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Tag Archives: Erdogan
The UN Blesses Turkey's Anti-Semitism and Terrorism
Posted on October 10, 2021 by First.One.Through
Turkey has been descending into one of the most intolerant and dangerous promoters of terrorism under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan for several years, but the United Nations seems intent on blessing this particular brand of anti-Semitism and barbarism.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi, Russia September 29, 2021.
(photo: Sputnik/Vladimir Smirnov/Pool via REUTERS)
Consider the country's treatment of journalists. Turkey has jailed 312 journalists since 2016, the most in the world, 38% more than second worst, China.
Erdogan promotes blood libels against Jews. In May 2021, he said that the "Jewish Prime Minister" in Israel's "greatest pleasure" was killing Palestinians because it "is part of their nature" as "they are only satisfied by sucking blood." The United States senate quickly issued a bill condemning "Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's invocation of the blood libel myth, which has historically been used to justify violence against Jews."
The anti-Semitic slurs are consistent with Erdogan's desire to kill Jews. The country was granting citizenship to members of the political-terrorist group HAMAS which the European parliament noted would allow them to set up a base in Turkey and freely travel, affording them "greater freedom in planning attacks on Israeli citizens around the world."
Turkey's crimes are not confined to only being against Jews. Turkey's military invaded Syria in 2018 and continues to control Afrin, home to thousands of Kurds. The Kurds used to account for 96 percent of Afrin's population and has now been driven down to 25 percent as Turkey has turned the area into a haven for Syria's Islamic population fleeing the war zones. Turkey treats the minority group as pariahs inside Turkey as well, and has extended its oppressive reach against them and Yazidis until today. A number of senators have urged U.S. President Biden to "forcefully condemn President Erdogan's escalating efforts to disband the country's largest pro-Kurdish political party," as Erdogan continues to purge non-Islamists from the region.
Remarkably, none of this seems to irk the leader of the United Nations.
On September 20, 2021, UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres issued a proclamation praising Turkey as the UN General Assembly gathered to meet. Guterres said:
"Turkey is engaged across the spectrum of our work, as we deal with challenges from the climate crisis to long‑standing threats to peace and security. I am personally familiar with enormous generosity of Turkey and Turkish host communities towards refugees. I offer my sincere appreciation for your support to people in need of protection.
"The number of people fleeing wars, violence, persecution and human rights violations is at record levels. I count on Turkey to continue doing its utmost, with the support of the international community. This is an act of solidarity that concerns us all.
"Peacemaking is another critical dimension of our work. I welcome Turkey's consistent support to our mediation efforts, including by co-chairing the Group of Friends of Mediation — one of our most important tools to reduce, manage and end conflict.
"I would also like to take this opportunity to highlight the leadership of His Excellency, Volkan Bozkir, as President of the of the seventy-fifth session of General Assembly. We have been fortunate to rely on him through a difficult year.
"I look forward to our continuing close cooperation with the Government and people of Turkey, and wish you many years of productive work in the new Turkish House. Thank you."
Gutteres had no similar comments for any other countries' efforts on behalf of refugees.
The head of the United Nations singled out for praise an anti-Semitic, authoritarian regime which crushes free speech and minority rights during the latest gathering of world leaders. It is a clear indication that the extremist Islamist factions have assumed control of the global body.
Related First One Through articles:
The United Nations Absolves Turkey's Erdogan
Turkey's Hajj of Hypocrisy
Posted in Uncategorized, United Nations | Tagged Erdogan, turkey, United Nations | 3 Replies
Posted on October 8, 2019 by First.One.Through
The leader of Turkey, Recep Erdogan, was given the floor at the United Nations in September 2019. The brutal ruler who denies the Ottoman genocide of the Armenian people which killed over one million people, even while he accuses Israel of genocide for defending itself against Palestinian Arab terrorist resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 Arabs, used the global platform to once again christen the halls of hate with a harangue of hypocrisy and hubris.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Erdogan took turns slamming various countries in the region. He dressed down competing Islamic countries of Egypt and Saudi Arabia for their violations of human rights and democracy but did not blink in a moment of self-reflection at his own government's incitement of terror in Israel and jailing of journalists in Turkey. He lambasted Saudi Arabia's participation in the war in Yemen at its borders, and then showed the world how he planned on invading Syria to clear out thousands of Kurds to make room for millions of Muslims who had fled Syria to Turkey. A torrent of hypocrisy so full and rich, it left a mustache on his brow.
At 22:13 of his remarks, he pivoted to Israel, a longtime favorite target, on par with the Kurdish people, both of whom he feels deserve no rights or lands. He pulled out a map of the region in an effort to portray Israel as gobbling up Arab land. "Where was Israel in 1947?" he asked the audience.
Where was Palestine from 1517 to 1917 one might wonder? It was part of the Ottoman Empire, his country's empire. It stretched out from Constantinople (what the Turk's call Istanbul today) to cover much of the region and was pared back after World War I, allowing countries like Greece, Lebanon, Syria – and yes, Israel – to emerge. Erdogan's predecessors made no attempt to promote an independent locally-governed Arab country. No matter. His country's failings and atrocities cannot be acknowledged.
Seemingly bored with his own hypocrisy, Erdogan pivoted his talk towards a mix of Jew-hatred and Fake History. He pointed to a map and claimed that "Palestine" (represented in green) in 1947 was everywhere where Arabs were a majority or where there were no people living at all. Places where Jews consisted of a majority were shown in specs of white, and said "there is seemingly no Israeli presence on these lands." This is an echo of the anti-Semitic screed that only Arabs have ever been Palestinian, while in fact Jews, Christians and others also referred to themselves as Palestinian. The Palestinian Liberation Organization charter of 1964 created the new definition that only Arabs were Palestinian and connected to the land. Erdogan extended that foolishness by saying that any neighborhood which was majority Jewish was "Israeli." Does he similarly think that current Jewish neighborhoods in Istanbul are "Israeli?" Heaven help those poor remaining Jews in Erdogan's racist Turkey.
Erdogan continued:
"The year 1947 the Distribution [Partition] Plan takes place, gets ratified, Palestinian lands start shrinking and Israel starts expanding. And from 1947 to 1967 Israel is still expanding; Palestine is still shrinking."
Left out from Erdogan's remarks was that the entire Muslim world rejected the Partition Plan. Ignored facts include that five Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948 to destroy it completely, but the Arabs lost and Israel took over more land in its defensive war. Omitted from his history lesson was that the remaining "Arab" lands were taken over by Egypt (Gaza) and Jordan which annexed the West Bank. Palestine was not just "shrinking," it ceased to exist in any form.
If Erdogan really feels that international law is paramount and that Jews are the same as Israel, then why not acknowledge the international law of the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, which called for "reconstituting their national home" of Jews in Palestine in the 1922 Mandate of Palestine. That law was for the ENTIRETY of the land he highlighted in his map – all of the green and all of the white areas – for Jewish settlement. And for Erdogan Jews equals Israel, ergo all of the land is Israel.
Erdogan was far from done. At 24:45 he went after Judaism's holiest city, its capital in Jerusalem:
"The current Israeli government and the administration right next to these murders and atrocities is busy with intervening and attacking the historical legal status of Jerusalem and holy sacred lands and artifacts. As Turkey we have a very clear stance on this issue. The immediate establishment of an independent Palestinian State with homogenous territories on the basis of the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital is the only solution. Any other peace plan other than this will never have a chance of being fair, just and it will never be implemented."
Israel has been the only country to permit access and rights to people of all religions in Jerusalem. When Muslim Arabs ruled the city from 1949 to 1967, Jews were banned from entering or living in the city. The Ottoman Empire forbade Jews from even climbing all of the steps of Judaism's second holiest location, the Cave of the Jewish Patriarchs in Hebron.
But beyond Erdogan's fake history and selective memory is his long-standing love affair with hypocrisy.
Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and took over the northern half of the island-country. In the war, Turkey seized half of the capital city of Nicosia, in a move condemned by the United Nations and the world. To this day, Turkey continues to claim its rights to the seized lands including half of the capital, in a long-simmering dispute. Yet the world's admonition of Turkey's actions does not seem to bother Erdogan, even as he claims lands which were seized in an offensive war which were never deemed part of Turkey. Quite a bit of hypocrisy, relative to Erdogan's stance on Israel's reclaiming Judaism's holiest city in a defensive war.
September at the United Nations is the hajj of hypocrisy, where Islamic tyrants and dictators lecture the world about rights and laws which they trample upon with abandon. Recep Erdogan has long been the hajj's mascot.
Related First.One.Through articles:
Both Israel and Jerusalem are Beyond Recognition for Muslim Nations
The Churlish Turkish Leadership
New York Times Talking Turkey
Pakistan's Muslim Leader Cannot Address Fellow Muslim Leaders
Goodbye Mahmoud Abbas
Related First.One.Through videos:
Turkish Hypocrisy: Turkey Threatens its Neighbors
Turkish hypocrisy: Erdogan's Line of Defense
Netanyahu's Apology to Erdogan (music by Joe Cocker)
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Posted in Israel | Tagged Erdogan | 3 Replies
Turkey's Erdogan Likely Sending Military Towards Gaza
Posted on August 13, 2018 by First.One.Through
There is arguably no greater authoritarian leader today than Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. He has cemented his powers over the last dozen years, quashing the press and anyone that stands opposed to him.
That authoritarian leader is now under serious threat.
The Turkish economy has become incredibly weakened over the past several weeks due to various economic decisions by Erdogan and a series of tariffs imposed against Turkey by US President Donald Trump. The Turkish lira is in a state of serious decline and there is a real risk of the country's economy collapsing.
It is very doubtful that the Turkish egomaniac will accede to the demands of Trump to release an American pastor that Turkey arrested. It is unlikely that Turkey will stop buying weapons from Russia. It is also unlikely that Turkey will only "look for other friends and allies" as Erdogan headlined in his op-ed on the online edition of the New York Times on August 10.
Erdogan is too crafty and mean-spirited to simply "look for friends." He will provoke. Aggressively.
Erdogan knows that he cannot combat the United States either militarily or economically, so will only resort to some bad-mouthing, when it comes to the U.S.
However, Erdogan will enjoy provoking a war against an American ally, particularly one close to Trump: Israel.
Erdogan has long been allied with the Palestinian Arab terrorist group Hamas that controls Gaza. He has allowed his Turkish ports to be used for "flotillas" to break the Israeli blockade of the region in the past. He is likely to use his current weak economic situation to take a much more aggressive stance to gather support from the greater Arab and Muslim world.
Erdogan had an interview on Al Jazeera in 2011 where he made indirect threats against Israel in relation to Israel's work with the government of Cyprus in extracting oil, and for the situation in Gaza. Erdogan reiterated Turkey's claims in Cyprus (which no country in the world believes), and his concern for the people of Gaza. He stated that he would begin using his navy ships to protect Turkey's interests in both Cyprus and Gaza.
Recep Erdogan interview on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks
against the United States
He did not send military vessels into the eastern Mediterranean Sea at that time nor to Cyprus, as Netanyahu apologized to Erdogan for killing attackers on the Mavi Marmara boat in 2010 at the urging of US President Barack Obama. But Erdogan's situation today is much more precarious.
In his August 2018 NY Times Op-Ed, Erdogan said "Turkey has established time and again that it will take care of its own business if the United States refuses to listen." It is not far-fetched to imagine that an authoritarian leader with his back to the wall, will now come after Israel in a real concerted way.
It will not be surprising to see Turkish military ships off the coast of Cyprus and/or Gaza in the coming months. The only question is whether this be the start of a broader war.
Turkish Hypocrisy – Erdogan's Line of Defense
Obama's Friendly Pass to Turkey's Erdogan
Names and Narrative: Genocide / Intifada
Related First.One.Through video:
Netanyahu apology to Erdogan (Joe Cocker)
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Posted in Israel | Tagged Erdogan, turkey | Leave a reply
Posted on December 16, 2017 by First.One.Through
After US President Donald Trump announced that the United States is officially recognizing the fact that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel on December 6, 2017, many Arab and Muslim countries sought to make a declaration.
They doubled-down on putting their heads in the sand.
Turkey pulled together the 57 countries of the Organization of Islamic Countries, the OIC, to condemn the statement of the United States. Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan said that Jerusalem was a "red line" for the Muslim world and the OIC would reject any recognition of the eastern half of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Turkish President Erdogan at OIC Summit
