory. That distinction should give us pause, for what kind of morality frames things in terms of permissions and obligations?
If we are to speak of permissible, then we should ask from whom we are seeking permission; and if we are to speak of obligatory, then we should ask to whom or what we are so obligated. Yet if we know anything about Rands ethics, then we should sense that we such a taxonomy is alien to it.
The point is that when interpreting a thinkers position, it is weak methodology to state a thinkers claim, interpret it by a distinction taken from some other philosophical framework, note that the resulting mix makes no sense, and then criticize the original claim.
Other moralities distinctions may be useful in criticizing a thinkers position after one has figured out what it is. But when initially trying to interpret a position, we should beware of importing highly abstract distinctions from foreign moral theories.
Ayn Rand was a firm believer in property rights, holding them to be essentially a corollary of the right to life. After all, if the right to life is a right to act in order to preserve ones life, then this right would be ineffectual if man did not also have the right to the product of his action to that which he has produced.
The problem is that everything we produce is, ultimately, made out of raw materials that were not themselves produced by anybody. So even if its easy to justify why I should be morally entitled to the cake Ive baked out of the flour and butter I owned, its not so easy to justify why I should be morally entitled to the patch of land I simply found and quickly put a fence around. In political philosophy, this is known as the problem of original appropriation.
The problem of original appropriation strikes many philosophers as serious because of the seemingly zero-sum nature of natural resources. Theres only so much land to go around. Therefore, whatever land you take and claim as your own leaves less land for me. Your interests might be served by your act of appropriation, but mine seem to be set back. Original appropriation, it has seemed to many philosophers, involves a real conflict of interests between the appropriators and everyone else.
Original appropriation, it has seemed to many philosophers, involves a real conflict of interests.
Now, I think there are ways out of this problem the most promising of which is developed in a wonderful essay by David Schmidtz. But Rand herself never grapples with the problem directly.
I suspect the reason why is that she didnt see it as a genuinely serious problem. Rand did not believe that land and other natural resources were the true source of value. And thus, one persons appropriation of some of that stuff did not really set back the interests of others in any serious way.
Mind and Value For Rand, mans mind is the fundamental source of values that sustain his life.
For Rand, mans mind is the fundamental source of values that sustain his life.
Physical stuff by itself can be no aid in mans survival unless it is first understood by the mind and then put to work through deliberate, rational, productive action. Before man figured out what to do with it, crude oil was a pollutant, not a value. It was the human mind that transformed oil from an annoyance into a resource.
I think that there is a tremendously important insight in this analysis of value. But I also think its possible to stretch that insight too far. And I think that Rand, unfortunately, is guilty of doing precisely this.
After all, even if its true that nothing of value would exist without the human mind, its equally true that nothing (or at least almost nothing) of value would exist without physical resources for the mind to operate on. Both the human mind and physical resources are thus necessary for the production of value. Objective value is an aspect of reality in relation to man. So without the reality, or without the man, there is no value.
Thus, even if we accept Rands idea that natural resources have no intrinsic value in themselves, we must nevertheless recognize that they are a necessary component in the production of value. And so when we take those natural resources and put a fence around them, we are depriving others of something important. We are depriving non-owners of the liberty they once possessed to use that resource in their own productive activities. We are imposing upon them an obligation to refrain from using that resource without our consent an obligation that we will enforce with the use of physical violence, if necessary. And this calls for justification.
I am enthusiastic supporter of property rights. And thus I do believe that such justification can be provided. But and here I return to my earlier point about rights and egoism providing a justification to one person of another persons property right in X would seem to require doing more than simply showing how such rights are good for the first person. Since As property right imposes an obligation on B, we need to show how such an obligation is good for B as well. If As property right in X is good for A but bad for B, then for B to respect that right would be an act of self-sacrifice, and fundamentally incompatible with his rational pursuit of his own self-interest.
Professor Matt Zwolinski raises a fun and deep issue about property rights. It has a long history before Rand, with Locke and Rousseau staking out near-opposite positions, and with post-Rand thinkers such as Robert Nozick and David Schmidtz making strong contributions.
Why did Rand not engage with it? I agree with Zwolinski that from the perspective of her robust creation ethic, it is either trivial or a non-problem. So the question is whether it really is a problem and/or a more serious one than she judged.
Value results from raw materials plus human agency. How much comes from each? Raw materials can be more or less plentiful, and human agency can be more or less creative. So we can play around with the variables by considering examples.
So if one emphasizes the value-adding power of human creativity, as Rand and her great near-contemporary Julian Simon are noteworthy for doing, then one acquires an opportunity mindset. The issue of raw materials becomes more trivial, as intelligent people can always create value out of what is available.
But if one is struck by a relative scarcity of certain raw materials, then, as Zwolinski points out, one is pushed into a zero-sum mindset, and that mindset tends to seeing others gains as its deprivations and others rights as imposing unwanted obligations.
Perspectives on Property Two points are worth making here, so lets work with the most popular examplelandto get to the core assumptions, for as always in philosophy the basic assumptions are the most important.
As always in philosophy the basic assumptions are the most important.
Suppose I look at the Manhattan skyline, as Rand did from her apartment. Do I see opportunities for me, given what others have done with the land? Or do I see deprivation, as others got to Manhattan Island long before I did and acquired it all for themselves? If I scale out to the United States as a whole, I find that almost half of its land is owned by local, state, and federal governments and the rest by private individuals and organizations all of it acquired long before I immigrated. Should I say that opportunities have been taken away from me and/or that obligations have been imposed on me?
