Ms. Clinton on religious freedom

Many people who know me will know that I hold little truck with religion. At best, I consider religions woe-begotten variations on reasoned ways to live one’s life humanely. However, as much as I find religions untenable, I shall defend folks’ right to espouse religious—or anti-religious and especially non-religious—views. Thus I was thrilled to hear the US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Remarks at the Release of the 2011 International Religious Freedom Report” in which she delivered one of the most inspiring defenses of religious freedom I can remember hearing.

Whether you might agree or disagree with Ms. Clinton’s political positions, I think most people will agree that the core of her remarks are a spirited defense of foundational principles of human freedom. I hope people everywhere, regardless of political stripe, can watch or read this talk. There are, to be sure, the usual segments of the talk that have to do with thanking contributors to the talk, thanking allies, and calling out miscreants. But there are, as I heard it live while driving home from a meeting yesterday AM, sections of the talk that discuss fundamental human aspirations. Reminders of the ideas of principles on which the US and other democracies were based hundreds of years ago.

U.Va. Faculty Senate Emergency Meeting

I had a good seat for the 17 June 2012 meeting of the University of Virginia’s Faculty Senate and was able to take a few photos. Those who follow my Twitter feed already have seen them, but I thought I ought to post links for those who might not have seen them but might be interested. As the image at the right shows, things started out quietly, with a few folks arriving early and getting places. This became important, because the auditorium was not large enough to accommodate the number of faculty members who attended and, as I understand, people had to watch closed circuit telecasts in other rooms.

At the front of the Abbott Center hall where we met, the dais was initially empty, but it was set for the executive committee of the U.Va. Faculty Senate. In addition to those who would sit on the dais, senators sat in the first few rows of the auditorium, with a few scattered elsewhere among the other faculty members, citizens, and representatives of the press who were attending the meeting.

When the executive committee filed in to fill the seats on the stage, its members were greeted with an ovation. The purpose of the meeting was for the full Faculty Senate to consider the resolution that its executive committee had already considered and passed

 

Resolved, that the Faculty Senate of the University of Virginia hereby:

1. Expresses its strong support of President Sullivan.

2. Expresses its lack of confidence in the Rector, the Vice Rector, and the Board of Visitors.

We offer this resolution mindful of the best interests of the University and the Commonwealth.

Faculty Senate Chair George Cohen began the meeting by providing an overview of the pending events and then introducing as a guest, the university’s provost, who would speak but would not take questions. Provost Simon (at right) spoke briefly about his views, emphasizing the importance about setting a good example of courage for his sons on fathers’ day, of heeding a recent alum’s encouragement to do what he sees as right, and assessing the correspondence between his and the the U.Va. Board of Visitor’s views on the values of honor, integrity, and trust, values that he (and, I add, most of us) consider central to the University of Virginia.

Following Mr. Simon’s comments, the Faculty Senate actually came into session. Members of the executive committee summarized events, the Senate members moved and seconded the resolution, a member offered comments, someone called the question, and and the members ultimately passed the resolution overwhelmingly. As I post this note Monday AM, members of the Faculty Senate’s executive committee are meeting with members of the Board of Visitors. Later Monday afternoon, faculty members will gather on the lawn outside the rotunda where the members of the board of visitors are meeting.

What will be the dénouement?

Charity for the 1%?

It seems like it’s a good time to remember some history. Do you sometimes forget relatively recent history? G. Santayana was reputed to have said something about (paraphrasing for syntactical fit) those of us who don’t remember the past being condemned to repeating it. Of course, ancient history may be inaccurate (did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned?), and this recent history might be, too. But see for yourself. Check this little bit of history from 2008 about how downtrodden the 1% were back then.

Thanks, This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Getting More Serious

Barbara Hansen of USA TODAY used GMI Ratings, Standard & Poor’s data, and other USA TODAY research to analyze the pay of chief executive officers of US corporations in 2011. Matt Krantz and Ms. Hansen reported the results of that analysis 28 March 2012. Here is a listing of the top 10 earners for 2011. Ms. Hansen’s table, available with the story they reported, can be sorted in other ways to allow one to see data on 151 companies’ executive’s earnings.

COMPANY	EXECUTIVE	TOTAL
Viacom	Philippe Dauman	$43,077,942
Honeywell International	David Cote	$35,378,249
Walt Disney	Robert Iger	$31,363,013
Marathon Oil	Clarence Cazalot	$29,911,662
Altera	John Daane	$29,576,725
Motorola Solutions	Gregory Brown(1)	$29,313,864
IBM	Samuel Palmisano	$24,221,865
Johnson & Johnson	William Weldon	$23,362,939
United Technologies	Louis Chenevert	$22,878,306
American Express	Kenneth Chenault	$22,490,401
Qualcomm	Paul Jacobs	$21,722,333
Coca-Cola	Muhtar Kent	$21,161,811
Cooper Industries	Kirk Hachigian	$21,116,678

Now, I don’t begrudge people making money, especially if they work hard, and I presume these men work hard, probably as hard as I do. And it’s not about me and them. But, what does one do with this sort of money. In one year, they’re making more than what a well-paid teacher made (including nice retirement and health benefits) over the past 35 years. Equitable?

Well, if these men gave 1% of their incomes to an endowment for a local school for five years, that would amount to something. Those schools would suddenly have budgets that would allow them to buy curricula that they might not otherwise be able to purchase, given the anti-tax and anti-education mood of many neighbors. And, if these savvy business men said, “You have to buy curricula that have a proven track record of success with the funds from this endowment (and here are the sensible rules for deciding what counts as such a curriculum),” then they might be “giving back to the community,” as their similarly wealthy athletics stars say.

