#christian sanford

[christiansanford]

Christian Sanford: A Visionary Leader at the Intersection of Business and Athletics

Meet Christian Sanford, a remarkable individual whose life is a testament to the harmonious integration of business acumen and athletic prowess. As the Founder and CEO of SMBee, a dynamic enterprise based in the vibrant city of Dallas, Texas, Christian has emerged as a visionary leader, leaving an indelible mark on both the corporate and athletic landscapes.

SMBee, under Christian's guidance, has become a beacon of innovation and success in the business world. Christian Sanford's strategic vision and dedication to excellence have propelled the company to new heights, making it a prominent player in its industry. His commitment to fostering a culture of creativity and collaboration has not only defined the ethos of SMBee but has also positioned the company as a trailblazer in its field.

Beyond the boardroom, Christian Sanford is a force to be reckoned with in the realm of athletics. His passion for sports and commitment to a healthy lifestyle shine through in every aspect of his life. Whether he's participating in competitive sports or engaging in fitness activities, Christian embodies the principles of discipline and determination.

Christian Sanford's journey is a story of balance and synergy. He seamlessly blends the worlds of business and athletics, recognizing the symbiotic relationship between a strong mind and a healthy body. This holistic approach to life is reflected in his leadership style, where he encourages his team at SMBee to embrace a well-rounded lifestyle that fosters personal and professional growth.

Christian's success is not just measured by financial achievements but also by the positive impact he has on the lives of those around him. He serves as an inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs and athletes alike, proving that with dedication, resilience, and a passion for what you do, you can excel in multiple domains.

In the bustling metropolis of Dallas, Texas, Christian Sanford stands out as a dynamic and multifaceted individual who has successfully navigated the intricate intersection of business and athletics. His story is one of triumph over challenges, a testament to the power of perseverance, and a source of inspiration for those who aim to make their mark in diverse fields. Christian Sanford is not just a CEO; he's a symbol of achievement, resilience, and the endless possibilities that come with embracing a life of passion and purpose.

[robynsassenmyview]

Pretty little Mother Earth

"Pretty Little Mother Earth", a review of Mavka: The Song of the Forest', at the European Film Festival South Africa until 28 October 2023.

MAVKA’s ally Swampy, the last of the kitty frogs in the land behind the mountain. Photograph courtesy imdb. Toss together the notion of undisguised good and evil, with a bit of lumpen docility in between; the forces of nature with those of easily corruptible and gullible humanity, blend it with hard-boiled yet utterly gorgeous computer-generated animation and a traditional Ukrainian and Slavic…

[graphicpolicy]

NYCC 2023: Kid Cudi teams with Kyle Higgins for Moon Man

NYCC 2023: Kid Cudi teams with Kyle Higgins for Moon Man #comics #comicbooks #nycc #nycc2023 #nycc23

[gone2soon-rip]

NORMAN LEAR (1922-Died December 5th 2023,at 101).

American screenwriter and producer who produced, wrote, created or developed over 100 shows.Lear was known for creating and producing numerous popular 1970s sitcoms, including All in the Family (1971–1979), Maude (1972–1978), Sanford and Son (1972–1977), One Day at a Time (1975–1984), The Jeffersons (1975–1985), and Good Times (1974–1979). During his later years, he had continued to actively produce television, including the 2017 remake of One Day at a Time and the Netflix revival of Good Times in 2022.

Lear received many awards, including six Primetime Emmys, two Peabody Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 1999, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2017, and the Golden Globe Carol Burnett Award in 2021. He was a member of the Television Academy Hall of Fame.

Lear was also known for his political activism and funding of liberal and progressive causes and politicians. In 1980, he founded the advocacy organization People for the American Way to counter the influence of the Christian right in politics, and in the early 2000s, he mounted a tour with a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Norman Lear - Wikipedia

[olympic-paris]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

September 4

Invisible Paris: What happened on the Quatre Septembre?

1900 – Baron George Hoyningen-Huene (d.1968) was a seminal fashion photographer of the 1920s and 1930s. He was born in Russia to Baltic German and American parents and spent his working life in France, England and the United States. Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Hoyningen-Huene was the only son of Baron Barthold Theodorevitch von Hoyningen-Huene (1859-1942), a Baltic nobleman and military officer. His mother was an American.

During the Russian Revolution, the Hoyningen-Huenes fled to first London, and later Paris. By 1925 George had already worked his way up to chief of photography at French Vogue. In 1931 he met Horst [pictured lbelow, photographed by Hoyningen-Huene], the future photographer, who became his lover and frequent model, and travelled to England with him that winter. While there, they visited photographer Cecil Beaton, who was working for the British edition of Vogue.

"Horst on Mantel"

In 1935 Hoyningen-Huene moved to New York City where he did most of his work for Harper's Bazaar. He published two art books on Greece and Egypt before relocating to Hollywood, where he earned a living shooting glamorous portraits for the film industry.

Hoyningen-Huene worked before anything resembling contemporary flash photography was known. Working in huge studios and with whatever lighting worked best. There is something about the texture of his black and whites that one seldom finds in contemporary work. Beyond fashion, he was a master portraitist as well from Hollywood stars to other celebrities.

He also worked in Hollywood in various capacities in the film industry, working closely with George Cukor, notably as special visual and colour consultant for the 1954 Judy Garland movie A Star Is Born. He served a similar role for the 1957 film Les Girls, which starred Kay Kendall and Mitzi Gaynor and the Sophia Loren film Heller in Pink Tights.

He died at 68 years of age in Los Angeles.

