5.12.03

Sewage Sludge Progress

Argall's Proposal Lets Voters Decide On Dumping Issues A bill announced Thursday would allow residents of municipalities across Pennsylvania the chance to regulate or even prohibit dredge material within their towns. ... Specifically, Argall's bill would require a referendum, or ballot question, in municipalities affected by proposed dredge disposal before any such materials could be brought into a community. It also would give communities the ability to adopt, enforce and strictly regulate the disposal of dredge. On top of that, it would give residents the opportunity to comment and ask questions on any dredge application prior to the referendum. ... Argall and Picciano emphasized that the bill would impact any permits issued after Nov. 1, 2003, including the current Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co. application. The firm has submitted an application to dispose of dredge at Springdale Pit. The dredge, often from industrial-lane rivers and shipping harbors, has been found to contain heavy metals and other potentially threatening substances

Stentor Danielson, 23:53,

Im' Teh Tpo Bolg!

I noticed I was the #2 result in a Google search for "lassiez faire," which struck me as odd given how many libertarians are out there on this internet. Then I thought "oh, right, libertarians can actually spell laissez-faire."

"Lassiez Faire Books" is the top result from both the mispelled and correctly spelled searches, as they aparently were kind enough to include the misspelling in their meta tags just in case.
Stentor Danielson, 19:35,

4.12.03

Great Literature

It looks like Bill Watterson is as reclusive as Jack Chick (I know the post on Chick looks screwy -- Blogger published over my archives with the new green template). If only their careers had been reversed, so that Chick tracts were no longer being produced but you could find Calvin and Hobbes laying around train stations and grocery stores.

If the rumor that Watterson has taken up landscape painting is true, I'm excited for his eventual return to the public sphere. The alien landscapes were always one of my favorite parts of Calvin and Hobbes.
Stentor Danielson, 14:38,

Teddy Roosevelt Republicans

Why Some Gun Owners Are Unhappy With Bush In particular, Rosenbruch and a groundswell of other gun owners from the lower 48 are challenging the Bush administration's plan to undo protection of Alaska's Tongass and Chugach national forests by opening both to increased logging and road construction. ... Many analysts think most of these people are Republican and supportive of President Bush. But now, a growing vocal minority is taking a stand on concerns they have - from weakening water protection standards in fishable waterways, to proposals to drill for oil in what have been off-limits areas. These people want a clean and healthy environment not only for hunters and anglers, but for all Americans - and they believe Bush is straying too far from this principle.

I was surprised by the hostility toward Teddy Roosevelt that I've heard expressed by some of my classmates and professors -- a criticism along the lines of "he just wanted to save nature so that he could shoot it." I don't think Roosevelt was the greatest environmentalist, but it strikes me as wrong to dismiss hunters' views on the environment (especially for people who would jump to defend "traditional" use of the environment, which often includes hunting). Hunting and recreational fishing tend to lack the overriding profit motive and competition that can drive other forms of resource extraction (such as logging or commercial fishing) to shortsighted and unsustainable exploitation of the environment. A hunter's aesthetic commitment to the environment can be just as powerful as that of your typical backpacker environmentalist.

I doubt we'll see a huge shift of conservative hunters and anglers into the Democratic party due to Bush's wrongdoing, since these people tend to agree with the Republicans on a host of other issues. And in a way that's good. Conservative hunters provide important internal criticism of the GOP on environmental issues. Nevertheless, Howard Dean may be especially well positioned to peel off enough of these voters to put him over the top in some key states if, in his messages targetted at them, he emphasizes his commitment to fiscal discipline and gun rights (as well as his environmental criticisms of Bush) while downplaying the issues like gay rights and abortion that would alienate them.
Stentor Danielson, 13:11,

"Royce Lamberth Has Made His Decision. Now Let Him Enforce It."

My first post on Open Source Politics is up, dealing with the Indian trust fund case and how a Democratic candidate could turn it to his advantage.
Stentor Danielson, 10:49,

3.12.03

Sewage Sludge In Pennsylvania

As an update to the story two posts ago, it looks like the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has made an inconclusive ruling on the local sovereignty issue with respect to sewage sludge:

Sludge Ruling Leaves All Sides In A Muddle Last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in a case involving a township that wanted to limit the spreading of sludge on farmland. A New Jersey waste company sued the township, saying Pennsylvania state law preempts local ones. ... Three of the Supreme Court justices said the township may ban sludge application. Three justices said state law overrules local sewage ordinances. And one said the sludge company should not have been allowed to sue in the first place. So, who won? Environmental groups are calling the ruling a victory, saying it gives townships the power to oversee their own sludge rules. The state Department of Environmental Protection says just the opposite, reading the ruling as an affirmation of the state's preemptive power.

