#paragraph about martin luther king

[funkymbtifiction]

Are there any examples or blank spaces in particular events where Fe users, not Dom or unhealthy dom could defy social norms?

I've observed fi users in my life, seem to care about social propriety or politeness and as an Fe user me withdrawing and not liking the way the situation or people are behaving or accepting just for the sake of going along with it. I really seem the odd one out nowadays.

So was just wondering in what cases and for what cognitive processes Fe vs Fi act differently and completely opposite their stereotype? This truly is one of the hardest function differences to pin down for me because the only way i understand nuances of it is that it's like a pathway, from self to other is fi, others to self is Fe.

I read in one of your posts, FPs can emphasise their individuality, their feelings and judgements they form from it while FJs seek to think and work up positively the group dynamics. There are also cases where I'm aware even when i don't wish to of the differences between me and others, this is new, esp about social, financial background, political and spiritual beliefs, etc. So is it possible that as an Fe user, one can emphasise individuality too, or don't see all people as one but liking the idea of it and aware of the incongruence in the reality and hoping to connect and be all one and healed and healthy and change the societal norms and ways of being? I feel tuned out to see the differences but i accept disharmony. So for fe users, is it okay to at times, esp at homes or with people whose ways they disapprove of..make one behave what is described in an example as an fi way? Or is it just unhealthy self centred Fe?

Also if others, fi users could be socially appropriate and care for the others not out of "i don't want this to happen to me.." kinda thing, is it bcoz of culture or gender origins at play?

People are complicated and rarely fit into a box -- much of what is attributed to Fe can show up in a social-first Fi user (caring about how others are reacting to them, adapting to them) and the same goes for Fe users being able to distance themselves from others and prioritize their own interests in life when it counts. FJs are capable of going against social norms for a good cause (Martin Luther King), and Fi users will go along with things to keep the peace sometimes, abandoning themselves in the process. So when determining the difference you have to look at the motivation behind it, whether the person struggles to easily articulate their emotions, and what their social stacking and Enneagram type is. A social 9 EFP can seem 'soft' like a Fe, without making decisions through a lens of "us." And a hexad not-social-first can seem blunt and assertive, unlike the stereotypes about Fe's just wanting everyone to be happy.

What you describe in your second-to-last paragraph would be healthy Fe -- being aware of others' need for space and allowing them to be individuals while hoping for their collective healing as a person, and choosing through how they behave to set an example.

I am always socially appropriate, because I find it respectful of others and their feelings and needs, and I am a Fi. I rarely think about not wanting it to happen to me, and think about it in terms of "is this right/wrong, kind/unkind?" instead. I can tolerate a great deal out of people without approving of them and remain friends with others whom I disagree with on important issues, although it's hard for me to give them distance sometimes and not press my opinions.

[wutbju]

This is the single quotation that Bob Jones University pulled out to remember Martin Luther King, Jr. on #MLKDay2023.

Where does it come from?

It comes from two months before his assassination in February 4, 1968--two months before the BJU student body would give a standing ovation to King's assassination. It was a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, a sermon called "The Drum Major Instinct."

Here's the whole speech. Read it all. And here's the whole paragraph:

And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, (Everybody) because everybody can serve. (Amen) You don't have to have a college degree to serve. (All right) You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. (Amen) You only need a heart full of grace, (Yes, sir, Amen) a soul generated by love. (Yes) And you can be that servant.

What King was saying is the direct opposite of everything that BJU teaches.

[windmilltothestars]

My plan was to return to tumblr VICTORIOUSLY in 2023.  I would finally finish those Les Mis fanfics I was supposed to finish ages ago.  (Being so deeply embarrassed at never finishing them when I was supposed to was a big factor in my sort of disappearing off the internet last year; hiding in shame for broken promises, lost HONOR!)  I would begin writing and drawing daily, improving my skills (I paid money for online art classes!  Learning shading and clothing folds and hair textures and proportions and body positions!  And making different characters look distinct!) and having things to show for it. I would soon use the money I saved to achieve greater independence in life, being able to take classes, go to events, and do volunteer work.  I would work on some new LOTR stories as well, as well as that stupid-long essay comparing the 9 members of The Fellowship of the Ring to those of Les Amis de l’ABC, since Tolkien was my obsession for the entirety of 2022, one of the longest ‘phases’ I’ve had.  Whether I’m still in it now is - a question.  The past few weeks I’ve had a passionate fling with Hercules: The Legendary Journeys again, but I may be reaching a sort of equilibrium again now, and returning to my older efforts.  My friends I visited in December inspired me with their skills and ideals and progress and love and encouragement.  I would follow, pursue my artistic passions, get a hold of my old chaos brain at last, make things happen!!  That was my New Year’s Resolution.

Of course, it hasn’t worked very well so far. I have the beginnings of two drawings (one of Frodo and Sam, one of Iolaus and Gabrielle) and added a couple short paragraphs to one or two of my fanfic efforts.  One was a Christmas-themed one, ironically enough.  Yesterday night and this morning I was edging toward despair about my lack of progress, my seeming inability to rule my own brain and put in the effort I wanted, accomplish the creative works I dreamed of.  But then I went to choir and sang many beautiful, heart-lifting songs, got back and ate delicious Mexican food, and watched an absolutely STIRRING documentary about Dr. Martin Luther King, about his message, his dream, his love, his sacrifice, followed by select bits from Captain America: The First Avenger, moments of friendship and camaraderie and courage with Steve and Bucky and Peggy, defying the odds and saving the day, and -- I really feel a lot better now.  Gotta stop putting ‘due dates’ on things so much, and getting bogged down beating myself up about what I haven’t done rather than putting effort into what I can do now!  “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us” - and all that.  Yep, I’m a sap who always gets pulled out of self-loathing and despair by fictional and historical heroism, by powerful words and speeches and by the power of friendship.  So I hope I’ll have more to report next time!  I must first hope, and then make it so! 

Love to you all!  Goodnight! :)

[athemag]

interviews of Peter Mattei on french sites, including, as usual, some ramblings daring comparisons: Don G and Martin Luther King (2007), interpretation of Don G and caramel cream (2012)... 2006 - Liberation https://www.liberation.fr/culture/2006/12/22/mattei-joue-le-crooner-avec-von-otter_60917/?redirected=1 2007 - Altamusica http://www.altamusica.com/entretiens/document.php?action=MoreDocument&DocRef=3318&DossierRef=2957 2012 - Concertclassic https://www.concertclassic.com/article/une-interview-de-peter-mattei-baryton-jaurai-vraiment-du-mal-quitter-cette-production 2012 - Forumopera - 20 singers (including Peter Mattei) talk about Dietrich Fischer Dieskau https://www.forumopera.com/vingt-regards-sur-dietrich-fischer-dieskau/ 2019 - le blog de camille de rijck https://camillederijck.com/2022/03/12/one-quote-a-day-keeps-the-doctor-away-xv-peter-mattei-why-not-include-a-little-bit-of-elvis-in-classical-music/

an interesting interview of Malena Ernman in 2002 - with a short paragraph about Peter Mattei https://www.forumopera.com/v1/actu/malena.htm Opera National de Paris - 2017 Eugen Onegin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsX_W0hv5XQ&t=5s From the house of the dead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny-egLJUxWI

[keywestlou]

I HAVE A DREAM

I HAVE A DREAM - https://keywestlou.com/i-have-a-dream-3/Parts of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech were improvised while the speech was being delivered. A formal speech had been prepared the day before. The text reduced to writing. King had it with him and was reading from it as his speech began. During his reading of the seventh paragraph, something that can only be described as extraordinary happened. Mahalia Jackson shouted out "tell them about the 'dream.'" Few heard her. Ted Kennedy was one. King pushed "the text of his prepared remarks to one side of the lectern.....shifted gears.....gave himself over to the spirit of the moment." King than improvised the second half of his speech which included the "I have a dream" refrain. It included in thought, though not in preciseness, similar words spoken by him 2 months earlier at Cobo Hall in Detroit. Those words now frozen in time. It will be a bit warmer today. Though 7 at the moment and only 54 degrees in Key West, the temperature will rise to 70 today. Facebook ran a cartoon today re the cold blanketing Florida. Someone asked while standing by a refrigerator: What's in the freezer? An old geezer sitting in a rocking chair responded: Florida! Came across a statement applicable to me on Facebook: "I have reached an age where my mind says I CAN DO THAT. But my body says, try it and you'll be sorry." Learned by me the hard way! I watched the Miami/Buffalo game yesterday. Fully expected Buffalo to devastate Miami. Began with Buffalo quickly going ahead 17-0. The game ended with Buffalo winning by a mere 3 points 34-31. Obviously, it turned into a very exciting competitive game. Nature is destroying our planet. Man causing nature to do so, of course. The destruction a constant one. Radical storms a yearly happening. California flooding and hurricanes in the east reflective of the trend. Many are its effects. Side repercussions. Insurance company failures will be one. There will not be enough money in their tills to meet their contractual obligations. The U.S. has had what might be described on occasion as days not its finest. One this day in 1919, the 18th amendment was ratified banning alcohol consumption. On this day in 1412, the Medici family was appointed official banker of the Papacy. Like making Al Capone Secretary of the Treasury. Enjoy your day!  

