Category Archives: New Utopia

In Sensient Flavors recently released Trends To Taste 2019 report, the firms flavorists argue that before manufacturers can predict whether a consumer will embrace or reject a new flavor, food or beverage, they must first understand how consumers are interpreting the heavy doses of information from around the world that they constantly receive in their increasingly connected existence.

Sensient does this through market excursions, focus groups, qualitative interviews with industry experts and constant monitoring of shifts in consumer behavior. It then layers in responses from the past and present to predict which flavors will flourish in the future and with whom.

In its Trends To Taste 2019 report, Sensient breaks down its predictions into the past, present and finally the future.

As the divide among Americans has expanded in recent years, many people are looking back to better understand how we got where we are. This has inspired in some a sense of nostalgia and a desire to recreate a time that they perceive as better than the present. But, as Sensient notes, for others the past cannot be left behind fast enough and they want nothing more than to move forward.

Broadly speaking, among those who love the past, this has played out as a return to traditional recipes and open fire cooking, the farm to table movement, a resurgence in speakeasies and hyper-regional dishes gaining national interest, according to the report.

As such, it predicts, that the medieval spice blend of Poudre Douce, which includes warm spices and a peppery bite with a touch of citrus, will gain traction in coming years. It can be used on anything from roasted meats to bakery items and can help brands evoke a certain time and place and gives them an opportunity to tell a story rooted in history.

For consumers who reject the past and challenge societal structures that they didnt create, the sweet and savory combination of the Brazilian dish Romeu E Juliet will likely appeal. The dish brings together guava paste and fresh cheese and illustrates how brands can show how society has shaped them, but not necessarily defined or confined, the report argues.

As in the past, Sensient found a divergence in Americans present day behavior and flavor preferences.

On one side are those who have immersed themselves in discovery and learning, and on the other are those who want to completely disconnect from the world around them, the report notes.

For those who are all in, this trend translates to an obsession with food, including fast food, flavor-mashups, single-themed restaurants and street food. For these consumers, Sensient predicts ingredients like the Timut peppercorn will find favor. It explains the peppery notes and zesty aromas of grapefruit and passion fruit will allow manufacturers and consumers to appreciate the plants full spectrum of applications and the ability to use all parts of the plant.

For those who want to check out, ingredients that offer healing, like honey, or a diversion, like a chocolate toadstool may be better options, Sensient predicts. It explains that these flavors ground consumers in nature and also offer a sense of fun escape. They also let brands engage with consumers outside of the standard channels, and connect through unexpected experiences, the report explains.

Sensient acknowledges that no one knows for sure what the future holds, but it adds that brands can give consumers the power to craft the future they want be it a utopia or dystopia.

For consumers who believe a dystopic future is their destiny, Sensient notes that brands are giving consumers the tools to live a simpler life off the land as seen in the farm-to-fork movement. This also opens the door for new, sturdier crops to take center stage, including the yaupon. As the only caffeine-containing plant in North America, Sensient predicts that consumers will embrace fermenting the plant to create a slightly floral, slightly sour flavor profile.

For more optimistic consumers who predict a utopia, Sensient predicts the sweet brown and slightly bitter and creamy flavor profile of silan will be more appealing. The date-based and honey-like syrup represents a broader opportunity for companies to substitute todays common ingredients with unique ones to create a new vision of the future.

As brands twine their way through these different branches, Sensient says the possibilities are endless and it welcomes the chance to help companies blaze a new path forward.

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Sensient predicts diverging flavor trends will help consumers find their own path forward - FoodNavigator-USA.com

Acid digidub, Japanese lo-fi, razor-sharp electro and more.

With reissues and reissue singles behind us, we turn our attention to new music. As ever, we are splitting our new music round-ups by format into three lists: 7s & 10s, 12s and LPs.

Typically the home of the pop single, the 7s has been repurpose and reclaimed in recent years by labels and artists to test new ideas and sonic possibilities.

This year, the scope has been similarly experimental, with a broad cross-section of genres represented, whether in the acidic electro of Tecwaa, the digidub of Jahder, or James Massiahs spoken word reimagined for the dance floor.

Elsewhere, we saw artists repurpose the punk legacy of the 7 for new genres, as with Collocutors The Angry One or NTS Radios inaugural release, which paired two artists who have consistently taken a DIY approach to making music.

Making a conscious decision not to include tracks featured elsewhere on albums but instead focus on those releases which make a virtue of the format in its own right, our favourite 7s and 10s should offer an exploratory cross-section of music not often collected in the same place.

Catch up on the rest of VFs 2019 round-ups here:

Our 30 favourite reissues of 2019Our 12 favourite reissue singles of 2019The best turntables of 2019The best speakers of 2019The best amplifiers of 2019The best headphones of 2019

(Planet Rescue)

Buy

Planet Rescue only dropped a pair of releases in 2019, but rest assured you should find room for both in your collection. Bagigi Dub / WW Dub sticks with the imprints hardware aesthetic, but swaps wigged-out tape funk for skunky dub, and marks a return to studio business for occasional collaborators Bear Bones, Lay Low, David Vanzan and Virginia Genta, more commonly known as Yader. Presented in a suitably weed-laden sleeve, the two tracks sway through scuzzy tape delay and cavernous echo, exploring stripped-back skank on the A-side and more melodious meandering on the flip. Patrick Ryder

(Olindo Records)

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Olindo Records continued to offer an outpost for Venezuelan music in the UK, this time featuring Caracas-based multi-instrumentalist Isaac Sasson. The floating Paseo en un Sueo does exactly what it says on the tin, combining folk-influenced instrumentation with a wistful melody, while Cancin para mi Familia, Venezuela takes things into darker realms its undulating tempo and rising intensity held together by a defiant beating drum. London-based producer Hector Plimmer, who released a new album Next To Nothing on Alberts Favourites this year, strips back the title track for a slow-burning remix to close out proceedings. Be sure to also check out Olindos vinyl release of Betsayda Machados Lo Lo a powerful collection of vocal and percussion-led, Afro-Venezuelan songs. Anton Spice

(TIO-Series)

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Following Leifs flora and fauna-inspired Loom Dream LP on Whities earlier this year, he returned to his TIO-Series imprint for Montpelier / Rumex. Swaying on a tightrope between more techno-orientated rhythms and downtempo sensibilities, Montpelier / Rumex avoids falling directly into either camp. Rumex provides the perfect score for the final hours of a festival, gently winding the excitement down. However, its the dreamy Montpelier that is the real standout an expansive soundscape that dissolves the barriers between an imagined woodland and modernist mechanics of a club. Lazlo Rugoff

(On The Corner)

