Daily Archives: June 27, 2017

Progress in a Sweep for the Mets, and in a Win for a Shaky Pitcher – New York Times

Posted: June 27, 2017 at 7:05 am

I feel different, Montero said. I have more confidence in my pitching. It worked well today.

But the win came with drawbacks for the Mets. Michael Conforto, the teams best hitter this season, left the game in the sixth inning with a bruised left hand after he had been hit by a pitch. The Mets announced that Confortos X-ray showed no break.

Conforto, batting in the fifth inning, was hit on the hand by a high 92-mile-per-hour fastball from Giants starter Matt Moore and fell to the ground, grabbing his hand. Collins and the Mets head athletic trainer, Ray Ramirez, checked on Conforto, who stayed in the game but kept flexing his hand. He was back out in left field in the bottom half of the fifth but was replaced by Brandon Nimmo in the next inning.

I want to be back in there as soon as possible, Conforto said. But well see. Its pretty stiff right now.

Even without Conforto and Yoenis Cespedes, who was given the day off the Mets found enough firepower to overwhelm the Giants dreadful pitching.

Rene Rivera, the backup catcher, smashed two home runs in a game for the first time. First baseman Lucas Duda padded the Mets margin with a run-scoring double in the fifth inning.

Right fielder Jay Bruce put the game all but out of reach with a two-run homer in the eighth inning. It was the 20th of the season for Bruce, who reached that number for the ninth time in his 10 major league seasons.

An inning after Bruces home run, Curtis Granderson hit his third homer in the past five games. That gave the Mets 46 home runs in June a team record for any calendar month.

Montero, by then, was watching from the dugout as his teammates closed out his successful start.

Earlier in the day, Wheeler, who was put on the disabled list late last week with tendinitis in his right biceps, threw a full bullpen session. The Mets hoped Wheeler would miss only one start, but if he is not ready, Collins said, it will be good to have an improved Montero.

I hope this is what were going to see from now on, he said, adding later, Hopefully, this is a huge wake-up call that he can pitch in this league.

A version of this article appears in print on June 26, 2017, on Page D2 of the New York edition with the headline: The Mets Find Progress, And Hope for Montero, In a Sweep of the Giants.

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Progress in a Sweep for the Mets, and in a Win for a Shaky Pitcher - New York Times

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Portage School interventions see progress, find ‘consistency,’ leaders report – WiscNews

Posted: at 7:05 am

Interventions for struggling students in the Portage Community School District were effective in 2016-17 and will see some changes in the coming school year, specialists reported to the School Board.

Kellie Kilde and Jolene Routson, intervention specialists at Rusch Elementary and John Muir Elementary, respectively, identified for the Board several trends theyve seen over the past school year, particularly in Tier 3 interventions, which are for students who test below the 10th percentile.

Students in Tier 3 interventions receive one-on-one help for identified skill deficiencies, but they still get classroom time with their peers. Students in Tier 2, meanwhile, are those testing below the 25th percentile, and while they might also receive some targeted interventions, it is to a lesser extent than for those in Tier 3, Routson said. Tier 1 is the basic instruction all students receive every day.

Interventions were held in grades K-6. In the spring, 10 percent of all students in K-6 were in Tier 3 interventions.

Interventions focus primarily on improving literacy, Kilde explained. We see the number of students in Tier 3 interventions increase at the end of kindergarten and throughout first grade, Kilde said, a trend that was expected, since, as we see kids get further into reading, (were) noticing where their errors are and how we can help them, to intervene early.

We also know that by intervening early with our younger learners, Kilde added, we decrease the need for long-term interventions, which aligns with our district goal (of) ensuring that all students are (performing) at grade level by third grade.

Interventions, as they are employed today, are relatively new in Portage, Routson said this week. Beginning four years ago, interventions have targeted foundational skills that are lacking, using state benchmarks, teacher input and other data to make decisions. I would say its just a more intentional process to catch students early, she said.

Every student is accounted and literacy plans are created.

Such work in recent years is paying off, Routson added. Were seeing more students graduating out of Tier 2 (than in the past). So were intervening early and with consistency and being intentional, closing the gap early so that they dont need Tier 3.

