Thursday, May 07, 2015
"Constitutional speech protections wouldn’t be very strong if they did not include hate speech, since one person’s statement of hate is another’s statement of truth."
CNN Anchor Says Constitution Doesn’t Protect Hate Speech, Try Reading It. Okay, Let’s Do That. - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "As it turns out, the Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the First Amendment to protect all kinds of odious speech, including speech perceived to be hateful. Constitutional speech protections wouldn’t be very strong if they did not include hate speech, since one person’s statement of hate is another’s statement of truth. “George Bush is a war criminal” might be construed as a hateful statement if you’re George Bush, after all.
There are indeed limits on the First Amendment; the Supreme Court has held that “fighting words” and incitements to specific and imminent violence are not protected. But as recently as 2011, the Court ruled 8-1 that the Westboro Baptist Church had a First Amendment right to picket a military funeral and wave signs that read “You’re going to hell” and “Thank God for dead soldiers.”
In other words, it doesn’t look like the Court is ready to undertake some vast reinterpretation of the First Amendment that would possibly justify the claims of the “hate speech isn’t protected” brigade."
Unusually Stupid McClatchy Column Gets Free Speech Wrong | Popehat: "It was inevitable. I expected that in the wake of the attempted terrorist assault on a "draw Muhammad" event in Texas, people would write dumb things about speech. American journalists have not disappointed me. Well, they have disappointed me. But they've done it . . . . oh, you know what I meant. This is a target-rich environment, but let's take one example: this remarkably bad article at McClatchey by Lindsay Wise and Jonathan Landay. Wise and Landay, to steal a line from The Onion, ask the question other people are too smart to ask: "After Texas shooting: If free speech is provocative, should there be limits?" They begin by pointing out that the organizers of the Muhammad Art Exhibit arranged for extra security, suggesting that because they contemplated the risk of violence that they should not have spoken. But how is that a just or relevant standard? Would Wise and Landay approach Russian gay rights protestors and tell them to shut up because they could predict a bloody, brutal response from thugs? Would they rebuke the organizers of May Day marches, which seem reliably to produce violence by some bad actors?
...Much of the rest of the column is devoted to talking about how bad Pamela Geller is, and how the American Freedom Defense Initiative is a hate group. But this is irrelevant. You can talk to me all day about how Geller is a nasty, scary nutjob, and I'm unlikely to disagree much. But that has no bearing on whether her speech is, or should be, protected. We don't need a First Amendment to protect the soothing and the sensible. Wise and Landay don't answer their own question about "provocation" and don't provide their readers will tools to get closer to doing so. The answer is no. Speech should not be banned because it is "provocative," as they use that word. Accepting that premise gives every hothead in the world the right to control our speech by indulging their subjective reactions to it."
“The occupation of our brains by gods is the worst form of occupation.” - Abdullah Al Qasemi
Worth clicking over & reading in full. Invisible Atheists: The Spread of Disbelief in the Arab World | The New Republic: "While Arab states downplay the atheists among their citizens, the West is culpable in its inability to even conceive of an Arab atheist. In Western media, the question is not if Arabs are religious, but rather to what extent their (assumed) religiosity can harm the West. In Europe, the debate focuses on immigration (are “Muslim immigrants” adverse to secular freedoms?) while in the United States, the central topic is terrorism (are “Muslims” sympathetic to it?). As for the political debate, those on the right suspect “Muslims” of being hostile to individual freedoms and sympathetic to jihad, while leftists seek to exonerate “Muslims” by highlighting their “peaceful” and “moderate” religiosity. But no one is letting the Arab populations off the hook for their Muslimhood. Both sides base their argument on the premise that when it comes to Arab people, religiosity is an unquestionable given, almost an ethnic mandate embedded in their DNA...
"This January, a 21-year-old Egyptian student named Karim Al Banna was given a three-year jail sentence for “insulting Islam,” because he declared he is an atheist on Facebook. His own father testified against him. In February 2012, Saudi writer Hamza Kashgari was imprisoned for almost two years without trial over three tweets addressing the prophet Muhammad; the most controversial was, “I will not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do.” The following month, a Tunisian tribunal sentenced bloggers Ghazi Beji and Jabeur Mejri to seven years for “transgressing morality, defamation and disrupting public order,” after they posted satirical comments and cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Last year, Raif Badawi, the founder of Free Saudi Liberals, a blog discussing religion, was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes. And last December, Mauritanian columnist Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir was sentenced to death for penning a critique of his country’s caste system which traced its mechanisms back to decisions made by the prophet in the seventh century. The sentence is pending appeal.
Despite such draconian measures, the percentage of people who express some measure of religious doubt is higher in the Arab world (22 percent) than in South Asia (17 percent) and Latin America (16 percent). And that 22 percent is only an average; the percentage goes higher in some Arab countries, from 24 percent in Tunisia up to 37 percent in Lebanon. Considering the extent to which the Arab social and political environment impedes the expression of nonbelief, the numbers of doubters and atheists would likely be significantly higher if people felt freer to speak their minds.