The first important point about such examples is one made by Locke in the Second Treatise, where he states that he who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not lessen but increase the common stock of mankind. (I see Schmidtz as working out in more welcome detail what was only sketched by Locke.)
If, for example I had arrived in 1600 in what is now New York, then some opportunities would have been available to me then that are not available now. True. But some opportunities are available now that were not available then. At which time was the net value of the opportunities greater? If the net opportunities are greater now, then the language of deprivation and imposition is misplaced. (And if my goal is to acquire land in New York, then that opportunity is still available to me, as it has a lively real-estate market.) So property rights are win-win, contrary to the zero-sum thinkers.
But here is what I take to be the second and deeper point. We can speak of the mutually-beneficial nature of property rights, and that is a value of them to each of us. But that value of property rights should not be taken as part of the justification for initial appropriation, because raw materials in their unowned state are not items to which anyone has a claim.
Here we can take Rousseau as the foil, with his famous line against appropriators that initially the fruits of the earth belong to us all. His assertion is that, prior to property rights, we all have a claim in common to everything that exists, so anyone who appropriates incurs an obligation to make good on his or her lessening the common stock held by the rest of us.
But initially the raw materials of the universe are unowned, not owned in common, which means that nobody has any sort of claim to them with respect to anyone else. Its the difference between saying:
and
To put the point in metaphysical terms, when one comes into existence, one has no claims on anything in the world. A just-born child has no entitlements with respect to the world at large, including both the as-yet unowned raw materials and the properties of others.
The childs parents have obligations to provide for it on its growth journey to adulthood, but the governing assumption is that everything has to be earned. That includes that first breath of air the child appropriates from the commons by his or her own effortfor which the child need present no justification. At the same time, the preexisting property arrangements are not an imposition upon the just-born child that must be justified to the child.
Ayn Rand endorses a form of the libertarian nonaggression principle, which holds that the use of force should properly be banished from human relationships. For Rand, force is evil because it prevents individuals from acting according to the dictates of their own reason.
Thus, force violates mans fundamental right to life his right to act in pursuit of his values according to his own judgments, uncompelled by the judgment of any other. As Rand puts it, To violate mans rights means to compel him to act against his own judgment, or to expropriate his values. Basically, there is only one way to do it: the use of physical force.
Force violates mans fundamental right to life.
For Rand, then, the basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. But how exactly are we to understand the meaning of the key term force in this principle?
Traditionally, libertarians and Objectivists have taken one of two broad approaches to defining force. One approach, which we can call the moralized approach, defines force in terms of an underlying theory of rights. The other approach, the nonmoralized approach, defines force in a way that makes no essential reference to rights or other moral terms.
To see the difference, imagine a case in which A violates Bs rights, but does so without so much as physically touching B. Perhaps B leaves his car unlocked on the street, and A lets himself in and drives away with it. Has A initiated force against B? If we accept the nonmoralized definition of force, we will have to say no. After all, A didnt touch B at all. The only way we can explain the way in which As action affects B is in terms of the property right B has in his car. But if this is our basis for claiming that A has initiated force against B, then we are implicitly relying on a moralized definition of force. As action initiates force against B because it violates Bs (moral) rights.
It matters a great deal which of these understandings Objectivists rely on to inform the nonaggression principle. But neither understanding is entirely without its own peculiar difficulties. If, for instance, we accept a nonmoralized definition of force, then we abandon the tight, conceptual connection between force and the violation of rights, and must accept the possibility that some violations of rights will not involve the initiation of force, and the possibility that some cases of the initiation of force will not involve rights-violations.
Neither understanding is entirely without its own peculiar difficulties.
And this means that we must take seriously the socialist argument that property rights themselves involve the initiation of force. After all, if I put a fence around a piece of land and threaten to arrest anybody who walks across it without my consent, it certainly looks like Im initiating force when I grab a peaceful trespasser and slap a pair of handcuffs on him. The only way to deny that my action constitutes the initiation of force, it seems, is to argue that it was really the trespasser who initiated force. But that move is available only if we abandon the nonmoralized conception of force, and adopt a moralized understanding instead.
Suppose we do that. Adopting a moralized definition of force allows us to explain why the individual who steals someones car is initiating force, and why the landowner who enforces his property right isnt. So, so far, so good. But the moralized approach to force comes with a serious drawback of its own.
For if we define the initiation of force in terms of the violation of rights, then we cannot define the violation of rights in terms of the initiation of force, lest we be guilty of circular argument. In other words, if we say that force is just any activity that violates individual rights, we cannot turn around and then say that our rights are to be understood in terms of freedom from the initiation of force.
Both ways of understanding force, then, appear to generate problems for Rands use of the nonaggression principle. And Rands frequent claim that force severs the connection between mans mind and his actions seems to lead to further difficulties: Is the claim that force eliminates our ability to act on the dictates of our reason or merely that it limits it? The former claim is quite implausible, but the latter forces us to notice that a great number of other things also limit this ability, such as, well, other peoples property rights.
As I have argued at greater length elsewhere, the non-aggression principle is a poor basis on which to build a libertarian philosophy. But for the reasons described above, Rands invocation of it appears to be especially problematic.
Lets start with four scenarios involving a man running on a field who is suddenly tackled to the ground by another man.
In case 1, the tackled goes to jail. In case 2, the tackler and tackled try again. In case 3, the tacklers team is penalized. In case 4, the tackler goes to jail.
Professor Zwolinskis questions about force and rights again raise issues of content and method. Lets focus on the method issues, as they are more relevant to his apparent puzzles. Zwolinski is in at least broad agreement with Rand that individual rights exist but has questions about how she derives them that seem to me driven by a methodological tangle.