1938 – Leonard Frey (d.1988) was an American actor. He is best remembered for his performance in the 1971 film Fiddler on the Roof, which earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination.

Frey was born in Brooklyn, New York. After attending James Madison High School, he studied art at Cooper Union, with designs on being a painter, before switching to acting at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse under famed acting coach Sanford Meisner, and pursued a career in theater instead. Frey made his stage debut in an Off-Broadway production of Little Mary Sunshine.

Frey received critical acclaim in 1968 for his performance as Harold in off-Broadway's The Boys in the Band. He would go on to appear alongside the rest of the original cast in the 1970 film version, directed by William Friedkin.

Frey was nominated for a 1975 Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in The National Health. Other stage credits include revivals of The Time of Your Life (1969), Beggar on Horseback (1970), Twelfth Night (1972) and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1980). He also played Clare Quilty in the Alan Jay Lerner musical Lolita, My Love which closed, before reaching Broadway, in 1971.

Frey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Motel the tailor in Norman Jewison's 1971 film Fiddler on the Roof (he had appeared in the original Broadway musical production as Mendel, the rabbi's son). His other film credits included roles in The Magic Christian (1969), Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970), Where the Buffalo Roam (1980), Up the Academy (1980), and Tattoo (1981).

Frey's television credits included appearances on Hallmark Hall of Fame; Medical Center; Mission Impossible; Eight is Enough; Quincy, M.E.; Hart to Hart; Barney Miller; Moonlighting; and Murder, She Wrote.

Frey died at the age 49 of an AIDS-related illness in New York on August 24, 1988.

1957 – On this date in the United Kingdom, the Wolfenden Report was published. It was the culmination of a request by the Conservative government in 1954 to set up a Departmental Committee to look into aspects of British sex laws. The committee of 13 members committee was chaired by Sir John Wolfenden, Vice-Chancellor of Reading University, investigated the current laws on homosexuality and prostitution. The Wolfenden Report was published after a succession of well-known men, including Lord Montagu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood, were convicted of homosexual offences.

Disregarding the conventional ideas of the day, the committee recommended that "homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence". Contrary to some medical and psychiatric witnesses' evidence at that time, the committee found that "homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects." The report added, "The law's function is to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others ... It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behaviour." The recommended age of consent was 21 (the age of majority in the UK then).

The report also discussed the rise in street prostitution at the time, which it associated with "community instability" and "weakening of the family". As a result there was a police crackdown on street prostitution following the report.

"The enforcement of Morals", by Patrick Devlin, stated that "Adultery, fornication, and prostitution are not, as the Report points out, criminal offences: homosexuality between males is a criminal offence, but between females it is not."

The recommendations of the report eventually led to the passage of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, applying to England and Wales only, that replaced the previous law on sodomy contained in the Offences against the Person Act 1861 and the 1885 Labouchere Amendment which outlawed every other homosexual act. The law was only passed a decade after the report was published in 1957.

John Wolfenden came 45th in a list of the top 500 lesbian and gay heroes, Pink Paper, 26 September 1997. It later became known that his son Jeremy Wolfenden was gay.

2017 – Canada has discreetly granted asylum to 31 gay men from Chechnya working with the NGO Rainbow Railroad,  a clandestine program unique in the world. In April, Justin Trudeau and the Canadian  government strongly condemned persecution of homosexuals in Chechnya. Canada is not the only country to accept gay refugees from Chechnya and other countries in the region. France has accepted at least one person, as has Germany, and two are in Lithuania. An undetermined number of individuals have traveled to European Union countries on tourist visas, and then applied for refugee status. So far, the United States has done nothing.

[eludin-realm]

Character Name Ideas (Male)

So I've been browsing through BehindTheName (great resource!) recently and have compiled several name lists. Here are some names, A-Z, that I like. NOTE: If you want to use any of these please verify sources, meanings etc, I just used BehindTheName to browse and find all of these. Under the cut:

