Month: March 2023

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NBN Book of the Day - Bradford Vivian, “Campus Misinformation: The Real Threat to Free Speech in American Higher Education” (Oxford UP, 2022)

If we listen to the politicians and pundits, college campuses have become fiercely ideological spaces where students unthinkingly endorse a liberal orthodoxy and forcibly silence anyone who dares to disagree. These commentators lament the demise of free speech and academic freedom. But what is really happening on college campuses?

Campus Misinformation: The Real Threat to Free Speech in American Higher Education (Oxford UP, 2022) shows how misinformation about colleges and universities has proliferated in recent years, with potentially dangerous results. Popular but highly misleading claims about a so-called free speech crisis and a lack of intellectual diversity on college campuses emerged in the mid-2010s and continue to shape public discourse about higher education across party lines. Such disingenuous claims impede constructive deliberation about higher learning while normalizing suspect ideas about First Amendment freedoms and democratic participation.

Taking a non-partisan approach, Bradford Vivian argues that reporting on campus culture has grossly exaggerated the importance and representativeness of a small number of isolated events; misleadingly advocated for an artificial parity between liberals and conservatives as true viewpoint diversity; mischaracterized the use of trigger warnings and safe spaces; and purposefully confused critique and protest with censorship and "cancel culture." Organizations and think tanks generate pseudoscientific data to support this discourse, then advocate for free speech in highly specific ways that actually limit speech in general. In the name of free speech and viewpoint diversity, we now see restrictions on the right to protest and laws banning certain books, theories, and subjects from schools.

By deconstructing the political and rhetorical development of the free speech crisis, Vivian not only provides a powerful corrective to contemporary views of higher education, but provides a blueprint for readers to identify and challenge misleading language--and to understand the true threats to our freedoms.

Bradford Vivian is Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and past Director of the Center for Democratic Deliberation at Penn State University. His previous books include Commonplace Witnessing: Rhetorical Invention, Historical Remembrance, and Public Culture (OUP 2017) and Public Forgetting: The Rhetoric and Politics of Beginning Again (2010), which received the Winans-Wichelns Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address awarded by the National Communication Association.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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The NewsWorthy - Russia Downs U.S. Drone, Gun Control Order & ‘Body Doubling’ at Work- Wednesday, March 15, 2023

The news to know for Wednesday, March 15, 2023!

We'll tell you about a Russian warplane bringing down an American aircraft.

And the president is taking new action in an effort to strengthen gun laws: what he does and doesn't have the power to do.

Also, what a new report found about a U.S. AIDS program: how it transformed the epidemic, saving millions of lives.

Plus, new rules could be coming for drinking water in the U.S., what makes the newest version of Chat GPT stand out, and ever heard of body doubling? It's a new strategy for remote workers. 

Those stories and more news to know in around 10 minutes!

Head to www.theNewsWorthy.com/shownotes for sources and to read more about any of the stories mentioned today.

Sign-up for our weekly email newsletter with extra news stories, random recommendations, listener features and more: www.theNewsWorthy.com/email 

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What A Day - Big Trouble In North Carolina

The Pentagon says two Russian fighter jets hit an American surveillance drone over the Black Sea, forcing it to crash into international water. It’s the first known instance of the two countries making contact since the invasion of Ukraine, which U.S. officials warned could lead to a dangerous escalation.

North Carolina’s state Supreme Court is rehearing a gerrymandering case that could have major impacts on future elections. The court’s new Republican majority seems ready to reverse an earlier decision that rejected state voting maps that heavily favored GOP candidates.

And in headlines: the Justice Department and the SEC have reportedly launched investigations into the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Ohio’s Attorney General sued Norfolk Southern Railway over the East Palestine derailment, and an eleventh atmospheric river storm system hit California.

Show Notes:

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For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

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The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Todd Bensman on How Biden’s ‘La Invitacion’ to Illegal Aliens Triggered Border Crisis

In 2021, Todd Bensman stood on the edge of the Rio Grande River with a cartel member. Despite usually trying to avoid the cartels, Bensman found himself interviewing the man, who happened to be on vacation after guiding a group of illegal aliens into Texas. 


“He had his cocaine. He had a couple of friends there. He had a couple of women there for hire, and that's how he was doing his vacation, under the bridge, drinking beer,” Bensman said of the cartel member. 

"To what do you owe this great prosperity?" Bensman recalls asking the man. 


“La invitacion,” the cartel member responded. When Bensman pressed the man as to what he meant, the cartel member explained that President Joe Biden had communicated to the world that the doors to America are open, creating an exceptional business market for the cartels. 


Bensman, author of "Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History,” joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to share stories from his years of reporting on the southern border and the reality of the current illegal immigration crisis.


Enjoy the show!


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What Next | Daily News and Analysis - Why Silicon Valley Bank Collapsed

The downfall of Silicon Valley Bank marks the second largest bank collapse in American history. 


