US money burning, Copyright Filip Fuxa

I just want to warn all my friends and family that this social networking company is the biggest ponzi scheme since AOL and Netscape crashed, hey maybe since the South Sea bubble.

At least if you get stuck with a tulip, you can eat it.

So a few things have been happening these past few days, and I’ve been busy.  Then I hear Facebook has it’s IPO for a few billion.  Now, I know that Yahoo initially made a few young billionaires (and yes, then we learned it was overpriced) and Google did Okay (and they were smart enough to buy up Youtube.)  But Facebook is a fad.  And there’s a difference between a few billion and a hundred billion.

Don’t get me wrong, Google is also in trouble.  The quality of its search in places has been dropping, and Microsoft’s Bing is the default on many public computers now (meaning kids are learning to use Bing before Google.)  And the way Google promotes Youtube (at the expense of other video services it indexes) might put it into trouble with some competition authorities.

But Google has cornered a lot of the advertising market.   It does still have a chance.  It has many services that its competitors seem unwilling to offer.

Facebook, on the other hand, has no real security.  I think that the twelve year olds who sign up have the right idea, don’t give Facebook your real date of birth.  I’d suggest you give them a false month and day of the month too.

Facebook has a little advertising, and I find that it isn’t at all targeted to my interests.  I think Facebook is about the only webpage I’ve used where I have never seen an advertisement that I wanted to click on.

I’ve tried advertising with both Facebook and Google Ad Words in the past (my bids were too low, so I didn’t end up paying anything.  I didn’t get any traffic out of it either.)  I found Google’s way of choosing adverts to be much more intuitive.  When people are searching for something, the right keyword pops up.  With Facebook, your ads come up compared to what groups someone is a member of, or what their declared “interests” are.  There are a few other ways it works, but it’s about as intelligent as a dead jellyfish.

While I’m unlikely to pay to advertise with either company in the near future, of the two, I’d recommend using Google Ads to my clients.

Will the economy see an increase in spending in online advertising?  Maybe.  Advertising on Youtube looks like a fantastic option, as well as using Youtube’s distant rivals Daily Motion and Vimeo.  Youtube is addictive, and it is slowly offering more networking options.

Vimeo is also excellent for the artistic community, and Daily Motion seems to target more of the thinking crowd.  Each has its own personality, and best of all, unlike with Facebook, the ads are targeted.

In the future, I see some of these (and similar) video networks replacing Facebook.  They could add gaming features, eventually, and integrate into a few MMOs like the Sims and Worlds of Warcraft.

Photo companies are good too.  But Facebook’s recent purchase of a no name photo company, with money it didn’t really have, was ridiculous.  I mean, it made AOL’s purchase of Time-Warner look normal.

All my Facebook connections are invited to connect with me on LinkedIn, or to continue to communicate by email.  If you don’t get the invitation, my linked in page is http://www.linkedin.com/in/vascodesousa .

Well, I’m destroying my Facebook account today, as a protest against how overpriced that lousy piece of trash has become.  Come on, at least a tulip you can eat.

Picture credits:
© Filip Fuxa | Dreamstime.com

NRP Sagres III, Portuguese naval training ship, photo by Jose Manuel

It has been more than 500 years since the first Portuguese ship carrying envoy Duarte Fernandes sailed into Trangque, but the celebrations of the long lasting relationship between Portugal and Thailand continue.

The celebrations began a year ahead of time, in 2010 when a Portuguese training ship called the Sagres sailed into port to commemorate the long relationship.

(The Sagres was on a trip around the world at the time, but rather than taking Vasco da Gama’s famous route around the cape of Good Hope, it cut through the Suez Canal.  The ships first such trip in over a decade, it selectively stopped at several countries with strong historical ties to Portugal.)

After sailing to Siam, the Portuguese exchanged some food ideas with the Thais.  Apparently, the Portuguese introduced dessert into Thai culture, before the two countries met people used to just drink a glass of water after meals.

Well, today Portuguese people are being influenced by Thai culture, and learning a thing or two.  Here’s a picture of Andrew, a Portuguese in Thailand who is learning to dance as the celebrations continue.  (He’s at the Vira do Minho in the Siam Museum.)

Well, I’ve been getting a lot of pictures about these celebrations, but not much information.

The technology is available, so why not shove it down our throats?

Robert Redford is being quoted as saying technology has gone too far.  I don’t agree with that completely.  I think Hollywood has gone too far.  3D is cool for monsters and aliens, but it’s totally overkill for a melodrama or even romantic comedy.