Interventionists are also seeing the number of students needing Tier 3 interventions drop in the higher grade levels, she said, which is exactly what they want to see, Routson said.

Interventions usually dont begin until the end of kindergarten, and in 2016-17 they didnt go beyond sixth grade. But last school year was the first time interventions were implemented at Bartels Middle School, and in 2017-18 they will also include the seventh grade.

Interventions in the middle school went well, Kilde told the board. As the year went on, everybody (at Bartels Middle School) was so invested and really looked forward to working with the data. The number of sixth-graders who needed Tier 3 interventions went down as the school year progressed, with those students transitioned into a monitoring approach.

Next year, Kilde added, the middle school will implement Tier 2 interventions, too, as staff there continues to be trained.

Students are tracked as they move through the interventions, sometimes qualifying for special education. Interventions, of course, depend on the student and grade level, Kilde said. In third grade students are moving out of phonics and into phonemic awareness developing their fluency and comprehension at which point the number of students needing interventions go up.

You see our numbers start (to go up), Kilde said, but we get them through intervention, and by end of the year (the numbers show) that we get them out of intervention by fifth grade.

Our numbers in fifth grade are quite low, Routson said, and we expect to see that with a successful intervention program.

Another change ahead includes some tweaking to interventions that involve math, though interventions will continue to focus mainly on literacy.

School Board President Steve Pate asked how often students who graduate out of interventions need to be brought back into them, to which Director of Student Services Barb Wolfe replied, very rarely.

Less than a handful over the past several years, Wolfe added.

Routson noted that some students who graduate out of interventions are put on watch.

We try to do a good job not dismissing them until were sure, she said, but there may be a student who slips a little and so we keep them on watch.

In 2016-17 the school district had eight interventionists across grades K-6. Next year, one of those eight positions will be split between Rusch and John Muir as half-time behavioral interventionists, along with dean responsibilities, positions that the district will be interviewing for in July, Kilde said.

Kilde in 2017-18 will be the elementary intervention specialist, supporting the interventionists in all five elementary buildings.

Routson is set to become the new principal of West Side Elementary in Mauston in July.

Follow Noah Vernau on Twitter @NoahVernau

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Portage School interventions see progress, find 'consistency,' leaders report - WiscNews

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New-look Kernels a work in progress, fall to Burlington, 6-2 | The … – The Gazette: Eastern Iowa Breaking News and Headlines

Posted: at 7:05 am

Jun 26, 2017 at 10:26 pm | Print View

CEDAR RAPIDS When you lose over 40 percent of your lineup to promotions all at once, you cant expect things to run silky smooth.

To be specific, the Cedar Rapids Kernels had 44.444 percent of their most-days regulars sent up to high-Class A Fort Myers last weekend. Wow, thats taking a hit.

The bottom line is itll take some time for the new Kernels to hopefully be the new and improved Kernels eventually.

Once you get changes like that, I think it takes awhile for guys to jell, Manager Tommy Watkins said, after his club fell to Burlington, 6-2, Monday night at Veterans Memorial Stadium. Weve got opportunities now for guys to step up and play. Theyve got to act like they want it, its not going to be given to them. Well keep working and try to put a lineup out there that we can compete with.

In case you missed it, shortstop Jermaine Palacios, outfielder Jaylin Davis, infielder Brandon Lopez and catcher Mitchell Kranson got moved up after last Thursdays game at Quad Cities. Thats two guys who played in last weeks Midwest League All-Star Game (Palacios and Kranson), C.R.s leading hitter (Palacios), its leading power hitter (Davis) and three guys (Palacios, Davis and Lopez) who spent time considerable time here last season.

In their place, the Kernels received switch-hitting first baseman Amaurys Minier, shortstop Gorge Munoz, outfielder Lean Marrero and utility guy Joe Cronin from extended spring training. Munoz, Marrero and Cronin all played last season in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League, considered two steps below the Midwest League.

Minier signed with the parent Minnesota Twins in 2012 out of the Dominican Republic for $1.4 million, though his four-year career has been spotty to this point.

Cronin, I love his approach at the plate. He grinds at-bats out. Hes a pro, hes a baseball player. I like the way he goes about his business, Watkins said. Minier has got some pop, had a really good game the other day at Quad Cities. He gets himself in trouble sometimes just swinging in offensive counts instead of seeing the ball.

