A talk delivered in Orange County, discussing how to deal with seemingly unchangeable minds.
CRITICAL THINKING: “Dealing with Unchangeable Minds” / The Atheist Debates Patreon Project / Matt Dillahunty ☮
1
Category Archives: Intellectualism
PROGRESSIVE INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM: “Agenda of Hate with Ajamu Baraka” / RT America / On Contact with Chris Hedges ☮
On this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges examines the rise of white, right-wing hate groups with Ajamu Baraka, Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and the Green Party’s nominee for Vice President in the 2016 election. RT Correspondent Anya Parampil looks at the profusion of white supremacist groups in America.
SECULAR HUMANISM: “What Makes Something Right or Wrong? – That’s Humanism!” / Humanists UK / Stephen Fry ☮
Written & produced by the British Humanist Association, and narrated by Stephen Fry.
IN REMEMBRANCE: “Happy Birthday! Howard Zinn: Terrorism, What Americans Don’t Want to Hear” ☮
Howard Zinn would have turned 94 today if his seemingly boundless energy and youthfulness had not been cut short in January 2010.
[…]
It’s worth remembering that A People’s History of the United States first came out in 1980 as a tide of reaction was seeking to bury the social movements that inspired Howard’s book and which he saw as the hope for the future.
[…]
Howard challenged these ideas in a terrific speech he gave in 1970: “If you don’t think, if you just listen to TV and read scholarly things, you actually begin to think that things are not so bad, or that just little things are wrong. But you have to get a little detached, and then come back and look at the world, and you are horrified. So we have to start from that supposition—that things are really topsy-turvy.”
Howard had that rare ability to step back and help us understand our topsy-turvy world primarily because he approached politics and history from the standpoint of someone who thought it was possible to turn our world right side up — to put people before profit, the environment before the interests of mining companies.
¡Howard Zinn presente!
Related articles
- Lies the Debunkers Told Me: How Bad History Books Win Us Over (theatlantic.com)
ATHEISM: “Why African-Americans Associate with Christianity” / Atheist Experience / Tracie Harris and Phil Session ☮
CRITICAL THINKING: “A Frustratingly Dishonest Theist Caller” / Matt Dillahunty and Don Baker / The Atheist Experience
PROGRESSIVE INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM: “The Rise of the Charter Schools with Diane Ravitch” / RT America / On Contact with Chris Hedges ☮
On this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges is joined by Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush and author of “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools”.
CHRONIC TRAMATIC ENCEPHALOPATHY: “For Ravens’ John Urschel, Playing in the N.F.L. No Longer Adds Up” ☮
One of the N.F.L.’s smartest players did the math and decided to retire after just three years in the league.
John Urschel, an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens who received much publicity for his off-season pursuit of a doctorate in math at M.I.T., told the team on Thursday that he was hanging up his cleats at 26.
Urschel’s agent, Jim Ivler, said Urschel was overwhelmed with interview requests but would not be speaking to the news media. On Twitter, Urschel wrote that “there is no big story here” and that the decision to retire was not an easy one to make, but “it was the right one for me.”
He added that he planned to return to school full time in the fall, “to take courses that are only offered in the fall semester” and spend time with his fiancée, who is expecting their first child in December.
Urschel’s decision came two days after the release of a study in which all but one of 111 brains of former N.F.L. players showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head.
CENSORSHIP: “Brilliant Response from @RichardDawkins to KPFA’s Ridiculous Cancellation of His Lecture Aug 9” ☮
h/t: Lawrence M. Krauss
QUOTATION: “Religion is Merely Mumbling Words . . . ” / Jiddu Krishnamurti
Always Question Authority 