A: Austin, Aiden, Adam, Alex, Angus, Anthony, Archie, Argo, Ari, Aric, Arno, Atlas, August, Aurelius, Alexei, Archer, Angelo, Adric, Acarius, Achilou, Alphard, Amelian, Archander B: Bodhi, Bastian, Baz, Beau, Beck, Buck, Basil, Benny, Bentley, Blake, Bowie, Brad, Brady, Brody, Brennan, Brent, Brett, Brycen C: Cab, Cal, Caden, Cáel, Caelan, Caleb, Cameron, Chase, Carlos, Cooper, Carter, Cas, Cash, Cassian, Castiel, Cedric, Cenric, Chance, Chandler, Chaz, Chad, Chester, Chet, Chip, Christian, Cillian, Claude, Cicero, Clint, Cody, Cory, Coy, Cole, Colt, Colton, Colin, Colorado, Colum, Conan, Conrad, Conway, Connor, Cornelius, Creed, Cyneric, Cynric, Cyrano, Cyril, Cyrus, Crestian, Ceric D: Dallas, Damien, Daniel, Darach, Dash, Dax, Dayton, Denver, Derek, Des, Desmond, Devin, Dewey, Dexter, Dietrich, Dion, Dmitri, Dominic, Dorian, Douglas, Draco, Drake, Drew, Dudley, Dustin, Dusty, Dylan, Danièu E: Eadric, Evan, Ethan, Easton, Eddie, Eddy, Einar, Eli, Eilas, Eiljah, Elliott, Elton, Emanuel, Emile, Emmett, Enzo, Erik, Evander, Everett, Ezio F: Faolán, Faron, Ferlin, Felix, Fenrir, Fergus, Finley, Finlay, Finn, Finnian, Finnegan, Flint, Flip, Flynn, Florian, Forrest, Fritz G: Gage, Gabe, Grady, Grant, Gray, Grayson, Gunnar, Gunther, Galahad H: Hale, Harley, Harper, Harvey, Harry, Huey, Hugh, Hunter, Huxley I: Ian, Ianto, Ike, Inigo, Isaac, Isaias, Ivan, Ísak J: Jack, Jacob, Jake, Jason, Jasper, Jax, Jay, Jensen, Jed, Jeremy, Jeremiah, Jesse, Jett, Jimmie, Jonas, Jonas, Jonathan, Jordan, Josh, Julien, Jovian, Jun, Justin, Joseph, Joni, K: Kaden, Kai, Kale, Kane, Kaz, Keane, Keaton, Keith, Kenji, Kenneth, Kent, Kevin, Kieran, Kip, Knox, Kris, Kristian, Kyle, Kay, Kristján, Kristófer L: Lamont, Lance, Landon, Lane, Lars, László, Laurent, Layton, Leander, Leif, Leo, Leonidas, Leopold, Levi, Lewis, Louie, Liam, Liberty, Lincoln, Linc, Linus, Lionel, Logan, Loki, Lucas, Lucian, Lucio, Lucky, Luke, Luther, Lyall, Lycus, Lykos, Lyle, Lyndon, Llewellyn, Landri, Laurian, Lionç M: Major, Manny, Manuel, Marcus, Mason, Matt, Matthew, Matthias, Maverick, Maxim, Memphis, Midas, Mikko, Miles, Mitch, Mordecai, Mordred, Morgan, Macari, Maïus, Maxenci, Micolau, Miro N: Nate, Nathan, Nathaniel, Niall, Nico, Niels, Nik, Noah, Nolan, Niilo, Nikander, Novak, O: Oakley, Octavian, Odin, Orlando, Orrick, Ǫrvar, Othello, Otis, Otto, Ovid, Owain, Owen, Øyvind, Ozzie, Ollie, Oliver, Onni P: Paisley, Palmer, Percival, Percy, Perry, Peyton, Phelan, Phineas, Phoenix, Piers, Pierce, Porter, Presley, Preston, Pacian Q: Quinn, Quincy, Quintin R: Ragnar, Raiden, Ren, Rain, Rainier, Ramos, Ramsey, Ransom, Raul, Ray, Roy, Reagan, Redd, Reese, Rhys, Rhett, Reginald, Remiel, Remy, Ridge, Ridley, Ripley, Rigby, Riggs, Riley, River, Robert, Rocky, Rokas, Roman, Ronan, Ronin, Romeo, Rory, Ross, Ruairí, Rufus, Rusty, Ryder, Ryker, Rylan, Riku, Roni S: Sammie, Sammy, Samuel, Samson, Sanford, Sawyer, Scout, Seán, Seth, Sebastian, Seymour, Shane, Shaun, Shawn, Sheldon, Shiloh, Shun, Sid, Sidney, Silas, Skip, Skipper, Skyler, Slade, Spencer, Spike, Stan, Stanford, Sterling, Stevie, Stijn, Suni, Sylvan, Sylvester T: Tab, Tad, Tanner, Tate, Tennessee, Tero, Terrance, Tevin, Thatcher, Tierno, Tino, Titus, Tobias, Tony, Torin, Trace, Trent, Trenton, Trev, Trevor, Trey, Troy, Tripp, Tristan, Tucker, Turner, Tyler, Ty, Teemu U: Ulric V: Valerius, Valor, Van, Vernon, Vespasian, Vic, Victor, Vico, Vince, Vinny, Vincent W: Wade, Walker, Wallis, Wally, Walt, Wardell, Warwick, Watson, Waylon, Wayne, Wes, Wesley, Weston, Whitley, Wilder, Wiley, William, Wolfe, Wolfgang, Woody, Wulfric, Wyatt, Wynn X: Xander, Xavier Z: Zachary, Zach, Zane, Zeb, Zebediah, Zed, Zeke, Zeph, Zaccai

[lboogie1906]

Judyann Elder (Judith Ann Johnson; August 18, 1948) is an actress, director, and writer.

She played Nadine Waters on Martin. She played Harriette Winslow on Family Matters. She is a veteran of the stage who has appeared in scores of theatrical productions throughout the US and Europe.

She attended Shaker Heights High School and graduated from Emerson College as the first recipient of the Carol Burnett Award in the Performing Arts. She began her professional career off-Broadway in New York as “Judyann Jonsson”. A founding member and resident actor with the Tony Award-winning Negro Ensemble Company, she originated roles in the premiere productions of The Song of the Lusitanian Bogey, Daddy Goodness, Kongi’s Harvest, and God is a (Guess What?).

She made guest star roles in series such as The Streets of San Francisco, Sanford and Son, Wonder Woman, Murphy Brown, and The White Shadow. She made her Broadway debut in I Have a Dream. She portrayed the role of Bernette Wilson in A Woman Called Moses. Several roles on-screen followed including Forget Paris, The Players Club, and Seven Pounds.

She has many theatre directorial credits including The Book of the Crazy African, The Meeting, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, and A Private Act. She is an alumna of the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women where she produced and directed the short film, Behind God’s Back. She is the recipient of a Screenwriting Fellowship with Walt Disney Studios. She was honored with an NAACP Trailblazer Award. She is a 2010 recipient of a Distinguished Alumni Award from Emerson College.

