Stories of the week
Rooster’s wings clipped: Ohio political blogger found guilty in explicit Shrek meme trial (ABC) by Morgan Trau
An Ohio political blogger let out a surprised laugh as he was found guilty of harassment after he sent an explicit digitally altered image of the cartoon character Shrek to a powerful lawmaker.
After just thirty minutes, eight Lake County jurors decided D.J. Byrnes was guilty of telecommunications harassment against state Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland), after he sent him two taunting messages and a meme of Shrek holding his genitals.
These Minnesota Parents Were Censored at a Public Meeting for Saying School Employees’ Job Titles (Reason) by Matthew Harwood
Regardless of what district policy or Minnesota law says, the Foley school board trampled on the DeMaraises’ First Amendment rights. When a school board opens a meeting to public comment, it can’t censor its constituents for criticizing school staff, much less simply naming them or mentioning their titles. A government body can constitutionally restrict some speech during a public comment period, such as limiting comment to a maximum allotted time or ensuring it’s on topic, but all those restrictions must be reasonable and viewpoint neutral. In its treatment of the DeMaraises, the Foley Public School Board has hit the trifecta, violating its own policy, state law, and the First Amendment.
More than 130 years after his death, Douglass still has something to teach the thin-skinned who want free speech for themselves but not for their critics. It has become all too common for politicians and public figures to sue or threaten legal action over attacks that Douglass would have ignored or answered with facts and arguments.
This week in ERI
Trump is not playing seven-dimensional chess
When Trump makes a puzzling or counterintuitive move, does anyone really still think he is playing seven-dimensional chess* — distracting us from the real plan by throwing us some red meat in the form of a crazy news story or executive action? I certainly don’t think so, but there does still seem to be a temptation to ascribe a much deeper game to Trump…
This week in Expression
This week in FIRE’s blog
This week on So to Speak
This week on So to Speak, host & FIRE EVP Nico Perrino spoke with with Escaping Venezuela director Jim Epstein and narrator Germania Rodriguez Poleo about how the regimes of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro dismantled Venezuela’s free press, silenced dissent, and eroded democratic institutions. They also discussed the persecution of journalists and dissidents, and Venezuela’s prospects for restoring democracy.
International free speech stories of the week
Saudi Arabia has sentenced a foreign worker to death over a Facebook post. Why isn’t there a bigger outcry? (The Independent) by Alisha Rahaman Sarkour
Sri Lanka is calling for the international community to help save a young man from execution in Saudi Arabia, where he faces the death penalty for insulting the Prophet Muhammad on social media.
Anojan Sivarasa, 24, a migrant worker from Kalmunai in the Eastern Province, was sentenced to death last month for posting a blasphemous comment on Facebook.
He had some choice words for the American concept of free speech, which he said is “the opposite of free speech.” According to him, “there is no freedom if there is no limit on my freedom, which begins with the freedom of others and respect for a common framework.”
Movie of the month
My movie of the month is Backrooms, a new, low-budget classic. It’s creepy and claustrophobic, at once an old-fashioned and innovative horror, and I found it really impressive.
The film is the feature debut of Kane Parsons, who started making his “Backrooms” videos as a teenager, using Blender, and built a huge following on YouTube. A24 gave him a budget of only about $10 million, which paid for roughly 30,000 square feet of physical sets built on Vancouver soundstages. Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as a man who disappears into an endless maze of yellow rooms hidden behind a furniture store, and Renate Reinsve plays the psychologist who goes in after him. Mark Duplass is also in the cast. It became A24’s biggest opening ever and has made close to $400 million worldwide.
My only complaint is that Reinsve didn’t seem ideal for the part of the psychologist. But overall, if you like horror, I suspect this is a movie people will be paying tribute to in a decade. Check out Backrooms.
Backrooms is excellent. Not normally a fan of this genre but this isn’t your run-of-the mill horror film.Highly recommended.
government run schools keep turning out dummies!, removing anything snd everything tied to Freedom!. The empire
has lasted 250 yrs. is falling apart at the
seems!2- party system not working, all thee do is biker get nothing done. Sad state if affairs!