j’s blog

U.S. Newswire : Releases : “Amnesty International’s Annual Death Penalty Report Finds Global Trend Toward Abolition”

WASHINGTON, April 4 /U.S. Newswire/ — During 2004, at least 3,797 people were executed in 25 countries and at least 7,395 were sentenced to death in 64 countries, according to an Amnesty International report released today. The United States’ contribution to the worldwide total dropped from 65 the previous year to 59 in 2004. The United States remained one of the top executing countries, along with China, Iran, and Vietnam.

“Our report indicates that governments and citizens around the world have realized what the United States government refuses to admit-that the death penalty is an inhumane, antiquated form of punishment,” said Dr. William F. Schulz, executive director, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). “Thomas Jefferson once wrote that ‘laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind;’ it is past time for our government to live up to this Jeffersonian ideal and let go of the brutal practices of the past.”

Releasing its annual worldwide statistics on the use of capital punishment, Amnesty International called on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, currently meeting in Geneva, to condemn the death penalty as a violation of fundamental human rights. It also urged the U.S. to join the myriad countries taking steps to abolish the death penalty, and applauded the March 1st Supreme Court decision removing the United States from the list of nations that execute juvenile offenders.

“It’s alarming that the United States was the last country in the world to formally reject the application of the death penalty to minors,” said Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn, AIUSA’s director of the Program to Abolish the Death Penalty. “The United States should now join the international community in condemning the practice everywhere, and use its international clout to urge countries like China and Iran to conform to international treaties which forbid them from executing minors.”

Amnesty International also called particular attention to instances where U.S. citizens were sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit.

“The cases of Derrick Jamison and the other 118 individuals released from death row since 1973 demonstrate that no judicial system is infallible. However sophisticated the system, the death penalty will always carry with it the risk of lethal error,” Amnesty International USA said. In February 2005, Derrick Jamison became the 119th wrongfully convicted person to be released from death row on the grounds of innocence.

Five countries abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 2004: Bhutan, Greece, Samoa, Senegal and Turkey. At year’s end, 120 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

——

The higher number of executions in 2004 and the higher concentration of executions in the “top executing” countries reflect a change in the method Amnesty International uses to calculate the number of executions in China. Amnesty International believes that our current, estimated figure for China still represents only the tip of the iceberg. For example, in March 2004 a delegate at the National People’s Congress said that “nearly 10,000″ people are executed per year in China.

Yahoo! News - Rejected seal cub seeks family with bath

MOSCOW (AFP) - An aquarium in Russia’s far north is looking for a human foster family for a seal cub rejected by its parents because it was born grey rather than white, Russian daily Vremia Novostei reported.

Applicants would need a bathtub, salt water for the cub to splash around in and 100 grammes (3.5 ounces) of fish per day, for the moment, said the Murmansk aquarium.

It also explained the adoption would be temporary as the grey seal’s parents would accept it once fully grown, when grey seal cubs ordinarily turn grey from their cub colour of white.

Yahoo! News - Humans Must Change Course for Planet to Sustain Future Generations - Science Panel

Abid Aslam, OneWorld US

WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 31 (OneWorld) - Our children and grandchildren will live in a world hostile to human habitation unless we curb runaway consumption and the environmental abuses that fuel modern development, more than 1,300 scientists have warned in an unprecedented study of Earth’s ability to sustain life.

‘’At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning,'’ representatives of the science panel said in a statement. ‘’Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.'’

Growing demand for food, fresh water, timber, fiber, and fuel led humans to change ecosystems on which life depends more rapidly and extensively over the past 50 years than in any comparable time in human history, the experts said in a ‘’Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.'’

‘’This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth,'’ they said, adding that extinction stalks 10-30 percent of mammal, bird, and amphibian species. Possible consequences include outbreaks of disease among humans or among animals and plants on which we rely for food.

Two-thirds of ecosystems on which life depends already have been degraded or exploited too much, the study said. Two natural resources–fisheries and fresh water–appeared to be well below levels that could sustain current, much less future, demand.

Nevertheless, major changes in consumption, better education, and new technology could reduce the damage and improve the outlook.

If humans do not alter course, the scientists warned, then these systems likely will deteriorate further over the next half-century as the increased use of resources that accompanied economic growth in the late 20th century continues at an unsustainable rate.

