Censorship on Campus

A recent post just bumped off of the front page was about Liberty University's restrictive policies. A couple of days ago an anonymous reader sent me a Slashdot article entitled How Free Speech Died on Campus. It links to The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's website, an organization founded by Alan Kors designed to help protect first amendment rights at universities and colleges. The website also contains a database of campuses, listing what 'speech code rating' they have been assigned (red, yellow, or green).

My host institution received a red light. Interesting, because one would believe that the flagship university of Massachusetts would receive a better "free speech" rating. However when looking at other schools, it became apparent that I could not find a single school with a GREEN light. The WSJ suggests that The Fire is really trying to stop is censorship though political correctness. Almost the radical opposite of what is going on at a school like Liberty, in some cases schools are so vague in their guidelines they actually legislate political correctness. (There is of course more to the issue of censorship than that.) At UMASS another problem is that 'conservitive' ideas do not receive as warm of a welcoming by students. I am ashamed that some of my fellow students consider being liberal as some sort of team, rather than a philosophy. Then again I wounder what an individual's definitions of the word 'liberal' would be?

When I spent time at Nazareth College, political correctness and diversity was an issue they really liked to push. Of course, this was really to hide the facade that about eighty percent of the student population was Caucasian. Issues that needed support from groups like FIRE never really arose because of how apolitical the students were; that is just AS scary as schools limiting your first amendment rights.

In an example of campus censorship not provided in the WSJ article, it is illegal in the state of California to criticise the state of Israel on college campuses, within certain vague contexts:

   WHEREAS, The United States Department of State, the United Kingdom'
s All-Party Parliamentary Group Against  Anti-semitism
  Antisemitism  , and the Organization for Security
and Co-operation in Europe have adopted or endorsed the European
Union Agency for Fundamental Rights' working definition of
anti-Semitism, which notes that in context certain language or
behavior demonizes and delegitimizes Israel or attacks Israel with
classic anti-Semitic stereotypes, such as denying the Jewish people
their right to self-determination, applying double standards by
requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other
democratic nation, drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli police
to that of the Nazis, and accusing the Jewish people, or Israel, of
inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust...

During a time when this certain country is engaged in a military conflict, it is illegal to "delegitimize" them. Now what is the definition of THAT word in a legal context? Also, is it not a double standard to make certain inclusions for a certain group of people. Does this mean that it is legal to burn an American flag in protest, but not one from the state of Israel, because it is a delegitimising act? It is easy to see where The Fire is coming from, and what the implications of such campus and state policies could be.

On one hand there are religious schools, and on the other liberal ones that restrict their students on ideological grounds. The religious schools do tend to be more strict, Liberty students claim that their school monitors on-campus Internet usage. I suppose that the real question lies within the domain of political correctness. In that the system that was created to fight intolerance is itself intolerant because it restricts freedom of speech. Which is in strong contrast of a principle of free speech: " I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

Civilization Music

Two things in this world I have soft spots for are the Civilization franchise, and study music. Incidentally the two cross over really well. The Civ series incorporates classical music, and as a result makes great background noise for studying. A few months ago I created a very incomplete Spotify playlist of music from Civilization V and it has picked up a number of subscribers, so maybe it is worth sharing? The fourth game's music is just as worthwhile, and includes Jonh Adam's Shaker Loops.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of in-house music that is missing from this playlist. Field of Poppies is a stand out piece all on its own, as the title suggests, it invokes the imagery of a serene field of poppies waving in the wind. You can't find this music on Spotify, but if you buy the games you can extract them uncompressed no problem. A few years ago I got the game complete with expansions on Steam for $19.99, and it is possible that you can get it for even cheaper now, especially during a sale season. Then all you have to do is go to the music directory, which is located (if you bought the game on Steam, and installed it into the default path) in: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv beyond the sword\Assets\Sounds :

Civilization IV Music Directory

Enjoy!

Coursea To Offer 'Drugs and the Brain' Course

On December first, a free (as always) Drugs and the Brain course will be starting on Coursea. It is being taught by Cal Tech professor, Dr. Henry Lester and lasts for five weeks. It might be a good way to keep your brain fresh over the long winter break. You won't receive any college credit upon completion, but you do receive a certificate stating that you satisfactorily completed the course.

Bees & Bombs

If only this was an animated .gif  (Bridget Riley, Cataract 3)

Bees & Bombs is what happens when Bridget Riley smokes meth and reads Holyloly. Go there now.  Cooljava is also related and is ran by Reed Silverstein (though it could use less indie band albums).

Bypassing Craigslist Phone Verification

As a preface to this post I would like to say that Craiglist's phone verification system is fascinating to me. Phone phreaking is a topic I have a lot of interest in even if it has now more or less become an artifact of the past. I figured it would be interesting to discuss the various ways one can approach the problem, I do not intend any harm by providing any of this information. If you have any other insights into the verification system, please contact me.


If you do not have a valid US number, and you are trying to post on Craigslist... well you're probably reading this now. There are a few avenues you can try to take to get past the verification step, but all of them are probably going to result in you getting a US number somehow. You can not get past verification without providing the code they give you.

My would-be go-to answer, a 711 pre-paid phone won't work... unfortunately. Craigslist does have guidelines, you will need to keep them in mind:

• You may only try to call a phone number once every five minutes.
• You may only enter the code five times.
• You may only try three phone numbers per account every twelve hours.
• You may only receive three calls per account every twelve hours.

Disallowed numbers:

Some phone numbers are not usable for phone verification, including the following:

• phone numbers from outside the U.S. or Canada
• pre-paid mobile numbers
• toll-free numbers (area codes 800, 877)
• some Voice over IP (VOIP) phone numbers (including Cricket, MetroPCS)

About a year ago I tried verification through Skype, and it did not work, so I would not recommend wasting money trying this step unless something has changed since this article was last posted (11/14/12). Getting a 800 number is a hastle in itself anyways. Perhaps a mailbox on a non-800 number phone system would work though. Maybe getting the verification to dial in to a conference call? Once again if you know anything about this, email me from one of the links above.

A method which used to work was using Virgin mobile phones, because you could change your number online for free. They now charge $10 each time you want to do this. However if you post on Craiglist often this could be worthwhile to you as it is likely that making multiple posts within 48 hours of each other will end up with your ad not getting published, even if they tell you otherwise. Services like Textplus has been suggested to me in the past but I have never used it. Use at your own discretion, for all I know it's a terrible virus that texts all the pictures on your phone to the "Mom" contact in your phonebook.

If you do have a problem with your ad not showing up, you can try calling Craigslist here:

Phone: 415-566-6394 
Phone: (408) 988-6395
FAX: 415-504-6394 
Toll Free: 800-664-0633

...however it will be impossible to get in touch with a human.

Another simple option is to ask your American friend to register using their phone, after all most people still have landlines laying around anyways. Alternatively there are suppliers out there that will try to sell you verified numbers. I would recommends against this as Craigslist now has you reverify your number repeatedly if need be. This method also counters the Virgin Mobile method as well. If you are still interested in purchasing a number, you can try googling "PVA accounts". Ironically, asking an American is probably your best bet. If you live near a pay phone that still exists, you could try getting the verification code through it too.

Let me know if ANYTHING here was helpful at all.