In the four scenarios above, the physical actions are identical one man tackles another to the ground yet they have very different consequences. Understanding why those consequences are normatively appropriate requires attending to the broader complex context within which those actions and consequences occurred.
That in turn means that the proper place to start is not by specifying contextless definitions of force (e.g., as moralized or non-moralized) and then trying to deduce correct answers about particular circumstances. The method is not to present an abstract dichotomy of definitions, ask for a commitment to either, and then find a problematic case for whichever one is chosen.
Zwolinski is certainly correct that non-moralized definitions wont work, and his objection here seems a variation on the classic Is-Ought problem: if we define force only non-morally, then we will face a gap when we want to define rights as moral principles. And at the same time we of course should heed Zwolinskis warning about using moralized concepts in circular ways.
But the key content point is that all human action is moralized. We are always in a context of judging good and bad, right and wrong, better or worse. Consequently, by the time we get to high philosophy and are identifying principles such as rights, we are deeply embedded in moralized contexts.
We are always in a context of judging good and bad, right and wrong, better or worse.
(In his closing paragraph, Zwolinski was perhaps speaking loosely in saying that the NAP is a poor principle upon which to base a libertarian philosophy. But certainly Rands invocation of something like an NAP is not basic to her philosophy. Its not even basic to her ethics or to her social philosophy. Rather it is a derivative, specifying a bridge principle between ethics and social philosophy and politics.)
Actions necessary for human life Yet as Zwolinski also properly states, Rand begins by specifying the individual actions that are necessary for human life (thinking, production, etc.). She identifies ways in which others actions can be beneficial to our lives (teaching, friendship, economic trade, etc.). Then she identifies the types of actions by others that interfere with those necessary actions and within that very broad category she identify the subset of interferences that are major enough to justify physical retaliation (theft, rape, kidnapping, assault, etc.).
The process is empirical, and at each stage of identification an argument from cases is necessary to establish the principle involved. We see this argument, for example, among philosophers about defining that final category of cases in which the retaliatory principle kicks in where exactly is the demarcation?
John Stuart Mill offers the broader Harm Principle (On Liberty, I.9) while Rand specifies the narrow initiation-of-physical-force principle. Mill eschews the rights label while Rand embraces it. But the method for both is inductive by investigating a large number of particular cases and abstracting the relevant similarities and differences. Or to put it in modern-philosophy epistemological terms, their approach is empirical-and-bottom-up-abstraction rather than rationalist-abstract-definitions-and-downward-branching-decision-trees.
But even here initiation of force is all by itself not a definitive guide, as many initiations of force are legitimate. Parent initiate force regularly with their infants every time the kids diaper needs changing he or she is man-handled (or woman-handled) without consent.
Parent initiate force regularly with their infants every time the kids diaper needs changing.
Boxers are encouraged to initiate massive physical force upon each other until the bell rings. If you see your girlfriend about to step in the path of an onrushing bus, you will grab her and haul her back.
So we always need to identify what legitimate values are being pursued or possessed and by what means. Then we can exercise judgment whether the initiation of physical force in a particular case is an inappropriate interfe
[i] This is what analytic philosophers refer to as the deontic status of an action.
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Debate: Is Ayn Rand right about rights? - Learn Liberty (blog)
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‘Vegetable Whisperer’ Chef Plants The Seeds Of His Own Reinvention – NPR
Posted: at 12:40 pm
Chef Jeremy Fox's inventive dish: double-chucked spring peas sprinkled with white chocolate and roasted macadamia nuts. It's served with a bit of pea broth poured on the side, "to retain the crunch." Each pea is shucked, blanched and squeezed to get the halves out. It's a labor preparation that he serves only on special occasions, like Valentine's day. Oriana Koren for NPR hide caption
Chef Jeremy Fox's inventive dish: double-chucked spring peas sprinkled with white chocolate and roasted macadamia nuts. It's served with a bit of pea broth poured on the side, "to retain the crunch." Each pea is shucked, blanched and squeezed to get the halves out. It's a labor preparation that he serves only on special occasions, like Valentine's day.
Some people call Jeremy Fox the "vegetable whisperer," the California chef who can coax remarkable flavors out of every part of his produce, even the flowers and leaves that most chefs throw away. One of his famous first-course dishes combines twice-shucked spring peas with macadamia nuts and white chocolate. He has reinvented cooking with vegetables, and in the process, reinvented himself, too.
On Wednesdays, you'll find Fox at the Santa Monica farmer's market, greeting fellow chefs and checking out the veggies at farmer Alex Weiser's stand. He marvels at the Chinese garlic right out of the field, still packed with dirt. Then he kibitzes with Weiser about some unconventional tubers: oka, yacon , and colorful Peruvian mashua.
"The mashua is almost in the Nasturtium family, so it's like really spicy, almost like horseradish wasabi," says Fox. "But when you cook it, it mellows out a lot."
"How could I not grow that?" Weiser says.
"Plus, it's fun to say mashua," Fox adds.
Chefs and home cooks alike flock to the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers Market. This is where Jeremy Fox finds ingredients like salsify flowers and parts of vegetables often overlooked or discarded by other cooks. Oriana Koren for NPR hide caption
Chefs and home cooks alike flock to the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers Market. This is where Jeremy Fox finds ingredients like salsify flowers and parts of vegetables often overlooked or discarded by other cooks.
Weiser says Fox has inspired him to grow unusual vegetables at his farm in the Tehachapi mountains. "He appreciates flavor and uniqueness and texture," says the farmer. "I think he realizes, too, where we farm, we have snowfall and hard frost, which give our crops flavor, that terroir."
