by Daniel on March 22, 2004
Following on from Chris’s post on the ethics of ritual slaughter, I thought I’d put up a link to one of the best things I read last year in the Guardian, on the ins and outs of the Halal meat industry. Suffice it to say that the definition of “Halal”, as with so many regulatory issues in the food industry, is a somewhat fluid concept, subject to the same sorts fo industry lobbying and regulatory capture as any other (reading between the lines, I pick up that the real problem for the halal industry is that if you don’t stun animals before slaughter, then they tend to kick around a bit, damaging the meat and leading to wastage costs which cannot always be passed on to the consumer).
Suffice it to say that if you really believe that it is a grave sin for you to eat meat which was not killed in the precise manner prevalent in Mecca around 622 CE, then it is probably not a good idea to go shopping for stuff branded “Halal” in the UK. It looks to me as if vegetarianism is the only religiously safe option for fundamentalist Muslims in the UK. For non-fundamentalists who understand that the strict traditional approach is not consistent with the realities of a modern abbattoir, then surely there can be no principled objection to starting up a debate about what compromises can reasonably be expected between religion and animal welfare.
I have no comparable information easily accessible online about the Kosher meat industry, but kosher/non-kosher scandals are a staple of the North London local press, so I would guess that similar arguments go through …
by Chris Bertram on March 22, 2004
I have “a letter in todays’s Guardian”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1174928,00.html on l’affaire Cavanagh (on which see “JQ’s earlier post”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001551.html and, especially, comments there by Harry). There are also supportive letters from Edward Lucas of the Economist and Bernard Crick (who is, perhaps, somewhat compromised by his previous association with Cavanagh’s employer, on which, “see Chris Brooke”:http://users.ox.ac.uk/~magd1368/weblog/2004_03_01_archive.html#107986894172321743 ). One benefit of having a blog is that, when the Guardian edit your letter you can publish the unexpurgated version yourself. They’ve not done a bad job, but here’s the original with the bits the Guardian cut out in italics:
bq. Political philosophers often entertain hypotheses which ordinary people find outlandish _or even outrageous_ . They do this in order to clarify our our fundamental commitments about justice, fairness, liberty, and so on. Even when they have come to a considered view _about those commitments_ , the question of how principles translate into policy is a difficult one. I take it that _a liberal newspaper like_ the Guardian believes that such fundamental inquiry by academics has a place, indeed and essential place, in the political ecology of a free society. _How deplorable it is then, when one of your correspondents, in search of material to discredit David Blunkett, should dig out theoretical reflections made in a wholly different context by Matt Cavanagh, a former philosopher now employed as a policy advisor._ Kudos is due to Blunkett for being willing to seek the advice of someone who has been so sharply critical of him in the past. Taking Cavanagh’s quotes from their context, then crying “race” _and seeking soundbites from backbenchers to embarrass a minister_ is _behaviour_ worthy of muckraking tabloids, not of the Guardian.
by Chris Bertram on March 21, 2004
Dan Dennett has an example somewhere where he imagines that someone discovers the score of a hitherto lost Bach cantata. But by an unfortunate co-incidence, the first few notes are identical to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” thus preventing us from ever having the experience eighteenth-century Leipzigers had of the music. Pauline and I have an interest in Art Nouveau, and, surfing ebay to see what there was for sale, she stumbled on “an exquisite brooch”:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2696908359&category=58553 designed by Charles Horner of Chester in 1895 or 6. From the description:
bq. The brooch is decorated with a flyfot symbol. In Western traditions, the flyfots arms each represent one of the four elements, and the extention symbolizes that element in motion; thus representing life and movement. It was also used by the Maya, Navajo, Jains and Buddhists. In Scandinavia mythology it represents Thor’s hammer.
Did you know what a flyfot is? No, neither did I.
by John Q on March 21, 2004
Pulling together a few different threads from recent posts, I came up with the following idea. It seems certain that Nader will be on the US Presidential ballot in November and that, while he will get less votes than in 2000, he might get enough to swing the outcome in some states. Also, as I understand things, each state has more-or-less unfettered control over the procedures used to select members of the Electoral College. With 50 states, I assume there must be at least one state where the Democrats control the legislative process (including, if required, the governorship) but which is potentially marginal in the Presidential election. In such a case, it would seem rational to introduce instant runoff voting.
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by Brian on March 21, 2004
“Language Hat”:http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001217.php has an excellent post up about a silly list of ‘mispronunciations’ that’s been apparently doing the rounds.
