Daily Archives: June 1, 2017

Surprise, no one wants to be Ted Cruz’s Secret Santa – Mashable

Posted: June 1, 2017 at 11:04 pm

Surprise, no one wants to be Ted Cruz's Secret Santa
Mashable
Al Franken's new book Giant of the Senate contains some great stories about the Texas senator who is like if Grandpa Munster started reading Ayn Rand. Turns out he's even despised by his fellow senators. A week or so ago, Franken revealed a ...

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Surprise, no one wants to be Ted Cruz's Secret Santa - Mashable

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Women Writers Face Major Hurdles, Especially In Bestselling Genres – HuffPost

Posted: at 11:03 pm

Organizations such as VIDA work to hold reviews and awards committees accountable for not only their coverage of women, but of all kinds of women. However, they tend to focus on the so-called literary genre. So, how do women in other genres science fiction, mystery, street lit, womens lit fare?

Ahead of a panel at the Bay Area Book Festival centered on Feminist Activism Through Popular Fiction, authors Meg Elison, Aya de Leon and Kate Raphael weighed in on the challenges they face as women writing in their respective genres. Raphael, an activist who writes mystery books, says theres an active feminist community among her fellow mystery writers. But, she says she struggles to publish stories about women characters who indulge in the same antics as their noir-ish male counterparts.

Meanwhile, Elison and de Leon a dystopian writer and a street lit writer, respectively both say there is a dearth of the types of stories they want to tell, stories about the reality of womens struggles, amid an action-centered plot. Below, they discuss the specific road blocks that women who write popular fiction face:

HPMG

Meg Elison, author of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife: I write speculative fiction, which comes under the big umbrella of science fiction. My first books are post-apocalyptic stories. Science fiction was invented by a woman, and most of my favorite writers in the genre are women. Post-apocalyptic fiction, however, is crazily unbalanced. Most of the stories that take place after the end of the world are by men, about men and written for men.

I read hundreds of books in the genre where women were irrelevant, used as plot devices and barely verbal. They almost never needed birth control and they definitely never needed tampons. I realized that the story that I wanted to read really hadnt been written yet: What if the apocalypse was very asymmetrical? What if it (like everything else) was harder on women and children than it was on men?

Aya de Leon, author of the Justice Hustlers series: My Justice Hustlers series mixes elements of womens fiction, street lit and erotic romance. They are politically charged tales of labor organizing, womens health care and wealth redistribution that center on the planning and execution of multimillion dollar heists.

Street lit is traditionally male-dominated, and as in most parts of the literary industry male gatekeepers and audiences tend to ignore womens writing. Every genre has its trademark cover art imagery.They function like signals to genre audiences:This is your type of book. The symbols of urban fiction are guns, money, jewelry and urban landscapes. While male cover models are sometimes shirtless, they are generally heavily muscled and often armed. Typically, womens book covers in the genre skew toward romance tropes, rather than action.

In order to be consistent with other books in the imprint, my novel covers have a single young woman of color looking sexy in a sort of come hither way. A more accurate representation of my series would be a sexy, multi-racial group of armed women in the midst of a heist operation. A male writer wouldnt have the same problem, because the mainstream images of male strength and sexiness are the same: power is sexy and power is power.

Kate Raphael, author of Murder Under the Bridge: I write mysteries, and women actually make up over 50 percent of published mystery and crime fiction writers, but as Sisters in Crime hasdocumented, get fewer than 50 percent of reviews and far fewer in the most prestigious outlets. There is also a narrower range of characters that are acceptable for women in crime fiction. An agent rejected my book because my main character, a Palestinian policewoman, disobeyed her boss.So many mysteries involve a male detective pursuing an investigation after hes been ordered not to, having his badge and gun confiscated, that its a clich.

Elison: The strong female lead is just another trope. Too often, it means a stereotypical cool girl who eschews femininity to be one of the guys and wield weapons. Too often she carries her own internalized misogyny, or shes just a regulation hot chick who happens to know kung fu.

