Supremely Unproductive Jurisprudence

For the briefest second after John Roberts became Chief Justice of the United States I thought “he’s young, which sucks in general, but at least that means we can put to rest worries of having a Chief Justice named Antonin Scalia.” Now that we’ve seen his court in action the thought is NO consolation.

The substance of the school integration decision alone was enough to make Friday’s NY times depressing. On top of it all, the image plastered front in center on the first page gave me the willies. It was a picture of the supremes, grouped according to their votes in the case, and the majority looked right spry compared to the dissenters. One can’t deny it, the neo-cons will leave a legacy.

I am not a legal scholar, or a historian, but a few thoughts inspired by the school integration case:

• Juan Williams has an interesting analysis of the situation. Basically it’s that getting rid of de jure segregation neither got rid of de facto segregation, nor closed the achievement gap between students of color and white students, so we should stop focusing on racial integration, and start focusing on improving all schools, so every kid gets a good education. Yes, every kid should get a good education, but is his idea realistic? We Americans still harbor lots of race and class prejudice, and the successful among us tend to believe society is a meritocracy. Given this climate, I can’t see school reform happening equally across the board, and it doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict that those students who get the short shrift will mostly be poor and/or minorities. Not rocket science, just a reality-based hunch.
• My favorite quotation in Friday's coverage was from a Columbia law professor who worked on Brown: “Following Brown that was massive resistance. This is essentially the rebirth of massive resistance in a more acceptable form” (NYT, 6/29/07).
• I’m not going to re-hash why “color-blindness” is mostly just in practice a way to ignore racism. Take a look at Lesboprof for that, and a compelling reaction to the decision.
• Let’s all keep in mind that ending de jure segregation hasn’t lead to much integration. 53 years after Brown “70% of black students attend schools that are 2/3 black & Hispanic” & “the average while student attends a school that is 80% white” (NY times 6/29/07). Maybe that suggests we haven’t given it enough time. Maybe the socioeconomic, and “white people are afraid of black people” factors that keep us sorted by color will go away, albeit slowly, if we continue business as usual. What I tend to think it suggests is that us white people, yes, myself included, need to acknowledge that we are still benefiting from racism, and work with the entire nation (nope, not just folks who look like us) to change that. Note to the supremes: pretending that law and society are color blind does not count. In the end we will all benefit.

How Can Your Resist Strawberries Like These

Cool.

Rites of Passage

There are those big “growing up” moments, first kiss, first paycheck, graduation, etc, and then there are the silly ones. Allow me to elaborate on the latter.

Yesterday I bought a bottle of wine without being carded. I usually don’t mind being asked for ID--- after a few years one gets used to it, and my license picture isn’t THAT bad. I felt very smug and grown-up. So grown up that I didn’t brag to anyone about the experience. Oops, didn’t brag until now.

Today a friend and I found ourselves in a public restroom chugging water out of Dixie cups. We opted for the women’s room since, as he observed, they tend to be cleaner. As we were fixing to leave a woman came in. She yelped and stopped in her tracks to stare at us. We brushed past, leaving her to wonder whether she was in the right bathroom. Déjà vu all over again, but the encounter left me smiling. These things feel a lot better when one has a partner in crime. Guess I’m not too old to be read as an adolescent boy after all.

Friday Night at the Movies

I kicked off the weekend by watching The Future of Food, a documentary about GM (genetically modified) food. It was the Simpson’s Tomacco episode minus Bart, Homer, and a happy ending. Depressing stuff, but worth watching.

I went to the screening wary of our (the USA’s) current food system for a myriad of non-GM reasons. That’s a whole ‘nother post. Heck, I was even wary of GM foods specifically. Cross-pollination and the spread of seeds is effectively impossible to control, so once we release GM plants there is no going back. That reason alone had me solidly behind safety studies, and labeling GM products as such.

What I hadn’t yet wrapped my mind around was how shortsighted and thuggish GM companies are in their pursuit of profit. On the one hand, Montsanto sues farmers who are the unwitting growers of their crops due to seed spread, cross-pollination, etc. How farmers can avoid that? I am not sure. As long as there are birds, humans, wind, seeds & pollen will spread. Adding to that threat is the fact that agricultural areas are chock full of Montsanto test plots, but farmers can’t know whether they are near one. That’s proprietary information. On the other hand, they are inserting terminator genes into their product. Plants with these genes don’t reproduce. That is a huge threat to the food supply, and renders ludicrous claims that GM companies are trying to end world hunger. What they are really trying to do is make farmers, and in turn eaters completely dependent on their product.

In a similar spirit of sly greed, Montsanto patents plants. Ordinary old plants, not just ones with designer genes. They didn’t invent the plant. They didn’t discover the plant. If they are the first to the patent office though, the variety is theirs, and if you are growing it you have to pay up. No one patented sarcasm yet---race you to the US Patent & Trademark Office.

In case you were wondering, here’s why the movie picks on Montsanto so much: with “roughly 90 percent of GE soy, cotton and canola seed markets and has a large piece of the corn seed market” they are the biggest game in town.” Moreover, they are mighty cozy with the US gov’t Don’t worry, Dems too, its fair and balanced.

I wanted to run straight from the movie to the farm stand. My craving for local veggies, was tempered by the prevasiveness of GM foods. If its organic you know its not GM, but that’s about it. I really don’t know whether the family farm down the road is GM free. Chances are better there than at the supermarket though, and at least that produce hasn’t taken a fossil fuel powered journey around the world before it hits my stomach.

Blogo-Physics

When visiting this site over the summer , keep in mind the following principle: the length of a post is inversely proportional to the temperature and sunshine surrounding the writer. In the pseudo reality of this blog it is just as real as the law of gravity

Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean Can’t Dance is going on summer vacation of sorts. The sun and warm weather won’t last a week in these parts.

Can I Speak to the Person in Charge?

B: I don't know what you are thinking. I'm not exactly inside your head.

Me: Makes two of us. If you find anyone who knows what's going on in there, lemme know.

full speed ahead

Ego be dammed--- I've added a stat counter.
Besides, it is quality, not quantity that matters, and you are a quality reader.