Munoz is a little guy, been pulling the ball and hitting it in the air a lot so far. Thats not his game. Hes got to be more of a line-drive, contact guy. Same thing with Marrero, though he had a much better night tonight.

Cronin didnt play Monday, with Minier, Munoz and Marrero combining to go 1-for-8 with three walks. Tyler Wells (4-2) has been the Kernels' best starting pitcher this season but was off from the first pitch, charged with seven hits and five runs (three earned) in four innings.

To make matters worse, Watkins said he had some shoulder soreness, an issue that put him on the disabled list earlier this season.

Burlington (32-42) won for the first time in five second-half games. Cedar Rapids is 41-34, 2-3.

The teams play again Tuesday night at 6:35.

Pretty ugly tonight, right from the start, Watkins said. Guys moping. Not good.

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com

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New-look Kernels a work in progress, fall to Burlington, 6-2 | The ... - The Gazette: Eastern Iowa Breaking News and Headlines

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Satanism Making Comeback Through Witchcraft and Atheism: Rabbi – Breaking Israel News

Posted: at 7:01 am

For these nations, that thou art to dispossess, hearken unto soothsayers, and unto diviners; but as for thee, Hashem thy God hath not suffered thee so to do. Deuteronomy 18:14 (The Israel Bible)

(Shutterstock)

At the stroke of midnight on Wednesday, some 13,000 people will connect via internet in yet another attempt to cast a curse on President Donald Trump, this time on the summer solstice. Though spell-casting may seem too absurd to be taken seriously, a rabbinic authority maintains that the witches are tapping into Satanism, a disturbing theology making a strong comeback today in the guise of atheism.

The witches are a motley collection with a mixed bag of rituals and beliefs, incorporating the arcane and the religious. The solstice curse calls for colored candles, Tarot cards, and chanting, but also allows for using Cheetos and religious amulets. As irreverent as this may seem, Rabbi Daniel Asore, who investigates the threat Satanism poses today as a member of the nascent Sanhedrin, believes the connection between witchcraft and politics is more relevant and dangerous than ever.

Witchcraft, or its real name, Satanism, is explicitly a power struggle, which is why it is so readily dragged into politics. Satanism, in its essence, pits the adversary against God, Rabbi Asore explained to Breaking Israel News. Though this power struggle has been brewing all through history, today, when we are so close to Moshiach (Messiah), the role it is playing in politics could not be more clear.

The politicians who believe that man can control all aspects of the world are coming from a belief system based in Satanism, whether knowingly or not.

Rabbi Asore explained how arcane Satanism and modern materialist atheism are surprisingly similar. In both belief systems, nature, not a deity, is the supreme power. There is no God who created or stands above nature, and with no divine spark, man is simply another animal.

Atheists, like all Satanists, see themselves as the ultimate authority, independent of any higher rule, so morality becomes entirely subjective, he told Breaking Israel News. Since the self is the center of the universe, they are anarchists, believe in limiting the world population through war, abortion, and non-productive relationships. Nature has usurped Gods eternal aspect, so the individual is the all.

The conflict between Satanism and religion over the eternal has an end-of-days implication. Satanists reject the possibility of Messiah and do not believe in a future redemption. Rather, they believe nature itself is infinite, and as such, there was no creation and there will be no Messiah.

A quick glance at the website of the Satanic Temple confirms the rabbis claim. The stated mission of the Satanic Temple is to reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will.

Rabbi Asore noted that the rejection of the Bible is common to both atheists and Satanists as a basic tenet, though atheistic Satanism does not believe that Satan actually exists, and they do not worship him. Atheistic Satanism believes each person is his or her own God, and that people should worship themselves. To them, Satan is a symbol of rebellion rather than a literal figure.

Satanists believe that the Jews created the Bible as a conspiracy to control the consciousness of society, the rabbi concluded. Any religion that accepts the Bible as divine, as God teaching man the way the world should be according to the divine will, as a way to transcend nature, is pitted against Satanists and atheists.