Its insufficient because the movement for the correct representation of the wild spectrum of human gender and sexuality is just getting started. Were just staring to see tender boys in films like Moonlight, or fully realized tough women in books like Chuck Wendigs Atlanta Burns. Were just now seeing realistic trans and nonbinary characters, asexual characters and so many more. Ripley in a mecha suit is great, but not enough. A disabled Furiosa is a wonderful start, but its got to keep rolling.

De Leon: Pop culture stories with a strong female lead are an important component of feminism, especially in a media world that skews so strongly toward men: Male writers of books, and male protagonists on-screen with male creators behind the scenes. But Andi Zeislers recent book,We Were Feminists Once, reminds us that the ultimate goal of feminism isnt to applaud an individual woman being empowered, but about creating gender equality for all women. I am most excited about the feminist potential of stories that have a broader scope of what they envision as far as interrupting and ultimately ending sexism in the world.

Raphael: So many of the strong female leads are still very stereotyped. Theres still an expectation that a woman can be beautiful, fashionable, f**kable, vulnerable, not shrill and at the same time be kickass.Of course some women are all those things, but many arent. The real-life struggles of women are often oversimplified. Like, whos doing the childcare?And how does the driven woman cop or spy or agent or lawyer feel about leaving her kids to go running off after the murderer at all hours?If shes heterosexual, is her husband resentful, and if so, what does she do about it?I try to introduce those dilemmas in my books. In a feminist novel, women should see characters like themselves women of different races and cultures, different body types, dykes, mothers, single women, poor women and hopefully not in a United Colors of Benetton way, but in the messy, complex way that exists in the real world.

Elison: Absolutely, unequivocally, yes. There is no part of my outlook or my work that is not shaped by my experience as a woman, and my belief that we are entitled to equality and almost always denied it. Writers and artists will often try to dodge or soften this label, claiming their work is for everybody, that its just a story about people. My work is for everybody who agrees that women are people. That isnt too much to ask.

De Leon: Definitely. Im not interested in turning readers on or off with the feminist label. Im interested in embodying feminist values.

Raphael: Feminism is really core to who I am so I cant conceive of not writing a feminist book.

Elison: The story must come first and definitely did for me. Wrapping a story around your politics invariably turns out a monstrosity like Atlas Shrugged, where somebody just rants for 40 pages about your philosophy. Nobody is fooled. Letting your life and your truth come through in a story without fear cannot help but be built partly of your own politics. My stories contain myself, my sexuality, my identity. Those things are political; they do not come apart. If a writer finds that their politics work against their story, it is likely because there is some part of themselves about which they cannot or will not tell the truth.

De Leon: I was really interested in reaching beyond the traditional feminist audience. Thats why I wrote a book that has elements of chick lit and romance. I wanted to mainstream subversive political ideas by serving them in the forms that women have been taught to consume. And I was interested in remixing tropes of romance and chick lit that seemed to conflict with feminism: hunky men, swooning moments, stiletto heels, shopping, competition between women. I wanted to engage all those mainstream appetites, but challenge them, as well.

Raphael: Its a tough question.Again, the crime genre lends itself to political storytelling because its concerned fundamentally with questions of justice and injustice.A good crime story lays bare the power relations in a society in my case, in Palestine and Israel. So it was well suited to what I wanted to do.I could never set aside my politics to tell a story, because a radical analysis of social relations is how I view the world. If I didnt bring in radical politics, and activism, I wouldnt be telling a true story and certainly not one about Palestine. I just am not interested in apolitical stories, they seem flat and devoid of meaning to me.I can barely stand to read one, so I could definitely not write one.