She married actor and playwright Lonne Elder III, with whom she had two children, including actor Christian E. Elder. She married actor John Cothran Jr. (1997). #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[justforbooks]

“He’d kill us if he got the chance.” Those words, spoken by a bespectacled, beige-suited young man (Frederic Forrest) as he wanders through Union Square in San Francisco with his lover (Cindy Williams), are secretly recorded by the surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) in The Conversation (1974). Their meaning, mulled over at length, becomes vital in unlocking the story’s mysteries. One of the key thrillers of its decade, Francis Ford Coppola’s film was also an eloquent expression of paranoia in a country reeling from Watergate.

Forrest, who has died aged 86, was the ideal actor to throw certainties into doubt. In The Conversation, he is bookish, furtive and opaque. The audience never becomes properly acquainted with him, though recordings of his voice and image are repeatedly offered up for our scrutiny so that the act of studying his expressions and intonations becomes central to experiencing the film. Without realising it, we channel a good deal of energy into deciphering his motives.

If we are never quite successful, that may explain why Forrest did not become the star that some predicted he would. He was a consummate character actor, too complex and mutable to be limited to any persona. This seemed to be a source of mild frustration to him. “I would like not to have to fit into somebody else’s story and have my scenes cut because I’m too strong,” he said in 1979.

It was in that year that he was seen in the two films which brought him closest to stardom. Working again with Coppola on the Vietnam war epic Apocalypse Now, based on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Forrest played Chef, member of a platoon led by Willard (Martin Sheen), which ventures into Cambodia to kill the wayward Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando).

Forrest’s role here was nothing like his one in The Conversation, demanding instead a raucous, baffled bluster which is seen most demonstrably when he suffers a breakdown after a nocturnal encounter with a tiger. His wide, startled eyes, soup-strainer moustache and floppy hat with its upturned brim lent him a goofy, knockabout air. Even amid the film’s widespread carnage, his grisly eventual demise was strongly felt.

Also in 1979, he starred in The Rose, directed by Mark Rydell, whom he credited with teaching him how to “personalise” his acting through looseness and spontaneity. Bette Midler played a hard-living rock star based on Janis Joplin; Forrest was the sunny-eyed, straight-shooting Texan chauffeur with whom she connects emotionally and romantically. He received an Oscar nomination for the performance.

Coppola used him in two further projects. He was cast – or, arguably, miscast – as the dreamy romantic lead, a mechanic at the Reality Wrecking Company, in the ill-starred musical One from the Heart (1981). The movie was shot at crippling expense on glitzy sets designed to evoke a garish, heightened Las Vegas. He also played an automobile engineer in Coppola’s Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988).

He was at his most winning in Martha Coolidge’s intelligent teen romcom Valley Girl (1983), in which he was the adorably laidback manager of a health food restaurant whose daughter (Deborah Foreman) is dating a Hollywood punk, played by Nicolas Cage. That young actor, who happened to be Coppola’s nephew, may have stolen the show, but seeing the two men together made it feel as if Forrest was passing on the mantle of risk-taker to a new generation.

Born in Waxahachie, Texas, he was the son of Virginia (nee McSpadden) and Frederic, who ran a furniture business and owned greenhouses from which he sold plants to local shops. Frederic junior was educated at Texas Christian University, in Fort Worth. His acting ambitions led him to New York, where he studied under Sanford Meisner. After a stint in the army, he made his stage debut in the off-Broadway show Viet Rock in 1966, then had small parts in both the 1968 stage version and 1969 film adaptation of Futz, a comedy about a farmer in love with a pig.

His first major screen roles were in When the Legends Die (1972), in which he starred as an 18-year-old Native American rodeo rider – though Forrest was 36 at the time – who is mentored by a seasoned veteran (Richard Widmark); and the crime drama The Don is Dead (1973). He played the title role in Larry (1974), the factually based story of a man wrongly admitted to a psychiatric institution for 26 years.

He also appeared in The Missouri Breaks (1976), a western with Brando and Jack Nicholson, and played Lee Harvey Oswald on television in Ruby and Oswald (1978). He was twice cast as the novelist Dashiell Hammett, first in Wim Wenders’s wryly speculative Hammett (1982), which proposed that the writer was caught up in a real-life mystery that inspired him to pen The Maltese Falcon, and later in the TV movie Citizen Cohn (1992), where he suavely resists the efforts of the virulent lawyer Roy Cohn (James Woods) to intimidate him into naming names during the anti-Communist witchhunts.

Other films include Abel Ferrara’s Elmore Leonard adaptation Cat Chaser, Costa-Gavras’s war-crimes drama Music Box (both 1989), the tardy Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes (1990), directed by Nicholson, and Trauma, a rare US excursion for the Italian horror maestro Dario Argento. In the thriller Falling Down (also 1993), Forrest had a scene-stealing turn as a cartoonishly villainous racist in a Los Angeles military surplus store.

On television, he starred in Stephen Frears’s Saigon: Year of the Cat (1983), written by David Hare, and was part of the sprawling ensemble in the acclaimed western Lonesome Dove (1989). In the BBC2 series Die Kinder (1990), he played a private detective hired by a woman (Miranda Richardson) whose children have been kidnapped by their father. John Frankenheimer directed him in the US civil war drama Andersonville (1996).

He also starred in The Brave, the only film to be directed by Johnny Depp, and Wenders’s The End of Violence (both 1997). His final appearance was alongside Sean Penn and Jude Law in All the King’s Men (2006), a political drama adapted from the Robert Penn Warren novel previously filmed in 1949.

His two marriages, to Nancy Ann Whitaker (1960 to 1963) and the actor Marilu Henner (1980 to 1983) both ended in divorce.