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Satanism Making Comeback Through Witchcraft and Atheism: Rabbi - Breaking Israel News

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A Reply to Rod Dreher on Worldview – Patheos (blog)

Posted: at 7:00 am

Writing at The American Conservative, Rod Dreher raises some concerns with evangelical use of the concept of Christian worldview. Working as I do ata Christian worldview ministry, and having recently met Rod at the Colson Centers Wilberforce Weekend conference, I found the piece especially relevant. He makes a number of suggestions and statements with which I disagree, but two in particular stood out.

First, Rod suspectsthat teaching students to break down the world in terms of worldviews creates a kind of intellectual arrogance and dismissiveness:

The problem with worldview education[]is that it closes off the possibility of wonder by providing a rigid ideological measuring stick for texts. Gibbs said it gives students unearned authority over a book. Hand them The Communist Manifesto, they open it up, say, Marxist!, then cast it aside. Hand them Thus Spake Zarathustra, they open it up, see Nietzsches name, say, Nihilist! and cast it aside.

Better, suggests Rod, to encounter a work on its own terms, without any preconceived notions about the validity or consequences of the philosophy it teaches. Oddly, though, he seems to see the problem with this approach.

Worldview instruction involves giving students spoilers as it were about communism or nihilism or Islam or atheism. Christian parents and teachers explain the gist of a worldview, and why it ultimately cant account for reality or meet the needs of the human soul like Christianity can. But if, in place of worldview instruction, we allowed students to encounter these worldviews more organically (one might say experience them as their original adherents did), we run into a big problem. Far from gaining intellectual humility, young readers are notoriously prone to an even worse sort of intellectual arrogancethe kind that so often attends undergraduate apostasies. Rod writes:

I remember encountering Nietzsche in a college philosophy course, one in which I had first been introduced to Kierkegaard. Meeting Kierkegaard was an important step on the road to my own religious conversion, but one of my classmates caught afire with the gospel of Nietzsche. He found God is dead to be liberating. Once that semester, he stood on a bench at Free Speech Alley, the weekly campus forum, held high his marked-up copy ofThe Portable Nietzschefrom our class, and proclaimed to the crowd: God is dead!

Rods description is dead-on. I have met these kids. Oh, have I met them. And there is something palpably ridiculous about the freshman philosophy student who reads the seminal texts of nihilism or Marxism or transcendentalism or utilitarianism, and thinks he has received a revelation from Mount Olympus that no Christian has ever encountered, and which will upend the simple worldviews of everyone back home. Voddie Bauchams describes this problem well:

There ought to be a rule: You should not be able to talk aboutphilosophy unless youve had more than a semester ofphilosophy. If you havent had any, thats fine. Talk away! But if youve had a semester, you are messed up. Youd be better off just not taking it at all.

Contra Rod, what I find most often gives students a sense of unearned authority isnt instruction about other worldviews (at least not if its done right), but the unshakable and nave belief that they are the first Christian young person to ever read Nietzsche (or more often Peter Enns or Bart Ehrman) and that there are no good answers to these mens attacks on their parents and neighbors faith. Indeed, very often, these students are precisely those who havenot received worldview instruction, have not seriously interacted with the claims of non-Christian thinkers, and have come to believe as a result thatnoChristian has seriously interacted with such claims.

One thing worldview instruction at its best does is create in middle and high school students an awareness that theyre not the first Christians to encounter alternative worldviews and challenges to their own, and that there are good answers to these claims. In other words, it fosters a kind of intellectual humility, and keeps freshmen from coming home for Christmas to beat their grandparents over the heads with class warfare or intersectionality or JEDP theory.

Yes, we should be willing to read the seminal texts of alternative worldviews deeply and carefully, understanding what makes them tick, and not fall prey to caricatures of those faiths and philosophies (which is what worldview instruction at its worst looks like). But to learn about a worldview is necessarily to form some kind of preconception about it, and specifically (when it comes to the worldviews behind some of the worst mass-murdering regimes of the last century) a kind of prejudice against them. Theres nothing at all wrong with that.

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Michael Gerson: A brave new world none of us can see – Chippewa Herald

Posted: at 7:00 am

WASHINGTON Much analysis of Yuval Hararis brilliant new book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow focuses on the harrowing dystopia he anticipates. In this vision, a small, geeky elite gains the ability to use biological and cyborg engineering to become something beyond human. It may upgrade itself step by step, merging with robots and computers in the process, until our descendants will look back and realize that they are no longer the kind of animal that wrote the Bible [or] built the Great Wall of China. This would necessarily involve the concentration of data, wealth and power, creating unprecedented social inequality.

