Category Archives: Freedom

National mortgage lender Citywide Home Loans has launched a new Charter Branch Model which gives entrepreneurial lenders greater flexibility to customize the branch experience based on the market where the branch is located.

With its new Charter Branch Model, Citywide provides the platform with all the tools needed to operate a branded mortgage experience while at the same time giving lenders the freedom to be unique: Partners set their own pricing, manage expenses, and make locally based decisions.

We dont handcuff you and force you into a brand box; Citywide offers the flexibility to customize your branch or region experience, says Steve Goorman, founder of Citywide, in a release.

Citywide is different, were a smoothly running, lean and efficient organization, free of complex layers, silos and hierarchies, Goorman says. Our lenders have a real seat at the table; they are part of a close-knit, big, happy and authentic family.

Benefits of the Citywide Charter Branch Model include the Citywide Pricing Validator, an internal construction department with 1X and 2X close, in-house recruiting, and personalized branding.

Utah-based Citywide, founded in 1998, currently has 55 offices in 36 states.

Photo: Amy Hirschi

Read the original:

Citywide Home Loans Gives its Lenders the Freedom to be Unique - Mortgageorb

Dave Eggers is the guest. His new all-ages novel The Eyes and the Impossible, is available from McSweeneys and Knopf Books for Young Readers. Illustrations by Shawn Harris.

Subscribe and download the episode, wherever you get your podcasts!

From the episode:

Brad Listi: Theres an incredible diversity to the work that youve done as a writer and an artist through the years. Youve obviously written adult fiction. Youve written childrens books. This is an all ages book. Youve done journalism work. A nonfiction book. Oral history. Screenwriting.

Im curious to know about that part of it for you, because I think there is a school of thought that might posit that one should focus on something and just lock in and do that thing over and over again, which is what a lot of writers do. If they write literary fiction, theyre novelists. Thats it. They dont even write story collections. They just do novels.

You have a more diversified output, and Im wondering how you experience that. You must feel like it gives you something rather than takes something away. But I think there might be people out there who are like, is this a wise path? Is it distracting at times? Do you find yourself starting things and not finishing things? Do you ever feel like youve lost the thread and youre overextended?

Dave Eggers:Well, I think that youre talking about freedom, right? And this is the major theme of this book, is that if you are beholden as an artist to some perception of, well, whats the right way to go through a short life in a universe perhaps without meaning, and if youre going to say, well, the right way is to write variations on the same novel every four years until Im dead, thats a very sad, sad way to go through life.

And if that is someones way and they want to do it that wayand I do know artists that are very methodical and theyre very happy with their method, with it being every once a decade you put out a work of art, whether its a book or an opera or something. If that is your way and if that is the way that you feel most happy andto use a terrible wordfulfilled, then great.

But when I hear or or feel like somebody is going through their life as an artist in a way because they think that that is the right way or that they will be perceived as having done it the right way or the most appropriate way for them, that is a tragedy. To be given the gift of writing or creating for a living and then to cage yourself within the boundaries of whats deemed acceptable is just the worst tragedy of all.

I feel every day so lucky to be able to do this, to be able to get up in the morning and create stuff and think about wooden covers for a book about a dog at a park. I mean, its just ludicrous luck. And I think that the best way to honor that luck is to do anything you want to do. And if it ends up being not a total success however you judge it, then thats fine.

But in a short lifeand Im exquisitely aware of how short life can beI want to do anything I want to do. So if tomorrow somebody pulled up in front of the office here at 849 Valencia and said, Hey, do you want to go on a cross-country trip in a car shaped like a banana, and were going to visit all of the national parks that have waterfalls and were going to adopt a bobcat and name them Steveif I felt like doing that that day, then certainly I would. Thats such a weird example. I dont know why I was thinking about that. Weirdly, my daughter and I were in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where I went to school, and the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile and the Planters Peanut mobile were both on the same street at the same time, waiting one after another in traffic. It was the most incredible thing. So its on my mind.

But I do know what youre saying. When I was a very young writer in my twenties, I did sometimes look at older artists and say, well, I love your prose, why are you writing screenplays? I dont think thats cool. But I think generally that is the mindset of very early twenties. Theres a certain amount of ignorance, theres a certain amount of cynicism, theres a certain amount of wrongheadedness. And I think that sort of self-enforced adherence to whats cool or whats acceptable is so contrary to the entire idea of being an artist, which is about living fully freely.

