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As a sex worker and adult film actor, Roc was relieved when he was among the first Spaniards to get a monkeypox vaccine. He knew of several cases among men who have sex with men, which is the leading demographic for the disease, and feared he could be next.
"I went home and thought, 'Phew, my God, I'm saved,'" the 29-year-old told The Associated Press.
But it was already too late. Roc, the name he uses for work, had been infected by a client a few days before. He joined Spain's steadily increasing count of monkeypox infections that has become the highest in Europe since the disease spread beyond Africa where it has been endemic for years.
He began showing symptoms: pustules, fever, conjunctivitis and tiredness. Roc was hospitalized for treatment before getting well enough to be released.
Spanish health authorities and community groups are struggling to check an outbreak that has already claimed the lives of two young men. They reportedly died of encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, that can be caused by some viruses. Most monkeypox cases cause only mild symptoms.
Spain has had 4,577 confirmed cases in the three months since the start of the outbreak, which has been linked to two raves in Europe, where experts say the virus was likely spread through sex.
The only country with more infections than Spain is the much larger United States, which has reported 7,100 cases.
In all, the global monkeypox outbreak has seen more than 26,000 cases in nearly 90 countries since May. There have been 103 suspected deaths in Africa, mostly in Nigeria and Congo, where a more lethal form of monkeypox is spreading than in the West.
Health experts stress that this is not technically a sexually transmitted disease, even though it has been mainly spreading via sex among gay and bisexual men, who account for 98% of cases beyond Africa. The virus can be spread to anyone who has close, physical contact with an infected person, their clothing or bedsheets.
So part of the complexity of fighting monkeypox is striking a balance between not stigmatizing men who have sex with men while also ensuring that both vaccines and pleas for greater caution reach those currently in the greatest danger.
Spain has distributed 5,000 shots of the two-shot vaccine to health clinics and expects to receive 7,000 more from the EU in the coming days, its health ministry said.
To ensure that those shots get administered wisely, community groups and sexual health associations targeting gay men, bisexuals and transgender women are taking the lead.
In Barcelona, BCN Checkpoint, which focuses on AIDS/HIV prevention in gay and trans communities, is now contacting at-risk people to offer them one of the precious vaccines.
Pep Coll, medical director of BCN Checkpoint, said the vaccine rollout is focused on people who are already at risk of contracting HIV and are on preemptive treatment, men with a high number of sexual partners and those who participate in "chemsex" (sex with the use of drugs), as well as people with suppressed immune responses.
But there are many more people who fit those categories than doses.
"If we just consider the number of people (on prophylactic HIV treatment) plus the number of people with HIV, we are talking about some 15,000 people (just in Barcelona)," Coll said.
The lack of vaccines, which is far more severe in Africa than in Europe and the U.S., makes social public health policies key, experts say.
As with the coronavirus pandemic, contact tracing to identify people who could have been infected is critical. But, while COVID-19 could spread to anyone simply through the air, the close bodily contact that serves as the leading vehicle for monkeypox makes some people hesitant to share information.
"We are having a steady stream of new cases, and it is possible that we will have more deaths. Why? Because contact tracing is very complicated because it can be a very sensitive issue for someone to identify their sexual partners," said Amós García, epidemiologist and president of the Spanish Association of Vaccinology.
Spain says that most of its cases are among men who have sex with men and only 5% are women. But García insisted that will even out unless the entire public, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, grasps that having various sexual partners creates greater risk.
"The same thing happened with AIDS/HIV, when at one moment the group of men who had sex with men was the most affected (before spreading to other groups), and that can become the path that this takes if we are not able to send a strong message to society," García said.
Given the dearth of vaccines and the trouble with contact tracing, more pressure is being put on encouraging prevention.
From the start, government officials ceded the leading role in the get-out-the-word campaign to community groups.
Sebastian Meyer, president of the STOP SIDA association dedicated to AIDS/HIV care in Barcelona's LGBTQ community, said the logic was that his group and others like it would be trusted message-bearers with person-by-person knowledge of how to drive the health warning home.
While community associations that represent gay and bisexual men have bombarded social media, websites and blogs with information on monkeypox safety, Meyer says there is still a lot to be done.
Meyer, who is on the monkeypox advisory boards for both Spain's national government and for regional authorities covering Barcelona, believes fatigue from the COVID-19 pandemic has played a part. Doctors advise people with monkeypox lesions to isolate until they have fully healed, which can take up to three weeks.
"When people read that they must self-isolate, they close the webpage and forget what they have read," Meyer said. "We are just coming out of COVID, when you couldn't do this or that, and now, here we go again … People just hate it and put their heads in the sand."
Meyer said that his group is currently brainstorming ways to revamp and relaunch their message.
"If you haven't been selected for a vaccine, the answer is not to desperately hope that you'll get one," he said. "The answer is to be more careful. That is much better than any vaccine."
Credit : Associated Press (AP) | Photo Credit : (AP)


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Heading Somewhere
While accolades are going Anthony Chen's and Ilo Ilo's way, there's another award winning film that's just been released and screening at The Arts House under its Frame X Frame banner. Producer-Director-Writer Wong Chen-hsi received Best Director at the Asian New Talent Award at last year's Shanghai International Film Festival, and like Ilo Ilo, the film finally found its way home from the overseas festival circuit, for local audiences to savour and celebrate its acclaimed success with our homegrown talent.
But unlike Ilo Ilo's context and story, which is by far the more accessible and powerful one, Innocents turned out to be a rather abstract affair, dealing with loneliness and the ostracizing of children who by chance, found their way to each other's company despite early animosity and difference, to fiercely forge a firm friendship between them cemented by a secret shared, which like all good things, rarely last. But therein lies the issue with Innocents because it didn't really allow for a genuine audience connection with the children involved, accompanying them in their growing pains, and this made it easy to turn off especially when scenes seemed to be over-indulging in its capture of beautiful green scenery, and other carefully composed shots.
The opening shot with its widescreen aspect ratio presentation throughout, is set to wow with its first impressions, and the technical details were nothing less than top notch. Images were engineered to be postcard picturesque especially when it had to do with the wide outdoors of natural forest and foliage, cut through by railway track (now defunct) and concrete monsoon drain, all of which serve as the truancy playground for the primary schoolchildren of Syafiqah (Nameera Ashley) and Huat (Cai Chengyue). Which seemed to go on almost forever for half the film, while at the same time peppering the narrative with suggestions of their troubled backgrounds. Their new found landscapes, hidden from the adult world that didn't seem to understand them, provide temporal relief and an avenue where they can just be kids, playing with water, catching fish, and hiking, but somehow the narrative started to languish, until the midpoint of a discovery that teased, but frankly didn't get developed.
It was a little bit peculiar that the context, time and places can't be deliberately pin-pointed in the film. It can only be assumed it's set in Singapore (although frankly it could be anywhere in and around Malaysia for a shot of a KTM map) - the only giveaway was the old currency used - with its kampung house complete with leaky rooftops, contrasted with high rise HDB flats. But other issues like the way buses operate, threw this assumption off track from time to time. And to work around its budget, an excellent sound design by Vincent Tang compensated for the visuals, or lack thereof, for instance, cueing us that it's a full fledged, busy school, when what can be mustered for the screen showed otherwise. Cinematographer Joseph White also had a hand in making the film look gorgeous for the most parts, but once you're past all the technical brilliance, you're left on your own to seek out that soul which was conspicuously absent.
For a while, the story felt like My Neighbour Totoro done live-action style in some parts, with the kids going off playing in a little wonderworld of greenery, oblivious to time and space, and even had to depend on a private bus as transportation to and from locations. But it is not all fun and games as the story starkly contrasted some unreal situations, at least when seen today, where teachers can no longer be tyrants and hold the final word in class. It's yet another clue this may have been set in yesteryear, as any educator can attest to the losing of jobs should anyone raise hell the way the teacher did as portrayed in this film. And the story wastes no time in demonizing most of the adults save for one science teacher, while most of the male students got shoe-boxed as bullies who make life difficult for Huat.