I recently saw, and loved, Hugo by Scorsese.  Now, my family knows that I have a love-hate relationship with Scorsese.  I was forced as a kid to watch The Age of Innocence.  My brother teased that I was crying because it was such a beautiful story.  It wasn’t quite my kind of movie, but I wouldn’t say that I was bored to tears.

Taxi Driver is the film I wrote my first essay on for film school.  Low budget yet creative, it was the kind of movie that made us think “hey, I could do that” on one level and “wow, that’s talent” on another.   With his reputation for blood and violence (except for the not-so-innocent Age of Innocence),  I wondered if Scorsese could pull off a family film.  I also wondered if a guy used to such a limited set up, a director who complained that digital cameras didn’t let you see the actors’ eyes, could pull off a 3D film.

Well, Hugo was great.  Right at the opening, I saw a little girl toward the front grabbing for the “snow”.  It reminded me of when I was a child, watching Moonwalker, and wanting to touch the asteroids even though I knew it was only a picture.

Only, unlike “Moonwalker”, Hugo actually had a story.  It included real footage from the silent era, 2D footage of short films that were colorised by hand.  It was a homage from one great artist to another.  I have no doubts now that Scorsese is a great artist, and if you give him an old block of clay, well, he’ll make some kind of cool statue out of it.

But I totally doubt that your average business production needs 3D.  Come on, how many tourist videos have you seen with surround sound?  How many instructional videos made full use of 70mm film when it was available?  How many informercials had realistic looking explosions and CGI?  A few of the Hollywood blockbusters use the most expensive gimmicks, and fewer still use them well.  But for average filmmakers, does another dimension really add anything?

If you are shooting a tourist video in 3D, make sure to get a hummingbird in it, or some snow.  Something the audience, especially the young children, can reach out for.

If you’re making a web video, I wouldn’t worry about 3D just yet.  By all means,  try it out if you’re doing a cool stunt on your skateboard or something gimmicky.  It might even be cool for some kind of wrinkle cream commercial.  But for most video, it’s just not worth the extra money.

Do we really want to touch Woody Allen’s nose hairs?  Come on people, 3D is merely a tool.  We still had a few Black and White movies in the past few decades, like Clerks, Schindler’s List, Pi, Persepolis, City of Life and Death, and others that weren’t exactly classics but some people still like them.

There are still some films without special effects.

The extra frames per second and whatever are neat, but really it’s about taste, not technology. Remember 70mm? Great picture, (even 8mm is better than HD), but it didn’t seem to catch on.  It didn’t seem to help Hamlet any, despite the greater detail than anything a videographer could dream of. (Of course, Richard Branagh’s Hamlet was terribly cast.  Robin Williams looked like Robin Williams, that was one of the few roles I thought he was totally unsuitable for.)

3D, virtual reality, smellovision? Maybe it’ll all catch on, but I still think a good silent Chaplin movie is more entertaining than some of the high-tech garbage the studios came out with recently, and generation Y agrees with me.

Hugo was a great 3D film, and it used 3D well.  It was cool to watch young children reach for the snow, it reminded me of when I saw Moonwalker as a kid, or the old black and white 3D monster movies on TV.  Still, Hugo paid homage to the great silent era “black and white” stuff, to an era when novelty was always aided by imagination and story.  And a lot of 3D films are failing, and failing badly, because they rely on technology and have no real imagination.

Gimmicks and technology will never replace story.  Story is the essential ingredient.  If your film looks bad and is boring without gimmicks, it will be just as boring with them.

Just imagine, algebra equations in 3d!  Favorite pastimes of the Puritans in 3d!  Watching two bureaucrats play chess and talk about the weather at five million frames per second and forty speaker surround sound!  Napoleon Dynamite’s uncle throwing the football just like he does in the movie, and the football pops out of the screen!  And so do his shoe laces!  Touch those shoe laces!  Bored yet?

Smellovision was once the future, animated gifs were once the future, but once the novelty of them has worn out, content took over.

Those who are seeking gimmicks will need to replace 3D soon with something newer, something better.  Perhaps virtual reality.  Perhaps smellovision.  Perhaps interactive screens that throw candy at you just like a English pantomime.

“He’s behind you!”

“Oh no he isn’t!”

“Oh yes he is, and I can touch him through my glasses.”

Don’t rely on the gimmicks to make up for poor storytelling.  Audiences want to be entertained, not impressed.  If they wanted just to see a few cool tricks, they’d go to a circus or a rodeo or maybe a car rally.  Movies are all about story.

If you can’t see the video for one reason or another, I’ll leave the following abridged transcript and screenshots.

Chinny: “You know what I always say? You know what I always say? Follow your dream, follow your dream.”