Thats when any kind of incursion into that freedom, any kind of encroachment of that freedom, is really upsetting to me. And were seeing more of it now, whether its banning books on the right or whether its censoring books on the left, like they did with Roald Dahlthese are all encroachments into freedom. And we have to remember that the freedom of the artist has to be absolute. Otherwise theres no art, because then were just writing pamphlets or its state-sponsored creation. Its the same thing as under the Soviets, where were in service to some political message. The artist must be absolutely untethered. And whether or not that art is good or bad or whatever, thats fine. But there can be no rules about creation. We might not love every last thing that this artist does, but they have to be completely untethered.

*

Dave Eggers is the author of many books, including bestsellers The Every, The Monk of Mokha, The Circle, A Hologram for the King,andA Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.His work has been nominated for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the founder of McSweeneys, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco, and cofounder of 826 National, a network of educational centers around the country offering free tutoring to kids of all backgrounds.He lives in Northern California with his family.

Shawn Harrisis the author/illustrator ofHave You Ever Seen a Flower?,which won a Caldecott Honor Award. He is the illustrator ofHer Right Footby Dave Eggers, which received seven starred reviews, was an Orbis Pictus Award Honor Book, an ALA Notable, and aPWBest Book of the Year. His other picture books include EggerssWhat Can a Citizen Do(aTimeMagazine Best Childrens Book),Everyones Awakeby Colin Meloy, andA Polar Bear in the Snowby Mac Barnett.

Go here to see the original:

Dave Eggers: The Freedom of the Artist Has to Be Absolute. - Literary Hub

Thorny questions about media freedoms and democracy face African countries. On the one hand, empowering governments to limit media might undermine fragile democracies by allowing incumbents to squelch investigative reporting and opposition voices. On the other hand, free media bring potential problems. These include disinformation, hate speech and even calls to violence. A team of researchers from Afrobarometer worked on a project to understand how citizens think about media freedom. Afrobarometer is an independent, pan-African research organisation dedicated to the study of public opinion. In over a year, they focused on four countries: Cte dIvoire, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. They found that citizens in these countries cannot be simply characterised as either for or against media freedom. People who supported democracy were more supportive of protecting the media from government interference. But this group swung behind the need for censorship when it came to hate speech and false information.

SOURCE:THE CONVERSATION

Link:

People from Various African Countries Weigh in on Limiting Media ... - Africa.com

As a teacher and literacy coach in a local school district for many years, I saw the impact on children of unwanted pregnancies in terms of poverty, other poor conditions for growing up, and the ability to benefit from school opportunities.

Now more than ever our young people deserve to be wanted and loved in a family with the means to support them for 18-plus years.

Please support reproductive rights for Mainers. Specifically, urge your representative and senator to vote yes on L.D. 1619 when it comes to the floor. I know many voters in rural Maine who feel as I do about the importance of freedom to access contraception including abortion.

Without the ability to control our child bearing, freedom is a meaningless word.

Lisa Savage

Solon

Invalid username/password.

Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

Previous

Next

See the original post here:

There's no freedom without abortion rights - CentralMaine.com - Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel

No one at the NFL ever explicitly said that the NFL Media Groups decision to not renew the contract of Jim Trotter over his longstanding public questioning of the companys lack of diversity at the leadership level, but it was hard not to draw a direct line between the two things.

Trotter, who joined NFL Media in 2018, certainly thought the two were connected, saying in March that I do believe it played a role in my contract not being renewed. Even before that, after asking NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell why the NFL Media Group didnt have more diverse leadership (for the second-consecutive year), Trotter said that no one from the league personally followed up with him afterward, which said everything it needed to say.

Given his bona fides, Trotter didnt spend too much time unemployed as The Athletic swooped in and signed the veteran reporter and writer. Given that he declined a severance package that included an NDA, everyone has been waiting to find out what Trotter will have to say about his time with the NFL.

In his first piece for The Athletic, Trotter doesnt spill all the tea, but he does set the table for whats to come.