One hardly gets a Malay girl in a local film as a leading protagonist (the last film that did that was perhaps Marc X Grigoroff's Salawati back in 2008), and here, Nameera Ashley provides a doe-eyed, smart lass portrayal in her Syafiqah, undoubtedly the dutiful good student who knows her stuff, and doesn't stand for any nonsense from anyone. And Cai Chengyue plays her opposite number as the unkempt boy who persistently comes to class late, which makes his teacher constantly tear her hair out, and exasperated by his couldn't-care-less attitude. One's a newly transfered student, while the other is the resident troubled boy, and it's no sooner that both find some common ground and connection to each other.
However, it is their scenes together where they say nothing at all, except to let their actions do the talking, that worked. Otherwise what made this movie seem a little bit artificial, is the quality of the dialogues, which contain too much polish that you would not expect to have come out from children. Not to diss them as incapable of doing so, but the sentences that came out of both children, seemed to be nothing more than elaborate mouthpieces for the storyteller, with the kids seemingly spouting lines that were comfortable for a stage play, but being really out of place and awkward for something on film. The intent may be to show that the kids were more mature in their thinking and actions when it came to the big picture, while the adults were petty and unreasonable, but it's a pity that this didn't get naturally coaxed out from the performers, making scenes look too engineered, rote, and lifeless.
Innocents may be a visual feast, but it isn't something that's already not seen before in a local film, with similar prominent landscapes already covered in quite detail through an early film in Liao Jiekai's Red Dragonflies. Narratively it didn't manage to cement emotional depths for connection with its leading characters, and the story sort of gave way toward its final third when left to the devices of a solo character to lead the charge. If it was more direct and bold with its intent, rather than to leave it as an open end, then perhaps it would have provided the film with that edge it sorely needed. Still, it's an A for technical effort, if only it had a story with a stronger emotional core to back it up. Singapore's top supporting actor Lim Poh Huat is in the film as well, though you don't get too see or recognize him much in the movie until the end credits roll.

subset: commoncrawl


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Virologists and hygiene experts frequently highlight hygiene mistakes people make and give tips on how to improve hand cleanliness.¹ You can protect yourself by following advice from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA):
- You should wash your hands even if they appear clean. Hands that are not visibly dirty still often harbour germs.
- The BZgA recommends regular hand washing. It's best to wash your hands before eating, after blowing your nose, going to the toilet, touching animals and returning home. A complete list of important everyday situations can be found on the BZgA website.
- Applying hand sanitiser is not as effective as washing your hands with soap and water.² Since many people make this mistake, virologists warn against relying solely on sanitisers. However, using sanitisers when there is no opportunity to wash your hands is better than using nothing. Hand sanitisers can also be useful when in contact with sick people. However, only special substances are effective against viruses.
Our GROHE tip:
Reduce contact with taps when washing your hands by having touchless models installed at home or at work. For example, you don't have to touch sensor-controlled taps when turning them on or off and changing the temperature. You can find examples of these fittings in our catalogue.
Unique ease of use
- Non-contact fittings with reliable sensors.
- Water jet activated by hand movement.
- Water-saving as only the required amount of water is released.
Perfect hygiene
- Hygienic hand washing without touching the tap.
- Prevents the transmission of germs.
- Intelligent technology for impeccable hygiene.
External sources:
¹ RKI, Redaktion arbeitssicherheit.de
² BZgA: infektionsschutz.de/haendewaschen


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Guardian Ka statue (#22) of the king.
It once stood to the right, guarding the entrance to his burial chamber.
King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh
We toured the King Tut Exhibit at the California Science Museum. It is a wonderful exhibit and I will be featuring photos here over the next several weeks.
You can see the entire collection of King Tut photos on my Flickr and Facebook pages.
See the complete collection of my photos from this visit on Flickr
Learn more about King Tut with these books
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library


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Choice · Movement · Ease · Consciouness · Presence · Self-Discovery · Clarity · Power · Creativity · Success · Passion · Joy
Integrated Awareness is an innately human set of skills for healing and wholeness through movement, touch, enhanced awareness and changes of consciousness. We are each a complete person, but we often feel ourselves to be a collection of parts, any of which… Read more
Integrated Awareness offers three avocational stages of learning: Personal, Exploratory and Apprenticeship. These often begin with a mini-intensive...
Center for Integrated Awareness®
3800 Bodega Ave.
Petaluma, CA 94952


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BBC and BuzzFeed join Weber Shandwick to discuss fake news at AdWeek Europe
Weber Shandwick's panel session at AdWeek Europe this month will explore how companies and organisations can thrive in the new world of fake news.
"Navigating the New Abnormal: A Brand Survival Kit in a World of Fake News" will look at the transformation of the media environment that brands now operate in: ever-evolving technology and platforms have altered human behaviour; content is discovered and shared in shorter cycles, necessitating new formats; trust in media and brands is at an all-time low; and the emergence of the fake news phenomenon has ushered in a new set of challenges.
Weber Shandwick's UK Head of Public Affairs Joey Jones (former Deputy Political Editor at Sky News), Editor-in-Chief Vivian Schiller (former Global Chair of News at Twitter and Chief Digital Officer at NBC News) and Head of Social, EMEA Danny Whatmough will be joined on stage by BBC News Digital Development Director James Montgomery and Political Editor, BuzzFeed UK, Jim Waterson.
You can find details of Weber Shandwick's session, scheduled 12pm, Monday 20 March on the IPA Centenary Stage, here.
AdWeek Europe runs from 20-24 March in London.


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This famous system of 64 hexagrams plus their commentaries and transformations is at the root of Chinese thought. Tr. Wilhelm (en, fr).
25. Wu Wang / Innocence (The Unexpected) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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current binomial swap trig. opposite flip X leading master X constituent master
Ch'ien, heaven is above; Chên, movement, is below. The lower trigram Chên is under the influence of the strong line it has received from above, from heaven. When, in accord with this, movement follows the law of heaven, man is innocent and without guile. His mind is natural and true, unshadowed by reflection or ulterior designs. For wherever conscious purpose is to be seen, there the truth and innocence of nature have been lost. Nature that is not directed by the spirit is not true but degenerate nature. Starting out with the idea of the natural, the train of thought in part goes somewhat further and thus the hexagram includes also the idea of the unintentional or unexpected.
Man has received from heaven a nature innately good, to guide him in all his movements. By devotion to this divine spirit within himself, he attains an unsullied innocence that leads him to do right with instinctive sureness and without any ulterior thought of reward and personal advantage. This instinctive certainty brings about supreme success and "furthers through perseverance". However, not everything instinctive is nature in this higher sense of the word, but only that which is right and in accord with the will of heaven. Without this quality of rightness, an unreflecting, instinctive way of acting brings only misfortune. Confucius says about this: "He who departs from innocence, what does he come to? Heaven's will and blessing do not go with his deeds. "
In springtime when thunder, life energy, begins to move again under the heavens, everything sprouts and grows, and all beings receive from the creative activity of nature the childlike innocence of their original state. So it is with the good rulers of mankind: drawing on the spiritual wealth at their command, they take care of all forms of life and all forms of culture and do everything to further them, and at the proper time.
The original impulses of the heart are always good, so that we may follow them confidently, assured of good fortune and achievement of our aims.
We should do every task for its own sake as time and place demand and not with an eye to the result. Then each task turns out well, and anything we undertake succeeds.
Sometimes undeserved misfortune befalls a man at the hands of another, as for instance when someone passes by and takes a tethered cow along with him. His gain is the owner's loss. In all transactions, no matter how innocent, we must accommodate ourselves to the demands of the time, otherwise unexpected misfortune overtakes us.
We cannot lose what really belongs to us, even if we throw it away. Therefore we need have no anxiety. All that need concern us is that we should remain true to our own natures and not listen to others.
An unexpected evil may come accidentally from without. If it does not originate in one's own nature or have a foothold there, one should not resort to external means to eradicate it, but should quietly let nature take its course. Then improvement will come of itself.
When, in a given situation, the time is not ripe for further progress, the best thing to do is to wait quietly, without ulterior designs. If one acts thoughtlessly and tries to push ahead in opposition to fate, success will not be achieved.
I Ching, the Book of Changes – Yi Jing I. 25. – Chinese off/on – Français/English
Alias Yijing, I Ching, Yi King, I Ging, Zhou yi, The Classic of Changes (Lynn), The Elemental Changes (Nylan), Le Livre des Changements (Javary), Das Buch der Wandlung.
