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I'm reading "Democrat Woos Dairy Farmers to Keep Crucial Senate Seat/Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin hits country roads and agricultural fairs, seeking to win over rural Trump supporters once more." 

 

"Yet despite knowing that cow’s milk is responsible for three times the emissions of plant milks, the corporation still slaps an undue fee of up to 80 cents on eco-friendly choices. If you’re thinking the company is merely passing on its additional cost to the consumer, think again. According to PETA’s research, it costs Starbucks a few pennies extra to use vegan milk in a drink — but it charges you 10 times the cost or more. To me, the reasoning is obvious. About 40 percent of U.S. adults now purchase nondairy milk (mostly almond), oat milk sales shot up 95 percent in the 52-week period ending in early September, and around half of Gen Zers say they’re dropping dairy. Making conscientious people pay more is profitable. But for any company with the reach and resources of Starbucks to profiteer in the face of a global calamity … well, it brings to mind the greedy Gordon Gekko....  ...Starbucks says it wants 'to inspire and nurture the human spirit.'... End the vegan upcharge."

From "I glued my hand to a Starbucks counter. Here’s why" by James Cromwell (WaPo). 

Here's my May 11th post about the protest. As I said there, I think Starbucks should redo the prices so that drinks with cow's milk and vegetarian milk substitutes are the same price. I would not have known about this issue if it had not been for Cromwell's glued-hand protest, but I do still disapprove of that kind of behavior. There are worse protests, but I think Cromwell, et al., can do better. I note that he didn't explain the connection between glue — or hands — and his cause, so there's nothing especially significant about glued hands.

I'm seeing this in The Washington Post: "Incensed by the 'senseless upcharge' at Starbucks for nondairy milk, 'Succession' and 'Babe' actor James Cromwell and other members of PETA, where he serves as an honorary director, staged a protest Tuesday at a Midtown Manhattan location of the coffee chain.... As he reads his statement, the masked baristas behind him generally appear to continue working as if there isn’t a 6-foot-7 Oscar-nominated actor attached to the counter — and later they continue to as he leads the other protesters in chanting, 'Save the planet, save the cows. Stop this vegan upcharge now.' Eventually, the police arrive and tell customers the Starbucks is closed — though they can still pick up any outstanding orders. Cromwell and the other glued protester detach their hands from the counter and leave." 

I assume the vegan milks are more expensive than cow's milk, but Starbucks could average it out and adjust all the prices and thereby avoid giving people a money reason to choose cow's milk.

But I want to question whether it was "superglue."

"... for a rundown house in Boca Raton, Fla., the couple jumped on the 2,660-square-foot house in Lake Wales, a town of 16,000 about an hour from Orlando.... With their $400,000 budget, their options [had been] restricted to fixer-uppers, with fierce competition.... The farmhouse, set on five acres on a lake, seemed like an ideal alternative: quiet, pastoral, and charming....  Almost immediately, the couple regretted their decision. The property felt eerily quiet and isolated, and maintaining five acres and two cows was more work than they anticipated. 'You see these people on Instagram with their farm life,' Ms. Mohan said. 'Nobody tells you what actual hard work that is and how time consuming it is.'"

From "They Rushed to Buy in the Pandemic. Here’s What They Would Change. A frenzied sellers’ market led some people to make harried decisions when buying their homes that they now regret" (NYT). 

How could you not think it would not be hard work to keep 2 cows? Who reads farm life stuff on Instagram and thinks the life feels the way it looks in the pictures?

Anyway... more personal stories at the link, plus the news of WAV Group and Zillow surveys saying that "about three quarters of recent buyers expressed some regret": "About a third of respondents regret buying a house that needed more work than they anticipated, 31 percent wish the home they bought was bigger and 21 percent thought they overpaid." 

Is that more than the normal level of regret? I would think just about everyone who buys a house feels some regret about something. But these days a lot of people seem to be buying houses without looking at them in person and under the pressure of competition from other buyers. "Zillow projects that home prices will rise another 16 percent in 2022, on top of the 20 percent rise in 2021."