Elison: I dont know ifcomfortable is the right word to describe it, but it has always felt right. The obstacles are mostly that people whose opinions dont matter will shout them at me on the internet. Im perfectly capable of handling that. Ive had a lot of thoughtful conversations about my depictions of gender and sexuality, and its fascinating to hear different interpretations of my work. But the difference between that conversation and an anonymous all-caps accusation of feminazism is pretty easy to discern. Though I respect the work of authors like Roxane Gay and Lindy West who give of their time and patience to try and educate trolls, I find it a poor investment of both in my case.

De Leon: In the past, I think I was more preachy. I had a harder time writing flawed protagonists. I wanted everyone to be much more honorable, but they werent very interesting. [] I hope to bridge some of that with a book that is politically charged but delivers all the feels in the romantic arc, and a good heist plot, as well as upending stereotypes of race, gender, sexuality, gender identity, nationality, and class. Ultimately, thats what I want to do, whatever the cover or the genre or the shelf in the bookstore.

Raphael: I have no choice because if anyone Googles me, the first hundred things that come up are going to be my activism. I do a feminist radio show, I used to write for feminist and queer newspapers, I was interviewed by the FBI after 9/11 because of my feminist and antiwar organizing, there are stories about me being deported from Israel thats just who I am. For sure, it narrows the market.

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Women Writers Face Major Hurdles, Especially In Bestselling Genres - HuffPost

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Libertarians plot a ground game in Florida – Orlando Sentinel

Posted: at 11:03 pm

Can a third party in Florida ever elbow aside Republicans and Democrats? When the Florida Libertarian Party held its annual convention last month in Cocoa Beach, it vowed to try, and it has its work cut out: Objectively speaking, 2016 was the Libertarian Party's best year ever. It was also a savage disappointment. That was the verdict of Reason Magazine on the partys presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who won only 2.2 percent of the vote in Florida. As Libertarians look to the future, whats the state of the national party and in Florida? For a Libertarians answer, the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board sought out Marcos Miralles, 23, newly elected state party chair.

Q: What are the lessons for the Libertarian Party from the loss of its presidential candidate Gary Johnson in 2016?

A: We need better organization from the first to the last step. Johnson never had a chance in the Sunshine State because our grass-roots game remained weak. Ultimately, the Libertarian National Committee is likely to focus more on smaller states, like Montana and South Dakota, so we need to realize that we will be on our own in 2020. Well need to set up field offices throughout the state, well need a much stronger outreach to the Hispanic community, well need to start an actual absentee ballot plan, and well need to put our volunteers to work. Thousands of individuals signed up in Florida to volunteer in 2016, and the great majority of them were never to be seen. It all comes down to organization.

Q: Libertarian members have been described as split between pragmatist converts vs. stalwart radicals. How would you describe the partys core philosophy?

A: If you look deeply into our philosophy, youll see that Libertarians have a rational and unwavering distrust of all government actions, and we will always look for free-market solutions to each problem in society. But our message resonates with both liberals and conservatives to some extent, and given our considerable support from independent voters last year, we have the potential of being the real middle-of-the-aisle party that dissatisfied voters can come to.

Q: What would Libertarians have concentrated on in the first 100 days of the Trump presidency, if they had representation in Congress?

A: If we had Libertarians in Congress, we would have focused on tax reform. Its clear that President Trump is en route to clash with Libertarians every week of his presidency, but in some occasions, we could work together. Nobody from the Republican establishment dared to touch tax reform in the first 100 days, and this is where we would have come in.

Q: Does the party have a national database of members, or those who contribute financially?

A: Yes, and yes. That database grew exponentially thanks to the 2016 presidential campaign.

Q: How does party membership in Florida and nationally stack up against figures before the 2016 vote?

A: Our membership numbers are just a fraction of what we could have if all 2016 Libertarian voters registered with our party. Although we barely cover 0.1 percent of statewide registered voters, we could be a major party by 2020 if all those who voted for our nominees registered with the Libertarian Party. And that needs to be our first and foremost focus by the end of the 2018 mid-term season.

