A Thinking Reed

  • Literalists, progresives, and Lost

    I like this, from Newsweek: Lost‘s viewers fall into two categories, those who adhere to reason and those who follow their faith. The Lost literalists believe that the show is infallible, that it’s not only an engrossing, entertaining television show, it’s holy writ–divinely inspired, all-knowingly conceived, and absolutely inerrant. In other words, the show’s many,…

  • The rehabilitation of U.S. Grant

    Interesting review of a new biography of Ulysses S. Grant from historian Sean Wilentz. At the time of his death, and for quite a while thereafter, President Grant was among the most revered men in the nation. But his reputation took a sharp turn downward, in part, according to Wilentz, because of the rising school…

  • The return of the sanctimonious carnivore

    Via Jean Kazez, two (quite possibly bogus) trend stories about “vegetarians” jumping on the “happy” meat bandwagon: here and here. I’m with Jean in thinking that almost any step toward better treatment of animals is a good thing. If more people are buying humanely raised meat, then animals are suffering less, which is all to…

  • “A gimmick that won’t solve our economic problems”

    Some on-point reactions to the President’s announced “spending freeze”: Andrew Leonard on the anti-stimulus and Glenn Greenwald on the sanctity of military spending. UPDATE: More analysis from Paul Krugman and Matthew Yglesias.

  • Addendum on personhood

    Just to further clarify what I think is wrong with Margaret Somerville’s “personhood” argument discussed below: she essentially wants to evacuate the notion of person of any substantive content and make it coterminous with human being. Thus, saying that a human animal is a person isn’t a factually informative statement; it becomes a tautology. Note,…

  • Personhood, human and animal

    Well, since we’re on the topic of the personhood of non-human entities, here’s an article by Margaret Somerville, a Canadian law professor, arguing that we shouldn’t apply the concept of “person” to non-human animals (via the First Things blog): My reasons for rejecting personhood for animals include that it would undermine the idea that humans…

  • Free speech and corporate personhood

    I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t make an informed comment on the legal aspects of yesterday’s SCOTUS campaign-finance ruling (though I know plenty of lawyers who are likely disgusted with it, including some former Supreme Court clerks). But what I find wrong with it is that it contradicts the heart of one of the…

  • Friday Metal Synth-Pop: Bat For Lashes, “Sleep Alone”

    I’m pretty obsessed with this album at the moment.

  • Show this to all Democratic pols, please

    (Via.)

  • Radiation, ammonia, chlorine…yum!

    The Chicago Tribune reports on the various–and very appetizing–ways meat is treated to make it safe. (Via.)