The Book of Odes, The Analects, Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Three-characters book, The Book of Changes, The Way and its Power, 300 Tang Poems, The Art of War, Thirty-Six Strategies
Welcome, help, notes, introduction, table.
Index – Contact – Top


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A sweet little sweater with a ruffle v shaped detail down the front! Tuck it into a flirty skirt or you favorite pair of pants. The super soft fabric will keep you choosing this piece over and over again!
*Measurements listed below are of the actual clothing item* XS: Chest 38" Length 23"S: Chest 40" Length 23"M: Chest 42" Length 23"L: Chest 44" Length 24"XL: Chest 46" Length 25"1XL: Chest 48" Length 26"2XL: Chest 50" Length 26"3XL: Chest 52" Length 26"Model Alyne is wearing a size XSModel Sabrina is wearing a size SModel Amelia and Kendall are wearing size 1XLSuggested Pairings:
Keywords: Ivory Sweater, Ruffle, Cozy
Items unworn, unwashed and free of odor and pet hair, with tags attached are eligible to exchange/return within 30 days of receipt for STORE CREDIT ONLY. Shipping charges are non refundable.
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PP Systems has been designing and manufacturing innovative instrumentation to enhance the research and educational experience of plant and soil scientists since 1984.
Please choose your area of interest below to learn how PP Systems is redefining the boundaries of life science research.
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Vital Statistics: |
Place of Origin: England |
Group: Scent hound |
Height: males 16 in., females 13 in. |
Weight: males 20-30 lbs., females 20 lbs. or less |
Life span: 10-15 yrs. |
Trainability: high, will especially work for food |
Good with children: yes |
Good with other pets: yes with other dogs, other pets when raised together |
The Beagle dates back to Elizabethan times and claims some of its ancestors as hounds. It is one of the oldest dog breeds and a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. The name Beagle means "loudmouth" in French.
What does the Beagle look like?
The Beagle can be from 13-16 inches tall and weighs about 18-30 lbs. Its head is dome-shaped with a pointed muzzle. The nose is black with well-developed nostrils. The Beagle has a keen sense of smell and can find the tiniest morsel of food hidden anywhere. Its eyes are brown or hazel and the ears are long and hang against its cheeks. The Beagle comes in a variety of colors including the usual hound tricolor. All beagles have a white-tipped tail.
What is the Beagle's temperament?
The Beagle is a happy, affectionate, calm dog, very clean. It has a baying bark that can sometimes disturb your neighbors, especially if it goes on for a length of time. The Beagle is good with children and other dogs. It's best if raised with other kinds of pets.
What is the Beagle used for?
The Beagle's specialty is hunting, rabbit, pheasant, quail and sometimes it even catches fish. The Beagle is a wonderful loving companion dog as well.
Possible Health Issues
Cherry eye, chondrodysplasia, allergies, hypothyroidism, epilepsy, invertebral disc disease.
- Airedale Terrier
- Bedlington Terrier
- Bluetick Coonhound
- Border Collie
- Border Terrier
- Bull Terrier
- Bulldog
- Bullmastiff
- Ca de Bou
- Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
- Clumber Spaniel
- Collie
- Curly-coated Retriever
- Dandie Dinmont Terrier
- English Cocker Spaniel
- English Foxhound
- English Setter
- English Springer Spaniel
- English Toy Terrier
- Flat-coated Retriever
- Golden Retriever
- Greyhound
- Harrier
- Jack Russell Terrier
- Lakeland Terrier
- Lancashire Heeler
- Llewellyn Setter
- Manchester Terrier
- Mastiff
- Norfolk Terrier and Norwich Terrier
- Old English Sheepdog
- Old English Terrier
- Otterhound
- Parson Russell Terrier
- Shetland Sheepdog
- Smooth and Wire-haired Fox Terrier
- Sussex Spaniel
- Welsh Terrier
- Whippet
- Wire Fox Terrier
- Yorkshire Terrier


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Doing Business Here
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Greensville County welcomes domestic and international companies that are planning to expand, relocate existing operations, or establish new facilities. Why, exactly, should Greensville County be on your radar? Here are just a few of the many benefits Greensville provides new and expanding businesses:
- Access to a highly skilled workforce
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Greensville County has everything you need to run a successful business and raise a happy family. But, what if you need access to bigger cities? Just hop on the highway to visit the large cities of Raleigh, Richmond, and the Hampton Roads region, along with over 50 other metropolitan areas within a day's drive. Our location at the crossroads of I-95 and US 58 provides prime access to the United States, Canada, and Mexico via the interstate system, and to all points beyond by way of the Virginia Ports.


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It was a hot day at the zoo when Jordan Carlson's son, who has motor-planning delays, got thirsty. "We went to the snack bar and found out they had a 'no straw' policy," Carlson says. "It was a hot day and he couldn't drink."
Their only option was to leave the park and look for a business that sold drinks with a straw. Without one, her son can't drink beverages. At home they use reusable straws, and she tries to keep some on hand when they leave the house, but "I'm human and sometimes I forget," Carlson explains. People with disabilities have to be much more conscious of what businesses and communities offer, Carlson says.
On social media, many people are ecstatic about the crush of cities and businesses pledging to ban plastic straws once and for all. Ever since a video showing a sea turtle with a straw stuck up its nose went viral, campaigns like #StopSucking for a strawless ocean have gained considerable traction. Seattle this month implemented a citywide ban on plastic straws, Starbucks announced on Monday that it will phase out the use of plastic straws by 2020, and many other municipalities and businesses are likely to follow suit. As one Twitter user posted, "My waiter asked 'Now, do we want straws OR do we want to save the turtles?' and honestly we all deserve that environmental guilt trip."
But for many people with disabilities, going without plastic straws isn't a question of how much they care about dolphins or sea turtles; it can be a matter of life or death.
There are many alternatives to plastic straws — paper, biodegradable plastics and even reusable straws made from metal or silicone. But paper straws and similar biodegradable options often fall apart too quickly or are easy for people with limited jaw control to bite through. Silicone straws are often not flexible — one of the most important features for people with mobility challenges. Reusable straws need to be washed, which not all people with disabilities can do easily. And metal straws, which conduct heat and cold in addition to being hard and inflexible, can pose a safety risk.
"Disabled people have to find ways to navigate through the world because they know it was not made for us," says Lei Wiley-Mydske, an autism activist who has autism herself. "If someone says, 'This does not work for me,' it's because they've tried everything else."
"Also, what if you decide on the spur of the moment to go have a drink with friends after work but forgot your reusable straw that day?" adds Lawrence Carter-Long, communications director for the national Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund. "[That] doesn't leave a lot of room for spontaneity — something nondisabled folks get to largely take for granted."
On social media, many people have responded to claims that people with disabilities need plastic straws by asking what people did before plastic straws were invented. "They aspirated liquid in their lungs, developed pneumonia and died," says Shaun Bickley, co-chair of the Seattle Commission for People with DisAbilities, a volunteer organization that's supposed to advise the city council or agencies on disabilities issues.
How much plastic straw and stirrer pollution is out there? Scientific estimates vary. One report suggests they make up more than 7 percent of the plastics found in the U.S. by piece. By comparison, the same report found plastic bottle caps alone accounted for nearly 17 percent. But straws make up a much smaller percentage of pollution by weight.
Environmentalists have latched on to a figure stating that Americans use over 500 million plastic straws every day — a number that was derived from phone calls made by a 9-year-old boy in 2011. Despite its frequent repetition, there's uncertainty over the accuracy of that figure.
In a post detailing how the plastic straw became the cause du jour for those who love the oceans, Dune Ives, executive director for the Lonely Whale Foundation, wrote, "We found plastic water bottles too endemic, plastic bags already somewhat politicized, and no viable alternative for the plastic cup in ALL markets." So they chose plastic straws, a "playful" alternative and a " 'gateway plastic' to the larger and more serious plastic pollution conversation."
Most of the plastic in the ocean does come from land, says Darby Hoover, senior resource specialist for the Natural Resources Defense Council. She notes that because plastic breaks up into smaller and smaller particles, it can be hard to tell what it used to be in some cases.
"Straws are maybe not the biggest source of either plastic pollution or disposable plastic we consume, but they're in there," Hoover says.
And for many people who want to consume less plastic, she says, straws are low-hanging fruit.