...those who publicize their atheism in the Arab world are fighting less for freedom of conscience than for freedom of speech. It hasn’t always been so. Since the 1960s, larger-than-life Arab intellectuals, such as Palestinians Edward Said and Mahmoud Darwish and the Syrian Ali Ahmad Said Esber, also known as Adonis, haven’t shied away from challenging religious orthodoxy. Abdullah Al Qasemi, a Saudi writer who died in 1996 and is considered the godfather of Gulf atheists, famously declared, “The occupation of our brains by gods is the worst form of occupation.” Back then, such statements were much less of a problem. As the Associated Press’s Diaa Hadid reported in 2013, “In the 1960s and 1970s, secular leftists were politically dominant. It wasn’t shocking to express agnosticism. ... But the region grew more conservative starting in the 1980s, Islamists became more influential, and militants lashed out against any sign of apostasy.”"
[And the story of how one gets to atheism from religion pretty much transcends the particularities of specific faith. Not at all dissimilar to my emergence out of the Christianity I was raised in.]
"For the vast majority of Arab atheists, the road to disbelief begins as it did for Abdel-Samad, with personal doubts. They start to question the illogicalities found in the holy texts. Why are non-Muslims destined to hell, even though many of them are nice, decent people? Since God knows the future and controls everything, why would he put some people on the wrong path, then punish them as if he had nothing to do with their choices? Why is wine forbidden, yet virtuous Muslims are promised rivers of it in heaven? Such questions began bugging Amir Ahmad Nasr, Sudanese author of My Isl@m: How Fundamentalism Stole My Mind—and Doubt Freed My Soul, when he was twelve, and he brought them to his sheik, the imam of a mosque in Qatar. The answer he received—that doubting God’s commandments is haram (religiously illicit) and can only be inspired by the devil—only prompted him to continue digging. As Islam Ibrahim, the founder of an Arab atheist Facebook page, said: “I wanted to secure a spot in paradise, so I started studying the Quran and Muhammad’s teachings. But I found a lot of contradictory and bloody things and fantasies in it. ... Anyone who uses his brain five minutes in a neutral way will end up with the same conclusion.”"
"Twitter is the least quiet place I've ever been in my life..."
An update on yesterday's post.
Whedon Dismisses Claims He Quit Twitter Because Of "Militant Feminists" - Comic Book Resources: "The writer then clarified that he left the social network in order to focus on writing. “I just thought, 'Wait a minute, if I’m going to start writing again, I have to go to the quiet place,'” said Whedon. “And [Twitter] is the least quiet place I’ve ever been in my life. … It’s like taking the bar exam at Coachella. It’s like, 'Um, I really need to concentrate on this! Guys! Can you all just… I have to… It’s super important for my law!'”"
In related news, Mark Ruffalo seems like an awesome dude.
Training.
5/7 - bench [1RM/PR 120/264], chins, pushups, pulldowns, stretch - gtg/chins
How to Develop a Training Philosophy / Elite FTS: "The key to developing true mastery in this or any sport isn’t having a cursory knowledge of lots of stuff — it’s executing the basics at an extremely high level. Once you have a solid foundation in the basics, you can comfortably progress without seeing your core skills erode...
Every day you hear a lifter in a slump saying how he “has to go back to the basics.” Why is that? It’s because they never had the basics 100% right to begin with and tried to advance prematurely. That always catches up to you.
Execute what you know extremely well. It really helps if it’s the basics."
Super bonus points for the Wonder Woman outfit.
Wednesday, May 06, 2015
"Being shocked is part of democratic debate..."
Neil Gaiman on Twitter: "Gerard Biard, Charlie Hebdo editor in chief, gets a standing ovation at the #PENgala. This was how his speech ended."
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
"There's an ugly strain of social progressives that like to attack others for not being the "right" kind of progressives."
Avengers director Joss Whedon quits Twitter shortly after record-breaking Age of Ultron premiere | The Verge: "Avengers director, Buffy creator, and noted user of social media Joss Whedon has deleted his Twitter account shortly after the premiere of his latest movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron. Whedon, who used the service heavily and had 1.14 million followers, tweeted a thank-you message to "all the people who've been so kind and funny and inspiring up in here," shortly before closing his account."
Joss Whedon Just Quit Twitter | TIME: "Whedon’s departure did create a wave of speculation on Twitter that he closed his account because of “death threats.” A search of tweets directed at him over the past week definitely turned up some deep ugliness, with some of the abusive users urging him to “die” or “commit suicide” over plot points they didn’t like in Age of Ultron. Although these comments are clearly disturbing, there was no unifying complaint or groundswell of attack beyond just the random (but all-too-typical) viciousness of anonymous social media trolls."
James Gunn Calls for a Kinder, Gentler Fandom Following Joss Whedon's Twitter Disappearance - The Hollywood Reporter: ""The angry contingent of fandom is getting more aggressive all the time." A day after Joss Whedon shut down his Twitter account, prompting discussion about whether or not he was escaping criticism and threats resulting from Avengers: Age of Ultron's portrayal of women, James Gunn has taken to Facebook to make a plea for more polite social media. "Imagine being a guy like Joss Whedon, who has committed his life to fandom and to creating the best characters he possibly can, characters he loves and has spent two years of his life working on a movie and then has to wake up to this shit on Twitter," Gunn wrote at the start of a lengthy post on the site. "The angry contingent of fandom is getting more aggressive all the time, and it's difficult to block out as a person in the public eye."