[conveyinformation2023]

Homework: Due Tuesday

Note: No class on Monday for the Martin Luther King holiday.

The homework this weekend is to create a custom typeface using a font editor. The actual deliverable is a one-page font specimen that shows off your work.

Here are two sites with examples of type specimens: https://typespecimens.io/ and https://typespecimens.xyz/specimens/all/12/

At the end of next week the final project will require you to incorporate a custom typeface into your designs. I am giving you a head start by sharing the final project with you in advance, just in case you want to use the typeface you make this weekend on your final project.

What kind of typeface do you want to make? What type classification? Will you base it on an existing type? Letters on the street? Adorable animals? What kind of details? If you want to start working ahead, consider whether or not you want to use a custom typeface for your final project. Now would be a good time to start.

(By the way, you should use Glyphs Mini. If you're really ambitious you can use Font Lab Studio.)

Upload both your specimen and your typeface to Drive > Assignments > Custom Type.

Reviews: Two typeface reviews from the syllabus, posted to Tumblr.

FINAL PROJECT:

Your final assignment is to design six high-definition wirefames for an iOS or android app. You are not creating an actual app, but a polished mock up of what that app would look like on a small screen. Your focus should be spent on the look of your screens more than the user experience or information. That said, you are welcome to upload your files to something like InVision to create a working prototype. http://www.invisionapp.com

This assignment will require several skills that you have picked up throughout this class: kerning and line spacing, type combinations, basic layout and alignment, and a custom typeface.

Here are some questions to get you started:

What is the purpose of this app? Who will use it? What do you need to communicate to your user? What content needs to be on each page? How will you establish hierarchy?

Here are Apple’s interface guidelines for iOS, which will be very useful for designing your app (especially Visual Design > Adaptivity and Layout:

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/overview/themes/

And the somewhat more complicated Android guidelines:

https://developer.android.com/design/

You may use Illustrator or Indesign for your wireframes. Please print out all of your designs and bring them in for critique. The final project will be submitted as a PDF via drive.

You can design your own app, or you can create designs for one of the following (fake) apps:

Unicorn Rainbow, game Mutiny, game Days and Weeks, calendar app Paparazzi, photo app Netwerk, social Mews, cat news Your own project

The deliverables of this project are somewhat flexible, but I am firm on one issue: You may not use more than one image. This is a typography class, and I want to see type-based designs. (Geometric design elements like boxes, circles, triangles, and lines are fine.) This is another way of saying that you should probably start this project by thinking about a logo or an icon.

Here’s a deliverables checklist for the final project:

A custom logo or wordmark for your app. 1024 x 768 pixels. Possibly using your custom type. Icon for your apps, one at 180 x 180 pixels and one at 1024 x 1024 pixels (app store), or one at 192 x 192 pixels (android). A custom gif (load screen or marketing asset). Six high-definition wireframes. At least one wireframe must include a chunk of type (maybe three paragraphs). At least one wireframe must include a list.

[outforawalkb1tch]

What did I do to receive prageru ads on YouTube??? If you don't know it's a conservative run education app that erases American history. It was a family eating dinner and they're all on iPads or phones (great family values) then the kid goes did you know we're a racist country? Then pops up George Washington and they start talking about something else idk I skipped it at this point. But how do you deny the racism in this country? Its a huge part of our history. Are they just going to skip over the awful treatment of natives, slavery, Jim Crow laws ect. ??? Wtf. They already hide so much in regular school- for example I've had so much required reading on Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks but only like a paragraph or two on Malcolm X which I probably only read due to the fact that I was in AP English, and there's so many black activist and black inventors and history of black people that really should be part of the required education. And this is just one example, I feel there are so many things that I feel like should be common in public education that are not. I feel like prageru is going to make a lot of dumb adults.

[a-beautiful-crow]

What is the best version of the Bible for the most accurate English translation?

I'll try to answer this ask with the books:

Treasure and Tradition from the Saint Agustine Academy Press

My Catholic Faith: A Manual of Religion by Bishop Louis LaRavoire

So I decided include the Least Trusted Bibles™ and maybe the Failed Protestant English Translations™ because it's fun. This has nothing to do with the ask, and I'll probably just answer quickly at the end.

So here's the list of rejects:

John Wycliffe's Bible (1382-1395) He rejected the church, relied only on the teachings of the bible, had followers called Lollards and got declared a heretic.

Martin Luther's Bible (1522-1534) "Martin Luther's rejection of church teaching led him to accept scripture alone as a source of divine revelation. Therefore he sought to create a bible for the common man using vernacular German. Seeking to avoid the Catholic Vulgate and having no access to original manuscripts, Luther consulted recently printed copies of the Septuagint and the Hebrew Masoretic Text. Though his bible was unprecedented in it's popularity and influence, it is universally noted that his translation contained significant biased based on his beliefs." I just think it's funny how he used the Septuagint and also used the book that didn't trust the Septuagint.

William Tyndale's Bible (1525-1536) This one is truly a failure because he was inspired by Luther's Bible but didn't trust Luther's Bible enough to accept it so he made his own but also used heterodox commentaries of Luther's Bible... and people say women give off mixed signals but clearly they've never seen William Tyndale. Anyways, this translation was absolutely demolished by my dude St. Thomas who pointed out biased mistranslations.

The Great Bible (1538) King Henry the VIII's first authorized English translation of the bible. Imagine Tyndale's but worse because the author Myles Coverdale (fanboy of Tyndale) tried amending it with The Vulgate and Luther's Bible. (Remember how Luther was like I don't wanna use The Vulgate! Yeah I guess they didn't care)

The Geneva Bible (1560) because people hate to see a girlboss winning, protestants fled to Geneva during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary (the girlboss in question). They created The Geneva Bible.

The Bishop's Bible (1568) At least they tried being a bit more logical in this one. A bit. The English bishops under Elizabeth the 1st were "dissatisfied with the Great Bible due to it's translation from the Vulgate, yet the Geneva Bible was far too Calvinistic" You see where there's like a little bit of a thought occuring? Anyways it's size and cost were problems, so people kept using the Geneva Bible.

King James Version (1604-1611) Cringe. The Non-Catholic manuscripts were preferred in making this book and it shows. "resulting in significant changes, including the canon of books" I like how the book My Catholic Faith has a really good little paragraph about it more or less about this. "Having rejected Tradition, Protestants cannot be certain that the books they have accepted are genuine... Protestant Bibles, the most popular of which is called "The King James Version" omit all or parts of The books of Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Machabees (I and II) and parts of Esther and Daniel. Luther rejected parts of St. James because the apostle said that faith without works is dead. Luther and followers omitted the Apocalypse, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Epistle to St. Jude."

Which ones can you trust then?

The Clementine Revision of the Vulgate (if that still exists anyways)

The Douay-Rheims Bible (you'll love this one)

Challoner's Revision of the Douay-Rheims Bible (The Catholic Church's officially approved English bible)

If you ever go back in time I advise getting the original Vulgate (by St. Jerome). I also advise that once you return to get a bulletproof vest and other protective gear because I will go after you want you to be safe from heathens.

