Meat, Meat, Meat

Last night at SMU I was part of a panel discussion following a screening of the new movie American Meat.  What a meaty movie!  You see meat cooking, meat sitting in grocery stores, meat being eaten, live animals being turned into meat, meat on the hoof... Lots and lots of meat.  Not really enjoyable viewing, I have to say, for a vegetarian.

The movie's message is that the US should transform

Intergenerational Amnesia

Suppose a 10 year old child had a life-threatening illness that could only be cured at the cost of amnesia. She would lose all memory of her first 10 years, but go on living. It would be bad to forget her early years, but surely worth it to stay alive.  I think we should say roughly the same thing about the practice of saving babies' lives by placing "baby boxes" hear hospitals. When a desperate

The Right to Self Defense

This semester I'm teaching an introductory course on contemporary moral problems, and this past week has been gun control week.  It's an exhausting subject, since emotions run high in the aftermath of Newtown and Aurora.  Phew!

When all is said and done, what seems interesting in the ethical debate about gun control is the right to self defense. What is it, and what does it encompass?  This

"Life begins at conception"

 
Mary Elizabeth Williams declares herself a pro-choice liberal, but wants to concede that "life begins at conception". To her, this is undeniable common sense. But in fact, there is actually a very solid reason to doubt that any human's lifespan starts as early as conception.  At conception, what exists is a single-celled zygote.  That zygote contains the makings of not just the embryo (fetus

Beyonce Lip Synced Anthem?

Uh oh, it seems Beyonce lip-synced the national anthem yesterday.  Here's what USA Today is reporting--

Master Sgt. Kristin DuBois, spokeswoman for the President's Own
United States Marine Band, confirms to USA TODAY's Maria Puente that
Beyoncé was lip-syncing.
It's standard operating procedure for musicians to pre-record crucial music such as Hail to the Chief and The Star-Spangled Banner

50 Years Later

50 years ago I went to the March on Washington with my family. I am told I was there for Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. So when my son said he should get to see Barack Obama inaugurated on Martin Luther King day, I could see his point.

Standing for hours in the cold with a million Obamaphiles turned out to be wildly fun. Who knew? What exultation and camaraderie! Here are some

What is a placenta? (And why does it matter?)

credit: www.birthingfromwithin.com

Norman Ford's book When Did I Begin? is a treasure trove of information about fetal development, plus some very interesting reflections on how the biological facts bear on whether each of us was once a zygote or once a fetus. This is a matter of pure metaphysical interest but also with possible ethical implications.  Ford offers several reasons to doubt that