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Tamar Osborns Collocutor followed 2018s Black Satin with a surprise 7 for On the Corner earlier this year that packs a serious punch into just about 5 minutes of music. Angular improvisations, raw sax wig-outs and a wonky groove make The Angry One a recklessly brilliant tune, before Tamar goes head-to-head with Magnus Pi for the honk-fest on the flip. Channeling punks short, sharp bursts of anti-establishment ire, The Angry One taps into the cathartic potential of improvisation, and refuses to be held down. AS

(Hga Nord Rekords)

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Gothenburgs Hga Nord continued to feed heads, making an appearance in our 7 list thanks to a nuanced double header from the mysterious Tecwaa C / Xenth. Inspired by roots in the Yorkshire rave scene, the hardware mystic wrapped percolating 303 lines around razor-sharp electro rhythms for A-side offering C, turning up the intensity around the midpoint with brooding bass notes. Things take a turn for tribal-techno on the B-side, as computer-generated hand drums and exotic electronics sat beneath cinematic vocal samples and bleep-based melodies, transporting us to a far off land of new beat and new psychedelics. PR

(NTS)

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Londons NTS Radio released its first 7 in late 2019, pairing two artists whose work regularly pushes at the boundaries between electronic and experimental classical music. On the A-side, Mica Levi delivered Hosting, a 2-minute lullaby, where off-kilter, plucked strings provided an unnerving counterpoint to meandering flute melodies a duet where both parts seem to stray from the score only to resolve in the silence between notes. On the flip, Duval Timothy continued his exploration of minimalism and field recordings, allowing the gothic slashes of electric guitar to dissolve into a sun-dappled RnB groove. Weaving snippets of conversations and a gentle piano melody into the fabric of the track, DYE pulled together influences from UK and Sierra Leone and expands on the documentary recordings that underpinned 2018s 2 Sim. AS

(Lobster Theremin)

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Dance music can sometimes feel stifling in its too cool for school seriousness, which is why the fun patrol can be where its at. Entr DJ Skechers and Yung Dolphin with a triple punch that didnt solve world hunger, but it did put a spring in the step all year long. Do It (With My Skechers On) kicks the 7 off with a serviceable number about the producers trainers. But its the B-side where the party lies, thanks to its title track Delphin Invasion an aquatic Swiss-German house ode to dolphins. Heres the rub: at first listen you probably thought what the hell is this? until you played it again, and realised: oh, hang on, this is pretty flippin good. A swerved-down, syrupy final track called Fly Away (Chopped & Screwed) seconded that emotion. The 7 was the pice de rsistance from Lobster Theremin a label that released a bevvy of records in 2019 that are well worth checking out. Gabriela Helfet

(Caroline)

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Ending a three year break from songwriting, Japanese lo-fi multi-instrumentalist Shintaro Sakamoto returned with a blissful 7 on Zelon Records, enlisting Eddie Corman (aka Miyazima Hitomi) for ethereal backing vocals on both tracks. A-side Boat saw Sakamotos dulcet, warped-California-surf-via-Nippon synths, guitars and vocals shimmy through Corcorans tones to balmy effect. On the flip, Dear Future Person (Cornelius) channelled Haruomi Hosono psychedelia woven with horns and guitars to create one of the years dreamiest ballads. Boat / Dear Future Person (Cornelius) is welcome return from Sakamoto, as well as an endearing introduction to Hitomi, who well hopefully hear more from in the near future. GH

(Warp)

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Over twenty years since her debut 10 for Warp Records, Mira Calix returned to Warp in early 2019 with Utopia, a quartet of cut and paste, downtempo tracks built around jagged, industrial percussion and clipped, playful aphorisms for the digital age. Using her soundtrack to Adam Thirwells Random Acts short as the basis of lead track, rightclick dives into the schism between dys- and u- topia for what Calix calls something for friends to move to in the early hours of a louche house party. Fascinated by the potential of collage in music, theres a reconstructed feel to Utopia, which uses sound sources in innovative ways to mirror Calixs work for art installations (like Our Time for UVAs Other Spaces exhibition), which has dominated her practice in recent years. AS

(Levels)

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A slung-out and hypnotic encapsulation of South London sounds in 2019, in swooped poet and DJ James Massiah with a self-produced EP called Natural Born Killers (Ride For Me) on Jon Rusts Levels imprint. Its physical release, a tidy two-track 7, offered something different to the digital EP. On the A-side, Pete OGrady (aka Joy O) assumed rework duties on the low-slung dancehall-fuelled rhythmics of its title track, with a glassy, vinyl-only edit. (Natural Born Killers (Ride For Me) also received a stellar, cinematic sizzler of a music video, directed by Ian Pons Jewell.) Meanwhile on the flip, 144,000 swirled sultry sonic smoke through a stripped-back Nightrider-esque, rnb sieve the perfect tune for nocturnal road trips across LDN. GH

Artwork by Patrick Savile.

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Our 10 favourite 7s and 10s of 2019 - The Vinyl Factory

Although theBioShockseries may be known for innovative gameplay and incredible storytelling, its one of a kind settings are what truly help the games stand apart from other first person shooters. The first two entries take place in Rapture, a massive city in the bottom of the ocean, whereBioShockInfinitetold its story in the city of Columbia, one that floated in the sky far above land. Now that anotherBioShockgame is officially being developed, it'stime to ask the biggest question on everyone's mind: where is the game going to take place?

The first and most obvious choice is Rapture. After all, the underwater city is what gaveBioShockits reputation in the first place, and a majority of the player base considers the original to be the greatest entry in the series. The eerie corridors and dystopian atmosphere of the underwater city experiencing a state of complete anarchy and destruction is the back drop thatBioShockis best known for, andconsidering thatwe haven't seen anewBioShockgame since 2013, settingBioShock 4in Rapture is the safest bet.

RELATED:How Games Fail At Grappling With Religion

Many fans would be thrilled to see the series make a return to the airborne city of Columbia though. Similar to Rapture, Columbia is in a state of total turmoil throughoutBioShock Infinite, but its bright and colorful atmosphere and colonial architecture provide for an interesting contrast against the game's dystopian story. Where Rapture was dark and brooding, Columbia was bright and inspiring, which really sold the idea of a utopia gone wrong when things went south and that beautiful colonial architecture was set on fire.

The third option would be to set the game in a completely new place. One can only speculate where this new city might be located, or if it'll be a city at all. Given that above the earth and below the surface are the two most obvious options, the creative minds behind the game will have to come up with something special to pull off the same impact that the first two cities had. Could the city be in outer space, or inside the earth? We won't know until a trailer drops, which will hopefully be soon.

As mentioned earlier, Rapture is the most obvious choice, given the hiatus that the series has experienced, and the fact that a brand new studio, Cloud Chamber, is developing the new entry. Since we've already been to Rapture twice, there will need to be something fresh and exciting about a third return if the newBioShockis going to land. So far, a release date seems to be years away, but we can't wait until more news about this game comes out.