[artleaguemdcnorth]

Drawing Class 9:40am , 1/12/22 Gesture & Contour Drawing

**First a reminder that Monday is a Holiday so there is no class on that day as it is Martin Luther King Day.

For today’s class, I have posted two brief videos of artists for you to watch. I like to watch artists talking about their own work as it always inspires me .

Throughout the semester I will be posting these quick reference videos as part of your education. It is your responsability to watch them.

All artists start at the same spot you are at now, a drawing class like this one.

Where you decide to go after that depends on your needs and voice as an artist. These videos will provide guidance as to why Artist create art.

Take notes of anything you hear that can inspire you and write it in your sketchbook.

You will post a brief paragraph in your tumblr about your review of the artists video.Hopefully those videos can get you inspired and ready to start being creative .

First Drawing for today - this assignment will begin after our virtual meet and after you watch the artists’s video.

Now we are ready to begin with today’s class.

There is a difference between what the eye sees and what the mind thinks you see. In this class you are going to learn how to draw from observation.

First we must set up a Still Life.

I like to set up about 7- 9 objects on a platform.

Find an area of your home or studio and set up a table pressed against a wall.

You will see in my time lapse that I improvised with a box, chair and a wooden board that I use for my ceramic projects.

Improvise with areas of your home that can provide a quiet eye level surface to set up the props for you class assignment.

Watch the video to see how I set up in the link below.

https://youtu.be/iwwVn5ocvko

You need to be  at eye level to your still life.

I am covering the platform in my space because i do not like to see the components below it. In doing so I am able to mute all that activity below with  a neutral textile that I happen to have in my studio.

Now that I am all set, I will gather my objects.

For the first day see if you can choose simple geometric objects.

I will place some objects in the back then assemble from there to have objects in three spaces:

Background

Middle ground

Foreground.

With the Still Life all set now we will find a comfortable place about three to four feet away from the assembled objects and at at eye level.

You do not want to be above or below as this will change the perspective of what you are observing.

Now grab a charcoal stick and the Newsprint pad attached to the board.  

You want to draw in the same vertical format as what you are looking. Do not place your pad on the table as this changes the ease of observation.

Using loose and broad strokes you are now going to work on doing several quick drawings called gestural drawings. I like to do several of these at the start of the class as warm up excercises.

GESTURE drawings are rapid , loose, fast strokes that try to get the gist of the still life.

The charcoal stays on the paper at all times and your eyes are looking at the still life at all times.

This creates a connection between the eye and the hand, in other words eye-hand co-ordination.

Think of it like when you are driving or riding a bike your eyes are set on the road (Still Life) and your hands follow the road.

If you look away, by the way I do not recommend you look away when driving or riding, then the hands will follow.

So, back to your still life, for about TEN minutes in the same paper continue doing Gesture drawings.

Start on the LEFT side of the Still Life I like to begin at the line where the platform and the wall meet and then I draw the first object that my eyes find.

(You are working quickly and drawing over the previous drawing. It is ok , it will look like a mess but thisnis just an exercise right now to warm up.)

I keep working from LEFT to RIGHT until all the objects are represented in the drawing.Ex.

This type of drawing is what is called a warm up exercise , it gets your creative juices going.

Next ,

You will work doing a contour drawing of the still life.

To do the Contour drawings you can use either charcoal sticks or charcoal pencils.

Where gesture drawings are quick the contour drawing should take you around 20 mins.

You want to be accurate so go slow .

Again starting on the LEFT side of the picture plane draw slowly.

Start at the *Horizon Line then draw the object immediately next to it.

When you are doing contour drawings you want to try and capture the true margins of an object.

Do not generalize , all bottles are not created equal , try and draw as accurately as possible.

You will also notice a size relation between one object and the next, pay attention to that and correct as needed.

Here is an example of a Contour drawing:

Today is the first day , you are working big and for some of you this might be the first time in ages that you grab paper and charcoal to draw so let’s just have fun and enjoy this return to your creative self.

Recap for Today’s assignment:

1) Watch videos of artist and then write a brief reflection post regarding them This will be added to your Tumblr potfolio.

2) Create and set up a good still Life with at minimun   7- 9 objects.

3) For the next Ten Minutes do continuous GESTURE drawings.

4) Contour Drawing , use the next 30 minutes to do a contour drawing. You are working slow and trying to capture the true and correct contour of the forms in your still life. Remember to draw and include the horizon line in your drawing.

Homework:

Using a cereal box as your form, create a view finder that measures 5  X 7 inches. See the video below to create your own view finder.

You will cut out two L measuring 5x 7 inches as you see above in this picture.

You will be using this view finder next week on Weds.

Class work needs to be submitted to your blog by tomorrow Thurs 5pm.

[aridara]

So Siryouarebeingmocked, being the patethic and toxic imbecile he is, decided to complain about how people are treating the Capitol coupers differently than BLM protesters. Like, no shit, Sherlock, that’s because they ARE different. SYABM just pretends that BLM is somehow worse, because he has literally never denounced a white supremacist in his entire existence on Tumblr.

For example, he claims that, during this summer, cops were ordered to look the other way when it came to BLM protests. This is a complete and utter lie.

He also claims that Trump was accused of “being a fascist sending out government troops” just because he sent federal cops to protect federal buildings. Again, this is false. Trump sent troop to kidnap people off the streets and take them elsewhere for interrogation, on unlabeled vehicles, without showing or telling the arrested where they were going, and most importantly without any charge. Basically, they went in Portland, arrested any black person that happened to be there for no fucking reason, then dragged them away into some federal building to detain them. Of course, SYABM doesnt’t tell you any of that, because SYABM is a fascist sympathizer.

Someone called @lercymoth decided to dispel his bullshit. Here’s the post; I can’t reblog it, because SYABM blocked me after I pointed out that he was making cops look really incompetent.

SYABM responded. And his response was, obviously, shit. So here I am, trying to deal with his bullshit.

Before we start, a few rules. First: if SYABM misinterpreted or missed Lercymoth’s point, I will instantly dismiss SYABM’s argument without even reading the rest of it. The reason why is simple: countering your opponent’s argument requires you to counter what your opponent ACTUALLY said. If you don’t do that, then you aren’t actually countering your opponent’s argument, which means that you don’t have any actual objection to your opponent’s argument. Now, we could give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they just made a honest mistake... but SYABM doesn’t deserve any mercy whatsoever. So, if he fails to address one of Lercymoth’s arguments, Lercymoth automaticaly wins.

Second rule: if SYABM completely dismisses Lercymoth’s arguments as “irrelevant”, SYABM automatically loses. Again, SYABM deserves no mercy whatsoever. If he doesn’t bother to make a counter-argument, then he doesn’t have one.

>Yes, people some people got shot, but:

There’s an old saying; what comes after the ‘but’ is the real argument. It’s generally reliable. Especially when you’re being vague about identifying folks in this sentence when you’re ostensibly acknowledging victimhood of the recent DC protesters, but very precise in the following ones when you want to assign blame, or claim BLM are victims

This is a “tone argument”. SYABM isn't addressing Lercymoth's argument; he's whining about the way Lercymoth is presenting it.

Since SYABM isn't actually addressing Lercymoth's argument, this paragraph is worthless. Lercymoth wins.

>let crowd in

Yes, because they were outnumbered, IIRC. They physically couldn’t keep the crowd out without killing people.

Surprisingly, SYABM might actually have a point here.

Unfortunately, I have no intention of giving him mercy. SYABM conveniently forgets that the police has no problem whatsoever with killing black people for being potentially threatening. So why the disparity here? SYABM doesn't explain it, therefore Lercymoth automatically wins.

>took selfies

So you’re implying a few pictures obviates being shot?

SYABM is deliberately missing the point. The point is that the cops decided to be friendly with the insurgents despite the fact that they aren't supposed to be buddy-buddy with insurgents who are attempting a coup.

SYABM automatically loses, since he deliberately avoided addressing Lercymoth’s argument. Lercymoth wins.

>Had to to get attention

There are several things wrong with this statement.

So let me get this straight.  you think government officials don’t care about the lives and livelihoods of black people.  and so, you decided the best way to fix this problem is by destroying the lives and livelihoods of black people...

