Occasional Tales

Finding in favour of the plaintiff. In Dilemma 51, we not only pass the halfway mark, but also continue yesterday’s tale of Albert, who wins his case. The lab rats, sorry, scientists appeal by noting that Albert has no responsibilities and, therefore, no rights. But obviously there are also plenty of humans who have no responsibilities and would, according to this claim, have no rights. It would seem incredible that such people would be treated like Samuel, but that’s exactly what happened in Nazi Germany. The appeal fails and the lab appeal again. In court, the counsel for the lab has a pig brought out, saying that although pigs are thought to be intelligent, no one would grant them rights. And to underline the point, the pig craps on the floor. The counsel notes that chimpanzees play no part in human society, hence the same rights cannot be meaningfully extended to them. At this, Albert gets up and goes and puts an arm around his trainer, Felicity. My first thought is that humans int...

How not to advance. Danwei has a piece about the call from the PhD students to reject Christmas. In particular, we believe that the on-campus, collective celebration of Christmas by students from kindergarten through college out of ignorance and a pursuit of fashion, even to the point of teacher-organized celebrations of Christmas among students, violates both the constitutional principle that religion must not "be an obstacle to the national education system" and the educational principle of "separation of education and religion," and we therefore urge the government to be highly vigilant and tighten its standards. It's a party, you bloody idiots. It's not an educational event. How thick can you lot be? (Don't answer that; I know how thick you can be.) But that's not the height of their idiocy. In particular, the need exists for a full development of the religious use in society of Confucianism, which was the backbone of traditional Chinese cultur...