Robert Reich "The most important thing I teach my students"

Friends,

The most important thing I teach my students is to seek out people who disagree with them.

That’s because the essence of learning is testing one’s ideas, assumptions, and values. And what better place to test ideas, assumptions, and values than at a university?

Apparently, Columbia University’s president, Nemat Shafik, does not share my view. Last week she prostrated herself before House Republicans, promising that she would discipline professors and students for protesting the ongoing slaughter in Gaza in which some 34,000 people have died, most of them women and children.

Can we be clear about a few things? Protesting this slaughter is not expressing antisemitism. It is not engaging in hate speech. It is not endangering Jewish students. It is doing what should be done on a college campus — taking a stand against a perceived wrong, at least provoking discussion and debate.

A good read from Dr Reich
More at link
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-most-important-thing-i-teach?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=365422&post_id=143862252&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1bkzst&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Viktor Orbn's Authoritarian Playbook

This article is from 2020 but is relevant to the US today.

Scapegoat minorities
Like most strongmen, Orbán scapegoats minorities in order to draw the public’s attention away from real problems. In Orbán’s case, migrants and refugees, especially if they are from Muslim countries.
In 2015, Orbán cited the European refugee crisis to justify giving police the power to conduct searches without a warrant and collect bulk phone data.

Undermine the judiciary
Constitutional amendments enacted in 2013 — and criticized by the EU, the United States and human rights groups — annulled previous Constitutional Court rulings and barred the court from overturning laws that had the support of two-thirds of lawmakers.
After winning reelection in 2018, Orbán created a separate, administrative court system for issues related to asylum, elections and police violence, with judges handpicked by Orbán’s justice minister.
Several judges inexplicably resigned from the independent National Judicial Council before it was due to announce the result of an inquiry into allegations that Tünde Handó, an Orbán loyalist, had packed the courts in her capacity as chief of the judiciary. Orbán elevated her to the Constitutional Court a year later.

Control the media
One of the first things Orbán did after coming to power in 2010 was smother the voices of critics. A new media law ordered outlets to register with a media control body, whose members were appointed by parliament. The panel can impose fines of up to €1 million for “imbalanced news coverage”. News programs are not allowed to devote more than 20 percent of their airtime to crime stories. Journalists have been stripped of legal protection to keep their sources confidential.
The law was widely condemned, including by the European Parliament. It had little effect. Orbán’s government systematically dismantled the free press. The state pulled advertising from critical outlets, depriving them of income. Népszabadság, the biggest independent newspaper, was forced to shut down in 2016. Hundreds of private news media were simultaneously donated to a single holding company run by Orbán’s friends in 2018. Orbán barred regulators from scrutinizing the transaction, arguing it was in the “national interest”.

more at link
https://atlanticsentinel.com/2020/10/viktor-orbans-authoritarian-playbook/

Ex-NFL WR Braylon Edwards stops alleged assault of man, 80

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. -- A man has been charged with attempted murder in a locker room attack at a suburban Detroit YMCA that was broken up by former NFL player Braylon Edwards.

Edwards said he was "just minding [his] business" Friday when he heard a dispute about loud music at the recreation center in Farmington Hills.

"The noise escalates, and then you can hear some pushing and shoving, so you know what fighting sounds like," Edwards told WDIV-TV. "But once I hear a thud, that's when I got up and turned around."

Edwards said he stopped the assault of an 80-year-old man, who had a head injury. The 20-year-old suspect fled on foot before he was captured by police.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/39653298/ex-nfl-wr-braylon-edwards-stops-alleged-assault-man-80

Just watched the new Trevor Noah special on Netflix.

I thought it was a great show.

Silver Wheels--Bruce Cockburn

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III - That's The Way

Lee Michaels - Stormy Monday at the Fillmore East from 3-20-1970

Robin Trower - Bridge Of Sighs

"The view from the Bridge of Sighs was the last view of Venice that convicts saw before their imprisonment. The bridge's English name was bequeathed by Lord Byron in the 19th century as a translation from the Italian "Ponte dei sospiri",[2][3] from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice through the window before being taken down to their cells"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_of_Sighs

Ricky Peterson - Do That Again

Hammond B3 with Robben Ford on guitar

Summer Madness--Kool & The Gang