Daily Archives: September 8, 2021

A character in the television series, The Handmaids Tale, based on Margaret Atwoods novel about a dystopian society in which women are treated as child-bearing chattel, makes a distinction between two kinds of freedom: Freedom from, and freedom to.

Freedom from implies freedom from physical privations such as hunger, poverty, and lack of shelter. In that sense, freedom from is a negation, a negation of a basic lack, rather than an affirmation of a positive.

Freedom to is an individuals, or a societys, right to choice of thought and action. You are not only free from physical deprivation but are free to do, and think, and say, what you want to, so long as this is not harmful to any other individual, or to the community at large.

Totalitarian regimes focus on freedom from while denying, or restricting, freedom to. Democratic societies are constituted on the fundamental right of freedom to follow the dictates of ones choice.

The American psychologist Abraham Maslow, cited as being among the ten most influential thinkers in his field, constructed a pyramid-shaped Hierarchy of needs which graphically illustrates the ascent from freedom from to higher and higher stages, or states, of freedom to.

In a paper titled A Theory of Human Motivation, published in 1943, Maslow traced the evolution of individual freedom from physiological survival though successive levels of liberation.

Once the basic needs of food, shelter, and habitation have been attained, Maslow argued that humankind has an in-built dynamic which impels it to ever-higher degrees of freedom in its search for fulfilment.

After individuals have secured their physiological requirements, the next step along the road to freedom is the seeking of comfort and financial security. After that comes the attainment of emotional well-being, finding love, friendship, and family bonding.

Higher on the motivational pyramid is the gaining of social and professional esteem and recognition. And, finally, at the apex of the pyramid is what Maslow called self-actualisation. This means the realisation of ones full potential as a human being.

As Maslow put it, What a man can be, he must be. We are drawn, as though by a magnetic pole, towards the horizon of possibility that is nascent within us, and beckons us onwards, voyagers seeking an ever-expansive realm of liberty.

Centuries before Maslow, Indic philosophy had developed the dharmic concept of the four progressions in an individuals life which lead to the ultimate goal of spiritual liberation.

The four stages defined by the Ashrama system are Brahmacharya (student, gleaner of knowledge), Grihastha (householder who attains prosperity and establishes family life), Vanaprastha (forest dweller or hermit) and Sanyasa (one who renounces all worldly attachments).

The dharmic idea of individual mental and spiritual evolution goes beyond the framework of Maslows pyramid, which reaches its highest point with the attachment of self-actualisation.

While each step of the individuals journey along the path of realisation is a preparation for the succeeding stage, in the dharmic tradition the quest does not end with Maslows self-actualisation but goes beyond into the transcendence of moksha, a state of being which is totally free of all earthly constraints and compulsions.

This includes the concept of a self which needs to be actualised, and the desire to seek and find liberation itself.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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Milestones on the road to freedom - Economic Times

Sept. 11, 2001, began like any other day for Clarence Singleton, a retired New York City firefighter. He planned to drop his girlfriend off at work in Brooklyn and then drive around there and Queens for his part-time job doing mortgage inspections for banks.

Before his girlfriend got out of the car, news came over the radio that a plane had flown into the north tower of the World Trade Center. At the moment, Singleton didnt think much of it. He figured a small aircraft had veered off course and crashed into the tower because of its height. Then the news came that another plane had struck, only this time, it was the south tower.

Singleton, who served 22 years with the New York City Fire Department before retiring in 2000, had always felt a drive to help people when he could. Wanting to lend a hand, he rushed back to his apartment, changed into jeans and a T-shirt with the Maltese Cross the symbol of fire service on it, and grabbed a pair of boots before heading out the door.

He took the subway into Manhattan because he knew traffic would be horrendous. On the ride there, two people asked him if he thought the towers would collapse, to which he responded, No, theres no way. That was before he knew there were thousands of gallons of jet fuel spewing throughout the towers.

He recalls showing up alone on Broadway and seeing a mound of rubble, hoping there was still life under it. The south tower had already collapsed, he said, and the scene was solemn and quiet. First responders were assisting civilians, and Singleton quickly began working with another firefighter and a police officer to extinguish vehicle fires. Like him, theyd heard the news and come from home to help.

Singleton was in the middle of putting out a fire when there was a loud bang. Instinct told him the north tower was collapsing, and years of training with the fire department had taught him it would be impossible to escape the collapse zone of a building this tall. But he ran anyway. He made it about 30 feet when he fell, dislocating his shoulder.

I was on my hands and knees waiting to die, Singleton said.

That fall was a blessing, he knows now. It put him in a safe zone where no debris could hit him. A thick cloud of dust engulfed the area as the second tower came down, coating everything.

Every breath was suffocating, Singleton recalled.

In severe pain, he got up and started walking. He flagged down some EMS workers and asked for help.

When he arrived at the hospital, a doctor gave him the option of waiting for treatment or getting his limb reset without anesthesia they were expecting many victims from the crash site. Singleton opted for the latter. Then he returned to ground zero and continued helping civilians.