🔔 Frederic Fenimore Forrest Jr, actor, born 23 December 1936; died 23 June 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[fiercynn]

As a senior playing for Grace Christian High School in Sanford, N.C., Strong averaged 21.0 points, 16.8 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game. Strong led the Crusaders to a perfect 30-0 record and a second consecutive state title while notching 30 points and 21 rebounds in the championship game. In March, she was named the Naismith Girls High School Player of the Year. Strong is the daughter of Allison Feaster, who played 10 seasons in the WNBA after the Los Angeles Sparks selected her with the No. 5 pick in the 1998 draft, and Danny Strong, who played at NC State from 1995-1997. Feaster, a star at Harvard during her collegiate playing days, also serves as the Boston Celtics’ vice president of player and organizational development. UConn’s 2023-24 campaign, which saw five Huskies suffer season-ending injuries, concluded with a 71-69 loss to Iowa in the Final Four on Friday.

[vodkaandsnakes]

On this day, April 4, in Type O Negative history:

The video for "Christian Woman" receives airplay on the Metal Masters (Tampa, FL), Remote Generation (Austin, TX), Raw Shorts (Bloomington, IN), and Moshers' Mayhem (Olympia, WA) cable TV access programs. The video for "Black No. 1" gets airplay on the Threshold of Pain (Milwaukee, WI) program (1994)

Type O Negative play the Tsunami Beach Club with Drain STH and Stuck Mojo in Sanford, FL (1997)

Type O Negative play the Bronco Bowl with Coal Chamber, Full Devil Jacket, and The Deadlights in Dallas, TX (2000)

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Robert P. George

Published: Jun 15, 2023

After the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization early last summer, Princeton University’s Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies issued a statement fiercely condemning the ruling. The director stated that the program stood “in solidarity” with the people whose rights had been allegedly stripped away by five conservative justices doing the “racist” and “sexist” bidding of the “Christian Right,” causing women to endure “forced pregnancies,” and waging an “unprecedented attack on democracy.”

I have no doubt that the statement reflected the views of a large majority of those associated with the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. But was the director, speaking on behalf of an official unit of the university, right to declare an institutional stance on the Dobbs decision?

I am myself the director of an academic program at Princeton—the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. A majority of those associated with the Madison Program believe that elective abortion violates the rights of unborn children. So: Would it have been appropriate for the program to put out the following statement?

The James Madison Program of Princeton University applauds the Supreme Court of the United States for rectifying a long-standing constitutional and moral atrocity. The so-called constitutional right to abortion, which had been imposed on the nation by the Supreme Court nearly 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade, lacked any basis in the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution of the United States. It was “an act of raw judicial power,” to quote Justice Byron White’s dissent in Roe, which deprived the American people of their right to work through constitutionally prescribed democratic procedures to protect innocent children in the womb from the lethal violence of abortion. The Supreme Court has, finally, relegated a tragic error to the ash heap of history alongside such similarly unjust and ignominious decisions as Dred Scott v. Sanford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell, and Korematsu v. U.S.

The Madison Program put out no such statement. Nor did I, as director, consider even for a moment issuing such a statement or asking my colleagues to do so. My understanding of what is proper was and is that, although I may certainly speak for myself, and identify myself as a Princeton faculty member while doing so, it would be wrong for me and my colleagues to identify the university or one of its units with a view of the rightness or wrongness of the Dobbs decision, or to make sweeping pronouncements on the justice or injustice of abortion.

The reason is as simple as it is clear: These are matters on which reasonable people of goodwill in our community disagree. One should feel welcome at Princeton—in the Madison Program and any other unit of the university—whether one is pro-life, as I am, or pro-choice, as a great many others in our community are; whether one thinks of Roe v. Wade as a violation of human rights or as a vindication of human rights.

No one in the university or any of its departments should be made to feel like an “insider” or “outsider” depending on his or her views about abortion or the moral status of unborn human life. No one should be counted as “orthodox” or “heretical” in the Madison Program or in any other department or program of the university for his or her views—whatever they happen to be. We are, after all, a university—an academic institution—not a political party, or a church, or the secular ideological equivalent of a church. And especially in a moment when American society is deeply polarized and people of different political perspectives are more likely to demonize than to engage one another, universities like Princeton must provide a model for a healthy community where people of different viewpoints can engage each other in a civil manner and coexist.

There are, of course, religiously affiliated universities. Princeton, however, is not such a university, and has not been one for a long time. It is a nonsectarian institution. At Princeton, our role is to provide, in the words of our president, Christopher Eisgruber, “an impartial forum for vigorous, high-quality discussion, debate, scholarship, and teaching.” To me, this means that we as faculty members and students should strive to engage one another on controversial questions in a robust, civil, truth-seeking manner, and that we should be free to do so without the university placing its thumb on the scales of debate.

As it happens, Princeton, like some other nonsectarian institutions, is currently deliberating about what rules we should adopt regarding statements made by the university’s various departments and offices regarding political questions that are not directly related to the teaching and research mission of the university—questions such as abortion, U.S. policy toward Israel, defunding the police, and reparations for slavery. What should those rules be? What principles are to be considered in devising limitations on institutional pronouncements?

To my mind, the University of Chicago arrived at the right answer more than 50 years ago, when it adopted, in the midst of the Vietnam War controversy and other matters of contention, the report of a committee chaired by the law professor Harry Kalven. The Kalven Report committed the university and its various units to institutional neutrality on political questions, encapsulating its rationale in the helpful dictum: “The University is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.” The Kalven Report did not forbid faculty, students, or staff in their individual capacities from stating their opinions publicly, or even from identifying themselves by their academic titles and affiliations when doing so. It did, however, generally forbid anyone from committing the university or its departments and offices to particular points of view on controversial political questions.

