Hasta La Gadget!

John Legend and Chrissy Teigen heated up the Golden Globe Awards red carpet on Sunday in Beverly Hills.

The couple, who recently celebrated Legend’s 36th birthday in NYC alongside Kimye, looked every bit the A-list pair as they made their way into the Beverly Hilton, arm-in-arm. Teigen rocked a blush pink long sleeve beaded sheath gown by Zuhair Murad while Legend was dapper in a tuxedo.

Legend and Common are nominated for Best Original Song for “Glory,” from the film “Selma.”

“Common and I wrote this song for ‘Selma’ as a labor of love in honor of this magnificent film and the incredible men and women whose struggle the film chronicles,” Legend said in a statement following his Golden Globe nomination. “As we continue to march for justice and equality in 2014, we are so inspired by their work.”

If PBA President Patrick Lynch’s words and conduct weren’t so incendiary, his words and conduct would be laughable. Rather than laughable, however, they are shameful and they are explosive. Mr. Lynch outlandishly asserted that Mayor De Blasio is anti-cop and that he has thrown the New York City police officers under the bus. Worse yet, he said that the mayor has the blood of the recently murdered New York City police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu on his hands.

Are you kidding me, Mr. Lynch? And, then, on top of that you want the mayor to apologize to you and your membership. It is you, PBA union President Patrick Lynch, from whom an apology is due to the City of New York.

Mayor de Blasio never ran for Mayor of the City on an “anti-police” platform; once elected, Mayor de Blasio has never thrown police officers under the bus; and Mayor de Blasio most certainly does not have blood of the fallen officers on his hands. So, Mayor de Blasio does not owe New York City police officers an apology; and the repeated statements by police union officials that the mayor does owe police officers an apology is utter nonsense.

The PBA union-manufactured narrative and controversy — and the repeated declarations by the PBA’s leadership that the mayor must apologize to New York City police officers — all started during Bill de Blasio’s campaign for Mayor of the City of New York. During his campaign, candidate de Blasio advocated the position that New York City’s unconstitutional “stop and frisk” policy needed to end because of what the unconstitutional “stop and frisk” policy was doing to undermine the honor and respect which was otherwise due to New York City police officers.

Candidate de Blasio proposed that the unconstitutional “stop and frisk” policy and practice was undermining the relationship of the police with large segments of New York City’s minority communities (whose residents were being disproportionately impacted by such); and he further offered that the respect and honor due to police officers could only start to be restored with the cessation of that unconstitutional policy. That’s hardly “anti-cop” as the union leadership asserted at the time and which that union leadership continues to assert even today. Rather, the mayor was, in context of course, advancing a “pro-cop”/”pro-community” position.

Then, Eric Garner was killed on July 17, 2014 by the actions and conduct of New York City police officers.

Eric Garner’s death arose out of New York City’s policing practice known as the “broken widows”/”quality of life” petty offense initiative which propelled police officers to “stop and detain” individuals for “petty”, often not even criminal, offenses. That policy and practice, a close cousin of the unconstitutional “stop and frisk” policy and practice, disproportionately impacted on the city’s minority residents and was undermining the relationship between the city’s minority residents and the police — just like the “stop and frisk” initiative had done before the mayor elected not to fight that battle any further and decided to put a stop to the litigation over the enforcement practice (thereby beginning to start the process of re-building a positive police/community relationship).

The death of Eric Garner resulted in an outcry by the public for justice because the conduct of the New York City police officers did not appear to comport with the requirements of the law; and, therefore, demanded that there had to be some public accountability for the death-causing conduct of the police officers who were involved. So, when the grand jury acted in a manner and fashion which provided no accountability whatsoever (even minimal accountability as justice demanded), such generated a hue and cry across the spectrum about the manifestly obvious injustice.

Unfortunately that outcry for justice on behalf of Eric Garner lacked the voice of Patrick Lynch (not even a whisper). He was nowhere to be heard except to propose that the police officer, who applied the chokehold that resulted in the death of Eric Gaarner, was, said Lynch, a “model police officer,” for all intent and purposes “a boy-scout”; and that the police officer deserved honor and respect notwithstanding his less-than-honorable (abusive, perhaps criminal) conduct.

Mayor de Blasio rightly spoke about the grand jury’s action (inaction), as the city’s mayor, and as the human being he is — and, as well, as the parent of a teenage African American son. In responding to the manifest injustice occasioned by the grand jury’s inexplicable inaction, Mayor de Blasio spoke candidly of the advice which he and his wife Chirlane McCray, herself an African American parent, gave to their son (just as President Obama spoke candidly when he exposed his feelings regarding the death of Trayvon Martin — in substance, if I had had a son, Trayvon Martin could have been my son).

Mayor de Blasio recounted that he and his wife counseled their son that he should always remember that, in our still imperfect race-conscious society, he is seen as who he is — a Black teenage male. They counseled that such had implications in this imperfect world and that he should act accordingly (prudently) when engaged by individuals including, yes, police officers.

Mayor de Blasio and his wife reminded their son, as do all parents of all young Black and Brown male children (whatever the socio economic strata), of the power which we as a society have vested in the police, including the power to use force and to justify its use; force that could, and sometimes does, result in the death of the individual (even more so than when their son’s white counterparts interact with police officers).

Remember Eric Garner? That’s how the recounting of the advice came up in the mayor’s post-grand jury inaction press conference. That’s not “anti-police” and that’s not “throwing police officers under the bus.” The mayor’s thoughts, as a parent of a young Black teenage son, were not at all inappropriate under the circumstances particularly since, at the same time the mayor was recounting the parental advice that he and his wife had given to their son, the mayor extolled the honor and virtue of those who serve the City of New York as police officers (as the mayor continues to do so).

