Mediaboss Marketing

This interview with Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi took place a few days after the November election. There was a question of whether Farhadi would be able to attend the Oscars ceremony due to President Trump's temporary ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, but on Sunday, Farhadi told the New York Timeshe will not attend the ceremony, even if exceptions are made. His full statement is here. Before Farhadi made his statement, an Academy spokesperson responded in this statement:

"The Academy celebrates achievement in the art of filmmaking, which seeks to transcend borders and speak to audiences around the world, regardless of national, ethnic, or religious differences. As supporters of filmmakersand the human rights of all peoplearound the globe, we find it extremely troublingthat Asghar Farhadi, the director of the Oscar-winning film from IranA Separation, alongwith the cast and crew of this year's Oscar-nominated filmThe Salesman,couldbe barred from entering the country because of their religion or country of origin."

Iranian filmmaker Asghar Fahardi is no stranger to American audiences and Academy Award voters.

He wrote and directed the 2011 movie, A Separation, which won the foreign language Oscar. And his new movie, The Salesman, was just nominated in the same category for this years awards.

The main characters in his new movie include a theater troupe that's mounting an Iranian production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." The story also includes the sexual assault of the lead female character, named Rana. The Frame's John Horn spoke with Farhadi several weeks ago in Los Angeles, just days after the U.S. presidential election. Farhadi speaks English but is much more conversant in Farsi so his answers were translated by Dorna Khazeni.

The most important section of "Death of a Salesman," the one that had the strongest impact on me, was precisely the scenes you're referring to about his relationship to New York City. In the same way that New York at that time was undergoing change, Tehran too is undergoing this very rapid change. In the story, Willy Loman, who can't make his piece with the rapid rate of change is getting left behind. What's true of Tehran today is that the roots are not being modernized. It's only the appearances that are being modernized. A lot of modern building have been made, so much so that when a person comes to Tehran for the first time someone from abroad they're shocked at the appearance. But the actual tradition and the inside of people hasn't changed, and there's a discrepancy there between those two things.

The people of Iran have a great deal of information about the people of America. As opposed to the people of America, who know very little about the people of Iran. I had to spend a few hours at the airport in Tehran [recently] and I was watching people at the airport. And I realized that they were all intently watching all the TV monitors and they were all looking at their mobiles, following the election news from America. This is actually a very positive curiosity, to want to know one another. But not through the media. In Iran, Arthur Miller is extremely well-known. Other American writers and playwrights are extremely well-known, as are American filmmakers. Maybe one reason for this is, since the politicians are warring with each other, the people have on the contrary tried to find a way of approaching each other.

What has occurred the phenomena is that the picture they have of Iran has to do with Iranian politics, and they impose that on the notion of the people of Iran. But these are two very different images. The people are utterly different. It is my belief that each film has the capacity to show a small section of the society in which it's made to the rest of the world. Of course this is a relative picture of that society. But with a number of films, you can arrive at a multidimensional, fuller picture of that society.

A certain number of commercial films get made that are just for pure entertainment. They rarely have problems. There are a number of independent films that are made as well. Some of them meet with some difficulties. This is a challenge between the filmmakers, vis-a-vis the system, to make the film that they have in mind in spite of the limitations. These very limitations have resulted in the filmmakers developing a very unique language over the years that stands out compared to films made elsewhere. Just by way of example, in [my] film, I could not have shown the scene with Rana in the shower and the man entering. But, unconsciously, by virtue of not being able to show that scene, it turned into my discovering a new film language. This is not meant as approbation of the limitations. In the long-term, limitations are always going to destroy creativity. But we can't deny that it has also led to some original filmmaking.

This story has been updated.

See the original post:
The Frame | 'Salesman' director says working around Iran's ... - KPCC - 89.3 KPCC

St. Louis-area artist Fabio Rodriguez was devastated when a very personal piece of his work was removed from an exhibition. But did that action rise to the level of censorship?

The idea of reacting to public outcry against a work of art captured the conversation in St. Louis last fall after community advocates demanded that the Contemporary Art Museum remove a Kelley Walker exhibition.Since then, two Washington, D.C. incidents with local connections have kept a spotlight on the subject. One involved an historical painting, the other, the work of a teenager artist.

In our latest Cut & Paste podcast, we explore issues of censorship with Rodriguez and Washington University art history professor Angela Miller.

Willis Ryder Arnold and Nancy Fowler talk with St. Louis artist Fabio Rodriguez and Washington University art professor Angela Miller about what censorship is and how it affects artists' work.