(picture: Reuters K. Ozer)
That statement is a bit of a joke, as most of the countries in the OIC don't even recognize Israel itself.
Even in 2017, almost 70 years after the reestablishment of the Jewish State in the holy land, the presence of Jews still irks too many Muslim nations, including: Afghanistan; Algeria; Bahrain; Bangladesh; Brunei; Chad; Comoros; Djibouti; Indonesia; Iran; Iraq; Kuwait; Lebanon; Libya; Malaysia; Mali; Mauritania; Morocco; Niger; Oman; Pakistan; "Palestine"; Qatar; Saudi Arabia; Somalia; Sudan; Syria; Tunisia; UAE; and Yemen. That's 30 countries that do not recognize the State of Israel that came together to say that do not recognize its capital.
How is this news?
Here is something that would be ground-breaking for the global purveyors of #AlternativeFacts:
It would be news if the anti-Zionist media would ever state this basic fact that these countries are deeply hostile to Israel in any form.
It would be news if the media would not refer to "Arab East Jerusalem" in all caps as if it is an actual entity with endemic Arab roots.
It would be news for the media to state that "East Jerusalem" only existed for 18 years (1949-1967) in the city's 4000 year history.
It would be news if the media would ever educate readers that Jews have been a majority in Jerusalem since the 1860s.
It would be news if the media ever wrote that the Jordanians expelled all of the Jews from eastern Jerusalem and the "West Bank" in 1949
It would be news if the media would give proper background that under Arab Muslim rule, Jews were forbidden from even entering the Old City of Jerusalem.
It would be news if the media would stop saying that Jerusalem is holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews ALIKE, as if the city isn't uniquely the holiest city ONLY for Jews
It would be news if the media would bother to inform its readers that the man who called together and hosted the summit, Erdogan, is the major sponsor and backer of Hamas, the most anti-Semitic terrorist group that waged three wars against Israel in just the past ten years, and that he is still angry at Israel for recognizing an independent Kurdistan.
A squandered opportunity to show yet another example of the deep hatred that Muslims feel towards Jewish sovereignty in their holy land.
Instead, the media decided to report that a country like Iran, that has called for Israel to be wiped off of the map, is angry about the US recognizing Israel's capital. Really.
Are you still paying for that paper that tells you nothing?
Arabs in Jerusalem
Nicholas Kristof's "Arab Land"
The Arguments over Jerusalem
The New York Times Thinks that the Jews from Arab Countries Simply "Immigrated"
The Cancer in the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Posted in Israel, New York Times | Tagged eastern Jerusalem, Erdogan, Jerusalem, OIC | 15 Replies
Posted on June 8, 2016 by First.One.Through
On June 8, 2016, United Nations Secretary General spoke about freedom of the press to the UN Correspondents Association, in what can best be described as a disgraceful blindness. Ban Ki Moon stated – with a straight face –
"I will continue to defend the rights of journalists and to do everything possible, publicly and privately, to ensure that journalists have the freedom to work."
This was similar to his statement on May 24, when he delivered prepared remarks to the Asia Media Summit in Korea:
"Free and responsible media help people across the world to stand up for human rights, justice, dignity and opportunity for all. The United Nations will continue to speak out for press freedom and the free flow of information. These are necessary not only to inform the world about the Sustainable Development Goals, but to enable people to hold their leaders accountable for fulfilling the pledges they have made."
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon
Despite the flowery speeches to the media, how did Ban Ki Moon treat the worst actor who suppressed freedom of the press and jailed journalists with abandon? He praised him.
On May 23rd, Ban Ki Moon addressed the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, Turkey. The UN Secretary General praised Turkey's Recep Erdogan, a man who has jailed more journalists than every other country. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Turkey led the world with the most journalists in prison in both 2012 and 2013. It released dozens in 2014, but jumped to the fifth largest jailer in 2015.
As the UNSG praised Erdogan, the UN itself granted absolution to Turkey by allowing it to host the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit. Turkey hosted the event while its president actively hunted the Kurds again, as he dragged his feet in confronting ISIS. Erdogan continued to deny the Armenian Genocide, and supported terrorists in Gaza. He suppressed freedoms continuously in his own country.
Like Saudi Arabia being elected chair of the UN Human Rights Council as it decapitated people in the streets, the UN ignored Erdogan's disgraceful actions. Or it blessed them. Is there no limit to the shame at the UN?
Does Satan grant absolution or blessings in Hell?
Music video on Free Speech (Coldplay)
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Posted in United Nations | Tagged Ban Ki-Moon, Erdogan, United Nations | 7 Replies
US President Barack Obama has made some interesting friends in office. Those friends get some special attention, and often more importantly, benign neglect.
Among the five world leaders that Obama highlighted as his best friends was the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Over Obama's tenure as president, Erdogan served as both the Turkish Prime Minister and President. This weekend, elections in Turkey could help cement his power as he attempts to remake the country's constitution.
One would normally congratulate Obama on aligning himself with such a powerful leader, particularly one with a significant presence in the Muslim world. Such an ally could help the United States advance American interests in the volatile Middle East.
US President Barack Obama talks with Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a family photo at the G20 Summit in Cannes on Nov. 3, 2011. (Photo: AP)
Turkey's "Help" in The Middle East
Turkey sits geographically as a bridge between the European and Asian continents. Turkey borders the volatile countries Syria and Iraq, both of which are consumed by war, where Obama has expressed a US interest.
Turkey's geographic position and large army make it a potential important ally for the US in the fight against the Islamic State. However, despite the good terms between Obama and Erdogan, Turkey has not been a good partner in this regard. As relayed by The Guardian October 2014: "The US is especially angry with Turkey because it is a Nato ally and yet it has refused to provide even basic logistical assistance to the US-led coalition." It took many months for Turkey to agree to even begin training Syrian forces in Turkey to fight ISIS. Turkey's efforts continue to be minimal.
Erdogan's Values
If Turkey hasn't been so helpful to American interests, perhaps Obama's friendship is based on shared values.
As reviewed in "The Churlish Turkish Leadership", Erdogan has moved his country to the far right into the deep religious Islamic sphere. He has curbed the freedoms of press and expression dramatically over his tenure. Are those shared American values? Obama's values?
A Friend With Benefits: Erdogan
Despite Erdogan's lack of assistance to America and suppression of human rights, Obama has treated Erdogan rather nicely:
There were no ramifications to Turkey from withholding support in the fight against ISIS
There were no ramifications from Erdogan's suppression of human rights
Obama has issued no statement about Turkey's illegal occupation of northern Cyprus since 1974, which is deemed illegal by the United Nations and not recognized by any country other than Turkey.
When Erdogan said the "Zionism was a crime against humanity" in February 2013, the White House merely condemned the statement, but did not threaten any action against Turkey.
In May 2015, in the week before elections, Erdogan stated that he sought Turkish unity (with the Kurds) in liberating Jerusalem "just as our forefathers went together to liberate Jerusalem with Saladin, we will march together on the same path", in a comment that did not even get a response from the Obama administration.
It would appear that Obama is fine with Erdogan despite the lack of Turkish support for American policies or values.
A Friend without Benefits: Netanyahu
Obama's relationship with Erdogan is in sharp contrast to the way Obama treats the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Obama is obsessed with preventing Jews from living in the eastern part of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, because of the anti-Semitic desires of the Palestinian Authority and has repeatedly attacked Netanyahu for permitting Jews to live freely where they choose.
Obama forced Netanyahu to apologize to Erdogan, after Erdogan enabled a flotilla from Turkey to attempt to breach a legal Israeli blockade of Gaza in which nine people on the ship where killed in an act of self defense by Israeli soldiers
Obama boycotted Netanyahu's speech to a joint session of Congress and convinced 58 Democratic party loyalists to protest the speech as well
Obama threatened to withhold support for Israel at the United Nations, after Netanyahu made an election night comment that seemed to suggest he was against Israeli Arabs and not in favor of a two-state solution with the Palestinian Arabs
While Obama claims that the US and Israel are strong allies, his policies appear to be based more on personal friendships. For Obama, friendship is showing he works for them and not what his friends do for the US. "I think that if you ask them — Angela Merkel, or Prime Minister Singh, or President Lee, or Prime Minister Erdoğan, or David Cameron would say, we have a lot of trust and confidence in the president. We believe what he says. We believe that he'll follow through on his commitments. We think he's paying attention to our concerns and our interests,"
Obama will likely continue to show benign neglect to the demagogic statesman from Turkey who makes vile attacks against allies and quells the rights of the people in Turkey. Conversely, Obama has demonstrated that he will berate and lecture the Israeli leader about "values" and take actions that threaten the country's existence.
Troubling trends based on personal preferences.
Posted in Israel, Middle East Analysis | Tagged Erdogan, Netanyahu, Obama, turkey | 4 Replies
Posted on February 8, 2015 by First.One.Through
Under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has continued to slide further and further into the extreme right towards militant Islam. It has (coincidentally?) also pushed the country closer to US President Obama and further from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Turkish leader Erdogan on magazine cover
In terms, of the continued suppression of freedom and liberty in Turkey:
Turkey jailed the most journalists in the world in both 2012 and 2013;
Erdogan blocked kissing in public and sale of alcohol at night (May 2013);
Erdogan banned Twitter (March 2014);
Erdogan outlawed YouTube (March 2014);
Turkey blocked Facebook pages deemed insulting to Muslim prophet Mohammed (January 2015)
The Turkish leader has also led his country into repeated confrontations with Israel due to his adamant support for the terrorist group Hamas, a group sworn to the destruction of Israel:
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu withdraws from a global conference on security because Israel was in attendance (February 2015)
Erdogan took to anti-Semitic rants comparing Israel to Nazi Germany (July 2014)
Erdogan called Zionism a "Crime against humanity" (February 2013)
Erdogan threatens to send more and more military vessels off the coast of Israel in a direct challenge to the legal Israeli blockade of Gaza (September 2011)
Turkey enables a flotilla to leave its shores to attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Eight Turks are killed after they refuse to dock at an Israeli port and attack Israeli soldiers (May 2010)
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Erdogan called Israeli President Shimon Peres a killer and marched off the stage (January 2009)
The strong rightward shift has not changed the relationship between Erdogan and Obama.
Obama considered Erdogan in his top five friends among international heads of state (January 2012)
Obama used his relationship to coerce an apology from Netanyahu to Erdogan for the assailants killed on the flotilla (March 2013)
US continued to contort itself to make Turkey happy as the US tried to help Kurdish fighters against ISIS, while Turkey did almost nothing in the fight, as it despised the Kurds (October 2014)
As described above, the Netanyahu apology to Erdogan did nothing to repair relations between Israel and Turkey and nothing slowed Erdogan's crackdown on freedom in Turkey. The Obama administration twisted itself every-which-way to excuse terrible Turkish policies (whether its treatment of the Kurds, failure to support war on ISIS, suppression of freedoms at home…) while it picks on Israel for matters of protocol.
To listen to liberal media and democrats these days, you would think that it was Israel that was acting "churlish" for matters of protocol as opposed to specific attacks on Israel.
Here is the satirical music video by First.One.Through about the sad state of the world, where victims must apologize to the aggressors (music by Joe Cocker):
NY Times support of Erdogan over Netanyahu: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/new-york-times-talking-turkey/
Posted in Gaza, Israel, Political music videos of the Middle East | Tagged Erdogan, Hamas, Israel, Joe Cocker, Netanyahu, Obama, President Obama, turkey | 5 Replies
Pope Francis in Turkey
Posted on December 1, 2014 by First.One.Through
The news agencies reported on Pope Francis' visit to Turkey in November 2014. Remarkably, the major media outlets such as CNN, BBC, and The New York Times did not report on the extreme hardened Islamic moves that have taken place in Turkey over the past several years, nor other abuses:
No mention of the Turkish persecution of the Kurdish minorities
No mention of Turkey's illegal invasion and ongoing occupation of northern Cyprus
No mention of the Turkish genocide of the Armenians
No mention of rightward shift of Turkish government:
Banning kissing in public
Banning Youtube
Banning Twitter
Jailing the most journalists in the world in 2012 and 2013
Banning drinking at night
The closest any major news organization came to criticizing Turkey was the Guardian, which quickly backed off with a quote ""Things are good now, better than before certainly," Atmaca said. "I think the Islamist rhetoric [of the government] is mostly show.""