Q: Libertarians seem to focus on the national level. What is the party doing to recruit candidates on the state and local level?

A: Weve actually just launched Operation: First Step, which focuses on recruiting candidates in each county of Florida to run for community development districts, soil and water boards, and other similar special districts. Weve focused for a long time on large elections, but if we want to be realists and be successful, we need to start from the bottom and involve ourselves in the smallest level of government. Only then can we create leaders within our society who with time, rapport and a good understanding of their community will one day step up to win those seats at the national level.

Q: What are the partys top policy goals for Florida?

A: Ideally, we would love to see an end to the war on drugs, work toward the demilitarization of police, a complete end to civil asset forfeiture, and budget trimming and severe tax cuts. However, there is only so much that Libertarians can accomplish without any presence in Tallahassee. So well need to first focus on policies that can help the party become an established presence. We want to see a change in the states determination of what constitutes a major party. Now, that doesnt mean were giving up on other potential reforms. Just this year, our team introduced, thanks to the collaboration of state senator and currently a candidate for Congress, Jose Javier Rodriguez (D-Coral Gables), SB 1750, a bill to reform special taxing districts and to give residents the power to abolish them.

Q: Without any Libertarians in the Legislature or in statewide offices in Florida, how does the party stay relevant?

A: Its a humbling realization to see how much work we can accomplish regardless of having no elected officials in the Legislature. Ultimately, all politics is local. Nebraska, Nevada and New Hampshire all have state legislators. Our turn will come. Meanwhile, were confident we can show Floridians what Libertarians can do with our multitude of local elected officials that we currently have and will add on by November 2018.

Q: Who is jockeying to be the partys presidential nominee in 2020?

A: Ill let the potential candidates to their own bidding for now. But what I can guarantee you is that whoever the Libertarian delegates pick in 2020, that candidate will have a better result than Gary Johnson had in 2016 and will have a real chance at unseating the current president.

Should the Libertarian Party Even Bother Existing Anymore? – Being Libertarian (satire)

Posted: at 11:03 pm

This discussion has come up quite a bit recently and its just the question to ask for the future of the liberty movement.

Should the Libertarian Party (LP) bother to continue whatever it is they do?

In 2016, they had the best ticket by far in their history. Two people who were actually credible were at the top of the ticket, but despite national attention and more, they flopped.

Hell, even the LP primary had a blogger (who has been on the news before) bragging about how often he was getting laid on the campaign and a wanted murder suspect.

It made the primary something to note, but still brought in only a whopping 3%.

Looking at LP history, despite them having been in every race since 1976, they have bombed in every one.

Theyve bombed despite having a Koch and a Paul on former tickets. Theyve nominated for president, people who were wanted in several states, and had at least one guy hoping for a presidential bid who was living in a car.

With every decent name who offers to join in, they have about two dozen total nut cases, and the decent names tend to just be self promoters whose mouths water at the thought of running for congress so it can get them on local TV, or a Wikipedia page.

Looking at the future of the LP, things dont really get much better.

The best option for 2020 is Justin Amash, who cant win.

After that, the field fills with people such as Adam Kokesh, Larry Sharpe and others who, if given the nomination, are so bad that Im stuck thinking Why even bother.

Im just wondering if the LP will even continue to be a thing. I think the answer to that is yes, and no.

The LP should remain an entity, but the focus of just nominating people needs to die.

If you are running in the LP, you just dont win. The focus needs to be changing politics to actually win.

For that, the future is ranked voting, similar to what is being done in Maine.

Having the line I dont want to waste my vote be meaningless is ideal. So, the LP should take their time to get ranked voting ballot initiatives, to get the half of the country where its feasible to do so and bring the LP to life.

After that, market the LP as a path to obtaining a place on the final voting ballot, without the major party primary hell, and the LP will see a sea of better candidates.