To get the full effect you really have to read the whole thing, but I will answer one of Mr. Hat’s questions. No, of course the author of the list doesn’t recommend pronouncing the _c_ in _Connecticut_. As every fule nose, the correct pronunciation is ON-NECK-TEA-COO.
by Eszter Hargittai on March 20, 2004
It is not often that “a dissertation gets written up in the New York Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/20/arts/20DEVA.html so I thought it was worth a mention here. Kieran has written here about Devah Pager‘s work earlier including a bit of context. Since Devah is a friend of mine, I would like to add that not only is she really smart and great at finding innovative approaches to research questions, but she’s also a delightful person. It’s wonderful to have people like her in academia and in sociology in particular using her talents to work on important questions… and it’s also nice to see good academic work get public recognition for a change!
Update: Be sure to check out Kieran’s note in the comments for more details about the public life of this dissertation.
by John Q on March 20, 2004
Since I’ve argued previously that there’s a lot of confusion in discussions about equality of opportunities and of outcomes, I was interested by this story that UK Home Secretary David Blunkett has hired as special advisor on race someone named Matt Cavanagh, most notable for writing a book called Against Equality of Opportunity which says that employers should be permitted to engage in racial discrimination.
This interview with Cavanagh in The Guardian does not seem very promising – he comes across as the worst kind of contrarian[1] – but is not really enough to go on. So I was hoping someone with a subscription to the London Review of Books might send me a copy of Jeremy Waldron’s apparently favorable review. In case you’re worried about the sanctity of intellectual property, I am a subscriber but I’ve never registered with the website and don’t have the required address slip to hand.
Meanwhile, I’m confident that lots of readers (and probably other CT members) will be well ahead of me, so I’d welcome comments, particularly setting me straight if I have misunderstood Cavanagh (or Waldron).
fn1. That is, one who makes great play with contradictions in the conventional wisdom, does not put forward a coherent alternative, but nonetheless makes authoritative-sounding pronouncements on public policy.
by Chris Bertram on March 19, 2004
I’ve been meaning to blog for the past week about a topic which caused some lively debate over Sunday lunch with some friends last week, prompted by political philosopher Paula Casal’s article “Is Multiculturalism Bad for Animals?” (Journal of Political Philosophy 11/1 2003). Muslims and orthodox Jews are only allowed to eat meat slaughtered according to Halal or Kosher procedures. These procedures are typically worse from the animal’s point of view that the “humane” methods required for slaughtering cattle normally (at least in the UK). Now as far as I know there’s no religious requirement on Muslims or Jews to eat meat slaughtered by these methods: that’s to say Muslims and Jews can be vegetarians if they want to be. The religious requirement is simply that IF they eat meat, these slaughtering methods must be used. The question that then arises is this: should adherents of these religions (and other similar ones if there are any) be given an exemption from standard animal cruelty regulations to permit them to continue to use these methods?
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by Harry on March 19, 2004
Invisible Adjunct generated a long discussion by asking why Americans don’t have vinegar with their fries. (They do, in fact, in the Northwest). My favourite hypothesis is this:
bq. Almost all the vinegar in the US has been supplanted by factory-made industrial acetic acid solution crap (“white vinegar”). Even the mass-market “apple cider vinegar” is factory-made crap made by mixing the white stuff with apple juice. As a result, most US residents will simply have no idea what vinegar really is. They have to go to a real pub (rare), or some other extraordinary place like Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor ( http://www.zingermans.com ), to get real vinegar these days. Therefore anybody who tries it with the vinegar one can buy will deeply regret it.
This is analagous with my combined hypotheses about why Americans don’t like fruitcake and Brits don’t like Bagels. American fruitcake is a terrifying concoction of food colouring and formaldehyde, that no-one in their right minds would want to have in the house, whereas British fruitcake is a rich and exotic mingling of booze, dried fruits, sugar and fat. Its just a different item. Similarly bagels — bagels in the UK are normally dried out old pieces of cardboard, as opposed to the wonderful moist morsels one can easily find here in the US (and my east coast friends tell me I’ve never even had real bagels.
by Harry on March 19, 2004
Great post by Laura about The Mommy Myth. The book is apparently about the sense of guilt mothers have about not spending 24/7 with their children. Laura says this:
bq. What is the source of this more demanding style of parenting? The authors blame a vast right wing conspiracy, which they intelligently call the Committee for Retrograde Antifeminist Propaganda or CRAP. (Call me an academic snob, but I was really irritated by this. Also, trying to be cute, they call the former Soviet Union, those pesky Russkies. Finger nails on a blackboard.)
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by John Q on March 19, 2004
Looking back at the debate over the Spanish election outcome, it struck me that many of the contributions to this debate suffered from a confusion between electoral outcomes and notions akin to Rousseau’s “general will”. My own contributions weren’t entirely free of this fallacious reasoning.
To clarify my point, suppose purely hypothetically that it could be shown beyond doubt that, in the absence of the terrorist attacks, the PP would have won, and that those who changed their votes did so in the hope that this would appease terrorists and induce them to direct their attacks elsewhere. Much of the debate has taken it as self-evident that, if this were true, then it could justly be said that the Spanish people had displayed cowardice, given in to Al Qaeda and so on. But even in this hypothetical case, this would not be true. It would only be true that the 5 per cent or so of Spaniards who changed their votes had done this. (I’d better emphasise again that I don’t believe the hypothesis to be true, and am using it only as an analytical device).
