Daily Archives: March 5, 2017

Colorado Rockies Spring Training 2017: Progress Report 1 – BSN Denver

Posted: March 5, 2017 at 4:07 pm

As Colorado Rockies spring training 2017 rolls on, we want to make sure we are giving you regular progress reports as opposed to just individual game notes. We will still be providing those more from time to time, but if you follow the Rockies at this time of year looking less at the box score and more at how what is happening now might affect the upcoming season, these reports should be far more helpful.

With each, we will give you an update on players who stock is going up and those who are going down, with specific attention paid to those on the bubble at any given position. Its always nice to check in on Nolan Arenado and Carlos Gonzalez, but almost nothing they do this spring is going to change their perceived role heading into the season.

After taking a look at individual performances, we will wrap up with some miscellaneous notes from the week.

Gerardo Parra With the injury to David Dahl, Parra is taking advantage of every possible resource he needs to capture the starting spot in left field. So far in five games, Parra is hitting .364 with one double, three RBI and three (yes, three) walks.

Miguel Castro Castro is looking to bounce back from an up-and-down 2016 campaign. The 22-year-old has made three appearances, throwing2 1/3 innings while giving up two hits and striking out two.

Tony Wolters Colorados potential Opening Day catcher loves Spring Training. Like last year,Wolters is thriving in the early goings. Tony is hitting .545 with one double, one home run and four RBI.

Jeff Hoffman Looking to capture the fifth and final rotation spot, Hoffman has put up solid numbers in two outings. Hoffman has logged 3 2/3 innings, giving up one run (not earned) on five hits while striking out three.

Zach Jemiola The 22-year-old is making the most of hisoutings early on. In four appearances, Jemiola has given up just one hit over four innings while striking out two.

Mark Reynolds Reynolds is looking to capture a roster spot, but it wont be as a starter. The addition of Ian Desmond forces the veteran to be a backup unless an injury occurs. In five games, Reynolds is hitting .364 with a double and an RBI.

Jordan Patterson Patterson has hit the ball with authority this spring, launching two home runs and four doubles in 17 at-bats. As weve discussed at BSN Denver, if he keeps this up and Cristhian Adames and/or Alexi Amarista dont do enough to separate themselves, the Rockies have enough versatility to carry Patterson instead of one of those two guys.

Jordan Lyles Since the demotion to the bullpen, things still havent gone Lyles way on the mound. In two appearances thus far, the right-hander has given up five runs on five hits two of which were viathe long ball.

German Marquez Marquez is one of the names in discussion for the final rotation spot, but hes not helping his cause. In two appearances, one start, Marquez has given up four runs on five hits while walking two and striking out a pair.

Kyle Freeland Another candidate for the final rotation spot, Freeland like Marquez is struggling out of the gate. The southpaw has made one start, giving up fourruns (three earned) on two hits while walking two as well as striking out two.

Tom Murphy Murphy will be one of two catchers cracking the team, but for now its looking to be Wolters job to lose.The power-hitting backstop is hitting just .143 in five games played.

Alexi Amarista Amarista was signed to be a utility player and perhaps a little bias from his previous, now current, manager Bud Black. The27-year-old is hitting .125 in four games played.

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Colorado Rockies Spring Training 2017: Progress Report 1 - BSN Denver

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Technological utopianism – Wikipedia

Posted: at 4:06 pm

Technological utopianism (often called techno-utopianism or technoutopianism) is any ideology based on the premise that advances in science and technology will eventually bring about a utopia, or at least help to fulfil one or another utopian ideal. A techno-utopia is therefore a hypothetical ideal society, in which laws, government, and social conditions are solely operating for the benefit and well-being of all its citizens, set in the near- or far-future, when advanced science and technology will allow these ideal living standards to exist; for example, post-scarcity, transformations in human nature, the abolition of suffering and even the end of death. Technological utopianism is often connected with other discourses presenting technologies as agents of social and cultural change, such as technological determinism or media imaginaries.[1]

Douglas Rushkoff, a leading theorist on technology and cyberculture claims that technology gives everyone a chance to voice their own opinions, fosters individualistic thinking, and dilutes hierarchy and power structures by giving the power to the people.[2] He says that the whole world is in the middle of a new Renaissance, one that is centered on technology and self-expression. However, Rushkoff makes it clear that people dont live their lives behind a desk with their hands on a keyboard [3]

A tech-utopia does not disregard any problems that technology may cause,[4] but strongly believes that technology allows mankind to make social, economic, political, and cultural advancements.[5] Overall, Technological Utopianism views technologys impacts as extremely positive.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, several ideologies and movements, such as the cyberdelic counterculture, the Californian Ideology, transhumanism,[6] and singularitarianism, have emerged promoting a form of techno-utopia as a reachable goal. Cultural critic Imre Szeman argues technological utopianism is an irrational social narrative because there is no evidence to support it. He concludes that it shows the extent to which modern societies place faith in narratives of progress and technology overcoming things, despite all evidence to the contrary.[7]

