oops

Sorry about the recent lack of posting... the internet's been down at home for the past few days. I'll be back soon.

typical conservative distortion

Over at Zogby Blog, Kamil has this to say about the homeless:

I never give a dime to the so-called "homeless." I used to volunteer at a soup kitchen in San Francisco, and the "homeless" are some of the best fed people in America. Sure, there are a very, very small amount of people who are actually without homes. But, most of the street "homeless" are drug addicts, alcoholics, or mentally ill. No sense in giving them money, because you're not helping them.

Following in the tradition of the myth of the welfare queen, here's another example of conservatives extending the negative actions of a few to an entire class of people. Are there panhandlers that fake afflictions? Absolutely. But their existence does not mean that there aren't people who lack housing, a conclusion Kamil is oh-so-eager to draw.

His point that giving small amounts of money to people on the street doesn't help them does have some truth in it, of course. Homelessness is a structural problem that can't be solved piecemeal. Given the Zogby bloggers' penchant for small government (except in the realm of national defense, but who's counting?), they'd be unlikely to support any social programs that would deal with the problem of homelessness. So, I suppose, the short version is that the homeless shouldn't be helped? Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

hey, if you like meat, go ahead and eat it. but it might not be the best idea out there...

To get my bias out of the way: I'm vegetarian. I was never a huge fan of meat, and I don't miss eating it at all. But I know plenty of people enjoy it; it's a decision that each individual makes.

With that out of the way, two articles from today's Inquirer:

"Federal lawmakers yesterday introduced legislation to strengthen the nation's food-safety laws." The de jure need for this legislation is unclear; Elsa Murano, undersecretary for food safety said the legislation "would not give the [USDA] any tools to improve safety that we don't already have." And the American Meat Institute (there's an unbiased source) agrees, saying the USDA has the power to enforce food safety laws. The facts, however, indicate otherwise. The CDC reports that each year there are 76 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths from food contamination. Last year meat companies recalled a record amount of tainted meat. As has already seen in both environmental and fiscal terms, corporate self-policing just doesn't work. On numerous occasions, the USDA has been prevented from shutting down plants that are known to produce unsafe meat.

Mad cow disease has appeared in Canada. This doesn't mean that the disease has somehow been transmitted from UK cattle; spongiform encephalopathies can and do arise from spontaneous mutations. The problem arrives when the tissue from infected animals is consumed by other animals (including humans). It's postulated that the dramatic spread of BSE in the UK occurred because slaughtered, infected livestock were processed into feed that was consequently fed to other livestock. Back in 1997, the U.S. and Canada made it illegal to produce feed for cattle, sheep, and goats that contained meat or bone meal. Up in Alberta, where the infected cow was found, they're adamant that the slaughtered animal did not re-enter the food chain. Coupled with a belief that the cow had pneumonia, the testing of a sample of this cow was delayed for four months as it wasn't considered an urgent case. The problem is this: in the U.S., cows that appear to have pneumonia are regularly declared fit for human consumption.

This isn't too suggest that an epidemic of Mad Cow Disease is suddenly going to break out in the U.S. Even in the UK, there were "only" 73 deaths by 2000. But you have to ask yourself, do you want to be the one who gets sick?

dean: $1,000,000 and counting

Howard Dean's campaign's announced that Dean has raised $1 million through the Internet. While it's a nifty benchmark, campaign money doesn't know how it's contributed. What is significant, however, is that the contributions have come from over 10,000 people. I don't know the what the average campaign donation is, but Dean's figure of $168 strikes me as fairly low, indicating a fairly broad base of supporters.

From what I've read recently (perhaps a function of the mailing lists I'm on), Kucinich and Sharpton are meeting greater success with the traditional Democratic base (read: labor) than Dean, a fact that seems to belie Dean's claim that he represents the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party." I think it's silly to trump up the importance of the Iowa, but a political analyst at the Des Moines Register thinks that Kucinich "could be on the verge of becoming a factor in the Iowa contest." There's a enormous gulf between being a factor and having a chance to win, of course, but Kucinich's campaign's primary goal is bringing progressive views to the forefront, something he seems to be accomplishing. In Iowa at least.

ze french, zey like to, how do you say, strike, n'est-ce pas?

After a general strike a week or so ago, the most recent strike in France was restricted to teachers. About a quarter France's teachers walked out from work, with some forming a human chain around the ministry of education in Paris (a tactic apparently borrowed from the Italian Girotondi movement).

Their grievances are fairly standard fair; the government plans to alter the pension system to prolong teachers' careers, decrease funding, and give greater power to local educational authorities. What's interesting is that, American teachers are more likely to be in favor of decentalization instead of, say, a national curriculum. But, in France as well as in the U.S., without adequate funding for schools, just who's setting the curriculum and standards isn't terribly relevant.

yeah! bring it in! all of it!

Rick Nichols, in the Inquirer's Food section, thinks it's a great idea to give Coke or Pepsi exclusive vending contracts in public schools. In fact, he says, why stop there?

I know of no legal restraint, for instance, against schools' partnering with furniture, apparel and drug companies that stand to benefit from the district's work... Other avenues come to mind. Lifting the archaic bans on alcohol and cigarette sales are two.

His slippery slope goes a bit beyond funny, but his point is a good one. If schools become concerned with profit, the quality of education is necessarily going to suffer. Schools are not businesses. To treat them as such is ensure that some schools, and therefore students, are going to lose out. To shamelessly quote the entirely fictional Sam Seaborn, "Schools should be cathedrals." But the money shouldn't come at the price of forcing goods upon a captive market.

71, one-over

As you've certainly heard by now, Annika Sörenstam played golf today. By doing so at the Colonial, she became the first woman to play on the PGA Tour in 58 years.

There's been quite the uproar about it, most of which I have a hard time seeing as anything but blatant sexism. The most absurd claim that I've read went something like, "The LPGA Tour is for the best female golfers and the PGA Tour is for the best male golfers. Annika should know her place and stay in it." Way to condescend and just make stuff up. Is there a silent M before PGA I'm missing?

Lots of golf writers weighed in about how they thought Sörenstam would do. Not a one predicted she'd make the cut. But at one-over par, she's in good shape. I wouldn't be surprised if she broke par tomorrow.