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ByMichael Hurley, CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) The Pro Football Hall of Fame has entered the Boston sports discussion this week. With Vince Wilfork and Richard Seymour making the list of 26 modern-era semifinalists, and with Rodney Harrisonnotmaking that list, opinions have been plentiful regarding the worthiness of the three former Patriots.

Naturally, given his profound knowledge and appreciation for the history of the NFL, as well as his personal experience coaching those players, Bill Belichick was asked to chime in on the matter during his media availability on Friday morning. Specifically, the coach was asked about Seymour and Wilfork, and whether players at positions where statistics arent readily available to show their impact deserve more recognition.

Before answering that question specifically, Belichick expressed his issue with Hall of Fame debates and discussions.

As Ive said before, the Hall of Fame is out of my control. And since theres no criteria for the Hall of Fame, its really hard to even have a conversation about it, because theres no were not basing it on anything, Belichick said. Its your opinion of a great player, my opinion of a great player, somebody elses opinion of a great player. Like, I dont know what that means. You know, is it how many years they played, is it how many All-Pros they had, is it how many championships they won, is it individual stats, is it team? You know, you can make it whatever you want to make it.

Belichick continued: So theres no criteria. You can make a case for everybody. And ultimately, the voters have to decide what theyre going to weigh.

With that minor grievance out of the way, Belichick then did lob Hall of Fame platitudes for both Wilfork and Seymour.

But for me, those are the two best defensive linemen that Ive coached, Belichick said of Wilfork and Seymour. Vince was a phenomenal player, and he was quite different from Richard. Richard was a phenomenal player and quite different from Vince. But both very dominant in their own way, and kind of in their own position. Even though Richard played nose his rookie year, and Vince played end his rookie year, you know, Vince is really an inside player and Richard is really a three to a five-technique.

Belichick continued: Richards almost impossible to match up against. But in a way, Vince is almost impossible to block in the running game. And in the passing game, theres some guys that would match up against him, but his overall strength and athleticism for his size was pretty impressive. And because we had players like Seymour, there was less of a need to use Vince on third down although, we used him on third down, and he had some huge plays on third down, like in the AFC Championship Game against Baltimore. I mean, he really won that game with his fourth quarter pass rush on [Joe] Flacco up the middle of the pocket.

Belichick stated without a doubt that both Seymour and Wilfork are inhishall of fame. He just cant say whether or not that will transfer over to the real Hall of Fame in Canton.

In my hall of fame, those two guys are there without a doubt. But when you start comparing apples and oranges and Vinces style of play compared to guy like John Randle or somebody like that, theyre just completely different players. And which ones what and who do you like, I mean, thats I think with no criteria at all to work with really at any position for any player, its just what flavor you prefer, and what flavor somebody else prefers. Thats really what it comes down to, so I dont know When youre asking about judging somebody for the Hall of Fame, its hard. I cant really make a say on that. I just think that its so much of a personal perspective from the voters.

All of that being said Belichick made sure to state his belief that Rodney Harrison belongs in the Hall of Fame.

The only thing I would add to that would be relative to those two players to Vince and Richard Seymour I think that Rodney Harrison 100 percent [belongs] in that conversation, Belichick said. And Ive coached some of the other safeties that have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame, and not take anything away from them, but certainly, Rodney Harrison belongs in that he belongs in that conversation. And he certainly belongs in the conversation with other players that are already there.

Belichick concluded his three and a half minute Hall of Fame mini-speech succinctly: But again, all thats out of my control. And Ill focus here on the Titans.

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Bill Belichick Has Some Thoughts About The Hall Of Fame Process, Richard Seymour, Vince Wilfork And Rodney Harrison - CBS Boston

by: Cris Belle, Nexstar Media Wire

(WJW) Thanksgiving week is upon us, and its time to dig out the old recipes once again.

However, before you carry on old traditions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says you might want to re-think how you prep your turkey.

