A seasonal silly of the kosher kind

H/t to my Dad for alerting me to this … a little on the long side, but great parody and good listening!

The power of misdescription: ‘animals’ now a term of abuse

It seems that it is not sufficient that the UN is considering a treaty on the human rights for birds, bees, and trees, there is now a new publication under the auspices of the University of Illinois Press with the illustrious name of “Journal of Animal Ethics“.

Make no mistake though, the thrust of this journal is not that animals do – or should have – “ethics” but rather that of our ethics towards animals. The Editors – and no doubt guiding lights – of this publication are a theologian, Andrew Linzey (Oxford) and a philosopher, Priscilla Cohn (Penn State … home of Michael Mann). The journal is, unfortunately, behind a paywall; but in Terms of Endearment Discourse, their maiden Editorial, these self-appointed arbiters of anthropomorphic correctness advise that:

This is the first journal of its kind – multidisciplinary in nature, international in scope, and, of course, peer-reviewed.

Linzey and Cohn exhort:

[W]e need to be mindful of our words. … [This has] major implications for how we conceptualize and think about the many worlds of animals. … The words we use reflect and solidify our existing perceptions.

[...] the past is littered with derogatory terminology: “brutes,” “beasts,” “bestial,” “critters,” “subhuman,” and the like. We will not be able to think clearly unless we discipline ourselves to use more impartial nouns and adjectives in our exploration of animals and our moral relations with them.

[...]
Unless we address the power of misdescription, we shall never be able to think straight, let alone see straight (that is, impartially or, at least, with some measure of objectivity). Even “animals” is itself a term of abuse (which hides the reality of what it purports to describe, namely a range of differentiated beings of startling variety and complexity). … We shall not possess a new understanding of animals unless we actively challenge the language we use, which is the language of historic denigration. [emphasis added -hro]

Wait a minute … shouldn’t they be practicing what they preach? How on earth did “new understanding of animals” get past their peer-review? Surely they should have written, “We shall not possess a new understanding of this range of differentiated beings”. And I suppose that now that they’ve tainted the word “littered” we may no longer use the collective noun “litter” when speaking of the new-born offspring of any of these differentiated beings.

Unfortunately, the rest of this exhortation to enlightenment is behind their paywall. The U.K.’s Daily Mail, though, seems to have ventured beyond the call of duty (or perhaps picked up from a press release) to relay that:

… words like ‘pests’ and ‘vermin’ should be dropped altogether and ‘pets’ replaced by ‘companion animals’

‘Wild animals’ should be termed ‘free living or free ranging animals’ because ‘wildness’ is too close to ‘uncivilized’.
[...]

[The authors] said: “Despite its prevalence, “pets” is surely a derogatory term both of the animals concerned and their human carers.

OMG, there they go again … speaking of ‘animals’ rather than ‘differentiated beings’. And now I’m a ‘human carer’ … not even a caregiver, just a ‘carer’ to Amber, the feline (if such a word is still permitted) with whom I co-habit.

I do hope that the Arab world is taking note of all this and that the powers that be therein will immediately decree that Jews, Israelis and other assorted infidels should henceforth no longer be known as ‘dogs’ and/or ‘pigs’ because it is quite clear that in the eyes of the likes of Linzey and Cohn this would be “derogatory” and a “denigration” of such “differentiated beings”.

Whatever happened to the good old days when one could call a spade a spade, eh?!

A Saturday silly

The following has absolutely nothing to do with climate change (or climate scientists) – or even with the terrible events in Japan – but with a h/t to my Dad, this is a wonderful musical interlude I simply had to share :-)

Seasons Greetings

If, like me, you appreciate witty parodies and a cappella vocals, you’ll love this one!

UPDATE: And here’s another one I couldn’t resist (h/t to Michael Larkin via Dr. Judith Curry’s Climate Etc).

A documentary to watch for

The following is a trailer for a documentary that I certainly shall be watching for. It speaks for itself, and needs no introduction from me.

A hat tip here to my Dad – a lifelong fan of John Philip Sousa – who sent the above to me (my Dad, not Sousa ;-) ) :