YouTube – John Malcolm

Black-On-White Link In Minneapolis Violence

June 7, 2012 by John Malcolm 2 Comments

By Colin Flaherty | June 6, 2012 | WND

‘Let’s stop being so P.C.’ about 20-on-1 attacks

Minneapolis police want you to know race has nothing to do with an epidemic of violent crime in their downtown.

Same for crime reporter Matt McKinney: The recent increase in what he calls “flash mob” violence and mayhem is “random” and “no other real pattern emerges” and the “motivation for the attack remains unclear.”

But more and more people in Minneapolis are connecting the violence with groups of blacks marauding through the downtown; beating, hurting, destroying and stealing. Sometimes right in front of police.

NC Teacher Suspended for Hectoring Students About Respecting Obama

May 21, 2012 by John Malcolm 3 Comments

By John Sexton | May 21, 2012 | Breitbart News

Yesterday, Breitbart News reported a story about a North Carolina high school teacher who began screaming at students who dared to criticize President Obama. Today, the teacher in question, Tanya Dixon-Neely, was suspended with pay by the school.

NC Teacher Screams at Student: It’s Criminal to Criticize Obama

May 20, 2012 by John Malcolm 6 Comments

By Ben Shapiro | May 20, 2012 | Breitbart News

A YouTube video uploaded on Monday afternoon apparently shows a schoolteacher from the Rowan-Salisbury school district in North Carolina informing a student that failing to be respectful of President Obama is a criminal offense. Breitbart News has uncovered that the student is a high school junior, and that the teacher is apparently one Tanya Dixon-Neely.

The video shows a classroom discussion about the Washington Post hit piece about Mitt Romney bullying a kid some five decades ago. One student says, “Didn’t Obama bully someone though?” The teacher says: “Not to my knowledge.” The student then cites the fact that Obama, in Dreams from My Father, admits to shoving a little girl. “Stop, no, because there is no comparison,” screams the teacher. Romney is “running for president. Obama is the president.”

The Big Picture: Our Curiously Failing Civilization

May 7, 2012 by John Malcolm Leave a Comment

By Jack Curtis | May 7, 2012 | American Thinker

Governments around the world are in various stages of financial failure, all seemingly trying to be Argentina. Curious, no? Look at debt and deficits; you see government spending issues; most of the few exceptions have other problems. Look then at global migration patterns showing people leaving poor places for places going broke, an unhappy trend line. Look anywhere; we can’t seem to govern ourselves worldwide, while people protesting are multiplying everywhere.

The U.S. and the EU can’t stop borrowing and spending, though no one can expect their stultified economies to bear the debt they’ve run up. Arab riots and civil wars reflect those countries’ corrupt dictators’ inability to sufficiently subsidize the citizens. Armed insurrections and massive demonstrations plague Russia, India, China, and Latin America; Africa has more than its share of failed and failing states. The Global Incident Map shows worldwide terrorism and both underlines instability and helps explain the migrations. Predictable civil order seems lost.

For “rich” Europe and North America, it’s the famous doom of all democracies: the citizens have learned to vote others’ wealth to themselves via a devil’s compact with demagogues. Once in place, such deals can’t be controlled (Who’s re-elected for shutting off the goodies?) until they outrun available resources and impoverish the economy. “Kick the can down the road” (meaning past the next election) is the U.S. mantra for postponing the end-game; in the EU, it’s quasi-austerity. It’s the same game in both places: Save the Banks. The people? Let them eat cake…

For everybody outside the rich world, it’s the same thing at one remove. That rich world has been such an engine of the world economy that most of the rest are, in varying degrees, dependents. When the rich customer cuts back, the dependent suffers. For those living hand-to-mouth in the first place, the suffering is worse; that puts those governments at more immediate risk. If we really look, much post-WWII stability has been a wire-walking façade.

Civilization: a state of social culture characterized by relative progress in the arts, science, and statecraft. Start with the Babylonians; the picture is later expanded by the multicultural Romans (equal opportunity conquerors) and expanded again by the widely differing but integrated Europeans, Indians, and Chinese. Perhaps it’s time we recognized an additional element in the mix that now defines civilization: technology.

