Compelling Talks

Searching & sharing insights on: learning, #teaching, #writing, & living. Eric teaches #English & co-authors the Compelling Conversations #books. #FreeSpeech

[Compelling Talks @compellingtalks]

Can we re-center authentic learning in our ELT classrooms in the AI era?

https://t.co/7MFI2tVIfU

I shared some personal experiences, reviewed best practices, and distinguished between student-centric and AI-centric approaches. Prioritizing human to human communication matters!

[Compelling Talks @compellingtalks]

“China doesn’t have to beat us at everything if we keep volunteering to sabotage the things we’re actually good at, and we blame Elon for being successful at building tangible things, but have no problem with CA Government "building" a non existent train after spending $15 Billion dollars on it.”

Spot on!

[Compelling Talks @compellingtalks]

How are so many miseducated American #university students supporting censorship, Hamas, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks killing almost 3,000 human beings?

Can we start teaching American constitutional principles, geography, 20th century world history, and basic #ethics again?

[New York Post @nypost]

Alarming number of college students claim US deserved 9/11: poll https://t.co/6ddze7MCOA

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

As grave and insane a cultural development as I can imagine.

All writers and artists must stand against this -- or what we do falls to the level of cake decorating.

Guillotines next if we don't.

[Compelling Talks @compellingtalks]

“Stephen told the court that the post was satirical, but that he also hoped it would prompt serious debate about whether that marriage had helped make child marriage acceptable in parts of the Muslim world.

The judge rejected that argument. But we have seen judges, police and the Government attempt to enforce a de facto Islamic #blasphemy law time and again.

Stephen was ordered to pay more than £1,000 in fines and costs, and now has a criminal record.”

How is happening in the #UK? Remember Milton, Locke, Mill? Is this land of #freespeech, individualism, and democracy?

[Harry Cole @MrHarryCole]

This is going to end badly

[Preston Byrne @prestonjbyrne]

Ofcom indicated in a hearing today that it is going to start pushing for arrest warrants for American refusers of the Online Safety Act.

It is wildly inappropriate for a foreign country to threaten Americans for exercising our constitutional rights.

https://t.co/asNsZ7J9Hd

[Eyal Yakoby @EYakoby]

BREAKING: Egypt has placed 35 Europe-linked Islamist organizations on its terror list.

Muslim countries are now sanctioning European entities for being too extreme.

Let that sink in.

[Compelling Talks @compellingtalks]

Doesn’t #Rubio make sense here?

How can #AmnestyInternational overlook the Islamic Republic of Iran’s massacre of thousands of peaceful protesters? Why have they become apologists for so many theocratic dictatorships? Isn’t their Orwellian logic attacking imperfect western democracies while ignoring theocratic dictatorships beyond hypocritical?

[Open Source Intel @Osint613]

Rubio Blasts Amnesty International

Secretary of State Marco Rubio:

"Amnesty International is a fraud!"

.Rubio was responding to the group's accusation that the U.S. committed war crimes in Iran. He pointed instead to the Iranian regime and the crimes he said it commits against its own people.

"You know what I think Amnesty International should be focused on? An Iranian regime that murdered in cold blood tens of thousands of people in the streets of Tehran and other parts of the country!"

"What Amnesty International should focus on is how the Iranian regime goes into hospitals when protesters are injured and murders the people in their hospital bed."

"And by the way, sometimes murders the doctors or the nurses who treated them. So they should focus on them!"

"Those are war crimes. Those are crimes against humanity."

[Hillel Neuer @HillelNeuer]

On this day in 1975, the U.N. declared Zionism to be “a form of racism.” U.S. representative Daniel Patrick Moynihan delivered the greatest speech ever at the United Nations — for its moral force, brilliant arguments, soaring rhetoric, vigorous and compelling delivery, and singular use of the English language.

“As this day will live in infamy, it behooves those who sought to avert it to declare their thoughts so that historians will know that we fought here, that we were not small in number — not this time — and that while we lost, we fought with full knowledge of what indeed would be lost.”

Full speech: https://t.co/LWiyTpwf4c

[Matthew Feinberg @thewebbie]

Kristallnacht didn't begin with shattered windows. It began with lies repeated until decent people stopped objecting. Eighty-eight years later, the libels have new vocabulary, but the danger is familiar. Will we confront the hatred before the glass breaks? https://t.co/4rGlFDqHuG

[The Free Speech Union @SpeechUnion]

In the House of Lords this afternoon, our General Secretary, Lord Young of Acton, proposed an amendment to the Courts and Tribunals Bill that would mean the right to choose a trial by jury is retained for people accused of speech offences.

These cases often hinge on the interpretation of words like like "insulting", "threatening", "abusive", "harassment", "alarm", "distress", "grossly offensive" and whether something has a tendency to "deprave and corrupt", and the meaning of those words is properly a matter for a jury — of 12 ordinary people — not an 'expert' in the law.

