Eating Pooches/Pigs

Will Saletan argues that South Korea should legalize the slaughter of dogs:

To comply with Western sensibilities, the Koreans officially banned dog meat. But they don’t enforce the ban, presumably because they don’t share the abhorrence. And why should they? Why exactly is it gross to eat dogs but OK to slaughter pigs, which, by most measures, are smarter? So we’ve started with irrationality compounded by hypocrisy.

Now we have a health problem. According to the article, Korean dog “slaughtering and processing is carried out in dirty environments and poses risks to diners’ health.” Why the dirty environments? Apparently because the formal ban prevents the government from classifying dogs as livestock so it can regulate their slaughter and processing as it does with pigs.[…]

The Korean debate also appeals to my libertarian pragmatism. One reason I’m against abortion bans is that abortions will happen anyway; they’ll just be more dangerous to the born people involved, in addition to killing the unborn. The piety of being able to claim you’ve outlawed abortion doesn’t amount to much next to the harm and suffering you cause by driving abortions underground. I’m for bringing it out in the open. I’d like to believe that if a practice is truly immoral and unnecessary, sunshine will lead to its erosion. In the case of abortion, the latest statistics seem to bear out that belief.

So I guess I’m for 1) getting rid of the hypocritical distinction between dogs and livestock, 2) legalizing and regulating dog meat like other meat, and 3) gradually persuading everybody, including us pious Westerners, to stop eating meat.

In Defense Of Cubicles, Ctd

David Franz e-mails to defend his article:

The main point of my article wasn’t to criticize cubicles, but to show that cubicles were once invested with utopian hopes.  These hopes have a life of their own.  I take your reader’s point that in cubicles in real life led to more privacy for some people.  However, the utopia of the cubicled office was not about giving people privacy.  On the contrary, it was about opening things up – replacing hierarchy and bureaucracy with community and communication.  This anti-bureaucracy impulse remains powerful, though cubicles aren’t usually recognized as its offspring.  I was just announcing the results of the paternity test.

Face Of The Day

Laoschumsakkanoknangetty

Laos people splash water on tourists during the Songkran festival on April 13, 2008, in Luang Prabang, Laos. The Songkran Festival runs from April 13 – April 15 and is the traditional start of the Thai New Year. April 13 is Maha Songkran day which marks the end of the old year, April 15 is Wan Thaloeng Sok which is the start of the New Year. The festival is also known as the water festival as it is believed to cleanse the sins of the previous year. By Chumsak Kanoknan/Getty Images.

Attack Ads 101

Advertising Age gives Clinton some pointers on her latest ad:

Hillary, you’re in a fight for your political life and you’re going to feature some whiney-sounding people on the street. "Wanh-wanh-wanh, Barack hurt my feelings!" Just as Americans don’t want to be painted as bitter losers, they don’t want to be painted as helpless victims. You should have gone with barely-controlled outrage. 

Nothing There

The Anonymous Liberal discusses the problem with Clinton’s campaign:

At this point in the campaign, Hillary’s individuality has been subsumed completely by the script. She simply says whatever the "right" answer is. You can hear it in her voice when she’s voicing the latest attack on Obama’s character. There’s nothing there. She’s just mouthing the talking points that the campaign’s leaders have deemed necessary for the occasion (Obama is an elitist snob, I like hunting and beer, etc.).

Hollow as a drum. Meanwhile, Barney wants it all over by June 3. Please God.

The Acid Test

It seems to me that there are two debates about Bitter-gate; the first is whether it is substantively accurate; the second is whether it is electorally disastrous. The first question can be debated ad infinitum. The second we will find out soon enough when Pennsylvania votes. My suspicion is that this reader is more accurate than, say, John Judis or John Fund:

Thank God for Obama’s speech. I live in rural Kentucky and yes, many, many people here have nothing: no job, no money, and no future. Ironically, people on the coasts call him elitist for saying something that most here agree with. Maybe that’s why nobody is talking about it around here–old news.

Something that he was trying to point out was that in spite of their Arkansas roots, the Clintons did nothing for rural America. Good jobs here have been vaporized or sent abroad. Now, people can work at Wal-Mart or McDonald’s with no health insurance. And that is why they are bitter.

It is interesting (ironic?) that the only major candidate to mention the anger of the white poor is black.

We will find out. If I’m proven wrong, I’ll unhappily concede. But my gut tells me it isn’t 2004 any longer.