In the early 21st century, argues Harari, the train of progress is again pulling out of the station and this will probably be the last train ever to leave the station called Homo sapiens.

Few of us Homo sapiens are anxious to take such a trip, apart from some dataists who pant for the apocalypse. But, as Harari repeatedly insists, the prophets job is really an impossible one. Someone living in the 12th century would know most of what the 13th century might have to offer. Given the pace of change in our time, the 22nd century is almost unimaginable.

Yet the predictions are not the most interesting bits of the book. It is important primarily for what it says about the present. For the last few hundred years, in Hararis telling, there has been a successful alliance between scientific thought and humanism a philosophy placing human feelings, happiness and choice at the center of the ethical universe. With the death of God and the denial of transcendent rules, some predicted social chaos and collapse. Instead, science and humanism (with an assist from capitalism) delivered unprecedented health and comfort. And now they promise immortality and bliss.

This progress has involved an implicit agreement, In exchange for power, says Harari, the modern deal expects us to give up meaning. Many (at least in the West) have been willing to choose antibiotics and flat-screen TVs over the mysticism and morality behind door No. 2.

It is Hararis thesis, however, that the alliance of science and humanism is breaking down, with the former consuming the latter. The reason is reductionism in various forms. Science, argues Harari, revealed humans as animals on the mental spectrum, then as biochemical processes, and now as outdated organic algorithms. We have opened up the Sapiens black box and discovered there neither soul, nor free will, nor self but only genes, hormones and neurons.

This rather depressing argument is well presented, with a few caveats. Hararis breezy style is sometimes in tension with his utter nihilism. Here is a moral rule: You can either be cheery or you can describe the universe as an empty, echoing void where human beings have no inherent value. But you cant do both.

And Hararis treatment of religion is, charitably put, superficial. He seems to think that the absence of an immortal soul can be proved by dissection. Scientists have looked into every nook in our hearts and every cranny in our brains. But they have so far discovered no magic spark. For future reference, religious believers dont generally view the liver or the pineal gland as the seat of the soul. And when Harari claims that religion is no longer a source of creativity and makes little difference, it is tempting to shout Martin Luther King Jr. at your Kindle.

But Harari has one great virtue: intellectual honesty. Unlike some of the new atheists, he recognizes that science is incapable of providing values, including the humanistic values of Locke, Rousseau and Jefferson. Even Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and the other champions of the new scientific worldview refuse to abandon liberalism, Harari observes. After dedicating hundreds of erudite pages to deconstructing the self and the freedom of will, they perform breathtaking intellectual somersaults that miraculously land them back in the 18th century.

Harari relentlessly follows the logic of reductionism as it sweeps away individualism, equality, justice, democracy and human rights even human imagination. Yes, God is a product of the human imagination, but human imagination in turn is the product of biochemical algorithms.

This is the paradox and trial of modernity. As humans reach for godhood, they are devaluing what is human. Omnipotence is in front of us, almost within our reach, Harari says, but below us yawns the abyss of complete nothingness. A humane future will require someone to offer a bridge across the chasm.

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Misky’s Music Recommendations: Vince Staples, *Big Fish Theory* – The Daily Iowan

Posted: at 7:00 am

Long Beach native Vince Staples released his new album, Big Fish Theory, on June 23. The album follows his critically acclaimed Summertime 06 project, released in 2015.

By Gage Miskimen

gage-miskimen@uiowa.edu

There are plenty of fish in the sea that is hip-hop, but none have quite the fins of Vince Staples.

Staples released his sophomore album, Big Fish Theory, last weekend, and the project has the potential to move him into the mainstream.

Big Fish Theory takes a look at rappers and hip-hop in general from outside the fishbowl; Staples has always been an observer and critic of all aspects of society. The project analyzes how rappers act and how hip-hops looming influence on todays culture while continuing the theme from his 2016 EP, Prima Donna. That opened with a star rapper (presumably Staples) killing himself, and the rest of the project talked about how the fame and fans pushed him to that point.