Nearly 3,000 people died when four planes hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists crashed in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., that day. Some of the casualties were Singletons former coworkers. A Vietnam veteran who also responded to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Singleton was no stranger to loss and destruction. Still, he says, it was difficult to come to terms with losing people hed worked alongside.

These days, Singleton lives in Midlothian with his wife, Mary Jean, and is a board member of The Freedom Flag Foundation. Founded in Henrico County in 2002, the organizations mission is to become a national symbol of remembrance for 9/11 and to teach future generations about the tragic events and many lives lost that day.

I feel like Im working for my friends and coworkers by spreading the word of the Freedom Flag and keeping the memory of them alive, Singleton said.

A Freedom Flag features 10 elements that serve as a reminder to never forget what happened on 9/11. These include red stripes to represent the blood shed by victims of the twin towers and Pentagon attacks and the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. White stripes represent rescue workers and first responders; a pentagon of white bars represents the organized protection of our freedom; a white star stands for all who lived and died for freedom; and a blue background stands for all Americans united together for freedom.

Richard Melito, owner of Melitos Restaurant in Henrico County, drew the first sketch of the flag on a napkin while sitting in his restaurant nine days after the terrorist attacks. He intended to hang the symbol on the wall of his restaurant to serve as a reminder to customers of the tragedy and triumph surrounding that date. The next year, Melito founded The Freedom Flag Foundation to educate people about the events of 9/11.

In 2003, the flag became a part of Virginia history when then-Gov. Mark Warner issued an executive order designating the flag as the official symbol of remembrance of Sept. 11. In 2018, the General Assembly passed a bill making it the official 9/11 remembrance flag.

John Riley, president of the foundation, first learned about the organization after meeting with Melito to help design a future 9/11 memorial in Henrico. His most significant connection to the attacks is his friend Douglas D. Ketcham, whom he grew up with in Chesterfield. Riley and Ketcham attended Robious Middle School together and graduated from Midlothian High School in 1992. The two were inseparable during high school, Riley said.

After graduating from the University of Virginia, Ketcham went to work for Cantor Fitzgerald as a stockbroker in New York City. The last time Riley saw Ketcham was at Rileys wedding on April 28, 2001.

He really cared about people and cared about others, Riley said. He didnt ever want to be the center of attention, [and] it was always about you when you were with him.

Ketcham worked in the north tower, which was hit first by American Airlines Flight 11. His mother told Riley her son was able to make a single phone call before he died. Ketcham told his mother there had been a terrible explosion and that the building was filling up with smoke. He didnt expect to survive and told her he loved her one last time.

We both hoped and prayed that he might have been one of the miracle survivors, but unfortunately, nobody above the first plane impact survived, Riley said.

As the nation nears the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Riley realized a few years back that K-12 students have no lived memories of the events of that day; most werent born yet when it happened.

In 2019, the Freedom Flag Foundation launched a pilot program in Virginia, Delaware and Texas called The National Freedom Flag and World Trade Center Steel Education Program. School partners receive a free kit containing a Freedom Flag and a piece of World Trade Center steel that was cut from a very large piece of steel the foundation obtained from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Tara Krohn, a teacher at Woolridge Elementary School, was given the opportunity to participate in the pilot program and then later joined the Freedom Flag Foundation in 2020.

Krohn remembers standing in front of her fourth-grade class and describing the events of 9/11. Since then, shes felt the need to find a unique way to keep the historic day at the forefront of her students minds to remind them of the heroism and bravery that came out of the attacks.

Inspired by the foundation, Krohn wrote Unfurling the Freedom Flag: A 9/11 Story, a childrens book detailing how the Freedom Flag came to be. It sends the message that the story is more about hope than tragedy.

Thats why it needs to be told, because of what happened on Sept. 12 [and] how people all came together, Krohn said. Thats why I think the Freedom Flag is important, because I dont want any of those elements to be forgotten.

The book is illustrated by Emily Merry, a Midlothian High School graduate and Krohns next-door neighbor. Merry, the daughter of two Air Force veterans, was a senior in high school when she illustrated the book. She also has a brother currently serving as a Marine. Merrys mother was pregnant with her when 9/11 happened, Krohn said.

Singleton, who was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds he received as a Marine in Vietnam, said the recent withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, and the Talibans swift takeover of the government, has left him feeling the same way he felt after the Vietnam War.

To me, Vietnam seemed like a waste. You lose so many friends, [and] you go through so many hardships. I mean, that was a hard life and really difficult, Singleton said. Then you find out, at least in Vietnam, it was all political.

In honor of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, The Freedom Flag Foundation will be participating in events in and around Chesterfield this weekend. For more information about the organization, visit the website at freedomflagfoundation.org

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Twenty years after the towers fell, The Freedom Flag Foundation honors the victims and heroes of 9/11 - Chesterfield Observer

A half-century ago, a group of parents got together and founded something called the New School in Bloomington-Normal. They were largely academics; many from a math and science background, some from the arts. It was and is a small not-for-profit educational setting for kids and parents looking for an alternative to the public schools.

The New School began in the basement of the Unitarian Church in Bloomington, moved to a foursquare house on Mulberry Street and changed its name to The Mulberry School. Mulberry outgrew its namesake house and is now on Douglas Street at the old Soldiers and Sailors Children's Home in Normal.