Karl Marx believed that science and democracy were the right and left hands of what he called the move from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. He argued that advances in science helped delegitimize the rule of kings and the power of the Christian Church.[8]

19th-century liberals, socialists, and republicans often embraced techno-utopianism. Radicals like Joseph Priestley pursued scientific investigation while advocating democracy. Robert Owen, Charles Fourier and Henri de Saint-Simon in the early 19th century inspired communalists with their visions of a future scientific and technological evolution of humanity using reason. Radicals seized on Darwinian evolution to validate the idea of social progress. Edward Bellamys socialist utopia in Looking Backward, which inspired hundreds of socialist clubs in the late 19th century United States and a national political party, was as highly technological as Bellamys imagination. For Bellamy and the Fabian Socialists, socialism was to be brought about as a painless corollary of industrial development.[8]

Marx and Engels saw more pain and conflict involved, but agreed about the inevitable end. Marxists argued that the advance of technology laid the groundwork not only for the creation of a new society, with different property relations, but also for the emergence of new human beings reconnected to nature and themselves. At the top of the agenda for empowered proletarians was to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible. The 19th and early 20th century Left, from social democrats to communists, were focused on industrialization, economic development and the promotion of reason, science, and the idea of progress.[8]

Some technological utopians promoted eugenics. Holding that in studies of families, such as the Jukes and Kallikaks, science had proven that many traits such as criminality and alcoholism were hereditary, many advocated the sterilization of those displaying negative traits. Forcible sterilization programs were implemented in several states in the United States.[9]

H.G. Wells in works such as The Shape of Things to Come promoted technological utopianism.

The horrors of the 20th century - communist and fascist dictatorships, world wars - caused many to abandon optimism. The Holocaust, as Theodor Adorno underlined, seemed to shatter the ideal of Condorcet and other thinkers of the Enlightenment, which commonly equated scientific progress with social progress.[10]

The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.

A movement of techno-utopianism began to flourish again in the dot-com culture of the 1990s, particularly in the West Coast of the United States, especially based around Silicon Valley. The Californian Ideology was a set of beliefs combining bohemian and anti-authoritarian attitudes from the counterculture of the 1960s with techno-utopianism and support for libertarian economic policies. It was reflected in, reported on, and even actively promoted in the pages of Wired magazine, which was founded in San Francisco in 1993 and served for a number years as the "bible" of its adherents.[11][12][13]

This form of techno-utopianism reflected a belief that technological change revolutionizes human affairs, and that digital technology in particular - of which the Internet was but a modest harbinger - would increase personal freedom by freeing the individual from the rigid embrace of bureaucratic big government. "Self-empowered knowledge workers" would render traditional hierarchies redundant; digital communications would allow them to escape the modern city, an "obsolete remnant of the industrial age".[11][12][13]

Similar forms of "digital utopianism" has often entered in the political messages of party and social movements that point to the Web or more broadly to new media as harbingers of political and social change.[14] Its adherents claim it transcended conventional "right/left" distinctions in politics by rendering politics obsolete. However, techno-utopianism disproportionately attracted adherents from the libertarian right end of the political spectrum. Therefore, techno-utopians often have a hostility toward government regulation and a belief in the superiority of the free market system. Prominent "oracles" of techno-utopianism included George Gilder and Kevin Kelly, an editor of Wired who also published several books.[11][12][13]

During the late 1990s dot-com boom, when the speculative bubble gave rise to claims that an era of "permanent prosperity" had arrived, techno-utopianism flourished, typically among the small percentage of the population who were employees of Internet startups and/or owned large quantities of high-tech stocks. With the subsequent crash, many of these dot-com techno-utopians had to rein in some of their beliefs in the face of the clear return of traditional economic reality.[12][13]

In the late 1990s and especially during the first decade of the 21st century, technorealism and techno-progressivism are stances that have risen among advocates of technological change as critical alternatives to techno-utopianism.[15][16] However, technological utopianism persists in the 21st century as a result of new technological developments and their impact on society. For example, several technical journalists and social commentators, such as Mark Pesce, have interpreted the WikiLeaks phenomenon and the United States diplomatic cables leak in early December 2010 as a precursor to, or an incentive for, the creation of a techno-utopian transparent society.[17]Cyber-utopianism, first coined by Evgeny Morozov, is another manifestation of this, in particular in relation to the Internet and social networking.

