Day: June 24, 2003

Police More Concerned with Arresting Someone than Getting the Fact Straight

This is an egregious example of police and prosecutors being more interested in arresting someone for a crime than taking the time to actually look at the evidence.

Prince Georges police arrested Virginia Shelton, 46; her daughter, Shirley, 16; and one of Shirley’s friends, Jennifer Starkey, 17, and charged all three with first degree murder. The only evidence police had was video footage from an ATM that showed the three withdrawing $200 with a debit card taken from a murdered woman. It took 22 days for an outsider to point out the obvious,

The biggest mistake in the case, which came to light after the three Arizona residents were arrested April 22, was the faulty assumption that the bank’s transaction computer and the ATM camera kept synchronized time. As it turns out, they did not. Although the Sheltons and Starkey, on the videotape, seemed to be standing at the teller machine at the same time $200 was withdrawn from Mansfield’s account, the three actually got money from the ATM several minutes earlier, with legitimate cards, a prosecutor has determined.

Clearly the police didn’t exactly perform due diligence in looking at the ATM transaction records (which they had) to see if the women’s story about withdrawing money using a legitimate ATM card was true. Hey, they were in a hurry to arrest someone — who has time to check things like that?

In fact, according to the Post,

The murder charges were dropped only after Starkey’s father took it upon himself to gather his own copy of the records, then fly from Arizona to Maryland and ask a Prince George’s prosecutor to review the records.

The families involved are contemplating a lawsuit and at the very least someone should be seriously reprimanded and demoted for such incompetency.

Source:

Mistaken Arrests Leave Pr. George’s Murder Unsolved. Washington Post, Ruben Castaneda, Washington Post, June 22, 2003.

Bizarre Example of the Price of Fame

A couple weeks ago the New York Times ran an excellent profile of Tom Kenny, the voice behind SpongeBob SquarePants. As the show became popular, people started to spot Kenny when he goes out and began acting completely inappropriately due to his new-found fame as this bizarre anecdote makes clear,

It’s good that Mr. Kenny understands idiocy, because fame has a way of turning people around him into dolts.

Last July 4, Mr. Kenny’s father died unexpectedly. He returned to Syracuse for the wake and was overwhelmed, he said, when dozens of people lined up to share their memories. Mr. Kenny will never forget that day, which he compares to a scene from “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

But unfortunately, he will also never forget one woman who approached him, offered condolences, and then reached into her handbag and pulled out a “SpongeBob” CD.

“She said, ‘I hope this isn’t inappropriate, but could you sign this?’ ” Mr. Kenny recalled, shaking his head. “I mean, the only thing that would have been more inappropriate is if I leaned over and used my father’s forehead to steady myself as I signed.”

Unbelievable.

Source:

Father and Son, Soaking Up Affection. Amy Wallace, New York Times, June 15, 2003.

PETA Organizes Mad Cow Protests in Canada

With the announcement that mad cow disease had found its way to cattle in Alberta, you knew it would not take long for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to show up there as well.

Bruce Friedrich visited Alberta to protest outside an Edmonton grocery story. He and other activists carried signs reading, “It’s Mad to Eat Meat — Go Vegetarian.”

In an interview with the CanWest News Service, Friedrich said,

When industries deny animals everything natural to them and turn them into machines, it can come back to haunt us. . . . If you eat meat, you already have to worry about salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure and cancer, as well as your weight. Now you can add mad cow disease to the list.

Oddly enough, Valerie Fitch of the Calgary Vegetarian Society seemed a bit suspicious as to whether or not fear over mad cow disease would lead Canadians to go vegetarian,

I think that initially meat consumption will drop. It may come up again, but people will be questioning what they eat.

Given how isolated the first case of mad cow disease among cattle in Canada was, I doubt there will be a significant drop in meat consumption there. Now if a human case of vCJD is found, that would be a different story.

Source:

‘It’s mad to eat meat’, PETA to tell shoppers: Animal rights group pushes vegetarianism. CanWest Global Communications Corp., Mario Toneguzzi, May 22, 2003.

Australia to Investigate Whether Lobsters Feel Pain

Following on reports of a study claiming that fish feel pain, Australia will be investigating whether lobsters feel pain after a minor rebellion among some lobster fisherman.

Under laws in South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, recreational fisherman are required to remove the tail fan of lobsters they catch in order to distinguish them from lobster caught by commercial fisherman.

In South Australia two recreational fisherman refused to comply with this regulation, arguing that it would be cruel to do if lobsters feel pain. South Australia prosecuted the two men anyway, but also decided to take a closer look at the issue. According to a report in The Age,

Aquatic scientists have now begun examining lobster tails for evidence of nerve tissue. They will also test the biochemical response of live animals when their tails are clipped, because animals who are hurt emit antigens whose presence can be an indicator of distress.

I.e. regardless of what they find, the issue remains the same — are nociception and indications of distress evidence enough to conclude that an animal feels pain?

Source:

Pain test to rock lobster fisherman. Penelope Debelle, The Age, May 16, 2003.