..."It's easy to be outraged by these tweets. But whatever these angry tweeters are in need of, I don't think it's more anger and more rage thrown back at them on Twitter. I actually think that's what they're seeking. But what they need is something different. Compassion, maybe? A kind request for boundaries? I don't know. Maybe you guys have some ideas.""
"The future must belong to those who recognize a categorical difference between free expression and violent reprisals."
Free Speech Under Fire; Two Gunmen Killed at Texas "Draw Mohammed" Contest - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "The recent contest comes in the wake of the murder of staffers at Charlie Hebdo, the French magazine routinely and wrongly attacked as racist and reactionary...
Much of the commentary over this latest shooting will doubtless revolve the odiousness of Pamela Geller," her track record of "provocations," and the like.
That is simply besides the much larger and more important point that free speech is free speech and should never be challenged by the thug's veto or bullets or violence. The United States Constitution doesn't simply enshrine free speech in the First Amendment but also religious freedom and freedom of assembly. These things are all intertwined and an attack on one is an attack on the others.
Allowing infringements on any of that—whether out of sensitivity, fear, or distaste with particular groups (whether Charlie Hebdo or Geller)—is not a small thing and it's never a final thing, either. Giving in to violent reprisals doesn't end them, it only sets the stage for the next choking down of free expression and the openness of society.
...those who say we must rein in free speech are wrong now. The threats to speech are not simply emanating from terrorists who pledge allegiance to a demented form of Islamic theocracy. They are everywhere throughout America today and despite an ever-increasing number of platforms from which to speak, the plain fact is that "incursions against free speech and a truly unregulated marketplace of ideas" are also flourishing. The future must belong to those who recognize a categorical difference between free expression and violent reprisals. The future must belong to those who affirm speech over silence and freedom over fear, regardless of who is speaking and who is offended."
DOJ: DEA jailed & forgot about a student for 5 days. No food, no water, had to drink own urine to live. Nobody gets fired.
Leaving a Guy Imprisoned for Five Days Without Food, Water Not Enough to Get Fired from DEA - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Back in 2012, the DEA snatched up Daniel Chong near San Diego in a marijuana-related raid (it was April 20) of a friend’s home. Chong was not charged with any crime at the time. Instead, he was forgotten entirely. The problem was that Chong was forgotten while he was handcuffed in a DEA holding cell with no food and water. For five days. Chong survived, barely. His story became national news and he eventually extracted a $4.1 million settlement from the government. The story drew outrage at the time. The Los Angeles Times tracked down a letter from the Department of Justice to Congress that may inspire a new round of anger. Nobody was fired for what happened to Chong. They were barely punished at all: The Department of Justice letter said that DEA officials forwarded a report on the incident to a disciplinary board, the Board of Professional Conduct, without conducting its own investigation. The board issued four reprimands to DEA agents and a suspension without pay for five days to another. The supervisor in charge at the time was given a seven-day suspension...
Chong had to drink his own urine to survive and attempted to take his own life by cutting himself with the broken lenses of his glasses. He consumed a powdery substance he found in the cell, which turned out to be meth. (what kind of holding cell was this, anyway?)"
DEA agents jailed a student for 5 days without food, water — and just got a slap on the wrist - LA Times: "The Justice Department, in a letter to members of Congress obtained by the Los Angeles Times, said that “what happened to Mr. Chong is unacceptable” and that “the DEA’s failure to impose significant discipline on these employees further demonstrates the need for a systemic review of DEA’s disciplinary process.”
Chong, who was never charged with a crime, was kept in total isolation with his hands handcuffed behind his back in a windowless cell with no bathroom, calling out periodically for help. Midway through the ordeal someone turned off the light in his cell, leaving him in darkness...
When he was finally discovered he was delirious, with serious respiratory and breathing problems. He was hospitalized for four days, and he and his lawyers said at a news conference last summer that he underwent intensive therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder...
The Inspector General Report said that three DEA agents and a supervisor bore primary responsibility for Chong’s mistreatment and that the DEA San Diego Field Division lacked procedures to keep track of detainees. They were not named in the report. The Department of Justice letter said that DEA officials forwarded a report on the incident to a disciplinary board, the Board of Professional Conduct, without conducting its own investigation. The board issued four reprimands to DEA agents and a suspension without pay for five days to another. The supervisor in charge at the time was given a seven-day suspension."
Training.
5/5 - deadlifts, situps, back xt, walk, sauna
Jennifer Bricker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Jennifer Bricker (born October 1, 1987) is an American acrobat and aerialist. She is the sister of gymnast Dominique Moceanu. Born without legs, she was placed for adoption by her parents.She was a featured performer on the Britney Spears "Circus" tour and was the first handicapped high school tumbling champion in the state of Illinois."
Sunday, May 03, 2015
Saturday, May 02, 2015
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