Sunday, October 29, 2017

In the news, Friday, October 13, 2017


________

OCT 12      INDEX      OCT 14
________


Information from some sites may not be reliable, or may not be vetted.
Some sources may require subscription.

________

from Aeon
Media/News Company

Anger is temporary madness: the Stoics knew how to curb it
People get angry for all sorts of reasons, from the trivial ones (someone cut me off on the highway) to the really serious ones (people keep dying in Syria and nobody is doing anything about it). But, mostly, anger arises for trivial reasons. That’s why the American Psychological Association has a section of its website devoted to anger management. Interestingly, it reads very much like one of the oldest treatises on the subject, On Anger, written by the Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca back in the first century CE.

________

from The Duran
QUESTIONABLE SOURCE, Extreme Right, Propaganda
News & Media Website in Nicosia, Cyprus

Just when you thought the Hillary Clinton concocted ‘Russia election meddling’ story could not get any more stupid, CNN outdoes itself. Never mind Russia dismantling America’s democratic system with only $100,000 in Facebook ads, which did not even discuss the US election, Russia has now weaponized Pokemon.


________

from EUobserver

Catalonia crisis tears at fabric of EU
The EU is a political organisation that does not rely on coercion; it is a legal construction. The Union is based on the rule of law, on solidarity, mutual trust and loyal cooperation between member states and the Union, on the idea that we are better off united in diversity than fighting about what makes us different, and on the aspiration of an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe. The developments in Catalonia are a radical, direct and immediate threat against everything the EU stands for. They are based on the idea that the law can be bypassed, on the rejection of solidarity, on distrust, on mutual misunderstanding, on a narrative of confrontation, on the feeling that people and nations are different – some being better than others - and need be acknowledged as such, and on the aspiration of erecting borders where they never existed.

________

from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

Adam Smith's Concept of Justice
ne of the best-known quotations from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776) defines natural liberty: “Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man.” What did Smith mean by justice, and why is it so important for understanding his message? Rules that punished in proportion to resentment emerged naturally in pre-civil society as a means of defense only against real positive evil and to secure innocence and safeguard justice. Hence, justice is a residual. Justice is the infinite set of permissible actions remaining after specifying the finite limited set of prohibited actions and corresponding penalties.

Who Cares Who the Fed Chairman Is?
The Fed is basically useless anyway, so why does it matter? As is well-known now, President Trump is conducting a search for the next Federal Reserve Chairman. Naturally this has economists all riled up simply because the Fed employs more of the credentialed than any other entity in the world. That economists would worship at the altar of what supports their conceit is logical, and can be explained by basic self-interest. What’s less understandable is that Trump’s Fed search has normally right-leaning media all breathy about his choice having some kind of profound economic significance, one way or the other.

Free College is Bad for Students
With higher education costs multiplying at a rapid rate and college looking less feasible because of these, it is easy to understand how millennials would welcome help to increase their prospects. But free college doesn’t appear to increase the prospects of young people as much as we’ve thought; in fact, it may actually diminish their chance at future success. "England’s experience highlights a fundamental problem with a government role in higher education: If universities rely more on government than students for funding, the level of investment in higher education hinges on the whims of politicians rather than the needs of students.” In pondering such a statement I couldn’t help but wonder if such could be the case not only in higher education but in K-12 schooling as well.

________

from First Things

OUR ANCIENT DEBT TO ALCUIN
"If your intentions are carried out, it may be that a new Athens will arise in France and an Athens fairer than of old, for our Athens, ennobled by the teaching of Christ, will surpass the wisdom of the Academy. The old Athens had only the wisdom of Plato to instruct it, yet even so it flourished by the seven liberal arts. But our Athens will be enriched by the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit and will, therefore, surpass all the dignity of earthly wisdom." When I first came across this passage, taken from a letter from Alcuin to Charlemagne, ‎it stopped me in my tracks. Here, at the end of the eighth century, a scholarly monk, writing to a barbarian king, sketched a system that would strive to unify faith and reason, spirit and intellect, religion and science, Christianity and humanism, AD and BC. I felt as if I had been handed the original “mission statement” for the whole tradition of Western education.

HOW VULGARITY NORMALIZES PREDATORS
The more we embrace vulgarity and the breaking of taboos as liberating, the more predators will flourish. In their wake, more well-intentioned people will do violence to their friends and colleagues, thinking that because their behavior was normal it was safe. Fighting back against this kind of casual crudity is necessary—both because vulgarity does violence to our understanding of ourselves as sexual beings, and what our sexuality is intended for, and because it blurs the lines around assault. We should not allow predators to hide behind the notion that we all use sexuality to make each other uncomfortable some of the time.

________

from The Guardian (UK)
LEFT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, daily newspaper

Armada portrait of Elizabeth I returns after 'spectacular' restoration
Historic work commemorating victory over Spanish Armada goes on display in London after dramatic cleaning project

________

from Ideapod
Internet Company

1) Disrespect; 2) Dominating the relationship; 3) Breaking her boundaries; 4) Not listening to what she has to say; 5) Not supporting her ambitions; 6) You can’t express yourself; 7) You lie, even if it’s over something small.

________

from LifeZette (& PoliZette)

Laura Ingraham: How I Knew Trump Would Survive the ‘Access Hollywood’ Leak
In her book, the talk-radio host says Ben Carson and a crowd in California told her the candidate hadn't lost his base.

FBI Finds 30 Pages of Documents on Clinton-Lynch Tarmac Meeting
Agency previously had insisted in response to FOIA lawsuit that it had no records about the tête-à-tête.

Appalling: College Prof Blames Trump for Vegas Shootings
Last Thursday, a professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), blamed the Vegas shooting on President Donald Trump and said that she was “right” in predicting that people would die under Trump’s leadership. In support of this claim, she pointed to Trump’s bellicose rhetoric toward North Korea and said that words can inspire violence. As a fellow college history professor, I’m appalled. This is wrong on a number of levels. It’s unseemly to say I told you so, even if you were right, but especially on a matter as sensitive as this. The shooting is raw for many people, and trying to take a victory lap when the dead aren’t cold or buried is obscene. On top of that, I don’t see any connection between Trump and this event. The professor has a vague sense that Trump is “bad” and that words can kill. As a historian, she should be aware of things like the false cause fallacy and the ability to see cause and effect in events.

________

from Orthodox Christianity

COPTIC PRIEST BRUTALLY MURDERED IN CAIRO STREETS
Another day in Egypt with another Coptic Christian murdered; this time a priest from Beni Suef, Upper Egypt, who was in Cairo collecting humanitarian aid for vulnerable members of his parish. Fr Samaan was paying a pastoral visit to a family in Cairo and returned to the church where he was earlier to collect his mobile phone. On the way, he was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant who chased him, stabbed him repeatedly, and then brutally killed him.

SUPERMARKET THAT APOLOGIZED FOR REMOVING CROSSES FROM GREEK CHURCH DOES IT AGAIN WITH ITALIAN CHURCH
The German-based Lidl supermarket chain has come under fire again, this time for reportedly airbrushing crosses off of an historic Italian church for promotional material, the Telegraph reports. The church in question is the parish of Sant’Antonio Abate in the village of Dolceacqua in the northwestern region of Liguria. An image of the church with the crosses removed from its façade and bell tower was used for promotional purposes in the nearby town of Camporosso, presumably to avoid offending the latter’s Muslim immigrant population. The same reasoning was given by a Lidl representative a month ago, when the company’s use of cross-less Greek churches in packaging and advertising caused a Europe-wide scandal. 

________

from The Spokesman-Review

________


No comments:

Post a Comment