Nope. Black people didn't choose to protest. The violent reaction of the police, coupled with decades of racism, caused the riots.

Martin Luther King Jr. said that “a riot is the language of the unheard”; and this is precisely what is currently happening. We're at the point where riots WILL happen, regardless of what black or white people want; and the only way to fix this is by addressing the cause of the riot. Continuing to blame black people without fixing the racist police system addresses the symptom, not the cause; and on top of that, it's precisely the mindset that caused the riots in the first place.

Also, 93% of all BLM since May have been peaceful (https://time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/) - and that's if we count “spraying graffiti” and “responding to an unjustified attack from cops/white supremacists” as violence. The vast majority of the violence came from white supremacists and cops. Therefore, any discussion about the violence that happened during the protests that DOESN'T acknowledge this is intrinsically dishonest, and therefore must be dismissed.

Ah, also this bit:

in fact some of them are still claiming it.  like aridara.   he implied the riots themselves by blm were all peaceful,  but any actual violence?  clearly that was done by undercover cops and 88ers.

Yeah, SYABM just made that up. As fucking usual. Rest of the section dismissed due to SYABM's dishonesty. Lercymoth wins.

>rubber bullets

 yeah it’s literally impossible to aim those with precision outside of point Blank  range. you cannot reliably shoot somebody in the eye from more than a  foot or two away.

SYABM is missing the point. Lercymoth was talking about cases where people were shot directly with rubber bullets. Keep in mind that EVERY training says that rubber bullets must be aimed towards the ground, so that they bounce off and lose power before hitting the protesters. The sheer amount of times cops violated this basic training, and the fact that they violated such a basic rule, shows us that these aren't accidental cases; these are deliberate actions.

SYABM, instead, claims that the cops couldn't reliably aim at people's eyes, therefore cops didn't deliberately shoot rubber bullets directly at people. Which is bullshit logic. Rest of the paragraph dismissed. Lercymoth wins.

>fascist

Nope. People literally called the cops ‘troops’, including news sources, and called him fascist for sending them in.

SYABM is once again missing the point. Trump sent in federal cops to arrest people without any charge, kidnap them off the streets, and transport them to federal buildings without telling anyone.

Rest of the paragraph dismissed. Lercymoth wins. Again: if SYABM wants to disprove Lercymoth's arguments, then SYABM must actually talk about Lercymoth's arguments. If SYABM talks about other stuff without actually addressing Lercymoth's arguments, then SYABM didn't disprove Lercymoth's arguments - which means that the latter wins by default.

All that other stuff? Irrelevant. My point was “the cops used much less force than they did in DC to protect Federal property in Portland,...

SYABM is once again missing Lercymoth's point, which is that cops use IMMEDIATE violence against BLM for stuff like peaceful protesting; while they treated the Capitol coupers with kid gloves. SYABM failed to disprove this (no, his bullshit cherry-picked example doesn’t count jack shit), therefore Lercymoth wins by default. The end.

It’s funny you should mention Ted Wheeler, when he’s one of the people the rioters harassed. And the tear gas incident in July was when he was an anonymous face in the crowd, wearing a mask,...

This is false. As usual, SYABM just lies, lies, lies without bringing any source to back up his own claims. In fact, whenever he makes a claim without bothering to bring up any source, the chances that he's lying increase considerably.

Anyway, rest of the section dismissed because it's based on a lie. Lercymoth wins.

>- Putting fucking children in concentration camps. (They’re not detainment centers. Those don’t have fences cages with tin foil blankets.)

How exactly do you detain people without fences and walls?

SYABM is once again missing the point. Lercymoth specifically said “fence cages”; SYABM, instead, talks about fences and walls. SYABM refuses to address Lercyomth’s argument, therefore he abandons the competition; Lercymoth wins.

>No one wants the idea that the White House raiders being treated better than BLM to be true. 

Really? No one wants to claim BLM are treated worse because of racism? Not a single person?

SYABM is once again missing the point. Lercymoth is pointing out that nobody wants X to be true; but X is true so people claim that X is true. Because it IS.

SYABM cherry-picks Lercymoth's argument into “nobody […] claim that X is true”. Which is a massive strawman. Which means that SYABM isn't attacking Lercymoth's actual argument – which means that Lercymoth, once again, wins by default.

And that's it. Literally ALL of Lercymoth's arguments win by default, because Siryouarebeingmocked is too coward, dishonest and spineless to actually try to disprove them.

[vinca-majors]

Michaela Brown, ScaryMommy:

Upon graduating college with my hard-earned degree to teach high school English, I almost immediately began planning for  my graduate studies. Lots of high schools around the country require their teachers to have a masters degree, so that was a motivator. Plus, it came with a pay raise. And, I truly enjoyed going to school. In fact, at the time, I hadn’t ruled out going on and earning my doctorate as well.

I did end up graduating with my M.A. in secondary education, after writing a thesis I’m damn proud of. My path changed a bit and I never went on for my doctorate, but you can be sure as hell if I had that I’d claim that Dr. title. That my students—even the grumpiest of teenagers whose eyes shot daggers at me as I made them read Shakespearean sonnets—would be calling me Dr. and not Mrs. or Miss.

And as I’ve encountered other professionals with that Dr. title, I’ve never hesitated to refer to them that way. My children’s formal principal went by Dr. Matthews. No one questioned it. I’ve had professors at the undergraduate and graduate level use the title. Again, that’s what we all called them. With respect. And without hesitation. Just as we refer to famous figures like a man we’ve all heard of—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.— because each of these people put in the work, the years, the money, the commitment, and the dedication. Each of them earned their Dr. title.

So yeah, when Dr. Jill Biden completed her education and earned her Doctor of Education (Ed.D) from the University of Delaware, she rightfully earned the title “Dr.” and deserves to be referred to as such. Just as any other professional with that level of expertise does as well. Is she a medical doctor? No. Does she claim to be? No. Have professionals in academia added Dr. to their titles once they’ve earned their doctorate for centuries? Yes.

However, because some ignorant asswipes remain stuck in 1950, or don’t understand how higher education works, or simply are bound and determined to hate on the Bidens as they hated on the Obamas even though they are kind and supportive of others—regardless of political party, her title is under scrutiny.

The Wall Street Journal stupidly published an op-ed, which has now gone viral, that was moronically entitled, “Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D.” And, of course, this piece of trash essay included a byline that reads, “Jill Biden should think about dropping the honorific, which feels fraudulent, even comic.”

Joseph Epstein, the “writer” of this ignorant word vomit, opens by condescendingly calling Dr. Biden “kiddo” and offering her advice, as if he is in any position to advise the First Lady of the United States on literally anything. “Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill—kiddo: a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter,” Epstein mansplains.

He then goes on to insult her dissertation on student retention at community colleges, calling it “unpromising” and, in the same paragraph, refers to the idiotic but commonly used quip that no one can call themselves “doctor” unless they’ve delivered a child.

Let’s break this bullshittery down, shall we? First of all, Mr. Epstein, your piece reeks of envy. We’re sorry you didn’t have the… guts? courage? stamina? intelligence level? (who knows) to actually ever earn a doctorate, but you sound bitter. It’s not a good look. Also, it’s clear that you don’t respect the value of community colleges, which is where Dr. Biden has spent a large portion of her career. And, finally, the world now knows that you are threatened by smart women. Bravo.

Also, we’ll be sure to let all the medical doctors out there who’ve tirelessly fought COVID-19 this year, holding the hands of dying patients, and also those brilliant scientists who thankfully have brought us a vaccine that offers a beacon of hope, that they don’t get to call themselves “doctor” because they’ve never caught a newborn baby. I’m sure they’ll appreciate that tidbit of info from you—*checks notes*—a man with one single undergraduate degree, no earned doctorate, and zero medical expertise.

Basically, Mr. Epstein, it’s obvious that you have some personal issues you need to unpack. Maybe take some time over the holidays to do a little self-reflection? Like, why do you even care what title Dr. Biden goes by? Why are you so scared of women who are more successful than you?