Unless a major voting reform is done, the LP will never become a thing unless someone like Mark Cuban or Jeff Bezos ran as a Libertarian, in which case I doubt the party would even nominate them to begin with.

What should the liberty movement do in the meantime?

The key is a man named Neel Kashkari.

For those who dont know him, Neel Kashkari is a well spoken Republican who ran for governor against Jerry Brown in 2014. He ran as a fiscal conservative who was liberal on social issues, he also mentioned he hated the Iraq War.

If Kashkari ran in Texas, he would never get to be the pro-pot, pro-abortion and pro-gay republican he was.

So what does this all mean?

Libertarians should run for the nominations of the second largest parties in their state. The reason is the Republican partys in states such as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Hawaii etc., are just as dead as the Democrats in Texas, Kansas, and pretty much any place Ruby Tuesdays is called fine dining.

So what do those platforms look like?

Libertarians running in the GOP

For this, be like Bill Weld. Be the pro-choice and pro-gay republican in a liberal state which cant be called a racist.

Talk about real economic reform which involves free markets, but promise a stronger social safety net.

However, try to one up the democrat on issues a liberal likes. Be more anti war, more for criminal justice reform and more likely to go out and talk about negative externalities to help the environment.

Libertarians running in the Democratic Party

For this, be a democrat who isnt an idiot on economics.

Show a more free market plan and brag about stances such as support for gun rights.

Also, talk about an issue such as the Federal Reserve or corporate subsidies, and use that as a friendly way to reach Republicans while maintaining a Democrat base of support.

This is a model for conquering the Democratic Party and GOP in dead states.

The next part is the moderate states like Ohio, Florida, and New Hampshire etc.

I would say the liberty movement should likely just handle it on a candidate by candidate basis and select their representatives based on incumbents.

An example being how, in 2014, John Kasich was impossible to beat. A libertarian Democrat would be very strong moving forward. Another would be Marco Rubio in 2016, who easily won reelection, but having a more centrist type democrat might have pulled the election away from him.

Conclusion

Yes, be part of the Libertarian Party and encourage them.

Also make it so every state has ranked voting and the two-party system gets destroyed.

That way, strong candidates can run easily on libertarian ideals without bowing to the right or left.

However, run as Republicans or Democrats when the race means something.

This post was written by Charles Peralo.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

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Should the Libertarian Party Even Bother Existing Anymore? - Being Libertarian (satire)

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The Red Dirt Liberty Report: Cryptomania – Being Libertarian

Posted: at 11:03 pm

As I write this, the value of Bitcoin has risen to over $2,500, and the value of Ethereum has come up to nearly $200. There are also the other various cryptocurrencies that have experienced dramatic rises in the past couple of weeks. Its a sort of crypto-mania right now. There seems to be many unprecedented things going on here, and like the all new paradigms these alt currencies are creating, these valuations seem to be breaking all kinds of rules and traditional trading rationale. The valuations dont seem to be following the sorts of trends and measures that usually offer indicators on securities or commodities. Neither do they seem to follow traditional indicators on currencies. So, this isnt an article about the potential direction of these valuations. These mechanisms of how these currencies are valued seem to elude me. Rather, this is an article about the likelihood of common usage of cryptocurrencies.

Like the majority of libertarians, I watch these cryptocurrencies with interest and cheer on climbing valuations in hopes that it might mean broad acceptance of these currencies, at some point, as a replacement to traditional currencies. I see the benefits of a decentralized currency far outside the control of any one person or group of people. These are currencies for which no government can rest control away from the people. And, while the notion of the usage of such currencies is enticing, it isnt very practical in terms of wide usage at this time. Using cryptocurrencies is clunky, at best.