By way of comparison, when the Pope visited Israel in May 2014, the New York Times did nothing to describe the positive environment of Christians in Israel, and constantly sought to portray every move of Pope Francis as critical of Israel in the Arab-Israel conflict (as described in the FirstOneThrough articles below.) Absent from their narrative, was that Israel is a thriving country with more freedoms of press and worship than any country in the Middle East. The country is much more than the conflict with the Palestinians, just as Turkey is more than its conflict in Cyprus or with the Kurds.
Here is a FirstOneThrough video analysis of an interview of Recep Erdogan from September 11, 2011, then the Prime Minister and now the President of Turkey. Like the liberal media outlets, the attacks on Israel are persistent, and the hypocrisy is without limits.
FirstOneThrough video "Turkish hypocrisy: Erdogan threatens Neighbors":
CNN coverage: http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/28/world/europe/turkey-pope-visit/
BBC coverage: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30239233
New York Times coverage: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/world/europe/pope-brings-message-of-interreligious-peace-to-istanbul.html?_r=0
FirstOneThrough comparing NY Times coverage of Turkish and Israeli elections: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/new-york-times-talking-turkey/
FirstOneThrough on Pope in Israel: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/nytimes-shows-its-preference-in-dueling-narratives-in-the-middle-east/
FirstOneThrough on NY Times Pope's "Peace prayer" invitation: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/ny-times-skewed-view-on-pope-prayer-invitation-and-mideast-peace/
Posted in Israel, Middle East Analysis, New York Times | Tagged Cyprus, Erdogan, Kurds, pope, Pope Francis, turkey | 1 Reply
Sometimes a contrast in coverage helps boldface the biases.
The New York Times (for some reason) wrote quite glowingly of Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey during presidential elections in August 2014. Some of the choice language on August 9 before the election included:
"hoping to secure a legacy greater than that of the revered founder of modern Turkey";
"broken down secular taboos";
"economic policies have improved the lives of many";
"long been a strategic ally of the United States";
"In 2011, President Obama developed a close personal relationship with Mr. Erdogan, seeing Turkey as a model to emulate for countries upended by revolution'"
After the elections, on August 11 the Times continued to use positive expressions: "thousands massed…and erupted in applause" to Erdogan's victory, while caveating later in the article that there were some concerns among the country's "liberals" about an "authoritarian" streak in Erdogan.
In both articles, the New York Times neglected to remind readers of a few policies of Erdogan over the prior year that gave Turkish citizens pause about Erdogan:
Erdogan banned Twitter;
Erdogan outlawed YouTube;
Erdogan blocked kissing in public and sale of alcohol at night;
Erdogan took to anti-Semitic rants comparing Israel to Nazi Germany
But if the New York Times likes you, certain facts will fade to the background.
Consider the surprisingly low-turnout for this first-time Turkish presidential election: only 74% came out to vote compared to 87% in 2011 general elections. The NYT said that few people showed up to vote "presumably because many had assumed Erdogan would win". Erdogan squeaked out a win with 52% of the vote compared to the second place winner at 38% – only 37% higher. However, the NYT said "the election felt like a coronation".
By way of comparison, look at the way the Times covered the election of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January 2013. The Times did not include any of the commentary used for Turkey about Israel: being a strong US ally; the strong economy of Israel; the island of stability in the sea of chaos of the Middle East. Instead, the headline read: "Tepid Vote for Netanyahu in Israel Is Seen as Rebuke". In that "tepid vote", Israelis came out in numbers greater than ever before – 67% voted for the cabinet, compared to the 2009 election turnout of 65% and of 63% in the 2003 election. Not only was the vote not "tepid", but Netanyahu's Likud party won the vast majority with 31 seats compared to the second place winner, Yesh Atid, with 19 votes – a margin of 63% (almost twice Erdogan's clearance).
But the Times despises Netanyahu. The article had remarkable quotes for the victorious Prime Minister:
"weakened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu";
"the outcome was a humbling rebuke";
"Mr. Netanyahu posted a panicky message on Facebook";
"The results were a blow to the prime minister, whose aggressive push to expand Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank has led to international condemnation and strained relations with Washington."
This last quote is a particularly embarrassing and revealing lie. Jodi Roduren (who wrote the piece from the fantasy of her head instead of based on facts) sought to lay out a scenario where the Israeli public disagreed with the "aggressive push to expand Jewish settlements". In the real world, both the number two party, Yesh Atid (19 seats) and the number four party, Jewish Home (11 seats), were in favor of a united Jerusalem and continuing to build homes for Jews in Judea & Samaria. The Jewish Home party campaigned on the basis of annexing Judea & Samaria. The Times' favorite parties, the left-wing parties of Hatnua and Meretz came in almost last place with 6 seats each. (If you're counting at home, that's 61 seats versus 12 seats for the parties that want to keep united Jerusalem- a margin so large and bold you would think Roduren's handlers could have managed to edit her "news" article).
The Times ignored reality in both situations. In Turkey, it failed to report on Erdogan's strong right-ward shift into deep Islamic camp and painted him as more of a moderate. His modest win as blown out of proportion.
For Israel, Netanyahu's strong win was considered poor. The country's support of his policies about the rights for Jews to live all parts of Judea and Samaria were not just dismissed, but painted in a way that was completely opposite of the facts.
I sometimes think of the Times the way I think about turkey: it tastes quite good but it puts a person to sleep. Oh, and of course, it is one of the dumbest animals on the planet.
Turkey, most journalist jailed 2012 and 2013: http://cpj.org/reports/2013/12/second-worst-year-on-record-for-jailed-journalists.php
Erdogan banned twitter May 2013: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/21/turkey-bans-twitter-and-twitter-explodes/
Erdogan blocked Youtube: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/world/europe/turkey-youtube-blocked/
Turkey ban kissing in public; late sale alcohol: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22780773
Netanyahu headline "Tepid Vote for Netanyahu in Israel Is Seen as Rebuke": http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/world/middleeast/israel-votes-in-election-likely-to-retain-netanyahu.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Lapid, Yesh Atid: Jerusalem not for negotiation http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Lapid-Jerusalem-is-not-up-for-negotiation-because-the-city-will-never-be-divided-330680
Posted in Israel, Middle East Analysis, New York Times, Opinion | Tagged Erdogan, Israel, Netanyahu, news, politics, turkey | 9 Replies
Posted on July 20, 2014 by First.One.Through
On July 19, Turkish Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued his vile attacks against Israel, comparing Israelis to Hitler. "(Israelis) have no conscience, no honour, no pride. Those who condemn Hitler day and night have surpassed Hitler in barbarism,"
Erdogan is famous for his hypocrisy. He has shelled Syria repeatedly for accidental mortar fire into Turkey. He has refused to admit Turkey's Armenian Genocide. He has refused to back down from Turkey's illegal annexation of northern Cyprus.
Maybe his title should be changed to the "Prime Turkey".
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/19/uk-israel-turkey-travel-idUKKBN0FO0XD20140719
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/68204
Posted in Israel, Operation Protective Edge | Tagged Erdogan, hypocrisy, Israel, turkey | 6 Replies
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Supreme Court Constitutional Decisions on Criminal Law Issues for the 2016-2017 Term
Recorded Date: February 06, 2018
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4th Amendment: Search and Seizure
5th Amendment: Double Jeopardy
6th Amendment: Righ to Counsel
6th Amendment: Jury Trial
8th Amendment: Cruel & Unusual Punishment
14th Amendment: Due Process
Recorded: February 6th, 2018
In this program, Professor Saltzman will discuss some notable constitutional decisions in criminal law during the 2016-2017 term including cases on the 4th, 5th, and 8th amendments among others; breaking down the facts and proceedings of each case.
This program was recorded on February 6th, 2018.
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Alan Saltzman
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Alan Saltzman is a retired law professor. He received his J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1965, served as Law Clerk to California Supreme Court Justice Matthew Tobriner 1965-66, and was a Fellow in Criminal law and Policy at Stanford University Law School 1971-72. Professor Saltzman taught Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law from 1976 until retirement in 2008. Before that he taught at the University of Nebraska Law School and the University of Oklahoma Law School. Since retirement he has taught at the University of San Francisco Law School, Seattle University Law School, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State and the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of San Francisco.
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The Nature of Consciousness: How the Internet Could Learn to Feel
Steve Paulson
"Romantic reductionist" neuroscientist Christof Koch discusses the scientific side of consciousness, including the notion that all matter is, to varying degrees, sentient.
If you had to list the hardest problems in science -- the questions even some scientists say are insoluble -- you would probably end up with two:
Where do the laws of physics come from?
How does the physical stuff in our brains produce conscious experience?
Even though philosophers have obsessed over the "mind-body problem" for centuries, the mystery of consciousness wasn't considered a proper scientific question until two or three decades ago. Then, a couple of things happened. Brain-imaging technologies finally gave neuroscience some high-powered tools to peer inside our brains while we think. And a few renowned scientists -- most famously, Francis Crick -- claimed that neuroscientists had to tackle consciousness if they were ever going to understand the brain.
By the 1980s, Crick had jumped from molecular biology to neuroscience and moved from England to California. There he found a brilliant young collaborator, Christof Koch, the son of German diplomats who'd recently landed a job as an assistant professor of biology and engineering at the California Institute of Technology. For the next 16 years -- until Crick's death in 1994 -- they worked together, searching for the neural correlates of consciousness.
Koch remains on the front lines of neurobiology. In fact, he will soon leave Caltech to work full-time as Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. After years of publishing scientific papers, he has now written a trade book, Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist. Somewhere between memoir and popular science, the book offers a highly personal glimpse into the mind of an unconventional scientist: a lapsed Catholic who teamed up with the staunch atheist Crick, and the eminent neuroscientist who speculates about the consciousness of bees and squid and even bacteria. In the first of a two-part interview, we talked about the wiring of our brains and the possibility that the Internet itself may become conscious.
Why have you devoted so much of your life searching for the neural roots of consciousness?
Koch: Consciousness is the central factor of our lives. The only way I know I exist is because I'm conscious. I might be mistaken about who exactly I am -- for example, how attractive I am to the opposite sex -- but there's no doubt I have feelings of pain, pleasure, anger, of being a man, of waking up. Until recently, science has neglected to incorporate the fact of consciousness into its theories. If science wants a complete understanding of everything in the universe, it has to include consciousness.
What makes consciousness such a difficult problem for scientists to explain?
Koch: Well, unlike black holes or the Higgs boson or molecules, consciousness has both an external perspective and an intrinsic perspective. In other words, you can weigh the Higgs boson and the molecule. You can poke them. You can measure them. Scientists and engineers are very good at doing that, but we don't think a black hole feels like anything. We don't believe the Higgs boson or a single nerve cell feels like anything. But a healthy human brain feels something if it's awake.
You actually see a world. How does this picture get into your head? That's the mystery. And because it has both an exterior, third-person perspective as well as an interior, first-person perspective, it's unique among all the phenomena in the universe. This means it's a little bit more difficult to attack using a scientific point of view. It doesn't mean it's impossible.
Or maybe a lot more difficult if we consider the complexity of the brain. How many neurons and synapses are in the human brain?
Koch: The average human brain has a hundred billion neurons and synapses on the order of a hundred trillion or so. But it's not just sheer numbers. It's the incredibly complex and specific ways in which these things are wired up. That's what makes it different from a gigantic sand dune, which might have a billion particles of sand, or from a galaxy. Our Milky Way, for example, contains a hundred billion suns, but the way these suns interact is very simple compared to the way neurons interact with each other.
So it doesn't matter so much what the neurons are made of. It's how they're organized and wired together.
Koch: Correct. Unless you believe in some magic substance attached to our brain that exudes consciousness, which certainly no scientist believes, then what matters is not the stuff the brain is made of, but the relationship of that stuff to each other. It's the fact that you have these neurons and they interact in very complicated ways. In principle, if you could replicate that interaction, let's say in silicon on a computer, you would get the same phenomena, including consciousness.
Are you saying the Internet could become conscious, or maybe already is conscious?