Humane Seal of Approval Label

Humane Farm Animal Care has an interesting approach to promoting what it sees as the humane treatment of farm animals. It has begun a labelling program for meat, poultry, dairy and egg producers who meet its criteria for raising farm animals under humane conditions.

The program works like this — farmers who want their products to receive the “Certified Humane Raised & Handled” pay a royalty free, such as 50 centers per pig, as well as pay for annual inspections at $400/day of their procedures. The group also pays the U.S. Department of Agriculture to check documents filed by farmers to ensure the group is actually meeting its standards.

And what are those standards. According to the group’s web site,

The Animal Care Standards require that livestock have access to clean and sufficient food and water; that their environment is not dangerous to their health; that they have sufficient protection from weather elements; that they have sufficient space allowance in order for them to move naturally; and other features to ensure the safety, health and comfort of the animal. In addition, the standards require that managers and caretakers be thoroughly trained, skilled and competent in animal husbandry and welfare, and have good working knowledge of their system and the livestock in their care.

For processors, the standards require that American Meat Institute Standards are adhered to, which are generally more stringent than slaughter standards from the Federal Humane Slaughter Act.

A number of groups are supporting Humane Farm Animal Care’s labelling program, including American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; The Humane Society of the United States; Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; Animal People; Dubuque (Iowa) Humane Society; Hawaiian Humane Society; Humane Society of Carroll County (Maryland); Humane Society of Vero Beach & Indian River County (Florida); SPCA Erie County, NY; and, SPCA LA.

So far the group has certified five producers that meet its requirements.

Kara Flynn of the National Pork Producers Council was quoted in an Associated Press story as saying that the program was part of “an anti-meat agenda.” According to Flynn,

It’s saying if you don’t adhere to this, you’re going to be seen as someone who’s not rearing or treating animals humanely, and that’s false.

Flynn’s concerns seem a bit overblown. If a private group wants to define a more stringent definition of “humane” treatment of animals and arrange to label the meat that comes from such producers as “Certified Humane” more power to them. I doubt there will be a big demand for meat labelled in this way, but so long as they are not trying to force it down producer’s throats through regulation or taking the ALF route and terrorizing those farmers they disagree with, I don’t see what Flynn’s so upset about.

Source:

New labels give ‘Humane’ Seal of Approval. Associated Press, May 23, 2003.

?Certified Humane? Food Label Unveiled. Press Release, Humane Farm Animal Care, May 22, 2003.

Certified Humane Certification Program
Frequently Asked Questions. Humane Farm Animal Care, Accessed: June 24, 2003.

Peter Singer Looks Back at 30 Years of Animal Liberation

Peter Singer wrote an article in May for The Guardian looking back 30 after the publication of his essay/book review in The New York Review of Books, “Animal Liberation.”

Singer writes that, “A lot has changed since the appearance of that review and of the book, also called Animal Liberation, that grew out of it.” Of course what has not changed are Singer’s specious arguments. For example, Singer still apparently thinks this is a good argument for animal liberation,

Being able to reason better than another being doesn’t mean that our pains and pleasures count more than those of others — whether those “others” are human or non-human. After all, some humans — infants and those with severe intellectual disabilities — don’t reason as well as some non-human animals, but we would, rightly be shocked by anyone who proposed that we inflict slow, painful deaths on these intellectually inferior humans to test the safety of household products. Nor, of course, would we tolerate confining them in small cages and then slaughtering them in order to eat them. The fact that we are prepared to do these things to non-human animals is a sign of “speciesism,” a prejudice that survives because it is convenient for the dominant group — in this case, not whites or males, but all humans.

It is still difficult to understand how Singer can make the leap from how we treat human beings with differing reasoning capabilities to how we treat members of other species where not a single member of that species shows any evidence of higher-level cognitive skills.

Moreover although Singer concedes later that “evolutionary theory effectively debunks the idea that God gave humans dominion over the animals,” he is apparently oblivious to how other developments in evolutionary thought, including evolutionary psychology, have undercut what little substance there was to Singer’s claim that “speciesism” is mere prejudice. In fact what Singer dismisses as mere prejudice in fact is the best hypothesis yet on the evolution of moral foundations.

Another thing that has not changed is Singer’s selective citing of scientific research, such as his reference in his Guardian article to studies claiming that fish feel pain. In fact that study simply demonstrated that fish are capable of nociception and are able to respond to external stimuli, not that they feel pain.

Even Singer is forced to concede the obvious — 30 years later there is no society on the planet that is close to adopting his view of human/non-human relations,

Still, no society is even close to giving equal consideration to the interests of all animals. The spread of western methods of intensive farming to China and other nations in the developing world is threatening to incarcerate billions more animals in factory farms. After 30 years, the most that can be said is that — at least in the developed world — we are beginning to move in the right direct.

Singer seems to be pinning his hopes here that an increasing awareness of animal welfare issues will inevitably lead to animal liberation. Europe seems the only place where that even has a shot, but even there it is Europe’s increasingly anti-science, anti-technology views that have allowed the animal rights movement to gain ground rather than any serious contemplation of granting animals equal interest.

Source:

Some are more equal: Why do we insist that rights to life, liberty and protection from torture be confined to humans? Peter Singer, The Guardian (London), May 19, 2003.