My new role will allow me to jump headfirst into stories of interest, Trotter wrote. Many of my writings will continue to focus on the NFL; thats where my expertise is. But Im excited by the opportunity to weigh in elsewhere, to go where the brush closes behind as I move forward.

I love a good human-interest story, or an inside look at individual greatness, what it looks and smells and tastes like. But my greater focus what I like to call my purpose is giving a voice to those whose voices are not being heard.

As for his previous role, Trotter makes it clear that he felt stifled while there and wasnt able to do all of the reporting that he would have wanted to do.

There is the freedom and support to write on topics of my choosing, said Trotter of being at The Athletic. I no longer have to worry about my words being watered down or silenced altogether, which was not always the case over my final two years with NFL Media Group, which is owned by the NFL.

I thought I knew what I was getting into. I was told we would always report the news, though we might not opine on it. That was not the case, particularly when it came to reporting on team owners or the league office.

Trotter has previously said that, in regards to how his time with NFL Media Group ended, he will talk about that more later. Given his stated objective to tell the news as it is, and not how his employer would want it told, we cant wait to hear what he has to say.

[The Athletic]

Excerpt from:

The Athletics Jim Trotter excited to have freedom and support he wasnt getting with NFL Media Group - Awful Announcing

The latter scenario is suggested by the Canadian academic Eric Kaufmanns response to the wokeness-has-peaked arguments. The current pendulum swing is real enough, he argues, but the ideological enforcers dont need to win every near-term battle to win the institutional war:

in the long run, liberalism is giving way to progressivism in elite spaces. The new cultural liberalism in the media reflects the views of senior staff members and is opposed by affinity groups and young employees. Thats important, because surveys consistently find that woke values are twice as prevalent among younger leftists than among older leftists. Over eight in 10 undergraduates at 150 leading U.S. colleges say speakers who say B.L.M. is a hate group or transgenderism is a mental disorder should not be permitted to speak on campus. Whats more, seven in 10 think a professor who says something that students find offensive should be reported to their university. Young academics are twice as censorious as those over 50. These are the editorial teams and professoriate of tomorrow.

Theres a lot to say about this subject, but I want to focus on that last sentence, because I think it conflates two experiences that reality may substantially divide: the intellectual climate within media and journalism on the one hand and in academia on the other.

Both of these professions are subject to the pressures and ideas and incentives that gave rise to woke progressivism, and both have experienced various forms of internal tumult in recent years. But my sense is that their ideological paths have already diverged a bit and are likely to diverge further as the generational turnover Kaufmann describes continues.

To be clear, Im discussing the media outlets that traditionally think of themselves as mainstream enterprises ideologically neutral or center-left or small-l liberal, not explicitly political in their formal missions, with some room for diversity, even though their staffs vote mostly for Democrats. These organizations seem less likely to become as ideologically bunkered as similarly situated academic institutions because of several forces that limit the full entrenchment of progressive ideology.

First, the media is, by definition, an outward-facing, audience-driven enterprise, dependent on some kind of mass market for its viability. Mass audiences can make their own ideological demands and effectively capture some of the journalists who serve them; you can certainly see versions of this happening in explicitly right-wing media in the Trump era. But wokeness has often been more of an elite-driven ideology, with special influence in academia and professionalized activist organizations, and its rules and shibboleths tend to spread from inner circles outward, rather than being demanded by a mass public first.

Which means there will always be a large potential audience that doesnt get the new ideological rules, or not yet, and for whom dissent or debate around the emergent order will seem much more normal and desirable than to true believers. And if normal debate seems poised to disappear from a given publication or broadcast channel, some readers, listeners and viewers will follow the argument elsewhere to a rival, a start-up, a Joe Rogan-esque alternative or a platform like Substack, if necessary. And some of the commentators and journalists whom they follow, who choose to work in this terrain, may even end up much more richly rewarded than they were before.

View post:

Opinion | Why Journalists Have More Freedom Than Professors - The New York Times

Freedom is a single word with different meanings that apply to different lifestyles and quality of life levels. For some, freedom means buying whatever you want; for others, its the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want. For others, its the freedom to live and work wherever you want. This post will explore the multifaceted nature of freedom. We will journey through financial freedom, time freedom, and location freedom. By understanding these freedoms, we can better pursue our unique lifestyles of what personal freedom means to each of us. We should optimize our lives for what type of freedom is most important.

