From: The Washington Post (Washington, DC)
In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Jonathan Turley ‘83 writes: “Free speech is dying in the Western world. While most people still enjoy considerable freedom of expression, this right, once a near-absolute, has become less defined and less dependable for those espousing controversial social, political or religious views. The decline of free speech has come not from any single blow but rather from thousands of paper cuts of well-intentioned exceptions designed to maintain social harmony…” Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University. Read more…
From: The Register Mail (Galesburg, IL)
Knox College will host the second annual Prairie Fire Bioneers Conference Oct. 26-28. Affiliated with the National Bioneers Conference held in San Rafael, Calif., Knox’s conference is one of 24 satellite conferences across the country…
The conference will feature renowned speaker Julia Butterfly Hill delivering a keynote address on the Knox campus, as well as numerous plenary speakers via satellite. Hill is an American activist and environmentalist best known for living in a 180-foot-tall, roughly 1,500-year-old California Redwood tree for 738 days from 1997 to 1999. Local workshops will be hosted by regional leaders such as representatives from Illinois Citizens for Clean Air and Water (ICCAW), the University of Illinois Extension Office, and the Sustainable Business Center… Read more…
From: Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL)
[Knox College and the city of Galesburg], which is named for the college’s founder, George Washington Gale, are celebrating their 175th anniversaries this year. It’s an ideal time to visit this western Illinois community of 32,000 and witness its unique fusion of past and present…
Students still attend classes in Old Main, a building revered as the place where, in 1858, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of his rousing anti-slavery speeches during a debate with Stephen Douglas… A bell still rings each morning to signal the start of the school day. It’s perched in a tower atop Old Main, outside of which signs share the story of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. The building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is made of that old bartered brick… Read more…
From: Earth Times (Ripon, N. Yorkshire, UK)
Research by Knox professors Jennifer Templeton and James Mountjoy is noted as “the very first demonstration of visual mate choice lateralisation.” They and colleagues in Australia found that the male Gouldian finch uses only the right eye to evaluate potential mates; research originally published in Biology Letters.
British web site EarthTimes reports: “Your colour, your size and your song are what matters if you are a bird choosing a mate. In a polymorphic species, where several colour variations exist side-by-side, mates are chosen often because they match the chooser. But in the very rare and absolutely beautiful Gouldian finches (Erythrura gouldiae) from northern Australia, this can only happen with the use of the right eye, linked internally to the brain’s left hemisphere The zebra finch also uses his right eye to eye up his female during a static early stage of courtship. This seems to mean that these birds have a strong specialisation in each hemisphere for different tasks…” Read more…
From: The Register Mail (Galesburg, IL)
Building on the tradition of the famous 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate at Knox College, Knox Democrats and the Knox Conservatives are organizing debates this month to discuss the economy and other present-day issues. The debates begin at 4 p.m. Oct. 5 and will continue Oct. 12 and 19 [postponed to Oct. 12, 19 and 26] on the Knox campus on the steps of Old Main, the site of the Lincoln-Douglas debate… Read more…