READ NEXT:9 Hilarious BioShock Memes Only True Fans Understand

Gaming Detail: Hidden Character Details In Pokmon Sword & Shield

Hi! My name is Michael Walters and I'm a writer for TheGamer.com. I'm originally from Cleveland, OH, and I'm sadly still a die hard Cleveland sports fan, but I currently live in Los Angeles. I also work as an editor/writer/coordinator for Omnia Media (Arcade Cloud, BCC, The Countdown), and I'm obsessed with movies and tv shows as much as I am video games. Some of my all-time favorite games include Resident Evil 4, BioShock Infinite, Halo 3, Pokmon Crystal, and GTA San Andreas. Right now I'm playing a ton of Pokmon Sword, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Luigi's Mansion 3, and Modern Warfare. I'm also looking forward to spending all of my free time playing Cyberpunk next year. Follow me on Instagram @mkwvltrs or twitter @mikeswalters.

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BioShock 4: Will It Take Place In Rapture, Columbia, Or Somewhere New? - TheGamer

Ministers and their shadows must rise to the challenge of debating local governments future and all the other tricky issues.

This election campaign has been unedifying, bland and, frankly, depressing. The quality of debate has been lamentable. The lack of vision or at least any vision that is achievable leaves one devoid of optimism for the future.

Only two parties could lead the next government. Both are making unaffordable commitments, one to a greater extent than the other. For one, an unparalleled public spending splurge holds the answer to everything; for the other getting Brexit done will lead us to the promised land. In fact, this Never Never Land fantasy is every bit as unobtainable as socialist utopia.

Promises are seemingly made on the say-so of a focus group and forgotten in an instant, in a cavalier manner which undermines both democracy and fiscal responsibility. The Conservative manifesto pledges 40 new hospitals while the prime minister has subsequently admitted there is merely seed funding for them. There is no indication of consideration as to whether 40 new hospitals offer value and welfare prioritising primary and social care, and public health, would promote the more ambitious objective of keeping people out of hospital. Labours manifesto we were told was fully costed and would entail tax rises for just 5% of the population, only for the party to subsequently agree to dole out another 58bn, to WASPI women, many of them wealthy, who lost out when the state pension age was equalised. This commitment would require borrowing funded by younger people who already face worse living standards, higher property prices and later retirements.

When it comes to local government, Labours pledges to boost council budgets and build 100,000 council homes a year are welcome. However, when placed alongside so many other equally bold commitments on a multitude of other issues it is hard to take the partys promises seriously. Beyond council housing, Labour offers little to rebalance our national power structure a national care service and national youth service may just be spin but the N-word undermines the principle that local leaders understand local needs best.

The Tories promise full devolution across England but would undermine councils by keeping them at austerity-level funding. A review of business rates will surely reduce councils income and there is no indication of extra grant to compensate. Meanwhile, the notion that maintaining social cares 1bn boost from this year will be sufficient is laughable. It is inexcusable for the party to present no social care funding policy (other than the intergenerational equity-busting promise that no pensioner should sell their home to fund care).

Local government policy has not been high up the national agenda. However, councils future health, the empowerment of communities forgotten by central decisionmakers and the need to permanently level-up living standards and opportunity (not through one-off pots subject to bids to the centre), require that local government issues are rigorously debated.

A few showpiece debates, generally manipulated by the big two parties for their own convenience, does not constitute sufficient opportunity to probe prospective leaders. Every member of the electorate has individual concerns: they may work in or depend upon a particular public service or have a specific business interest. By and large election campaigns ignore their interests. The process would be enhanced by all cabinet ministers being expected to debate their areas of responsibility with their shadows in a series of televised or streamed debates.

LGC would gladly host the local government one next time around unless, of course, our national politicians continue to opt for the easy, low-risk option of shirking debate and avoiding scrutiny of their manifesto proposals. There should be no repeat of this uninformative torpor which constitutes a slap in the face for the council staff who dedicate themselves to making democracy work.

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A slap in the face for democracy and those who strive to make it work - Local Government Chronicle

On a night of unmitigated disaster for the Labour Party there remains a small pocket of hope by the River Mersey.

This city and this region have always done their own thing - and as Labour heartlands tumbled like dominoes across the country this morning, it was never in doubt that Liverpool would return five red rose MPs.

Across the water and Wirral followed suit - former swing seats of South and West were retained comfortably, while veteran Birkenhead MP Frank Field lost his position via a landslide for Labour's new man Mick Whitely.

As expected, Southport stayed blue - but the seaside town aside, Merseyside remains a deep shade of red this morning.

You may say it is little surprise that most of Merseyside stayed loyal to Labour - but on a night when Wrexham, Blythe Valley, Darlington and North West Durham fell to the Tories, we stood out.

So why has our region bucked the national trend again and kept faith with Labour?

Liverpool is a city that knows only too well what damage a hard-right Tory government can do to a place.

It has taken decades to recover from the managed decline of Thatcher in the 80s.

And crucially, this city is very aware of the role the European Union played in helping it to rebuild and start again.

Where communities across the country have rejected Labour's nuanced position on Brexit today - Merseyside has voted for another chance to retain our relationship with our nearest partners in Europe and not cut ourselves off from those who have lent us a helping hand before.

Of course it isn't enough - Labour has had an appalling election and has allowed Boris Johnson to sweep to power with a mandate that will now allow him to do whatever it is that he wants - and to pursue a hardline withdrawal from the European Union that many fear could take this city back to those dark 1980s days.

But if Labour is to rebuild - and it must do because people depend on it - then once again Liverpool and Merseyside will have to provide the base for that recovery.

A new leader will need to start from here and build outwards.

And while Liverpool is fiercely loyal to Labour, it is important to resist the understandable calls to shut ourselves off and form a Scouse utopia.

This is an outward-looking, forward-thinking part of the country that can help put the Labour Party back on the long-road to recovery.

It is a mammoth task but it will be Scousers that can lead the charge.

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Once again Liverpool stands alone on a dark night for the country - Liverpool Echo

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Today we spend the hour with David Byrne, the celebrated musician, artist, writer, cycling enthusiast, filmmaker and now Broadway star. His new Broadway show is called American Utopia. Its receiving rave reviews.

DAVID BYRNE: [singing Once in a Lifetime]Well, how did I get here?Letting the days go by, let the water hold me downLetting the days go by, water flowing undergroundSame as it ever wasSame as it ever wasSame as it ever wasSame as it ever wasSame as it ever wasLetting the days go byOnce in a lifetime

AMY GOODMAN: American Utopia grew out of David Byrnes recent world tour, which the British music publication NME said, quote, may just be the best live show of all time, unquote. The production features David Byrne and 11 musical artists from around the globe, including six percussionists, performing a selection of songs from, well, throughout his remarkable career, featured on his most recent album, American Utopia, to highlights from his legendary band Talking Heads, including Burning Down the House.