Brenda Nardi taught at and directed the school for 25 years before stepping away in 2007. As Mulberry marks its 50th anniversary, Nardi said the founding vision was to create a learning environment based on the British infant system one that presented concepts and let them filter in at the various levels the children were ready to comprehend.

Nardi said when she first saw the school, she was an education major college student assigned there as an observer. She said she first thought it was outlandish the way Mulberry grouped students of various ages together, and the way teachers ordered the day.

It was what I have come to realize as freedom within structure. At the time it looked to me like it was unstructured in comparison to the way things were taught in the public system. That really stood out in my mind, said Nardi.

In this anniversary year of the institution, current director Shawna Stanley said that part has not changed.

It allows them to be more themselves and figure out who they are, said Stanley.

Academic Coordinator Collette Steckel said living out that philosophy is a complex task, particularly with strict and small teacher-to-student ratios.

We teach each individual child as their own person. We have a curriculum, we do, but it often varies because you have so many different variables of where they are in the learning stage. Its nice to meet their needs at all levels," said Steckel.

Another factor that distinguishes Mulberry from other forms of school is it is a parent co-op. Parents are required to contribute their talents, whether that is air conditioning repair, teaching, or bookkeeping or, if they really have no time, extra financial support, said Stanley.

Brenda Nardi said that parent presence is important at all levels, not just for parents to have ownership of the institution.

That spoke volumes to the children about how important their education was because they saw how involved their parents were in what they were doing on a daily basis at school and how it was supported, she said. At Mulberry School, we were there to teach children how to learn as opposed to what they should learn.

Nardi, Steckel, and Stanley said Mulberry has been able to individualize the curriculum in a way that is meaningful to children and their learning style.

One of my students, when being introduced to a guest in the classroom, was asked what was special about Mulberry School. He said at Mulberry School everybody gets a chance to be successful. And I think that is the product of our being able to concentrate on childrens strengths while we were building up their weaker areas."

It helps kids feel good about what they can do, said Nardi and have other students recognize it and use it in collaborative situations to achieve common goals.

It was like an ecosystem of learning that was just magical, said Nardi.

Teachers past and present said they run across accomplished graduates of Mulberry School all the time. Frequently, they are doing something a little bit off the beaten path, said Nardi.

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'Freedom Within Structure:' Mulberry School Marks 50 Years Of Alternative Education - WGLT

On a bright day in late June, I sat at my desk staring at an invoice that had just been delivered to me. As my eyes drifted to the bottom of the page, I blinked: $284,541.48.

The invoice was not for any of the usual things one might expect to cost over a quarter of a million dollars it was not for a destination wedding, a new home, or tuition at a private university. Rather, it was for a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request I had submitted to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) seeking two months of communications related to a short-lived $9 million government-funded field hospital set up at Detroit's TCF Center in the early months of the pandemic.

Although the fee was the highest I'd seen yet for a single FOIA request, it was not the first time I'd been quoted an exorbitant fee by the State while seeking government information related to the pandemic. Since January, I've received invoices from state agencies mostly MDHHS ranging from no fees for what amounted to relatively useless information to $37,590.00 for over a year's worth of communications and data related to COVID-19 policymaking.

Being unable to afford access to government documents confirming or repudiating the veracity of speculations in an age of rampant misinformation had made accurate, in-depth reporting challenging (if not impossible), and one potential story after another was derailed by fees that neither local nor national outlets told me they could cover.

As I learned while reporting this story, I wasn't the only journalist in Michigan that had experienced obstacles or fallen victim to the law's deficiencies while trying to access public information under the FOIA amid the pandemic and, unless something changed, I likely wouldn't be the last.

A lack of trust

At the federal level, the FOIA was adopted in 1966 in the wake of a deeply paranoid and misinformed era of McCarthyism after the law's chief architect, U.S. Rep. John E. Moss, a California Democrat, became the target of baseless smear tactics. As a result, he'd made it his mission to give the public access to credible government records under the law. Nearly a decade later, in 1974, Congress amended and strengthened the law in response to the Watergate scandal.

Shock waves from the scandal had rippled across the nation, shaking public trust in government. In an effort to restore that trust, Michigan adopted its own FOIA law in 1976, legally ensuring citizens' access to government information at the state level for the first time in history.

Since then, McGraw says complaints about long delays, exorbitant fees, denials, and a general lack of organization have become common and came front-and-center for journalists in the state working to access information under the FOIA during the pandemic.

"The [problem] we went through with COVID was the school kids just getting the most basic number data, like how many kids today had to go home from the school district," McGraw recalls.

Last August, as parents, students, and educators struggled to understand the safety of in-person learning as they prepared for a new school year amid an unrelenting pandemic, MDHHS declined to identify 14 school-related outbreaks, later citing shortcomings in the state's tracking systems. (At the time, school-related outbreaks still weren't required to be publicly reported by schools or health departments.)