In addition, Lord Young drew their Lordships attention to some FSU research which showed that juries are twice as likely to find defendants accused of speech crimes not guilty as magistrates.

Watch Lord Young below 👇

[Compelling Talks @compellingtalks]

@RoKhanna When did destroying the most democratic country in the Mideast become @RoKhanna’s obsession? Does this “progressive” #politician see helping the Islamic Republic of #Iran, a theocratic dictatorship, destroy Israel and murder Israeli citizens as humane? Os just politically useful?

[Compelling Talks @compellingtalks]

What’s gone so very wrong with the United Nations? How can an international organization that claims to protect women put Iran’s repressive theocratic dictatorship on a #UN committee for women’s rights? Isn’t choosing your own clothes a right? Why are so many #EU nations so indifferent to the #persecution of women?

[Hillel Neuer @HillelNeuer]

🚨 On Wednesday, the UN plans to put Iran on a body that shapes policy on women's rights.

On April 8, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Spain, Austria & Switzerland BACKED IRAN.

We urge them to reverse course — and announce they will vote NO.

[Trisha Posner @trishaposner]

Call for a boycott of Black-owned businesses on Juneteenth. Put on the flyer that they “must go.” You would be finished by lunch. Condemned by everyone. Rightly.

This morning in Philadelphia, activists named six Jewish-owned restaurants, wrote that they “must go,” and picked the eve of the Kristallnacht anniversary for their ride.

Most people scrolling past do not even know what Kristallnacht was. Or what the Nazis did on April 1, 1933: stood outside Jewish shops, told Germans not to buy, painted Stars of David on the doors.

A bike ride is not Kristallnacht. But it borrows the playbook. Mark the shop. Warn the public. Call it justifiable.

Philadelphia’s neighbors had a different plan. They walked in the front door and bought lunch.
I write about the lesson in my latest No More Nice Jewish Girl: https://t.co/7zIQKSuBgF

[Compelling Talks @compellingtalks]

How many Americans-even faculty members let alone their students- know what #Kristallnacht is? How can the Nazi-organized persecution of Jews be used today to warn about hatred of Jews? Should #universities include Kristallnacht in their curriculum and anti-discrimination materials?

[Gerald Posner @geraldposner]

Today marks the 88th anniversary of #kristallnacht, the violent and lethal Night of Broken Glass that targeted German Jews. It foreshadowed the state run, industrial-level genocide that would soon come.

It serves as a vivid reminder of what happens when hate goes unchecked.

@trishaposner and I have spent years studying that dark history. The results were her international bestseller, The Pharmacist of Auschwitz, and my books about Dr. Josef Mengele and Hitler’s Children. Those books help explain why Kristallnacht was a key day on the road to the Holocaust. History matters more than ever as the ancient hatred of antisemitism surges once again.

[Education Reform Now @EdReformNowUSA]

New from ERN Policy Director @James_S_Murphy: Six Charts Showing Where Most Undergraduates in the U.S. Go to College 📊

The vast majority of students attend public, accessible colleges—not the elite few that dominate headlines.

See the data ⬇️ #HigherEd https://t.co/nCsog93oiI

[Education Reform Now @EdReformNowUSA]

"Children cannot learn & schools cannot thrive based on subjective observations & good intentions alone." New research from ERN's @RiannaSaslow investigates what drives positive student outcomes in Georgia's high-performing, high-poverty schools. @The74
https://t.co/7E7H86pFfz

[Compelling Talks @compellingtalks]

Given the widespread riots across France and the country’s severe economic problems, why would a secular leftist propose a new Mideast war to overthrow any regime? What sort of warped morality would target the region’s most democratic, most modern nation? Is he just pandering for votes?

[AIJAC @AIJAC_Update]

88 years ago today, on November 9, 1938, the Nazis unleashed Kristallnacht – 'The Night of Broken Glass' – a wave of violence and destruction against Jewish communities that marked a turning point on the road to the Holocaust.

But the violence did not begin with shattered glass and burning synagogues.

It followed years of systematic demonisation, dehumanisation and the normalisation of antisemitism – enabled not only by those in power, but by institutions and ordinary citizens.

As we remember Kristallnacht – the lives it claimed and the communities it devastated – its warning remains as urgent as ever: hatred does not begin with violence. It begins when prejudice is legitimised, excused and allowed to flourish.

Video: AIJAC.

[Compelling Talks @compellingtalks]

“He didn’t explicitly demand Musk’s execution. But invoking the deaths of two convicted spies while calling an American citizen a traitor makes the implication hard to miss.

Musk has not been convicted of treason. Indeed, “treason against the West” isn’t even an actual crime.

Now imagine #UCLA alumnus @BenShapiro, appointed a UC Regent, saying the same about George #Soros.

Would the Governor defend his right to serve? Would #Regent leadership shrug and call it provocative commentary? Or would there be demands for resignation?”#profgalloway