Yet in general Hoover says that she is wary of outright bans on things. "I personally think we as a country use way too many disposable water bottles. That said, there are times when I'm caught somewhere, don't have a reusable bottle, and want the option to have water and not a sugary drink."
"They key is breaking habits," Hoover says. "Is something a habit because you truly need it or because you got used to doing it that way?"
Carter-Long says he is sympathetic to environmental concerns about plastic pollution, but any public policy aiming to reduce the use of straws needs to make accommodations for people who might need them. Ideally, he says, "each restaurant owner [would] follow their own conscience, maybe keep a stockpile of plastic straws in their storerooms for people to use who need them."
A spokesman for Seattle Public Utilities confirmed to NPR that the city's new plastic straw ban does include a waiver allowing restaurants to give disposable, flexible plastic straws to customers who need them for physical or medical reasons. But Carter-Long and Bickley say there doesn't seem to be widespread awareness of the exemption. Bickley says he asked over a dozen Seattle chain restaurants — including McDonald's and Chipotle — "if they had plastic straws available for people with allergies or need, and they told me no."
And just because an exemption is written into law doesn't mean businesses will comply, even if they know about it. "So many businesses try to get around already ignoring things with [the Americans With Disabilities Act] until someone says, 'I need a ramp or wider hallway or ramp in bathroom or Braille menu,' " says Jordan Carlson. "Sometimes you need to bring a lawsuit just to have your voice heard."
Although Bickley serves on a commission that is supposed to advise Seattle's city agencies on disability issues, he says no one consulted the group before passing the plastic straw ban.
Dianne Laurine, who lives in Seattle, has cerebral palsy, is quadriplegic and has no use of her extremities. "She is old enough to remember a time before plastic and everybody just used rubber straws," Laurine's caretaker, Bill Reeves, says on her behalf, since she has a severe speech impediment.
"They ended up being disgusting, hard to clean. The advent of plastic in the 1950s changed her life," Reeves says.
When asked what it felt like when the straw ban went into effect without consulting those with disabilities, Laurine audibly repeated one word, "Awful. Awful. Awful."
"You're putting this burden on disabled people to come up with a solution. You're not asking companies that manufacture straws to come up with a version that works for us," autism activist Wiley-Mydske says. "You won't even take the bus instead of driving your car somewhere," she says, adding, "How many of you are willing to die for the environment?"
Tove K. Danovich is a journalist based in Portland, Ore. Maria Godoy is a senior editor with NPR and host of The Salt.
NPR Business Desk intern Charlotte Norsworthy contributed to this report.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Alessi Pulcina Espresso Maker, 3 Cup, Black $160.00
Manufacturer: Alessi
Designer: Michele De Lucchi
Dimensions: 9.2 x 20 x 9.2 cm
Materials: Aluminum
Why is it Special?
Pulcina comes from a research entirely dedicated to the design and functionality of the espresso coffee maker. As a result of this study and the application of the technology developed by illycaffè, Pulcina is a high performance coffee maker with a boiler that stops dispensing the drink at the right time before the coffee gets a bitter aftertaste. This helps to enhance the full and rich aroma of this drink. The spout has been designed with the same attention to functional aspects: when pouring coffee, its special V shape, which recalls a chick's beak (hence the name of the coffee maker) allows it to perfectly stop the drop. The handle and plastic knob in colours black and red complete the coffee maker.


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I've been building websites for 18 years. Roughly half of that as a full-time civil servant; and a good chunk of the rest as a government specialist. I was Whitehall's full-time web worker; and for the first five years of my career, the management chain either didn't know or didn't care what I was doing. I took full advantage.
Over time, managers decided it was something they should probably take an interest in. So too did the management consultancies. Progress ground to a halt. These were the dark days of government web development. Getting things done from the inside was becoming impossible; so I moved outside, and soon found myself re-energised by the flourishing open source movement.
I began blogging in early 2006. I tried to offer opinions and insight on stuff I thought I knew a bit about – which, broadly speaking, was 'new media' (ha!) and its effect on the businesses of news and politics/government. I could see there was something genuinely exciting in this new technology, and this seemed as good a way as any for me to gain some experience with it.
By this point, I'd been in the web business for a decade. I had pretty clear ideas about what I thought worked, and what didn't. The blog wasn't intended as a campaign for cheaper, faster, better web development – but that's what I believed in, so it's no surprise to see it coming through time and again.
I wrote frankly about new government websites, new policy announcements and new staff appointments. And because nobody else was doing so, at all, my blog picked up a following. Some liked it: and I began to receive tip-offs, sometimes from remarkably senior levels of government. Some didn't like it: and well-meaning individuals would regularly take me aside for 'a quiet word', to say that so-and-so had read my piece about X and wasn't happy.
Of course, if that was meant to put me off, it had the opposite effect.
I began to feel an obligation to blog. Numerous times I found myself firing up the PC, well after midnight, to post about something I'd seen or heard. I owed it to – to what? My audience? The cause? It was academic. This was what I did. I monitored those RSS feeds, I crawled Hansard, I dug through lengthy PDFs so you didn't have to. Whoever you were.
I justified my occasional moaning from the sidelines – to myself at least – with the thought that I wasn't just highlighting problems; I was advocating a solution, based on transparency, engagement and open-source. But these were quite vague, nebulous concepts at the time… so I often chose, quite deliberately, to frame those principles in terms of one particular engagement channel (blogs) and one particular open-source project (WordPress). This absolutely wasn't to exclude other channels and other technologies: but I found that better and more useful conversations arose when we talked about specifics.
Now look where we are.
Government departments' profligate spending on websites has been eliminated. The main communication channel for this radical transformation of public services has been a blog – hosted on wordpress.com initially, soon to move to a centralised WordPress multisite install. It's all built on open source, using open standards, and all posted on Github. New code is pushed live daily.
So it's no wonder that the postings on Puffbox.com have slowed to a trickle. Although I can't take much credit for it, this is pretty much where I hoped we'd get to. I don't really need to make the case for it any more.


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(Redirected from Libertarian)
This article is about the political philosophy and movement that uphold liberty as a core principle. For the type of libertarianism stressing both individual freedom and social equality, see Left-libertarianism.
Libertarianism (from Latin: libertas, meaning "freedom") is a political philosophy and movement that upholds liberty as a core principle. Libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing individualism, freedom of choice and voluntary association. Libertarians share a skepticism of authority and state power, but they diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems.
[edit]- In markets where freedom of choice is hampered by inadequate information, or where rational choice requires extraordinary expertise, there is no acceptable alternative to government regulation. Contrary to libertarian preachments, it would be imprudent to expect an air traveler to do research required to avoid unsafe airlines, or for the automobile buyer to find out which cars are affected with rear-wheel lockup, or for the pregnant woman to conduct chemical tests to avoid drugs which may kill or deform her unborn child. Here social regulation is imperative, either by providing indispensable information to consumers or by prohibiting hazardous products outright. Here the privilege of free choice in a free market is the freedom to play Russian roulette with health and safety, and to impose the cost of death or injury on families or society.
- Walter Adams and James Brock, in The Bigness Complex (1986), p. 235
- Libertarians are self-governors in both personal and economic matters. They believe government's only purpose is to protect people from coercion and violence. They value individual responsibility, and tolerate economic and social diversity.
- He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means "I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve". It's easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.
- Isaac Asimov, in I. Asimov : A Memoir (1994), p. 308
[edit]- Libertarians … advocate a high degree of both economic and personal liberty. Libertarians believe that people have the right to freely engage in both commercial and private activities. Libertarians consistently uphold the right of individuals to control their own lives in all respects.
- David Bergland, 1984 Libertarian Party presidential candidate, in Libertarianism In One Lesson (Ninth Edition, 2005)
- In the libertarian view, all human relationships should be voluntary; the only actions that should be forbidden by law are those that involve the initiation of force against those who have not themselves used force—actions like murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, and fraud. Libertarians believe this code should be applied to actions by governments as well as by individuals.
- David D. Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer, Free Press, (1998) p. 2
- Because libertarians do have a basic set of principles, you know that a libertarian will always come out on the side of any issue which maximizes personal liberty and responsibility — and which reduces government control over the individual.
- David Bergland, in Libertarianism In One Lesson (Ninth Edition, 2005)
- I am hard put to find something to say to people who still think libertarianism has something to do with liberty. A libertarian is just a Republican who takes drugs.