In Michigan, the current FOIA requires agencies to respond to requests within five days, but also allows for an additional 10-day extension. The law provides no specific timeline for the delivery of requested documents after an agency's initial determination, however. After local health departments also failed to publicly identify the outbreaks in a series of delays and extensions under the FOIA that rendered the requested outbreak data too old to use, MPA joined a coalition of more than 30 media outlets and organizations demanding access to the data. In an open letter to the governor last September, the coalition addressed the dangers of long request delays during a health emergency, noting, "Media organizations are filing FOIA requests, but this is no time for drawn-out transparency battles."

Two weeks later, MDHHS finally identified the schools. At the end of that month, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and MDHHS also created new rules requiring school districts to post data about school-related COVID cases online. The underlying FOIA issues, though, remained.

"COVID was a great example of the worst of the process of trying to get information the data behind why we were closed down, or why we were opening back up, or why we had to wear masks. Even the Legislature couldn't get that information," McGraw says.

Perhaps no journalist in Michigan became more familiar with the challenges of accessing information during the pandemic than Charlie LeDuff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who noticed something strange while reviewing the state's death statistics last winter.

"When the spike happened in the winter, all of a sudden this asterisk starts showing up in the vital records death search," LeDuff recalls. "I said, 'Well, what the hell does that [asterisk] mean?'"

After learning that the asterisks were related to COVID-19 deaths but no other quantitative demographic data was publicly available, LeDuff had questions.

Hoping to finally get to the bottom of the state's hotly-debated "regional hub" nursing home policies, which were in place between April and late September last year before shifting in October at the recommendation of a Whitmer-appointed task force, LeDuff filed a FOIA request with MDHHS in January.

LeDuff's request asked for COVID mortality data from December 2020 including the deceased's date of death, age, location of infection, and race (an analysis of limited federal data by the Kaiser Family Foundation last October found that "64% of nursing homes with a high share of Black residents reported one or more death, as compared to 35% in nursing homes with a low share of Black residents" in Michigan, raising important questions about potential racial disparities among the deceased).

MDHHS sent LeDuff a link to the state's COVID dashboard but denied his request for more specific demographics, citing privacy and vital records exemptions. But even after LeDuff revised his request, MDHHS refused to provide the statistics.

Ultimately, LeDuff sued MDHHS for the data under the representation of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation. That suit, filed in March on the basis of FOIA violations, ended in May. As part of the settlement, MDHHS certified that the requested records did not exist but provided LeDuff with the limited data it had.

That data was surprisingly incomplete. Due to inadequate tracking, the agency was unable to provide the full set of requested information. While the FOIA lawsuit hadn't resulted in all of the information LeDuff had been seeking, it revealed something else a failure by the state to implement careful tracking of COVID cases and deaths among the state's most vulnerable population.

"They admit they were counting and then they stopped counting ... because they said it was too time-consuming. That's the conversation that comes out of the lawsuit ..." LeDuff says. "COVID is real. We know it attacks the elderly and the infirm. ... We shut down the economy, shut down the schools, to protect the elderly and infirm. And you didn't [track] the data?"

A Deadline Detroit analysis of the limited data following the settlement found deaths in Michigan long-term care facilities may have accounted for at least 44% of the state's total COVID deaths, exceeding the national average. In a June testimony before the House Oversight Committee, MDHHS Director Elizabeth Hertel acknowledged some of the numbers "could be low."

Although the DOJ recently dropped its identical probes into the handling of COVID in nursing homes in Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania that began last summer, the data resulting from LeDuff's FOIA lawsuit spurred an upcoming review by the state's auditor general seeking clarity about the numbers.

Still, LeDuff is troubled by the fact that it took a lawsuit to obtain COVID death statistics under the state's FOIA. He stresses the importance of access to public information and says a lack of transparency can negatively impact the public's ability to make informed choices.

"The public can't make a good decision if they're flying blind," LeDuff says, adding that he's "proud" of having fought for the data under the FOIA alongside the Mackinac Center.

Metro Times reached out to MDHHS for an interview or statement about common issues with the FOIA and the LeDuff settlement. In response, public information officer Lynn Sutfin sent instructions for how to file a FOIA request with the agency, adding that MDHHS has "processed over 3,951 FOIA requests so far this year and 3,021 subpoenas with a staff of five. In 2020, we processed over 3,600 FOIAs and 4,200 subpoenas, which included 30,000 emails that needed to be reviewed."

MDHHS did not respond to our follow-up email.

Same problems,different year

"COVID and the pandemic really helped to highlight some of our [FOIA] deficiencies, but they weren't the cause of them they've existed for awhile," says Steve Delie, executive director for the Michigan Coalition Open Government and policy lead on transparency issues at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank whose work focuses on transparency and economic issues. (Disclosure: Delie reviewed one of my FOIA requests to help reduce its fees.)

As an attorney that previously represented state governments and now advocates for transparency, Delie has seen the FOIA in action from every angle.

"I've seen a lot of the same techniques over time used to kind of hinder [FOIA requests]," Delie says.

In addition to exorbitant fees and long delays, Delie says excessive redactions are also a common issue. While he acknowledges there are legitimate uses of redactions, like protecting the privacy of citizens, he says they can sometimes be applied too liberally potentially obscuring information citizens may have a right to review.