Koch: That's possible. It's a working hypothesis that comes out of artificial intelligence. It doesn't matter so much that you're made out of neurons and bones and muscles. Obviously, if we lose neurons in a stroke or in a degenerative disease like Alzheimer's, we lose consciousness. But in principle, what matters for consciousness is the fact that you have these incredibly complicated little machines, these little switching devices called nerve cells and synapses, and they're wired together in amazingly complicated ways. The Internet now already has a couple of billion nodes. Each node is a computer. Each one of these computers contains a couple of billion transistors, so it is in principle possible that the complexity of the Internet is such that it feels like something to be conscious. I mean, that's what it would be if the Internet as a whole has consciousness. Depending on the exact state of the transistors in the Internet, it might feel sad one day and happy another day, or whatever the equivalent is in Internet space.
You're serious about using these words? The Internet could feel sad or happy?
Koch: What I'm serious about is that the Internet, in principle, could have conscious states. Now, do these conscious states express happiness? Do they express pain? Pleasure? Anger? Red? Blue? That really depends on the exact kind of relationship between the transistors, the nodes, the computers. It's more difficult to ascertain what exactly it feels. But there's no question that in principle it could feel something.
Would humans recognize that certain parts of the Internet are conscious? Or is that beyond our understanding?
Koch: That's an excellent question. If we had a theory of consciousness, we could analyze it and say yes, this entity, this simulacrum, is conscious. Or because it displays independent behavior. At some point, suddenly it develops some autonomous behavior that nobody programmed into it, right? Then, people would go, "Whoa! What just happened here?" It just sort of self-organized in some really weird way. It wasn't a bug. It wasn't a virus. It wasn't a botnet that was paid for by some nefarious organization. It did it by itself. If this autonomous behavior happens on a regular basis, then I think many people would say, yeah, I guess it's alive in some sense, and it may have conscious sensation.
I think we need to back up for a moment. How do you define consciousness?
Koch: Typically, it means having subjective states. You see something. You hear something. You're aware of yourself. You're angry. You're sad. Those are all different conscious states. Now, that's not a very precise definition. But if you think historically, almost every scientific field has a working definition and the definitions are subject to change. For example, my Caltech colleague Michael Brown has redefined planets. So Pluto is not a planet anymore, right? Because astronomers got together and decided that. And what's a gene? A gene is very tricky to define. Over the last 50 years, people have had all sorts of changing definitions. Consciousness is not easy to define, but don't worry too much about the definition. Otherwise, you get trapped in endless discussions about what exactly you mean. It's much more important to have a working definition, run with it, do experiments, and then modify it as necessary.
We assume humans are conscious, and most of us also think dogs and elephants and mice have some degree of consciousness, but what about other animals? Do lizards have consciousness? Are ants conscious? What about bacteria? Are these useful questions?
Koch: Not right now. In the fullness of time, they have to be answered. But right now, let's stick with cases that are undoubtedly conscious. That includes people, although not all people. You might remember Terri Schiavo. It was very controversial whether she was actually conscious or not. She was clearly alive, but because of anoxia and the damage sustained by her brain, she couldn't communicate with the outside world, and medical and scientific opinion held that she wasn't conscious. Yet she was moaning on occasion and making reflex-like movements. So there can be controversial cases even with people. What about a newborn infant? What about a fetus? Even there it's not totally clear. As you said, most people would agree that cats, dogs, mice and elephants are conscious, but what about non-mammals? So for now, let's just stick with some simple examples that we can actually work with in a clinic or a lab. Let's understand the neural basis of consciousness in them. In the fullness of time, we can then look at the squid and the octopus, which are very complex. Also bees, birds, worms. And in the future, we'll be able to answer a question like bacteria.
It's fascinating to hear you say that at some point, we'll have to consider the question of whether bacteria are conscious. The assumption is that you need a mind to be conscious and bacteria don't have minds.
Koch: That's correct. Therefore, bacteria are probably not conscious. However, right now it's a guessing game. Most people say bugs are just little machines, but if you look at bees, they're amazingly complex. They can recognize single faces. And how they find a nesting site when they swarm in the spring is very complex behavior. How do we know it doesn't feel like something to be a bee? It's not that bees will have as elaborate minds as we have, but we cannot rule out at this time that it doesn't feel like something to be a bee, or that they consciously smell the gold nectar of certain flowers.
You are searching for the neural correlates of consciousness. The challenge is not simply to find the hot spots in the brain that are active during certain mental activities, but actually to explain how neurons and synapses and chemical circuits generate conscious experiences. This is more than mapping correlations between brain activities and what people say they're thinking about, which we can already see to some degree with fMRI scans. Isn't the real challenge to explain how specific neural correlates are wired together to generate conscious experiences?
Koch: The challenge is to see why this activity that's in your visual brain gives rise to a picture of a cup of coffee in front of me, and other neural activity in the olfactory part of my brain gives rise to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. In both cases, neurons are firing. They look the same. They release a bunch of chemicals like sodium and potassium. Somewhere else, a similar neural activity gives rise to pain. But in another part of the brain, the cerebellum, similar neural activity doesn't give rise to anything. The cerebellum, which is like a little brain at the back of the cortex, contains three-quarters of all the cells in your brain, roughly 69 billion. If you lose the cerebellum, you won't be a ballet dancer or a rock climber anymore. You'll walk with a funny gait. You'll talk very strangely. But your consciousness is only mildly impaired, if at all. So that implies that some types of neural activity are privileged. Certain parts of the brain seem to have a much closer association with consciousness than others. We have to understand what type of activity, what type of circuit, gives rise to conscious sensation.
I know a lot of neuroscientists get very excited about fMRI, but it sounds like the current state of technology is actually a fairly blunt instrument for trying to figure out what's going on in the brain.
Koch: It's a wonderful instrument because it allows us to peer inside your brain safely, but it's also very blunt. Remember, each cubic millimeter of the brain has a hundred thousand cells. So if I take the volume of brain that would be the size of a grain of rice, it contains about a half a million different nerve cells, and maybe seven miles of cable. It's very, very complicated. Yet in fMRI, all you can see clearly is this one box as a single point. But we know this one point contains half a million neurons, some of which may fire, but most of which don't fire. Some might fire less, some might fire more or fire in a very complicated pattern. But fMRI can't see any of that. It can just see the part of the brain that's active or the part that's suppressed. So fMRI is a wonderful tool, but it is very, very crude.
We are only now beginning to realize the complexity of it all. Over the last ten years, we realized there might be a thousand different cell types. They all have highly specialized jobs to do. They look different. They have different chemicals. They use different neurotransmitters. They have different genes encoding for them. They are wired up in a very distinct manner. So it's a little bit like having 86 billion tiles, but they come in sets of a thousand different colors and shapes. They all fit in very specific ways. And now, the big challenge is trying to unravel all of that and see the amazingly specific way that tile number 55 only talks to tile 255 and 972. And it inhibits tile number 17 and 31, and it doesn't talk to any of the other ones. That's what it's beginning to look like. So how does anxiety or sadness or the color blue emerge out of all of that?
There are plenty of very smart scientists and philosophers who say we will never crack the fundamental mystery of how matter turns into mental experience. For instance, the philosopher David Chalmers has talked about the "hard problem of consciousness." He says subjective experience is fundamentally different from what biology and physics can tell us. And he believes that science will never be able to bridge this divide between mind and matter. Do you disagree?
Koch: Well, if you look at the historical record of philosophers, it's pretty disastrous. This is little acknowledged. Lots of people from 150 years ago said the same thing about life: "You shall never understand what life is. It requires a special force, élan vital." It didn't turn out to be true. The laws of physics describe life. Roughly 200 years ago, famous philosophers said we'll never know what stars are made of. That was 20 years before they discovered spectroscopy, and of course they realized you can analyze the elements out of which stars are made. So I'm profoundly skeptical when philosophers tell us, once again, what we'll never know. Science has a spectacular record of understanding the universe. Yes, right now it's a hard problem. For its size, the brain is by far the most complex system in the known universe. There's no guarantee that we'll understand it. Our cognitive apparatus just might not be up to it, but in principle I don't see any reason why we should be unable to understand it. Just because some philosopher doesn't get it doesn't mean we shall never know this. It's ridiculous. But a lot of people are very happy about that message because, for various reasons, they don't really want to understand things in the way science does.
David Chalmers has also suggested that consciousness may be a fundamental property in itself, not reducible to the laws of physics. What do you think of this idea?
Koch: This is an old idea, which I'm quite sympathetic to. Just like physicists in the 16th century realized that magnets have this weird property of attracting other magnets or pieces of metal. This is an invisible force. We realized our description of the universe wasn't complete and we had to include magnetic fields. To understand the universe, we say there's space, time, matter, and energy. It may well be that to fully understand consciousness, there is something equally fundamental: experience. I think a particular type of complex system, which of course needs to be defined, will have conscious experience. That's just the way the universe is, just like there's matter. In this hypothesis, we live in a universe that has this fundamental property of consciousness.
Isn't this called "panpsychism," the idea that all matter is sentient to some degree?
Koch: They're related but not strictly equivalent. From this hypothesis, it's easy to say that all matter has some consciousness associated with it, but very complicated pieces of matter like your brain, or, to a lesser extent the brain of a dog, or to a much lesser extent the brain of a bee, are complex systems with various degrees of consciousness. You could say even the worm and the fly have a little bit of consciousness, although it might be much less consciousness than you have in your deep sleep, which is not a lot.
I'm guessing that you're pretty unusual in suggesting that consciousness might be a fundamental property of nature, along with the laws of physics. Do many other neuroscientists think this?
Koch: No. Most biologists don't think about it. It makes them feel very uncomfortable thinking about these issues. But I think that's silly. We have to explain where consciousness comes from. There are two possibilities. One is as an emergent property. Small brains don't have it. Large brains have it. It's like the wetness of water. One molecule of H2O isn't wet. Two molecules aren't wet. But you put a whole bunch together, like in my cup of coffee here, and you get a wet liquid. Water is the quintessential emergent property. There are many other emergent properties in the world around us -- for example, democracy. One or two people don't have democracy, but in certain types of organization you get this emergent phenomenon called democracy. The claim of consciousness is of that ilk. I used to believe that, but I've been studying it now for 25 years, and consciousness is so strange. It's different from anything else because it has a subjective aspect. I don't think it's an emergent property. A much more elegant theory is that certain types of complex systems are conscious, and what type of consciousness they have depends exactly on the complexity of the systems.
I was surprised to see your book invoke Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit priest and paleontologist who believed the universe is becoming more conscious as it gets more complex. Most scientists write off Teilhard as a religious apologist.
Koch: Most scientists don't even know about him. He had this idea about evolution where he argued that from very simple micro molecules to single cell organisms to multi-cell organisms to simple animals to complex animals to us is the emergence of complexity. He observed that the universe was getting more and more complex, and he postulated this would continue. Essentially, he postulated something like the Internet. He called it the "noosphere" -- the sphere of knowledge that covers the entire planet and is heavily interconnected. He died in 1955, long before any of this emerged, and he postulated that human society would evolve into a very complicated entity that would become self-conscious. He thought this would happen on other planets and throughout the entire universe, and the universe in some weird state would become self-conscious. It's all totally speculative, but I do like some of these ideas. I see a universe that's conducive to the formation of stable molecules and to life. And I do believe complexity is associated with consciousness. Therefore, we seem to live in a universe that's particularly conducive to the emergence of consciousness. That's why I call myself a "romantic reductionist."
Steve Paulson is the executive producer of Wisconsin Public Radio's To the Best of Our Knowledge and the author of the book Atoms and Eden: Conversations on Religion and Science. He is now producing a radio series on the science of consciousness.