Jeremy Fox is a little like those vegetables with a hard knock life. The 40-year-old grew up in Cleveland and Atlanta eating fast food, and taking far too many prescription medicines for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. In college, he was inspired to start cooking after watching the culinary film, "Big Night." He went to culinary school in Charleston, S.C., then worked in a few restaurants in the South before heading to California. There, he eventually landed a job at the Bay Area restaurant, Manresa, where he actually started out in charge of the meat.
Portrait of chef Jeremy Fox at his Santa Monica restaurant, Rustic Canyon. Oriana Koren for NPR hide caption
Portrait of chef Jeremy Fox at his Santa Monica restaurant, Rustic Canyon.
"We were getting in whole pigs and trying to work out charcuterie," Fox recalls, "using every part of the pig, nose to tail."
That philosophy shaped Fox's approach to vegetables when he became chef de cuisine at Manresa. The restaurant had its own farm.
"He would take mushrooms, and smoke them and fry them, and so it took on... a bacon-like texture," says chef Kim Alter, who owns Nightbird restaurant in San Francisco. She worked with Fox at Manresa, and then at Ubuntu, where he became head chef.
"He would cook the vegetables like meat," says Alter. "He would truss them, baste them like meat. And it just really opened your eyes as to how you could treat a radish... like a pig. It was pretty cool. And it was all delicious."
Ubuntu was very California: a vegetarian restaurant located below a yoga studio in Napa. One evening in 2008, then-New York Times food critic Frank Bruni came for dinner. He was impressed.
"Jeremy's a superbly talented chef," Bruni says. "He was determined to make that vegetarian experience as enjoyable as a restaurant with all ingredients at its disposal."
Bruni named Ubuntu the country's second best restaurant outside of New York. Here's an excerpt of his review:
"Ubuntu is proof that you can do away with all flesh and hold on to hedonism, at least if you keep enough butter, cream, cheese and wine at hand. Ubuntu is where virtue meets naughty sensuality. It's the Angelina Jolie of restaurants."
Bruni's review changed everything.
Potatoes, ramp kimchi, radish and soft-boiled egg. The recipe can be found in Jeremy Fox's new cookbook "On Vegetables." Courtesy of Rick Poon/Phaidon hide caption
Potatoes, ramp kimchi, radish and soft-boiled egg. The recipe can be found in Jeremy Fox's new cookbook "On Vegetables."
Suddenly, the restaurant was packed, but unprepared. Health inspectors shut it down till they got better refrigeration. But the accolades for Fox kept coming. Food & Wine Magazine named him the best new chef of 2008. He was flown around the country for interviews and events.
But the pressure was too much. Fox says he wasn't sleeping or eating. He lost 40 pounds. His marriage to pastry chef Deanie Hickox fell apart. And he self-medicated with a concoction of sleeping pills and amphetamines. "I could have died from the amount I was taking," he says. "I kinda felt like I was on a plane in horrific turbulence, hanging on to the sides. That's pretty much how I felt every hour of every day, for several years, to where everything was impending disaster. Lots of anxiety, lots of paranoia, and I lost my grip on everything. "
Fox left Ubuntu, and pretty much dropped out of the scene.
"Everything got so negative," he recalls. "I'd been told to take a break or get some help. Eventually, it was like, well, let's just end this."
Fox spent a few years in therapy, cleaned up his act, and moved to Los Angeles. He is now head chef at Rustic Canyon restaurant in Santa Monica. He has a new wife, gourmet buyer Rachael Sheridan, and a 16-month-old daughter named Birdie.
Old friends are happy for him. "Now I think he's got this really amazing balance," says Alter. "He's happy, he's doing great food in an environment he loves and that supports him, with a great, beautiful woman and a child."
And Fox has finally finished the cookbook he started when he was at Ubuntu.
Fox at the Santa Monica restaurant, Rustic Canyon, where he's now head chef. Born in Cleveland, he proudly wears his 'Ohio Against the World' hat. And beneath his apron, the proud father of 16 month-old-daughter Birdie wears his "pop" sweatshirt. Oriana Koren for NPR hide caption
Fox at the Santa Monica restaurant, Rustic Canyon, where he's now head chef. Born in Cleveland, he proudly wears his 'Ohio Against the World' hat. And beneath his apron, the proud father of 16 month-old-daughter Birdie wears his "pop" sweatshirt.
"Finding out I was gonna be a dad was a huge motivator," he says, "to create something that this little kid could be proud of."
With his newly published book "On Vegetables" and a fourth nomination for a James Beard Award, chef Jeremy Fox is back.
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Far Right Descends On Berkeley For ‘Free Speech’ And Planned Violence – Southern Poverty Law Center
Posted: at 12:38 pm
BERKELEY, Calif. The American far right alt-right figures, antigovernment movement leaders, and a conglomeration of conspiracists and extremists ranging from anti-feminists to nativists, all angrily voicing their support for Donald Trump came here Saturday itching for a fight. They found it.
On social media, the organizers and supporters called it the Next Battle of Berkeley, a chance to gain revenge for an earlier event on the University of California campus that they believed had infringed on conservatives free speech rights: In February, a scheduled appearance by alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was shut down by rock-throwing antifascist protesters.
So when several hundred of them gathered at a downtown park for a Free Speech event Saturday most from out of town, many from all around the country they came prepared to do battle with the same black-clad protesters, many of them wearing helmets, pads, and face masks of their own. The result was an inevitable free-for-all, with organized phalanxes on both sides lining up, occasionally erupting into fistfights, and then breaking down in a series of running melees that ran up Center Street into the heart of downtown.
By the days end, 11people were injured and six hospitalized. Police arrested 21 people on a variety of charges.