The assessment was aimed at influencing governments’ thinking on how to achieve the goals set out by four major international treaties covering the protection of species and environments. It further concluded that international commitments to improve the health, education, and economic opportunities of the world’s poorest people could not be met without addressing environmental crises.

‘’Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem ’services’ on which humanity relies continue to be degraded,'’ the report said.

The situation is not hopeless, so long as humans change the way we manage our economies, run our businesses, and consume goods and services.

The report’s recommendations for urgently needed action included removing subsidies to agriculture, fisheries, and oil and gas companies that encourage environmental harm–for example by rewarding overproduction, which gives farmers an incentive to ignore gluts and drive up surpluses by using chemical fertilizers.

Rather, the scientists recommended paying landowners to manage property in ways that help the environment, and using free-market incentives to reduce farm pollution and global-warming gas emissions.

Currently, for example, airlines pay for the fuel they buy but not for the fumes they emit by burning it. The study suggested such ‘’externalities'’ should be factored into companies’ bottom lines, adding that ways existed to soften the impact on businesses and consumers.

The scientists also sought greater investment in cleaner agricultural and energy technology–particularly for harvesting wind, solar, and other forms of renewable power–and urged that oceans and other critical areas receive greater protection from development.

Progress has been made in some areas, the scientists said. New forests planted mainly in the Northern Hemisphere have begun to make a dent in global warming although the problem itself remains critical.

Policymakers, businesses, and consumers should not be naive about the tasks that lie ahead.

‘’These changes will be large and are not currently under way,'’ the World Resources Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that worked on the study, said in a statement.

The study differed slightly from previous ones by categorizing ecosystems in terms of the ‘’services,'’ or benefits, that they provide people–timber for building, for example, clean air to breathe, fish for food, and fibers to make clothes.

It said a booming world population and the demands of modernization drove the overuse of these natural resources after World War II.

Real human progress was made. Economies and food production soared. But the cost to the environment now imperils future prosperity, the study said.

Take the case of agriculture. More land was converted to plant and animal farming since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined. More than half of all the synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, first made in 1913, used on the planet were applied after 1985. Crop, livestock, and aquaculture yields flourished.

The cost? Nitrogen and phosphate farm runoff has choked off oxygen, creating coastal ‘’dead zones'’ around the world and the problem likely will worsen, threatening fishery production and more. In the United States, such dead zones include those in the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, and Puget Sound.

Four years of research by 1,360 experts in 95 countries culminated in the 2,500-page study, released Wednesday and based on evidence that enjoyed consensus endorsement by scientific bodies around the world. The United Nations, World Bank, international environmental and development agencies, and U.S. philanthropies backed the effort. The private sector and non-governmental organizations provided advice and guidance.

‘’The overriding conclusion of this assessment is that it lies within the power of human societies to ease the strains we are putting on the nature services of the planet, while continuing to use them to bring better living standards to all,'’ the science panel’s directors concluded.

‘’Achieving this, however, will require radical changes in the way nature is treated at every level of decision-making and new ways of cooperation between government, business and civil society.'’

This is one of my posts from my flickr site:

canada on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Photo caption:
A dead harp seal is left in its hole on a ice floe in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Prince Edward Island, Canada on the first day of the annual seal hunt Tuesday, March 29, 2005.

Sophia Elise says:

so what do they just kill them for fun? that is DISGUSTING

jim says:

This is a complex issue. If it were killed just for fun I’d say its not only disgusting, but criminal. But they are killed for a purpose, pelts, meat, etc. But, ask yourself, do you use animals for a purpose? Do you eat meat? wear furs, leather, ivory or other animal parts? use products that were tested on animals, such as some makeup and household products? would you refuse to used medical treatment on your loved ones that was derived from animal experimentation that caused the animal suffering?

The fact is that humans not only kill animals for fun, fur and meat, etc. but as everyone knows, we bring a great number of them into existence for the express purpose of causing them suffering or killing them to in some way benefit us. We even used to do this, and still do it in some parts of the world, with our fellow humans. Maybe it’s in our nature to use other animals, including the human ones, for our benefit and survival. Maybe it is impossible or incredibly difficult for most humans to rise above this. What if we are genetically ‘programmed’ so to speak to use and oppress other animals? Have you ever noticed how often the stronger uses, manipulates, benefits from the weaker much more than vice versa? Maybe only some enlightened animals are able to understand and stop acting this way?