Your piece then goes on a long, barely coherent rant about “honorary doctorates,” which is not what Dr. Biden has. If you’d like to blast the validity or point of bestowing honorary doctorates on celebrities like Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers, for example, go right ahead, but that has nothing to do with Dr. Biden. This lack of cohesive argument is why I’ve referred to you as a “writer” a few paragraphs up, because it seems apparent that you don’t understand the need for basic textual support.

(Calling you a jealous asswipe, well, that’s just a reflection of your character.)

Finally, your last “supporting argument” (again, use of quotes intentional here) as to why Dr. Biden should drop her title is because apparently doctorates don’t count anymore. Back in the day, you explain, doctoral exams were far more grueling, but today’s candidates get off way too easy.

“One had to pass examinations in two foreign languages, one of them Greek or Latin, defend one’s thesis, and take an oral examination on general knowledge in one’s field,” your op-ed states. “At Columbia University of an earlier day, a secretary sat outside the room where these examinations were administered, a pitcher of water and a glass on her desk. The water and glass were there for the candidates who fainted. A far cry, this, from the few doctoral examinations I sat in on during my teaching days, where candidates and teachers addressed one another by first names and the general atmosphere more resembled a kaffeeklatsch.”

(I had to look up what kaffeeklatsch meant—it’s an informal social gathering at which coffee is served. Excuse my lack of knowledge there. I’m just a silly woman with a higher degree than you.)

And, as you end with, “Dr. Jill, I note you acquired your Ed.D. as recently as 15 years ago at age 55, or long after the terror had departed,” you not only insult her by addressing her as “Dr. Jill”, but you also imply that because she likely didn’t faint while taking her exams or defending her dissertation, that somehow her degree isn’t real.

That’s the crazy thing about education—it evolves. Today, kids even use these neat little things called computers! You wouldn’t believe it. Another way we’ve evolved is to realize that shockingly, our doctoral candidates don’t have to become physically ill to prove they are smart and worthy of their degree!

(I mean, you never even tried, Mr. Epstein, so I guess even today, doctoral programs are only for the toughest among us, like Dr. Jill Biden.)

Also, it seems that Northwestern University, where you were previously listed as “emeritus lecturer of English,” has scrubbed you entirely from their website, stating that it is “firmly committed to equity, diversity and inclusion, and strongly disagrees with Epstein’s misogynistic views.” Again, evolution! Change is good.

Hmmm. So one of you is a misogynist with no teaching history to even brag about as your previous employer has disassociated with you, and another is a successful educator committing to helping all Americans have access to a proper education. Oh, and the second one goes by Dr.

Looks like the real “comical fraud” is you, bruh.

And just so we’re clear, Dr. Biden has always been committed to ensuring that everyone (not just pretentious twats like you, Joseph Epstein) has access to a fair education. Earlier in her career, she worked in a psychiatric hospital where she taught English to adolescents with emotional disabilities. During that same time she also earned two (yes, TWO) master’s degrees, one from Villanova University and one from West Chester University. In 2009, after earning her doctorate, she began teaching English at Northern Virginia Community College, and advocating for community college education has since been her passion. “Dr. Biden has always said that community colleges are ‘one of America’s best-kept secrets.’ As a teacher, she sees how community colleges have changed the lives of so many of her students for the better,” explains former president Barack Obama’s White House website.

Sorry, Mr. Epstein, but not everyone can afford to enroll in an English class at Northwestern taught by a raging sexist who gets his balls in a bunch when women succeed. For many, community college is a better fit, and Dr. Biden is a big part of that.

“In 2012, she traveled across the country as part of the ‘Community College to Career’ tour to highlight successful industry partnerships between community colleges and employers,” the website goes on to say. “In the fall of 2010, she hosted the first-ever White House Summit on Community Colleges with President Obama, and she continues to work on this outreach on behalf of the Administration – frequently visiting campuses, meeting with students and teachers, as well as industry representatives around the country.”

Imagine all of the hard-working Americans Dr. Biden has helped by supporting community colleges. Future teachers just like her often get their degree while working full time, raising a family, and going to college at night. Who knows, some of them may even—gasp—go to grad school too. High school kids who choose to forego going away to a full-time university and instead, take classes at a community college closer to home, are given that option because of people like Dr. Biden. Kids who go on to be EMTs, police officers, technicians in trade industries, engineers, and find success in the business world. Or, they transfer those college credits to a larger university down the road when they have the means to do so. Single moms doing their best to give their children a good life often attend community college classes online, after their children are asleep, proving that they have the drive and determination to do more and be more.

So, what it all boils down to, Mr. Epstein, is that you really, really hate that there’s about to a woman in the White House who’s smarter than you. And not only that, but she inspires women everywhere to work hard, earn their degrees, and then they’ll be smarter than you too. Yikes. That’s a tough pickle to be in, Mr. Epstein. We’re sorry that you are so insecure and unhappy with your own lack of success.

At least you can still wrote those stellar op-eds though! Good luck with your “writing” career, kiddo.

[eventually-getting-it-together]

I have this disgusting habit of making weekly to do lists that stress me out and have entirely too much on them and then remaking that list about 2848573 different times. I also do it right before I go to bed to stress myself out. It's hard to stay organized this semester because all my classes are online + post at different times + have different length modules + I have to do things like read a textbook, but obviously there aren't due dates for that specifically.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Today was productive for being MLK Day.

○ wrote an initial discussion board post (4 solid paragraphs because the questions I had to thoroughly answer required that and my peers also thought so)

○ made 2 replies to that discussion board

○ walked one of my dogs

○ picked up a little coffee treat while socially distancing

○ completed a pre-quiz (I'm not worried so much how I did but more so how it'll be graded and whether I followed her strange uploading and answering directions)

○ cleaned up a laptop a little bit (I'm trying to rehab a dinosaur laptop so I don't have to be as limited by my chromebook)

○ read part of a book of Martin Luther King Junior's essays/speeches I have

[chiseler]

Kazan, Covid, Etc. -- Another Amazing Letter from Composer David Amram

Dear Daniel:

Thank for this nice message, to help fill the first day of the New Year with some POSITIVE ENERGY!

I'm so happy that you could see The Arrangement.

It was based on Elia Kazan's book of his own life story, describing  his struggles in reconciling his Old World/New World identities.

If someone could interview me, I can rap out a whole article in 35 minutes TOPS (in sentences and paragraphs) as I have told the stories to friends numerous times since 1969  about all the adventures getting the mistrustful but GREAT traditional musicians  from Greece, Turkey, Egypt and  Morocco into the recording studio with symphony players and even having to have the musicians ask Kazan for his driver’s licence o prove it was really him since they couldn't believe he would come to the Egyptian Gardens on 8th Ave with me to hear them. And how he prepared a banquet of Middle Eastern food and bottles of Retzina wine at the recording studio before we played a note and paid them in fresh 100 dollar bills BEFORE we began recording.

He explained to me hat he understood how they felt because as a child he had come here with his family as immigrants and remembered the mistrust that every one just off the boat felt!

I am so swamped and such a slow typist, it would take me a week to write it all up, and…. I am  swamped, working on my fourth book, a new commission and over 200 e-mails to answer and re-scheduling 20+ concerts which were postponed during to Covid

BUT….You know how much I love Chiseler and all you do so let's find a way to do it!

I can speak on my cell or on ZOOM

The past few months have been a crash course in dealing with the unknown and finding a way to survive and appreciate being alive when so many friends aren't that fortunate. Being forced off the merry-go-round makes us all think and re-think about what we are doing in our lives and why we are doing it. I have had a chance the last few months to have enough time to realize that we are all just like a group of good natured moths floating around a great outdoor lamp, hoping not  to get stuck on any nearby  flypaper as we circle about, hoping to get some of that holy light to shine on us.

i finally realized that  the only way to deal with this addiction is to develop your OWN inner light, become your own version of that  lamp yourself, and shine it on all our other fellow moths so that they can do the same for all their friends and family.

Last March,  I was really  psyched up up  to hear my latest piece Global Suite for Winds, Brass and Percussion, where its world premiere  was scheduled to take place in December of 2020 at Harvard. The university had commissioned me to compose it and had invited me to be  there for  the premiere, which was a kick=off  for a whole week-long series of events in Boston, all to celebrate my BIG 90th .

