Joe Rogan, Salman Rushdie and Chancellor Kent or what freedom is.

Posted: February 9, 2022 by datechguy in culture, opinion/news
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I’m old enough to remember when the Fatwa was put on Salman Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses.

Unlike today when phrases like “freedom of speech” are routinely redefined to suit whatever agenda the left happens to have that day in 1989 the idea of the A death sentence being publicly demanded for an author for writing a book a particular Ayatollah didn’t like was rather new and there were plenty of free speech advocates who loudly proclaimed such actions a travesty.

Much to my shock at the time there was also considerable pushback from some in the west those who attacked Rushdie. It was the beginning of what we are seeing today.

At the time I was outraged (and still am at the bounty still on his head) and considered buying the book in response to said threats. but then it hit me:

What is the difference between buying a book I don’t want in response to Islamic threats and not buying a book I do want in response to Islamic threats?

The answer: THERE ISN’T ONE. Either way I would be allowing a bunch of savage barbarians to drive me to an action I had no interest in doing. The essence of freedom is the ability to do something if one chooses or not. So I asked myself a key question: If there was no FATWA on Rushdie would I had any interest in buying this book?

The answer is and remains no.

I haven’t bought the book, I have no interest in buying the book and I don’t see myself buying the book in the future…

…but I have the RIGHT an the ability to buy the book and that right is worth fighting for.

And that brings us to Joe Rogan.

I don’t have a subscription to Spotify and never had plans to get one before the Joe Rogan business.

I am not one of the millions of subscribers who listen to Joe Rogan. I’ve listed to a clip here and there but I have little interest in his podcast in general and had no plans to listen to jump in and start listening.

When the attempt to censor his came out I was as you might guess outraged. I don’t like the idea of people trying to force someone off the air because they don’t like what he’s saying or who he is interviewing.

You can’t have freedom of speech and if you don’t have freedom to listen. I think the attempt to take away that ability to listen is unamerican totalitarian and frankly evil and the people who are pushing that need to be fought because just like redefining words didn’t stop with “marriage” censoring speech and the ability to listen won’t stop with Rogan.

All that being said you can’t have freedom to listen without the freedom to not listen and as much as I want to make sure he has a platform so the people who want to hear him can do so I have no interest in joining that crowd because I freely choose not to.

Some might object saying that is it my moral duty to listen to jump in, perhaps I will like it, perhaps I would be this harkins back to one of the best statements in history concerning this type of thing.

Chancellor James Kent, author of Kent’s Commentaries, and one of the most influential American
legal minds of all time, had a personal story that illustrates how foreign this impulse is to American law. According to Kent’s grandson: [He was] waited upon by a temperance committee and urged to give his authority and sanction to the principles and aims of a mass meeting by adding his name to the list of
those who had pledged themselves not to use intoxicating liquor, being unduly pressed after his first polite negative, he made the following reply, declining the request:

“Gentlemen, I refuse to sign any pledge. I never have been drunk, and, by the blessing of God, I never will get drunk, but I have a constitutional privilege to get drunk, and that privilege I will not sign away.”‘

Kent never had the inclination to grant legislative authority over his sobriety.

I have no intention of granting either my political enemies or my political allies the authority to determine what can can’t or what I must listen to.

If some day Rogan has a guest I’m really interested in and I choose to jump in or even subscribe, fine but nobody is going to make that judgement but me.

THAT’s freedom.

Student power and the end of reason

Posted: February 8, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncomfortable Truths
Tags: ,

By Christopher Harper

Although I know that colleges have been bending over backward to kowtow to students, I didn’t realize how far until recently.

In 27 years of teaching, I’ve never had a student officially challenge a grade. Until now.

A student, who was described as a “star” of the Department of Journalism at Temple, took my course in media law. She was a dreadful pain, consistently filing late assignments or asking for extensions.

By the end of the course, others followed suit, apparently driven by the less-than-stringent rules offered during the pandemic. In fact, I allowed for up to a grade of “C-” for assignments turned in within a week of the deadline.

By the end of the semester, I’d had my fill. Two days before the final assignment was due, I announced that no late submissions would be accepted.

The “star” was the only one who sent the material in late. I gave her a zero, earning her a “C” in the class.