Bernard Gendron, a professor of philosophy at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee, defines the four principles of modern technological utopians in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as follows:[18]

Rushkoff presents us with multiple claims that surround the basic principles of Technological Utopianism:[19]

Critics claim that techno-utopianism's identification of social progress with scientific progress is a form of positivism and scientism. Critics of modern libertarian techno-utopianism point out that it tends to focus on "government interference" while dismissing the positive effects of the regulation of business. They also point out that it has little to say about the environmental impact of technology[22] and that its ideas have little relevance for much of the rest of the world that are still relatively quite poor (see global digital divide).[11][12][13]

In his 2010 study System Failure: Oil, Futurity, and the Anticipation of Disaster, Canada Research Chairholder in cultural studies Imre Szeman argues that technological utopianism is one of the social narratives that prevent people from acting on the knowledge they have concerning the effects of oil on the environment.[7]

In a controversial article "Techno-Utopians are Mugged by Reality", Wall Street Journal explores the concept of the violation of free speech by shutting down social media to stop violence. As a result of British cities being looted consecutively, Prime British Minister David Cameron argued that the government should have the ability to shut down social media during crime sprees so that the situation could be contained. A poll was conducted to see if Twitter users would prefer to let the service be closed temporarily or keep it open so they can chat about the famous television show X-Factor. The end report showed that every Tweet opted for X-Factor. The negative social effects of technological utopia is that society is so addicted to technology that we simply can't be parted even for the greater good. While many Techno-Utopians would like to believe that digital technology is for the greater good, it can also be used negatively to bring harm to the public.[23]

Other critics of a techno-utopia include the worry of the human element. Critics suggest that a techno-utopia may lessen human contact, leading to a distant society. Another concern is the amount of reliance society may place on their technologies in these techno-utopia settings.[24] These criticisms are sometimes referred to as a technological anti-utopian view or a techno-dystopia.

Even today, the negative social effects of a technological utopia can be seen. Mediated communication such as phone calls, instant messaging and text messaging are steps towards a utopian world in which one can easily contact another regardless of time or location. However, mediated communication removes many aspects that are helpful in transferring messages. As it stands today, most text, email, and instant messages offer fewer nonverbal cues about the speakers feelings than do face-to-face encounters.[25] This makes it so that mediated communication can easily be misconstrued and the intended message is not properly conveyed. With the absence of tone, body language, and environmental context, the chance of a misunderstanding is much higher, rendering the communication ineffective. In fact, mediated technology can be seen from a dystopian view because it can be detrimental to effective interpersonal communication. These criticisms would only apply to messages that are prone to misinterpretation as not every text based communication requires contextual cues. The limitations of lacking tone and body language in text based communication are likely to be mitigated by video and augmented reality versions of digital communication technologies.[26]

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Technological utopianism - Wikipedia

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Acknowledgment is Not Enough: Coming to Terms With Lovecraft’s … – lareviewofbooks

Posted: at 4:06 pm

MARCH 4, 2017

AS A FEMINIST, I am reluctant, at times, to admit to friends and academic colleagues that I appreciate H. P. Lovecrafts work. His misogyny and racism do not just haunt his tales; they are central to his mythos. Critical scholarship on the author has only recently started to grapple with the tension between the philosophical implications of his work and its inherent xenophobia. Lovecraft may enjoy a current vogue among predominantly masculinist philosophical methodologies, but he remains unpopular for those unwilling or unable to delve beyond his racist and misogynistic attitudes.

Edited by Carl H. Sederholm and Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, The Age of Lovecraft is a collection of 11 essays and one interview that questions Lovecrafts recent reemergence as a cultural force. The collection argues for Lovecrafts place in modernism, and more provocatively demonstrates the many ways in which the contemporary moment belongs to Lovecraft. As James Kneale suggests in his contribution to the book, the age of Lovecraft is an age in which we are clearly still living. Kneales claim is not just that we now live in an age for which Lovecraft might be a figurehead, but that its been that way for some time.

Lovecraft is one of those authors that most people have heard of, but few seem to have read. Thats because his influence is everywhere. From contemporary comic book appearances and popular role-playing games to Swiss surrealist paintings and American heavy metal music, the legacy of Lovecrafts mythos has been revived, and since his quiet death in 1937, his legacy once impoverished and unrecognized has flourished. So when exactly is (or was) the age of Lovecraft? And if its now, then why?

Elevated from pulp author to canonical classic when the Library of America published his oeuvre in 2005, Lovecraft has since been revived in both literary criticism and philosophy. In the last decade or so, Lovecrafts tales, letters, and essays have reemerged with intensity, markedly in the influential philosopher Graham Harmans book Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (2012). Lovecrafts work has repeatedly appeared in philosophical essays and books that follow in Harmans speculative realist tradition, where the tales often serve as literary examples par excellence. Harmans presence in The Age of Lovecraft looms across the diverse essays, reaffirming his command of Lovecraft studies despite the grievances that many authors air regarding his approach to the burgeoning field.

