Terry Cowgill

Test Tube Tissue

There’s good news out there for all you vegans who, in actuality, are closet carnivores. PETA is offering a $1 million reward for anyone who can develop a way to manufacture fake meat.

In-vitro meat? It’s an interesting plan, if a bit impractical. Animal cruelty aside, you’d think there would be fewer environmental consequences from producing animal tissue in a test tube than there would be from all the hog, chicken and cattle farms spread across the world.

But any time I read an article about PETA, I’m always struck by how overheated the rhetoric gets from these people. The contest has evidently sparked something of a civil war among PETA members, since many “are repulsed by the thought of eating animal tissue, even if no animals are killed.” Hmmm … I thought one of the tenets of veganism is the cruelty and barbarism in killing animals for human use. So what could be wrong with growing tissue in a tube? No animals suffer and I can still get a cheeseburger at Applebees.

The NYT quoted one PETA member who objected to fake meat as saying, “My main concern is, as the largest animal rights organization in the world, it’s our job to introduce the philosophy and hammer it home that animals are not ours to eat.” Then my question is: “Who does have the right to eat animals?”

On more than one occasion I have watched my daughter feed her gecko. She dumps a few crickets into his cage, he spies one, wiggles his tail a bit, and pounces on his meal (although sometimes he misses and gets a mouthful of sand instead). I agree that animals should not be subjected to gratuitous or unnecessary cruelty, but if I go into my backyard and grab a squirrel with my bare hands, doesn’t it become “mine to eat?”

Does PETA argue that animals shouldn’t eat animals either? Indeed you could make a good case that animals are more cruel to each other than we are to them. I once saw an episode on Animal Planet that left me speechless and nearly sick. As soon as a female chimp had finished giving birth, a couple of males snatched the newborn from her and started munching on its tender tissue. It was easily the most barbaric thing I had ever seen and it was performed by animals on each other.

I think the PETA people should listen to a variation of the mantra of abortion rights advocates in the U.S. and become pro choice: “If you don’t like meat, then don’t eat it.”

Death To All Taxes

Leave it to the NYT op-ed page to tell us something we already know. No one likes taxes. But in a commentary today, author Richard Conniff has a notion: since no one likes taxes, let’s just change the name and then there won’t be so much objection.

Of course, the piece is tongue-in-cheek. And I understand that Conniff is trying to make a larger point about the responsibility we all have to make society better and, yes, sometimes that requires tax increases. Who could disagree with that?

But his insistence that it’s the word that people object to rather than the concept strikes me as naive. As I pointed out in a post about labels more than a year ago, almost any word or phrase used to describe something regarded as objectionable or deficient by enough people will eventually take on a negative connotation by the sheer force of repeated use.

So changing the name of taxes, with its “punitive overtones,” to “dues” might make the concept seem a little more palatable. But over time, “dues” would be perceived just as negatively, notwithstanding the fact that the word “is rooted in social obligation and duty.”

What Conniff doesn’t understand is the concept of taxation has a negative connotation, not so much because of greed, but because too often people have seen public funds used for philosophically objectionable purposes (e.g. war, abortion) or wasteful ends (e.g. “bridges to nowhere”).

Nice try, Conniff, but you’re talking about nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig.

Tuesday’s Tidbits

Scrolling through RCP and noticed this somewhat flattering piece in the Times Online concerning the late Charlton Heston and his fierce anti-gun control views.

Two shocking things about it: the writer is English and “is Britain’s only self-confessed libertarian Marxist newspaper columnist.” In other words, a left-wing libertarian case against gun control and for the simple virtues of the Second Amendment. That guy has more personalities than Sybil.

Good Heston quote from one of his letters from 1999:

 A while ago, I was at one of those silly “A-list” parties and fell into conversation on all this with a stunningly beautiful, famous star (not a bad actress, either) who said, “Well, look what it says on the dollar bill: ‘e pluribus unum.’ From one, many.” “Actually, you’ve got the Latin backward,” I replied. “It translates, ‘From many, one.’ As in one nation . . . indivisible?” “No kidding?” she said, amazed. “Well . . . whatever.” And there you have it. We live, increasingly, in a “well, whatever” nation. God help us all.

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John McCain attended a pro-Iraq war rally yesterday. Yes, believe it or not, there actually are such things. Mack said the usual words of encouragement about fighting terrorism and called Petraeus “one of [America’s] greatest generals.” But here’s what puzzled me about the story on MSNBC’s First Read:

Before McCain spoke, former Army Staff Sergeant David Bellavia introduced the Arizona senator, telling those in attendance he wants his sons to view McCain as a role model, versus someone like Tiger Woods.

Say what? What did Tiger do to deserve the designation of poor role model? Make a lot of money instead of joining the military? Seems to me you could say the same thing about Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz or some of the other public officials whose war the sergeant supports.

Banter at the Bar

I usually work from home on Wednesday afternoons after my deadlines have been met. I typically do a little blogging, plan for next week and get ready for my evening of tutoring. Sometimes a nap is even in order.

But today there is so much construction going on at my house that I can scarcely think straight. Between carpentry and demolition work being done on the addition by our contractor, James Avery, and the roofing of Roy Wilcox and his fine crew, the noise vacillates between loud and deafening.

I didn’t feel like venturing back to the newsroom, so I have camped out in the Scoville Library, where much to my delight, there is a fast wireless network and (as you would expect in a library … shhhhh!) it’s reasonably quiet.

But I digress. I have not one, but two radio appearances tomorrow morning. First, there is my regular appearance on Marshall & Mike from 8:30-9 a.m. on AM 1020 WHDD. To listen live via CATV6, click here. We always have a fun discussion on this week’s LJ.