Heres some of what youll hear in the podcast:

Look for new Cut & Paste (#cutpastestl) podcasts every few weeks on our website. You can also view all previous podcasts focusing on a diverse collection of visual and performing artists, and subscribe to Cut & Pastethrough this link.

Follow Willis and Nancy on Twitter: @WillisRArnold and @NancyFowlerSTL

Please help St. Louis Public Radio find artists to feature on Cut & Paste.Tell us which artists and cultural themes deserve a closer look.

Link:
Cut & Paste: What constitutes censorship in art and how it affects artists and the community - KBIA

Censorship Is Free Speech? It Must Be the Class of 1984 Wall Street Journal Higher education's suppression of speech is well-publicized. But in an odder and less well-known twist, campuses are increasingly co-opting the language of free speech and using it to justify censorship. One example: The designated free speech zones ...

Read this article:
Censorship Is Free Speech? It Must Be the Class of 1984 - Wall Street Journal

Turns out, a hell of a lot can happen over the course of 24 hours.

Early Monday morning, the US Department of Agriculture sent out an email to staff members at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS)the agencys primary in-house research arminforming the nearly 3,000 employees that they were henceforth barred from relaying information to the public.

The department-wide emailwhich was first reported by BuzzFeed Newsand laterby many other outlets includingThe Washington Post,The Independent,Mother Jones, andScientific Americanread as follows: Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents.This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content.

It seemed the new mandate explicitly banned a taxpayer-funded federal agency from publicly disclosing information regarding projects and data that were directly funded by that very same public. That is, until 24 hours later when the USDA called the move a misunderstanding and walked away from the policy, stating it is hereby rescinded.

Although its to be expected that an incoming administration will seek to minimize or eliminate the amount of public information executive departments release that pertains to politically charged policiesespecially those enacted by the outgoing administrationraw scientific data and verifiable fact have never been barred from being disseminated to the public. In fact, Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Scientific American, The USDA scientific integrity policy states that political appointees or any other employees cannot interfere with dissemination of scientific research results. This includes not just scientific publications, but also other ways of communicating with the public that are more accessible and have a broader reach.

Whats going on here? Is a hold on information coming out of an executive agency standard operating procedure during a presidential transition periodor is this a gag on scientific discourse?

The USDA most certainly isnt the only agency to face newfound and wholly startling scrutiny and censorship. The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Bureau of Indian Affairs, and others have all been given a mandate of silence, censorship, and political oversight to varying degrees.

MUNCHIES reached out to a number of food policy experts to find out what they made of this turn of eventsand what the USDAs flip flop means about the access the American public and the scientific community worldwide will have to federal governmental research regarding food and agriculture.

But first, we asked the USDA for a final word on where they stood. A spokesperson from the Agency told us, On Jan. 23, USDA issued interim operating guidelines outlining procedures to ensure the new policy team has an opportunity to review policy-related statements, legislation, budgets and regulations prior to issuance. This guidance, similar to procedures issued by previous administrations, was misinterpreted by some to cover data and scientific publications. This was never the case; those data and scientific publications are not covered by the interim operating procedures.

But most of the experts we spoke to arent convinced that the agencys behavior under Trumps governance is just business as usual.

Although several pointed out that a temporary halt in communicationsespecially policy-driven reportsis par for the course when there is a turn over from one president to another, they see something different at work here. Carolyn Dimitri, director of the Food Studies PhD Program at New York University and a former employee at the USDA Agricultural Research Service, told MUNCHIES: I think this is standard operating practice for a change in administration, although I have never heard such a loud public proclamation reading clearance of publications (but it is in keeping with the blustery tone of this administration).

Dimitri added that the real question remains: How will Sunny Perdue, Trumps pick as Ag Secretary, proceed, if he is confirmed? The bigger question is how much influence the new secretary will have on what is published in the future, Dimitri said. The former governor of Georgia has historically pushed for looser regulations in agribusiness, fought against the enforcement of environmental initiatives, and expressed skepticism toward climate change. (He once wrote in theNational Review thatliberals have lost all credibility when it comes to climate science because their arguments have become so ridiculous and so obviously disconnected from reality.)

Marion Nestle, food policy expert and Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at NYU, agrees. She told MUNCHIES, My understanding is that this is standard practice during a change in administration, although this particular edict seems to have been announced in a particularly crude way, now overturned. What remains to be seen is what happens next.