The rally had drawn wide attention among various right-wing factions leading up to the event. Perhaps the most noteworthy of them were the Oath Keepers, the antigovernment Patriot movement group closely associated with the Bundy standoff and various far-right conspiracist activities.
Stewart Rhodes addresses the crowd Saturday.
Were going [to Berkeley] because people are having their rights violated, Oath Keepers president Steward Rhodes told a North Carolina gathering the week before. So it could be argued that with the full support of the local politicians, thugs in the streets are beating people up and suppressing their rights to free speech and assembly. It could be argued that California is in a state of insurrection.
Various alt-right figures also became involved. Kyle Chapman, an Alameda County man who has gained recent notoriety as Based Stickman, the stick-and-shield-wielding defender of right-wing speech, came and was reportedly arrested. Canadian Lauren Southern, an alt-right pundit who came to notoriety by denying the existence of rape culture and by demonizing minorities, arrived wearing a helmet boasting a MAGA (Make America Great Again) sticker.
Nathan Damigo, a leader in the white-nationalist 'Identity Evropa' movement, taunts protesters.
Nathan Damigo, one of the key figures in the student-oriented white-nationalist Identity Evropa organization, was not only present, but acted as a provocateur throughout much of the day, egging on protesters and leading a group of young white men with fascy haircuts in confrontations on the street. Damigo was videotaped sucker-punching a young woman in black who was embroiled in the street brawls.
The rally was scheduled to begin at noon, but by 11 a.m. both sides were out in force, and the right-wing speakers, including Southern and Rhodes, began addressing the crowd from a tree-covered portion of the park. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters gathered, separated from the Patriots by orange police cordons, enforced by some 250 officers. By around noon, the protesters began to march around the park.
Groups of right-wing activists formed lines to prevent black-clad antifascists from entering their space, even as the protest moved around the east end of the park and then congealed on Center Street, on its west side. It was there that the police cordons finally started breaking down, the two sides were milling as a mob, and fights began to break out. Objects ranging from plastic bottles to large rock to bagels were flying through the air. A trash bin was rolled down the street, and several bins of garbage were set afire.
The Pepe banners came out early and often.
Banners came out, including some featuring Pepe the Frog, the notorious alt-right mascot. One sign featured the anti-Semitic meme, Goyim Know.
Eventually, the mass of people moved a half-block to the intersection of Center and Milvia streets, where the two sides again faced off for the better part of an hour. Insults were shouted and chanted, threats were made, skirmishes erupted. Both sides appeared to be evenly matched.
That mob broke up when someone lit a large smoke bomb that obscured everyones vision for several minutes. In the fog, melees began breaking out, several of them running east up Center. Eventually the mob moved up the block to the intersection of Center with Shattuck, the main downtown boulevard.
The right-wing militants appeared to be attempting to head toward the Cal-Berkeley campus a few blocks further east, but the protesters stiffened their resistance and prevented them from getting much further beyond Shattuck. As participants began drifting away, the combatants remained mostly within a small half-block on Shattuck. Eventually, an organized phalanx of police moved in and broke up the crowd, and most participants went home.
Afterward, the alt-right was exultant, claiming victory: Chapman claimed that Berkeley got sacked, while the rallys original organizers, a far-right group called the Proud Boys, boasted: Today was an enormous victory! I could not be more proud or grateful for every one who attended the event! This was the turning point!
Post-election pro-Trump rallies in late February held around the country similarly provoked scenes of mob violence.
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Not-so-free speech: Don’t call a cop an ‘a-hole’ in Hammond, Wisconsin – Watchdog.org
Posted: at 12:38 pm
MADISON, Wis. While it might not be the wisest decision, its generally not illegal to call a cop an asshole. Its one of those First Amendment things.
PRICE OF SPEECH? Hammond, Wis., resident Tony Endres found himself in a legal battle over what is protected speech and what is disorderly conduct.
But perhaps free speech need not apply in the northwest Wisconsin village of Hammond, where resident and local government critic Tony Endres found himself in trouble with the law for exercising his First Amendment rights.
In August 2015, Endres was out for a motorcycle ride when he said he waved at a police officer in his neighborhood. The police officer brusquely turned away, Endres said. Offended, Endres shouted out the offensive moniker.
I came back that evening and another officer on duty at the time pulled into my driveway. He told me there was a complaint filed against me and I was going to be charged with disorderly conduct because of my statement. I said I didnt do anything wrong, Endres said.
Nothing seemed to come of the incident at the time.
Weeks later, Endres received a personal advertisement letter from an enterprising local attorney asking whether Endres would like legal representation. For what? Endres was confused. The attorney in a review of online court records had discovered that Endres had been charged. But Endres said he was never served, either in person or by letter.
To Endres, the charge was retaliatory.
He had long been an outspoken critic of Hammond Police Chief Rick Coltrain, at one point accusing the law enforcement official of fraud. Endres provided documents and photographic evidence to support his allegation that Coltrains car was parked in front of his home while the chiefs time cards noted that he was on the clock and on the job. Endres also obtained phone records through an open records request that showed Coltrain placing a call from his cabin in Siren while his time cards said he was on the job.
In a decision that involved a recusal by one of Coltrains allies, the Hammond Police and Review Board cleared the chief of any wrong-doing. Endres said it was small-town cronyism at its worst. Coltrain was stealing money from the taxpayers, Endres testified at the board meeting.
His citizen activism did not play well with local law enforcement and the pro-chief members of the Hammond Village Board.
In closed session, a board member threatened Endres, according to the resident.
