Last night on the Daily Show, John Oliver did a great segment about how United States Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner can’t sell his own house. The story goes that Geithner bought the home in 2004 for 1.6 million dollars. He then tried to list the house in early 2009 for 1.635 million. This would be fine and dandy if the US housing market had not fallen 30% over the course of the last year. Quote of the day: “Whoever owns this home obviously knows nothing about finance.”

This past weekend I watched Food Inc. But before I talk about the film specifically I want to consider a couple other things.

The Templeton Foundation is sponsoring a “Big Questions” series. Each question features responses from an assortment of academics and public intellectuals. One question in the series asks, “Does the free market corrode moral character?” One of the respondents, Michael Walzer, says, “Competition in the market puts people under great pressure to break the ordinary rules of decent conduct and then to produce good reasons for doing so. It is these rationalizations — the endless self-deception necessary to meet the bottom line and still feel okay about it — that corrode moral character.”

These rationalizations for doing egregious things, especially in relation to nonhuman animals, have obviously been long decried by animal rights/welfarists of various stripes. Peter Singer’s 1975 book, Animal Liberation, brought to the public eye most of these practices. (In 2006, Singer, along with Jim Mason, wrote another book, The Way We Eat, which focused specifically on the American diet. They highlighted, among other things, three diets: “standard American diet,” “ethical omnivores,” and vegans. The book also represented a refutation to some of the claims advanced by Michael Pollan and others. ) And, since their founding in 1980, PETA have continued highlighting everyday animal cruelty.

But, to the public eye, Peter Singer and PETA are “radical” forces. The things they want us to do, like giving up meat and dairy, which, even  in the face  of the facts they present about factory farming, environment damage, and health effects, aren’t accepted by most as live options. So, how do we tie together evidence about American obesity, factory farming, the environment, etc.? Food Inc., in a way, makes such an attempt.

The film features Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan. The film looks at, among other things, the new face of American farming, and factory farming specifically, an American family’s diet and its effects on their health, and some possible solutions to the problem. If you’ve read Schlosser’s and/or Pollan’s books then what the film visits isn’t new material. The same can be said about the factory farm footage (Earthlings, another documentary film which came out a few years ago, depicts them much more graphically), and the family of four eating their meals from a fast food joint. But there’s something to be said about tying all these things together in one place with public figures and in the manner in which the filmmakers did. The movie didn’t reinvent the wheel or, for that matter, tread new ground. But it’s another (successful) attempt at showing how commodifying life affects everyone. If Food Inc. isn’t a wake-up call then I don’t know what is.

Animals are, unfortunately, used in “entertainment.” There are some instances, e.g., dogfighting, cockfighting, that are indisputably morally ghastly. Then there are instances where animal use is supposed to be of cultural import, namely, bullfighting. (In Pamplona, Spain this year, however, one of bulls got even in the annual running of the bulls.) But circuses are in a class of their own for a couple of reasons. First, people generally don’t associate them with animal cruelty. Perhaps many people think of circus folk, animals included, as one big family. And, second, circuses are so ubiquitous that people perhaps think that if some grossly negligent acts against animals were going on then someone would act against it. But circuses continue to operate in the US and elsewhere. And their treatment of animals is pretty much deplorable. PETA–you know, those assholes who just like stirring up controversy because they’re too bored and/or stupid to do anything else–have released footage from Ringling Bros. 2009 shows. Take a look at the video yourself.

Visit RinglingBeatsAnimals.com

Ceremony don’t mince words. They also don’t waste time. Their latest album, Still Nothing Moves You, is no exception. This effort finds the Bay Area quintet belting through fifteen hardcore punk songs in twenty-one minutes. Lyrically, their subject covers well worn terrain, including, e.g., loneliness (”I can’t seem to make things right/I can’t seem to erase my mind/more nothing than negative space”) and religion (”I won’t be skullfucked by faith/ I am the upside down cross”). So, what’s the catch? Sonically, Ceremony are surely stretching the boundaries of the hardcore punk genres. First there’s Ross Farrar’s vocals which, shouted, in the Ian Mackaye sort of way, create a definite sense of urgency. And then there’s the instruments. In a way they’re typical of other bands in the genre, e.g., F-Minus. But in other instances they’re more akin to something from a Khanate album. But in the end you really can’t go with the brutality of a good hardcore punk album. Here’s a video of them playing at Berkeley’s 924 Gilman St. venue. (Davey Havok of AFI even joins them on stage for a cover of Project X’s “Straight edge revenge.”)

Peter Singer

In 1972, Peter Singer wrote:

“if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing.”

Since then, the “shallow pond” argument has remained remained a powerful force in conversations about justice and the obligations of the world’s affluent people to the severely poor. And, since Singer moved to Princeton several years ago, he’s been able to move his arguments from philosophical circles to the broader public. (His NY Times article, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” first brought to the general public his views on aid to the severely poor. And his targets have included both billionaires and regular folks.)

Earlier this year Singer released his newest book, The Life You Can Save. If you’ve been following Singer’s publications since he originally wrote about the shallow pond then there won’t be a lot new in this book. (There’s been vast amounts of responses to his arguments, counter arguments offered by Singer and others, etc.) But if you’ve been a casual follower, then there’s plenty of interesting things to be found here. He discusses, among other things, the philosophical arguments supporting his original view, responds to the counter arguments, and suggests, again, that regular folks give a small percentage of their income to help the severely poor. And, now, nearly four decades later, his argument remains as potent as ever.