Other experts were far more inflamed by the USDAs announcement and retraction. Michael F. Jacobson, Executive Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, wrote: It is an outrage. Given this administrations apparent penchant for alternative facts, it is not unreasonable to expect that these gag orders will be followed up by alternative science. This is an attack on science. It is an attack on the publics right to know. And most of all a test of congressional leadership. Who in the leadership is willing to tell the new Administration that this is not how government serves the public?

Amy Bentley, another professor at NYUs Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health, also sees the USDAs recent statements as a threat: My reaction is that it is the new administrations attempting to prevent career staff scientists or researchers from releasing information that contradicts their political goals.

Bentley is concerned that the Trump administration is intent on furthering the interests of Big Ag and putting the damper on research on organics, for example. She acknowledges that during a presidential transition, regrouping of federal agencies, but this, she says, feels ominous and qualitatively different.

But now that the USDA has stepped back from its initial statement, shouldnt we all just chill? Bill Freese, a science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, says that he is not reassured by the USDAs attempt to walk back the Sharon Drumm memo: This administrations contempt for science is unprecedented, as seen in the appointment of climate change denialists to head USDA (Sonny Perdue) and EPA (Scott Pruitt), and reports that it ordered EPA to take down its climate change webpage. The Trump administration needs to understand that the American public will not stand for suppression of science.

Some experts pointed to Trumps behavior during his campaign and said it left them uneasy about the future of scientific research under this administration, thereby coloring their reaction to the USDA statements.

Eric Holt-Gimnez, the executive director of Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy, told MUNCHIES that we should remember that this research is paid for with tax dollars, and thus should be conducted for the interests of the public: This is a step backwards in transparency for work thats done with public dollars. These are our civil servantswe, the public, pays for this research. Modern democracy depends on the transparency of civil servants, and the advancement of science depends upon open and informed debate. These heavy-handed actions by the Trump administration must be vigorously opposed.

But how would the curtailing of information out of the ARS and the USDA affect American families? Wenonah Hauter, executive director at Food & Water Watch, said, Prohibiting USDA from releasing factual information about the work that it does will undermine public confidence in our government, and unnecessarily limit what people know about the food they feed their families.

Whether the USDAs recent announcements were merely business as usual or an ominous signal of things to come, every food policy expert we reached out to would likely agree with Ann Thrupp, executive director of the Berkeley Food Institute, who told us: It is clear that there is a fair amount of confusion regarding the intent of the memo. We do know, however, that the USDAs responsibility is to release high-quality, unbiased, peer-reviewed research for the public benefit. We, along with many others in the research community, will be watching to ensure that data regarding critical issues like climate change and environmental sustainability is not suppressed.

Now all we can do is wait and see.

See more here:
What Would Censorship of the USDA Mean for America? - Munchies_ Food by VICE

Who is in charge of the executive branch of government?

That's the only question you need to answer in order to understand the controversy over President Trump ordering certain federal agencies' Twitter accounts to stop making pronouncements in the government's name. Presumably, this restriction will last only until the agencies' new directors and secretaries are in place. Or maybe not. (Frankly, very few government social media accounts are probably worth the cost of running them, but that's for another day.)

Earlier today, the Badlands National Park's official Twitter feed sent out four tweets about climate change. They were subsequently deleted.

We can argue all day over whether this has anything to do with the Park Service's mission, or its mission at that particular park (it doesn't), but this was pretty obviously an effort to test the limits of the person who ultimately controls that account as of Friday. The Constitution tells us who that is:

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

The Park Service is an executive branch agency. It has no pretense to independence from the president's authority. And in fact, our constitutional system depends on such agencies obeying the competent authority. They don't get to have a life of their own outside of what the Congress permits and the president demands. Elected officials make these decisions this is what democracy looks like.

This account is a lot like the Twitter account of any other business or organization. It exists in order to disseminate the policy message of the organization and its rightful leadership in this case, Trump Forest Service. It's not for employees to use to disseminate their own messages. As the libertarian @Popehat blog's Twitter feed eloquently put it:

Also from the Washington Examiner

"Turns out you're just like all the rest selfish and spineless."

01/26/17 11:13 PM

And the answer to that is no, in case you were wondering.

Top Story

A month into 2017 and Republicans haven't repealed Obamacare and Koskinen still has his job.

01/26/17 5:01 PM

Read the original here:
Is Trump 'censoring' federal agency accounts? - Washington Examiner (blog)