Since I couldn't even get into Harvard when I applied in 1948, it was a real thrill to be commissioned by them to compose this piece.

I was in the home stretch of completing the final movement last March (three  months ahead of my deadline for the  first rehearsal) when I heard the news that Cyrus the Virus was taking over the world and that all concerts and public events were either being cancelled or postponed for EVERYBODY!. Suddenly all 13  events scheduled to take place over the USA and overseas  celebrating my upcoming 90th were either postponed, rescheduled or were in limbo!!

When people asked me how I felt about  that, I reminded them that when Miles Davis created his masterful 1959 album Kind of Blue, he  named one of his great songs So What.                                                                              

I also mentioned that Robert Frost said, at the end of his life that he finally understood what life was all about . He said…."In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."

And as my favorite Scottish 18th Century jazz poet Robert Burns said "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry "

So we have to count and share our blessings and remember the old prayer veahavta lereacha kamocha  (from from Levitcus 19:1819:18), which tells us to love your neighbor  as you love yourself (as well as your own family and friends.).

Every major religion in the world has a form of this prayer as a fundamental for how we should behave towards  one another….. and it's FREE advice!!!!

Because this way of living has no price tag,  that doesn't mean that this advise is worthless

Like most ancient forms of wisdom which have survived for 1000s of years because they WORK, this simple prayer  is PRICELESS!!

So you don't need a badge, a secret handshake, a Guru with a limo, a psychiatrist or a dope dealer to feel good!

This prayer is the basis for what we call The Golden Rule.

Recently I spoke to Sonny Rollins  on the phone.We have known one another since 1955 when I was playing with Mingus and are the same age. I asked him if he was o.k. up in Woodstock, since he can't play anymore and is housebound

He said he was fine, but that all of us were so fixated on the Virus that we forgot about the Golden Rule and that we should devote ourselves to following it each day as our number one priority!! "That's all I think about" he said."We are all just here for a while and then turn to dust. But the spirit lasts forever"

So we all have to all find a way to use this time in a constructive way rather than freaking out with desires of returning to the old AB-NORMAL. The rallying cry of Full Greed Ahead is now on hold, and we are all now forced to slow down a little.

In spite of all the current craziness, the new year of 2021 will be a NEW BEGINNING, just like Phoenix rising from the ashes!!

Cyrus the Virus will soon be in the same solitary basement broom closet along with our now FORMER EX=Shyster-in-Chief.

We can soon all celebrate that they can both finally be ignored as has-beens, stored in  the back of the broom closet of  the Museum of the Deservedly Forgotten

We can all take a deep breath and on New Years Eve sing a verse of Woody Guthrie's classic farewell song "So long it's been good to know ya'

I told my daughter Adira that since I couldn't get a MacArthur Grant in order  to be able to sit at home and compose music day and night, I now am the recipient of the highly coveted Cyrus the Virus Composer's Grant and can sit at home and write music day and night . And I didn't even need to apply for this. So  if we stay the course….in 200 years …..EVERYTHING WILL BE COOL!!!

In the meantime, let's enjoy every precious second of life.

Our best days are yet to come!!!!

With big hugs (properly social distancing, I send you and your wife, Ratso and his wife and the great Natalia and all her friends wishes for  fun celebrating of ALL of the Holidays…….. (Hannukka, Christmas, Kwanza,  Ramadan, New Years, Martin Luther King Day, Chinese New Year,  Puerto Rico Emancipation Day, Lincoln's Birthday.St Patrick's Day, Armenian International Womens Day, and Billy Holiday herself!)

Until our paths cross again,

Naches and Nachos

David (STILL a promising young composer,

in spite of my speedometer assigning me

to becoming a Nonagenarian) ...

[arcticdementor]

But police violence, and Trump’s daily assaults on the presidential competence standard, are only part of the disaster. On the other side of the political aisle, among self-described liberals, we’re watching an intellectual revolution. It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.

The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation. They are counting on the guilt-ridden, self-flagellating nature of traditional American progressives, who will not stand up for themselves, and will walk to the Razor voluntarily.

They’ve conned organization after organization into empowering panels to search out thoughtcrime, and it’s established now that anything can be an offense, from a UCLA professor placed under investigation for reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” out loud to a data scientist fired* from a research firm for — get this — retweeting an academic study suggesting nonviolent protests may be more politically effective than violent ones!

Now, this madness is coming for journalism. Beginning on Friday, June 5th, a series of controversies rocked the media. By my count, at least eight news organizations dealt with internal uprisings (it was likely more). Most involved groups of reporters and staffers demanding the firing or reprimand of colleagues who’d made politically “problematic” editorial or social media decisions.

…

In the most discussed incident, Times editorial page editor James Bennet was ousted for green-lighting an anti-protest editorial by Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton entitled, “Send in the troops.”

I’m no fan of Cotton, but as was the case with Michael Moore’s documentary and many other controversial speech episodes, it’s not clear that many of the people angriest about the piece in question even read it. In classic Times fashion, the paper has already scrubbed a mistake they made misreporting what their own editorial said, in an article about Bennet’s ouster.

…

As Cotton points out in the piece, he was advancing a view arguably held by a majority of the country. A Morning Consult poll showed 58% of Americans either strongly or somewhat supported the idea of “calling in the U.S. military to supplement city police forces.” That survey included 40% of self-described “liberals” and 37% of African-Americans. To declare a point of view held by that many people not only not worthy of discussion, but so toxic that publication of it without even necessarily agreeing requires dismissal, is a dramatic reversal for a newspaper that long cast itself as the national paper of record.

Incidentally, that same poll cited by Cotton showed that 73% of Americans described protecting property as “very important,” while an additional 16% considered it “somewhat important.” This means the Philadelphia Inquirer editor was fired for running a headline – “Buildings matter, too” – that the poll said expressed a view held by 89% of the population, including 64% of African-Americans.

…

The main thing accomplished by removing those types of editorials from newspapers — apart from scaring the hell out of editors — is to shield readers from knowledge of what a major segment of American society is thinking.

It also guarantees that opinion writers and editors alike will shape views to avoid upsetting colleagues, which means that instead of hearing what our differences are and how we might address those issues, newspaper readers will instead be presented with page after page of people professing to agree with one another. That’s not agitation, that’s misinformation.

The instinct to shield audiences from views or facts deemed politically uncomfortable has been in evidence since Trump became a national phenomenon. We saw it when reporters told audiences Hillary Clinton’s small crowds were a “wholly intentional” campaign decision. I listened to colleagues that summer of 2016 talk about ignoring poll results, or anecdotes about Hillary’s troubled campaign, on the grounds that doing otherwise might “help Trump” (or, worse, be perceived that way).

…

All these episodes sent a signal to everyone in a business already shedding jobs at an extraordinary rate that failure to toe certain editorial lines can and will result in the loss of your job. Perhaps additionally, you could face a public shaming campaign in which you will be denounced as a racist and rendered unemployable.

…

Even people who try to keep up with protest goals find themselves denounced the moment they fail to submit to some new tenet of ever-evolving doctrine, via a surprisingly consistent stream of retorts: fuck you, shut up, send money, do better, check yourself, I’m tired and racist.

…

Each passing day sees more scenes that recall something closer to cult religion than politics. White protesters in Floyd’s Houston hometown kneeling and praying to black residents for “forgiveness… for years and years of racism” are one thing, but what are we to make of white police in Cary, North Carolina, kneeling and washing the feet of Black pastors? What about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer kneeling while dressed in “African kente cloth scarves”?

There is symbolism here that goes beyond frustration with police or even with racism: these are orgiastic, quasi-religious, and most of all, deeply weird scenes, and the press is too paralyzed to wonder at it. In a business where the first job requirement was once the willingness to ask tough questions, we’ve become afraid to ask obvious ones.

On CNN, Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender was asked a hypothetical question about a future without police: “What if in the middle of the night, my home is broken into? Who do I call?” When Bender, who is white, answered, “I know that comes from a place of privilege,” questions popped to mind. Does privilege mean one should let someone break into one’s home, or that one shouldn’t ask that hypothetical question? (I was genuinely confused). In any other situation, a media person pounces on a provocative response to dig out its meaning, but an increasingly long list of words and topics are deemed too dangerous to discuss.