Chinny: “So the other day, by Boy comes over. And you know what I say to him? You know what I say? I say, are you just going to stand there picking your nose all day? And do you know what he says? He says-”

Chinny Jr: “Yeah dad, I’m just going to stand here picking my nose all day…”

How would you react if you were Chinny? What career tips do you have for Generations X, Y and Z?

Well, Professor Chinny McGringo knew exactly what he wanted to say, and if you watch this video, Professor McGringo may be able to help you too.

Perhaps you’ve even fallen for one or two scams, but don’t want to admit it.  Although there were pyramid schemes and other frauds in the days before the World Wide Web was really world wide, we vaguely remember that “they”, the scam artists, used to wear shady trench coats and hang out in dark alleys.

Today, however, “they” wear trendy clothes and hang out in mainstream networking groups.

So, there’s a tradeoff for wanting to do business with people from across the world on your laptop “while wearing your pyjamas.”  You don’t really know who you are communicating with.  Who knows, that smart looking young recruiter could actually be that same shady old man in a trench coat.  Hey, for all we know, he could be working in that same dodgy dark alleyway.

Well, here’s a reality check for you.  I was around before 2003, and I remember life back then.  I was approached by people selling fake watches, and sometimes they’d be clean cut, young, and professional looking.

There were MLM companies who pretended to have “jobs”, and many of these advertised in mainstream newspapers.  Some of us who didn’t want to work in sales, we just wanted some cash for our hard work but were deceived by the advertisement.  No, instead of a real job they told us to sell second rate water filters (and overpriced vitamin supplements) to our friends and relatives.

Those weren’t the scams though, and you soon learned to recognise them.  Earn money in your free time meant MLM sales, or at best envelop stuffing.  The advertisements might have been deceptive, but where they lies?

The social networking scams are worse than those in the old days, right?  Not always.  A lot of the “scams” actually say what they do on the tin.  You pay 50 dollars, and you get a list of writing jobs.  The list may not be what you wanted, and you may not be qualified to write medical copy or to translate from Albanian, but many deceived writers didn’t bother reading the description before taking the credit card out of the wallet.

(Note:  If someone pretends to have a job when they really have something to sell, that’s dishonest, online or off. )

Some scammers are online.  There are people out there trying to steal your identity.  There are others just out to take you for a ride by selling false software.  Recently two brothers from the UK tricked Americans out of millions pretending to have software that tracks the stock market.

These clever scammers aren’t always easy to spot, and it can take the authorities years to catch up with them.  Many of them work with or through respectable companies, from real estate to financial planning.  However, they usually have some kind of glamour angle.  Flattery, dream jobs, dream holidays and dream homes can fool people with false hope.

Social Media is very glamorous right now.  The smart scammers probably know that.  They know that many people want to work from home, be without a boss, go to the shop at noon, or whatever.  The expert scam artists don’t play on gullibility, they play on desire.

Now, some might think that social networking itself is an elaborate scam, or at best some kind of pyramid scheme.  Those who run the networks get rich.  A few who know how to manipulate it see smaller returns.  The majority of participants merely provide free content that brings more advertising revenue to the big boss, with the hope of some kind of small career advancement as a reward.

Yet we all know what we mean when we say scammers.  We mean those people who pretend to have a job, but are really trying to sell us something.  We mean those who pretend to be helpful, but really have a hustle.

Street smarts and the ability to read “body language” and “voice tone” can’t always help here.  These people have read the same bad-advice blogs on how to detect a liar at work as we have.  They have the time to rehearse their answers, to check for typos, and sharpen their act to look “genuine”.

They have other warning signs, like they don’t want to give their physical address out to the world, but don’t other users have the same misgivings?

A one person writing business owner who works from home might not want everyone to know where she lives.  A small media company in an incubator might not be planning to stay there long, and so be reluctant to share an address that will soon be obsolete.  An artist might never have enough money to own his own place, and so might have to move every few years as the landlords decide to sell.  Then there is the wildlife photographer, or the seminar speaker, who travels most of the year and can’t be found at the office.

All of these may use a virtual office, but then so might a scammer.  All of these might have some legitimate reasons to remain partially anonymous, or at least not to give a physical address, and may benefit from the same kinds of services that help scammers remain anonymous.

It seems that there are more of these kinds of legit businesses today than there used to be.  So, how can social media companies find them?

Keeping the scammers out with filters.

Social networks could create filters on who can join.  Here are some filtering systems that have been tried.

1. limit membership to those who already know someone within the network.  The problem with this is it stunts the growth of the social network, so most social networks will abandon this filter for membership within their “beta” or secondary testing period.