- Bob Black, in "The Libertarian as Conservative" (1984), published in The Abolition of Work and Other Essays (1986)
- There are libertarians who try to retrieve libertarianism from the Libertarian Party just as there are Christians who try to reclaim Christianity from Christendom and communists (I've tried to myself) who try to save communism from the Communist parties and states. They (and I) meant well but we lost.
- Bob Black, in "The Libertarian as Conservative" (1984), published in The Abolition of Work and Other Essays (1986)
- You might object that what I've said may apply to the minarchist majority of libertarians, but not to the self-styled anarchists among them. Not so. To my mind a right-wing anarchist is just a minarchist who'd abolish the state to his own satisfaction by calling it something else. But this incestuous family squabble is no affair of mine. Both camps call for partial or complete privatization of state functions but neither questions the functions themselves. They don't denounce what the state does, they just object to who's doing it. This is why the people most victimized by the state display the least interest in libertarianism. Those on the receiving end of coercion don't quibble over their coercers' credentials. If you can't pay or don't want to, you don't much care if your deprivation is called larceny or taxation or restitution or rent. If you like to control your own time, you distinguish employment from enslavement only in degree and duration.
- Bob Black, in "The Libertarian as Conservative" (1984), published in The Abolition of Work and Other Essays (1986)
- The libertarian phobia as to the state reflects and reproduces a profound misunderstanding of the operative forces which make for social control in the modern world. If — and this is a big "if," especially where bourgeois libertarians are concerned — what you want is to maximize individual autonomy, then it is quite clear that the state is the least of the phenomena which stand in your way.
- Bob Black, in "The Libertarian as Conservative" (1984), published in The Abolition of Work and Other Essays (1986)
- Unlike side issues like unemployment, unions, and minimum-wage laws, the subject of work itself is almost entirely absent from libertarian literature. Most of what little there is consists of Randite rantings against parasites, barely distinguishable from the invective inflicted on dissidents by the Soviet press, and Sunday-school platitudinizing that there is no free lunch — this from fat cats who have usually ingested a lot of them.
- Bob Black, in "The Libertarian as Conservative" (1984), published in The Abolition of Work and Other Essays (1986)
- Libertarians complain that the state is parasitic, an excrescence on society. They think it's like a tumor you could cut out, leaving the patient just as he was, only healthier. They've been mystified by their own metaphors. Like the market, the state is an activity, not an entity. The only way to abolish the state is to change the way of life it forms a part of. That way of life, if you call that living, revolves around work and takes in bureaucracy, moralism, schooling, money, and more. Libertarians are conservatives because they avowedly want to maintain most of this mess and so unwittingly perpetuate the rest of the racket. But they're bad conservatives because they've forgotten the reality of institutional and ideological interconnection which was the original insight of the historical conservatives.
- Bob Black, in "The Libertarian as Conservative" (1984), published in The Abolition of Work and Other Essays (1986)
- The issue should not be government. It should not be unlimited and unalloyed idolatry of personal property, which is the path that the libertarian movement has gone down.
- One difference between libertarianism and socialism is that a socialist society can't tolerate groups of people practicing freedom, but a libertarian society can comfortably allow people to choose voluntary socialism. If a group of people — even a very large group — wanted to purchase land and own it in common, they would be free to do so. The libertarian legal order would require only that no one be coerced into joining or giving up his property.
- Libertarians see the individual as the basic unit of social analysis. Only individuals make choices and are responsible for their actions. Libertarian thought emphasizes the dignity of each individual, which entails both rights and responsibility. The progressive extension of dignity to more people — to women, to people of different religions and different races — is one of the great libertarian triumphs of the Western world.
- Libertarianism is not libertinism or hedonism. It is not a claim that "people can do anything they want to, and nobody else can say anything." Rather, libertarianism proposes a society of liberty under law, in which individuals are free to pursue their own lives so long as they respect the equal rights of others. The rule of law means that individuals are governed by generally applicable and spontaneously developed legal rules, not by arbitrary commands; and that those rules should protect the freedom of individuals to pursue happiness in their own ways, not aim at any particular result or outcome.
- David D. Boaz, in "Key Concepts of Libertarianism" (1 January 1999)
- Libertarians have always battled the age-old scourge of war. They understood that war brought death and destruction on a grand scale, disrupted family and economic life, and put more power in the hands of the ruling class — which might explain why the rulers did not always share the popular sentiment for peace. Free men and women, of course, have often had to defend their own societies against foreign threats; but throughout history, war has usually been the common enemy of peaceful, productive people on all sides of the conflict.
- David D. Boaz, in "Key Concepts of Libertarianism" (1 January 1999)
- We should never define Libertarian positions in terms coined by liberals or conservatives — nor as some variant of their positions. We are not fiscally conservative and socially liberal. We are Libertarians, who believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility on all issues at all times.
[edit]- One of the more pretentious political self-descriptions is "Libertarian." People think it puts them above the fray. It sounds fashionable and, to the uninitiated, faintly dangerous. Actually, it's just one more bullshit political philosophy.
- George Carlin, in Napalm and Silly Putty (2002), p. 261
- The difference is libertarians strive for government to have a smaller economic footprint so that individuals can have a larger one.
- Jon Caldara"Caldara: Don't believe the media hype, Jared Polis is no libertarian" The Complete Colorado (May 29, 2019)
- Vulgar libertarian apologists for capitalism use the term "free market" in an equivocal sense: they seem to have trouble remembering, from one moment to the next, whether they're defending actually existing capitalism or free market principles. ... When prodded, they'll grudgingly admit that the present system is not a free market, and that it includes a lot of state intervention on behalf of the rich. But as soon as they think they can get away with it, they go right back to defending the wealth of existing corporations.
- Kevin Carson, Studies in Mutualist Political Economy (2007), Chapter 4
- Libertarian in the United States has a meaning which is almost the opposite of what it has in the rest of the world traditionally. Here, libertarian means ultra right-wing capitalist. In the European tradition, libertarian meant socialist. So, anarchism was sometimes called libertarian socialism, a large wing of anarchism, so we have to be a little careful about terminology. I was drawn pretty early, maybe in the early teens, towards anarchist thinking and activities, and even spent a lot of time in anarchist bookstores and picking up pamphlets and talking to mostly Europeans who had fled or had been driven out of a pretty ugly continent in the 1930s.
- There's a long tradition of Anarchism — libertarian thought outside the United States, which is diametrically opposed to the positions of the Libertarian Party — but it's unknown here. That's the dominant position of what's always been considered Socialist Anarchism. Now, the Libertarian Party, is a capitalist party. It's in favor of what I would regard a particular form of authoritarian control. Namely, the kind that comes through private ownership and control, which is an extremely rigid system of domination — people have to... people can survive, by renting themselves to it, and basically in no other way... I do disagree with them very sharply, and I think that they are not … understanding the fundamental doctrine, that you should be free from domination and control, including the control of the manager and the owner.
- Noam Chomsky, in an appearance on Donahue/Pozner (14 February 1992)
- There isn't much point arguing about the word "libertarian." It would make about as much sense to argue with an unreconstructed Stalinist about the word "democracy" — recall that they called what they'd constructed "peoples' democracies." The weird offshoot of ultra-right individualist anarchism that is called "libertarian" here happens to amount to advocacy of perhaps the worst kind of imaginable tyranny, namely unaccountable private tyranny. If they want to call that "libertarian," fine; after all, Stalin called his system "democratic." But why bother arguing about it?
- I hear Republicans and Libertarians and so forth talking about property rights, but they stop talking about property rights as soon as the subject of American Indians comes up, because they know fully well, perhaps not in a fully articulated, conscious form, but they know fully well that the basis for the very system of endeavor and enterprise and profitability to which they are committed and devoted accrues on the basis of theft of the resources of someone else. They are in possession of stolen property. They know it. They all know it. It's a dishonest endeavor from day one.
- Ward Churchill, in Z Magazine, vol. 8, p. 32
[edit]- There is this very strong libertarian belief that inequality is not a proper area of study for economists. Even if you were to worry about inequality, it would be best if you just kept quiet and lived with it.
- Angus Deaton, quoted in Angus Deaton on inequality: 'The war on poverty has become a war on the poor' for The Guardian (7 October 2023)
- This country is a one-party country. Half of it is called Republican and half is called Democrat. It doesn't make any difference. All the really good ideas belong to the Libertarians.