text:
Q: How to prove $f(x)>g(x)$ by showing $f'(x)>g'(x)$ for some $x>x_0$ Is it possible to show that some function $f(x)$ is larger than $g(x)$ if I can show that its derivative is larger for some $x>x_0$?
As an example I can think of $f(x)=(1+x)^n , \ g(x)=1+nx+ \frac{n(n-1)x^2}{2}$, which derivatives are $n(1+x)^{n-1}$ and $n+n(n-1)x$ and the use Bernoulli inequality to show that $f'(x)>g'(x)$ for $x>0$.

A: Just showing that $f'(x) > g'(x)$ for some $x > x_0$ is not enough.  If $f(x_0) \ge g(x_0)$ and $f'(x) > g'(x)$ for all $x$ in the interval $(x_0, x_1)$ (and $f$ and $g$ are continuous at $x_0$ and $x_1$, and $x_0 < x_1$), then $f(x_1) > g(x_1)$

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text:
Q: I regret choosing to hide a particular error, how can I show it again? When an application error occurs, Ubuntu prompts asking if you want to submit it and/or hide future errors of this type (e.g. a particular error from a particular application). I have opted to hide certain errors (but not others), but now I've changed my mind. Where can I find a list of the individual errors I've hidden, and opt to show some of them?
As a second-place alternative, can I choose to just show all errors again?