Suffering from fame seems to be a constant theme in Staples music nowadays. On track three of Big Fish Theory, Alyssas Interlude, Amy Winehouses voice can be heard, taken from a snippet of an interview: Im quite a self-destructing person, so I guess I keep giving myself material, she says. Staples has been vocal about Winehouses death and unhappy with how the public has treated her.

Big Fish Theorys sound is innovative in terms of hip-hop. Electronic house beats are mixed with Staples introspective and confident verses in a way thats never been done successfully before.

The album is sprinkled with guests who add something extra. Artists credited throughout the album include Bon Ivers Justin Vernon, Kendrick Lamar, Ray-J, ASAP Rocky, Ty Dolla Sign, Kilo Kish, and Juicy J.

Though the album is great as a whole, there are particular tracks that stand out. The Vernon-produced Crabs in a Bucket is the opening track, and it kicks off in high gear, only giving the listener a few seconds to get comfortable before the bass hits. Crabs in a Bucket refers to the if I cant have it, you cant either train of thought. Crabs in a bucket will fight and climb over each other to reach the top, but their behavior inevitably does more harm than good to themselves and those around them, and Staples is comparing the crabs to rappers and society in general.

745 is another highlight of Big Fish Theory. The lyrics have Staples, driving around the city in a BMW 745, venting about his relationships with women. Staples typical nihilism shines on this track. This thing called love real hard for me/This thing called love is a God to me/and we all just Gods property/So feel free to fulfill the prophecy.

He has always felt like an outsider to hip-hop until recently. He has a Sprite endorsement deal, and radio shows in bigger cities such as The Breakfast Club on 105.1 are eager to interview him because of his dry humor and straightforward opinions. In Pitchforks Over/Under series on YouTube, Staples rated random things the hosts said from KFC to Tom Cruise, who he thought was underrated because the mission was impossible, and he pulled it off three times.

All this exposure, on top of his talent as a rapper, has brought him to the forefront of hip-hop. Staples lyricism, flow, and consistency in putting out high-caliber projects from mixtapes to full-length albums land him in the running for greatest rapper alive among Kendrick Lamar and thats about it. But honestly, listen to Staples, and see what hes accomplishing in his music, and one might consider him the heir to the throne.

Gage Miskimen is the creative director of The Daily Iowan this summer. He will examine and critique new music released every week. Have any recommendations of your own? Email him at gagemiskimen@gmail.com.

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All they needed was love: the Beatles’ spirit spoke to us all – Irish Times

Posted: at 7:00 am

The cover of Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. It may be not be far from the truth to say that the Beatles were exponents of what is known as Christian humanism.

On June 25th, 1967, three weeks after the release of Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles heralded a great leap forward in communications when they sang All You Need is Love live in the first satellite television broadcast. Transmitted to 24 countries, their performance reached an audience of 400 million.

In the era of Brexit, it is poignant to remember the moment, half a century ago, when the music of four Britons was transcending national barriers and enlarging the sum of human happiness.

It is true that war was raging in Vietnam in the summer of 1967 and that days after Sgt Peppers came out the Six Day War erupted between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

Yet the so-called summer of love over which the Beatles presided was not just moonshine. The trouble was that its utopian spirit was betrayed by hedonism and drug abuse. Its easy, runs the suspect refrain of All You Need is Love.

After the groups demise in 1970, John Lennon wondered what the Beatles had achieved beyond spawning a generation of narcissists in gaudy dress. His own idealism was not dead; he went on to compose Imagine.

Increasingly, though, idealism was no match for cynicism.

To the punk generation, Lennon was a charlatan who lived in luxury as he exhorted people to imagine no possessions. Yet punk, with its surly commitment to doing as you like, had more in common with the Beatles and the 1960s counterculture than was at first apparent.

So did Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative prime minister who came to power in 1979. It is often said that the 1960s cult of self-exploration yielded to the self-fixated individualism that defined Thatchers Britain.

HG Wells likened moments of historical promise to the sun briefly peeping through a cloudy sky. An image of Wells was among those selected by the Beatles to adorn the cover of Sgt Peppers.

Also included in their pantheon were James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw and Aldous Huxley. The latter appealed to them because of his essay The Doors of Perception (1954), in which he extolled the potential of psychedelic drugs to transform human consciousness.

