Today it seems relevant to return to an old quote, "Freedom can not be given, it must be torn from the hands of those who would deny it to you." Or as Dr King put it, "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
"Free speech advocates see President-elect Trumps's testy relationship with the media and his middle-of-the-night tweets reacting to critics as evidence that he is — at best — insensitive to the First Amendment. And they say one recent controversy, the decision by Simon & Schuster to publish a book by social media provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, has grown out of an atmosphere that encourages hate speech." Severe teen-aged eye-roll. The call to boycott S&S as censorship? The right to free speech doesn't include a publishing deal (if so, where the fuck is mine?), it doesn't mean there are no consequences. Is it a form of censorship? In an exceedingly around the park way (equal to going to your corner store by way of orbiting the Moon). There there are bigger forces of censorship that fall into play that are considered "acceptable" before you get to that. As Dennis Johnson, head of Melville House, says "Nobody in the protest is saying 'you have no right to be published… You have no right, Simon & Schuster, to publish this guy, and this guy, you have no right to be published' — nobody's saying that. What they're saying is, 'we're shocked and we're outraged that you would stoop so low to make a buck as to publish this purveyor of vile hate speech.'" We're also saying, "and it won't be our bucks you'll be earning." Harsh, but very far away from the concept "the press is only free if you actually own a paper." Milo is a walking, talking load of crap most sewage plants wouldn't accept. As long as his work isn't plagiarized or falls into any of the buckets by which we restrict the 1st Amendment, S&S can publish him. But we also get to say he's crap and S&S is being opportunistic and catering to the worst of us and we won't buy his (or their) books. That said, S&S might sell a buttload of his books to the faithful (who probably won't read them, but buy them because "can't let those damn lefties win") and with that money might be able to publish some more mid-range authors that will give us good stories. They just won't do it with my money and Milo can fall down a well.
Light pillars. (Grokked from Jim Hines)
Ah sheep. So peaceful, so passive. OMG, WTF? That's a video of a ram being spooked by a car doing what rams do (butting heads) but to the shepherd. "When cometh the day we lowly ones, through quiet reflection and great dedication master the art of karate…"
Making nail salons a slightly less toxic environment for their workers. Now, if we could also get them to a living wage and stop the rampant wage theft in the industry, that would also be great.
Tying knots with chemicals. I don't remember that from Boy Scouts.
Sure there's no race problem with police in this country. They're all upstanding… the Vanity Fair article on the DoJ investigation of the Chicago Police. Just a reminder, Chicago Police ran at least one "off the books" interrogation center. (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)
Toadies will always volunteer. "A pack of former Breitbart staffers are publicizing their plans to create a political action committee that would pressure lawmakers into falling in line with Donald Trump’s political agenda." Ooh, ooh, they should all wear black shirts when they "organized town hall confrontations and a team of reporters that would 'ambush' unfriendly lawmakers." Maybe they could get matching ones at the Hugo Boss store.
"The more persuasive theory, supported by no less than Edward Snowden, is that the Shadow Brokers are one of the same Russian government hacking groups now accused of targeting the U.S. election. Coincidently, the same day the Shadow Brokers said goodbye, the hacker who claimed responsibility for penetrating the DNC suddenly re-emerged after nearly two months of silence." Say "Moose and Squirrel". Come on. Just for me? (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)
The sound of shoes dropping. "The Justice Department's watchdog has launched a sweeping review of conduct by the FBI director and other department officials before the presidential election, following calls from Congress and members of the public."
Your giggle moment for the day, "Workers preparing for the inauguration Jan. 20 have taped over the name of the company — 'Don's Johns' — that has long supplied portable restrooms for major outdoor events."
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