- Hugh Downs, as a guest on Politically Incorrect (31 March 1997)
[edit]- Both Rand and Rothbard, overeager to seal the case for expelling the state from the economy that economic arguments alone apparently could not clinch, had to cast themselves as participants in a Manichean struggle against unscrupulous wrongdoers with impure motives. This already betokened a deep complacency about the validity of their own views, such that anyone who disagreed with them must be a deliberate enemy of truth; and it marked the beginning of the anti-intellectualism that continues to disfigure libertarian thought. The virtually unanimous opposition of scholars and intellectuals to a view as self-evidently true as libertarianism seems to be to Rand and Rothbard must, they thought, be a function of the intellectuals' perversity (rather than of weaknesses of libertarian argument and evidence).
- Jeffrey Friedman, "What's wrong with Libertarianism," Critical Review, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1997), p. 452.
- The attraction of free markets … is that they have self-correcting features that place far smaller demands on anyone's knowledge than democracy does. Each person concerns herself with her own life and the system, supposedly, runs itself. Interpreted in this way, the literature on public ignorance could form the basis of the consequentialist argument the postwar free-market economists sought, but never found … against all government economic intervention: for even if it cannot be shown, on economic grounds, that every intervention hurts more than it helps, it might be shown, on political grounds, that by opening the door to helpful interventions, we begin sliding toward the unhelpful ones on a slope slippery with public ignorance.
- Jeffrey Friedman, "What's wrong with Libertarianism," Critical Review, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1997), p. 455.
[edit]- Most left-wing ideologues are dangerous because they don't recognize that they have an ideology. They simply think they're doing the obvious and right thing. Libertarians of the stripe I've been talking about have a different problem. They know they have an ideology. They know it and they love it. And they love it so much they are unwilling to loosen their clench on it when reality — and more importantly, morality — demand it. Just as they consider "state violence" to be always and everywhere evil, they fetishize change, assuming it to be always and everywhere good.
- Young Libertarians have so much more energy and verve than pretty much anybody else these days, young conservatives included. Libertarianism is an ideology best suited for young folks. It compellingly tells kids everything they want to be told. Self-interest is not merely indulged; it is sanctified. Experience — represented either in the traditions accumulated over the centuries or simply in the lessons learned by one's elders — has no greater authority than the self-gratifying whims of a single person. In the world of these young libertarians, the utopian future is one where they get to share with the world the full benefit of their inexperience.
- Jonah Goldberg, in "The Libertarian Lobe" in National Review Online (22 June 2001)
[edit]- Libertarianism is, as the name implies, the belief in liberty. Libertarians believe that each person owns his own life and property, and has the right to make his own choices as to how he lives his life — as long as he simply respects the same right of others to do the same.
- For libertarians, freedom entails the right of people to live their lives any way they choose, so long as their conduct is peaceful. For conservatives, freedom entails the right of government to do just about anything it wants, even if its conduct is violent.
- Too many libertarians hate the left more than they love liberty... I confess to some schadenfreude myself as the left squirms in the aftermath of a defeat they didn't see coming. But... Now, more than ever, libertarians need good-hearted, open-minded people on the left as allies in an attempt to preserve the things we agree on. We should never let our frustrations with the left become more important than preserving the liberal order... No libertarianism worth its name should ever accept those kinds of fundamental restrictions on the rights of humans, and their freedom to peacefully provide for themselves and their families, in exchange for the pot of gruel of the promise of some tax cuts and deregulation. Nor should any libertarianism worth its name think for a second that there is some sort of equal moral weighting between those promised economic policies and the return of state-sponsored torture... There's no moral equivalence here. There are just a whole lot of Very Bad Things that are really happening right now. You can create all the balance sheets you want, but if you don't understand that some things are far more important than others, you are not blind like the impartial scale of justice, but blind instead to the future of liberalism that hangs in that balance.
- Steve Horwitz, "Liberalism in the Balance" (January 2017), Bleeding Heart Libertarians
[edit]- The basic premise of libertarianism is that each individual should be free to do as he or she pleases so long as he or she does not harm others. In the libertarian view, societies and governments infringe on individual liberties whenever they tax wealth, create penalties for victimless crimes, or otherwise attempt to control or regulate individual conduct which harms or benefits no one except the individual who engages in it.
- Definition written by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, during the process of granting the Advocates for Self Government status as a non-profit educational organization, as quoted in Healing Our World : The Other Piece of the Puzzle (1992) by Mary J. Ruwart
- The Libertarians, of whom I'm rather fond, are running Harry Browne. Libertarians are, just as they claim, principled and consistent — they believe in individual liberty. Commendable as they are, and despite their reliability as allies in civil liberties struggles, you may notice that Libertarians sometimes prove that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and that there is a difference between logic and wisdom.
- Molly Ivins, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (7 September 1996)
[edit]- What was the old saying? That if you weren't a Democrat in college, you didn't have a heart. And if you weren't a Republican in later life, you didn't have a brain. Well, I happen to think libertarian kind of encompasses hearts and brains both. And that's what we all are about.
- Gary Johnson, in an interview with CNBC´s John Harwood [1] (August 22, 2016)
[edit]- The libertarians are rejected because they are metaphysically mad. Lunacy repels, and political lunacy especially. I do not mean that they are dangerous: Nay, they are repellent merely. They do not endanger our country and our civilization, because they are few, and seem likely to become fewer.
- In the sense used by Marx and Engels, the concept of ideology was intended to mean forms of social consciousness which prevent people from realising that their thinking about the world is determined by some conditions which do not depend on them and which are not themselves ingredients of consciousness. In ideological thinking, people imagine that the logic of thinking itself rules their consciousness and they are organically incapable of being aware of the social situations and of the interests which mould their mental work.
- Leszek Kolakowski, "Althusser's Marx", Socialist Register 1971, pp. 111-127
[edit]- We the members of the Libertarian Party challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.' We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.
- The Libertarian Party Statement of Principles (1972); (May 2008 edition)
- Libertarians believe the answer to America's political problems is the same commitment to freedom that earned America its greatness: a free-market economy and the abundance and prosperity it brings; a dedication to civil liberties and personal freedom that marks this country above all others; and a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace, and free trade as prescribed by America's founders.
- The Libertarian Party: A Short History (2000) by Libertarian Party
- Rothbard is surely right in thinking that what we now call free-market libertarianism was originally a left-wing position. The great liberal economist Frédéric Bastiat sat on the left side of the French national assembly, with the anarcho-socialist Proudhon. Many of the causes we now think of as paradigmatically left-wing—feminism, antiracism, antimilitarism, the defense of laborers and consumers against big business—were traditionally embraced and promoted specifically by free-market radicals. ... I like calling the free market a left-wing idea—in fact, I like calling libertarianism the proletarian revolution.
- Roderick T. Long, "Rothbard's 'Left and Right': Forty Years Later," Rothbard Memorial Lecture, Austrian Scholars Conference (2006).
- Kevin Carson has coined the terms "vulgar libertarianism" and "vulgar liberalism" for the tendencies, respectively, to treat the benefits of the free market as though they legitimated various dubious features of actually existing "capitalist" society (vulgar libertarianism), and to treat the drawbacks of actually existing "capitalist" society as though they constituted an objection to the free market (vulgar liberalism).
- Roderick T. Long, "Left-libertarianism, market anarchism, class conflict and historical theories of distributive justice," Griffith Law Review, Vol. 21 Issue 2 (2012), p. 416
- Given the extensive involvement of state violence in the process by which the corporate elite not only achieved its wealth in the past but continues to maintain and augment it in the present, it is clear that the massive inequalities of wealth that characterise present-day "capitalist" society are radically inconsistent with any approach to justice in holdings that is even remotely Nozickian.
- Roderick T. Long, "Left-libertarianism, market anarchism, class conflict and historical theories of distributive justice," Griffith Law Review, Vol. 21 Issue 2 (2012), p. 425
[edit]- I think that in some ways the libertarian movement—possibly due to the combined influence of Ayn Rand and many economists—has gotten to a kind of ideological dead end that I don't think does justice to business or capitalism or human nature.
