Day: June 26, 2001

Slavery in 20th Century America

Over the past couple years I’ve been a bit obsessed about the history of slavery and one of these days am actually going to have time to get working on the web site I started on the topic.

Anyway, David Bloomberg has written a very good review of Gregory Freeman’s excellent book, Lay This Body Down, which is about the horrific murder of 11 black men in 1921 who were trapped in a slave-like system called peonage –essentially they were forced to work to pay off completely bogus debts.

Even though slavery was technically outlawed within the United States at the conclusion of the Civil War, peonage was not fully outlawed until about 1910, and continued for decades after that in parts of the South.

There have been a number of excellent books about this topic, including Pete Daniel’s The Shadow of Slavery : Peonage in the South, 1901-1969 and the out-of-print, The Peonage files of the U.S. Department of Justice, 1901-1945, which as its title suggests presents documents and information from the FBI’s investigations into peonage (it was just such an investigation that led to the murder of the 11 men in Georgia — the white plantation owner wanted to destroy the evidence, which happened to be the black men he forced to work for him).

People interested in the topic can also find a first hand account of the peonage system on the web —Peonage in the South: The Life Story of a Negro Peon — taken from a 1906 compilation.

Supreme Court Erred in Freelance Decision

It was inevitable, but the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York Times v. Tasini was an enormous mistake. The Times and other newspapers took articles written by freelancers and included them in databases such as Lexis/Nexis or in online archives of their site. Unfortunately, they didn’t explicitly secure the rights to do so.

In fact the newspapers argued that they didn’t need to — that an online archive of The New York Times is no different than the microfilm archive that hundreds of libraries subscribe to. The Supreme Court disagreed, saying that an online database of old articles is somehow different than a microfiche or even paper archive.

There are two things you have to realize about this decision. First, the whole case generally weakened the position of freelancers. Personally, there was a newspaper I did a lot of freelance work with that, like other newspapers, decided it had to protect itself from such lawsuits and sent me a nice work-for-hire contract which would have granted all rights to the newspaper (I’d have needed their permission, for example, to reproduce my own work on my web site). Another newspaper I used to do freelance work for also sent me a work-for-hire contract. Both newspapers included letters to the effect that the only way to do business with them in the future was by signing such a contract. I passed.

Second, this really creates a legal minefield for small web publishers like myself. Specifically, it opens the door to the possibility that future technological innovations will also be considered substantially different from current electronic databases.

Suppose, for example, I reach an agreement with an author to publish an article on my web site. Do I have to get additional permission to make that article available over a cell phone web browser? Is an Avantgo version of my web site a simple revision?

This isn’t just a hypothetical question either. One group of people are freaking out over this ruling are e-mail newsletter publishers. Some of these people were distributing e-mail newsletters before the web really took off. Now, of course, many of them have gone back and archived their older e-mail newsletters on the web. But their agreements with writers only called for e-mail distribution. Do they need to go back and get additional permissions?

Many of them don’t even have any contact with the original authors and are making the same decisions as the Times — its easier to simply remove all potentially disputed material rather than try to track down freelancers and/or risk lawsuits.

How About A Class Action Against HSUS/PETA?

Seattle attorney Harish Bharti is currently busy soliciting clients to bring a class action lawsuit against McDonald’s on behalf of vegetarians. As you may have heard, McDonald’s for years maintained that its french fries were vegetarian, but it turned out they used a beef byproduct as part of the flavoring. A solicitation on an animal rights web site reads,

If you are a vegetarian and have purchased McDonald’s fries within the last 11 years believing them to contain no animal ingredients based on the deceptive media campaign by McDonald’s, you may be eligible to participate in this class-action lawsuit. Please complete, sign and mail your declaration directly to Mr. Bharti.

Hmmm… why should animal rights activists have all the fun? If McDonald’s was being deceptive when it forgot to mention that its “vegetarian” french fries actually contained an infinitesimally small amount o beef extract, that pales in comparison to the snow job that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Humane Society of the United States have been pulling off for the last couple decades.

If McDonald’s had half the temerity that HSUS does, they’d have been touting their Big Mac as vegan!

Source:

Class Action Suit Filed Against Deceptive McDonald’s. The Progressive Animal Welfare Society, Press Release, 2001.

PETA Protests Animal Planet Show Featuring Breeders

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is urging animal rights activists to protest an upcoming new series on Animal Planet, “That’s My Baby.” The show will focus on baby animals and has been soliciting animal breeders in some parts of the country for stories. According to a press release,

The proposed TV series… will undoubtedly lead people to buy or breed animals, at the expense of the millions of homeless animals who are euthanized in shelters every year. Instead of glorifying irresponsible breeding, Animal Planet should discourage breeding at all levels. Please don’t let unfortunate dogs and cats die for Animal Planet’s TV ratings.

If the focus of the show is going to be on small breeders there is plenty of evidence that animals purchased from such breeders are far less likely to end up abandoned than are animals obtained in other ways (such as from a retail outlet or from a friend or neighbor trying to unload an unwanted animal).

Source:

Animal Planet Irresponsibly Promotes Breeding While Millions of Homeless Animals Die. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Press Release, June 2001.

Peter Singer’s Odd Take on Sex Selective Abortions

Salon.Com published an interview of philosopher Peter Singer conducted by freelancer Viktor Frolke. Singer is, to my mind, one of the most noxious human beings to hold such a prestigious academic position, and he confirms that view in this interview. Of particular relevance to this site is Singer’s views on sex-selective abortion.

Most people who are in favor of abortion are generally either in favor or opposed to allowing sex selective abortion. Singer is the first person I’ve come across to argue that it is okay to selectively abort boys, but not okay to selectively abort girls.

Frolke: What would not be a perfectly good reason for an abortion?

Singer: There’s a difference between early and late abortions. If you have a late abortion, where the fetus might feel pain, then I think you should have a good reason. Because then you’re inflicting pain. As you go through the third trimester, you need to have more serious reasons to end a pregnancy. For instance, I would not support ending a pregnancy only because you want a boy and you’re going to get a girl, because it would reinforce sex discrimination. But if you already have two boys and you want a girl, that could be enough reason for abortion.

I would think sex selective abortion is moral or immoral independently of the putative sex of the fetus and/or the number of siblings of any given sex the potential child would have. Leave it to an esteemed philosopher to set me straight.

Source:

“Professor Death”. Viktor Frolke, Salon.Com, June 25, 2001.