What are the three types of freedom?

Imagine a life where you no longer worry about bills, debt, or the cost of necessities. A life where you can afford the luxuries that bring you joy without a second thought. This life is what we call financial freedom.

Financial freedom refers to sufficient savings, investments, and liquid assets to support our desired lifestyle for ourselves and our families. It entails cultivating a financial nest that allows for retirement or pursuing preferred careers independent of a specific annual salary. Financial freedom is having our money work for us, not us working for our money.

Financial freedom isnt about being rich. Its about the liberty to live life without the burden of financial worry. It has enough income to cover living expenses, for now, and in the future. Its the comfort of knowing you can support your family, save for retirement, and still have enough to indulge your wants.

People who work tirelessly to build businesses, cash-flowing assets, or investment portfolios can eventually have a high enough net worth or cash flow to be free from needing a job. After years of struggle, breaking free to financial freedom is possible if you work on the right things. The right assets can pay off your debts and provide a steady passive income, enabling you to live comfortably and secure your future. Thats financial freedom. You dont need a job or a boss.

Next, lets explore the realm of time freedom. Its the liberty to control ones time, live at ones own pace, choose when to work and rest, pursue hobbies, or do nothing when you want.

Consider the example of spending years in a traditional 9-to-5 job. One day, the employee decided theyd had enough of trading their time for money. They transitioned into freelance work, where they could set their hours. They created a passive income stream that allowed them to quit their day job. The former employee now spends their days pursuing their passion for painting, taking long walks in nature, and enjoying quality time with their family. Thats time freedom. You work when you want and schedule your leisure time when you want. You are no longer constrained inside a work schedule that dictates when you must be at your desk or when you can go on vacation.

Lastly, well dive into location freedom. This is the liberty to work from any corner of the globe, unhindered by geographical constraints. Its the ability to set up a workspace on a sun-soaked beach or a bustling city caf.

Think about digital nomads as the most extreme example. They may be a freelance graphic designer unrelated to any particular city or country and not bound by location or an office. They spend their time traveling, exploring new places, and experiencing different cultures while staying on top of their work. Theyre free from the confines of a traditional office. Thats location freedom. Work wherever you want, as youre not confined to one office, city, or company headquarters.

Its possible to have only one or two of these freedoms and miss one or two. Lets see what that looks like.

Read more from the original source:

What are the Kinds of Freedom? - New Trader U

With the NCAA tournament back in Louisville, an ode to Freedom Hall and all its great basketball moments  NCAA.com

Read more:

With the NCAA tournament back in Louisville, an ode to Freedom Hall and all its great basketball moments - NCAA.com

Focus - Freedom of the press in Jordan: Journalists and activists battle censorship  FRANCE 24 English

Continue reading here:

Focus - Freedom of the press in Jordan: Journalists and activists battle censorship - FRANCE 24 English

We tend to think of freedom as an emancipatory idealand with good reason. Throughout history, the desire to be free inspired countless marginalized groups to challenge the rule of political and economic elites. Liberty was the watchword of the Atlantic revolutionaries who, at the end of the 18th century, toppled autocratic kings, arrogant elites and (in Haiti) slaveholders, thus putting an end to the Old Regime. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Black civil rights activists and feminists fought for the expansion of democracy in the name of freedom, while populists and progressives struggled to put an end to the economic domination of workers.

While these groups had different objectives and ambitions, sometimes putting them at odds with one another, they all agreed that their main goalfreedomrequired enhancing the peoples voice in government. When the late Rep. John Lewis called on Americans to let freedom ring, he was drawing on this tradition.

But there is another side to the story of freedom as well. Over the past 250 years, the cry for liberty has also been used by conservatives to defend elite interests. In their view, true freedom is not about collective control over government; it consists in the private enjoyment of ones life and goods. From this perspective, preserving freedom has little to do with making government accountable to the people. Democratically elected majorities, conservatives point out, pose just as much, or even more of a threat to personal security and individual rightespecially the right to propertyas rapacious kings or greedy elites. This means that freedom can best be preserved by institutions that curb the power of those majorities, or simply by shrinking the sphere of government as much as possible.