HSUS Protect Seals

The 2005 Seal Hunt: We’re There to Stop It

At dawn on Tuesday, the largest commercial slaughter of marine mammals on the planet began off Canada’s Atlantic coast. By the end of this year’s hunt, more than 300,000 baby seals will have been brutally killed—many, incredibly, as young as 12 days old. The Humane Society of the United States is on the front lines in Canada, reporting and videotaping events as they unfold and fighting to halt this atrocity. Stand with us today and stop the seal hunt forever.

Why boycott Canadian seafood?
Seal hunting is an off-season activity conducted by fishers from Canada’s East Coast. They earn a small fraction of their incomes from sealing and the rest from commercial fisheries. Canadian seafood exports to the United States contribute $3 billion annually to the Canadian economy–dwarfing the few million dollars provided by the seal hunt. The connection between the commercial fishing industry and the seal hunt in Canada gives consumers all over the world the power to end this cruel and brutal slaughter.

But seriously, sort of, this seems like a dumb waste of our tax payer money. Has anyone looked into why it cost 1/2 a million dollars to shock a bunch of pigs? Now that’s what I call ‘pork barrell’ spending. Why doesn’t this ’scientist’ just head on down to the slaughter house with his stun guns and 10 gallon hat and give those about to die anyway a little zap on the way to the guillotine? If they survive the shock, he can still chop their heads off.

Some of the pigs are going to be high on coke and doped with pain killers too. So if this fella can’t shock to death a bunch of doped up, crack head pigs, does that mean that we ordinary sometimes sober citizens will be just fine?

Yahoo! News - Wis. Professor to Test Stun Guns on Pigs

Wis. Professor to Test Stun Guns on Pigs

Tue Mar 29

By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press Writer

MADISON, Wis. - A professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison plans to study whether stun guns alone can kill pigs — or whether other medical factors must be at play — as part of an effort to understand why 70 people have died in North America since 2001 after being shocked by Tasers.

Led by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, outraged animal rights activists are calling for an end to the two-year study by John Webster, a professor emeritus of biomedical engineering.

Police hail stun guns as a nonlethal way to restrain unruly suspects. But critics blame the weapons for dozens of deaths, and police departments are reviewing how they use the devices, which shoot two small darts carrying about 50,000 volts of electricity to temporarily paralyze people.

Webster wants to test his hypothesis that Taser-related deaths were the result of heart failure fueled by drug use and other medical factors, not electrocution by the devices. To do so, researchers will begin in the next month studying how Taser electrical currents flow through 150-pound pigs.

Of three groups of pigs in the study, one will be given cocaine, one will be shocked with the devices, and one will be given both cocaine and electric blasts. Some will be subjected to Webster’s “SuperTaser,” up to 30 times as powerful as the model police use. All pigs will be on anesthesia so they won’t feel pain.

“If the hypothesis is correct that Tasers do not electrocute the heart, then why are people dying in custody after they have been shot by Tasers? The people on our team have hypotheses why that’s true and we intend to answer that question,” Webster said. “Our goal is to save lives.”

Animal rights activists say the study, funded by a $500,000 U.S. Department of Justice grant, is cruel and unnecessary. They plan protests on the UW-Madison campus starting this week.

“Shocking more pigs is only going to add their numbers to the Taser-related death statistics,” Patti Gilman, whose brother died after being shot with a Taser in British Columbia in June 2004, wrote in a letter to the school. “Robert’s death never should have happened. And neither should these experiments.”

In a letter to PETA this month, UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley said the study could have a significant impact on the use of stun guns. He said researchers have no other alternative than to use pigs, whose hearts are more like humans than any other species.

In Wisconsin, the state Department of Justice convened an advisory committee to create guidelines for police training and use of Tasers. On Tuesday, the committee is scheduled to hold its first public hearing in Stevens Point, where Webster will be among four presenters.

Webster said his research could lead to advice for how police should use the devices, standards for how powerful stun guns can be, and instructions for emergency room physicians on how to treat those who have been shocked.

Webster suggested some of the Taser-related deaths were from a rare condition known as malignant hyperthermia, in which bodies essentially overheat. He will test that theory on swine that have been specially bred to have the condition.

Other suspects may have died if potassium that is released into the blood stream after muscle contractions caused by a Taser shock reached the heart, Webster said. Cocaine use might be another factor, he said.