TALKING HEADS: [performing Burning Down the House]Watch out you might get what youre afterBoom babies strange but not a strangerIm an ordinary guyBurning down the house

AMY GOODMAN: Also, This Must Be the Place.

TALKING HEADS: [performing This Must Be the Place]Home is where I want to bePick me up and turn me aroundI feel numb, born with a weak heartGuess I must be having fun

AMY GOODMAN: American Utopia is just one of David Byrnes current projects. He also recently launched the online magazine Reasons to Be Cheerful, that highlights solutions-oriented stories around the globe. David Byrne recently came into the Democracy Now! studios on his day off from Broadway. I asked him to talk about the name of his recent album and Broadway show, American Utopia.

DAVID BYRNE: Its wow. Partly because its sort of the last thing you expect to hear, the words, especially connected with me and at this particular time, with everything thats going on, its kind of like, Is he serious? Is he being ironic? Is he does it have some other kind of meaning? And I thought, No, lets be serious about it. Lets be sincere about this. And although utopia may never exist, may never be achievable, lets think about what it is we want and what it is we would like to change and what we would like to where we would like to be, how would we like to be, that kind of thing. And I thought, Thats part of what were part of what the show is. It shows people an alternative way of being.

AMY GOODMAN: You also quote James Baldwin in the play: I still believe we can do with this country something that has not been done before.

DAVID BYRNE: Its not typical of him. But I thought, But he said this. And I thought, So he despite all his life and everything he wrote about, he didnt give up. He didnt get totally cynical. He felt like theres still possibility here.

AMY GOODMAN: So you share that optimism?

DAVID BYRNE: Not every day, but I try to. I try to keep that alive.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I called this production a play, because thats what we say on Broadway. Its not really well, its certainly not just a play. Its not a rock opera. What words do you use?

DAVID BYRNE: I think we just call it a show. But its OK, it evolved from a concert tour, as you mentioned, but then we realized that, OK, in a Broadway setting, you have the opportunity to do something else with it. Youre still going to play a lot of songs, but you have the opportunity to kind of make an arc and tell sort of a story. I dont mean a literal story like And then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. But you can kind of make it in a story of ideas that takes you from one place and then you end up somewhere else at the end.

AMY GOODMAN: And you begin by talking about how babies have way more connections in their brains than we do.

DAVID BYRNE: Yes, yes. It really is something I read recently, that babies have a lot more neural connections than we do and that as they grow up. Until were 20 years old, those connections are being pruned and stripped back. And what a thing to what a thing to think about, I thought, that on the face of it, theyre kind of our it would seem like, well, does that mean that were less that babies somehow have more or perceive more than we do, and that we have and I think its kind of true. I think babies are kind of getting everything. They just cant make any sense of it, and theyre trying to figure it out. And to try to figure it out, they have to say, Im going to ignore this. And this is Mom is more important than that person over there.

AMY GOODMAN: So, babies have more connections, but then, as we grow older, maybe to compensate a little, we build connections outside.

DAVID BYRNE: Thats what Im saying. Im saying that our social connections, our connections with other people, is something that we as you said, that we grow as we mature.

AMY GOODMAN: And the show American Utopia is certainly a manifestation of that. I mean, its so simple. I wont exactly use the word austere, but very stripped down. And explain who you wrote this show for.

DAVID BYRNE: Oh, Im sure that like a lot of things I do, that the show was conceived as a kind of therapy for myself. You want to can we present something like this, and is it going to have the effect on me and on the audience that I hope it might? I imagined that by stripping everything away, all the projections and equipment and stage paraphernalia, and leaving it be just us and just us, the musicians I thought that puts us kind of on the same level as the audience, in a way. Were not protected by having all this stuff. Its just kind of us as human beings talking to you all out there as human beings. And I thought, That can be pretty powerful. I mean, you see it with a standup comedian or somebody like that doing something like that, but you dont see it in a music show very often. So I thought, Lets see if that feels like a more immediate kind of connection between us and the audience. And then well start from there and see where that goes.

AMY GOODMAN: So, here you have 12 musicians, including yourself. And you were all there in your somewhat austere gray suits, but the opposite of austere as you perform. And you introduce us to everyone with a simple sentence. Can you share that sentence? About immigration?

DAVID BYRNE: Oh, yes, yes, yes. Thats that, yes. I make various points throughout the show, but I try and always make it be very, whatever, personal or immediate or not a kind of didactic point, but kind of like there it is, you see it right in front of you. And at one point, I make a point that, myself, Im a naturalized citizen, and some of the band

AMY GOODMAN: From Scotland.

DAVID BYRNE: Yeah. Some of the band members are from France and Brazil, etc. And so I said, Yes, were all immigrants, and this show, you know, would not exist without us being able to be here.

AMY GOODMAN: So, would you like to elaborate further, because you have more than a sentence in between performances, about the pointed reference that youre making about immigration

DAVID BYRNE: Oh, thats this one

AMY GOODMAN: about this, for example, show not being able to happen if it werent for all of you from around the globe?

DAVID BYRNE: Exactly. So, the audience the good thing about putting that in the context of the show is the audience gets it immediately. Theyve just theyve been dancing and enjoying this music, and then you realize then you can say to them, This thing that youve just enjoyed, it wouldnt be here unless these people were allowed into our country. That includes me. And so, its a very its kind of a very visceral way of making the point, rather than kind of a dogmatic policy way. Its like, You just enjoyed something that wouldnt have happened if we werent here.

AMY GOODMAN: In 2018, you said it in a slightly different way. Last year, you said you created an online playlist titled Beautiful [bleep] holes, in response to Trumps comments.

DAVID BYRNE: Yes. People did write me from various places and say, Thank you for this. Yeah, I thought, Well, let the music speak. Let the music speak for people from these countries. And lets have a listen to the music that theyre making, which is incredible.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you give us a thumbnail, David Byrne, sketch of your life, how you came into music, especially for young people? Talk about where you were born, where you grew up, and then how you discovered music.

DAVID BYRNE: OK. I was born in Scotland. My parents came with me to Canada and then moved to Baltimore for work. I was in high school, say, in the late '60s. I'm old enough to have experienced that and the explosion of kind of pop music. Lots of kids wanted to be in bands or be musicians or a performer, this kind of thing. And I did, too.

I was very, very shy, but I realized that performing became an outlet. I could get on stage and do kind of outrageous things and then retreat into my shell. And Id kind of I had an outlet. I had kind of announced my existence and my creativity, and then I could kind of retreat again.

Maybe relevant to kind of young people, I had no ambitions to be a musician. My ambition was to be a fine artist and show in galleries and things like that. Thats what I wanted to do, or to be an engineer, like do technical kind of work.

AMY GOODMAN: Your dad did that?