"Oftentimes when we seek records, we'll see entire pages of blacked-out text, or there will be a blacked-out sentence of an email," Delie says, adding that it can be difficult for laypeople to know whether those redactions have been applied appropriately under the law's exemptions.

Delie says enforcement of the FOIA can also sometimes be a problem for requesters that don't have money to risk on litigation if they lose their case and have to cover the costs. Even when a public body is found guilty of violating the FOIA in court, though, the law's penalties for noncompliance sometimes still aren't enough for larger entities to take them seriously. Delie says updating the FOIA to include financial penalties that correspond with an entity's size and budget could help make them take requests more seriously.

"I think the overall issue is a culture of noncompliance ..." Delie says. "It's really a matter of our public bodies looking at these records requests as either a burden or as a potential avenue to make them look bad and that's not the purpose of FOIA."

A path to more transparency

"I did join colleagues on the other side of the aisle to ensure that there were no FOIA delays," says state Sen. Jeremy Moss, an Oakland County Democrat and a longtime advocate for open government. "Even during an emergency, people should still have access to information that is sought."

Although Moss says he is unfamiliar with many of the FOIA issues that occurred during the pandemic and that no journalists reached out to him during that time, he's still deeply familiar with the problems the state's FOIA has created for years for citizens and journalists seeking government information under the law.

From investigations into the alleged misuse of taxpayer resources by former state representatives Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat in 2015 to revelations the following year about members of former Gov. Rick Snyder's legal counsel allegedly using exemptions in the FOIA to circumvent public access to emails related to the Flint water crisis, the need for better transparency in Michigan has been apparent for years.

"If the State of Michigan doesn't treat [the FOIA] seriously, then what would really compel local units of government to treat it seriously?" Moss says. "I think that's part of the reason why Michigan ranks dead last in accountability, transparency, and ethics according to the Center for Public Integrity. In all 50 states, we're 50th out of 50 in those metrics because we don't put a priority on serving the public in that way."

One of the bigger obstacles Moss says he's observed over time is the fact that Michigan is one of only two states where the governor's office is not subject to FOIA requests (Massachusetts is the other), and one of eight states where the Legislature also isn't.

Since 2016, Moss has fostered a partnership with an unlikely ally Republican state Senator Ed McBroom. The two began working together when they both served in the House, drafting a package of bills called the Legislative Open Records Act (LORA) that would make the governor, lieutenant governor, their staff, and Legislature subject to the state's FOIA.

After countless delays over the years caused by previous Senate leaders' refusals to consider the bills and, more recently, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and investigations into false claims of election fraud, Moss says LORA is finally being considered on the Senate floor this year. Though the package won't help provide access to data from the pandemic (the law would only apply to information created after January 1, 2022), Moss says it's a good place to start.

"We have a culture here in the state of Michigan that we do not provide information to residents upon request, whether or not you're compelled to do so in law or you're written out of the law," Moss says. "So I think what we're trying to do here is put a pressing priority [asking] who is this government meant to serve? I firmly believe it's meant to serve the citizens. And citizens requesting information and receiving that information, to me, is a core function of government."

Although Moss admits the current reforms that are on the table won't fix everything that's wrong with the state's FOIA laws including the exorbitant fees that can sometimes deter citizens and journalists from accessing information he says it's the furthest LORA has gotten in all the years he and McBroom have been working for more government transparency.

"I fully acknowledge, right now, there are problems with the FOIA as it exists," Moss says. "What I'm trying to do is get everyone under the same framework. But our work right now is a floor, not a ceiling ... I think that's one of our future projects, to make sure that FOIA cannot be weaponized by the government, either."

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How the pandemic shined a harsh light on deficiencies in Michigans Freedom of Information Act - Detroit Metro Times

Views expressed in letters to the editordo not represent opinions ofThe Gazette-Virginian or staff members.

I am thinking about the freedom I am supposed to have for not wearing a face mask, which in most cases, is not very hard to do in order to try not to catch COVID-19.

As I wander through my flawed mind, I stumble upon a thought what about the nurses and doctors who have to suit up like they are going to battle in outer space, working overtime, not seeing their families, etc. suited up and masked up day by day in the name of freedom?

I think thats not all driving that idea. So much for freedom shots and masks plus COVID-19.

I have a sister who died from COVID-19, and she is finally free too.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: In the name of freedom - YourGV.com

Trolling is largely associated with humor-impaired right-wing bullies, but there are still some on the left who know how to troll with wit and style whileservingthe forces of good instead of evil.

Take, for instance, the Satanic Temple of Salem, Massachusetts, a perennial thorn in the side of Christian fundamentalists who try to pass off their theocratic impulses as "religious freedom." The Temple, which is a pro-secular organization and does not literally worship Satan, routinely pulls stunts like suingstates that display Christian imageryon public grounds to make themalso display Satanic imagery. The group also stands for reproductive rights, and as Brett Bachman reports for Salon,is fighting the Texas abortion banby declaring that abortion is one of their sacred rituals, making the ban a major imposition ontheir free expression of religion.

The Satanists' trolling worked. The move triggered all the right people, by which I mean misogynist prigs who have way too much interest in other people's sex lives.

Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw'stweet was an immediate contender for the Self-Aware Wolves hall of fame. It's the Satanists whose mission is "to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice, and undertake noble pursuits" and not Crenshaw who are clearly on the right side of history and human rights.

But this move by the Satanic Temple serves a higher purpose than trolling forced-birth advocates like Crenshaw. The Satanists are highlightingan issue that oftengets lost in the debate over reproductive rights: The anti-choice movement is just one part of a larger effort by Christian fundamentalists to covertly turn the U.S. into a more theocratic state.

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Anti-choice politics are driven bya small and shrinking group of hard-right white evangelicals who wish to foisttheir religious views on the majority, in violation of the First Amendment-enshrined value of free exercise of religion. The Texas abortion ban istied to a larger agenda to undermine LGBTQ rights, replacescience with religious dogma, and otherwise violate the constitutional prohibition of the establishment of religion.

Conservativesgo to great lengths to hide how much being anti-abortion is about forcing all Americans to live by the religious tenets of the white evangelicalminority. Indeed, Republicans will often try to pretend "science" is motivating abortion bans, as former New Jersey governor Chris Christie did over the weekend on ABC, when he declared, "One of the reasons you're seeing a decline in abortion is an increase in science and how much more people know about viability." He then went on to baselessly claim that people are"much more appalled by the act of abortion than they were back in 1973."

As with pretty much everything that's said in defense of abortion bans, Christie spouts lies all the way down.

Support for abortion rights has remained steady since 1973and strong majorities want Roe v. Wade to stay put. In 1973, scientists understood perfectly well how embryonic development workedand that understanding hasn't meaningfully changed since then. Embryos are not "viable" two weeks after a missed period, which is when the Texas abortion ban kicks in. Indeed, the pretense for banning abortions so early the"fetal heartbeat" is also a lie. As actual medical scientists and doctors told NPR, there is neither a fetus nor a heart that early in pregnancy, but more "a grouping of cells that are initiating some electrical activity" that GOP legislators misleading call a "heartbeat."

Unfortunately, these kinds of lies about "science" are common among anti-choicers. As scientistsNicole M. Baran,Gretchen Goldman, and Jane Zelikova wrote in Scientific-Americanin 2019, GOP legislators "actively misrepresent the work of scientists, using rhetoric to deceive the public and stoke emotional outrage," and the ideas animating abortion bans "are appallingly unscientific, and they are dangerous."

We've all been accustomed to the cynical ease with which Republicans lie, but the anti-choicelies about "science" are ridiculous even by the basement-level standards conservatives live by. These are the same folks who reject the very realscience of climate changeand COVID-19 vaccination, even though their anti-science views areleading to mass death and destruction. (And then they lie and claim to be "pro-life.") And it's all to servetheocratic forceswho really got this anti-science ball rolling by trying to force schools to teach Christian creation myths in lieu of evolutionary biology.

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It's not sciencethat fuels this assault on abortion rights,it's religion specifically the religion of white Christian fundamentalists.

A 2020Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research pollshows that 67% of white evangelicals want to ban abortion, compared to only 37% of Americans overall. Even the majority of Catholics support legal abortion, despite decades of church opposition to reproductive rights. A similar 2020 poll from Pew Research shows the same results. Strong majorities of Black Protestants, white non-evangelical Protestants, Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated all support Roe v. Wade. The only group where a majority opposes abortion rights is white evangelicals.

The anti-abortion movement cannot be meaningfully separated fromthis theocratic movement of white evangelicals, or, for that matter, from white supremacy. It's all one big bundle of intertwined ideas, and all the same people pushing it. These are folks resolutely opposed to a multiracial democracy, and instead have a vision of the U.S. as a white supremacist state where their far-right religious views shape the laws that everyone has to live by. And despite the fact that Ten Commandments explicitly forbid bearing false witness, these theocrats lie and lie and lie about science, about the law, about their intentions because they know full well that their mission is anti-democratic and violates the constitutional precepts about freedom of religion.

Abortion rights are often marginalized as a "woman's issue" in American political discourse. That's offensive in itself, as women are more than half the population and access to reproductive health care affects the lives of everyone, not just women. But truly, this Texas abortion ban goes beyond even these material questions about health care access. It cuts right to the heart of the struggle defining our era, between a secular, pro-democracy majority and an authoritarian minority who wants to force its racist, theocratic view of America on the rest of us.

The Satanists get it. No amount of right-wing lying about "science" will change the fact that this abortion ban isa direct attack on freedom of religion.

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The Satanists are right: Texas' abortion ban is a direct attack on freedom of religion - Salon

Soon after the Bush administration invaded Iraq in March 2003, activists at Columbia University held a six-hour campus protest against the war. One speaker, an assistant professor of anthropology named Nicholas De Genova, angrily condemned the war on terror as an expression of white supremacy, and expressed his wish that U.S. forces in Iraq suffer a million Mogadishus, a reference to a 1993 battle during the Somali Civil War (subsequently dramatized in the Hollywood blockbuster Black Hawk Down) during which Somalian forces shot down two American military helicopters and killed several U.S. soldiers. After major media outlets picked up a student newspaper report of De Genovas comments, right-wing politicians and pundits attacked the professor as anti-American and Republican members of Congress called on the university to terminate him.