Webster’s research is the first independent look at how Tasers affect pigs’ hearts. Research published in January sponsored by Taser International, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based maker of the devices, found that 15 times the charge from ordinary stun guns was needed to electrocute the heart of even the smallest pigs studied.

Taser said Webster is well-qualified to study the devices, which it says are safe. The company says Tasers are being used by more than 7,000 law enforcement, military and correctional agencies in the world.

“We welcome Professor Webster’s research as it can provide continued independent research concerning the safety of our life-saving Taser technology,” said company spokesman Steve Tuttle.

Taser research on animals dates to 1989, involving dogs, bulls and pigs, but Webster’s study is the only known such research now under way, according to PETA.

While all the pigs will be filled with anesthesia, they will be euthanized after the experiments, said Webster, who predicted about 30 pigs would be used. The research could create a computer model that would eliminate the need for more animal testing, he said.

“I think this is an outstanding example of one of those questions that can only be answered using animals,” said Eric Sandgren, a UW-Madison professor who heads a committee that oversees animal research. “Boy, there’s been a lot of deaths from this. If the alternative is to go back to using bullets, let’s find out how to make this safe.”

That’s a worthy goal, but researchers should instead study humans who have survived Taser shocks and autopsy reports of those who died, said Laura Yanne of PETA. She promised an “unprecedented” protest on Tuesday, but would not release details.

“Subjecting pigs to cruel experiments is not the way to go on this. It’s so obvious,” she said. “This is a half-million dollar boondoggle.”

___

On the Net:

Taser International: http://www.taser.com/flash.htm

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: http://www.peta.org

The website, radio show and blog are all related. I suspect a podcast is not far off.

Philosophy Talk

With Ken Taylor and John Perry of Stanford University. Produced by Ben Manilla.

Philosophy Talk originates live, Tuesdays at noon, Pacific Time, from the studios of KALW, 91.7 FM, Information Radio, San Francisco.

Listen to Philosophy Talk live by visiting KALW’s web site.

NEW: We now have a toll free 800 number. So listen to Philosophy Talk live and join the conversation from anywhere in the US.

A rebroadcast of Philosophy Talk can be heard Thursdays at 8 p.m. on Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Philosophy Talk: The Blog

Philosophy Talk: The Blog is a companion blog to the radio program Philosophy talk, hosted by John Perry and Ken Taylor. Though Perry and Taylor will be the major bloggers here, we will also feature a continuous stream of guest bloggers. In addition, you can experience the wit and wisdom of our sixty-second philosopher Ian Shoals and the insight of that astute and wide ranging observer of the created universe, Amy Standen, the our Roving Philosophical Reporter.

If you’re interested in discussing philosophy with others primarily in person or groups, this site may be of some help. It kind of looks like a sales pitch for their book, but there are also a few interesting links and some useful info and ideas.

The Society for Philosophical Inquiry

The Society for Philosophical Inquiry (SPI) is a grassroots nonprofit organization devoted to supporting philosophical inquirers of all ages and walks of life as they become more empathetic and autonomous thinkers who take active part in creating a more deliberative democracy. Its members strive to form and facilitate “communities of philosophical inquiry”. Their gatherings — which, depending on the setting and occasion and purpose, have such names as Socrates Café®, or Philosophers’ Club®, or Talk-and-Walk — bring together people from a wide array of walks of life and experiences. They take place regularly in venues like parks, coffee houses, libraries, hospices, senior centers, nursing homes, prisons, plazas and other public spaces, bookstores, homeless shelters and community centers, libraries and schools.

We at SPI are devoted to spreading forms dialogue and inquiry that enable and inspire each of us, within a group setting, to become more autonomous and conscientious thinkers and doers, and more expert questioners and listeners. Our fundamental desire is to encourage and support people who are curious and perplexed and filled with a sense of wonder, so they can dialogue for discovery and dialogue for democracy. And we are here for those who would subscribe to the Socratic ethos that the examined life truly makes for a richer existence.

Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation

NOTE: Terrisfight.org is the official website for the Schindler family. The Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation is the official organization responsible for speaking on behalf of the Schindler family and for authorizing the raising of funds for research and Terri’s legal defense. The Schindlers appreciate all the hundreds of thousands of individuals and groups in America and around the world who have been and continue to be supportive of Terri. They realize that “Terri’s fight” has become a bigger issue than their family and Terri alone; however, they do not, nor could they possibly, monitor and/or approve all of the groups and individuals who are concerned about and speak out in defense of Terri and others like her. The Schindlers have not authorized any other individuals or organizations to conduct private research for Terri or to raise funds to finance such research.

This site maintained and hosted by the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation.
Copyright 2004-05 Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation.
4615 Gulf Blvd #104-103 - St Petersburg Beach, FL 33706

Not her brother or one of the brothers, but a “brother”. You know the guy that kind of looks like Friar Tuck or a monk from the middle ages and is frequently at the side of Terri Schiavo’s mother? His name is Brother Paul and this is his “letter” and website:

Read Brother Paul’s letter:

Letter from Brother Paul

Br. Paul J. O’Donnell, fbp
Guardian Overall

Donations can be sent or delivered to:
Franciscan Brothers of Peace
Queen of Peace Friary
1289 Lafond Avenue
Saint Paul, MN 55104-2035
United States of America

The Franciscan Brothers of Peace are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization listed in the Kennedy Directory. All donations are tax-deductible.

The Franciscan Brothers of Peace have Ecclesial Approbation in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

Looking around the State of Florida govt. website, this is all I’ve found so far on living wills:

Living Wills / DMS Intranet Quick Links / DMS Employee Resources / DMS Home - DMS

Living Wills

Recently, we have been painfully reminded of just how important it is to be prepared for unforeseen health complications.

To ease the burden on your loved ones, should you find yourself in a similar situation, I encourage you to consider completing the Living Will and Designation of Health Care Surrogate forms available below. I also urge you to discuss this issue with your spouse or loved one, and your doctor, and give them copies of your completed forms.

I hope that you and your family will never be faced with a decision of this type, but in case you are, a living will can make a horrible decision at least bearable for those left behind.

Tom Lewis, Jr., Secretary
Department of Management Services

Section 765, Florida Statutes, Health Care Advance Directives

EducationGuardian.co.uk | Higher | Ted Honderich: philosophy with attitude

There aren’t many academics whose lectures have ever called for riot police. John Crace talks to Ted Honderich about his enemies of the left, right and centre

John Crace
Tuesday March 22, 2005

Guardian
If you can judge a man by his enemies, then the only definite conclusion you can reach about Ted Honderich is that he’s always up for a ruck. It takes a certain genius to earn the implacable, simultaneous hostility of both the neo-Zionists and the Palestinians, but Honderich has managed it without much effort and, to complete the hat trick, he has become persona non grata for New Labour. It’s a performance worthy of a premier league politician: for a philosopher it is truly remarkable.

For many years Honderich was Grote professor of philosophy at University College London, where he worked diligently and obediently - “I prefer the word prudentially” - on consciousness, determinism and political violence. His work was never safe but it attracted few critics outside the confines of Bloomsbury and Hampstead. Until he retired five years ago and became emeritus Grote professor. At which point the blue touch paper was lit and Honderich notably failed to stand back.

Like any committed determinist, Honderich is reluctant to ascribe any direct causation between the liberation of retirement and his upping the ante of philosophical debate. “It is true that I might have been more careful in the past,” he says, “but we are always far too eager to identify a single cause - usually a human action - in the hope of picking out something that is more explanatory. I would suggest there are many other factors rooted in my past, such as my father’s unlettered communism, that may have played a part.”

Even so. Honderich is also a consequentialist, which partly explains his hatred towards Tony Blair. “He is always asking to be judged by the morality of his intentions,” he spits. “He doesn’t understand that no one cares about his fucking morality. We judge him by the consequences of his actions. In any case, his morality is so muddy and ill-considered. I’m increasingly coming to the opinion that Blair’s main problem is that he’s not very bright.” New Labour and Blair are leitmotifs that regularly punctuate his conversation and they’re too entertaining to interrupt.

But as a consequentialist, even Honderich would have to acknowledge that one of the main upshots of his retirement has been controversy. The main trouble started in September 2002 with the publication of After the Terror, in which Honderich asserted the moral right of Palestinians to resist ethnic cleansing by the Israelis with terrorism. “I didn’t set out to be controversial,” he insists. “Rather that position was the logical conclusion of a basic argument on humanity.” Needless to say, it didn’t go down too well in some quarters. Honderich had promised to give £5,000 of his royalties to Oxfam, and a Toronto newspaper threatened to expose the charity for taking donations from a terrorist sympathiser. “The deputy director gave in to the threat,” Honderich says, “thereby dishonouring the charity,” though Oxfam argued it could not benefit from certain opinions in the book.