Modern transport, communication, and information technology have linked the whole planet into a functional unity irrespective of language, culture, religion, or other differences. Whether very poor or wealthy, educated or illiterate, nearly everybody on earth is in reach of a network of information and services via a common, worldwide technology. The only obvious threats to that lie with paranoid governments insistent on controlling it and various Luddites intent on its destruction to preserve interests under threat.

Such miracles, like free lunches, carry costs. One cost of the world’s economic integration: a cold in the rich world quickly produces sneezes everywhere else, an unsung partner of things like just-in-time inventory control. Another cost is the greater awareness of events and conditions everywhere. The whole world knows at once of riots anywhere; if cell phones organize the rioters, the world knows that, too. And how a local dictator reacts will appear quickly on YouTube, with any blood in full color. Poorly informed people are becoming much more knowledgeable and sophisticated, seeing how others live, and developing greater expectations that their governments aren’t prepared to accommodate. As citizens’ expectations rise, governments facing them before a world audience find their control of events affected, more so when such strategic interests as oil are involved. An event anywhere can light a fire under a planetary pot; the technology that spreads civilization also expands risk.

When considering political collapse, we look for the signature social meltdown; a strong civilization may work through bad finances. Before they’re swept from history’s stage, civilizations rot from inside. What do we see?

Western civilization was the Judeo-Christian replacement for failed Classical Europe. Its centrality was the general acceptance of Christian morality, built on widespread religious belief and embedded in governments and law. In what’s being called a post-Christian era, that’s dissolving; Western citizens are struggling with each other over such basics as human rights, obligations, behavior, and the value of human life.

Read the full article here.

Europe’s Right in Disarray (spectator.org)
‘We Are Preparing For Massive Civil War’ Says DHS Informant (johnmalcolm.me)
Catholic Bishops Ask For Civil Disobedience (minx.cc)
DHS Preparing for massive Civil War/Civil Disruption. (diogenesfreeholder.wordpress.com)
Cameron’s ‘Big Society failing’ (itv.com)
UK Society ‘Post-Christian’? (frstephensmuts.wordpress.com)
An eye for an eye? (wnd.com)
In a Rich Man’s World: Reducing Government Spending (theconservativeidealist.com)
A Hidden Truth ? (audymm.wordpress.com)
Geert Wilders:NYC address 4/30/12 (iranaware.com)
New must-read book: Lessons From Fallen Civilizations (theblaze.com)
A Different Philosophy of Civil Disobedience (truth11.com)

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What is ‘Disruptive Innovation’ and is it a Path to Political De-Polarization?

May 2, 2012 by John Malcolm Leave a Comment

By Tiffany Gabbay | May 1, 2012 | The Blaze

On April 27, The Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) hosted its third annual Disruptive Innovation Awards. Honorees included Dr. Steven Curley of the Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation and Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey
The theory of Disruptive Innovation dictates that new applications or utilities to existing products or services will impact — in fact alter — the marketplace in measurable ways
TFF Co-founder, Craig Hatkoff, along with others believe that political polarization in America can be mitigated by applying the techniques of Disruptive Innovation, especially through engaging in dialogues with social icons like Glenn Beck
Further, famed economist Adam Smith’s “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” is weighed against Disruptive Innovation as a means to create a just, Capitalist society

Most people think of innovation in terms of technological, rather than social or political applications, but recent insight gleaned from the Tribeca Film Festival’s (TFF) Disruptive Innovation Awards, held Friday, April 27, may shatter that preconception. What’s more, that very insight may be best illustrated through an ongoing dialogue with Glenn Beck and one of the film festival’s founders. Intrigued? For reference, first consider the following information on the theory of disruptive innovation.

The theory of Disruptive Innovation

Coined by Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, the term “disruptive innovation” is perhaps not common in modern day vernacular, but it is something you have experienced before and likely will again throughout all stages of life. Counterintuitively, disruptive innovations do not necessarily find origin in a specific “invention,” rather they foster a different utility for a pre-existing product, service or technology, effectively creating an opportunity for great change that leads to a brand new market. Ultimately, the innovation “disrupts” the status-quo, transforming modern-day life.