That sounds awful to me. I've only bought one house in my whole life, and that was back in 1986. We're thinking of selling it, but I advance-regret any transactions.

Working on the previous post, I briefly contemplated using the phrase "sacred cow." It's a metaphor, possibly useful in the context of discussing the things we feel we shouldn't say. But then I thought, isn't "sacred cow" one of those things we shouldn't say? It's culturally insensitive — isn't it? — implicitly mocking Hinduism. 

People don't say "sacred cow" anymore, do they? I checked, using my usual test of the usage of words, the New York Times archive. I was surprised to see "sacred cow" in active use. Just to list things in the past year:

The Wisconsin State Journal reports.

And this is news because....? 

It's a test of whether you're an asshole — i.e., did you think it was funny? The irony or something. Poetic justice? What's the literary term that applies when a humble being is further humbled by the force that has been humbling it all along?

I think the editors must think it's funny. The struck/truck rhyme is evidence. Or do you think the headline writers are so inept with language that they don't notice and fix unintended rhymes? Actually, that's what I think. If you wanted the rhyme, wouldn't you improve the meter? 

"In the end, Sachsalber was successful in locating the needle.... ... Sachsalber undertook a project called Hands, for which he and his father attempted to complete a 13,200-piece puzzle of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. ... Sachsalber produced 222 drawings based on Galerie Bruno Bischofberger ads that appeared on the back of Artforum. Other performances involved eating a poisonous mushroom and spending 24 hours in a room with a cow."

"It has been cultivated over seven centuries of farmers driving their herds to mountainside meadows in the summer. The animals’ hoofs firm the soil, their tongues gently groom the grasses and wildflowers. In the process, they continually sculpt verdant pastures — beloved backdrops for movies like 'The Sound of Music.' All that seemed at stake when a court in the western state of Tyrol found [a farmer named Reinhard] Pfurtscheller solely responsible for the [death of a German woman hiker who was trampled by his cows] and ordered him to pay more than $210,000 in damages to her widower and son, plus monthly restitution totaling $1,850. The 2019 decision shocked farmers, and not just in Neustift im Stubaital, a village of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants who live at the foot of a glacier promoted as the 'Kingdom of Snow.' As foreclosure on Pfurtscheller’s home and farm loomed, some farmers contemplated banning hikers from their land, a move that would cut off access to the Alps. Others threatened to stop taking their cows into the Alps altogether, a move that would allow nature to cut back in. Forests would soon begin to take over.... Governments quickly acted to keep cows on the pastures. State governors, federal ministers, even the Austrian chancellor spoke out in support of Pfurtscheller, a slender man of 62 who has been farming since he was 10. Last year, federal law was changed to block similar litigation.... "

From "In the Alps, hikers on the trails and cows in the pasture make for perilous pairings" (WaPo).

It's dangerous to walk around cows! "Walkers in Britain, it seems, are killed by cows all the time," writes Bill Bryson in "The Road to Little Dribbling":

Four people were fatally trampled in one eight-week period in 2009 alone. One of these unfortunates was a veterinarian out walking her dogs on the Pennine Way, another long-distance trail, in Yorkshire. This was a woman who understood animals and liked them, probably had treats for cows in her pocket—and they still trampled her. More recently, a retired university lecturer named Mike Porter was trampled to death by an angry herd—yes, angry—in a field near the Kennet and Avon Canal in Wiltshire, a place where I had been walking only the year before. “It looked like they wanted to kill him,” one eyewitness breathlessly told the Daily Telegraph. It was the fourth serious attack on walkers in five years just by this one herd. 

"It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology."

Tweeted Richard Dawkins at 1:26 a.m., and I think that's why "eugenics" is trending on Twitter this morning. He followed up, an hour ago, with this: "For those determined to miss the point, I deplore the idea of a eugenic policy. I simply said deploring it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work. Just as we breed cows to yield more milk, we could breed humans to run faster or jump higher. But heaven forbid that we should do it."