Their heroes were humanitarians and internationalists who would recoil at the distinction between people from somewhere and people from nowhere made by Theresa May and champions of Brexit.

It is surprising perhaps that no great Christian personality figures among them. For where did the Beatles derive their commitment to love and peace from if not Christs example?

The groups flirtation with the Hindu guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has obscured the extent to which they remained quintessential products of Christian upbringings.

It was ironic that they were branded as infidels in the United States after John Lennon claimed that the Beatles were more popular than Christ. When they sang All You Need is Love they were preaching the Christian gospel.

A born mutineer, Lennon might have jibbed at being labelled any kind of Christian. But it may be not be far from the truth to say that the Beatles were exponents of what is known as Christian humanism.

The Beatles were a historical phenomenon shaped by a national past that was imperial and Christian. In the 20th century, Christian Britain fought two world wars, interrupted by the Great Depression of the 1930s, as it struggled to preserve its power.

The creation in 1945 of the welfare state was a tribute to the advocacy of progressive rationalists yet it also owed more than a little to Christs injunction to love your neighbour as yourself.

The social democracy that nurtured the Beatles had deep Christian roots. And what was the enduring assumption that Britain was a force for good, a nation with a global mission, if not the legacy of a Christian culture?

Christianity and empire retained their hold on the British imagination even as the Beatles appeared to be saying goodbye to all that. Arguably, they represented a continuation of the British empire by musical means, a late benign outpouring of imperial energies.

If the Beatles enjoy a special niche in world culture, it is because the generosity of spirit enshrined in their music speaks to people everywhere. Unlike the Brexiteers, they were not just British patriots. They were patriots for humanity.

Neil Berry is author of Articles of Faith: the Story of British Intellectual Journalism. He has written for the New Statesman, the Times Literary Supplement and Arab News

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Jonah Goldberg: Free speech not always a tool of virtue – MyDaytonDailyNews

Posted: at 6:58 am

Theres a tension so deep in how we think about free expression, it should rightly be called a paradox.

On the one hand, regardless of ideology, artists and writers almost unanimously insist that they do what they do to change minds. But the same artistes, auteurs and opiners recoil in horror when anyone suggests that they might be responsible for inspiring bad deeds.

Hollywood, the music industry, journalism, political ideologies, even the Confederate flag: Each takes its turn in the dock when some madman or fool does something terrible.

The arguments against free speech are stacked and waiting for these moments like weapons in a gladiatorial armory. Theres no philosophical consistency to when they get picked up and deployed, beyond the unimpeachable consistency of opportunism.

Hollywood activists blame the toxic rhetoric of right-wing talk radio or the tea party for this crime, the National Rifle Association blames Hollywood for that atrocity. Liberals decry the toxic rhetoric of the right, conservatives blame the toxic rhetoric of the left.

When attacked again heedless of ideology or consistency the gladiators instantly trade weapons. The finger-pointers of five minutes ago suddenly wax righteous in their indignation that mere expression rather, their expression should be blamed. Many of the same liberals who pounded soapboxes into pulp at the very thought of labeling record albums with violent-lyrics warnings instantly insisted that Sarah Palin had Rep. Gabby Giffords blood on her hands. Many of the conservatives who spewed hot fire at the suggestion that they had any culpability in an abortion clinic bombing, gleefully insisted that Sen. Bernie Sanders is partially to blame for Rep. Steve Scalises fight with death.

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And this is where the paradox starts to come into view: Everyone has a point.

The blame for violent acts lies with the people who commit them, and with those who explicitly and seriously call for violence, Dan McLaughlin, my National Review colleague, wrote recently. People who just use overheated political rhetoric, or who happen to share the gunmans opinions, should be nowhere on the list.

As a matter of law, I agree with this entirely. But as a matter of culture, its more complicated.

I have always thought it absurd to claim that expression cannot lead people to do bad things, precisely because it is so obvious that expression can lead people to do good things. According to legend, Abraham Lincoln told Harriet Beecher Stowe, So youre the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war. Should we mock Lincoln for saying something ridiculous?

As Irving Kristol once put it, If you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you have also to believe that no one was ever improved by a book. You have to believe, in other words, that art is morally trivial and that education is morally irrelevant.