DAVID BYRNE: My dad did that. And I liked that, too, and I saw creativity there that was similar to the arts. But it was always in our world, its always kept very separate. So, I thought of music as what do you call it? An avocation? It was something that I did for pleasure with friends, and I took it very seriously, but I never thought that it would be a career or a way to make a living. I thought, Theres people who have gone to school for this, and theres people who are really, really good. Im just doing it for fun. But, eventually, it kind of won out.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you went to RISD, Rhode Island School of Design.

DAVID BYRNE: Yeah, I went to an art school, and I went to Maryland Institute, another art school. And I was constantly making things in hopes of kind of getting a show. I had no idea how to do that. But at the same time, I was writing songs and, yes, auditioned at some clubs downtown. And I kind of I was very lucky. We were very lucky. It was kind of the right the right thing at the right moment in the right time. And there were other groups emerging from this club. The press all of a sudden was kind of paying attention to what was going on. We were playing original music, which was very unusual at that time for bands at a bar to just play original music. That was

AMY GOODMAN: Like the Ramones, you opened for?

DAVID BYRNE: Yes, the Ramones. There was a group called Television, Patti Smith. So, we were all kind of playing the same same venues, same places.

AMY GOODMAN: Your college pal was named?

DAVID BYRNE: I had a college pal named Marc Kehoe. And I had my friends that were in Talking Heads, was Chris and Tina, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth. And then we brought in another guy to play keyboards.

AMY GOODMAN: And Tina, actually, she wasnt she didnt naturally play the bass guitar.

DAVID BYRNE: No, she didnt. Like Chris, they were they were painters. They were also from art school, and their training was as painters. But they Chris, especially liked music, and Tina took an interest and decided that she would learn.

AMY GOODMAN: So you needed a bass guitarist, so she figured, OK, Ill do that.

DAVID BYRNE: Yeah, yeah. And, well, she said, Ill do that. And I said, So, fine, fine. I think that coming out of, say, sort of an arty milieu, I think we felt that virtuosity in itself was not a high priority. It was not a value insofar as music goes. What was more important was that what you had to communicate and that if you could communicate that with fairly simple means, if thats what was available to you. As long, I mean, you didnt try to do something that was beyond your means. But you could. You could with very little, you could communicate quite a lot. And so, the idea that we just brought in friends who would learn how to play didnt seem that strange to us.

AMY GOODMAN: So you play at CBGB, not very much. You open for the Ramones, and a music producer hears you from outside on the sidewalk.

DAVID BYRNE: Well, yes. So, people in the kind of music world and record labels and the kind of alternative press, etc., started coming and hearing us and the other bands. And we were very lucky to be part of that at that time. I mean, if we would have been I can imagine if we had been somewhere else doing the exact same thing, we would have gone completely unnoticed. I mean, I like to think that we were writing something that had some kind of interesting quality to it, but I also know that there was a certain amount of luck involved, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: David Byrne, the legendary musician and now Broadway star. His show American Utopia is on Broadway now. When we come back, hell talk about collaborating with Brian Eno, Reasons to Be Cheerful and the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Im Amy Goodman. Were continuing our conversation with David Byrne, co-founder of Talking Heads, star of the new Broadway show American Utopia. The show has drawn some comparisons to the Talking Heads 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, which was directed by Jonathan Demme.

TALKING HEADS: [performing Life During Wartime]This aint no party, this aint no disco,This aint no fooling aroundNo time for dancing, or lovey dovey,I aint got time for that nowTransmit the message, to the receiver,Hope for an answer some day

AMY GOODMAN: I asked David Byrne to talk about working with Jonathan Demme on the film.

DAVID BYRNE: He shot a performance we did. And thats kind of its kind of a document of a tour that we were doing at the time.

AMY GOODMAN: Like four nights in a row?

DAVID BYRNE: Yeah, he shot four nights in a row in one place, so that it could be edited together to appear to be one night. And that was kind of the tour that we were doing. The film version is a little compressed. But similar to this, the show that Im doing now, it was a very simple idea, but then fairly complicated to realize it. In that one, the idea was, start with a stage with nothing on it, bring everything on and show the audience what it takes to make a show. Bring on the lights and projectors, and wheel in the equipment and this and that. And they get to see everything assembled one by one, until by about I dont know halfway through, everything is working, and its like, Oh, weve seen how this comes together now. It was an attempt to be really transparent.

AMY GOODMAN: So tell us about your collaboration over the years with Brian Eno, one of the great music producers of the last decades, how you met him and what it meant for the two of you to work together.

DAVID BYRNE: Talking Heads worked on three records with Brian Eno, and Ive worked on two or three with him, as well, including this most recent one. And we were introduced when we played in a small club in London it was our first show in England by another musician, a guy named John Cale, who was in a band called The Velvet Underground. And we idolized John and Velvet Underground and Brian Eno and the band he was in, Roxy Music. So, this was like we were kind of bowled over by meeting these people that we admired very much.

Similar to what I was saying about working with musicians who werent virtuosos, Brian isnt, say, a virtuoso musician or technician, but he has lots of ideas, and hes willing to experiment a lot in the studio and whatever. So, that appealed to us. It also appealed that we could talk to him just as a friend, as a person, and it wasnt all music business talk. You could spend a whole evening together and never talk about music at all, which I thought was a good sign.

AMY GOODMAN: You collaborated on, for example, I Zimbra.

TALKING HEADS: [performing I Zimbra]Gadji beri bimba clandridiLauli lonni cadori gadjamA bim beri glassala glandride

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about I Zimbra.

DAVID BYRNE: In the yeah, OK, in the show that were doing, I mention that Brian Eno suggested that we use this nonsense poem by a Dada artist named Hugo Ball for the lyrics of a song that we were having trouble finding lyrics to. Again, we had the music and a melody, but we couldnt figure out the lyrics. So, the kind of world of these Dada in the current show, I describe a little bit what was going on at the time, the context of what these Dada artists were doing. Hugo Ball and another one that I was more familiar with, Kurt Schwitters, they both did these kind of nonsense chants or poems or well, Schwitters called his a sonata. Hugo Ball and quite a few of the others became exiles. This was in the 30s. A lot of them moved to they were exiled to Zurich. They ended up in Zurich, and a lot of them hung out at a performance place there. A lot of their art was performance-based. And that was called Cabaret Voltaire. So it was this community of exiles and refugees that came together making this art movement.

AMY GOODMAN: Fleeing the Nazis.

DAVID BYRNE: Yes, fleeing the Nazis. And a lot of them converged there. They felt that their art was, in a way, a response to the kind of craziness that they were seeing in the world. Their art was very kind of absurd and funny, but they felt like, in a way, it was a direct response to what they were seeing around them.

AMY GOODMAN: So, why did you feel it was important to address fascism in the 80s and now again right now?