The Kalven Report embodied a particular understanding of the role of the nonsectarian university and of the conditions required for it to play that role. The university and its departments serve the cause of truth-seeking by providing a forum for members of the community to have full, fair, and open debates on fundamental issues without any institutional influence. Political tribes or sects can form within the university and its departments, but no tribe or sect may take control and make itself, in effect, the established religion on campus.

Still, why not authorize departments or other units to make statements when their members feel strongly about an issue and where there exists–let us imagine–an unmistakable consensus on the matter? Of course, there is a distinction between consensus on matters of empirical and verifiable fact, and consensus on normative questions of the sort that are not, and cannot be, resolved simply by establishing the facts. I would warn, however, that even in the natural sciences, history is replete with examples of scholars reaching a consensus on matters of alleged fact about which they turned out to be wrong. This, it seems to me, is a conclusive argument in support of freedom of thought, inquiry, and discussion, and for encouraging viewpoint diversity.

It is also a strong argument against committing the university and its units to a particular position unless doing so is absolutely necessary. (That would be a rare occurrence, perhaps a state law forbidding universities from hiring people who hold certain views or banning, say, the promotion—or “teaching”—of certain ideas. It would not extend to such matters as the Israel-Palestine dispute; the Ukraine War; abortion; the death penalty; how a jury ought to decide, or ought to have decided, in a criminal or civil trial; marriage and sexual morality; fracking; or whether to defund the police, legalize drugs, move to a single-payer health-care system, or abolish the FBI, etc.—all issues on which departments at Princeton or other nonsectarian institutions have released statements in recent years.)

History is also replete with examples of scholars making claims in the name of science that were, in truth, driven by normative beliefs and commitments. Sometimes the scientific community, or particular segments of it, reached a “consensus” (or something approaching one) on such matters. The case that should bear heavily on our consciences and serve as a warning to us—particularly in the academic world and the broader intellectual culture—is eugenics. As the historian Thomas Leonard has shown, eugenics was embraced and promoted by the academic establishment as if it were gospel—and with very little dissent.

Where there is a consensus on normative matters, or where a consensus is more or less clearly driven by normative beliefs and commitments, such consensus provides no justification for the university or one of its units to publicly commit itself to a political position. If anything, it raises the question of why there is a consensus on difficult moral or other normative issues on which, broadly in our society, reasonable people of goodwill disagree.

Where are the dissenting voices? Has groupthink set in—in a unit, or perhaps in an entire field? What message does the lack of representation of dissenting voices send to students? Has there been discrimination or favoritism based on viewpoint? If so, is it continuing? Has this affected hiring and promotion decisions, or created what is broadly known to be a hostile environment for people who dissent from established orthodoxies?

And there are more questions: Will discrimination result from, or be exacerbated by, the practice of academic units taking positions in political disputes? Might the practice motivate, or further encourage, people to take into account candidates’ moral or political beliefs for academic appointment or tenure? Will people hoping to be appointed to such positions be impelled to censor themselves, lest they jeopardize their applications? The dangers of the corruption of fair and ideologically nonpartisan hiring and promotion procedures are glaring.

Let me linger a bit on this last point. If academic units are permitted to make statements on political issues, then the following will be the case: When considering a job or tenure candidate, voting faculty members will anticipate that he or she, if appointed, will vote on future political statements. So they will perfectly reasonably want to know, and will take into account, the candidate’s ideological leanings and political views and affiliations in deciding whether to support or oppose the appointment. Of course, this is something that faculty are not supposed to do under existing academic norms for nonsectarian institutions. It is condemned, for example, by the American Association of University Professors. But putting into place a policy that permits departments and other units to take political stands and issue political statements would undermine this prohibition. After all, voting on political statements—if departments were to be authorized to do so and chose to act on that authorization—would be one of the things a faculty member is, as a practical matter, hired to do.

Of course, we should draw a careful distinction between the university and its official subunits and other entities, such as student associations, that exist within the broader university community. Student clubs certainly should have the right to devote themselves to causes (political, moral, religious, etc.) and take positions and put out statements advocating whatever they stand for. The key here is for the university to be nondiscriminatory in recognizing and making resources available to the clubs. The Democratic Club should be treated the same as the Republican Club. The pro-choice club should be treated no better and no worse than the pro-life club. The Islamic Society should be treated exactly as the Jewish Center or Baptist Chaplaincy is treated. And so forth. Funding should be distributed without discrimination, and any institutional support should be evenhanded.

Institutional neutrality protects the university’s fundamental mission of pursuing, preserving, and transmitting knowledge. This mission requires not only academic freedom and viewpoint diversity, but also principles and policies that enable us to avoid contests among people of competing ideological stripes for control of the university and its individual units. The university must belong to everyone in our community, not simply those who are on the allegedly “right” side of contested issues.

As I noted, Princeton was once a sectarian college: Until almost a century ago, it was affiliated with Presbyterian Christianity. Today, as a nonsectarian university, its mission no longer includes the propagation of sectarian doctrines. It is, in this crucial respect, unlike Notre Dame, Brigham Young, Baylor, Yeshiva, and Zaytuna. I have nothing against such institutions. In fact, I think they do great work. I’ve lectured at all of them. And I’m glad they are available to students and families for whom religiously based education is important.