The reemergence of Lovecrafts work within this context is therefore no coincidence. The adoption of Lovecraft by speculative realists marks his work as a quintessential example of literature that denies the centrality of human life within a rapidly expanding cosmos, where humans feel their smallness and insignificance in the face of larger and more powerful cosmic forces. His fiction serves as a link between the modernist period and the contemporary one through this de-emphasis of the human and the inherent inability to fully comprehend the mysteries of the universe. In the Anthropocene a term generally accepted across disciplines to mark our current geological epoch it is perhaps clear why a writer with what S. T. Joshi has called Lovecrafts cosmic pessimism would serve as a contemporary philosophical model.

In their introduction to the volume, Sederholm and Weinstock write that it is against all odds that Lovecraft has become a 21st century star. The introduction thoroughly accounts for Lovecrafts widespread influence throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, and it charts references to his mythos across global literary and popular cultures. But indeed, the odds were against his apparent prevailing influence he died impoverished, selling stories to pulp magazines just to feed himself, and he enjoyed no real popularity or fame during his lifetime. In the 21st century, as the editors explain, there are other elements working against his reemergence as a celebrated literary figure, including Lovecrafts well-documented racism and xenophobia, which can be found in his letters and stories. Sederholm and Weinstock believe that Lovecrafts racism cannot be separated from his fiction, that it must be taken a central tenet of his writing and his philosophy.

Though the essays span a wide variety of subjects related to Lovecrafts work and influence, some essays may be loosely grouped together for their shared theoretical foundation in speculative realism and/or new materialism. The book begins with James Kneales Ghoulish Dialogues: H. P. Lovecrafts Weird Geographies, which begins from Harmans influence on the study of Lovecrafts style and form, but ultimately argues for a marriage between the examination of form and content in his work. Kneale emphasizes the presence of technologies throughout Lovecrafts tales (telescopes, telephones, radios) that together reveal the presence what he calls a weird geography a distance or gap between space and time that troubled Lovecraft, and that also serves to merge form and content in his tales.

Jeffrey Andrew Weinstocks Lovecrafts Things: Sinister Souvenirs from Other Worlds cites speculative realist and object-oriented philosophers from Harman to Ian Bogost, but draws primarily from Jane Bennetts work on enchantment in order to interrogate what readers find appealing and satisfying in weird and gothic fiction. His attention to the things in Lovecraft (and in other Gothic narratives) places Lovecrafts work in a tradition he calls dark enchantment that is characterized by a postmodern cynicism aroused by thing-power, a portal that is opened up to the other and to the outside.

Perhaps the most original of this group is the contribution from Isabella van Elferen titled Hyper-Cacophony: Lovecraft, Speculative Realism, and Sonic Materialism. Van Elferen looks at Lovecrafts work through the lens of critical musicology in order to point out the inconsistencies in Lovecrafts thinking and to challenge his prevailing place in speculative realist philosophy. What she provocatively calls alien timbres the sonic qualities of Lovecrafts literary scenes and creatures alludes to profound conditions of immateriality and is thus incommensurable in many ways with speculative realism. Her essay urges us to consider Lovecrafts greater universe, and it draws our attention away from the dominance of visual references in order to think about Lovecrafts hyper-cacophony.

Three essays in the collection offer feminist and queer readings of Lovecrafts writing and ethics. Carl H. Sederholms H. P. Lovecrafts Reluctant Sexuality: Abjection and the Monstrous Feminine in The Dunwich Horror argues that despite critics outstanding claims that sex has no place in Lovecraft, the authors sexual loathing, fear of women, and horror at the means of human reproduction is expressed throughout his stories and correspondence and is central to his figuring of the human body.

Lovecrafts fear of otherness is also explored in Jed Mayers Race, Species, and Others: H. P. Lovecraft and the Animal, one of the best essays in the collection, which examines the influences of evolutionary narratives that have elevated certain species over others, and grapples with the racist attitudes inherent in Lovecrafts own speciesism. Drawing from contemporary animal studies scholarship, Mayer explores the inherent conflict between Lovecrafts own fear of kinship with other ethnic groups and his obsession with imagining connections (genealogies, intimacies, histories) with nonhuman beings. Mayer broadens his inquiry by asking how questions of racism and speciesism inform the genre of weird fiction more broadly. He argues that without forgiving Lovecrafts racism, we can recognize the provocative notion in Lovecrafts work that however much we learn about the other, it remains alien. Mayer demonstrates that Lovecrafts racism is what paradoxically becomes the means by which his stories achieve intimate contact with the feared other.