At the time, De Genova wasnt fired and Columbia stated that it would not punish him for his comments. But after being denied promotion by Columbia four years later, De Genova claimed that the university had capitulated to the prevailing political climate brought on by the U.S. response to the tragedy of 9/11.

Indeed, that post-9/11 political climate led many who worked and studied at universities to fear punishment for speaking out against war and militarism. Their fear was well grounded: Over a hundred congressional Republicans and several New York State legislators wrote angry letters to Columbias president, Lee Bollinger, to demand De Genovas firing (the latter group explicitly stated that the professors comments should not be excused under the guise of free speech).

For De Genova and many other college professors and students critical of the Bush administrations war on terror, the immediate aftermath of 9/11 might have felt like an unprecedented moment of danger for their academic freedom. But the truth is more disturbing. The chilling post-9/11 climate surrounding campus speech wasnt so much an aberration as a recurrence: Modern American history repeatedly shows that war is the greatest threat to academic freedom.

Academic freedom, the idea that university faculty and students should be able to freely pursue ideas without fear of retaliation, coercion, or censorship, might seem like an obvious social good. But past societies didnt necessarily think so. The religious authorities who established the first universities in western Europe in the 11th century intended them to serve as sites for training loyal, obedient servants of monarchs and the Christian church, not as places to promote free inquiry, as we understand the concept today. These authorities insisted that scholars and students in the medieval university conform to church orthodoxy. As Pope Gregory IX wrote in a set of statutes he issued for the University of Paris in 1231, students and faculty could dispute only such questions as can be determined by the theological books and the writings of the holy fathers. And when secular rulers struggled to wrest control of universities from the church, they proved equally determined to police the classroom by, for example, requiring that professors and students swear loyalty to the monarchs favored church.

Initially, the situation in America wasnt much better. The First Amendment protected Americans from having their right to speak compromised by the government, but it didn't clearly apply to universities in their role as sites of discourse and debate or places of research and teaching. No coherent concept of academic freedom existed in early America, and as debate and eventually civil war erupted over the issue of slavery, professors at Southern universities who challenged the Confederate political orthodoxy found their jobs threatened.

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Academic Freedom Came Under Attack in the Post-9/11 United States - Teen Vogue

Yesterday on my way home, I went to the supermarket to pick up a few things. Arriving at the door at the same time as a young mother and child coming from a different part of the parking lot, I was surprised when she paused, smiling, and motioned for me to enter first.

Several minutes into my shopping list, not finding a product after a frustrating search, I asked for information from an employee stocking produce. Even though he was busy, he left his workspace and walked me past several aisles to show me the exact spot where it was tucked away on a bottom shelf.

Then later, as I approached a crowded check-out line, someone already in line saw that I only had a few items in my basket and stepped back, indicating that I should move in ahead of her and a full cart.

I suppose you also have experienced these sorts of unpretentious kindnesses. They constitute everyday civility, neighborly actions that we might all associate with a less rushed and more polite period in our nations history or with how our mothers taught us to behave.

But they also illustrate the Golden Rule, a version of which was given by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets (Matthew 7:12).

Methodist New Testament professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, Ben Witherington, comments on this principle:

Jesus was by no means the first or only person to come up with a version of the Golden Rule. There is the famous saying of Rabbi Hillel (110 BCE-10 CE), for example: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is the whole Torah, while the rest is commentary on it; go and learn. It is worth pointing out that Jesus insists on a positive formulation of the maxim, whereas other forms of it, both Jewish and Greco-Roman tend to be negative. Jesus is not talking just about avoiding evil or (the) appearance of evil. He is talking about actually doing good to others.

Indeed, this advice is acommon maxim found in most religions and cultures. The principle for treating others as we would like tobe treated is reflected in the wisdom of ancient Egypt, India, Greece, Rome and Persia as well as taught in the major world religions and philosophies of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Zoroastrianism, Bahai, Humanism and Existentialism.

Soubiquitous and influential is this moral tenet that it was cited in the famous document Declaration Toward a Global Ethic, initially written by Catholic theologian Hans Kng and ratified in 1993 and later updated in 2018 by the Parliament of the Worlds Religions.

Yet, there is an element of selfishness implicit in the Golden Rule, for acting positively toward others may inspire positive behaviors toward oneself. Concerning the human tendency to act according to ones own self-interest, Jesus was not nave, notes Witherington: Jesus assumes self-interest and self-regard and seeks to stretch the audience toward self-sacrifice and regard and love for others.

There is an element of selfishness implicit in the Golden Rule, for acting positively toward others may inspire positive behaviors toward oneself.

Courteous manners, such as the ordinary ones cited earlier, often are encountered in our friendly Southern culture. Sadly, however, sometimes the motivation for such behavior other than training and habit may actually resonate more with the proverb, Honey catches more flies than vinegar, which teaches that it is easier to get what you want by being polite rather than by being rude and insolent.