He said hed shoot me in the head, and Id be in a body bag, Endres said. A fellow board member resigned over the incident. Endres filed a complaint with the district attorneys office, but the DA did not file any charges.
Village Board President Tony Bibeau did not return a request for comment. The chief said he needed to consult the village attorney before responding.
Dan Orr, the police officer who filed the original complaint against Endres, claimed that he was afraid for the safety of his family because of the actions of Tony Endres. Orr, who previously worked on the Hammond police force but was employed with an area law enforcement agency at the time, noted Endres hateful posts on his Facebook site and that he carries a concealed gun. Endres Facebook posts are highly critical of police and local government officials, like so many other social media sites. And Wisconsin, like every other state, has a concealed carry law.
Endres said he had to go to court over a half dozen times in fighting the disorderly conduct charge. At the final appearance the judge asked him if he wanted to say anything to the court.
I said, I havent broken any laws. Its not illegal to swear in public. The (assistant) DA interrupts and says, Thats not for a judge to decide, thats for a jury, Endres said.
Frustrated and feeling like he would receive no justice in a provincial place controlled by corrupt government officials and their law enforcement allies, Endres said he was tired of the whole mess. He gave up his free speech fight and paid the $250 fine, entering a no-contest plea.
They were dragging it out and dragging it out, he said. The assistant DA insisted on taking it to trial.
They beat me down, I admit it, he said. I didnt want to take the chance of going to trial with of all the corruption all the way through the county.
Instead, Endres fought back at the polls. He ran for village board trustee in this months election. He lost.
But the citizen activist hasnt quieted his campaign against what he claims is ongoing bad behavior by small town government leaders.
I want to expose their behavior, Endres said. I want people to know whats going on in our local government. People need to watch the police. Dont be afraid of the police or the government. They serve us, not the other way around.
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Letter: UT works hard to develop free speech – Knoxville News Sentinel
Posted: at 12:38 pm
Knoxville News Sentinel 8:05 a.m. ET April 16, 2017
Letters to the Editor(Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
My letter is in response to Greg Johnsons column of Feb.17, in which he implied that individual rights of free speech are not protected at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (UTK)and asserted that UTK should adopt the University of Chicagos Principles on Free Speech.
UTK has worked hard to develop policies that protect free speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Higher Education (FIRE; https://www.thefire.org/) is a watchdog on free speech. FIRE has rated more than 500 institutions, and awarded their highest rating (green light) for free speech to only 29, including UTK. These top 29 schools include the University of Florida, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, Purdue, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, William and Mary, and the University of Chicago. Adoption of the Chicago Principles is unnecessary, because UTK, through its own carefully considered policies, has already received the same high rating for free speech as the University of Chicago.
Students are given an unfettered opportunity to explore new ideas at UTK, some of which may be contradictory to beliefs that they hold. The intellectual strength of a university depends on competition of ideas and the ability of everyone to exercise their individual rights of free speech and expression. The process can be inhibited when students, faculty, or staff fear they may be punished for expressing viewpoints that are unpopular with the general public, university administrators, or government officials.
Free expression of ideas requires an open mind and the belief that the opinions of others deserve to be heard. Controversial topics should be debated vigorously, but without personal attacks against those holding opposing viewpoints. We should acknowledge the possibility that those with differing viewpoints may be right, or at least have a valid point. At the end of the conversation, our understanding of opposing viewpoints should have increased, even though we may not be swayed by their argument. We should also be motivated to refine our arguments more convincingly for the next conversation.
Bonnie H. Ownley, Knoxville
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Free Speech Dies in Berkeley – FrontPage Magazine
Posted: at 12:38 pm
Free Speech Dies in Berkeley FrontPage Magazine Berkeley was renowned as the home of the free speech movement. But those leftists who believed that free speech was an effective tactic for their cause have long since been upstaged by those who believe that dissent must be silenced by any means. |
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Can Deregulation Restore Campus Free Speech? – National Review
Posted: at 12:38 pm
Peter, thanks for your thoughtful critique of my piece, Understanding the Campus Free-Speech Crisis. You call for our elite colleges and universities to be disciplined by the market, rather than by legislation designed to protect freedom of speech. The case I made in my piece is that while market forces are effective in most sectors, the academy is protected from market pressures by massive government financial assistance and by tenure.
People have been talking about the higher-education bubble for some time now. Well, it hasnt burst yet. And why should it when federal and state governments pump massive amounts of money into the system? In fiscal year 2013, the federal government sent $137 billion into the academy in student loans and other assistance under Title IV of the Higher Education Act. Combined state and federal aid to higher education makes up well over a third of public college and university budgets. Rather than make college more affordable, schools have used that money to raise their already inflated tuitions. The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is proposing some potentially helpful changes to this system at the federal level. Yet even if these changes are adopted, federal aid is certain to remain massive in scope. That is precisely why NAS has suggested linking Title IV assistance to the protection of campus free speech, an idea I elaborated into a detailed proposal. (And by the way, while it doesnt constitute a formal endorsement of every element of the NASs legislative proposal, over 100 educators, including many prominent conservatives familiar to NRO readers, have signed the NAS letter on amending the Higher Education Act, which includes the proposal on campus free speech.)
So long as that massive federal infusion of money through Title IV of HEA exists, colleges will remain powerfully insulated from market pressures. You note that many alternatives to the elite left-liberal institutions of higher education are available, often at a surprisingly reasonable price. Thats true, and many of those alternative schools are excellent, although quality and commitment to traditional liberal education among some of the alternatives can be uneven. In any case, the alternative menu hasnt produced an exodus from the dominant schools. And it certainly hasnt sufficed to secure free speech at the vast majority of colleges and universities. Nor do I believe that your excellent ideas on accreditation reform will escalate market pressures sufficiently even to slow, much less head off our rapidly metastasizing free-speech crisis.