Patricia MacCormacks contribution, Lovecrafts Cosmic Ethics, is perhaps one of the boldest essays of the collection; it serves as a powerful climax to the volume as a whole. Here, MacCormack, who has been one of the few women writing in Lovecraft studies, argues against critics who dismiss Lovecraft for racism and misogyny, proclaiming instead that he offers a way into feminist, ecosophical, queer, and mystical (albeit atheist) configurations of difference. Acknowledging that her reading may seem perverse (and it is, in more ways than one), MacCormack says that this writer of unimaginable horror [] can also be argued to offer a glimpse into unimaginable structures forged through connectivities. In a vein similar to Mayers essay, MacCormack writes that Lovecrafts total inclusion of the complete foreignness of the universe forces a reorienting of traditional criticisms of his work as simply racist and xenophobic. In the last pages of her essay, she shifts her discussion to sex, persuasively arguing that Lovecrafts work is more focused on desire than sex, perhaps even offering a queer refusal of satisfaction or completion; his works are characterized by moods of profound suspension within a perpetual state both within and beyond a frenzy of potential.

Other essays in the collection offer useful examinations of the influence of Lovecrafts work on other texts and genres. In Prehistories of Posthumanism: Cosmic Indifferentism, Alien Genesis, and Ecology from H. P. Lovecraft to Ridley Scott, Brian Johnson reads Ridley Scotts Alien (1979) alongside Lovecrafts At the Mountains of Madness (1936), interrogating how Lovecrafts cosmic indifferentism strongly influences Scotts prequel Prometheus (2012). Johnson effectively reveals a shift in the way Ridley Scotts thematic preoccupation with human origins can be understood as he moves away from the monstrous feminine of Alien toward a

planetary version of the Frankenstein myth in which the beneficent mother is always already absent, her generative power usurped in advance by the new Promethianism of paternal science that appropriates creation as its exclusive province.

Moving from the screen to the graphic novel, David Simmonss H. P. Lovecraft and Real Person Fiction: The Pulp Author as Subcultural Avatar considers real person fiction in graphic novels as a way to challenge and upend Lovecrafts changing cultural position. He makes the argument that we must see Lovecraft as a fictional persona and not a static biographical figure. His essay can be usefully read alongside Jessica Georges A Polychrome Study: Neil Gaimans A Study in Emerald and Lovecrafts Literary Afterlives, which reads Lovecraft as a destabilizing figure; George sees this as perhaps one reason why he is so prone to reworkings and reimaginings, particularly in Gaimans work. These contributions reopen what many would consider closed discussions regarding authorship and biography as they challenge readers to think of Lovecraft and his influence beyond the pages of his tales.

The Age of Lovecraft is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship focused on Lovecraft, and it contains several essays that are especially important within this field. These essays have certainly helped me think about my own relation to studying and even enjoying Lovecrafts work, given that I am someone invested in non-oppressive, queer, and feminist critiques of literature and culture. The contributions that answered the call of the editors introduction and their collective refusal to separate Lovecraft from the problem of racial difference were particularly effective in this regard. Their sentiment is underscored in a wonderful interview with China Miville at the books conclusion: Acknowledgement [of racism, misogyny, xenophobia] is absolutely not enough, Miville says. To properly and ethically read Lovecraft in the 21st century, to celebrate his view of the cosmos and to herald his philosophy as ahead of its time, or to claim that we may live in an Age of Lovecraft in the present day, one must also accept the difficult responsibilities associated with taking on his discriminatory attitudes as keys to informing his philosophy. What does it mean that out of prejudice, fear, and a hatred of otherness was born a literary tradition that has particular merit in the contemporary moment? This collection helps readers of Lovecraft work through the incorporation of his deeply problematic attitudes into the ways we think about his work and its place in literary criticism and theory. It advances efforts to do more than just acknowledge Lovecrafts problematic politics by actually showing the ways they are entangled with form, content, ethics, and his vast fictional universe.

Alison Sperling is finishing her PhD in literature and cultural theory at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee.

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Reinhold Niebuhr and our common good – Bowling Green Daily News

Posted: at 4:04 pm

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

The courage to change the things I can;

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.

Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Many years ago in the kitchen of my grandparents home, I read on a wall-mounted plaque the words of wisdom written by Reinhold Niebuhr in the above quotation. I would learn many years later that Niebuhr was a great theologian and social philosopher of the 20th century. Niebuhr often described himself as a Christian realist and even his well-known prayer quoted above reveals something of the core and wisdom of his Christian realism. That is, Niebuhr would consistently argue for reform to promote social justice, but within the limits and constraints of human nature and its contingencies. Social justice would provide provisional and not ultimate solutions. His thought represented a reaction against nave and utopian reform efforts in late 19th- and early 20th-century America.