But I believe that it is valuable for there also to be great nonsectarian universities such as Princeton, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, and the rest, in which people are united not by shared commitments to religious or secular ideological dogmas but by, and only by, a commitment to the pursuit, preservation, and transmission of knowledge—and an understanding that the cause of knowledge-seeking can be mightily advanced only by encouraging the critical engagement of ideas among people who have fundamental disagreements on normative and other important matters.

[ Via: https://archive.is/7BVsb ]

==

Higher education is supposed to be where people explore, develop and test their ideas. Not where they're handed down from on high.

Universities aren't churches. They have no business preaching.

[christiansanford]

Christian is the Founder of SMBee, a corporate finance advisory firm built on over a decade of best-in-class experience within financial services. Prior to founding SMBee, Christian Sanford was an investor at Long Pond Capital and an investment banker at Barclays, both in New York.

[wikiuntamed]

On this day in Wikipedia: Thursday, 18th April

Welcome, आपका स्वागत है (āpakā svāgata hai), fáilte, dobrodošli 🤗 What does @Wikipedia say about 18th April through the years 🏛️📜🗓️?

18th April 2022 🗓️ : Death - Harrison Birtwistle Harrison Birtwistle, British composer (b. 1934) "Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include The Triumph of Time (1972) and the operas The Mask of Orpheus..."

Image licensed under CC BY 2.0? by

MITO SettembreMusica

18th April 2019 🗓️ : Event - United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice released a redacted version of the Mueller report about the investigation of Russian influence on the U.S. presidential election to Congress and the public. "The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United States. It is equivalent to the justice or interior ministries..."

Image by U.S. government

18th April 2014 🗓️ : Death - Sanford Jay Frank Sanford Jay Frank, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1954) "Sanford Jay "Sandy" Frank, also known as Sandy Frank (July 21, 1954 – April 18, 2014), was a television writer who was known as a writer for Late Night with David Letterman. He wrote for Letterman's NBC show for four years, during which the show won four Emmy Awards for comedy-variety writing. ..."

18th April 1974 🗓️ : Birth - Edgar Wright Edgar Wright, English filmmaker "Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English filmmaker and actor. He is known for his fast-paced and kinetic, satirical genre films, which feature extensive utilisation of expressive popular music, Steadicam tracking shots, dolly zooms and a signature editing style that includes..."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0? by Eva Rinaldi from Sydney Australia

18th April 1924 🗓️ : Birth - Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2005) "Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (April 18, 1924 – September 10, 2005) was an American singer and multi-instrumentalist from Louisiana. He won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album in 1983 for his album, Alright Again!. ..."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0? by Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA

18th April 1819 🗓️ : Birth - Franz von Suppé Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer and conductor (d. 1895) "Franz von Suppé, born Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo de Suppé (18 April 1819 – 21 May 1895) was an Austrian composer of light operas and other theatre music. He came from the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now part of Croatia). A composer and conductor of the Romantic period, he is..."

Image by Gabriel Decker (1821-1855)

18th April 🗓️ : Holiday - Christian feast day: Perfectus "Saint Perfectus (Santo Perfecto) (died 18 April 850) was one of the Martyrs of Córdoba whose martyrdom was recorded by Saint Eulogius in the Memoriale sanctorum. He was born in Córdoba when the area was under the control of the Moors (the Umayyad Caliphate). Perfecto was a monk and ordained priest. ..."

[bm2ab]

Arrivals & Departures . 27 July 1922 – 05 December 2023 . Norman Milton Lear

Norman Milton Lear was an American screenwriter and producer who produced, wrote, created or developed over 100 shows. Lear created and produced numerous popular 1970s sitcoms, including All in the Family (1971–1979), Maude (1972–1978), Sanford and Son (1972–1977), One Day at a Time (1975–1984), The Jeffersons (1975–1985), and Good Times (1974–1979). His shows introduced political and social themes to the sitcom.

Lear received many awards, including six Primetime Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 1999, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2017, and the Golden Globe Carol Burnett Award in 2021. He was a member of the Television Academy Hall of Fame.

Lear was also known for his political activism and funding of liberal and progressive causes and politicians. In 1980, he founded the advocacy organization People for the American Way to counter the influence of the Christian right in politics, and in the early 2000s, he mounted a tour with a copy of the Declaration of Independence.

[comfy-pink-666]

Madness combat head cannons!

(Also a little something for @onimaddy)

Hank: cis male, he/him, ace, [Not in a relationship], SOME HOW STILL ALIVE!?

Sanford: demiboy, he/them, gay, [In a relationship], lucky to be alive

Deimos: non-binary, they/them, ace/aro, [Not in a relationship], its a bird! No wait... HOLY SHI-

Jebus: trans misc, he/him, gay, [Not in a relationship], The very nice Christian neighbor

Tricky: demiboy, he/them, bi, [In a relationship], OMFG CLOWN!?

Auditor: non-binary, they/them, pan, [Not in a relationship], I never cared about you (kinda)

Sheriff: cis male, he/him, stright, [Questionable relationship], PUSSY!

♡ Thats all, hope you like them :] ♡

[rosiewitchescottage]

What does "Christo-paganism" look like for you? What does it entail in day-to-day life? When and how were you introduced to it and why did you take it up?

Not trying to convert you or anything like that, honestly just curious.

Thank you for your courteous question. And I'm very happy to answer it for you.

I left Christianity around 2004, because I was finding things that to me just didn't quite ring true with all I heard about Jesus.

I embraced Paganism, because I saw that all of Creation is honoured for its sacredness, because it all bears the hand-print of God, as much as we do.

But even though I loved this, and still do. Something still wasn't quite right.

I'd left Christianity, but I hadn't left Jesus and he certainly hadn't left me.