The media in the last four years has devolved into a succession of moral manias. We are told the Most Important Thing Ever is happening for days or weeks at a time, until subjects are abruptly dropped and forgotten, but the tone of warlike emergency remains: from James Comey’s firing, to the deification of Robert Mueller, to the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, to the democracy-imperiling threat to intelligence “whistleblowers,” all those interminable months of Ukrainegate hearings (while Covid-19 advanced), to fury at the death wish of lockdown violators, to the sudden reversal on that same issue, etc.

It’s been learned in these episodes we may freely misreport reality, so long as the political goal is righteous. It was okay to publish the now-discredited Steele dossier, because Trump is scum. MSNBC could put Michael Avenatti on live TV to air a gang rape allegation without vetting, because who cared about Brett Kavanaugh – except press airing of that wild story ended up being a crucial factor in convincing key swing voter Maine Senator Susan Collins the anti-Kavanaugh campaign was a political hit job (the allegation illustrated, “why the presumption of innocence is so important,” she said). Reporters who were anxious to prevent Kavanaugh’s appointment, in other words, ended up helping it happen through overzealousness.

…

The traditional view of the press was never based on some contrived, mathematical notion of “balance,” i.e. five paragraphs of Republicans for every five paragraphs of Democrats. The ideal instead was that we showed you everything we could see, good and bad, ugly and not, trusting that a better-informed public would make better decisions. This vision of media stressed accuracy, truth, and trust in the reader’s judgment as the routes to positive social change.

For all our infamous failings, journalists once had some toughness to them. We were supposed to be willing to go to jail for sources we might not even like, and fly off to war zones or disaster areas without question when editors asked. It was also once considered a virtue to flout the disapproval of colleagues to fight for stories we believed in (Watergate, for instance).

Today no one with a salary will stand up for colleagues like Lee Fang. Our brave truth-tellers make great shows of shaking fists at our parody president, but not one of them will talk honestly about the fear running through their own newsrooms. People depend on us to tell them what we see, not what we think. What good are we if we’re afraid to do it?

[justforbooks]

Why is Bernard-Henri Lévy a public intellectual?

Before I picked up Bernard-Henri Lévy’s latest book, The Empire and the Five Kings, all I knew of him is that he’s a “public intellectual.” This phrase is used in nearly every description of Lévy (or BHL as he’s often called) and, along with Slavoj Žižek and Alain de Botton, he’s one of a handful of especially prominent public intellectuals in Europe. BHL’s that rare breed of thinker who is au fait with academic concepts, read by a popular audience, and can shape media conversations with just a few sentences of commentary.

Public intellectuals are often subject to derision from academic philosophers, who tend to view public engagement as a sign of lack of rigor, and so I wasn’t necessarily expecting traditional philosophy from Lévy’s book. But I didn’t expect to find such thoughtlessly pretentious writing.

The Empire and the Five Kings chronicles the decline of US influence abroad, and argues that five powers—China, Russia, Iran, Turkey and Sunni radical Islamism—are poised to rise in its place. Lévy spends most of the book outlining the threat to global order and vulnerable populations, such as the Kurds and the Uighurs, posed by these five powers, only to conclude by admitting that, in reality, the five kings have “major handicaps” in achieving global influence. In a few brief paragraphs, he explains that they’re economically and politically weak, and ill-suited to global rule. “I am reassured by the idea that these dashers of hopes, these sowers of death, have less chance than they think to generate a narrative capable of competing with that of the heirs of Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem,” he writes. The conclusion entirely undermines the 250 or so pages that came before it.

For evidence of Lévy’s shallow thinking, look no further than his brief discussion of the United States’ ills as an empire. In one short paragraph, he acknowledges the “extermination of the American Indian” but says this has “been duly mourned.” And he devotes just a single sentence to slavery: “Likewise, there is the bloody shadow cast for so long by the smug practice of slavery—but then came Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Barack Obama.” That’s it: The horrors of slavery answered with one legal act and three prominent African Americans.

Over the course of the book, any insight or analysis is obscured by florid jargon or lazy attempts to pack a poetic punch. A segue into the ills of social media, for example, includes the claim that “The banquet has become a farce, a motley bazaar where it is forbidden, under penalty of being hauled before the international court of anti-discriminatory struggle, to defame the Harlequin’s coat of one’s neighbor.” The “banquet,” in BHL’s analysis, is the banquet of “truth” served up by social media; the “Harlequin’s coat” refers to the idea that each of us stitched together a “patchwork of beliefs and certitudes from bloody shards that soon began to rot and stink.” BHL seems to be presenting the unoriginal analysis that social media has led people to develop very fixed opinions that fall in line with their social circle, and that critiquing these views can quickly lead to charges of being offensive. Not only is this interpretation simple, but in this case, it’s obscured by empty, elaborate language.

Philosophers are certainly prominently featured in BHL’s book—he references Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche, Plato, and Bentham, among others—but stops short of any meaningful exploration of their ideas. Lévy reminisces about an afternoon in a cafe with the philosopher Jean Hyppolite who was “endeavoring, text in hand, to tell us the story of America according to Hegel, while miming…the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis of Hegel’s and Marx’s dialectics.” He does not, however, bother to discuss details of the thesis/antithesis/synthesis structure of Hegelian and Marxian dialectics. Like many of BHL’s philosophical references, the line reads as though he’s showing off his own knowledge of these buzzwords, rather than sincerely engaging with the concepts.

Elsewhere, BHL recounts how his friend, businessman Jean-Baptiste Descroix-Vernier highlighted the risks of data, revealing people’s “origins, their beliefs, their inclinations” from internet browsing, and adds: “He had put his finger on the triple effect—hedonist, economic, and possibly tyrannical—that Foucault had anticipated in his theory of bio powers but did not live long enough to see put into practice. (The ‘encroachment of death,’ in Nietzschean terms, prevented Foucault from becoming old enough to savor his bitter victory.)” This sentence is not part of a broader discussion of Foucault’s or Nietzsche’s ideas only, again, a shallow reference to their existence.

I’m hardly the first to note that BHL is insufferable. It turns out the thinker is as renowned for his irritating grandiosity as for his public intellectual status. “Pomposity and self-promotion are his vices,” wrote Paul Berman in the New Yorker in 1995, adding: “[H]e ascended into the Parisian heavens of television celebrity and became famous for being smart—or was it for being famous?” A New York Times review of a book of letters Lévy co-authored with French author Michel Houellebecq said that the writing could have been “a brilliant satire on the vanity of writers.” But, alas, wrote Ian Buruma for the Times, it’s “all in deadly earnest.”

How did a man so often described as inane come to be regarded as a public intellectual? BHL first became famous in 1977 when he published La Barbarie à visage humain (Barbarism with a Human Face), which critiqued both far-right and far-left politics. The book quickly sold more than 100,000 copies, and is largely credited with pushing the left in France to be more critical of communist principles.

Lévy became known as the founder of the “New Philosophers,” a circle of male thinkers including André Glucksman, Alain Finkielkraut, and Pascal Bruckner, who were predominantly disavowed former Marxists, eager to critique the Soviet Union. France has a long history of philosophical “schools”; the most famous perhaps is the Jean-Paul Sartre school of existentialism. But, though the self-described “New Philosophers” modelled themselves in this vein, they were critiqued as vacuous. French philosopher Gilles Deleuze accused the New Philosophers of creating “philosophical marketing,” rather than a genuine school of thought.

Many academics and journalists are capable of writing popular books about politics. What sets BHL apart is his ability to court public attention. He inherited both immense wealth (his father financed a newspaper BHL founded, L’Imprévu; it lasted just 11 issues) and connections (his father was close friends with billionaire François Pinault, for example). He’s since made his own connections with politicians and film producers alike. He’s clearly adept at self-promotion and, as with so many famous and controversial men, he delights in creating news by making derogatory comments about women. BHL has stridently defended the French-Polish film director Roman Polanski who was convicted of rape, saying “there are degrees in the scale of crimes,” as well as Dominique Strauss Kahn, the former French director of the International Monetary Fund who was accused of sexual assault, saying the women who accused him sensed a “global opportunity”. It would certainly be appealing, for anyone who holds similarly misogynistic views, to hear them echoed by a man who claims to be an intellectual.