To use one of these cryptocurrencies, I have to open a wallet out of thin air, then I have do something that feels like sending off my money to a distressed prince in desperate, but profitable circumstances in my email inbox. I have to send my money off into a dark cyber world that is unfamiliar and contains operations with which I have no experience whatsoever, and I am not sure whether it will exist only in my mind or I will someday be able to retrieve it. While logically, I assume that there will be no problems, it is hard to trust such an unfamiliar process. There are also limited options for the use of the cryptocurrencies, primarily limited to private transactions with other people I might have a hard time finding or with a handful of online marketplaces with a very limited stock of merchandise.

While it is certain that options for using cryptocurrencies will increase over time, I believe it is going to take more time than most crypto-optimists realize. I believe that cryptocurrencies overtaking the currencies we all now know is inevitable at some point, but it is going to be quite some time before it happens. I dont like being such a pessimist, but there are enormous hurdles to these things, the chief of which is the governments and the central banking systems that have cornered the market on currencies. They arent just going to throw all that power away because weve decided we like decentralized authority better. Neither are people ready to accept an entirely new way of thinking about their money that changes the very foundations of their understandings of how they live from day to day.

As a practical example, Oklahoma passed a law making gold legal tender three years ago, meaning that people can use gold to buy and sell things without any trouble from government. However, having operated a business in all that time in Oklahoma, I have never had anyone offer up gold to buy anything. I would love it if they would, but theres just never been any talk of it. I have a little bit of gold myself, but I still dont view it as money. To me, its still a way to guard against inflation and poses an alternative investment. People really just dont feel pressed to use gold as currency, even though it has become legal here.

As another practical example, I once began offering to sell my goods for Bitcoin, trying to do something different and offer a service competitors werent offering. About a year and a half later, there had been only one customer that even so much as mentioned it, and said he was shopping at my store solely because I offered to transact in Bitcoin, but he paid with old fashioned American dollars. My credit and debit card processor suddenly halted all activity on my merchant account while holding several days worth of transactions, because they had discovered my acceptance of Bitcoin. They were refusing to pay the deposits I had due until I removed any sign of accepting Bitcoin and sign a statement stating such refusal. I had no choice but to do so, or face losing an enormous amount of money that I could not afford to lose. When I inquired as to why and what business it was of theirs what currencies I accept, they replied that they did not want to be anywhere near businesses transacting in cryptocurrencies out of fear of being accused by the government of money laundering. There was no way I could afford to stand on principles and lose such a large quantity of money, so I caved to their demands.

Government agencies around the world use the banking systems to keep tabs on people and to follow cash to spot criminal activity and to make sure nobody is hiding income from taxation. If you take money out of that system, especially in any noticeable way, these government agencies become highly suspicious and assume you must be a criminal yourself. There are very negative consequences, up to as negative as the seizing of property and potential prison time. With hammering threats like this, nobody wants to risk legitimate transactions being taken for criminal ones.

Full acceptance of cryptocurrencies also means the end of banks as we know them. There is no need for a bank, in the current way they exist, to store your cryptocurrencies. This means undoing a means of transacting business and borrowing money that has become so entrenched into society for hundreds of years that it has become a symbol of what creates a civil society in the minds of the vast majority of people. The banking system has been at the very center of every major improvement in society for the past few hundred years. Want to see true civil unrest and panic? Just put closed for business signs on your local banks and see how quickly people freak out at the thought of losing access to capital, even if their money could be obtained through different means.

It took hard currency millennia to develop into the way we know and use it, and the banking system took several centuries to become entrenched into the fabric of society. All of that doesnt change in the blink of an eye. While I will continue to cheer on the rise in crypto valuations, I am not going to assume that these cryptocurrencies will be in full use any time soon. I love the idea of them. I want their full usage, but I am enough of a realist not to bank on it.

This post was written by Danny Chabino.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

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Freedom Philosophy: Free Market Environmentalism – Being Libertarian

Posted: at 11:03 pm

The environment isnt very popular with libertarians. My suspicion is that support for the environment is viewed as a vessel for regulation and taxes (specifically a carbon tax) an anathema to liberation. There are, however, very libertarian considerations when it comes to environmental pollution.