It looks to me like the township won this particular case, but that the ruling is inconclusive, or even pro-state, in terms of setting a precedent. I would imagine they'll have to hear another case on the same issue, and Justice Sandra Newman will have to take a stand on the sludge issue. The Times-News, on the other hand, is spinning the decision as a straight-up victory for anti-sludge forces in its news pages.
Stentor Danielson, 23:00,

Bush Signs Healthy Forests Bill

Now it's a law.
Stentor Danielson, 21:16,

PA Farmers Take Action

Consent Of The Governed In 1997, the state of Pennsylvania began enforcing a weak waste-disposal law, passed at the urging of agribusiness lobbyists several years earlier, which explicitly barred townships from passing any more stringent law. It had the effect of repealing the waste-disposal regulations of more than one hundred townships, regulations that had prevented corporations from establishing factory farms in their communities. The supervisors, who had seen massive hog farms despoil the ecosystems and destroy the social and economic fabric of communities in nearby states, were desperate to find a way to protect their townships. ... But factory hog farms weren't the only threat introduced by the state's industry-backed regulation. The law also served to preempt local control over the spreading of municipal sewage sludge on rural farmland. In Pittsburgh and other large cities, powerful municipal treatment agencies, seeking to avoid costly payments to landfills, began contracting with corporate sewage haulers. Haulers, in turn, relied on rural farmers willing to use the sludge as fertilizer -- a practice deemed "safe" by corporate-friendly government environmental agencies. ... By 1999, with [the legal foundation] CELDF's help, five townships in two counties had adopted a straightforward ordinance that challenged state law by prohibiting corporations from farming or owning farmland. Five more townships in three more counties followed suit. Also in 1999, Rush Township of Centre County became the first in the nation to pass an ordinance to control sludge spreading. Haulers who wanted to apply sewage sludge to farmland would have to test every load at their own expense -- and for a wider array of toxic substances than required by the weaker state law. Three dozen townships in seven counties have unanimously passed similar sludge ordinances to date. Citing a township's mandate to protect its citizens, Licking Township Supervisor Mik Robertson declares, "If the state isn't going to do the job, we'll do it for them."

This is a very interesting article about the extent of corporate power and rights. I would disagree, however, with the author's angle of critique. He adopts a "local sovereignty" perspective (particularly in his section about international trade rules), arguing that the main problem with laws granting corporations power is that they infringe on local governments' ability to do things differently. I'm a bit leery of using this as a basis for critiquing the power of corporations because the same sort of logic has been used to defend local governments putting additional restrictions on the freedom of individuals, even to the point of denying their personhood (cf "states' rights"). We need a more sophisticated framework for deciding what policy decisions should be made at what levels of government, rather than just advocacy either of universal rights or of local sovereignty.

The real problem, as I see it, is not that there's a process violation in not allowing (for example) townships to restrict the use of toxic wastes, but that the state's lax environmental standards are bad in and of themselves. Similarly, corporate personhood is not bad because it limits local governments' ability to regulate corporations, but because it's bad for society at any level to treat corporations as persons.
Stentor Danielson, 20:44,

2.12.03

Candidates Talk To Indians

I've just run across the story that Indian Country Today did on the National Congress of American Indians meeting (which I hadn't been able to find for a previous post). It's got a few encouraging quotes from Kerry, Lieberman, Clark, and Kucinich.
Stentor Danielson, 12:46,

Claiming Labrador For Spain

Study Says Medieval New World Map Is Real The latest scientific analysis of a disputed map of the medieval New World supports the theory that it was made 50 years before Christopher Columbus set sail. ... A study last summer said the ink on the parchment map was made in the 20th century. But chemist Jacqueline Olin, a retired researcher with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, said Tuesday her analysis shows the ink was made in medieval times. ... Scholars have dated the map to around 1440. Some scholars have speculated that Columbus could have used the map to find the New World in 1492.

I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other about the authenticity of the Vinland map -- I still have a gut feeling it's probably a fake, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it's definitely real. Unlike, say, the Piri Reis map, it doesn't claim the cartographer had any more knowledge of the world than we already know the Vikings had.

What I do find hard to believe is the idea that Columbus based his journey on the Vinland map (presuming it's real). If he had reason to believe there was a "new world" out in the Atlantic, it seems like he would have tried to sell that idea to Ferdinand and Isabella, rather than -- or in addition to -- the "shortcut to India" idea. And he would have been less convinced that he had in fact reached India if he knew there were other lands out there. Further, the Vinland map shows nothing south of Canada. If Columbus had been looking to arrive in Vinland, he wouldn't have sailed so far south.
Stentor Danielson, 02:43,

1.12.03

Procedural Justice

Nathan Newman has a post up that argues that:

Liberals in recent decades have worshipped at the altar of procedural justice-- the Miranda Rule, evidence excluded where legal rules are ignored, etc. -- of the idea that if the rules are followed, even if some incidental injustice is dealt, the overall average of results will be the greater good.