The CDC says not to wash or rinse raw turkey since its juices can spread in the kitchen and contaminate other foods, utensils and countertops.

A 2020 survey found that 78 percent of participants reported washing or rinsing turkey before cooking, the CDC said, but old recipes and family cooking traditions can make you and your family sick.

Here are a few other turkey-prepping reminders from the CDC:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that if youre serving a 20-plus-pound turkey, itll need days to thaw in the refrigerator one day for each four to five pounds of weight.

According to the USDA, thawing the turkey in the fridge is the safest method because the turkey will thaw at a consistent, safe temperature.

Get breaking news, weather, and sports delivered to your smartphone with the WFXR News app available on Apple and Android.

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What CDC says not to do before cooking your Thanksgiving turkey - WFXRtv.com

Social medias business model of personalized virality is incompatible with democracy, agreed experts ata recent Harvard Law Schooldiscussionon the state of democracy. Social media doesnt merely threaten democracy in the future, they said, but may have already done considerable damage. As ethicist Tristan Harris argued during the online event, You have to appeal to the [Facebook] algorithm to get elected; you have to appeal to the algorithm to get attention. The algorithm has primacy over media, over news, over newspaper publishers, over each of us, and it controls what we do.

The panel, Social Media and Democracy, was the third session of the Harvard Law lecture series, Democracy. In his opening remarks, Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig noted how profoundly the climate has changed since the optimistic early days of the internet. When I was at Stanford [in 2009], if wed had a panel about the internet and democracy, it would have been an unambiguous celebration about the potential the internet was producing. The first internet president had been elected, and many people attributed the opportunity to motivate and rally people to the potential of the technology. Its hard to recover that sense of unambiguous good.

Google and Facebook have more power over the information ecosystem than any institution since the pre-Reformation Catholic Church. Their algorithms and their content moderation policies are taking the form of law.

Stanford Law School Professor Nate Persily, co-editor of Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field, Prospects for Reform

Stanford Law School Professor Nate Persily argued that social media (particularly Facebook and Google) has fostered a more toxic political dialogue that has infected politics at large, accelerating polarization and the decline of legacy media.

A political communication system that privileges virality [also] privileges certain kinds of candidacies, strategies and communication those that appeal to outrage and emotion, he said, adding that the anonymity of online communication has encouraged hate speech, while Facebook groups and similar venues have stoked conspiracy theories. Meanwhile the lack of national control or regulation of social media has not only allowed Russian agents to influence U.S. elections, but has given unprecedented power to two companies.

Google and Facebook are different to any media companies that pre-existed them, he said. They have more power over the information ecosystem than any institution since the pre-Reformation Catholic Church. Their algorithms and their content moderation policies are taking the form of law.

He said that virality the ability of any real or false information to spread quickly is ironically both the most democratic feature of social media, and its biggest threat to democracy. Weve eliminated the monopoly of the three white guys who determine whats news at 5 p.m. every day. Yet this standardized news has often been replaced by disinformation and hate speech. I think the genie is out of the bottle there, and thats why weve turned to the rules Facebook and Google have to apply because governments arent really stepping up.

Tristan Harris organization, the Center for Humane Technology, was recently featured on Netflixs The Social Dilemma, and he invoked that shows characterizing of social media as simultaneous utopia and dystopia. Yet he argued that the dystopian threats can outweigh the benefits. We have an incompatibility with social medias business model of personalized virality and democracy. Specifically, he decried the intersection of godlike technology and free speech. Were talking about free speech when we have a trillion-dollar market cap AI pointed at your brain, designed to find the next perfect boogeyman to light up your nervous system. That is not the same thing as what we used to call free speech when we were hanging out on the town square.

(Social Media) cant not polarize the population. No matter where you stand if masks are your thing, or vaccines, or critical race theory it doubles down on your perspective or reminds you why the other side is wrong.

