Tom Standage, who is the technology editor for the
Economist, has written a holiday
op-ed contribution in the
New York Times today. He writes that elitism in wine drinking has a long history, but that we should largely ignore the ratings and just drink what we enjoy. That's fine. And then we find this paragraph:
The close association between wine and sophistication in the ancient world contributed to its rejection by Muslims. With the rise of Islam in the seventh century, Mohammed's followers expressed their disdain for the previous ruling elites by replacing wheeled vehicles with camels, chairs and tables with cushions and by banning the consumption of wine. Being devout, they signaled, was more important than seeming sophisticated.
This is the first time I've heard this interpretation of Islam's prohibition on alcohol. As far as I can tell, it's entirely wrong. In fact, the injunction against alcohol is one of the best attested traditions in Islam and it can be directly
linked to the Qur'an. The rest of the paragraph is inaccurate, too. Wheeled carts had been replaced
long before the rise of Islam for
economic reasons, and not class warfare. I'm not sure where Mr. Standage came to have this interpretation, but as the technology editor of a widely respected journal, I would expect him to understand the overwhelming technological benefit of using the camel in the Arabian climate. I don't know the social history of early Islam well enough to comment on his claim about the use of cushions instead of tables and chairs, but again, I would suggest that he is probably wrong and the lack of furniture may have more to do with the dearth of wood in the Arabian peninsula than it does with rejection of the imperial elites.
Labels: alcohol, history, islam, religion, technology
Does anybody understand why
this Los Angeles Times article's headline: "'Illegal' Transit Strike Puts New Yorkers Out in the Cold," has the word "illegal" in quotation marks? This isn't even an
editorial, it's just supposed to be reporting on the transit strike. I thought the
illegality of the strike was quite clear.
Sham update
Rocketboom mentioned that the link in
my previous entry was being examined by
Snopes, but the results were still inconclusive. Well, Kara pointed out today that
conclusive results are now available. The French dude was not "online" dating his own mother . . . but the internet is still a sham.
Labels: internet, media, sham, transit strike
I don't think I've said this in a while, but:
The internet is a sham. (via
Rocketboom)
Labels: internet, online dating, sham
I've been thinking about using a
Brita filter to filter bad vodka for a while now. It didn't occur to me to check to see if others had done it until today. They have. In fact, there is a whole world of
food hacks that range from
awful to
awesome. (Yes, I know.) Personally, I just want to use ultracheap filtered vodka to make
limoncello.
Labels: booze, food, hacks
As most people outside of California now know (in the wake of the special election that made Arnold Schwarzenegger the governor of California), California has
a ballot initiative system that allows anybody to bring an item up for vote in a referendum and bypass the state legislature entirely. This system makes it impossible for California's State Assembly to overturn a referendum item that has been put into place by the voters.
I was approached yesterday by two people who asked me if I would sign a petition to "get an initiative on the ballot to pay for more cancer research." It sounded like a good idea, but I was wary. As a rule, I don't think California's state referendum system is a good idea. It is supremely wasteful, undermines the elected legislature, and allows for some private factions to wield too much political power by virtue of having enough money to mobilize a street campaign to get initiatives onto ballots and the resources to blitz the public with ad campaigns.
Nevertheless, what's wrong with funding
cancer research, I thought? So, despite my better judgment, I agreed to sign the petition.
As I was writing my name, I thought that perhaps I should read the text of the actual proposition. As it turns out, the bulk of the initiative had nothing to do with cancer. It is a proposal to raise taxes on the sale of tobacco by $1.50 per each pack of cigarettes. Now, I don't smoke, so this tax would not directly affect me. I did feel like I had been baited-and-switched, however, and I crossed out the "
Afshin" I had already written and told the petitioners that I would not sign it. I told them that it seemed to me that they had misrepresented the issue. And regardless of the issue, I felt that the referendum system was inherently flawed.
One of the two campaigners was perfectly willing to accept my refusal, but the other thought he could still convince me. He told me that by signing the petition, I was only helping the initiative make its way onto the ballot, and I was not actually voting for the issue. True enough, I responded, but regardless of the actual content of this initiative, I don't like the idea of initiatives at all. To this, he countered that I was putting people like him out of a job, because he got paid to find signatures for these petitions. This, I thought, was a low blow. I told him that it was nothing personal (and I even tried to smile as I said it), but I would not sign the petition. I asked him to take care and have a nice day.
Research the petition!