A: Various logs of errors can be found here:
/var/log

They can be read by opening a Terminal and typing:
cd /var/log
less *name_of_logfile*

The rest of the answer can be found here: How do I enable or disable Apport?
Edit: also you can try to modify particular type of errors by editing /etc/apport/crashdb.conf:
sudo -H gedit /etc/apport/crashdb.conf


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Great Balls of Fire 2017 is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. EDT, and the pre-show gets underway at 7:30 p.m. EDT. The main event could be awesome if it doesn't become yet another "suplex city" style of match. The only champion to suffer defeat was W...
Which Non-MCU Character(s) Should Marvel Pull into the MCU Next?
| July 7, 2017, 11:09
Following his introduction to the world of the Avengers in " Captain America: Civil War ", Peter Parker (Holland) returns to high-school life as a 15-year-old in New York City. For those anxious this would end up being more of a fourth Iron Ma...
Doomfist finally coming to Overwatch [Watch video]
| July 7, 2017, 6:20
First, and possibly disappointingly for some, it seems that Terry Crews is not the voice of the hero. While some were expecting more tank aspects, Doomfist lives up to his name as an Offense character with high DPS and a base of health of 2...
Amazon Prime Day: Alexa Voice Deals Are Back
According to Time , the Prime Day sale will kick off at 9 p.m. ET on Monday, July 10, and will last for 30 hours. Fortunately, Amazon has some options for time-strapped shoppers. You'll just have to check back and see. Keep these at your desk, on...
Tesla blames battery delays for dip in Q2 deliveries
The automaker led by Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk will emerge as "the stand-out" in total cumulative deliveries through 2021, reaching almost 709,000 vehicles, according to BNEF's Long-Term Electric Vehicle Outlook released Thursday.
OnePlus 5 vs Apple iPhone 7 Plus: Which is best?
| June 21, 2017, 21:08
The certification just reiterates that the Galaxy S8 Active is happening and, given these things usually happen closer towards the release date (along with Bluetooth, FCC approval and so on), suggests the phone will land soon. The smartphone is...
How to watch Golden State celebrate an National Basketball Association championship online
Kevin Love would not be eligible for the same kind of contract, but is guaranteed two seasons past this one with Cleveland and could be a tradable asset as well. Iguodala, the 2015 Finals MVP, came up big again with his 2017 postseason-best 20 point...
SpaceX Blows Up Rocket, Aces Emergency Escape Test
Federal appeals court dismisses youth climate change lawsuit
NASA's Myco-Architecture Program Integrates Fungus-Based Technologies
No in-flight abort for SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft today
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YouTube algorithms are promoting climate denial videos to millions
NASA tracks smoke from Australian fires across Pacific
Share your thoughts on the new agriculture bill
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Tatooine-Like Planet Discovered By 17 Year-Old NASA Intern
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Is there a second planet orbiting the nearest star to the sun?
Two female United States astronauts complete spacewalk, replacing batteries
'Living' bio-concrete could soon reproduce itself and remove air pollution


