Keith Burgess-Jackson

I leave you this fine evening with a column by Dick Morris.

Here is a scene from today’s stage of the Giro d’Italia.

Here.

To the Editor:

As an American Muslim, I found Edward N. Luttwak’s assertion that Senator Barack Obama would be viewed as an “apostate” by the Muslim world because he doesn’t follow the religion of Islam of his nonpracticing Kenyan father as simply absurd.

Yes, some Muslims out of millions may view Mr. Obama as an apostate just as some Christians view him erroneously as a Muslim, but the fact remains that no candidate has a more colorful background, more dynamic life story and more mixed-race blood flowing in his veins than Mr. Obama.

And with an inclination to talk to his foes, Mr. Obama’s excitement in the Muslim world lies less on his vaguely having a Muslim grandfather than on the simple fact that he’s lived in the Muslim world and is not another warmongering Bush Republican.

Zainab Bello
Woodbridge, N.J., May 12, 2008

Note from KBJ: Good luck getting him elected.

Billy Williams. (For an explanation of this feature, see here.)

The question of whether animals possess rights is once again topical, largely as a result of the recent surge of interest in animal welfare and in the moral pros and cons of eating animals and using them in scientific research. If animals do have rights, then the case for eating and experimenting upon them, especially when other alternatives are available, is going to have to be that much stronger; and those who engage in and support these practices are going to be increasingly beleaguered. Animal rights may not give vegetarians and animal liberationists all that they want, but the existence of such rights would unquestionably strengthen the cases of both camps. Arguments to show that animals do have rights, therefore, are at a premium.

(R. G. Frey, “Animal Rights,” Analysis 37 [June 1977]: 186-9, at 186 [italics in original; footnotes omitted])

You can’t end an academic year without listening to this. Or this. Or this.

Keith:

This is not nice:

10. What will Yankee fans do if the Boston Red Sox win their third World Series title in five years? I hope it involves hara-kiri.

While you could deny that Yankee Fans are humans, surely it is arguable that they are animals. You are supposed to be a big animal defender, Singer and all that.

I guess consistency among philosophers is a lot to ask.

Anyway, to say the Yankees suck this year is to insult a lot of things which suck.

Best,
Paul

Note from KBJ: Are Yankee fans even animals, Paul?

My $600 tax rebate—I mean my “economic stimulus payment”—was electronically deposited in my bank account today by the United States Government. Did anyone beat me?