The first and most serious is the violation of the non-aggression principle. Polluters emit poisonous gas into the air. Chemical runoff from fertilizers, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and nitrogen oxides all negatively impact society. Producers of goods that cause air, soil, and water pollution profit while other individuals suffer the consequences; this is hardly a non-aggression ideal.

To further establish fossil fuels anti-liberty credentials, they do this with government assistance.

The Overseas Development Institute, and Oil Change International, commissioned a study which concluded that global subsidies for fossil fuel producers stood at $775 billion, while green energy subsidies received a humbler $101 billion.

Fossil fuels receive an unfair competitive advantage. Libertarians desperately need to stop pretending this is a free market it is big government.

Environmentalism ought not to be a platform for the left. There is no stronger empirical argument for liberty than the horrifying reality of governments actually stealing our money and giving it to people to poison the air we breathe and destroy the life-permitting chemical balance of our atmosphere. Big government interfering with the free market system is the height of corruption.

Ronald Reagan famously quipped that government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem. When it comes to the environment, truer words were never spoken.

Free market environmentalists advocate internalizing the costs of production. If there is a cost of producing a product then this should be factored into the cost of production rather than it being paid by a bystanding individual.

There is no shortage of arguments libertarians have ready to dispense (if the topic of environmentalism is brought up) regarding anthropogenic causes to our planets warming; some are more intelligent than others.

I would like to remind all true libertarians that none of these serve as sufficient justifications for overlooking the violation of the non-aggression principle with poisonous air or the big government-style subsidies that individuals have to pay.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum, we find leftists who urge me on to the conclusion that government is necessary for the protection of our environment. The empirical evidence suggests that governments are not only unlikely to be able to accomplish this but are even more likely to be an accomplice for the opposite.

Leftists urge me to support a system thats statistically, and therefore empirically, likely to oppose environmentalism due to the enormous politicking power of the fossil fuel industry.

The only pragmatic solution to human-caused degradation of our environment is the idealism of liberty.

Only through the elimination of subsidies can we create a fair market for green energy. Only through the non-aggression principle can we reasonably argue for additional costs imposed on fossil fuel production in the absence of that, its mere capriciousness.

At the heart of environmentalism is liberty; not a big government with all its corruption-potential, but liberty for the individual and justice for society.

This post was written by Brandon Kirby.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

Brandon Kirby is a philosopher, financial adviser, a founder of a local investment club, and he hosts regular symposiums in philosophy. He is also a member of Canadas Libertarian Party.

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A new Golden Rule for leadership – MultiBriefs Exclusive (blog)

Posted: at 11:02 pm

Leaders and managers seeking to engage, motivate and retain employees should consider adopting a slightly revised version of the Golden Rule.

"Manage others as you want to be managed" is the lesson that can be drawn from a recent study of the relationship between varying degrees of work autonomy and levels of employee satisfaction and perceived well-being. The findings indicate that a traditional top-down, command-and-control management style still widely in use is counterproductive in many of today's businesses.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham Business School compared data collected in two separate years from some 20,000 employees in the United Kingdom in order to examine employees' reported changes in well-being relative to levels of work autonomy.

Their analysis found that those in management reported the highest level of autonomy, with 90 percent saying they experienced "some" or "a lot" of autonomy, along with high levels of perceived well-being and job satisfaction. Professionals reported having lower levels of autonomy than managers. Around 40 to 50 percent of mid-level employees reported they had little autonomy, and half of those in lower skilled jobs reported no autonomy in how they carried out their work.

The researchers found corresponding declines in job satisfaction and perceived well-being as levels of work autonomy decreased.

In particular, the study found, employees want greater control over their work tasks and schedule. The study also found that the types of autonomy employees prized varied by position and gender.