There is a great deal of banter about the back stories, allowing us to read between the lines to divine some sort of deeper meaning in the news. I’d like to think of it as the conversation we might have about the news at the end of the day while sipping a beer at the bar in The White Hart.

Right after that, at about 9:10 a.m., I appear on the Journalists’ Roundtable on WAMC (Northeast Public Radio). It’s still fun, but a little less free-wheeling and more compressed. Joe Donahue and Julia Taylor ask good questions, but I have to bring subjects to the table that offer regional appeal.

I usually have two or three regional issues to talk about. In previous appearances I’ve held forth on affordable housing, infrastructure, our shrinking population of school-aged children — the usual suspects. But I’m a little stumped about what to talk about tomorrow. Any suggestions? Click here to listen live when the time comes.

Stuff White People Like

More race-related “stuff.”

Drudge had a link up today on a Houston Chronicle piece about this blog. Parts of Stuff White People Like are LOL funny, but some of it amounts to groping for a laugh.

I guess what I’m wondering is why the provocative title? The blog really makes fun of the cultural and social milieu of the upper middle class — not really at Caucasians in general.

As a friend of mine pointed out, Stuff White People Like is really the Official Preppy Handbook for the new millennium. As a graduate of an old stuffy boarding school, I found much of the satirical Preppy Handbook rang true. As someone who is white and intimately familiar with the upper middle class, I can say the same about Stuff White People Like.

Warning: if you are part of the PC crowd, drive an Audi and fancy yourself extremely open-minded and tolerant, you might find Stuff White People Like highly offensive.

A Hooker Is A Hooker …

I saw this question raised a couple of days ago in a blog about Spitzer, but (for the life of me) I can’t remember where, so I will throw it out here for discussion:

Why is it legal to pay someone to have sex in front of a camera (i.e. the pornography industry) but illegal to pay that same person to have sex with you in the privacy of a hotel room? No rationalizations, please …

40 Days …

Update 5 p.m. Saturday: It has finally let up and will settle into a pattern of merely annoying showers rather than the relentless aquatic assault of this morning and afternoon. This is the northeastern corner of my cellar. What fun …

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And I’m hoping it stops tonight …

I can’t remember when I’ve ever seen this much rain. By Feb. 19, it had already been the rainiest February since they began keeping records at Bradley. Now it’s March 8 and the trend has continued. This has got to be the rainiest 40 days since Noah.

I’m sure there are lots of calls for basement pump-outs. I can’t even imagine what the Great Falls look like right now at 3 p.m. As I related a few posts back, I’ve got a construction project going on over my garage. I’ve got water coming into my house from the east. Plus, because of the awkward drainage caused by my currently gutterless garage roof, a window well on the north side of the house is filling up and allowing more water into the cellar.

Emptying buckets and bailing window wells is pretty much what my life looks like right now. In the vernacular of my youth, “This really sucks.”

Identity Crisis

Or, as Adm. Stockdale famously said, “Who am I and why am I here?”

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Just the other day my wife ran into a regular reader of this blog who said he thought he had me figured out. I am really a Republican in independent’s clothing, he insisted. So rather than become offended, I thought that with the presidential race upon us I would conduct an unscientific survey of myself to determine what I am. You know, sort of the political equivalent of checking yourself for ticks.

Since I left the Democratic Party as I entered grad school in 1988, I’ve been unable to identify with either party enough to actually bring myself to enroll in one of them. In the last few years I have described myself as “a hybrid who leans libertarian.” Alas, since I am unaffiliated, I will be unable to vote in either of Connecticut’s Feb. 5 primaries.

Nonetheless, the reader’s observation got me to thinking. If the presidential race boiled down, for example, to a contest between a middle-of-the-road Dem and an equally middling GOPer, both of whom were personally acceptable to me, for whom would I vote? It’s not a question I could answer without giving it some thought.

I have picked 13 issues off the top of my head that are considered important, that I am passionate about and, in some cases, are very relevant to the presidential campaign. Some are hot-button; some are not. I have ranked myself as honestly as I can, according to contemporary political standards.

Like the former teacher that I am, I have used letters and a system of pluses and minuses. For example, R means mainstream Republican; D- means leaning Democrat; R+ means right-wing nut and so forth. Two of my responses (education and life issues) defied categorization. So I designated them non-classifiable (NC).

I’m sure I’ve left out some important topics that also deserve analysis, but this is a highly arbitrary and subjective exercise, so please bear with me. The topics and brief explanations are written in note form using sentence fragments and abbreviations (that’s the recovering English teacher part of me!).

This survey is not as easy to take as some that let you check a few boxes and have the results tabulated for you. Be that as it may, take the test, if you dare, and see how you rate:

Continue reading Identity Crisis…

Scribblers Anonymous

For all those on the Falls Village Blog who prefer to hide their identities, look what I found. And no, I won’t tell you who started Anarachists Anonymous. S/he prefers to remain among the anonymice. Suffice it to say, however, that it was not yours truly.

To Moms Everywhere

I’m watching the Democratic presidential candidates debate on CNN and getting bored. Blah, blah, blah. Wolf Blitzer has to be the single most irritating TV newsman on the planet …

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I ran across this video and at first thought I would put it in the bank until Mothers Day, when I would post it and look like I had brilliantly pulled it out of my hat. But, alas, that would not be fair, so I post it here now.

This will bring cackles of laughter to any mom or anyone who runs (or helps run) a household with children. The litany of tasks and admonishments is spot-on and LOL funny. And she gets all those words out without stumbling and sings them to the William Tell Overture.

Happy (early) Mothers Day.