Is all free speech, good speech?

An event at a college campus that was supposed to be celebration instead resulted into an occasion filled with hate. The University of Mississippi wanted to come together as an institution and celebrate "how far it has come since being racially integrated on September 30, 1962."

But instead, over 400 U. of Mississippi students came together to protest the re-election of President Obama. This wasn't a civil protest either, students filled the area with racial slurs and even went so far to burn an Obama campaign poster. In response, U. of Mississippi's Chancellor Dan Jones, "shamed the few students who damaged the university's reputation." It was wonderful to hear that in response to this violent protest- students, staff, and faculty also reacted by creating, within five hours, a candlelight vigil.


Sadly, this wasn't the only racial motivated protest that occurred in response to Obama's re-election. A small all-male school near Richmond, Sydney College -- lashed out as well. Although smaller, over 40 students "threw bottles, shouted racial epithets and set off fireworks outside the Minority Student Union on campus."

I found this article on Inside Higher Ed and was completely disheartened to hear that there continues to be so much hate out there. Both of these incidents show that although it is incredibly important to have free speech, some individuals just take it too far. Burning a campaign poster of our president's head- really? We've talked about the space of public opinion and quite frankly, close minded individuals really take advantage of this freedom.

I do believe that everyone has the right to voice their opinion, it is a free country, but everyone should try and  be cognizant of others and the ramifications that their words might have. What good is free speech when it goes from bringing awareness to hurting others? Protesting brings awareness to important issues, look at the Occupy movement, but once again it's important to avoid extremes.

Is anyone surprised by these protests? Can you imagine something like this even happening at North Central College?

Ouch, rough day

Watching the Today Show this morning, I was excited to hear more about a "shocking" NYTimes opinion article that was shaking up the culinary world. Instantly I was intrigued. As an avid Food Network fan and Top Chef die hard fan, I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Yet once I found out who the chef was-- it all made sense...

Although I'm not aware of him, a well known columnist Pete Wells, wrote a scathing review of Food Network's Guy Fieri' new restaurant in Times Square. The columnist was so brutal in his review, that he actually created a new ranking of: poor, which wasn't even an option beforehand! The the review of Fieri's restaurant was absolutely lethal- ripping apart every element of the restaurant: service, drinks, and the food. This review is a must read: click here.

This restaurant review received so much press, not only for its brutal honesty but also the way it was composed. The whole piece was written entirely in a question format and many of them rhetorical at that. No matter the notoriety Guy Fieri has, to receive such a horrible review in the New York Times of all newspapers and then receive an immense amount of press, can not be a good way to start this new restaurant venture. 

Although, I'm not the biggest fan of Guy Fieri, I actually feel bad for the guy. No pun intended. 

I found this really enlightening, especially with all of the exposure we'd had in class to op-eds and various outlets for individuals to express their opinions, in this case the prestigious, New York Times. I'm sure we have all had really horrible restaurant experiences, but I have never been so appalled by every aspect of a restaurant, like Pete Wells was. 

Do you think this review was a bit much, or appreciate his honesty and approach to writing it?

Justice, An Unattainable Dream (Granito)

Given the opportunity to view the documentary Granito: How to Nail a Dictator with the director herself, was a recent experience at North Central that I was quite excited about! I was also surprised to find such a packed room as well, to the point that the viewing of the film was delayed trying to accommodate everyone. The documentary was broken down into three sections: A Chronicle Foretold, Genocide on Trial, and Grains of Sand. 

As someone who is really passionate about learning more of other cultures and their history, I really didn't know that much of the genocide that had occurred in Guatemala. I had only heard of this rather recently from friends abroad and never once recall learning about this in school. Yet I think that is where Granito began to falter. Much of the film was based around the filmmaker's prior film, When the Mountains Tremble, but I felt that at times I was left with questions about the genocide itself that I am assuming was answered in the earlier documentary. On the other hand, various segments of Granito seemed to be drawn out. 

I wanted to learn more about this horrible atrocity that took over 200,000 people from Guatemala and these two dictators that led this genocide. I was preparing myself for Pamela Yates' to find foolproof evidence of these men but instead was led astray into several different stories. There were so many different story plots covered (the Spanish judge, victims who survived the atrocity, a woman who lost her father, an anthropologist, and more) all packed in a little more than an hour. 

The film starts out so hopeful, that after all of this time, Pamela may be in possession of precious evidence to convict the perpetrators and it just brings you on a sad journey and a disappointing ending. I understand that not everything can be a happy ending but to discover the insurmountable obstacles that the various individuals faced to try and attain justice, is incredibly disheartening. 

Overall, I left exhausted (and a strained neck from trying to peer over heads to read the many subtitles) by trying to follow all of the different subplots within Granito. I did enjoy thoroughly hearing more about it from Pamela Yates herself, and to hear that justice is slowly coming full circle. 

Bye Bye Email

Just think of it-- opening up your Monday morning emails after a long weekend to find out that.. you can't. Instead your office has imposed a NO EMAIL week. I don't know if I would be thrilled or horrified to be quite honest. Sounds radical but recently the chief executive (Shayne Hughes) of the organization, Learning as Leadership imposed this idea. He didn't go so far as to ban email in entirety rather all internal emails. Not surprisingly he received many complaints that I myself would have been thinking as well, for example: 

  - "We won't get anything done"
 - "We'll be interrupting each other every two minutes"
 - " I can't wait a week to have a one-to-one"

So why would he propose such a concept - well, he states that "internal email is half to three quarters of all traffic. Reading, processing, managing, organizing, and responding to it absorbs vast amounts of time." After thinking about it, at least in my case, is entirely true. 

He goes so far to proclaim that e-mail isn't a communication tool, and that often we just use it as a medium to send out a flurry of thoughts and concerns without a second thought. 

It does seem like as soon as you begin to clear out your email, you come to find that your inbox is quickly filling up with more things to do and problems to solve. Am I the only one who has to block off hours during the week just to read and answer emails? 

At first, I thought Shayne's idea was too extreme but afterwards it did make me realize how much time we are forced to spend on email. I have mixed emotions but sadly, I don't see it being a possibility in reducing time spent both internally and externally communicating via email. 

Would anyone else be bothered by not being able to internally communicate with your colleagues for a week, or would you welcome that? 

Intrigued to learn more about Shayne's experiment, visit the Forbes article here. 

And the winner is...

                          

The current future of our nation's next political leader -- it's clear that in our nation it will be close but how about the rest of the world?

In a recent Foreign Policy article, a recent poll was done which interviewed over 26,000 people from 32 different countries and 62% of those respondents reported, "the U.S. president has a high or very high impact on their lives." What to me was the most surprising, was that an astounding "42% felt they should have the right to vote in this year's contest for that very reason!"

Not to be outdone, out of the 32 countries--would  choose President Obama again over Mitt Romney- only 1 (being Israel) would not . Don't be fooled- the article clearly outlined that everyone isn't diehard Obama fans (only France in this case) rather they seem to all fall in the middle. Other countries are even less enthusiastic, like Germany, but still do choose Obama.

Living in such a globalized world, I do think it is important to have an understanding of other countries policies' and to know that there are so many people in the world that look to us is remarkable. Sadly, I feel that many Americans are so concerned about only domestic issues -- that many have little understanding or knowledge of the outside world. 

Food for thought, will this make or break our national election- no, but surely I find it interesting. Anyone else, the article itself breaks down into information much more thoroughly.