Here's #eugenics — in case you want to see what people are saying right now. It's a slog to get through all the many people who are saying I see eugenics is trending. I'll just cherry-pick some good substantive stuff (which sounds kind of eugenics-y!):

"The thing about people who believe in eugenics is that they always believe themselves to be the superior kind of human. No-one ever thinks that it could make *people like them* obsolete..." (Joanne Harris).

"I mean, the biggest problem with Richard Dawkins take on eugenics is that he'd probably consider his own traits to be superior and then the world would be full of insufferable assholes" (Nick Jack Pappas).

"While Richard Dawkins is a noted biologist, his science on eugenics is bad. We turned magnificent wolves into pure breed dogs with severe genetic defects causing joint and heart problems and cancer. In fact, many Cavalier spaniels develop mitral valve and neurological disorders"/"Eugenics does not create superior species. We turned mighty buffalo herds roaming the plains into factory farmed cows, the independent stallion into the pony, and the wild boar into the pig. We weaken the gene pool selecting for traits desirable for us but not for the subject" (Eugene Gu MD).

"All of Dawkins’ tweets make more sense if you add '... Mr Bond' at the end of them" (Ned Hartley).

Said Joaquin Phoenix, accepting the Oscar last night for his performance as a clown-faced murderer. As you can see in that short quote, he's expressing effusive empathy for his fellow creatures, but I wouldn't see his movie, because I believe there is something soul-damaging — something erosive of empathy — in watching the graphic depiction of murder. I don't know why Phoenix considered "Joker" a good place to put his talent, then lectures us about our insufficient love for the living things of earth. And I'm writing that as I drink my coffee with milk.



Here's the full transcript, worth seeing in text, because the actorly performance of the text makes it harder to understand the rationality of it. It feels like an emotional cascade. You get caught up wondering how does he feel and does he really feel what he is expressing and what is he really saying and is he coherent and is coherence necessary?

I’m full of so much gratitude now. I do not feel elevated above any of my fellow nominees or anyone in this room, because we share the same love...

This speech will also end with "love" — "Run to the rescue with love and peace will follow" — and we just saw a montage of the nominated actors that ended with Pope Francis (Jonathan Pryce) saying "Remember, truth may be vital, but without love, it is also unbearable." But the love in question at this point was:

... the love of film. And this form of expression has given me the most extraordinary life. I don’t know where I’d be without it. But I think the greatest gift that it’s given me, and many people in [this industry] is the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless.

Oh, no! It's going to be a political speech. The Oscars got off to a bad start with Brad Pitt — who won the best supporting actor Oscar — saying he only had 45 seconds to speak, "which is 45 seconds more than the Senate gave John Bolton this week" and maybe Quentin Tarantino could do a movie about the impeachment where "in the end the adults do the right thing." Tarantino has been doing movies based on historical events where the good guys win in the end, and the movie Pitt won his Oscar for is one of those movies, so his line was well-crafted, but I hated seeing one political side given precedence. The show was just starting, and he was telling half the country their perspective on the world is not valued. Ah, maybe not. His remarks are focused on the desire for witness testimony in the Senate, not the quest to be rid of the President. That puts him in the Susan Collins position, which isn't all that divisive. But it rubbed me the wrong way. Me — and I'm not a Trump voter — I'm just someone offended by the 3 years of disrespect shown to the people whose candidate won an election.

But Phoenix didn't go into partisan politics. In fact, he is trying to pull people together:

I’ve been thinking about some of the distressing issues that we’ve been facing collectively. I think at times we feel or are made to feel that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality.

That's the opposite of divisive.

I think, whether we’re talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice. We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, one species, has the right to dominate, use and control another with impunity. I think we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world. Many of us are guilty of an egocentric world view, and we believe that we’re the center of the universe. We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakeable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.