To take a marginally less controversial example, one way of interpreting the results of the most recent presidential election in the US is that the voters couldn’t make up their minds between Gore and Bush and decided, instead, to leave the choice up to the Supreme Court. Stated baldly, the claim seems evidently silly, at least to me, but when I checked, it wasn’t hard to find exactly this analysis being offered by Time Magazine
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by Brian on March 19, 2004
Despite having lived my entire life in two of the leading basketball countries of the world, there are many things about basketball I still don’t understand. Like, how can a foul you intended to give not be an intentional foul? I suspect that’s one of those odd quirks of the interpretations like the outside strike that we just have to live with. But here’s a more serious question.
Why is it that players are always taken out of the game when they get into foul trouble?
If they stay in the game, the worst thing that can happen is they foul out. And the cost of fouling out is that you have to spend part of the game on the bench. So to avoid the risk of the player spending a chunk of time on the bench, you make them spend a chunk of time on the bench. This doesn’t obviously make sense.
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by Kieran Healy on March 19, 2004
Via “Kevin ‘the Animal’ Drum”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_03/003504.php we learn that John Gray, author of _Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus_ is pretty touchy. He’s “threatening to sue”:http://www.gavinsblog.com/mt/archives/000906.html a blogger who “pointed out”:http://www.gavinsblog.com/mt/archives/000533.html last November that Gray’s Ph.D was of dubious provenance. I thought this was pretty well known — I mean, _I_ knew it, and it’s not like I keep up with the news. He got it from Columbia Pacific University, an unaccredited diploma mill somewhere in California. There was a “TV story”:http://www.insideedition.com/investigative/johngray.htm about it a while ago. But though CPU may be defunct (by the by, what computer scientist would not want a degree from CPU?) there are plenty of others. Enroll at “Strassford University”:http://strassuniversity.org.uk/, for example (discussed further in “this CBS news report”:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/25/eveningnews/consumer/main565236.shtml), or “Glencullen University”:http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2002/materials/work/slides/Glencullen%20University_files/, notionally located in the heart of “Dublin”:http://www.ireland.com/education/el/news4.htm[1], or just cut to the chase and “design your own degree”:http://www.ineedadiploma.com/pages/886679/index.htm — literally — at “Ineedadiploma.com”:http://www.ineedadiploma.com/pages/808468/index.htm. This last site helpfully reminds you that, although “All our diplomas are printed on high quality parchment paper [and] all transcripts are printed on tamper proof, security paper,” and that ”You also have the option of adding a security hologram to any transcript”, nevertheless “none of our items are intended to be used for unlawful misrepresentation or fraudulent purposes.”
fn1. Glencullen “also operates”:http://www.adn.com/24hour/nation/story/600189p-4642228c.html as the University of Wexford, which I suppose isn’t _that_ far from Dublin, but also as the University of San Moritz, which makes you hope the students don’t have to walk across campus to get from one lecture to the next.
by Micah on March 19, 2004
If you’re at all interested in legal academia, and if you haven’t already discovered them, some of the folks previously at “En Banc”:http://www.enbanc.org/ have formed a new blog called “De Novo”:http://www.blogdenovo.org, which is devoted in part to running on-line “symposia”:http://blogdenovo.org/symposia.html. I think this is an excellent innovation, and the De Novo bloggers are off to a great start. They’re currently running a blog-symposium–a blogosium?–about “Perspectives on Legal Education” (see “Day 1”:http://www.blogdenovo.org/archives/000035.html, “Day 2”:http://www.blogdenovo.org/archives/000037.html and “Day 3”:http://www.blogdenovo.org/archives/000049.html). For anyone thinking about going to law school, or currently suffering through it, there’s an especially good post by “Dahlia Lithwick”:http://www.blogdenovo.org/archives/000046.html.
The next symposium topic is “Internet, Law and Culture,” and they’re currently accepting submissions.
by Chris Bertram on March 18, 2004
Harvard Law Review recently published a sympathetic note of a book by a certain “Francis Beckwith”:http://www.francisbeckwith.com/ on so-called “intelligent design” (that’s creationism with bells and whistles on, to you and me). Brian Leiter took them “to task for this”:http://webapp.utexas.edu/blogs/archives/bleiter/000878.html (as well he might) and became the object of “a vitriolic polemic in the conservative National Review”:http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/baker200403150909.asp . The pompous and moralizing tone of the National Review’s article starts to look a little inappropriate, though, one we realize that the author — who is described as “a freelance writer in Texas” — is, in fact, “the aforementioned Beckwith’s graduate student and teaching assistant”:http://webapp.utexas.edu/blogs/archives/bleiter/000952.html . It’s a small world.