Why and how did SVBgo under? Where were the regulators? And how do we stop this from happening again?


Guest: Annie Lowery,staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Give People Money.


If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Amicus—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.

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CoinDesk Podcast Network - WOMEN WHO WEB3: Hedera’s Chief of Staff and CFO Discuss the Importance of Blockchain and the Freedom It Provides

On this week’s show, Kamz is joined by Hedera leadership, Chief of Staff and Head of Global Policy at Hedera, Nilmini Rubin and Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer, Betsabe Botaitis. 


Nilmini Rubin is the Chief of Staff and Head of Global Policy for Hedera. Previously, she worked on the global policy team at Meta, and before that, Nilmini headed Tetra Tech’s global team, implementing energy and internet projects that resulted in millions of people gaining access to electricity for the first time. 


For 12 years, she served as a senior aide on both the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, where she spearheaded the passage of legislation to provide electricity access in Africa, increase global internet access, reduce corruption through transparency, and reform U.S. foreign assistance. 


She is an adviser to the Women's Democracy Network and the Energy Growth Hub, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Academy of the Global Teacher Prize, and the International Mindfulness Teachers Association.


Betsabe Botaitis is the newly appointed treasurer and chief financial officer at Hedera. She was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. During the Mexican peso crisis in the 1990s. The crisis left many families in financial ruin, and after witnessing her family being negatively impacted, she enrolled in a 6-month course to become a bank teller at 14-years old. 


Betsabe began her career as a bank teller at Citibank at the age of 15 and rose through the ranks, growing more interested in fintech and financial inclusion as her career progressed. She has since held senior positions at companies like Citigroup, and Lending Club. 


Botaitis is a member of Hipower, a network of executive women leaders in Silicon Valley, and she was recently awarded Nasdaq’s top honor at the annual Latina Disruptors Event. Above all, she is a passionate advocate for economic equality, who has been working in blockchain since 2016. 


On this incredible panel, we discuss:

💡What Hedera brings to the web3 ecosystem

👩‍⚖️The evolving regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies and blockchain

🏛️The government's role in shaping the future of blockchain and cryptocurrency

🫰How decentralized finance can make future and existing financial products more accessible


🧘🏽‍♀️We end with a two-minute mindfulness exercise! :) 


Follow me on Twitter @KamalaAlcantara to stay up to date on the show and join our weekly Twitter Space!


Subscribe to my new LinkedIn newsletter Rest & Digest: A rest stop at the busy intersection of mindfulness, tech, women empowerment, UX and diversity, equity and inclusion.

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This episode was produced and edited by Michele Musso with executive producer Jared Schwartz. Our theme song is ‘Twennysomething’ by Daniele Musto. Other music used is ‘Mind and Soul’ by Stefano Vita and ‘Electrolove’ by Lunareh. 


Are you building the next big thing in Web3? Apply to pitch your project live on stage at the CoinDesk Pitchfest Powered by Google Cloud at Consensus, the industry’s most influential event happening April 26-28 in Austin, Texas. Apply by March 31 for a chance to be among the twelve finalists selected to pitch. Visit consensus.coindesk.com/pitchfest for more information.

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What Could Go Right? - Bootstrapping the American Dream with Alissa Quart

Has the American Dream changed? Is a side hustle the answer to income inequality? And is self-reliance the all-important north star we have been led to believe it is? Today, author, journalist, and Executive Director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, Alissa Quart, asserts that at the heart of our distress is a misplaced belief in our independence and the conviction that we must rely on ourselves alone. Plus, a look at women's rights worldwide and a rise in guaranteed paid paternity leave.

What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate.

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Amarica's Constitution - The Lord Mayor Adams

The Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, delivered a controversial speech at an interfaith breakfast, raising issues of church/state separation, gun control, and the role of religion in governance.  Akhil uses the opportunity for some comparative constitutional analysis, and we look at the worldwide continuum of separationist approaches.  The mayor is quite provocative on school prayer and quite confusing on guns, and we take that up as well.  Meanwhile, we take a question on the judiciary in a far away and yet not so far away land.

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Short Wave - It’s Boom Times In Ancient DNA

Research into very, very old DNA has made huge leaps forward over the last two decades. That has allowed scientists like Beth Shapiro to push the frontier further and further.

"For a long time, we thought, you know, maybe the limit is going to be around 100,000 years [old]. Or, maybe the limit is going to be around 300,000 years," says Shapiro, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz. "Well, now we've been working with a horse fossil in Alaska that's about 800,000 years old."

Beth's career has spanned the heyday of ancient DNA research, beginning in the late 1990s when rapid genetic sequencing technology was in its early days. She talked with Short Wave co-host Aaron Scott about the expanding range of scientific puzzles the young field is tackling — from new insights into our Neanderthal inheritance to deep questions about ecology and evolution.

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