text:
Pictures | Tue Apr 16, 2019 | 7:25pm BST
Sudan protesters demand civilian rule
Sudanese demonstrators try to beat a man who they think is a government agent, as soldiers try to take him out of the crowd in Khartoum, Sudan April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Reuters / Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Members of a traditional Sudanese band perform during a sit-in protest outside the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, April 15. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
Reuters / Monday, April 15, 2019
Sudanese boys pose for a photo with Sudanese military personnel, positioned near a bridge gate, during a sit-in protest outside the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, April 15. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
Members of a Sudanese family flash the victory sign as they walk on a railway bridge during a sit-in protest outside the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, April 15. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
Sudanese demonstrators protest as they stand on a railway bridge near the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, April 15. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Sudanese demonstrators pray outside the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, April 16. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Sudanese demonstrators sit on top of a billboard in Khartoum, April 16. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Sudanese demonstrators search newcomers as they wait beside makeshift barricades in Khartoum, April 15. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Sudanese demonstrators protest as they stand on a railway bridge in Khartoum, April 15. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Sudanese demonstrators protest outside the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, April 15. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
A Sudanese demonstrator gestures while riding atop a military truck as he protests against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, near the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April...more
Reuters / Friday, April 12, 2019
A Sudanese demonstrator gestures while riding atop a military truck as he protests against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, near the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 12. REUTERS/Stringer
Sudanese military and demonstrators attending a sit-in block a train from passing through, during a protest outside the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 14. REUTERS/Stringer
A Sudanese demonstrator gestures as he attends a sit-in protest outside the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 14. REUTERS/Stringer
A Sudanese military officer and a demonstrator celebrate after Defence Minister Awad Ibn Auf stepped down as head of the country's transitional ruling military council, as protesters demanded quicker political change, near the Defense Ministry in...more
Reuters / Saturday, April 13, 2019
A Sudanese military officer and a demonstrator celebrate after Defence Minister Awad Ibn Auf stepped down as head of the country's transitional ruling military council, as protesters demanded quicker political change, near the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 13. REUTERS/Stringer
A Sudanese military truck passes through demonstrators attending a sit-in protest outside the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 14. REUTERS/Stringer
Reuters / Sunday, April 14, 2019
Sudanese demonstrators attending a sit-in protest, stand on a train as they block it from passing through, outside the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 14. REUTERS/Stringer
A Sudanese demonstrator paints a mural in Khartoum, April 14. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Sudanese military officers and a demonstrator pose for a photograph in celebration after Defence Minister Awad Ibn Auf stepped down as head of the country's transitional ruling military council, as protesters demanded quicker political change, near...more
Sudanese military officers and a demonstrator pose for a photograph in celebration after Defence Minister Awad Ibn Auf stepped down as head of the country's transitional ruling military council, as protesters demanded quicker political change, near the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 13. REUTERS/Stringer
Sudanese demonstrators attend Friday prayers as they protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, near the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 12. REUTERS/Stringer
Sudanese military officers and demonstrators ride atop a military tanker as they protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, near the Defense Ministry in Khartoum,...more
Sudanese military officers and demonstrators ride atop a military tanker as they protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, near the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 12. REUTERS/Stringer
Sudanese demonstrators ride atop a military truck as they protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, near the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 12....more
Sudanese demonstrators ride atop a military truck as they protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, near the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 12. REUTERS/Stringer
Sudanese demonstrators pose for a photograph as they protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, ahead of the Friday prayers near the Defence Ministry in Khartoum,...more
Sudanese demonstrators pose for a photograph as they protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, ahead of the Friday prayers near the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, April 12. REUTERS/Stringer
Sudanese demonstrators gather as they protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, ahead of the Friday prayers near the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, April 12. ...more
Sudanese demonstrators gather as they protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, ahead of the Friday prayers near the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, April 12. REUTERS/Stringer
A Sudanese demonstrator flashes a two-finger salute as he arrives to protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, outside the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 12....more
A Sudanese demonstrator flashes a two-finger salute as he arrives to protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, outside the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 12. REUTERS/Stringer
A military officer is carried by the crowd as demonstrators chant slogans and carry their national flags, after Sudan's Defense Minister Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf said that President Omar al-Bashir had been detained "in a safe place" and that a...more
Reuters / Thursday, April 11, 2019
A military officer is carried by the crowd as demonstrators chant slogans and carry their national flags, after Sudan's Defense Minister Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf said that President Omar al-Bashir had been detained "in a safe place" and that a military council would run the country for a two-year transitional period, outside the Defense Ministry in Khartoum, April 11. REUTERS/Stringer
Venezuelan scavengers vie with vultures at Brazil...
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Stunned onlookers watch as Notre-Dame burns
Hundreds of people lined the banks of the Seine river late into the night as the fire raged, reciting prayers and singing liturgical music in harmony as they...


text:
Algorithm taken from [alexkroman/word-ladder](https://github.com/alexkroman/word-ladder/blob/master/README.md)

## Usage

See @alexkroman's [instructions](https://github.com/alexkroman/word-ladder/blob/master/README.md) for the general idea.

```ruby
require "rungs"

# 0
Rungs::WordLadder.new(word: "best").call.data.count

#1 (bonus)
result = Rungs::Climb.new.call.data
result.select { |k,v| v.count == 33 }

#2 (bonus)
Rungs::WordLadder.new(word: "best", steps: 3).call.data.count
```

## Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

    gem 'rungs'

And then execute:

    $ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

    $ gem install rungs

## Contributing

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (`git checkout -b my-new-feature`)
3. Commit your changes (`git commit -am 'Add some feature'`)
4. Push to the branch (`git push origin my-new-feature`)
5. Create new Pull Request

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Océane est un nom propre féminin qui dérive d'« Océan ».

Histoire
Le prénom Océane est typiquement français, apparu à la fin des années 1970. Depuis son apparition, plus de 80 000 Françaises ont été prénommées Océane.

Fête
Les Océane sont célébrées le . On honore à cette occasion saint Océan qui mourut en martyr plutôt que de renier sa foi chrétienne.

Prénom
Océane, prénom féminin, prénom apparu récemment ne possède pas de sainte patronne, mais le , fête des Nymphes, paraît tout indiqué.

Pseudonyme
 Océane, nom de scène d'une actrice pornographique française ;
La footballeuse française Océane Cairaty fut une Océane connue ;
Océane Pozzo,est une snowboardeuse membre de l'équipe de France féminine ;
Océane Bichot, élue Miss Nouvelle-Calédonie en 2011 ;
Océane Mozas, comédienne ;
Le chanteur Oshen, de son vrai nom Océan Michel.

Toponymie
 Mer océane, nom donné à l'océan Atlantique à l'époque moderne ;
 L'Océane, surnom de l'autoroute A11 en France ;
 Salle des Docks Océane, salle multi-sports et de spectacles située au Havre.

Film
 Océane, film de Philippe Appietto et Nathalie Sauvegrain sorti en 2013 ;
 Océane (Ocean Girl), série télévisée australienne créée par Jonathan M. Shiff et diffusée entre 1994 et 1998 ;
 Porte océane, court-métrage français d'Ado Kyrou.

Acronyme
 Obligation convertible ou échangeable en actions nouvelles ou existantes.

Marque
 Brest métropole océane, appellation courante de la communauté urbaine de Brest ;
 Compagnie Océane,société de transport maritime du Morbihan ;
 Compagnie des transports de la porte océane (CTPO), plus connue sous son nom commercial de Bus Océane, société privée d'exploitation dans le secteur des transports en commun sur le territoire de la Communauté de l'agglomération havraise ;
 Océane, station de radio française émettant sur la région Bretagne et appartenant au groupe Sipa - Ouest-France ;
 Océane FM, station de radio néo-calédonienne basée à Nouméa ;
 Océane est le nom d'un cabriolet produit par la marque française Simca de 1956 à 1962.

Notes et références

Homonymie de titre

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


GlassFrog has a simple way for you to access the email addresses of all the members of a circle or the whole organization.
To send messages to all or certain subcategories of users in your organization. Click the "Membership Lists" link in the Reports menu.
From here, the Email button will open your default browser. Right click it to access browser options for copying the email list to your clipboard (see Option 2 below). Alternatively, you can download the email list as a comma delimited list (.csv) file.
Navigate to a circle page, then the Members tab. Click the Email Core Members button to open your default mail browser. Alternatively, in most browsers you can right click this icon and copy the email addresses to your clipboard.
Note: If you are using Outlook you may need to edit your configuration to allow for the use of commas to separate email addresses. See this FAQ for more information.


text:
Ragna Thiis Stang (15 September 1909 – 29 March 1978) was a Norwegian historian and museum administrator.

Biography
She was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway. She was a daughter of museum director  Jens Thiis and his wife Vilhelmine Dons. Her brother was architect  Helge Thiis.

After graduating artium at Oslo in 1929, she studied art history at the University of Oslo. She also conducted several study trips to Belgium, France, Greece and Germany . She stayed at the Swedish Archaeological Institute in Rome from 1934-35. In 1937 she took her master's degree in art history. She received  her doctorate in 1960.

Stang was appointed at the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History from 1938 to 1944. From 1947 she was manager of the Vigeland Museum at Frogner.  In 1966 Stang took over as director of the Oslo City Art Collections (Oslo kommunes kunstsamlinger) and from 1968 she was responsible for the Munch Museum at Tøyen. She published a biography of Gustav Vigeland in 1965, and a biography of Edvard Munch in 1977.

Personal life
In 1934, she was married to art historian Nic. Stang (1908-1971). Their daughter Tove Stang Dahl (1938–93) became a legal scholar and married historian Hans Fredrik Dahl. Their other daughter, Nina Thiis Stang (1944–78), worked for NORAD.
She and her daughter Nina died in a car accident on a road from Nairobi to Mombasa in Kenya on 29 March 1978.