- John Mackey, as quoted by Tom G. Palmer "Interview with an Entrepreneur: Featuring John Mackey", in The Morality of Capitalism: What Your Professors Won't Tell You (2011), Ed. Tom G. Palmer, Jameson Books, p. 16.
- Many years ago, on a television network far, far away, I expressed support for libertarianism because back then it meant that I didn't want Big Government in my bedroom or my medicine chest, and especially not in the second drawer of the night-stand on the left side of my bed. And I still believe that. But somewhere along the way libertarianism morphed into this creepy obsession with Free Market capitalism based on an Ayn Rand novel called ''Atlas Shrugged'', a book that's never been read all the way through by anyone with a girlfriend.
- For the libertarian, it is always illegitimate to initiate force against nonaggressors. Libertarianism is the political philosophy based on the concept of self-ownership; that is, every human being, simply by being a human being, has moral justification over his or her own body. This jurisdiction, which is called individual rights, cannot properly be violated, for this would be tantamount to claiming that human beings are not self-owners.
- Libertarianism is a direct attack upon the mystique of the state. It recognizes that the state is only an abstraction and reduces it to the actions of individuals. It applies the same standard of morality to the state as it would to a next-door neighbor. If it is not proper for a neighbor to tax or pass laws regulating your private life, then it cannot be proper for the state to do so. Only by elevating itself above the standards of personal morality can the state make these claims on your life.
- Wendy McElroy, in "Demystifying the State" (21 May 2008)
- Now what is it that we mean when we talk about libertarianism? And let me quote the words of the greatest authority on freedom in Argentina, Professor Alberto Benegas Lynch Jr, who says that libertarianism is the unrestricted respect for the life project of others based on the principle of non-aggression, in defence of the right to life, liberty and property. Its fundamental institutions are private property, markets free from state intervention, free competition, and the division of labour and social cooperation, in which success is achieved only by serving others with goods of better quality or at a better price. In other words, capitalist successful business people are social benefactors who, far from appropriating the wealth of others, contribute to the general well-being. Ultimately, a successful entrepreneur is a hero. And this is the model that we are advocating for the Argentina of the future. A model based on the fundamental principle of libertarianism. The defence of life, of freedom and of property.
- Javier Milei, Special Address to the World Economic Forum, 18 January 2024
[edit]- First and foremost, libertarians believe in the principle of self-ownership. You own your own body and mind; no external power has the right to force you into the service of "society" or "mankind" or any other individual or group for any purpose, however noble. Slavery is wrong, period.
- A government which cannot conscript, confiscate, or counterfeit, and which imposes no criminal penalties for the mere possession and peaceful use of anything, is one that almost all libertarians would be comfortable with.
- Lacking much historical information and assuming (1) that victims of injustice generally do worse than they otherwise would and (2) that those from the least well-off group in the society have the highest probabilities of being the (descendants of) victims of the most serious injustice who are owed compensation by those who benefited from the injustices, ... then a rough rule of thumb for rectifying injustices might seem to be the following: organize society so as to maximize the position of whatever group ends up least well-off in the society.
- Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) pp. 231-232
- These issues are very complex and are best left to a full treatment of the principle of rectification. In the absence of such a treatment applied to a particular society, one cannot use the analysis and theory presented here to condemn any particular scheme of transfer payments, unless it is clear that no considerations of rectification of injustice could apply to justify it. Although to introduce socialism as the punishment for our sins would be to go too far, past injustices might seem to be so great as to make necessary in the short run a more extensive state in order to rectify them.
- Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) p. 232
- Whoever makes something having bought or contracted for all other held resources used in the process (transferring some of his holdings for these cooperating factors), is entitled to it. The situation is not one of something's getting made, and there being an open question of who is to get it. Things come into the world already attached to people having entitlements over them.
- Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), p. 160.
[edit]- Nozick's Theory, in spite of its apparent dedication to self-ownership, cannot escape the conclusion that women's entitlement rights to those they produce must take priority of persons' rights to themselves at birth. ... There is nothing about a woman's production of an infant that does not easily fulfill the conditions of the principle of acquisition as Nozick specifies them.
- Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family, (1989), pp. 82-83.
- The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.
- George Orwell, in a letter to Malcolm Muggeridge (4 December 1948), published in Malcolm Muggeridge : A Life (1980) by Ian Hunter
[edit]- The trouble with the world today is philosophical: only the right philosophy can save us. But this party plagiarizes some of my ideas, mixes them with the exact opposite—with religionists, anarchists and every intellectual misfit and scum they can find—and call themselves libertarians and run for office.
- Ayn Rand as quoted in (2005). Mayhew, Robert, ed. Ayn Rand Answers, the Best of Her Q&A. New York: New American Library. p. 73. (1976)
- Once an individual who would advance liberty has settled on self-perfection as correct method, the first fact to bear in mind is that ours is not a numbers problem. Were it necessary to bring a majority into a comprehension of the libertarian philosophy, the cause of liberty would be utterly hopeless. Every significant movement in history has been led by one or just a few individuals with a small minority of energetic supporters.
- Government doesn't "intrude" on the "free market." It creates the market. ... Those who argue for "less government" are really arguing for a different government—often one that favors them or their patrons.
- Robert Reich, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few (2015)
- Even if you want no state, or a minimal state, then you have to argue point by point. Especially since the minimalists want to keep the economic and police system that keeps them privileged. That's libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves. No! If you want to make the minimum-state case, you have to argue it from the ground up.
- Kim Stanley Robinson, in Green Mars (1993), p. 371
- What the Russian autocrats and their supporters fear most is that the success of libertarian Socialism in Spain might prove to their blind followers that the much vaunted "necessity of dictatorship" is nothing but one vast fraud which in Russia has led to the despotism of Stalin and is to serve today in Spain to help the counter-revolution to a victory over the revolution of the workers and the peasants.
- Rudolf Rocker, in The Tragedy of Spain (1937)
- All libertarians, of whatever faction or persuasion, lay great stress on education, on convincing an ever-larger number of people to become libertarians, and hopefully, highly dedicated ones. The problem, however, is that the great bulk of libertarians hold a very simplistic view of the role and scope of such education. They do not, in short, even attempt to answer the question: After education, what? What then? What happens after X number of people are convinced? And how many need to be convinced to press on to the next stage? Everyone? A majority? Many people? … Beyond the problem of education lies the problem of power. After a substantial number of people have been converted, there will be the additional task of finding ways and means to remove State power from our society. Since the state will not gracefully convert itself out of power, other means than education, means of pressure, will have to be used. What particular means or what combination of means — whether by voting, alternative institutions untouched by the State or massive failure to cooperate with the State — depends on the conditions of the time and what will be found to work or not to work. In contrast to matters of theory and principle, the particular tactics to be used — so long as they are consistent with the principles and ultimate goal of a purely free society — are a matter of pragmatism, judgment, and the inexact "art" of the tactician.
[edit]- Libertarian logic for non-interference, when consistently explored, can have extraordinarily stern implications in invalidating the right to assistance from the society when one is hit by self-harming behaviour. If that annulment is not accepted, then the case for libertarian "immunity" from interference is also correspondingly undermined.
We should not readily agree to be held captive in a half-way house erected by an inadequate assessment of the demands of liberty.- Amartya Sen, "Unrestrained smoking is a libertarian half-way house", Financial Times (February 11, 2007)
- Most libertarians agree that all rights are, in effect, property rights, beginning with this fundamental right to self-ownership and control of one's own life. As owners of their own lives, individuals are completely free to do absolutely anything they wish with them — provided, of course, that it doesn't violate the identical right of others — whether the people around them approve of what they do or not.
- L. Neil Smith, and Rylla Cathryn Smith in What Libertarians Believe, Introduction: The Zero Aggression Principle
- A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation.
Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.- L. Neil Smith, and Rylla Cathryn Smith, the "Zero Aggression Principle" in What Libertarians Believe, Introduction: The Zero Aggression Principle
- Violence, fraud, the prerogative of force, the claims of superior cunning—those are the sources to which titles may be traced. The original deeds were written with the sword, rather than with the pen; not lawyers, but soldiers, were the conveyancers; blows were the current coin given in payment; and for seals, blood was used in preference to wax. Could valid claims be thus constituted? Hardly. And if not, what becomes of the pretensions of all subsequent holders of estates so obtained? Does sale or bequest generate a right where it did not previously exist?
- Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, First Edition (1851), Chapter 9
[edit]- Libertarianism is basically Aristotelian (reason, objectivity, individual self-sufficiency) while conservatism is just fundamentally Platonic (privileged elitism, mysticism, collective order).
- Jerome Tuccille, Radical Libertarianism: A New Political Alternative, Perennial Library/Harper & Row (1971) p. 6.
[edit]- As Nozick acknowledges, a modern state should not feel morally constrained by property holdings which might have had a Lockean pedigree but in fact do not. In this regard it is interesting that one of the main uses of Lockean theory these days is in defending the property rights of indigenous people—where a literal claim is being made about who had first possession of a set of resources and about the need to rectify the injustices that accompanied their subsequent expropriation.
- Libertarianism offers an alternative to coercive government that should appeal to peaceful, productive people everywhere.
No, a libertarian world isn't a perfect one. There will still be inequality, poverty, crime, corruption, man's inhumanity to man. But, unlike the theocratic visionaries, the pie-in-the-sky socialist utopians, or the starry-eyed Mr. Fixits of the New Deal and Great Society, libertarians don't promise you a rose garden. Karl Popper once said that attempts to create heaven on earth invariably produce hell. Libertarianism holds out, not the goal of a perfect society, but of a better and freer one. It promises a world in which more of the decisions will be made in the right way by the right person: you.- Bill Weld, Libertarianism: A Primer (1997) Ch. 1 : The Coming Libertarian Age"; A Note on Labels: Why "Libertarian"?
- I'm not an anarchist any longer, because I've concluded that anarchism is an impractical ideal. Nowadays, I regard myself as a libertarian. I suppose an anarchist would say, paraphrasing what Marx said about agnostics being "frightened atheists," that libertarians are simply frightened anarchists. Having just stated the case for the opposition, I will go along and agree with them: yes, I am frightened. I'm a libertarian because I don't trust the people as much as anarchists do. I want to see government limited as much as possible; I would like to see it reduced back to where it was in Jefferson's time, or even smaller. But I would not like to see it abolished. I think the average American, if left totally free, would act exactly like Idi Amin. I don't trust the people any more than I trust the government.
- A 'popular libertarian' might ... feel all that needs to be done to bring the world to justice is to institute the minimal state now, starting as it were from present holdings. On this view, then, libertarianism starts tomorrow, and we take the present possession of property for granted.
- There is, of course, something very problematic about this attitude. Part of the libertarian position involves treating property rights as natural rights, as so as being as important as anything can be. On the libertarian view, the fact that an injustice is old, and, perhaps, difficult to prove, does not make it any less of an injustice. Nozick, to his credit, appreciates this, and implies that in all cases we should try to work out what would have happened had the injustice not taken place. If the present state of affairs does not correspond to this hypothetical description, then it should be made to correspond.
- Jonathan Wolff, Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State (1991), p. 106
See also
External links
[edit]- Libertarianism. Entry at Encyclopædia Britannica.


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SHANGHAI — A collaboration between Chinese-Australian joint venture extruder Finlumen and specialty compounder NEU Specialty Engineered Materials LLC has yielded a minimally invasive surgical catheter that will be exhibited at an upcoming industry trade show.
Finlumen, the tubing extrusion division of Demax Medical Technology Co., sought out NEU, a subsidiary of PolyOne Corp., to help produce catheters to the exacting specifications required for making extremely small-diameter tubing used in minimally invasive surgery.
NEU, the former New England Urethane Inc. business, specializes in compounding high-performance thermoplastics.
Finlumen's General Manager Yao Xu told Plastics News in a phone interview that manufacturing in China and working with European suppliers can be difficult because of the time difference and lack of face-to-face contact.
"It's the first time I found a company who has set up a team dedicated to medical requirement tubing, and it's more convenient because they had someone here," he said.
He added that it can be tricky to develop new products because of low production numbers and high quality demanded by clients.
Finlumen, a relatively new division at Demax, was looking for a materials supplier that could provide expertise in the extruded products trade and processing.
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The completed catheter will be displayed at May's Chinaplas trade show in Guangzhou. And it looks like the collaboration is not over for Finlumen and NEU. Yao hinted at future projects with NEU and Avon Lake, Ohio-based PolyOne.


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Open Society Foundations Announce Inaugural Soros Arts Fellows
New fellowship honors eight artists engaging creatively with public space
NEW YORK—The Open Society Foundations are pleased to announce the first recipients of the Soros Arts Fellowship, a new initiative to support innovative mid-career artists using art and public space to advance pluralistic, democratic, and just societies. The eight fellows selected will each receive an $80,000 stipend to realize an ambitious socially engaged art project over the next 18 months.
With a long history of supporting arts and culture to advance social change, the Open Society Foundations today recognizes the importance of artists' contributions and the necessity of using creativity as a response to increased repression across the globe. As spaces for public engagement are shrinking, the arts are often the last refuge of collective imagination.
"Whether in democracies with longstanding traditions of supporting freedom of expression or in countries undergoing political transition, artists working in public spaces can contest oppression, make hope tangible, and create momentum for change," said Rashida Bumbray, senior program manager of the Open Society Foundations' Arts Exchange. "This fellowship acknowledges the critical role that the arts can play in confronting obstacles to open society, and we are delighted to name these eight remarkable artists as our first cohort of fellows."
The 2018 Soros Arts Fellows originate from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Haiti, Morocco, Romania, Sudan, and the United States. Each is pursuing projects of their own design—including an arts-based organizing campaign against public conviction registries in the United States; a citizen perspective film on life in the historically overlooked municipality of Lubunga, in the Democratic Republic of Congo; and a cultural resistance movement against the privatization of natural resources in the Moroccan Benslimane forest.
The Soros Arts Fellowship was designed with a clear awareness of the challenges faced by artists and cultural producers doing social engaged work that is largely disconnected from the art market. The fellowship provides artists with the resources to develop a large-scale project on their own terms in their own local contexts. Over time, the Soros Arts Fellowship aims to build and strengthen a community of global allies.
The selection committee included Omar Berrada, curator and director of Dar al-Ma'mûn; Leslie Hewitt, artist and assistant professor at The Cooper Union; Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose Chairman of Education at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Nato Thompson, artistic director of Philadelphia Contemporary; Arts Exchange staff Rashida Bumbray, Tatiana Mouarbes, and Lauren Agosta; and colleagues from the Open Society Foundations. As part of the fellowship, recipients have the opportunity for personalized professional development through mentorship by Ruby Lerner, founder of Creative Capital.
2018 Soros Arts Fellows
Khalid Albaih (Copenhagen, Denmark) will create a platform to connect artists and arts patrons around the world, forging an online community and helping to democratize public space and provide artists with access to spaces for their work.
Nana Oforiatta-Ayim (Accra, Ghana) will create a series of films exploring the cultural and historical kaleidoscope of each region in Ghana, as well as their most glaring—and often unspoken—ills, building sustainable interventions through partnership with local communities and foundations.
Hassan Darsi (Casablanca, Morocco) will work with residents of Beni Aïssi village in the Benslimane forest to create a cultural resistance movement against privatization of natural resources, which will include a citizen's cultural walk to build solidarity and new artistic paths for interaction.
Laila Hida (Marrakech, Morocco) will collaborate with artists and activists to engage local communities to create new spaces for collective social interaction, community empowerment, and the reactivation of public spaces around Marrakech.
Faustin Linyekula (Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo) will collaborate with 30 artists in Kisangani on Lubunga Files, a four-part film portraying citizen perspectives on life in Lubunga, emphasizing the importance of locally produced narratives, images, and reflections.
Guy Regis Jr. (Port-au-Prince, Haiti) will infuse the streets of Port-au-Prince with poetic forms to shift public opinion around the symbolic and literal forms of violence against youth in these spaces.
Laurie Jo Reynolds (Chicago, United States) will organize a multidisciplinary campaign with diverse community partners to oppose conviction-based registries, housing restrictions, and exclusion zones, and instead advocate for policies that prevent victimization, support survivors, and assist people in leading positive and productive lives after a criminal conviction.
Alina Serban (Bucharest, Romania) is producing a revised version of her work The Great Shame, the first play solely focused on the history of Roma slavery, to shift discriminatory narratives and advocate for the equal rights and treatment of the Roma people.