Tristan Harris, co-founder and president of the Center for Humane Technology

Social media, he said, erodes both education and social solidarity. [It] cant not polarize the population. No matter where you stand if masks are your thing, or vaccines, or critical race theory it doubles down on your perspective or reminds you why the other side is wrong. These extremes will in turn get adopted by political campaigns.

As a concrete example, he cited Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, whose recent testimony that Facebook was amplifying hate speech and misinformation for its own gain initially met with bipartisan support. There was a particular Republican senator who never comes down positively on these issues, and I saw him come down very positively. Frances was invited to meet with that senator. Then a story went viral and you know what it said? That she was a fake whistleblower, she was a Democratic plant, she was funded by a billionaire and that this is all a setup by the government to control and silence her free speech. Now, why would that story go viral? Because its an incendiary topic. The senator then called off the meeting because the story had inflamed his base.

Thus, he said, politicians as well as political commentators now tailor their speech according to what will get shared. If [the algorithm] is rewarding the worst instincts of our nature, and the most divisive fault line in society, and you run society through that for ten years, it is no surprise that you dont just get a broken fragmented society, but one that cannot make democratic decisions in the face of more crises. This, in turn, fuels the drive toward authoritarianism.

Though Lessig invited him to offer rebuttal, Columbia Law School Professor Jamal Greene, a co-chair of Facebooks oversight board, said he concurred with most of Harris points. But he outlined the particular challenges faced by the board, which hears appeals to content moderation decisions and makes policy recommendations to the company. Misinformation, he noted, is a tough thing to define, much less stamp out. We like to be able to express ourselves, often in ways that an algorithm would catch as misinformation. Designing systems that reliably take down misinformation is not the same as [for example], designing systems that reliably take down human nipples. The spread of misinformation of social media is symptomatic of a larger problem that extends to cable news and lots of other places.

Theres lots of good reasons not to trust social media companies to police misinformation; theres lots of reasons not to trust governments [either], Greene said. Building out trusted institutions that are able to do that is the challenge.

One of the audience questions came from former Facebook Vice President Elliot Schrage 86, who asked how the panelists would modify applications of the First Amendment as applied to public forums.Replied Persily, I would chip away at Citizens United in terms of the rights of these social media monopolies. I worry that lots of regulations that I would propose could be seen as violating those corporations First Amendment rights, and thats where I would change things. Countered Greene, Im not sure how much First Amendment law needs to change. If I were pushed on this question, I would encourage more context sensitivity when it comes to the First Amendment, so we care as much about what the government is trying to accomplish as about whose individual rights are challenged.

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'The algorithm has primacy over media ... over each of us, and it controls what we do' - Harvard Law Today - Harvard Law School News

In recent years it has become more and more apparent that a large section of our newspapers and media are controlled by a very small collection of wealthy elites. A recent report by the media reform coalition reveals that just three companies (News UK, Daily Mail Group and Reach) dominate 90% of the national newspaper market. This concentrates the power and influence of the media into very few hands.

With this modern age of easily accessible online media and rapidly-spreading stories, control over the media brings huge political power. Since most of these media outlets are controlled by billionaires, we can see the spreading of their own ideologies and beliefs in a way that will benefit them and push forward their own political agenda. Essentially, and scarily, they can mould the views of voters to their own will.

This was seen in the 2019 general election, when tabloids like The Sun and The Daily Mail launched frequent attacks on Jeremy Corbyn. A Sun article from the 8th December 2019 opened by claiming that this Friday the 13th could be the darkest day in British peacetime history if Jeremy Corbyn is ushered into No10. This right-wing bias is rife among the media, with billionaire Rupert Murdoch owning the global media business News Corp that also owns The Sun. Murdochs attempts to prevent a left-wing government in the UK are clearly done in his own interest. Corbyns proposed policies involved redistributive taxation policies which would have hit the pockets of Murdoch (who now has a net worth of 23.5 billion dollars).