We're called back to nature, away from the disconnection. If we put milk in our coffee, there is — somewhere out there — a cow that was used. Phoenix doesn't go from there into a PETA lecture. He gets back to human life:

We fear the idea of personal change, because we think we need to sacrifice something; to give something up. But human beings at our best are so creative and inventive, and we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and the environment.

That's almost right wing. It's at least inclusive of the right. The environment matters, but we can go for innovation and technology and find solutions. It's not about giving things up. Then comes another right-wing-friendly idea, personal responsibility:

I have been a scoundrel all my life, I’ve been selfish.

This reminds me of Trump, last Thursday, going on about his impeachment acquittal: "We went through hell, unfairly, did nothing wrong, did nothing wrong, I've done things wrong in my life, I will admit, not purposely, but I've done things wrong." Oh, Trump couldn't confess "I have been a scoundrel all my life," but he did confess "I've done things wrong in my life."

I’ve been cruel at times, hard to work with, and I’m grateful that so many of you in this room have given me a second chance. I think that’s when we’re at our best: when we support each other. Not when we cancel each other out for our past mistakes...

A clear statement against the cancel culture.

... but when we help each other to grow. When we educate each other; when we guide each other to redemption. When he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric. He said: "Run to the rescue with love and peace will follow."

The brother, River Phoenix, died in 1993, when he was 23. He wasn't rescued or educated or guided. Joaquin Phoenix was 19 when he lost his brother, and now he resurrects that brother's spirit in a simple call for love.

A+

An op-ed by Costas Christ (in the NYT). Christ is the founder of Beyond Green Travel.

As a conservationist and sustainable tourism expert, I am an advocate for a more responsible approach to tourism. Although I began my career as a wildlife ecologist, my work in the tourism industry is focused on transforming travel to be more environmentally friendly. While I recognize that flying is harmful to the climate, I also know what will happen if, in their understandable concern for climate change, travelers stop booking trips to go on a wildlife safari to Africa or decide to forgo that bucket list vacation to South America. Conservation and poverty alleviation will suffer twin blows....

Last year, some 1.5 million tourists visited Tanzania, the majority headed to the Serengeti, where they paid a minimum of $60 dollars per day in entrance fees. Take that income away, and the vast plains would most likely be transformed into cattle ranches — raising beef is already among the most significant contributors to carbon emissions....

[W]e also have the tools to start flying green class — like developing synthetic jet fuels and designing electric planes....

I'm reading the Wikipedia article "Cult of the Dead Cow" because I was blogging about Beto O'Rourke this morning, and in the comments Ron Winkleheimer said, "i'm way more interested in the fact that he was in the Cult of The Dead Cow." I said out loud, "Why did they call it Cult of the Dead Cow? Was it because they were eating hamburgers?"

So I looked it up, and I see: "Beto O'Rourke was the one to come up with the name 'Cult of the Dead Cow' for the hacker group in April 1985." The footnote sent me to "cDc 079: The True Story of Cult of the Dead Cow by Psychedelic Warlord" (Psychedelic Warlord being Beto O'Rourke), and I actually took the trouble to read the whole thing, out loud, within earshot of Meade. Then I was going to blog it by starting with the most interesting quote from the piece, but looking back over it, I had to say, "That wasn't really very interesting, was it?" And Meade confirmed that it was not.

But I must say that it's ridiculous to read "The True Story of Cult of the Dead Cow" and come up with the flat Wikipediaese "Beto O'Rourke was the one to come up with the name 'Cult of the Dead Cow.'" Maybe it depends on whether you've rearranged your brain with hallucinogenic drugs, but to my mind, calling it "The True Story..." is a way to say This is a tall tale. And:

Well, it was about 11:30pm on cold night in April of '85. I had just
finished talking to Franken Gibe. I still kinda remember how it all went
about....

I still kinda remember... That means it's made up (to one degree or another)...

FG "Hey Psyche! I just had the greatest idea for a new organization!"