His ideas have influenced millions conservatives and liberals alike. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama have specifically identified Niebuhr as an important intellectual influence. Similarly, and perhaps even more significantly, Martin Luther King Jr. studied Niebuhrs thought while at Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University. And, yet, Niebuhrs thought cannot be categorized simplistically as liberal or conservative. There is no ideological category for his thought as a whole, though some elements could be called liberal and other elements could be called conservative.

The King quotation reflects further evidence of Niebuhrs realism in approaching questions of the common good. Derived from Niebuhrs Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), King was invoking Niebuhrs teaching that in every group there is less reason to guide and check impulse, less capacity for self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others, and therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals who compose the group reveal in their personal relationships. Writing from jail, King was arguing from his own experience that Niebuhrs teaching was accurate and true that groups supporting racial segregation were much more difficult to persuade otherwise than persuading individuals alone of this injustice.

Niebuhr linked empirically observable group dynamics to his Christian realism and argued that generally group egoism and pride is more difficult and virulent than individual egoism and pride. Group loyalties can become so strong that conformity to group norms defines individual virtue. In contrast, the individual standing alone has a greater capacity to check egoism, appeal to an ethical standard and render a more impartial and ethical judgment.

Niebuhrs argument continues to have relevance. Although groups of all stripes are important to America, Niebuhr reminds us from a theological perspective emphasizing pride and egoism that there are potential group dynamics and pressures running contrary to the common good. When class, sectarian, ethnic, gender or any other basis for group identity demands increasing levels of commitment and loyalty, the pressures to belong to the group may well override the individuals responsibility for independent, critical thought. This is a formula for pluralistic divisiveness rather than the promotion of the common good and national unity. And so, yes, we celebrate the pluralistic diversity of groups in America, but we remember Niebuhrs caution that selfish and divisive egoism is not confined to the individual, but actually even more accentuated with groups.

As we personally reflect on our own group associations, may we have the wisdom to know the difference between those group actions that are egoistic, selfish and self-serving and those group actions which we all applaud in contributing to our common good.

Ed Yager is a professor of political science at Western Kentucky University.

Ed Yager is a professor of political science at Western Kentucky University.

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Witchcraft is the new feminism – NME.com (blog)

Posted: at 4:04 pm

Leonie Cooper on witches, beehives and Lana Del Rey.

Its hard out here for a witch. Well, at least it was 400-odd years ago when women were regularly hanged, drowned and burned to death after being accused of sorcery, Satanism and doing suspicious things with herbs. This fear of witchcraft was, in essence, a fear of womens power, sexuality and general awesomeness.

Thankfully, women are no longer persecuted when crops fail and odd things happen in the village theyre persecuted for their weight, their clothes and their work instead but witches seem to be firmly back in the public eye and this time theyre not going to be dragged off to the stake. Theyre going to put on a s**t-tonne of black eyeliner and sort out everything thats rubbish in the world.

This isnt simply about the fact that loads of new bands, from moody electronica trio MUNA to Manchester indie-poppers Pale Waves, look like theyve stepped out of 1996 teen witch movie The Craft. A-listers are also getting in on the sweet occult action and taking their witchy business straight to the top. Last week Lana Del Rey attempted to organise her coven of fans into using magic to get rid of Donald Trump. The high priestess of noir-pop tweeted the days of the next waning crescent moons and instructions to find a spell online, to be performed at midnight on the proposed dates. All you need to join in is an unflattering photo of Trump not difficult, to be fair a tower tarot card, an orange candle, a bowl of water and some salt. See you down the homeware aisle of Tesco, then.

But the best bit of modern magic comes in the shape of a new film called The Love Witch, which goes on general release in the UK on March 10. Directed by LA-based auteur Anna Biller, it uses the Technicolor gloss and retro style of cult and camp thriller movies like Vertigo, Rosemarys Baby, The Wicker Man and Suspiria to take a sledgehammer to the patriarchy. The film tells the story of Elaine, a woman who uses sex magic to make men fall in love with her while wearing some fabulous vintage-styled frocks also made by the multitalented Biller.

Yet beyond the beehives, it cleverly deconstructs the idea of women as marriage-obsessed hysterics with style, sass and an excellent tampon joke. Witchcraft in 2017 is about women coming together, not about being torn apart. Whether its Lana Del Rey getting her goth on or thousands coming together for the Womens March in January, the witches are rising excuse me while I go and fetch my broomstick.