Professionals, for example, wanted more flexibility in the pace of work and work hours. For women to whom the duties of family and informal caregiving most often fall flexibility over the timing and location of their work, including the ability to work from home, allowed them to better manage their work/life balance. Men, on the other hand, value having more control over how they carry out their work, such as determining job tasks, pace of work and task order.

"Greater levels of control over work tasks and schedule have the potential to generate significant benefits for the employee, which was found to be evident in the levels of reported well-being," project director Dr. Daniel Wheatley observed.

Autonomy is closely related with self-esteem and sense of purpose, which are prime drivers of productivity, creativity, engagement, satisfaction and well-being. Employees who reported higher levels of autonomy especially schedule control were more likely to say they "enjoyed" their work.

That may seem like a rather minor consideration until one compares the findings of this study with other related studies that have shown lack of job autonomy increases stress and the incidence of health issues related to stress, hastens employee burnout, and has a negative impact on employee morale, retention and productivity. Similarly, research has shown a strong correlation between employees' control of their physical environment (e.g., lighting, space arrangement, temperature) and job satisfaction, productivity and sense of well-being.

Why do so many employees dream of being their own boss? Surely it is not because they want the headaches, stress and risk that come with running one's own business. No, it is for the same reason people strive to become managers and leaders in their organization. They want more control over their lives and how to do their job.

Yet, Wheatley notes, "Despite the reported increased levels of well-being, in many cases managers remain unwilling to offer employees greater levels of autonomy and the associated benefits, because their primary role remains one of 'control and effort extraction.'"

Giving employees more autonomy requires not an abdication of management but a different approach to management. It involves shifting focus from how, where and when to what and why, from outputs to outcomes, and from directing to coaching.

Autonomy is not license. Employees are still held accountable for their results, their hours worked and level of effort, and their use of company resources.

Holding them to a different standard than that which leaders and managers apply to themselves one which, it deserves noting, implies a lack of trust and respect only perpetuates an outmoded business paradigm that is proving increasingly dysfunctional in today's knowledge- and innovation-driven global economy.

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Jessica Chastain’s Stylist Shares Her Golden Rule of Styling – Vanity Fair

Posted: at 11:02 pm

Day 10: Diane Kruger

At the photocall for In The Fade (Aus Dem Nichts).

By Andreas Rentz/Getty Images.

Going to the Mayors Aioli.

From Iconic/GC Images.

At the premiere of Amant Double (LAmant Double).

By Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/FilmMagic.

At the premiere of Amant Double (LAmant Double).

By Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/FilmMagic.

At the premiere of Amant Double (LAmant Double).

By Kristina Nikishina/Getty Images.

At the photocall for Posoki.

By Andreas Rentz/Getty Images.

At the Jury Cinefondation.

By Matthias Nareyek/Getty Images.

At the amfAR Gala.

By Gisela Schober/Getty Images.

At the amfAR Gala.

By Anthony Harvey/FilmMagic.

At the amfAR Gala.

By Dominique Charriau/WireImage.

At the amfAR Gala.

From Venturelli/WireImage.

At the amfAR Gala.

By Mike Marsland/WireImage.

At the amfAR Gala.

By Andreas Rentz/French Select.

At the amfAR Gala.

By Andreas Rentz/French Select.

At the amfAR Gala.

By Andreas Rentz/French Select.

At the amfAR Gala.

By Gisela Schober/Getty Images.

At the premiere of The Beguiled.

By Dominique Charriau/WireImage.

At the premiere of The Beguiled.

By Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images.

At the premiere of The Beguiled.

By Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images.

Left: Walking around town; Right: At the premiere of The Beguiled.

Left; by Iconic/GC Images, Right; by Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/FilmMagic.

At the premiere of The Beguiled.

By Neilson Barnard/Getty Images.

At the premiere of The Beguiled.

By Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/FilmMagic.

At the premiere of The Beguiled.

By Neilson Barnard/Getty Images.

At the premiere of The Beguiled.

By Chris Jackson/Getty Images.