There is a great deal of justified concern about religious liberty these days, not only at private religious colleges but for religious students at public and private secular colleges as well. You may be concerned about the effect of legislation on private religious colleges, but please note that neither my state nor my federal proposalsnor NASsapply to private religious schools.
Youre mistaken when you say that I never mention the role of college and university administrators. I had plenty to say in my piece about administrators: their tendency to cave in to anti-free speech demonstrators; the decreasing pressures on them to defend free speech; and how administrators are nowadays sometimes allied with disruptors. In fact my state proposal is designed to work by bringing pressure to bear on administrators, pressure not primarily from legislators but from trustees.
Although youre right to point to the growing importance of administrators, this hardly cancels out the role of tenured faculty. Tenured faculty have consistently driven the attacks on campus free speech, both through their teaching and through their ability to hire like-minded non-tenured faculty. After all, the leftist administrators youre worried about were taught by faculty radicals.
Ill let the semi-literate and now notorious Wellesley student editorial damning free speech make my point: We have all said problematic claims, the origins of which were ingrained in us by our discriminatory and biased society. Luckily, most of us have been taught by our peers and mentors at Wellesley in a productive way. Yes, those tenured Wellesley mentors, and the junior faculty they hire, are productive when it comes to churning out students who neither understand nor accept freedom of speech.
The tenure system has been grossly abused to create a de facto intellectual monopoly on campus, and the campus free-speech crisis is simply incomprehensible without understanding the facultys central role. Moreover, the tenure system is specifically designed to insulate faculty from market pressures. Abuse of the tenure system not only killed campus free speech and the marketplace of ideas, the resulting tenure-protected intellectual monopoly virtually guarantees that nothing will change in the absence of intervention from the public by way of its elected representatives.
By the way, I dont agree that the campus free-speech crisis is largely limited to elite campuses. That may have been true some time ago, but the problem has spread to a far wider range of schools. Shout-downs, thefts of student newspapers, free-speech zones and the rest are now regular features at the non-flagship campuses of many state systems. They just dont get as much publicity. I agree that there are some great alternative schools out there, and at a reasonable price. But the crisis of campus free speech and the broken marketplace of ideas now reach far more widely across the academy than you may think.
The idea that accreditation reform (which I favor) will do anything of significance to stop these campus shout-downs any time soon (or even later) is not credible.
You say that anti-Trump campuses wont be intimidated by reforms backed by Trump and the Republicans. But if contemporary experience of the academy says anything, its that administrators will do nothing to jeopardize their Title IV funding. Thats the federal gravy train they cannot do without. Threaten their Title IV eligibility, and youll rapidly see a remarkable number of administrators turn aficionados of John Stuart Mill.
You defend the tenure systemthe antithesis of the market. Yet you rely on the market in other respects. I dont believe this contradiction will hold. It would have when the tenure system was a bulwark of the marketplace of ideas. But now that tenure has been abused to create an unbreakable intellectual monopoly, we conservatives have to face the fact that the campus free-speech crisis is largely immune to market pressure. This is not a surrender of conservative principle but simple recognition that market forces have been structurally subverted in this sector. We wont win until we admit how badly were losing.
Again, I agree that there are still some great schools out there and that we should work to buck them up. (And my proposals exempt private religious colleges.) Market forces within the academy also can and should be strengthened. Important exceptions notwithstanding, however, we are losing our most fundamental freedom on a generational level. Were on the edge of the abyss; the foes of freedom are protected by tenure and ensconced in the seat of cultural power; and tweaking the accreditation system and hoping for the best 20 years from now wont do. Stronger medicine is required.
Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He can be reached at [emailprotected]
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Backed by colonial-era laws, Pakistan has declared war on free speech – Quartz
Posted: at 12:38 pm
Pakistani authorities have won another battle against free speech. The latest blow is just another consequence of harsh measures taken by Pakistans government in the last five years against freedom of speech.
On March 27, the interior ministry announced that Facebook had removed 85% of illegal, blasphemous content found on its website. The estimated number of social media users in the country, according to a 2015 report, is around 17.3 million. Facebook is the top site, and Twitter is spreading fast.
The move was possible because of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, which were inherited from British rule. The laws are aimed at anyone who displays disrespectful behaviour or words against religion. And those found guilty can be put to death.
The laws are known and criticised globally because they have led to many deaths over the past decade.
In January, five Pakistani bloggers disappeared. All were known for their extensive use of social media, public criticism of religion, and statements against censorship in their country.
Among them was the poet and academic Salman Haider. He finally returned home on Jan. 28, as did two other activists.
But none of them have yet disclosed who abducted them. And the others are still missing, adding to the many unexplained disappearances in Pakistan.
Cases of true blasphemy are rare and laws exist to address them. And there is also no evidence that there has been a surge of blasphemous content online.
The public has to accept the verdict of the government without really knowing what is wrong with the way people express their views on social media.
But after the disappearances, the judiciary launched an investigation and asked the Federal Investigation Agency to monitor the question of online blasphemy more carefully.
Confronted by technological changes, authorities or self-proclaimed moral groups stir panic over what they dont understand and then justify extending their control.
The problem in the country is not simply a religious one. Its a structural issue within the ruling elite, the Pakistani brown sahibs, who look down on the common man, as argued by Zafar Bangash, director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought, in 2005.
They control permitted views, deeming some as inferior and wrong, he said, adding:
Almost all colonized people display two characteristics: total subservience to the colonial master, and utter contempt for their own peoples.