DAVID BYRNE: I never say that, but I think the connection is pretty obvious to an audience. I describe the context that they are that these nonsense poems and their artwork came out of. There had been an economic crash. The Nazis were coming to power. And there was and whole countries were sliding into authoritarian and fascist regimes. And I thought sometimes I pause, and I go and just let that sink in and see if you might see some parallels there. But I never say that. Let the audience make the connection. And then I go on and talk about how these artists respond, what their response was.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you have a great desire to burn down the house right now?

DAVID BYRNE: No, Im trying the Reasons to Be Cheerful thing. Im giving it a good try.

AMY GOODMAN: So, explain Reasons to Be Cheerful. Explain what youve started with this online magazine.

DAVID BYRNE: It started at least a couple of years ago. Like a lot of people, Id wake up in the morning and read a lot of news and end up either depressed or cynical or angry or whatever. And I thought, Well, thats a reasonable response, given what Id read. But I also thought, This is not good for my health. And its also not good for how to respond to these things that I had been reading about. And being in finding yourself in that frame of mind isnt a very constructive place to kind of respond to it. So I thought so I started saving things that seemed hopeful or initiatives, sometimes small things that have been done in a little town or in another country, that had proved to be successful. And at first I started just posting those online. Then, more recently, it became more official, with a little team of editors and writers and web designers and all that kind of thing.

And its often called solutions journalism. It focuses not just on good news, like someones donated a lot of money to schools or someone has done a good deed, but on a whole initiative that has proven to be successful and that, one would hope, can be then used as a model and adopted by other places. Thats the idea. We dont have the time. Were not activists, in that we dont try and get these things adopted. The assumption is that if we put it out there, people might discover it and realize, Oh, someones found a solution to this. Maybe we should look at that. It constantly shocks me that people trying to reinvent the wheel with various policies or whatever it might be, when you realize, But wait a minute. Theyve got a perfectly good health system, lets say, that works over there. Why dont we just do that?

AMY GOODMAN: So, one of the things that youve gotten involved with is the Bard Prison Initiative. Can you talk about that as one of these solutions?

DAVID BYRNE: Oh, yeah, yeah. That, yes, OK. Bard College, just a little bit upstate here, started a program where inmates at some of the colleges in that area and theres quite a few prisons in that area can actually get degrees, full-on degrees. And they have teachers, and it works. People get the degrees. What happens is they emerge then from the prison ready to get jobs, trained and not just trained in making license plates or something like that, but real training and the recidivism rate, the rate that they might go back, get back in prison, just drops. I mean, its like pshew!

So, the recidivism rate in the United States is terrible. I mean, its like instead of preparing people to return into society, its almost like youre creating criminals. Youre creating prisons because that ends up being what they know. This turns that around and makes people have a possible future, and it works. So other places have been adopting it, other colleges and universities. I know, I think, Wesleyan in Pennsylvania and a few others. And so, kind of step by step, it gets adopted, and seems to be a good alternative to what generally happens in prisons here.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to ask you about riding your bicycle. Ive been reading your books, How Music Works and Bicycle Diaries. You didnt ride it here today, but we often see you somewhere in town riding that bike. When did you start?

DAVID BYRNE: I seem to remember starting in the late '70s. I lived in Lower East Side and SoHo, and there wasn't a lot of taxi service there. Taxis, at that time, to me, would have been kind of expensive. And so, if I wanted to go hear some music or go see an art gallery opening or visit friends or this or that, I discovered that my old bike that I had as a child worked really well. And I abandoned it sometimes, but then eventually came back and realized, Oh, this is a great way to get around. And now New York and a lot of other cities have become a lot more accommodating. Theres a lot more bike lanes, and theres a whole bunch just announced the other day. Theres a whole bunch planned to go in in the next couple years.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, now, with the whole issue of the climate catastrophe, youre leading the way.

DAVID BYRNE: Well, thank you, but I realized that I started doing it because it was practical and it felt good. Its a really nice feeling, unless youre terrified and youre riding in the middle of traffic. But if youre in a protected bike lane or something, riding along the river, its really a wonderful feeling. Its hard to explain, just kind of coasting and steering and the winds blowing and all that. And I realized that feeling is whats going to convince people to do that. The effect is it lowers the carbon footprint, but youre not going to get to people get people to ride just by saying, You have to ride to lower your carbon footprint. Its very hard, I think, to convince people to do things because its good for them or good for society in general.

AMY GOODMAN: Which brings me to the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. And Im not just going to

DAVID BYRNE: I mentioned her in the show the other day.

AMY GOODMAN: You did.

DAVID BYRNE: It got applause.

AMY GOODMAN: So, she comes to this country. She wont fly, because she is deeply concerned about greenhouse gas emissions. She takes this high-speed, zero-emissions sailboat, comes into New York Harbor. And, of course, we now know her as the young woman who addresses world leaders at the U.N. Climate Action Summit a few weeks ago. And as they applaud her when she gets up with her long braid, she says, How dare you!

GRETA THUNBERG: People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

AMY GOODMAN: But I wanted to go to a different aspect of Greta, or its partly what motivates her. And it also is a link between you and her. In your book How Music Works_, you write about how you felt you suffer from borderline Aspergers. And thats something Greta talks about. She was here sitting in the chair youre sitting in, and she talkedcrisis about what she called her superpower. Lets watch.

GRETA THUNBERG: When Im really interested in something, I get superfocused on that. And I can spend hours upon hours not getting tired of reading about it and still be interested to learn more about it. And that is very common for people on the autism spectrum. And yeah, and it just I think that was one of the reasons why, why I was one of the few who really reacted to the climate crisis, because I couldnt connect the dots why people were just going on like before and still saying, Yes, climate change is very important. I dont get that double moral, in a way, the difference from between what between what you know and what you say and what you do, how you act.

AMY GOODMAN: So, thats Greta Thunberg, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist. When we met her in Poland at the last U.N. climate summit, she was 15, and her Twitter handle said, you know, 15-year-old climate activist with Aspergers. So, you also have talked about that in your life.

DAVID BYRNE: I think Ive largely grown out of it. That often happens, so I read. But I was aware, yes, that when I was younger, as Greta says, I was painfully shy, but Id also find an interest, and I would just like bury myself in it, which was as she says, is a kind of nice thing to be able to do sometimes. And not everybody can do that. And I thought I never felt that I was handicapped. I felt that I was just different. And I felt that

AMY GOODMAN: And where did the difference get expressed?

DAVID BYRNE: Well, I think that the fact that I felt socially awkward, that pushed me to perform, the fact I could say things I wanted to say, I could announce my existence and be in front of people in a performance setting, and then I could retreat into my kind of shell after that. But I had managed to find an outlet.