In fact, mayhaps we could just ask that these way-wealthy folks would form coalitions and tackle problems such as this, just as the Buffet, Gates, Broad, and other families have addressed international problems. Mr. Atlanta Falcon Matt Ryan, Atlanta Coca Cola Mr. Muhtar Kent, Mr. Atlanta Hawk Joe Johnson, and Mr. Atlanta Braves Chipper Jones…y’all could do some good works among you, if you formed a team. Just 1-2% of your incomes a year for a three-year run for schools, boys-and-girls clubs, community music programs, shelters for indigent elderly folks…. Do you think you could afford 10%?

Who’s the 99%?

Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir have an answer to that question. It’s actually pretty obvious, ’cause the 1% (really the one-tenth of one percent) are all those folks you and I see pretty much every day. May Day is just around the corner.

sopa pipa

search sopa & pipa at  free speech (I care about my copyrights, but some things are more important.)

Those dang TJ muzzles must be here somewhere

O.K. I hope I’ve set this up correctly so that this delightful image by artist Sam Welty is linked to the page that will show the TJ Center muzzles when they are announced on Mr. Jefferson’s B’day, 13 April 2011.

HB, Mr. Jefferson. Thanks for thinking about things.

Free us from TSA?

David Vincent Wolf has a dang good take on the flap about

intrusive | invasive | insensitive

[pick one or insert another] searches recommended by the US government. How far will the populace of the home of the free go to be secure? How many freedoms will we sacrifice for safety? What price paranoia?

O.K. That “paranoia” is probably a little hyperbolic. But, hasn’t this gone about far enough?

The image is hot, but if you’d rather have the URL so you can copy it and share it directly here ‘tiz:

http://davidvincentwolf.com/notes/22611-land-of-the-free

AAI Conference

Wooohooo! I’ll just run the 1st three paragraphs of the press release here:

Ottawa, Ontario — (SBWIRE) — 09/30/2010 — Atheist Alliance International (AAI) in collaboration with Humanist Canada (HC) announce their joint convention, to be held October 1st, 2nd and 3rd, 2010, uniting atheists and humanists in an international movement transcending political and cultural borders.This will be the first ever explicitly atheist convention in Montreal, as well as the first North-American AAI convention held outside the U.S.A. The event, organized with local support from Atheist Freethinkers and CFI Montreal, will welcome hundreds of participants and be held at the Delta Centre-ville Hotel on 777 University St. in the heart of the city.

This bilingual event will feature a plethora of both anglophone and francophone convention speakers. A partial list of those confirmed so far includes: anthropologist Daniel Baril speaking on the evolutionary origins of religion; Philippe Besson, French freethought leader; Daniel Dennett, celebrated philosopher and author of Breaking The Spell; Belgian historian of atheism Serge Deruette; Belgian philosopher and secularism advocate Nadia Geerts; Louise Mailloux, founder of Citizens’ Collective for Equality and Secularism; famous evolutionary biologist and Pharyngula blogger P.Z. Myers; Jeremy Patrick, legal expert on blasphemy legislation; screenwriter and comedian J.D. Shapiro; Skeptical investigator Karen Stollznow, a.k.a. SkepChick; Rodrigue Tremblay, economist and author of The Code for Global Ethics.

The 2010 Richard Dawkins Prize will be awarded to Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. Several other activities will take place in conjunction with the convention: for example the September 30th party to mark International Blasphemy Rights Day and underline the importance of freedom of expression; and an evening of stand-up comedy on Comedy Night.

17th > 4th

It’s arithmetically trivial, but this equation is probably debatable for people who compare the dates for two documents that are important in US history: the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Because today is one of the anniversaries for the former, it’s worth taking a moment to contemplate their importance.

Adopted on 17 September 1787 by delegates from the governments of the states participating in an agreement among the 13 former British colonies on the North American continent, the Constitution supplanted the US Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The Constitution created a stronger federal government than the Articles, resolving substantial economic and legal woes befalling the states under the latter.

It sez “freedom of speech”

It does. It sez it righ’ cheer:

Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech….
—Amendement I of the U.S. Constitution, ratified 15 December 1791

And I have the good fortune of living in a community that has (since 2006) a monument dedicated to that very idea and (since 1819) a university founded on quite similar ideas:

“This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”
—Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William Roscoe, 27 December 1820

I plan to run past geographical spots marking both these ideas this morning for my 4 July 2010 run: The TJ Center’s “Community Chalkboard” and the University of Virginia (where I have the privilege of working). Although I’ll celebrate other things during my run and later today (including the other clauses of the first amendment to the US Constitution, which are in the words surrounding those I’ve excerpted in the first extraction here), I’ll be especially grateful for this one. In an era when powerful financial forces have nearly free reign to amplify their political opinions, at least I still have the authority to speak my own.

Of course, I mostly speak my views in this nearly chaotic medium we call the Internet where people turn to learn lots of things, including misinformation. That’s the importance of the second excerpt. We, the people, just need to “follow truth,” that is, learn to winnow sense from nonsense. Free speech means that people are free to say things that simply are not true. And, I fear, we too often do not recognize that we are saying things that are not true (see my earlier post about Thomas Kida’s marvelous book, Don’t Believe Everything You Think), ’cause there’s a lot of nonsense on the Internet.