My first reaction was that this was just a more sophisticated version of the old whine that liberals are too nice and conservatives fight dirty.

I think there's a bipartisan tendency to make accusations of procedural injustice when one thinks the substantive outcome was unjust. How many Bush supporters think the Florida recounts were done incorrectly, and how many Gore supporters think Bush's victory was legitimate? How many pro-life people think Roe v. Wade is constitutionally sound, and how many pro-choice people think it's lacking? Both sides implore the other to accept noble defeat.

It's often easier to make a claim of procedural injustice than of substantive injustice. Sometimes the substantive claim is harder to defend -- it's much more socially acceptable to make the procedural states' rights argument, for example, than to defend the substantive outcome of institutionalized racism. Another advantage is that procedural injustice opens the way for a do-over, bringing down the substantive decision by arguing that it was improperly made. A good example here is the tendency among many conservatives to focus on the procedural question regarding gay marriage, concerning themselves with the alleged procedural injustice of "judicial activism" rather than the substantive issue of whether gays should be allowed to get married.

This is not to say that all claims of procedural injustice are excuse-making. There are plenty of instances of real procedural injustice, and those instances are more likely to be seen and pointed out by those who dislike the outcome. Indeed, there's even something to the argument that gay rights would be on a stronger footing if they were enacted by legislatures rather than judges. I think the tendency to cry procedural injustice makes perfect sense if we hold to the utilitarian justification for procedures that Newman describes. That is, that the means are justified by what kind of ends they produce. This is the same way we justify procedures for many practices other than policymaking -- a recipe is justified by the taste of the finished food, not some independent rules of cooking. So if an outcome is substantively unjust, that suggests that either the existing procedures were not followed correctly, or that some change in the procedures is necessary. The second conclusion is often couched in the first, due to our reverence for tradition -- for example, the civil rights movement overturned institutional racism by appealing to the unfulfilled promise of the Declaration of Independence ("all men are created equal").
Stentor Danielson, 12:10,

30.11.03

Myth And History At Thanksgiving

Since I didn't have much internet access over the holiday weekend, you're getting a late Thanksgiving post.

Celebrating Genocide! There are many reasons to celebrate and Americans have a lot to be thankful for. Genocide should not be one of those things. What are we doing on Thanksgiving Day? We would be appropriately appalled if Germany or Austria were celebrating a Holocaust Memorial Day, where Germans and Austrians got together with their families for dinner on their official day off, joyously remembering the things that are important to them, just as American families get together for Thanksgiving Day and think of things to be thankful for. (Similar scenarios, just as ugly, could be constructed for white supremacists, rapists, and murderers.) Some activities and events are inappropriate just because of the context in which they occur and the history of suffering they represent. Thanksgiving Day is clearly part of that history. Are Americans thankful for forgetting their own history, for having collective cultural and political amnesia?

Every Thanksgiving sees a number of articles of this type, reminding us that, contraray to the rosy picture of the First Thanksgiving, our nation has treated its indigenous people quite poorly. I've even taken a stab at the genre. This is an important part of our history, and something that we too often overlook. Nevertheless, I think these stories are no reason to discard the traditional Thanksgiving story.

We need to understand the distinction between myth and history. We tend to think of myth as being simply bad history, a version skewed by falsehoods that should be thrown out or corrected as soon as possible. From an anthropological standpoint, that's not quite right. While a myth shares the narrative form of a history, its function is not to relate the events of the past in a straightforward manner. Its function is to express the values of the culture that tells it. Myth evokes what the Dreaming, a quasi-past in which the order of the world is set in place, a period that contrasts to the messiness and failings of the present world.

I think the traditional Thanksgiving story expresses certain admirable ideals. On the one hand, it's a story about relations between races or cultures. The Pilgrims and Indians come together in fellowship, sharing the best of their respective cultures without losing their own identities. On the other hand, it's a story about immigration, about how America (represented here by the Indians) welcomes those who are persecuted in other places. The fact that what actually happened was genocide does not mean that the myth glorifies genocide, or that positive feelings toward the myth translate into approval for the real events that the myth (inaccurately) represents.

The "real story of Thanksgiving" histories play off of, and affirm, the ideals in the traditional myth. They point out that we haven't lived up to the morals encoded in the traditional Thanksgiving myth. It's important to know that, but not at the expense of having a positive statement of our ideals.
Stentor Danielson, 23:22,