AMY GOODMAN: David Byrne, the legendary musician, now Broadway star. When we come back, well talk more about his Broadway show American Utopia, as well as Janelle Mone, police violence and more.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Im Amy Goodman, as we continue our conversation with David Byrne. In his new Broadway show, David Byrne often takes a moment during the show to talk about the importance of voting. I asked him why.

AMY GOODMAN: Why are elections important to you? And what do you think about the fact that so few people vote in the United States? In other parts of the world, in places like Haiti, I mean, in the past, people have been gunned down when they go to the polls, or even when they run, but still they do. In this country, little more than, if were lucky, half the population who can vote votes.

DAVID BYRNE: Yes, I allude to this or, not just allude. I bring that up. The voting turnouts, especially in local elections, can be pretty dismal. So Im trying to say, you know, this really does make a difference. Local representation, local laws can really have a huge effect. You might feel that impotent in regards to the federal government, to the larger thing, but a lot of change can happen locally, and that can kind of accumulate. So, yeah, Ive been pushing for that. Yes, there are there are countries that have mandatory voting. And if you dont vote, they take your drivers license away. I think that might be I think thats a good thing.

AMY GOODMAN: Getting your drivers license taken away or voting?

DAVID BYRNE: Well, no, I think mandatory voting, that its kind of like, if youre going to live here, you have to participate.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about ranked voting?

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David Byrne on His Broadway Show American Utopia, Talking Heads, Reasons to Be Cheerful & More - Democracy Now!

Classical Philosophy in the Park

The question of how Seneca Village got its name remains unresolved. Nevertheless, the argument that villagers derived it from the Native American tribe seems unlikely, given that Manhattan was not Seneca territory. Leslie M. Alexander offers a more provocative suggestion that the name of the village might refer to the Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca, who advocated for government founded on respect for individual liberty. Black residents who studied classical philosophy at the African Free Schools, she argues, may have adopted the Seneca name to reflect their aspirations for the new community.

By buying land, black villagers had satisfied the state law that made black voting rights contingent on property ownership. Mr. Manevitz estimates that by 1855, the village contained only 1 percent of the citys black population but had 20 percent of its black property owners and 15 percent of its black voters.

Most Seneca Villagers owned modest plots, but lived expansive lives compared with other African-American New Yorkers, who were typically confined to attics and basements along the squalid streets of Lower Manhattans Five Points district. The novelist Charles Dickens, who visited the area in the 1840s, wrote: Poverty, wretchedness, and vice are rife enough where we go now. This is the place, these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth . [A]ll that is loathsome, drooping and decayed is here.

By the mid-1850s, the flourishing Seneca Village community had attracted three churches: A.M.E. Zion, African Union Methodist Church and an unusual racially integrated church called All Angels, where Irish parishioners who had moved into the area worshiped alongside African-Americans.

Leslie M. Alexander describes the interracial church as a testament to a new social and political reality. Black parishioners and white parishioners not only sat side by side in the pews but also were apparently buried together, reflecting the hope that people of different races could one day coexist in mutual respect. That vision was swept away with the settlement.

The destruction of Seneca Village foreshadowed the urban renewal craze of the 1960s, when the country embraced an explicit policy of labeling vibrant working-class areas slums to justify tearing them down. Historians who are trying to reconstruct the full story of New York Citys black utopia and find descendants of the dispossessed could yet tell us more about what the 19th-century city was really like.

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The Death of the Black Utopia - The New York Times

The Internet of Things age is dawning, as ultra-fast 5G connectivity opens up communications between everything from your toaster to your pacemaker, leading to a weird kind of digital utopia where everything's talking to everything else. If Pirelli gets its way, your car tires will be little chatterboxes too, yapping away not only to your own car's ECU, but to other cars and roadside infrastructure as well.

What on Earth could tires have to yabber about? Well, the world's first 5G-connected tire, the Pirelli Cyber Tire, is up and running, and it's got a sensor, processor and communications disc about the size of a medium coin embedded inside that's designed to constantly monitor a bunch of variables.

We're talking tire pressure (of course), tread depth, tire temperature, acceleration along longitudinal, lateral and rotational axes, and the ability to sense water and ice on the road. When fitted to a car, the Cyber Tire feeds all this information back to the car's ECU, along with warnings like "the road just got wet," or "ice detected," or "there's a heavy load in the car right now, bump up the suspension preload," or "grip may be compromised" that the car can use to determine what it should be doing with engine mappings, traction control settings, or even suspension. Pirelli seems to think it might send "slow down" signals as well, that bring the car down to a safe speed to hit a piece of wet road at.

Pirelli

Last week, Pirelli held a demonstration of the next step in Cyber Tire connectivity, on the top of the remarkable Lingotto building in Turin, Italy. Originally built as a Fiat factory, the Lingotto building is now a shopping mall, but the giant banked test track on its roof bears testimony to its remarkable history. When the factory opened in 1923, it was an industrial masterpiece, a five-story assembly line spiraling upward. Raw materials would come into the ground floor, and finished cars would emerge onto the test track on the roof, to be checked out before being sent out to dealerships.

Pirelli stuck some of its Cyber Tires highly racy P Zero Trofeo versions onto an Audi A8, and had a Q8 follow it around the track. When the A8 ran over some water, it pinged a 5G V2X tower with a "water on the road" alert signal, and the following Q8 received the warning before it got there.

Pirelli

As automotive demonstrations go, it can't've been much of a spectacle. But Pirelli is deadly serious about pushing this tech forward as part of its OEM partnerships with auto manufacturers. It's no use having a smart tire if the car's not designed to take advantage of it. Pirelli says it's likely to debut on high-end cars, simply because they challenge the grip of their tires more frequently, and have more automated features that might be able to take advantage of the information: adaptive cruise, active suspension, auto-emergency braking, active aerodynamics and whatnot. Lower end cars should follow soon enough, as the per-unit costs of fitting Cyber Tires don't add much to the cost of the car.

Pirelli's already using Cyber Tires as part of truck fleet management, where it's particularly handy as a way to instantly let a service crew know which hoops on an 18-wheeler need topping up at the air hose and which can be left alone.

Source: Pirelli

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Why Pirelli is building 5G connectivity into its new "Cyber Tires" - New Atlas

Vancouver artist Stan Douglashas based his career around the idea of remixingusing kernels of music, history, and memory to invent new and unique works of art that often defy easy explanation.

One of Douglass most personal and ambitious works,Luanda-Kinshasa, is currently on view as part of artist Jason Morans show at the Whitney Museum in New York. The six-hour work casts a contemporary set of musicians inside a replica of the famed Columbia Records 30th Street Studio in New York, where Miles Davis recorded his last studio album,On the Corner, in 1971.

In an exclusive interview with Art21 in 2017, Douglas explains that he was inspired by Daviss experimentation on that record, incorporating funk, rock, jazz, and even Indian classical music. Then,Douglas thought, What if you brought in Afrobeat as part of that mix he was doing?