When I got home, I decided to look into the issue. Sure enough, the whole story is
significantly more complex than the man and woman I met yesterday would have had me believe. Apparently there are two separate proposals to impose a tax on tobacco products. The two are not mutually exclusive, but it's unlikely that both can pass (because that would entail a $3 tax per pack of cigarettes). Each proposal is designed to address healthcare costs: one wants to offset the cost of emergency care and the other aims to pay for health insurance for all of California's uninsured children (which is a noble cause, but surely California can come up with a better system for trying to bring this about rather than paying petitioners to lie to voters). Notice the conspicuous lack of "cancer research." If you look closer, one of the proposals would spend one-third of its revenue to "disease research." That would be the proposal that is backed by American Cancer Society. Or perhaps the lobbyists I met were referring to the
1 percent of the other proposition's projected revenue that would be allocated to the breast cancer fund.
I'm still not sure which of the two propositions I refused to sign for.
(Most likely) reject the petition!
This is the first time I've been approached to sign one of these petitions, so it wouldn't be fair to characterize every referendum drive as deceptive, but it sure does confirm my original suspicions about the entire process. And I still think
we should get rid of this system.
Labels: ballot propositions, california, politics
I just saw
this video of U2 and The Arcade Fire performing Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Be warned that the video is pretty shaky because it is hand-held, but the sound quality isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Bono sounds convincingly like Ian Curtis, which is a little surprising. As is typical when two full bands are on the same stage, there are a lot of extraneous members hanging around playing extraneous instruments (think of the gluttony of Temple of the Dog). This recording has the unmistakable feel of an impromptu "let's play a cover" decision and you can see the backup singers repeating the chorus an extra time and laughing about coming in at the wrong time. I'm not sure what I actually expected from the performance, but if for nothing but novelty value, I think this is one worth checking out. Oh yeah, and I like Régine Chassagne's boots. A lot of the comments about this are negative, but I don't really think it should be compared with the original so much as seen as an homage. (Although, when a band releases a cover on one of their records, I consider it open season to compare and criticize against the original version.)
Shooting the messenger (but missing): dishonest argumentation
I came across
an article, written by a
Professor David Schaefer (Political Science - Holy Cross), complaining about an anti-military recruiter organization called the "Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools." Upon first glance, I can't imagine why anybody would find a group who proposes that perhaps 14-18 year-old high schoolers are not quite mature enough to decide whether they should join our armed forces objectionable. High school students have impartial guidance counselors, teachers and their parents to help them decide what they should do upon graduating, so if our point of reference is the best interest of the students, it doesn't seem as if they need the military recruiters to guide them. It seems much more likely that the military recruiters choose high schoolers precisely because many students are impressionable and easier to convince. Professor Schaefer must surely realize this, so he does not bother to attack the reason why a group might attack military recruiters in our school districts; instead, he attempts to divert the reader's attention with an
ad feminam attack against Arlene Inouye, a spokeswoman for the anti-recruiter group, that can only be taken as a cynical rhetorical device (from a man who teaches philosophy, no less). Not willing to address the elephant in the room (recruiting teenagers still in high school is basically an attempt to swindle students who don't know any better into enlisting to be shot at in Iraq), Professor Schaefer instead points out that Ms. Inouye recently published an article in an openly communist magazine:
During the [BBC/Public International Radio program "The World"] radio interview, Ms. Inouye identified herself simply as a speech therapist working in the Los Angeles public schools. There is another facet to her identity that she avoided mentioning, however, and it's easily discovered by using Google. Her article "Kick the Military Out of Your School! We Did in L.A. and So Can You!" was recently published in Dynamic Magazine, an organ of the Young Communist League. While the League's website does not disclose the nature of Ms. Inouye's role in the organization, "the militarization of our schools" and "the impact of military recruitment on high school students" are the major themes of the YCL's current "Realities of War Speaking Tour." The "Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools" thus sounds suspiciously like what used to be called a Communist front group.
He tries to impugn Ms. Inouye by insinuating the she has lied about her background (because in Professor Schaefer's world, apparently, every spokesperson first identifies her political allegiances before addressing any issue). Realizing that he cannot actually prove that Ms. Inouye is a communist (and apparently not realizing that the specter of the red bogeyman isn't as terrifying today as it once was) he points to phrases in her argument that are similar to the Young Communist League's current platform as evidence that she must be a communist. I have not read any of Professor Schaefer's academic writing and I cannot comment on it, but I can only imagine that it is not as shoddily argued as this small piece. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that he is making an intellectually dishonest argument first by attacking the messenger rather than the message and second by not even making that attack an effective one.
Labels: academia, education, military, music, philosophy