The Sun claims to stand for ordinary working people, yet its output of stories uphold the position of billionaires like Murdoch. There is very little representation of the interests of working-class people in our corporate, money-making media. It is wrong for such extreme political power to be vested into the hands of billionaires purely because of their wealth money should not bring this much political influence. Control should be put into the hands of the majority and not just granted to those with wealth.

A solution posed to this issue of billionaire control over media is the idea of collective community ownership. In this model, ordinary working people would be able to have influence in what is being written and would be able to have their views and their experiences accurately portrayed. The working class would then be able to read perspectives that consider them rather than those that only suit the ideologies of the one percent.

Another necessary change required to reform media is to bring local journalism back into public control. Over recent years control of local newspapers and radio stations has increasingly been taken away from the local community and put into the hands of large corporations just 6 companies now account for nearly 84% of the titles in UK local news. How are large corporations who dont even understand or care about the areas that they are reporting for able to create representative journalism?

The issue of billionaires controlling what information is spread extends past our traditional perceptions of media. Looking beyond newspapers, radio, and TV we can begin to see that social media also fits into this pattern of elitist control. Owned by Mark Zuckerberg, who according to Forbes has a net worth of 116.1 billion US dollars, Facebook controls 3 of the top 5 social media services used to access online news in the UK. With the huge and growing influence of social media, it is especially dangerous that this much power is placed into the hands of one individual.

Zuckerberg is free to control what information people can view on his platforms which brings into question the ethics of one individual being able to place this much control over what people access. What we view on social media can be hugely influential and can often lead to misinformation or presentation of just a single side to the story.

Concentrated ownership is an increasing issue on both a local and global level. This can hugely influence policy decisions and election results so that they favour a tiny group of elites rather than most of the population. It is truly unethical that ordinary people should have so little say in how journalism is conducted. Free, fair, and inclusive media, which relies upon the collective participation of ordinary people, is necessary now more than ever.

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Opinion: The elitist control over UK media - The Mancunion

Hillsborough County, Fla. (Nov. 18, 2021) - Hillsborough County Fleet Management has been named the top government fleet in the country, and Fleet Management Director Robert Stine the top fleet management director.

The honors were announced Tuesday, Nov. 16 at the Government Fleet Expo and Conference in Orlando. Fleets were judged on leadership with staff, customers, and within the community; efficiency; overcoming challenges; and having a vision and direction for the operation. Hillsborough County was named the No. 1 large fleet in the country for governments with 1,000 or more assets, and received the overall top honor for all government fleets regardless of size.

Stine was named the 2021 Public Sector Fleet Manager of the Year. Judges reviewed each candidate in 10 categories: business plan, technology implementation, productivity, policies, preventive maintenance program, utilization management, replacement program, customer service, fuel management, and safety.

The awards are a recognition of the collective efforts of the Fleet Management employees who provide an invaluable public service of keeping County services for more than 1.4 million residents moving.

Hillsborough County Fleet Management oversees more than 3,300 vehicles and equipment items valued at about $145 million for more than 30 County departments, along with other agencies and constitutional offices. Vehicles range from general purpose on-the-road vehicles to special-purpose construction vehicles, boats, trailers, buses, fire apparatus and more. Fleet Management is responsible for the vehicles' maintenance and replacement as well as managing fuel consumption and delivery and setting policies for vehicle use.

Among the department practices that led to the award: fleet maintenance programs that extended the life of vehicles; supporting energy conservation efforts; professional staff and technicians with advanced certifications; creation of an emergency management plan that provides for loss of refueling capabilities and alternate shop facilities; an inventory management program that saves money and time; continuous staff training; and an emphasis on customer input. The department continued to provide outstanding customer service during the pandemic while ensuring employee safety by using a hybrid work model of on-site, selective teleworking operations and modifying vehicles as needed with items such as air purification systems or Plexiglas barriers.

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Hillsborough County Fleet Management and Director Recognized as Best in Nation - Hillsborough County