But this was just a few sparklers before the real fireworks began, with the book’s German publication the following year. In August 2003, Micha Brumlik, director of a centre for Holocaust studies and professor of science education at Frankfurt University, wrote a letter in the Frankfurter Rundschau condemning the book as anti-semitic. The next day Jurgen Habermas, the leading German philosopher who had initially recommended the book for German translation, wrote a follow-up piece arguing that the book was not anti-semitic, though doing so in sufficiently apologetic terms to leave room for doubt. “Like any decent German,” Honderich says, “who is placed close to a charge of anti-semitism, he was worried that some might rub off.”

From here on things went manic. The publisher, Suhrkamp Verlag, announced that it was banning the book. Honderich mounted a vociferous campaign of self-defence while German TV crews were parked in the garden outside his Somerset home. “I called for Brumlik’s sacking,” he says, “because he had fallen well short of academic standards of decency.

“To call me an anti-semite was just a lie. My first wife was Jewish, I have Jewish children and grandchildren, and I have always gone on record as a supporter of the right of the state of Israel to exist. That’s why the Palestinians are opposed to me. What I don’t support is Israel’s expansionism after the 1967 war.”

Matters settled down a little when a Jewish publisher offered to publish the book, but even then Honderich’s first lecture back in Germany turned out to be a bear garden. “There were riot police in the auditorium, plain-clothed protection for my wife and three sets of competing demonstrators,” he recalls. “There were the neo-Zionists protesting about my original argument, the neo-Nazis protesting about the neo-Zionist protesters, and the residual legatees of the Baader-Meinhof gang who like to turn up anywhere. Still, we got through it somehow.”

His reputation has recovered in Germany, but he’s still had to fight off the neo-Zionists elsewhere. The Germans may take their philosophy more seriously than us Brits, but it hasn’t stopped a few opportunists from trying to cash in. “I was recently accused of anti-semitism in a student magazine,” he says drily. “That slur cost them £2,000 in legal fees and a full apology.”

Honderich may be in for further trouble with his revised edition of the Oxford Companion to Philosophy. He’s typically downbeat about his part in the original project. “I think I was only asked because I was considered reliable,” he says. “Other philosophers had said they would do it and then failed to deliver on deadline. I imagine they thought it wasn’t proper work for a philosopher.”

This time round, free from the constraints of the academic circus, he’s been free to make 300 additions, including “ableism” - “it basically means being condescending to cripples” - and “zombies”. But it’s the subtractions that will cause the biggest stir, as they are mostly philosophers who have failed to live up to their promise or with whom Honderich has had spats. He declines to list them - “you could check both volumes” - but he does offer an explanation. “There are bonds of civility we all owe to other people,” he says. “If people break those bonds we are under a lesser obligation to maintain them ourselves.”

Philosophy with attitude is an unusual proposition in British academia, but for most of his career he has been happy to play by the normal rules - even down to the practised air of abstracted dishevelment. He was brought up in Canada, the son of a Mennonite German father and a Scottish Calvinist mother, and was force-fed a religious diet for much of his childhood. “Even then I could see that nothing in religion could possibly be true,” he says.

He came to England in 1959. “It was a choice of studying under Freddy Ayer at UCL or going to fucking Harvard,” he laughs. “So it wasn’t really a choice at all.” His anglophilia has endured, and much of his career has been about conforming to the English philosophical traditions. Even those of dissent. “In the early 1960s, I went on a CND march with Bertrand Russell and staged a sit-down protest in Trafalgar Square,” he remembers. “He brought a velvet cushion with him.”

By the early 1970s, Honderich was fighting his way up the career ladder at Sussex. “My head of department suggested I should write a book on political philosophy,” he shrugs. “I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought before then, but I wanted to keep him happy so I produced a book on the justification of punishment.” This was well received and led to invites to deliver a paper in the US on political violence, and his reputation within this field in the UK was made - not least because there was no competition. “I was still the only philosopher considering acts of political violence at the time of 9/11.”