Stan Douglas, Luanda-Kinshasa(2013). Video, color, sound; 6:01 hours. Stan Douglas; Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner, New York.

Of course, Davis himself never did, but for Douglas, its the possibility thats most exciting, the utopian ideal that drives him to make art.

I want to go back to these possibilities of What if theres another way of considering history?'

For Douglas, that means finding inspiration everywhere. Nothing comes out of a void, he says, citing his own early experiences as a DJ and encountering Miles Daviss music as influences on this work.

Utopia means no place,' he says in the Extended Playvideo. Its a place that you may strive to get to, but you cant necessarily get there. That wont stop him from trying though.

Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21sExtended Playseries,below. Stan Douglass work is on view as part of the Jason Moran show at the Whitney, through January 5, 2020.

This is an installment of Art on Video, a collaboration between artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of newsmaking artists. A new season of the nonprofit Art21s flagshipArt in the Twenty-First Centurytelevision series is available now on PBS. Catch all episodes ofNew York Close UpandExtended Playand learnabout the organizations education programs atArt21.org.

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Nothing Comes Out of a Void: Watch Artist Stan Douglas Remix Miles Davis With Afrobeat to Create His Genre-Bending Multimedia Art - artnet News

As families gather for Thanksgiving in our polarized era, theres no shortage of advice about how to cope with the crazy Trump-lover in your family.

Your angry uncle wants to talk about impeachment. What do you do? go the headlines.

Theres nothing like a constitutional crisis to spice up the holidays.

Of course, the abhorrent relative in these scenarios is always a conservative but, for the sake of argument, not to mention reality, lets say it equally could be a progressive.

It might be your newly politically correct college kid home for Thanksgiving break from Ohio who has decided its her moral duty to re-educate the family.

Believe it or not, leftists can be obnoxious, too.

The polite way to maintain harmony used to be to avoid any discussion of politics or religion around the dinner table. But there may be a better way.

A timely new documentary about free speech that opens next week in New York argues that its crucial for the health of our nation to expose yourself to ideas you dislike and learn how to disagree respectfully.

No Safe Spaces stars conservative talk radio host Dennis Prager and libertarian comedian Adam Carolla.

While they disagree a lot, theyre also friends. Carolla explains their odd-couple pairing early on, saying hes always asked: Why are you friends with Dennis Prager? You have nothing in common . . .

He comes from the East. I come from the West. He comes from religion. I come from atheism . . . He comes from college and knowledge. I come from tomfoolery and sports. And yet we both share a little something called common sense in values [which] should trump everything. It should trump LGBT . . . It should trump Chicano . . . It should trump black. It should trump Trump.

They trace the origins of cancel culture on campus back to 2013, when students started demanding speech codes and trigger warnings.

It evolved into violent protests stopping campus speeches by right-wing agitators such as Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro and Milo Yiannopoulos, and the less easily pigeonholed psychology professor Jordan Peterson and red-pilled liberals such as Dave Rubin and Bret Weinstein.

What they have in common, along with Prager and Carolla, is theyve been banned or hounded off campuses, often violently.

We see violent protests at UC Berkeley, the epicenter of campus free speech in the 60s, where students now riot to shut down speech that offends them.

Conservative students are shown being punched in the face, abused and ostracized for expressing politically incorrect ideas.

Isabella Chow, a student senator at UC Berkeley last year when she abstained from a vote affirming gender fluidity because she is a Christian, says the backlash shocked her.

Hundreds of protesters demanded she be removed from the senate, and she was booted out of every student organization and voted out of every student club.

It was difficult to hear accusations of people calling me a bigot and a hater.

But its not just conservatives falling victim. Liberals who inadvertently break increasingly capricious speech codes also are being shut down.

If you have any spark of individualism in you, anything about you thats interesting or different, they will come to destroy that, too, warns liberal talk show host Rubin.

Weinstein was a liberal professor hounded out of The Evergreen State College in Washington state after refusing to take part in a 2017 stunt requiring all white people stay away from campus for the day. This was anathema to me as a liberal, he says.

When violent protests against him paralyzed the college, police said they could not protect him.

He warns that Evergreen is just a preview.

This is going to spread into every quadrant of society . . . Evergreen is describing a future that is rapidly approaching.

Toward the end of No Safe Spaces, Prager polls a group of college students on their support for free speech, and finds theyre evenly split. One student declares she draws the line at Nazis.

It couldnt have been a better opening for Prager to explain that free speech is valuable only if it protects offensive, obnoxious views.

It is our trial-and-error way of sorting out good ideas from bad. Since you cant stop people secretly holding bad thoughts, silencing them just pushes bad ideas underground, where they fester and grow more virulent.

Allowing bad ideas free expression allows them to be mocked and countered with good ideas.

Im a Jew, says Prager, and Nazis killed 6 million Jews . . . so I have a real hatred of Nazis. But I feel they should be able to speak freely in America because if we say to the Nazis today, You cant speak, well say to a non-Nazi tomorrow, You cant speak either. And we hope, if everyone speaks, that good ideas win.

So speak your mind to your family today in good-natured fashion and give thanks that you live in a country where good ideas still have a chance.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Proof, again, that theyre the Finest

After a summer of taking abuse, its worth noting that the NYPD is the unofficial social safety net for New Yorkers.

Take Officers Ricardo Roman and Samuel Baez, of the 10th Precinct in Chelsea, who bought a homeless man a suit, glasses and a haircut last month so he could interview for jobs.

Wilfredo Falman Jr., 34, scored work at Kobrick Coffee Co., a cafe in the Meatpacking District.

He urges New Yorkers to give thanks for the officers: They have helped me see the police in a different light.

By Wednesday, Falman had raised $2,463 on GoFundMe, of which his lawyers, the Khan Johnson firm, say he has donated half ($1,172.34 minus costs) to the GLS Memorial Fund, which provides tuition assistance to relatives of police officers.

Feel free to criticize AOC

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is furious at critics who dismiss her policies as free stuff.

These are public goods . . . So I never want to hear the word or the term free stuff ever again, the socialist Democratic congresswoman ranted at a Green New Deal town hall in the Bronx this week.

Who made AOC language boss? We say free stuff because it describes unfunded policies for tuition-free college, Medicare for all and public housing for anyone who wants it.

She doesnt like the phrase free stuff because everyone knows there is no such thing. Someone has to pay for it and, eventually, if you pluck the golden goose enough, it dies.

Wealth creators move to greener pastures, you lose your tax base and any ability to fund even the most worthwhile public projects.

Who could forget it was AOC and friends who drove Amazon out of New York, along with its 25,000 jobs?

Of course, in AOCs utopia, who needs a job when theres free stuff to be had? Can someone please pay for a study tour of Venezuela?

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Devine: Feast on free speech this Thanksgiving - New York Post