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Philharmonic program celebrates passion, youth – Albuquerque Journal

Posted: at 4:02 pm

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Cellist Edvard Pogossian will join the New Mexico Philharmonic as the featured guest.

Cellist Edvard Pogossian of the Juilliard School will join the musicians on Josef Haydns Cello Concerto in C Major on Sunday at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

Musicologists knew Haydn had written a second cello concerto, but the score remained undiscovered until 1961, guest conductor Oriol Sans said. The composer had written the beginning of the principal theme of the first movement in his draft catalog in 1765.

The music was discovered in a library in Prague, Sans said.

Oriol Sans will be guest conductor for Sundays concert.

Whats funny is it has become more famous than the other one, he said. Its one of the first great cello concertos.

The concert will open with Piazzollas Meloda en La menor (Melody in A minor). Piazzolla is considered one of the masters of tango.

The composer penned the piece during a love affair that dissolved, Sans said. He had originally called the piece October Sky.

He had to change it because he was upset with her, Sans said. It has a beautiful melody with very typical Piazzola rhythms that remind us of tango.

Haydns Symphony No. 49, La passione, was written in 1768 during his Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) period. The movement encouraged extremes of emotion in response to the confines of rationalism.

We are not sure why it has this name, Sans said. Some people think it comes from this piece being used at Easter celebrations.

The concert will end with Mendelssohns Sinfonia No. 7 in D minor, written when the composer was just 12.

Mendelssohn was one of the most amazing prodigies in the history of music, Sans said.

His wealthy parents provided him with his own orchestra.

They had money, Sans said. Besides that, he had talent.

Its kind of like an exercise, but he has that incredibly beautiful music. Its packed with ideas like a young composer was practicing what hes learned.

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Philharmonic program celebrates passion, youth - Albuquerque Journal

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Legislation Proposed in Four States to Protect Free Speech at Public Universities – Breitbart News

Posted: at 4:01 pm

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Bills are being introduced in state legislatures around the country in an attempt to curb the increasing restrictions being placed on political speech at state-funded campuses.

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College should be a place where all opinions, popular or not, should be able to be freely expressed, Texas State Representative Briscoe Cain argued. Students have the right to free speech and HB 2527 will help protect the constitutional rights of students and student organizations.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walkers recent budget proposal includes a $10,000 allocation that would go towards academic freedom initiatives in the University of Wisconsin system.

It is not the proper role of the board or any institution or college campus to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive, the Wisconsin legislation states. The board and each institution and college campus has a responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberationbut also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.

Several other states have proposed legislation that would protect free speech rights at public universities. Those states include North Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about education and social justice for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com

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Legislation Proposed in Four States to Protect Free Speech at Public Universities - Breitbart News

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CSULA Embraces Free Speech After Threat of Lawsuit – legal Insurrection (blog)

Posted: at 4:01 pm

This is another win for Ben Shapiro and Young Americas Foundation.

The Daily Caller reported:

California University Embraces Free Speech After Threatened With Lawsuit

A university has updated its free speech policies following a lawsuit filed by a conservative speaker whose event was almost cancelled at the school.

Ben Shapiro, Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Wire and his partner organization, Young Americas Foundation, sued California State University, Los Angeles, after a virtual riot broke out at his scheduled speaking engagement. Shapiro was met by a mob of violent protesters who had blocked entrances to the event, physically attacked attendees, and blocked entrances to the speech, according to The Daily Wire.

Shapiro and Young Americas Foundation dismissed the lawsuit after the school made some changes to its free speech policies, as noted in The Daily Signal.

California State University, Los Angeles, pledged to not impose any fees, including security fees, based upon the viewpoint of the speech at future events. The school also pledged to not unilaterally refuse to schedule or cancel any scheduled event based upon the viewpoint of the speech that is to take place, adding that it will enforce terms of its Administrative Policy on Time, Place, and Manner of Free Expression P007 in a viewpoint-neutral manner, as reported by Young Americas Foundation.

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CSULA Embraces Free Speech After Threat of Lawsuit - legal Insurrection (blog)

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Duterte public attacks has chilling effect on free speech US State Department – Philippine Star

Posted: at 4:01 pm

MANILA, Philippines The US State Department in a report said President RodrigoDutertespublic attacks against critics of his policies had a chilling effect on free speech.

In its annual human rights report released on its website Friday, the US State Department said that individuals could criticize the government publicly or privately and even discuss matters of general public interest. However,Dutertespublic attacks on individuals and international bodies who have criticized his policies had a chilling effect on free speech and expression.

The US State Department cited as an exampleDutertes public accusations against Sen. Leila De Lima. The accusations were already thrown even before a formal government investigations occurred.