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If words dont matter, then democracy is a joke, because democracy depends entirely on making arguments not for killing, but for voting. Only a fool would argue that words can move people to vote but not to kill.

Ironically, free speech was born in an attempt to stop killing. It has its roots in freedom of conscience. Before the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the common practice was that the rulers religion determined their subjects faith too. Religious dissent was not only heresy but a kind of treason. After Westphalia, exhaustion with religion-motivated bloodshed created space for toleration. As the historian C.V. Wedgwood put it, the West had begun to understand the essential futility of putting the beliefs of the mind to the judgment of the sword.

This didnt mean that Protestants instantly stopped hating Catholics or vice versa. Nor did it mean that the more ecumenical hatred of Jews vanished. What it did mean is that it was no longer acceptable to kill people simply for what they believed or said.

Words matter. Art moves people. And the law is not the full and final measure of morality. Hence the paradox: In a free society, people have a moral responsibility for what they say, while at the same time a free society requires legal responsibility only for what they actually do.

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Jonah Goldberg: Free speech not always a tool of virtue - MyDaytonDailyNews

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Oklahoma Joe: Freedom of speech is not limitless – Journal Record (subscription)

Posted: at 6:57 am

Joe Hight

Freedom of speech doesnt mean freedom from ramifications.

Ive often wondered that, especially considering recent events. Of the five some may even say six rights granted to us by the First Amendment, many may say speech is the most important. As my Media Ethics students have told me, Without freedom of speech, you wouldnt have the other freedoms.

Thats debatable, but the freedom to say or write or create is not limitless.

Examples are many, but here are a few recent ones:

Ten prospective Harvard students admissions were rescinded after they posted offensive messages and memes in the Facebook chat group Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens. The Boston Business Journal reported the teenagers mocked sexual assault, the Holocaust, child abuse, and ethnic and racial groups.

Comedian Kathy Griffin was fired as CNNs New Years Eve commentator after posing with a fake bloody Donald Trump head. Then, as Vanity Fair reported, she joked with photographer Tyler Shields, We have to move to Mexico today because were not surviving this, OK? She later tearfully apologized, while also attacking the Trumps for seeking to ruin her life.

Milo Yiannopoulos resigned as editor of Breitbart News, lost speaking engagements and a book contract for remarks endorsing sexual relations with boys as young as 13. He apologized but not before saying he was a victim of child abuse himself. Conservative radio personality Charlie Sykes reacted by telling The New York Times, Weve created a competition for being the most offensive and the most outrageous in order to stay relevant, and then we must rally around and defend you.

Has our need for attention proliferated to the point that Sykes is correct? Is social media behind it? Last week, I wrote about unacceptable snarky and attack tweets in the aftermath of the shootings of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and four others at a practice for the congressional baseball game.

Have we taken freedom of speech too far?

Oklahoma State University professor Joey Senat is among the experts I turned to on First Amendment and freedom of information issues. He wrote in response to my question that obscenity, deceptive advertising and child pornography do not receive First Amendment protection. He also pointed to the U.S. Supreme Courts Brandenburg Test that is used to determine the difference between speech advocating an abstract idea (which is protected by the First Amendment) and speech intended to incite imminent lawless action (which is not protected).

Even when speech is protected by the First Amendment, it can be punished, he wrote. Freedom of speech receives a great deal of protection in this country, i.e., a preferred position. To say that ramifications exist isnt to say that freedom of speech and government regulation of speech are co-equal. The scale balances in favor of speech.

But when does it go too far? Should colleges cancel a speakers planned speeches because they dont share the majority of students viewpoints? Otherwise, known as Hecklers Veto? Should people protesting at a site be escorted out and even banned because their remarks dont agree with our own?

As Joey writes, Political speech receives more protection than does commercial speech. Government must have a compelling reason to regulate political speech. The First Amendment applies only when the government is doing the censorship. Private entities may censor without violating the First Amendment.

In the end, freedom of speech doesnt give you absolute freedom. But it is a freedom we must continue to defend, along with our other First Amendment rights.

Joe Hight is a Pulitzer Prize-winning and Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame editor who is the University of Central Oklahomas endowed chair of journalism ethics and president of his family-owned business Best of Books in Edmond.

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