When we met in New York in February, I found BHL less irritating in person than he is in writing. He still showed signs of vanity: He wore his trademark white shirt with the top half unbuttoned, carefully presented his best angles for photographs, and looked into the distance throughout our conversation, as though to a distant crowd. But he’s less prone to lengthy pontifications while speaking. His commentary was far from profound, but came across more bland than pretentious.

For example, I asked him to clarify why he thought China, Russia, Iran, Turkey and radical Sunni Islamism were the nations currently most intent in gaining power—what evidence was he basing his theories on? “It’s what I saw when I was on the battlefield in Kurdistan,” he said, referring to the 2017 referendum for independence. “This is the place where I had the clear vision of this situation, when I saw my beloved French Kurds abandoned by America and delivered to our common enemies—”. Here he paused, and snapped his fingers in front of his face. “I had the evidence of the new geopolitical situation.” It seemed true to him, so why bother presenting evidence to us?

Throughout our conversation, BHL kept his mobile phone on the table, and occasionally picked up his phone and pressed a few buttons before putting it back down. He pocketed only when he started to critique public infatuation with social media. “I cannot understand how people can mistrust Le Monde or France Television and trust Facebook,” he said. “I would do the opposite. But at least, I would ask my fellow citizen to share the mistrust.”

While Lévy’s ideas are unremarkable, his ability to claim public attention is striking. His lengthy career is a reminder that cultivating a controversial persona to build fame and fortune is hardly a technique invented by reality TV or social media. At this point, barring some unforeseen controversy, there’s little chance BHL will lose his role as as a preeminent public intellectual. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from him in a different way: Lévy is a man immersed in the impersonation of intellect, and a reminder that we should choose our public intellectuals based on their ideas, rather than their performance.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[theculturedmarxist]

The Freedom Quilting Bee is a quilting cooperative established in 1966 by a group of African American women in the community of Rehoboth, 46 miles from Selma, in Wilcox County. The groups arose during the civil rights movement and is heralded for having spawned a renaissance in the popularity of quilting in American interior décor in the 1960s. The Freedom Quilting Bee has in recent years been confused with the nationally known Gee's Bend Quilters Collective, a group of quilters who reside in the nearby community of Boykin (formerly Gee's Bend). Some quilters in the Freedom Quilting Bee have belonged to both groups.  

The Freedom Quilting Bee was born in the civil rights movement as a way for poor black craftswomen in the Alabama Black Belt to earn money for their families. Most of the members rallied for voting rights in the Selma-to-Montgomery March, or in Camden, the Wilcox County seat. Despite the passage of civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965, a direct outcome of the Selma march, the region remained in turmoil.

An Episcopal priest, Father Francis X. Walter, a Mobile native, had come home to Alabama from a church in New Jersey to head the Selma Inter-religious Project (SIP), a coalition of 10 nationwide religious denominations serving as a spiritual presence in Selma in the aftermath of the march. While lost driving around near the remote community of Possum Bend in Wilcox County, he spied a clothesline with three quilts in bold, primary colors, unlike any he had seen before. As he approached the home to inquire about the quilts, a black woman who saw him coming fled to the back woods. Such were race relations in the Black Belt, even after passage of the Voting Rights Act. Soon after that backwoods encounter with Ora McDaniels, he stopped by the home of another local African American quilter to discuss the works. At the time, the Op Art movement, which focused on bold geometric shapes and patterns, was popular in the art world of New York City. Walter saw similar themes expressed in the patterns on the quilts and believed that the quilters around Selma could benefit from forming a quilting coalition to fund civil rights activities. After a friend in New York suggested a quilt auction as a fund raiser, Walter met with Ella Saulsbury, a local field representative from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and then returned with her to visit McDaniels to discuss placing some of the Wilcox county quilts in the auction.

An informal group soon coalesced to collect quilts for sale at the New York auction. As Walter went door-to-door for the project, however, sentiment emerged among the quilters for a more organized, permanent quilting cooperative for black craftswomen in the area. Quilter Minder Coleman of Alberta, former president of Gee's Bend Farms, Inc., a New Deal cooperative agricultural community, envisioned a quilting business and offered to serve as chair. Momentum gathered for the establishment of a cooperative, with members earning the proceeds from sales of the quilts. Thus, on March 26, 1966, the Freedom Bee was officially organized, and those present elected officers, set up a board of directors, and adopted a charter. The group counted 60 members from across the Black Belt, with its nucleus in Rehoboth (also known then as Route 1, Alberta), because that was the home of manager Estelle Witherspoon, a skilled and politically savvy community leader.

In New York, Walter arranged for friends to stage two quilt auctions that were promoted as ways to help black women fighting for civil rights in the South. Produced by former Alabamians, the first auction, held on March 27, 1966, took place in a photography studio near Central Park West. Advertising consisted of a promotional flyer, a sign in the studio window, and word of mouth. One of the promoters also arranged for New York City wholesale home furnishings fabric houses to donate and ship cloth scraps to Rehobeth for use in the quilts. The second auction was held on May 24, 1966, in the basement hall of the Unitarian-Universalist Community Church of New York. By that time, the promoters found a communications professional to do volunteer publicity, placing a paragraph in The New York Times, courtesy of a Mississippi-born reporter, as well as printing posters and spreading the word. 

Prior to that first auction, Walter had travelled up and down the roads in the area, asking for quilts to be shipped off. Some women took stitchwork directly from their beds. Patterns reflected styles spanning at least a century of black quilting in the area, including the Roman Cross, Pine Burr, and Chestnut Bud. Especially poignant to prospective buyers were worn-out denim swatches made from blue jeans after their owners could no longer wear them in the corn and cotton fields. The auctions stirred momentum, and quilts went from $10-15 to $100 and upwards after the first two events. Famed New York decorator Sister Parrish purchased quilted works from the co-op for use in decorating her clients' homes, and Vogue editor Diana Vreeland promoted the quilting styles in the influential fashion magazine. High-end department stores such as Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue bought quilts to sell to their customers, and The New York Times covered the group and generated publicity for the women and their work. 

The quilts caught the attention of influential artists, including painter Lee Krasner, widow of abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock, and the quilters exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution. Promoters from New York ran sewing schools at the co-op building that rose up in a former cornfield in Alberta. The women learned to conduct business, and for the first time, they earned money, enabling them to acquire indoor bathrooms and roofs that did not leak and to provide their children with high school graduation rings and college tuition. They also spurred a nationwide quilting revival. 

In the 1970s, the co-op decided to limit the number of patterns it produced to meet market requirements. The quilters no longer crafted original, one-of-a-kind showpieces, and the change drew some criticism. But members were committed to improving their lives and the lives of their children and raising the economic standards in their community. In addition to quilting, the group filled sewing contracts for Sears, sold works through larger co-ops, and took on projects through the New York-based Rural Development Leadership Network. By the mid-1990s, many of the members had retired, died, or taken steadier jobs outside the county, and the Freedom Quilting Bee lost the momentum. 

Despite these changes, a small group continued the work. Local students received summer training. Then in 2004, Hurricane Ivan damaged the Bee's traditional workplace, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Sewing Center, causing the handful of remaining quilters to work in the living room of manager Rennie Miller. Retired from management in New York state, Miller had received a college education paid for in part by monies earned by her mother, Nettie Young, an early member of the Freedom Quilting Bee. Another member, Lucy Marie Mingo, was the most educated member, having studied on scholarship at Spring Hill College in Mobile. One of her quilts is now in the possession of the Birmingham Museum of Art.

Renovations to the portions of the building with storm damage have never been completed because of lack of community interest, among other obstacles. In May 2011, Nettie Young, the last living member of the original Freedom Quilting Bee and original board, died. Since that time, interest and participation in the group dwindled, and in 2012, Rennie Miller officially closed the Bee. She hopes to revive the historic co-op with help from outside sources.

additional:

http://www.ruraldevelopment.org/FQBhistory.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Quilting_Bee http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Freedom-Quilting-Bee,341.aspx