The role of Pakistans citizens in their countrys governance has, unfortunately, been fairly minimal. Even in the limited periods when democracy has ostensibly existed in the country, it has been of varieties restricted either by prevalent socio-political conditions that do not provide equality of opportunity to constituents, or by the manipulative politics of dictators and demagogues garbed in the camouflage of electoral popularity.
This mindset fits into the late literature professor and founder of post-colonial studies Edward Saids argument in the follow up to his book Orientalism, titled Culture and Imperialism.
According to Said, post-colonial structures revert to an appreciation and the practice of colonial masters when disappointment with total freedom sets in. And distaste for popular opinion becomes ingrained in the system.
This is the reason why the very idea of freedom of thought, let alone freedom of expression or journalism, has become anathema to the governing structures in Pakistan.
It is true that the abuse of social media and the incompetence of the mainstream media, especially private television, has created an environment that was traumatising for some.
The proliferation of private TV channels and their lack of professionalism, the growth of social media, and the rise of fake news have made some audiences fearful.
The debate about responsible journalism is clearly not going anywhere when people such as Aamir Liaquat Hussain, a religious broadcaster, publicly accuse liberal activists, bloggers, and journalists of blasphemy and treachery.
But there is a difference between regulation and punitive measures. The authorities in Pakistan never had a policy of developing a public information system that responded to peoples questions, educated them, or empowered them to participate in governance.
In a world of information explosion, no iron curtain could work. Pakistan allowed private TV under former president Pervez Musharraf (2001-2008) in early 2000s, not because the ruling class changed its thinking, but because there was no other option left.
State-owned PTV was considered a poor tool to counter Indian channels, which carried their own version of stories involving both countries, such as the coverage of the Kargil war in disputed Kashmir. Bringing in private TV channels was a half-hearted allowance that was never meant for freedom. And herein lies the problem.
Because of the regimes attitude towards media, citizens barely got accustomed to what free press stands for. Which is also why the rise of social media in the country has had such an impact and given rise to new forms of freedom of expression, with few boundaries and dependent on the subjectivity of connected individuals.
It took Pakistan almost 15 years to get from email through direct dial-up connections in 1993 to high-speed internet in 2007. But its now one of the top 20 connected countries in the world.
But the use of this medium as a journalistic enterpriseone without sufficient professional ethicshas brought with it problems, not only for social media users, but for the mainstream media too and, beyond, for freedom of expression within Pakistani society.
As the bloggers disappearances showed, social media activists in Pakistan are among the first ones to suffer. Having only a network of sympathisers for support, they have to go through all the ordeals of censorship and repression on their own, while mainstream journalists can at least rely on wider structures.
The situation in Pakistan is no longer about who did right or wrong, whether social media is to blame or if the government or other powers are intolerant or retrogressive.
The question that haunts the free mind and confronts every intellect in the country is whether it would be possible to restore the semblance of freedom of expression we had six months ago. Or if we need to use scissors on our minds, tighten the locks on our tongues, and hail neo-obscurantism.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.
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YAL protests for more free speech on UC campuses – Highlander Newspaper
Posted: at 12:38 pm
On Wednesday, April 12, the UCR branch of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) held a protest, while they were tabling at the Bell Tower from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., against the restraining of the free speech of students at UCR.
According to the President of YAL and fourth-year applied math and economics major Joseph Gomez, UCR is limiting the free speech of its students. As it stands right now, he explained, it (UCR) has this policy where we have to notify the school if it is reasonable to suspect that more than 25 people are going to be here at a protest which is completely unconstitutional. Gomez later added that protests and demonstrations are limited to being held at the Bell Tower.
To clarify the specific goals of the protest, we asked the participants if this protest was about free speech as a whole on UC campuses, citing the cancellation of former Breitbart Editor Milo Yiannopoulos speech at UC Berkley due to protests as an example. The Director of Data for YAL, fourth-year business administration major with a concentration on finance Roman DYachenko, replied, On a larger scale I think we are. But we are not targeting it specifically right now, but we are here for free speech and events like that are disheartening because people, no matter what their beliefs, should be allowed to speak.
The small group of protesters held signs that called into question UCRs support for free speech. One sign asked those walking by, Think UCR gives you constitutional free speech?
YAL has not yet made contact with the UCR administration about their grievances with these policies. As far as I know we havent had the chance to speak directly to them, Gomez explained. I think that the biggest reason is because they wont hear us out, Gomez continued.
Freedom of speech on university campuses has been an ongoing issue with uneven interpretations of its meaning. However, recently, there has been a surge in student activism. DYachenko argued, It was only recently that people have really gone down the bandwagon of If this offends me, it must be wrong. Lets take it away. Now this (the protest) is kind of the counter to this and only now are we seeing people mobilizing and people arent as afraid to speak out against this.
Fourth-year political science and law and society major Arturo Gomez retorted, I personally dont feel like the university has been restrictive at all with respect to people gathering or people protesting a certain issue or promoting a certain issue. Gomez also later commented on the protests that took place at UC Berkeley, I agree that free speech shouldnt be violated, but if someone does say and make incendiary comments or anything that may target a certain community, they have the right to say it but they are not exempt from critique or mass protest.
In the afternoon, members of YAL brought out a large inflatable beach ball that they call the Freedom Ball. The purpose of the ball, they explained, is to allow students to write anything that they want in order to promote the YALs message of freedom of speech. Some of the comments written on the ball included phrases in Arabic and political statements. They had the Freedom Ball with them until they packed up at 2 p.m.
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YAL protests for more free speech on UC campuses - Highlander Newspaper
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