A nice colum by Brent Bozell III on the Sad Paradox of Religion News.
Month: May 2004
This Year's Strawberry-Kiwi Harvest
You know all those strawberry-kiwi products that have been showing up in stores? This is where they come from. That’s right: a photoshop contest about hybrid fruit. (Nice pictures! Be sure to view them full size for the full effect.)
This Year’s Strawberry-Kiwi Harvest
You know all those strawberry-kiwi products that have been showing up in stores? This is where they come from. That’s right: a photoshop contest about hybrid fruit. (Nice pictures! Be sure to view them full size for the full effect.)
"For English, Please Press 1"
As y’all know, I’m extremely language-friendly. I love other languages, and I love learning them. I think people should be encouraged to learn more (particularly Americans, who are notoriously monolingual).
But I agree with this editorial about the multicultural situation in Maryland.
English is the national language of the US, and efforts that weaken that need to be curbed.
I understand having multilingual access for certain vital services (e.g., having translators of common immigrant languages on staff at hospitals), but cultures don’t cohere well if they don’t have a common language, so apart from truly essential services, integration into the linguistic mainstream is to be encouraged.
I’m not asking anything here of others that I wouldn’t apply to myself. If I were living in Mexico, I would consider it my duty to beef up my Spanish skills as quickly as possible and wouldn’t expect government or business to do lots of things for me in English. If I were in Germany, I’d start hitting my Pimsleur German tapes. Even if I were living in France (shudder), I’d start studying French.
If (by some bizarre circumstance) I had become a citizen of another nation and had the right to vote, I especially wouldn’t consider it incumbent on that nation to print ballots in English just to accomodate me. If I couldn’t take the trouble to learn the local language well enough to vote in it, I wouldn’t consider myself well enough educated in local affairs to cast a vote responsibly. It would be better for me to withhold my vote. If I felt a pressing need to vote, I’d start studying the local language.
“For English, Please Press 1”
As y’all know, I’m extremely language-friendly. I love other languages, and I love learning them. I think people should be encouraged to learn more (particularly Americans, who are notoriously monolingual).
But I agree with this editorial about the multicultural situation in Maryland.
English is the national language of the US, and efforts that weaken that need to be curbed.
I understand having multilingual access for certain vital services (e.g., having translators of common immigrant languages on staff at hospitals), but cultures don’t cohere well if they don’t have a common language, so apart from truly essential services, integration into the linguistic mainstream is to be encouraged.
I’m not asking anything here of others that I wouldn’t apply to myself. If I were living in Mexico, I would consider it my duty to beef up my Spanish skills as quickly as possible and wouldn’t expect government or business to do lots of things for me in English. If I were in Germany, I’d start hitting my Pimsleur German tapes. Even if I were living in France (shudder), I’d start studying French.
If (by some bizarre circumstance) I had become a citizen of another nation and had the right to vote, I especially wouldn’t consider it incumbent on that nation to print ballots in English just to accomodate me. If I couldn’t take the trouble to learn the local language well enough to vote in it, I wouldn’t consider myself well enough educated in local affairs to cast a vote responsibly. It would be better for me to withhold my vote. If I felt a pressing need to vote, I’d start studying the local language.
New Anti-Spam Provision Takes Effect
The Federal Trade Commission is now requiring the subject-line labelling of sexually explicit spam, as well as not putting porno pictures where they will automatically start loading in the preview pane of your e-mail client.
No doubt, many will disregard this law and use servers outside the US to evade the requirement, but if it cuts down on the sexually explicit junk mail clogging the nation’s e-mail boxes even a little, it will be worth it.
In this article on the subject, a lawyer for the porno spam purveyors is yelping about freedom of speech.
I’m sorry, but no.
My e-mail account is a private forum (else everyone in the world would be entitled to read my e-mail), just as my postal mailbox is. Freedom of speech does not give anybody the right to cram my postal mailbox or my e-mail account with offensive messages that I didn’t ask for and don’t want.
To send such items to me over my objection is mail harrassment, and I hope the people who commit it are prosecuted to the full extent of the law (which I hope is further strengthened from where it is now).
Genetic Privacy Rights
It isn’t often that I’d agree with something published in an editorial in a British newspaper, but I do agree with this one. I’ve been concerned for some time about the implications of genetic privacy, and if we want to keep from being victimized (e.g., by being denied insurance or employment) on account of our genetic profile, we need to get a system of strong genetic privacy laws in place.
Everybody has a gene that predisposes them to something bad lurking somewhere in their genetic code.
X-File Law
A thoughtful editorial by a law professor on the impact that new technologies (particularly new reproductive technologies) are having and will continue to have in the future. Raises a lot of questions that need answering.
Also mentions a TV show (Century City) that it sounds like I’m going to have to check out.
Favorite quote from the editorial:
I asked my law students whether a person with plant or animal genes would still be protected by the US Constitution. One replied, “If it walks like a man, quacks like a man, and photosynthesizes like a man, it is a man.”
Scientists on Verge of Making Blue Rose
When I was a boy, I remember seeing a film adaptation of Beauty and the Beast (no, not the Disney version; this was a black and white made long before that), in which as a sign of his love the Beast intimidated a rosebush all night until it gave him a blue rose for Beauty–not a purple rose or a kind-of-blue rose, but a true blue rose.
I don’t know whether this is in the book (since I’ve never read it), but apparently the search for a true, blue rose is a major fascination of rose growers.
Now, it is being reported, scientists are on the verge of making one. It turns out that some scientists doing research on liver enzymes found a gene that, it is thought, will turn roses blue once it is inserted into their genetic code.
If it works, I’ll certainly order some.
Scientists on Verge of Making Blue Rose
When I was a boy, I remember seeing a film adaptation of Beauty and the Beast (no, not the Disney version; this was a black and white made long before that), in which as a sign of his love the Beast intimidated a rosebush all night until it gave him a blue rose for Beauty–not a purple rose or a kind-of-blue rose, but a true blue rose.
I don’t know whether this is in the book (since I’ve never read it), but apparently the search for a true, blue rose is a major fascination of rose growers.
Now, it is being reported, scientists are on the verge of making one. It turns out that some scientists doing research on liver enzymes found a gene that, it is thought, will turn roses blue once it is inserted into their genetic code.
If it works, I’ll certainly order some.