Although it’s this philosophical strand that has grabbed the most attention, Honderich has made lasting contributions in other, more conventional, areas of philosophical debate.

For a man who is becoming ever more radical and grumpy in old age, Honderich is surprisingly content within himself. The pain of falling short of his own high moral standards throughout his life has eased and he enjoys his new life in the west country. He still wakes up at 5am, though now with joy, not anxiety - “I get a remarkable clarity of thought at that time of day, even if many of the thoughts turn out to be misconceived” - and his lifelong fear of death has become less pathological.

This, needless to say, has nothing to do with refinding his religious roots. “The last time I prayed was when I was 14,” he says. “A snow plough had covered a group of us under a mass of snow and I was praying to be rescued even as I lost consciousness.”

So how come his rescue didn’t reinforce a belief in the power of prayer? “The rescuer hit me on the head with his spade. I kind of thought that if there were a God the spade would have missed.” Spoken like a true consequentialist.

The CV

Name Ted Honderich

Age: 72

Job: Grote professor emeritus of the philosophy of mind and logic, University College London

Before that: lecturer in philosophy, Sussex University, 1962-4: lecturer, professor, Grote professor, UCL, 1964- 1998

Selected publications: Oxford Companion to Philosophy; Conservatism: Burke, Nozick, Bush, Blair; After the Terror; On Determinism and Freedom; Philosopher: A Kind of Life

Philosopher digs into … (a word we can’t print) - The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA

By Peter Edidin
The New York Times

PRINCETON, N. J. - Harry Frankfurt, 76, is a moral philosopher of international reputation. He is a professor emeritus at Princeton University.

And he is the author of a book recently published by the Princeton University Press that is the first in the publishing house’s distinguished history to carry a title that most newspapers, including this one, would find unfit to print.

Let’s just say the book’s title - printed in spare, distinguished fashion on a plain gray cover - is “On Bull—-'’ (80 pages, $9.95).

The opening paragraph is a model of reason and composition, repeatedly disrupted by that single obscenity: “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much (bull). Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize (bull) and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry.'’

The essay goes on to lament this lack of inquiry and - with the help of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ezra Pound, St. Augustine and the spy novelist Eric Ambler, among others - to ask some of the preliminary questions, to define the nature of a thing recognized by all but understood by none.

What is (bull) after all? Those who produce it certainly aren’t honest, but neither are they liars.

“It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth,'’ Frankfurt writes. “A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it.'’

The bull artist, on the other hand, cares nothing for truth or falsehood. The only thing that matters to him is “getting away with what he says,'’ Frankfurt writes.

An advertiser or a politician or talk show host given to (bull) “does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it,'’ he writes. “He pays no attention to it at all.'’

And this makes him, Frankfurt says, potentially more harmful than any liar, because any culture that is rife with (bull) - and he means our culture - is one in danger of rejecting “the possibility of knowing how things truly are.'’

It follows that any form of political argument or intellectual analysis or commercial appeal is only as legitimate as it is persuasive. There is no other court of appeal.

Frankfurt is an unlikely slinger of barnyard expletives. He is a courtly man, with a broad smile and a philosophic beard, and he lives in apparently decorous retirement with his wife, Joan Gilbert, in a lovely old house near the esteemed New Jersey university.

On a visit there earlier this month, violinist Jascha Heifetz was on the stereo, and good food and wine on the table. But appearances can be misleading. Frankfurt spent much of his childhood in Brooklyn. He sees himself as one who still speaks of the Dodgers as “having betrayed us.'’

And, in any event, Frankfurt is not particularly academic in the way he views his calling.

“I got interested in philosophy because of two things,'’ he said. “One is that I was never satisfied with the answers that were given to questions, and it seemed to me that philosophy was an attempt to get down to the bottom of things.'’

“The other thing,'’ he added, “was that I could never make up my mind what I was interested in, and philosophy enabled you to be interested in anything.'’

Those interests found expression in a small and scrupulous body of work that tries to make sense of free will, desire and love in closely reasoned but jargon-free prose, illustrated by examples of behavior that anyone would recognize.

“He’s dealing with very abstract matters,'’ said Sarah Buss, who teaches philosophy at the University of Iowa, “but trying not to lose touch with the human condition.'’

Frankfurt’s teaching shares with his prose a spirit Buss, who was once his graduate student, defines as, “Come in and let’s struggle with something.'’