In an email, I explained to her, “Over the course of the semester, you have asked for exemptions, extensions, and preferred treatment. On Saturday, I informed the class that no extensions would be granted. Deadlines in journalism are critical to its endeavor. It’s a truism you should learn. I will not accept your submission because it is past the deadline. It may be the most important lesson you learn from this class.”

Instead, the student learned how to work the system. She appealed the grade because I had changed the “contract” of the syllabus by eliminating late submissions.

Even more amazing is that my department chair ruled in the student’s favor.

“[T]he last-minute deadline change, in this case, goes against what is spelled out in the syllabus, which is a contract between a professor and students,” the chair wrote.

I didn’t change the deadline. I simply refused to accept late submissions.

What’s more important here is that a syllabus has somehow become a formal contract, which is unlikely to hold up in any court. Moreover, students have become consumers and teachers are products.

College is no longer a learning experience but akin to buying a car.

Thankfully, my time as a journalism professor comes to an end in June. If colleges are aiding and abetting such students and hiring administrators as consumer advocates, journalism and other professions will get even worse. Now that’s downright scary!

The Single Biggest Giveaway on the Trucker Convoy in one Tweet

Posted: February 8, 2022 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Mrs. Teasdale: Your excellency I thought you left

Chicolini [disguised as Firefly]: Oh no I no leave

Mrs. Teasdale: But I saw you with my own eyes

Chicolini: Who are you going to believe me or your own eyes?

Duck Soup 1933

As I think about it while the Marx Brothers line is apt this clip from: A guide for the married man (1967) might be more proper.

We’re at a point where people are going to have to decide if they are going to buy Joey Bishop’s line or not.

Report from Louisiana: Random Thoughts

Posted: February 7, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT -A few random thoughts today:     

On Living in Louisiana: Even though Louisiana is at the bottom of all the important economic growth lists, bottom of education, bottom of job growth, there are some definite advantages to living here. I’ve written often about the differences between north and south Louisiana – it might as well be two different universes, and I do love south Louisiana. But, even up here in the northern part of the state, we have our perks. It’s never a bad day, for example, when a friend calls out of the blue on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon and says, “We droppin’ a big ol’ batch of crawfish in da water right now; come get you some!”

When that happens, you drop what you are doing, grab a six-pack, and follow the directions to a renovated industrial looking building in the shad of the interstate where three 45-pound sacks of crawfish await the hot boiling brew over the propane fire that turns them into spicy, tasty delicacies. I could eat my weight in crawfish.

They aren’t crayfish or crawdads around here; they are crawfish. Sometimes mudbugs. Always delicious.

Another perk of living in Louisiana is the weather; yes, last winter we had a five-day snowmageddon event that had us shut inside for a solid week. Unheard of. We have already had our one day of snow this week, so now we look forward to spring. Oh, the cold isn’t done with us yet. We will have a few more spells where the temps go below freezing, but for the most part, I’m looking for spring.

I mean, college baseball kicked off this weekend. Nothing says spring like college baseball!

We have Mardi Gras parades coming up beginning in the next week or so and that harkens to Lent and then the Easter season, and well, spring.

Here in Shreveport, we have “city Mardi Gras” as opposed to “country Mardi Gras” celebrated by many of my friends in Cajun country down south. Very different events! But always fun.

I’m the first one to get on my soapbox and complain about the crime, the terrible politicians, the urban decay, the potholes, the low teacher pay, etc.; we are far from perfect here in Louisiana, but dang, I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

On The Super Bowl: Are you going to watch? I’m probably not. I haven’t watched an NFL game in three or so years and could not care less about it. I do love Joe Burrow however, and so I rather would like to see him win, but I won’t lose any sleep over it. We usually watch the Puppy Bowl instead.

On The Vanishing Louisiana Coast: I know we all hate the NYT, but I do want to share this article. Last week one of the books I share with you was the Mosquito Supper Club cookbook and this article references that book, the author, and her very real concerns about the danger of the Louisiana coastline. I’ve seen it. It’s read and it’s shocking. We can debate the whole climate change angle, but whatever the actual cause, or combination of causes, we are losing a lot of land down there, as well as entire communities and even the sustainability of our seafood industry. It’s troublesome.

Y’all have a good week and be kind.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and at Medium; she is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

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