Sir Edward Downes and Wife Joan

A few days ago, looking for the obituary of Darrell Powers, I found an obit in the New York Times about the assisted suicide of Sir Edward Downes and his wife. Downes’ wife Joan was terminally ill with cancer. Downes, while not terminally ill, was 85 and losing both his sight and hearing. The couple elected to travel to Switzerland and end their lives together.

Subsequently I found a series of posts over at Double X addressing the couples decision from a variety of view points. It’s a great exchange about an issue that’s sure to become more and more prevalent in the coming years. At this time in my life I’m firmly in the camp that supports legalizing this practice. Not throwing open the doors mind you but it is cruelly bad policy to keep it illegal.

I think the American culture surrounding death is very different from that around the world. We’re imbued with the idea that life is priceless and every additional second is worth pursuing at any cost. It colors our debate about the health care system and I’m excited to see if this congresses go round with the question produces some sort of real discussion about when enough is enough. Will we step back and reconsider the idea that death is bad or death is good and entertain the notion that death just isn’t.

Trader Joes

If you’re a student, yuppie, bobo, or just someone who likes quality products at reasonable prices, then you’ve probably shopped at Trader Joe’s. The guys from my grad school house routinely made a trip down (often through ball freezing Massachusetts winters) to the Charles River Trader Joe’s to grab groceries. So, I was dismayed when I was forwarded an email by a friend that pointed out that Trader Joe’s ranks near the bottom of national grocery chains on sustainable fish. Greenpeace has a “Traitor Joe’s” site highlighting the store’s practice of selling of nonsustainable fish, e.g., Chilean sea bass. The old adage, “There’s always more fish in the sea,” no longer obtains. One EU study found that “Eighty-eight percent of EU stocks are fished beyond their maximum sustainable yield - the highest catch that can be maintained over an indefinite period - and for some, such as North Sea cod, the vast majority of fish are caught before they have reproduced.” Wrapping up, then, visit the Traitor Joe’s site and send Trader Joe’s a message about being more responsible about the fish they sell. And, for those of you who think fishing is less environmentally harmful than dry land factory farming, it’s time to think again.

The role one’s religion should play in political decision-making remains a debated issue. John Rawls believes ideally that religious reasons shouldn’t be used in political argument. In Political Liberalism, citing the examples of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., he does make exceptions based on his “proviso.” But he believes firmly in his ideal of “public reason.” On his view, public reason is “characteristic of a democratic people: it is the reason of its citizens, of those sharing the status of equal citizenship. The subject of their reason is the good of the public: what the political conception of justice requires of a society’s basic structure of institutions, and of the purposes and ends they are to serve. Public reason, then, is public in three ways: as reasons of the citizens as such, it is the reason of the public; its subject is the good of the public and matters of fundamental justice; and its nature and content is public, being given by the ideals and principles expressed by society’s conception of political justice, and conducted open to view on that basis… As an ideal conception of citizenship for a constitutional democratic regime, it presents how things might be, taking people as a just and well-ordered society would encourage them to be. It describes what is possible and can be, yet may never be, though no less fundamental for that.” Nicholas Wolterstorff, contra Rawls, has other ideas about the role religion and faith should play in citizens’ decision-making and liberal democracy. Here he is speaking with Miroslav Volf.

Obama & Sotomayor at Press Conference

There was a lot of debate about who President Obama would appoint as a Supreme Court nominee. Many on the left hoped he’d pick a “larger than life” liberal to balance against Scalia, Thomas, etc. President Obama’s pick, as we now know, is Sonia Sotomayor who, if confirmed, will join Ruth Bader Ginsburg as one of two women on the Supreme Court. But her nomination hasn’t been without controversy. Specifically, there’s been a quote taken out of context from her 2001 lecture at UC Berkeley. And, given the (mis)quote’s ubiquitousness, if Keith Olbermann hadn’t aired the quote in full on his program I don’t think we’d have escaped its grasp. Here’s the fuller quote (I’ve italicized the part we’re all familiar with):

… Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

Sotomayor is soon set to begin her confirmation hearings. The NY Times has an interview with Justice Ginsburg on women on the bench, their decision-making, and Sotomayor. On currently being the only woman on the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg says, “It’s almost like being back in law school in 1956, when there were 9 of us in a class of over 500, so that meant most sections had just 2 women, and you felt that every eye was on you. Every time you went to answer a question, you were answering for your entire sex. It may not have been true, but certainly you felt that way. You were different and the object of curiosity.”

Martha Nussbaum

The latest issue of Dissent features an article by Martha Nussbaum on same-sex marriage and constitutional law. For those of you who are familiar with Nussbaum’s work, specifically Women and Human Development, know that marriage falls within the ambit of “central human functional capabilities.” On affiliation, she writes, “Being able to live with and towards other people, to recognize and show concern for other human beings, to engage in various forms of social interaction….this entails, at minimum, protections against discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, caste, ethnicity, or national origin.”

For her, the public debate about same-sex marriage isn’t one about the content of marriage (friendship, intimacy, etc.), civil aspects of marriage (that is, whether same-sex couples should enjoy the same civil rights as heterosexual couples), nor is it about the religious aspects of marriage. She notes that religions are internally divided on the status of same-sex couples. She believes, rather, that the public debate is about “the expressive aspects of marriage.” After discussing the “Golden Age of marriage’ she moves onto what we’re seeing in today’s sociopolitical environment, including the panic same-sex marriage seems to excite. She concludes by saying that whatever states choose to do about same-sex marriage it “will be done on a basis of equality. Government cannot exclude any group of citizens from the civil benefits or the expressive dignities of marriage without a compelling public interest.”

One extra note. The online version of the article includes responses from several commentators.