It said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) only launched a probe after the president claimed De Lima received benefits from the drug trade during her term as commissioner of human rights and justice secretary. Due to this, the US State Department questioned the timeliness of Dutertes claims against De Lima.

Dutertes allegations came at the same time that De Lima began hearings into alleged extrajudicial killings in the governments anti-drug campaign as chairperson of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human rights, the report read.

The report also cited that De Lima was ousted as the chairperson of the Senate committee after she called as a witness self-confessed hitman Edgar Matobato to testify regardingDutertes direct involvement in alleged extrajudicial killings during his tenure as Davao City mayor. It noted that the senator was replaced by someone considered as Dutertes ally, Sen. Richard Gordon.

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Last October, however, Gordon denied that he is an ally of Duterte.

Why do you keep on saying Im an ally of the president? Am I PDP-laban (ruling political party)? Am I? Gordon was quoted by reports.

The US State Department said that when Gordon led the hearings into drug-related killings, he concluded that there was no proof that Duterte had personal involvement in extrajudicial killings. It added that as of November 21, the DOJ continued to investigate De Limas alleged ties to illegal narcotics but has not found sufficient evidence to file a criminal indictment.

De Lima, nevertheless, was recently detained. She was accused by the DOJ of violating Section 5 (sale) in relation to Section 3 (jj trading), Section 26 (b) and Section 28 or the criminal liability of government officials and employees underthe Republic Act 9165 also known as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 for allegedly allowing the proliferation of the drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison during her stint as justice secretary.

Like De Lima, the US State Department report noted that journalists also faced harassment and threats of violence, including from politicians and government authorities critical of their reporting. It cited that in April 2016,Duterte, then a presidential candidate, threatened that journalists could be assassinated if they were corrupt.

In April then candidate Duterte drew widespread criticism after he told the media that journalists should enjoy no special protections and could be 'assassinated' if they were 'corrupt' and took money from politicians. Human rights NGOs frequently criticized the government for failing to protect journalists, the report read.

The US State Department added that several journalists reported an uptick in online threats, including threats of violence and harassment, in response to articles posted online that were critical of the government.

Journalists critical of the government reported that they did not yet feel that threats to their personal safety were credible but they were concerned about losing access to the president and presidential palace if they were seen as overly critical, it said.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2016demonstrate the United States unwavering commitment to advancing liberty, human dignity and global prosperity.

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Duterte public attacks has chilling effect on free speech US State Department - Philippine Star

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JNU’s Umar Khalid hosts a seminar on Atheism with Dawkins & Harris, says ‘A’theism means One God – Firstpost (satire)

Posted: at 4:00 pm

New Delhi: JNUs Umar Khalid is all set to unleash his atheist ideas onto the nation. In that line, he has hosted a seminar on Atheism with global atheist stalwarts, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

Umar Khalid shot to fame last yearwhen as a student of JNU, he and Kanhaiyya shouted Bharat tere tukde hoge, which resulted in a surge of outrage from his co-ideologists from journalist and political spheres. While Umar Khalid was targeted for his religion, he shot back saying that he is an Atheist. It has been a year since and Umar was blamed for not sharing anything related to Atheism in his Facebook timeline.

To put an end to all controversy around my atheism, I am hosting this session, said Umar from the seminar stage. Richard Dawkins was seated on his left and Sam Harris was seated on his right. Today, I am going to discuss atheism. I call upon my brothers and sisters of India to walk out of their Hinduismand embrace atheism. Before our other members could open their mouth, let me explain what my Atheism is.

Taking a look at the audience from left to right, Umar uttered these words, Atheism is a combination of two words A and Theism. It means there can be only one God. And He is watching us every day. And there can be only one Prophet(saw).

Turning back to Dawkins and Harris, Umar bent his head and asked, Do you agree to what I say?. Both of them looked shocked and shook their heads from left to right. Umar continued, Let me explain. Take 5th chapter, 23rd page, 432nd verse, 2nd line. What does it say? It says Immediately, the crowd went into cheer as goatee grew out of Umars chin. His glasses rim turned more translucent and a skull cap came out of nowhere. It was not Umar Khalid but Zakir Naik they saw there on the stage. While Umar was turning into Zakir, the seminar was turning into a seminary.

A conch blew from somewhere and Umar Khalid who is now Zakir Naik kept on growing in size uttering verses after verses. With his head touching ceiling, he then turned to the atheist duo, Do you not see who I am, O Infidels?, after which Harris and Dawkins ran from the stage to Delhi airport.

A visibly cheerful fan of Umar shouted from the audience, If a Zakir Naik is banned from India, thousands of Zakir Naiks will come out.

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JNU's Umar Khalid hosts a seminar on Atheism with Dawkins & Harris, says 'A'theism means One God - Firstpost (satire)

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