Plus, as much as I respect the freedom of expression that's another big part of Paganism, I find myself disagreeing strongly with many things that I hear expressed.

I found a Youtube channel called Spirits in Space Suits by an Irish priest called Fr Sean O'Loaire Phd. And they are rather 'alternative'., as to his interpretation of things.

To me, many of them were a revelation. He has his own website as well as several books.

I saw other people who were mixing Christianity with Paganism, and calling it Christo-paganism.

Many of them involve Pagan deities and witchcraft, and I could see why that would be see as a serious problem by Christians.

But multiple deities had never gone further than an academic interest for me.

Worship for me has never gone from God the Creator. If I use Christian prayers then I'll retain the address of Lord/Father.

But if I pray in my own way I'll say Father and Mother, Lord and Lady. One God as our Creator doing the creative work of both male and female.

Seeing God as potentially both male and female is another aspect of Paganism that still appeals to me.

I found another Youtube channel, Norse Magic and Beliefs. This is run by a Norwegian gentleman who uses writings like The Poetic Edda, and other Pagan written sources to try to piece together what the original Norse Pagans believed and how they actually practiced.

Again it's a revelation, as well as fascinatingly informative. It's taken me into the realms of Animism, which apparently is thought to be the root, out of which polytheist faiths grew.

Here I've learned that pagan deities were probably not seen in the same light as the Abrahamic God of Judaism, Christianity, Islam etc.

They only tended to be worshipped on particular occasions. Day to day spirituality was centred on spirits of nature, of the land, ancestral spirits etc.

These Pagan deities then, were more akin to the spirit entities of major natural phenomena.

I heard of a minor Celtic goddess believed to be linked to a major river in Lancashire. And whilst I had no interest in worshipping her as a goddess.

I do get close to that river frequently, and seeing her as the spirit of that well known feature, to be respected, as all of Nature should be, for the primal power it exudes, given to it by God.

That began to strike me as feeling right.

I found a book called 'Christian Animism' by Shawn Sanford Beck that has many things to say that I disagree with. (I'm one of the many people who is liberal on some issues and conservative in others. It's just a fact that the majority of what one finds written about paganism and animism tends to be heavily left leaning. )

I've learned that I can agree with people on one thing, whilst disagreeing on others. And that's not a bad skill to practice.

(Something I learned from Norse Magic and Beliefs is that the Norse concept of the soul was that for us as humans, it has 8 parts. Some animals may have around 5 or 6, plants have 2 or 3 and rocks only 1.

But what he had to say about loving the world God created, with us as a part of that Creation, meant to help God as stewards of our fellow creatures, not masters.

And our fellow creatures, the plants, the rocks, the Sun, Moon and Stars, even the weather. All with a life force of their own. There I was right with him.

I don't suppose that the number is that important. But it gives me a solid ground to think of other forms of life with a spirit essence, that doesn't have to be quite as complex as our own souls.)

It gives a whole new vibrancy to St Francis' Canticle of The Sun'. I really can think of birds singing their praises to God, a babbling brook doing likewise, the wind in the trees, the rain falling, the Sun and Moon shining.

And it makes me more aware of the need to consider them as truly living beings, that I should treat with loving respect.

I appreciate that what I know of Animism is basic and surface level at most. But I'm not claiming to be an Animist.

I simply want to share the honouring of the God who made us and Loves us, as much with our non human neighbours as with the human.

I wanted to know Jesus more,from the Christian perspective. I needed to balance out gratitude for his role as our Saviour, free from the nagging feeling that all the heavy guilt that I heard being so heavily expressed didn't balance out right with Divine Love.

No, we're not perfect, we make mistakes, we're far too easily tempted.

My mind looks on the concept of sin as 'moral mistakes'.

We have to make choices about how to act. And like The Good Shepherd's straying sheep, off we go sometimes, down the wrong path, taking us away from the loving presence of our shepherd, and potentially towards danger.

I found myself considering how we are designed to learn from mistakes. And who made us that way, if not God?

I considered that perhaps God wants to guide us to the right paths, find us when we get lost, and tenderly carry us home.

He knows that our wisdom is limited. He knows that the powers of evil take advantage of that, to tempt us, wanting to separate us from God.

God sent prophets to his people throughout The Torah and Old Testament. But clearly more direct guidance was needed.

God came literally In Person, as Jesus Christ. He taught us about the right path and how important Love is.

Fr Sean on Spirits in Space Suits has a couple of amazing videos talking about Jesus Passion and how he was still teaching us about Love in the depths of his own suffering.

I think about that Loving Sacrifice that the powers of evil are totally floored by. I don't think it's any coincidence that extremely guilty Barabbas goes free while innocent Jesus goes to the cross.

If we look through mythology, in which there are some of the deepest truths that never change. We see time and again that evil cannot understand Love, in fact, it's often fearful and mistrustful of it's power, that it all too often mistakes for 'weakness'.

'Greater Love hath no man than that he will die for his friends'. Perhaps that's partly what Jesus was getting at?

This amazing sacrifice, plus the fact that even the grave couldn't hold this power of Divine Love for more than 3 days.

What does evil have to offer us that's even remotely comparable to this?

I now find myself thinking and reading about Jesus more than ever before. I've been watching The Chosen, which has helped me understand a lot more. I'm saying a decade of The Rosary every day.

I did go on quite a bit there, apologies for being wordy. But I hope that explains things for you?

The very last thing I intend is disrespect to Jesus, to The Church, or to Christians.

I've just found my way of combining the sacredness of the whole of nature along with a fresh appreciation of Jesus.

Thanks again for your ask, and how you asked it.

God Bless You.