This particular way of thinking about freedom was pioneered in the late 18th century by the defenders of the Old Regime. From the 1770s onward, as revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic rebelled in the name of liberty, a flood of pamphlets, treatises and newspaper articles appeared with titles such as Some Observations On Liberty, Civil Liberty Asserted or On the Liberty of the Citizen. Their authors vehemently denied that the Atlantic Revolutions would bring greater freedom. As, for instance, the Scottish philosopher Adam Fergusona staunch opponent of the American Revolutionexplained, liberty consisted in the security of our rights. And from that perspective, the American colonists already were free, even though they lacked control over the way in which they were governed. As British subjects, they enjoyed more security than was ever before enjoyed by any people. This meant that the colonists liberty was best preserved by maintaining the status quo; their attempts to govern themselves could only end in anarchy and mob rule.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

In the course of the 19th century this view became widespread among European elites, who continued to vehemently oppose the advent of democracy. Benjamin Constant, one of Europes most celebrated political thinkers, rejected the example of the French revolutionaries, arguing that they had confused liberty with participation in collective power. Instead, freedom-lovers should look to the British constitution, where hierarchies were firmly entrenched. Here, Constant claimed, freedom, understood as peaceful enjoyment and private independence, was perfectly secureeven though less than five percent of British adults could vote. The Hungarian politician Jzseph Etvs, among many others, agreed. Writing in the wake of the brutally suppressed revolutions that rose against several European monarchies in 1848, he complained that the insurgents, battling for manhood suffrage, had confused liberty with the principle of the peoples supremacy. But such confusion could only lead to democratic despotism. True libertydefined by Etvs as respect for well-earned rightscould best be achieved by limiting state power as much as possible, not by democratization.

In the U.S., conservatives were likewise eager to claim that they, and they alone, were the true defenders of freedom. In the 1790s, some of the more extreme Federalists tried to counter the democratic gains of the preceding decade in the name of liberty. In the view of the staunch Federalist Noah Webster, for instance, it was a mistake to think that to obtain liberty, and establish a free government, nothing was necessary but to get rid of kings, nobles, and priests. To preserve true freedomwhich Webster defined as the peaceful enjoyment of ones life and propertypopular power instead needed to be curbed, preferably by reserving the Senate for the wealthy. Yet such views were slower to gain traction in the United States than in Europe. To Websters dismay, overall, his contemporaries believed that freedom could best be preserved by extending democracy rather than by restricting popular control over government.

But by the end of the 19th century, conservative attempts to reclaim the concept of freedom did catch on. The abolition of slavery, rapid industrialization and mass migration from Europe expanded the agricultural and industrial working classes exponentially, as well as giving them greater political agency. This fueled increasing anxiety about popular government among American elites, who now began to claim that mass democracy posed a major threat to liberty, notably the right to property. Francis Parkman, scion of a powerful Boston family, was just one of a growing number of statesmen who raised doubts about the wisdom of universal suffrage, as the masses of the nation want equality more than they want liberty.

William Graham Sumner, an influential Yale professor, likewise spoke for many when he warned of the advent of a new, democratic kind of despotisma danger that could best be avoided by restricting the sphere of government as much as possible. Laissez faire, or, in blunt English, mind your own business, Sumner concluded, was the doctrine of liberty.

Being alert to this history can help us to understand why, today, people can use the same wordfreedomto mean two very different things. When conservative politicians like Rand Paul and advocacy groups FreedomWorks or the Federalist Society talk about their love of liberty, they usually mean something very different from civil rights activists like John Lewisand from the revolutionaries, abolitionists and feminists in whose footsteps Lewis walked. Instead, they are channeling 19th century conservatives like Francis Parkman and William Graham Sumner, who believed that freedom is about protecting property rightsif need be, by obstructing democracy. Hundreds of years later, those two competing views of freedom remain largely unreconcilable.

Annelien de Dijn is the author of Freedom: An Unruly History, available now from Harvard University Press.

More Must-Reads From TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com.

Read more:

The Idea of 'Freedom' Has Two Different Meanings. Here's Why - Time