Selected works
De store billedhuggere og borgerrepublikken Firenze (1959)
 Gustav Vigeland. En kunstner og hans verk (1965)
 Edvard Munch. Mennesket og kunstneren (1977)

References

1909 births
1978 deaths
Writers from Oslo
University of Oslo alumni
20th-century Norwegian historians
Norwegian biographers
Directors of museums in Norway
Women museum directors
20th-century biographers
Road incident deaths in Kenya


Hunger Games Dress with LED Fire #WearableWednesday « Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers!
I was nominated for Geek of the Year in Philadelphia, which was the perfect excuse to come up with a geek inspired outfit. I remembered seeing the Hunger Games movie with the flaming wedding dress, and even then I had the idea of creating flames with LEDs. So, I bought a slightly used wedding dress and petticoat from Ebay and got to work.
My idea was to spin in the dress and cause LEDs to turn on. So, for starters I knew I would be using NeoPixel 30 strips in white. I couldn't afford 9 meters, so I went with 7 — a total of 208 pixels. Using organza ribbon (to save on stitching time), I folded it over and stitched it near the edge to seal it. Then, I stitched both edges of the ribbon onto the bottom of the petticoat in a spiral, creating a casing for over three rows of pixels. Preparing the NeoPixels strips was easy. I removed the weatherproof casing and then soldered the strips together with tiny pieces of Adafruit's new silicone wire. Can I tell you how much I love this wire? It's like spaghetti! It's easy to remove the shielding, and once soldered, it allows your piece to be quite flexible — perfect for a wearable. I slid the NeoPixel strips into the long casing on the petticoat, not only allowing for illumination, but also creating the modern day "hoop" feeling which is perfect for a ball gown.
In order for the dress to react to a spin, I learned that I would need a gyrosensor. Adafruit was out of stock for the one that matches the FLORA, so I went with the flat breakout board. I soldered up the wires and attached it to the back of the FLORA with foam adhesive tape. After running a few tests of the gyro, watching numbers fly by on Arduino's serial monitor, I figured out which scale worked best for the spin. Now that it was working, it was time to attach it to the large LED strip. Since this was going to be a wearable with lots of movement, I used more of the silicone wire and then hot glued all solder points, to add durability. Then, I uploaded a program I hacked from Paul Craven's Light Strip Tube Lamp.
The last part entailed the decorations on the bodice, which really make the dress memorable. I used feather trim and hot glued it into the tucks in the organza. Then it was time to tackle the most difficult part, creating wings that looked lasercut on a budget. I learned about a method using craft foam from a cosplay website. My husband enlarged the actual costume shot from the movie, and helped me to create a pattern. The wings were then cut with an Exacto knife and painted with five coats of glue, two coats of chrome acrylic and two coats of poly. They ended up being somewhat stiff, but I heard that fabric backing would have been the ideal way to go for something firmer. I glued crystals onto the wings, as I believe the original design also had them, and then attached the wings to the bodice with some silver thread. One of the advantages of craft foam, besides being easy to shape with heat, is that it is also safe to wear in crowds.
I didn't win the prize for the biggest geek, but I definitely was the best dressed geek LOL. People who recognized the the dress from the movie were really blown away when they saw the spinning LED show. Probably out of the things I've made, this is my favorite; I continue to be inspired by movies and the beauty of diffused lighting. I'm sure a lot of you feel the same way, so get started on your own formal wear with the Sparkle Skirt tutorial. Or, if you want to be more like Katniss, order a gyro breakout board.


I was asked a question today that I had a hard time answering. They wanted to know how I write. My first response was, well, with a pen and paper, but I knew that wasn't what they meant. How do I write?
Well, while I'm writing I kind of let the scenes play out in my mind like a movie. I see my characters actions and imagine their responses. I picture their movements, and their facial expressions and try to include as much as I can without dragging it out.
Then they asked, how do you know when to start a new chapter.
again, I picture it as a TV movie. Where would my commercial breaks be? That's where my new chapter starts. This may not make much sense to some, but that's how I do it.


text:
Special FeaturesWinter 2010
Simona Panetta-Kerr 2010-12-14
The world embraces Bob Marley as the most iconic reggae artist to date, but to Ky-Mani Marley, he is Dad. Now a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and philanthropist, Ky-Mani chronicles his scanty childhood and the monumental impact his legendary father imparted on him in his telltale biography, Dear Dad. "I got a lot of slack early on in my career saying, you know, how can I sing of struggle? How can I sing of ghettos when, you know, your father is Robert Nesta Marley? For me, it's important that people know that the things that I sing about, I sing about them because I have experienced them first-hand, because even though I am from a great legacy with a great last name, I am from very humble beginnings," says Ky-Mani.
In his book, he revisits the strife he endured as a child, living in Falmouth, Jamaica with his mother, Anita Belnavis. He was only five when Marley passed, cheated from a father and a lifetime of memories. And just as the world mourned a king, he too had to watch his own father's funeral on TV. A son of music royalty, Ky-Mani was exiled from the Marley estate. His mother, who at the time was a leading table tennis player in the Caribbean, was one of several women that gave birth out of wedlock to an already married Marley. "It's hard when you know that you are from a great legacy and you know what your background is but yet you're still living in a two-bedroom wooden house with nine people living in it," says Ky-Mani.
In hopes of a better future, Belnavis and Ky-Mani left the vibrancy and energy of Jamaica for the Promised Land. Yet in Liberty City, Miami, a concrete jungle teeming with gangland warfare reared its ugly head. Ky-Mani was living the life of the people his father spoke of in his songs. "I was raised up in a neighborhood that was guaranteed a shoot-out if not once a week then we definitely got one every other week," says Ky-Mani, who was hustling the streets of Liberty City at nine-years-old.
Dedicated to carrying on his father's legacy of one love, Ky-Mani started the Love Over All Foundation in 2008, which helps to alleviate illiteracy and poverty, promoting positive change in low socio-economic communities across the Caribbean, Africa and the United States. Sickle cell and diabetes research is also part of the foundation's aims.
Ky-Mani's genes kicked in when he visited the school of his early days. "Just seeing the condition of some of the children … their uniforms are not clean and their shoes have big holes in them … and to find that there was still another 30 per cent of children who were not in attendance because they can't afford the uniform or they can't afford the shoes or, you know, they can't buy lunch, that touched me," says Ky-Mani, who was named Philanthropist of the Year by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, Better World Awards. Two of his children have been diagnosed with sickle-cell disease. "I wanted to be a part of change."
Finding redemption through the art of song and word, Ky-Mani's musicality is arrestingly similar to Marley's. Set to release his fourth album – Evolution of a Revolution – in February, Ky-Mani's philanthropic and musical genius runs through his veins. www.kymani-marley.com www.loveoverall.org
BY Simona Panetta-Kerr
Tags:songwriterPhilanthropistartistCaribbeanMiamiAfricaBob MarleyreggaeKy-Mani MarleyGrammy-nominatedsingerRobert Nesta MarleyFalmouthJamaicaAnita BelnavisLiberty CityLove Over All FoundationShottasilliteracypovertySickle celldiabetesPhilanthropist of the YearEvolution of a RevolutionDear Dad
Skin Vitality Cosmetic Medicine and Spa
Gotham Dream Cars: Driving Famous
Simona Panetta-Kerr
The Watermark Grand Cayman
Who Is The Artist? Why, It's A Litwin, Of Course
Ai Weiwei An Artist With Heart
Todd Merrill: A Look Rich With Ideas And Context


text:
Home Free Audio & Video Literature European Classics Tea-table Talk
Literature European Classics
This Author: Jerome K. Jerome
This Narrator: Ruth Golding
Ruth Golding
As the New York Times said in 1903, this lesser-known work by Jerome K. Jerome does not display "the wit of Congreve or even the glittering sort Mr. Jerome employs in some of his other books."
It takes the form of imaginary conversations between the writer and a number of un-named characters at the afternoon tea table. The Woman of the World, the Old Maid, the Girton Girl, the Philosopher and the Minor Poet wax lyrical on subjects like marriage, art, society and politics. Frequently they appear to prefer the sound of their own voice to that of others.
Although I couldn't agree with the NY Times that it is the Baedeker guide to conversation, it is certainly an eye-opening glimpse into this now almost extinct art. The participants are already bemoaning the lack of invigorating conversation in society: "Conversation has become a chorus; or, as a writer wittily expressed it, the pursuit of the obvious to no conclusion.
People Who Liked Tea-table Talk Also Liked These Free Titles:
The War in the Air
The World Set Free
The Story of a Modern Woman
by Ella Hepworth Dixon
LearnOutLoud.com Product ID: T035125


We are now sponsored by Qlik. You can download it for free here.
We have another great guest on the show. Dietmar Offenhuber visits us to talk about smart cities and visualizing data coming from cities.
Dietmar has an interesting background. He has a background in architecture with a Dipl. Ing. from the Technical University Vienna and then he got a MS in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab and a PhD in Urban Planning from MIT. He's also been a key researcher at Ars Electronica Futurelab.
Now he is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University in the departments of Art + Design and Public Policy, where he does research on the technological and social aspects of smart cities and urban governance.
In the show we talk about many of his super interesting projects such as Wegzeit (timespace visualizations of LA) and Trash Track (on tracking and visualizing where garbage goes), and interesting concepts such as Accountability Technologies and Infrastructure Legibility. We also talk about the future of smart cities and what we should expect to get our of smart cities.
050 | Happy Birthday Data Stories!