PW "Really? What are you planning on calling it?"...

FG "Comatose Cow Club.....

PW "Yeah... hey, why don't you call it Cult of the Dead Cow?."..

FG "Ahhhh Psyche... you are such a dreamer! And anyhow, "Cult of the Dead Cow" Ha! Who would want to join a group like that? Oh well... talk to ya later."

PW "Bye... but consider it, ok?"

You may say Psychedelic Warlord is a dreamer, but...

A perfect comment on "Meet Knickers, the giant cow that is neither a cow nor a giant" (WaPo).

I don't know if you've been following this minor internet craze, but there's a steer in Australia that looks very large. The truth is that "Knickers is not a cow but a steer, and that males are typically quite a bit larger than females" an it's a Holstein standing around with some wagyu cattle, so it's a large breed seen in contrast to a small breed.

"Arriving on chartered buses specializing in the transportation of 'Plain people' from areas such as Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Holmes County, Ohio, they rent modest bungalows and stay for weeks, or sometimes months, at a time. It’s vacation.... [W]ithout barns to raise or cows to milk or scrapple to prepare, the typically stringent rules of Anabaptist life are somewhat suspended in Pinecraft.... Earrings, usually forbidden, can be seen glittering from beneath white bonnets, and houses are outfitted with satellite dishes. Horses and buggies are nowhere to be seen, but adult-sized tricycles abound. Swimming, volleyball, and shuffleboard are encouraged; ice-cream cones are a nightly ritual."

"Where the Amish Go on Vacation" is a colorful photo essay at The New Yorker.

I'm interested in:

1. The Amish, who seem to have pared down their lives to the essentials, still maintain a need to travel. Is it because travel is essential (in a way that applies to all or us) or because their lives are so restricted that they have a special need for periodic variation?

2. How do people who keep horses and cows ever leave their farm? Is it easier for the Amish, because there's a system of covering for each other when they take these Amish vacations? When I consider getting just one dog, I think of it making travel much more difficult (but perhaps that's because I'm pretty averse to travel, and I need to worry that if I added a strong anti-travel factor to my life, I'd never leave home).

3. The New Yorker doesn't seem to be looking down (or up) at the Amish. Maybe you'll disagree (assuming you can get to the photographs at this mostly subscription site). It's seems to be just a subject for photography. Look, this exists. Our camera is pointed at something you're not looking at. But maybe that's my subjectivity, looking at The New Yorker.

4. One of the benefits of limiting your life is that you preserve the potential to get great pleasure from things as simple adult-sized tricycles, swimming, volleyball, shuffleboard, and ice-cream cones.

... you can talk about whatever you want.

(And if you're enjoying this blog, please think of doing your Amazon shopping through the Althouse Portal (which is always linked near the top of the sidebar). One thing I highly recommend, if you, like us, go out walking on icy paths, are Kahtoola micro-spikes.)

"Our goal was always fun and not sexy."

"The surprising number of American adults who think chocolate milk comes from brown cows."

There's nothing dumber than forgetting that other people might have a sense of humor and are screwing with you.

When you're studying something among people you look upon as commoners, you'd better stop and wonder: Am I the Margaret Mead?

"... police said they had registered a murder case over 55-year-old Pehlu Khan's death in hospital on Monday, two days after a mob attacked his cattle truck on a highway in Alwar in the western state of Rajasthan."

But police also said they were preparing a case against the survivors of the attack, whom they suspect of trying to smuggle the cattle across state borders.

Cows are considered sacred in Hindu-majority India, where squads of vigilantes roam highways inspecting livestock trucks for any trace of the animal....

"It is illegal to transport cows, but people ignore it and cow protectors are trying to stop such people from trafficking them," [Rajasthan home minister Gulab Chand Kataria] told reporters.

At least 10 Muslim men have been killed in similar incidents across the country by Hindu mobs on suspicion of eating beef or smuggling cows in the last two years.

They were rounded up and brought back to the prison (by human prison inmates).