But the aim of the Golden Rule is not the personal gain one might get in return for being kind to another. Instead, the instruction stresses how one must behave toward others in an actual situation and not what one might receive in an imagined one. The principle is about the way to honor and value another, regardless of whether there is a reciprocal benefit to oneself.

Understanding the rule in this way makes it clearly consistent with a teaching of the Apostle Paul. In his letter to the church at Philippi, he admonished: Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others (Philippines 2:3-4).

The first 11 verses of chapter 2 concern our imitating the humility of Christ, as commemorated in the Christological hymn recited in verses 6-11. Richard Hays, professor emeritus of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, comments on this Philippian passage:

Christs obedience to the point of death (2:8) is offered to the Philippians as a pattern for their own obedience (2:12). Just as he obediently suffered, so the Philippians should stand firm in the gospel, even when it requires them to suffer (1:27-30). Just as he humbled himself and took the form of a slave, so the Philippians should in humility become servants of the interests of others. Thus, Paul takes a hymn whose original purpose is doxological and employs it in service of moral exhortation. Christ becomes an exemplar who illuminates the way of obedience.

The apostle is clear: Let the same mind be in you that wasin Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). In the same way that Christ was self-emptying in his humility and sacrifice for others, the followers of Jesus also must humbly and voluntarily serve the interests of both friends and strangers.

So, how do these two admonitions, one from Jesus and the other from Paul, relate to the current conflicts during the pandemic in America over getting vaccinations or wearing masks?

I am constantly amazed that people who claim to be Christians refuse to get a COVID vaccine or wear masks in public.

I am constantly amazed that people who claim to be Christians refuse to get a COVID vaccine or wear masks in public.

Given the frightening rise of infections and serious illness due to the spread of the Delta variant and reports that almost all pandemic deaths are of the unvaccinated it is self-evident that the Golden Rule is relevant. One should want to protect others by getting a vaccine, just as he or she would want to be protected from catching the virus from them. This conclusion is valid regardless of the religious or philosophical tradition one follows. No one really wants to get sick and risk hospitalization and death.

Even more to the point, however, is the instruction of the apostle. Anyone especially a Christ-follower must humbly regard the well-being of others more than his or her own welfare. Doing so implies that wearing a mask, whose purpose always has been explained as providing protection for the persons who are nearby, is an obvious way that a clear New Testament teaching can be applied to a contemporary ethical problem.

Yet, many Americans even Christians are claiming their personal freedoms trump any responsibility to do something that they dont wish to do. As an American, they argue, I am free to do as I please.

Thats not true, others will insist, citing a familiar exception: You are not free to yell fire in a crowded theater.

But this retort, it appears to me, does not really correspond to our dilemma today. Not wearing a mask or getting a vaccine on the basis of personal freedom is not like yelling fire in a crowded theater. That scenario envisions someone creating a dangerous situation for others based upon a fiction.

You are not free to know that there is a fire in a crowded theater but not yell fire and thus secretly escape to safety without warning others.

Another line of reasoning seems more pertinent: You are not free to know that there is a fire in a crowded theater but not yell fire and thus secretly escape to safety without warning others. This hypothetical case imagines one endangering others in the midst of an actual life-threatening situation. Not to get a vaccine or wear a mask, as the pandemic spreads, is literally threatening the wellness, perhaps even the very lives, of those persons around you as you argue that your are simply exercising personal freedoms and choices.

The disagreements over vaccines and masks actually concern health and safety and are not merely differences of political opinion or matters of individual liberty. These disputes between Centers for Disease Control supporters and anti-vax and anti-mask patriots are shattering friendships and splitting families in our terribly divided America.

In 2015, during an Ebola outbreak in West Africa that was threatening our own country, as well, the then little-known director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, was interviewed byThe Atlantic.As the article relatesFauci

raised the idea of personal freedom, which is really at the core of objections to vaccine requirements. Of course, [children] cannot [always] be vaccinated [at their young age], leaving them susceptible to anything, so choosing not to vaccinate is no more a matter of personal freedom than choosing to drive drunk or practice blindfolded archery in a crowded elevator .The central question is how to get people to care about infectious disease beyond ones own near-term likelihood of contracting something.

Now, six years after Faucis expressed uncertainty about how to get Americans genuinely committed to the measures needed to protect their fellow citizens, even their own family members, we are experiencing the very same conundrum. Yet, for Christians, the decision is not just whether or not to be good citizens. It is also about whether to be faithful Christ-followers.

To paraphrase my North Carolina friend, Dennis Foust, who put it so practically and profoundly in his St. Johns sermon recently: Obey Jesus. Love your neighbor. Get the vaccine, and wear a mask!

Rob Sellersis professor of theology and missions emeritus at Hardin-Simmons Universitys Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, Texas. He is a past chair of the board of the Parliament of the Worlds Religions in Chicago. He and his wife, Janie, served a quarter century as missionary teachers in Indonesia. They live in Waco, Texas.

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In Americas culture divide, the Golden Rule is no longer enough | Opinion by Mark Wingfield

Have you heard the one about empathy being a sin?

Loving your global neighbor | Opinion by Knox Thames

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Putting Jesus and Paul ahead of personal freedom - Baptist News Global