So, not only are Patrick Lynch’s comments utterly untrue and pure nonsense, they are slanderous and worse. They are despicable. Mr. Lynch’s comments were not and are not designed to serve either the city’s interest or to serve the interest of the PBA membership. They were designed to serve his own personal interests as the PBA’s president. Those comments certainly did not serve the honor of the officers whom he represents and on whose behalf he supposedly seeks for them the honor and the respect they are due (when their conduct, as it ordinarily does, justifies such).

Mayor de Blasio is endeavoring to create the more perfect New York City community, a more perfect community in which police officers receive the respect and honor they are due not simply because they are police officers but because their lawful conduct deserves that respect and honor; and a more perfect New York City in which police officers are held at least minimally accountable when their conduct is less than honorable.

What are you doing, Mr. Lynch, to create that more perfect New York City community? Not much. Perhaps you can start with an apology to the City of New York.

James I. Meyerson was an Assistant General Counsel in the Office of the General Counsel of the NAACP from 1970-1981. He maintains a civil rights practice in New York City where he focuses on police misconduct.

I’ve always enjoyed water-distribution puzzles. They are simple in structure and usually straightforwardly posed, but their plain presentation belies their challenging nature. Here are three classic variations on the theme to wrap your head around.

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Converting unfamiliar speech to text in Google Translate is currently an awkward affair: you have to start a recording and wait until a moment after you’re done to find out what the other person said. That’s not exactly living up to the dream of a St…

Freedom of expression does not mean that anyone has the right to be heard at any time and in any forum, no matter what. There are times when lines can and must be drawn for reasons both moral and legal, but there are other times when it is inappropriate and wrong to draw such lines. Recent events in France, so terrible and tragic, have given us reason to think through yet again when freedom of expression should be limited in our country and when it should not.

David Brooks, writing on January 8 in the New York Times, points to the hypocrisy of those Americans who celebrate the journalists at Charlie Hebdo for their courage in saying offensive things but then are far less tolerant toward those who offend their own views. “It’s almost always wrong to try to suppress speech, erect speech codes, and disinvite speakers,” Mr. Brooks writes. The key is to be “legally tolerant” to all offensive voices, but to accord respect only to those who have earned it. In “healthy societies,” according to Brooks, we listen to satirists “with bemused semirespect,” while racists and anti-Semites are heard “through a filter of opprobrium and disrespect.”

A little clarity is in order here. Yes, racists and anti-Semites are entitled to “legal tolerance” in a democratic society, but does this suggest an absolute right to be heard? Can racists and anti-Semites ever be denied a public platform?

The primary focus of the Brooks article is on universities, and here, Brooks gets it mostly right. The American campus is, or should be, a forum for the open exchange of ideas — all ideas. But political correctness too often gets in the way. Any speaker who receives a legitimate invitation to speak on a university campus should be allowed by university authorities to appear and give voice to his or her beliefs, including views of the racist and anti-Semitic variety. He is also entitled to protection to deliver his remarks without disruption; after all, a right to speak is meaningless if it cannot be implemented.

Now, if a racist speech were given at my university, I would hope that the university president would publicly condemn the views expressed. Nonetheless, the speaker’s right to speak should be curtailed only under the most extreme circumstances. An example: Perhaps if the speaker had incited violence in previous appearances, demanding that his audience attack demonstrators and otherwise engage in physical mayhem, there would be justification for barring him from campus. But absent egregious behavior of this specific sort, freedom of expression in a university setting should be sacrosanct.

As a rabbi, I am, of course, especially sensitive to anti-Semitic sentiments, including anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Israel rhetoric. Nonetheless, if bigots on campus choose to attack Judaism and the Jewish state, so be it. I will express my outrage while defending their rights; and generally speaking, the Jewish community has done the same. To be sure, there have been exceptions. In February of 2013 at Brooklyn College, some Jewish leaders attempted, on the flimsiest of pretexts, to silence speakers who had anti-Israel views with distinctly anti-Semitic overtones; this was a serious mistake. But most of the time the Jewish community understands that freedom of expression ultimately protects Jews and the religion that they embrace, just as it protects all Americans.

Still, what is true in the university setting is not necessarily true elsewhere. I may have to hear anti-Semites and holocaust deniers at the local university, but that doesn’t mean that I have to hear them in my local synagogue. Speech codes at a university are a bad idea because universities are a place where diverse — and extreme — points of view are welcome. But rules for who should speak at a synagogue are appropriate because synagogues are a place for promoting Jewish values, and racists and Jew-haters traduce those values and offend those traditions. The same is true for churches, which promote Christian values, and for all the groups and clubs that bring Americans together for prayer, study, discussion, and civic activity. These too are voluntary associations that promote particular values. Of course, they may wish from time to time to widen their discussions and to include speakers and advocates with positions different from of their own. That is often healthy and wise, but the point is that limits will be determined by each group according to its own wishes and standards, and extremists can claim no right to be heard in such settings.

Similarly, racists and anti-Semites should not be granted the coverage that they seek from mainstream media outlets, such as network and cable news programs. I expect diverse points of view on the news shows that I watch, but I don’t want to see David Duke promoting his ideas as a regular commentator, and neither do the overwhelming majority of Americans.

Does this mean that extremists are to be denied freedom of expression in places other than the campus? It means nothing of the sort. The racists and anti-Semites among us are entitled to stand on a soapbox in any public park and proclaim their views. And they are entitled in a free society to publish books and pamphlets containing their ideas and to disseminate their positions on websites and social media. The protections that they enjoy are considerable and must be defended at all costs. But when David Brooks rightly reminds us to end speech codes and be legally tolerant toward offensive voices, we should remember that battling those offensive voices and erecting walls against hate remain our most important task. The extremists, the racists, and the anti-Semites have rights, but they are still the enemy of a great and good America.