The essay on (bull) arose from that kind of struggle.

In 1986, Frankfurt was teaching at Yale, where he took part in a weekly seminar. The idea was to get people of various disciplines to listen to a paper written by one of their colleagues, after which everyone would talk about it over lunch.

Frankfurt decided his contribution would be a paper on (bull).

“I had always been concerned about the importance of truth,'’ he recalled, “the way in which truth is foundational to civilization. … I’d been concerned about the prevalence'’ of (bull), he continued, “and the lack of concern for truth and respect for truth that it represented.'’

“I used the title I did,'’ he added, “because I wanted to talk about (bull) without any (bull), so I didn’t use `humbug’ or `bunkum.’ ‘’

Frankfurt recalled that it took him about a month to write the essay, after which he delivered it to the group.

“I guess I should say it was received enthusiastically,'’ he said, “but they didn’t know whether to laugh or to take it seriously.'’

It was later published in academic circles and has been passed along from one aficionado to another for years.

“In the 20 years since it was published,'’ Frankfurt said, “I don’t think a year has passed in which I haven’t gotten one or two letters or e-mails from people about it.'’

One man from Wales set some of the text to music; another who worked in the financial industry wanted to create an annual award for the worst piece of analysis published in his field (an idea apparently rejected by his superiors).

It was Ian Malcolm, a Princeton University Press editor, who finally approached Frankfurt about publishing the essay as a stand-alone volume.

“The only way the essay would get the audience it deserved was to publish it as a small book,'’ he said. “I had a feeling it would sell, but we weren’t quite prepared for the interest it got.'’

It came out in book form this past January.

For Frankfurt, who says it has always been his ambition to move philosophy “back to what most people think of as philosophy, which is a concern with the problems of life and with understanding the world,'’ the book might be considered a successful achievement.

But he finds he hasn’t quite gotten to the bottom of things. “When I reread it recently,'’ he said, “I was sort of disappointed. It wasn’t as good as I’d thought it was. It was a fairly superficial and incomplete treatment of the subject.'’

Yahoo! News - Head of Whistleblower Office Criticized

Thu Mar 3

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The head of the federal office responsible for protecting government whistleblowers is the focus of a complaint filed Thursday by some of his own employees, who say he is undermining laws that encourage workers to expose wrongdoing.

Scott Bloch, who runs the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, refuses to enforce laws that protect whistleblowers in the federal workplace, especially gays, and is retaliating against his own staff, the employees alleged.

Bloch’s office called the allegations a set of "baseless charges" and said they would be forwarded to the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency "in the hope that they will be able to put them to rest once and for all."

According to the employees’ complaint, a new policy instituted by Bloch resulted in the agency closing more than 600 cases in only a few months, without referring any of them for investigation of whether the employees’ allegations of government misconduct are true.

Under the policy, the employees allege career staff in the agency’s disclosure unit are not permitted to contact whistleblowers but are required to close their cases unless their written filings are sufficient on their face to establish a basis for investigation.

"While publicly congratulating himself for reducing the caseload … Mr. Bloch has failed to explain just what happened to all of the cases he closed," said the complaint filed in Washington.

Agency spokeswoman Cathy Deeds said, "It’s absolutely false that any directive was given that whistleblowers should not be called." She said that in some circumstances, it was not necessary to call the whistleblowers because they already provided sufficient information to process the case.

Early this year, Bloch reassigned a dozen employees from the agency’s headquarters to offices around the country. According to the complaint, the reassignments were the result of friction between the employees and Bloch.

Among those reassigned was the office’s expert on the Hatch Act, the law that restricts political activity by federal workers at all levels of government.

Bloch came under fire last year when he moved to deny gay federal workers protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation and removed references to sexual orientation from the agency’s Web site and complaint forms.

The White House affirmed President Bush (news - web sites)’s support for protecting gay federal workers from discrimination after some Democratic lawmakers complained.

In a letter to Bush, the employees’ lawyer, Debra S. Katz, wrote: "Mr. Bloch ignored your express direction that federal agencies enforce" anti-discrimination laws against gays.

Since the controversy, Bloch has doubled the number of political appointees at the agency and issued a gag order barring his employees from talking to the press or Congress about internal agency matters, the complaint alleged.

___

On the Net:

U.S. Office of Special Counsel: http://www.osc.gov/