The automobile has often been cited as an example of a disruptive innovation. Although a ground-breaking technological invention at the time, its high initial cost prohibited the product from penetrating daily life and commerce. It was not until Ford motor company introduced its affordable Model T in the early 20^th century that the market for horse-drawn carriages was “disrupted” with the widespread adoption of motor vehicles. The automobile itself is a technological innovation, while Ford’s system of mass-producing cost-efficient cars from which the masses could benefit, is a disruptive one. Other examples include the iPod, which disrupted the CD market, and Wikipedia, which disrupted the market of traditional encyclopedic volumes such as the Britannica series.

The Tribeca Film Festival’s Disruptive Innovation Awards

For the last three years, under the stewardship of TFF co-founder, Craig Hatkoff,the Disruptive Innovation Awards have recognized companies and individuals who have distinguished themselves by successfully disrupting markets to effect change in the worlds of business, technology, social justice and the arts. The honorees represented a broad spectrum of innovators from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to members of DARPA. Notably, one of this year’s honorees was Dr. Steven Curley who has carried on the late John Kanzius’ pioneering medical research in the use of high frequency radio waves to kill cancer cells. You might recall The Blaze and Glenn Beck’s extensive coverage of the Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation, as well as Beck’s involvement in bringing much needed awareness to the project.

While this year’s honorees and the fields they represented made sense from an innovation-standpoint, one of the key questions that emerged is how can the theory of disruptive innovation address the political polarization occurring in modern-day America. It may seem an impossible feat, but Hatkoff, along with Rabi Irwin Cula of the National Jewish Center for Leadership and Learning (CLAL), and The Economist’s Matthew Bishop, led a discussion on this very subject.

Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments” and how it relates to capitalism

Invoking economist-pioneer Adam Smith’s lesser-known volume, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” the three delved into the power of perception, and more pointedly, “moral judgments.” They dissected the role each play in modern day society and how shattering preconceptions is the key to breaking down the barriers created by polarization.

While many consider Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” his greatest achievement, Smith himself saw the “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” to be his magnum opus, as he intended it to be the underpinning for The Wealth of Nations, explaining how man strives to be virtuous through engaging in moral and proper conduct. This is discerned, according to Smith, through becoming an impartial spectator of others. He argued that while independent-self interest is in everyone’s nature, humans also innately share the same emotions and instinctual desire to please others while gaining affection, approval and understanding of their own. This, he posited, could only be created through fostering sympathy among even the strangest of bedfellows. Through planting the seed of self-doubt that causes one to question his or her own perceptions and morality, humility is thus fostered.

Shattering perceptions and creating self-doubt

Both Hatkoff and Rabbi Kula argue that the key to forging greater understanding of one’s ideological opposite is through engendering a sense of sympathy for one another. To illustrate this point, they asked participants to share their observations on the following images:

Tribeca Film Festivals Disruptive Innovation Panel Invokes Adam Smiths Theory of Moral Sentiments

At first glance participants were roughly split fifty-fifty between seeing the duck and seeing the rabbit. A review of the second image revealed that the majority of observers saw a rabbit and by the third image, the results were completely reversed.

To drive the point home, Hatkoff and Kula also used Joseph Albers’ famed green color block image:

Tribeca Film Festivals Disruptive Innovation Panel Invokes Adam Smiths Theory of Moral Sentiments

The laws of physics dictate that the small box in the right plank appears to be a lighter shade of green than that to the left, when in fact the green hue is exactly the same on both sides.

The exercise is meant to underscore how human beings can look at the exact same object yet see something entirely different. Kula argues that through self-awareness and, more pointedly, self-doubt raised through engaging in simple exercises like duck-rabbit, the very basis for political polarization can be mitigated.

Can Disruptive Innovation mitigate political polarization?

Taking the lesson further, Hatkoff unveiled a clip featuring someone familiar to Blaze readers, but who was, surprisingly, unidentifiable to many in the audience. While the video featured below first came from a conference hosted by The Economist in late-March, the session I attended featured much of the same content. The point of interest begins near the 12:00 minute-mark.

Read the full article here.