2. Limit the service to users with a credit card.  If your social network charges for a service, it’s harder for users to be anonymous, but not impossible.  Anyone who has purchased software more than once on eBay has probably purchased some pirated software, or even malware.  You’ll find that the sellers of this software often disappear, despite having a valid paypal account.  Until enough users are willing to pay to join social networks, this option will not be viable.

3.  Pay moderators to moderate content.  This is not free.  The expenses involved would hit large companies more than small ones, as small companies tend to know their content creators personally anyway.  That’s why big Internet companies (especially social media companies) opposed the recent intellectual property laws in the US, it would eat into their profit margins.    Some organisations brag about keeping costs down by not paying people.  They don’t outsource or use cheap labor, instead they just wait for their users to moderate content for free.  So they employ nobody to moderate content.  This option of hiring a large number of moderators will probably not be implemented unless governments force the social media giants to take more responsibility for their content.

4.  Create electronic algorithms which detect abusive content.  This option has met some opposition in the press.  It’s not very effective, as any scammer who could be caught by a computer would have difficulty fooling even the most gullible user.  Also, the algorithms involved could end up discriminating against certain regional accents, or people with learning disabilities.  However, LinkedIn and others do make use of Catchphas and a few other small programs which may limit some of the worse kinds of spam, and at least keep out a few annoying repetitive messages.

5.  Ask users to contribute and moderate content.  This is what is currently being used.  You can join a LinkedIn group that’s fully moderated, and wait a day or two for your post to go live.  Another option is to join a restricted group that applies some of the above filters.  Or, you can take your chances with another group that lets anyone post anything.

6.  Act on complaints, after the breach of rules.  This is related to letting users moderate the service.  The problem is, how quickly do you respond, and how in depth do you look at a comment or question before it is censored?  If every complaint resulted in automatic deletion of a post, then anybody could censor opinions they disagreed with.  A scammer could easily abuse this to censor all those who were onto the scam.  If, however, every complaint were examined in minute detail and quick and fair decisions were made, it would cost a lot of money.  So, the social media company needs to find a happy medium.

7.  Moderate a representative sample of comments.  This is kind of like skimming a book.  You can chose comments at random, and moderate those.  This can involve having a small team of employees scan new profiles, and throw out anything that looks obvious.  They can occasionally search for common terms, like video or opportunity or writing, and check every third or tenth message to see if it is abusive or a scam in any way.

There are other options being tried all the time, but I think I’ve covered some of the most effective and common methods of quality control of content.  Got any more ideas?

Once again, President James Madison seems to be a man of contradiction.

 That is, when we try to oversimplify things.

To understand what Madison wanted, we can look at his time. It seems that the early 19th century was a time of religious awareness.  Deists and Atheists were given credit for the French Revolution.   A reaction against the revolutions of the time resulted in religious revivals, from mainstream Protestant missionaries to a midwife who called herself the mother of Shiloh.

Europe was rethinking about how it treated its religious minorities, and religious figures were politically active in all kinds of movements from abolitionism to vegetarianism.

War, economic disaster, uncertainty about the future, and attacks on faith from the outside created an atmosphere in which religious ideas flourished, much like that of the 1960s.  Some of those ideas were tradition, others were experimental and have since disappeared.

Along with war, sport, the economy, fashion and entertainment, religion seems to have occupied the minds of the peoples of Europe and throughout the English speaking world in the year 1812.  And religion seemed to enter most of the other fields, plays were made about religion, and religion was used to boost morale or spread propaganda against the enemy.

The religious question wasn’t only asked in Europe and the Americas.  The early ninetieth century saw great clashes of religion between traditionalists and “reformers” in Africa and Asia as well, and an abundance self-proclaimed prophets on a scale that must have seemed strange to people of the time.  Today, we might call some of these reformers fundamentalists, others cult leaders, and a few have simply been accepted as part of the status quo.

With all this religious agitation, was President Madison simply swept up in the spirit of his time?  He seems to smart for that.

James Madison didn’t have anything against religion in general.  He saw the separation of church and state, or the lack of an established church, as a good thing.

Looking at Europe, and at the views of visitors from Europe, it’s easy to see why.  As William Cobbett put it, “in America, no one cares what religion you are, or if you have no religion at all.”  This was a great contrast to his native England, where it seemed the government demanded to know.

Ok, so Cobbett kind of contradicted himself, in pointing out that the lazy gluttons of America disliked the Quakers because they were jealous of the Quaker’s well earned wealth.  And he also noticed that the hard working Irish in New York went to their Catholic churches on Sunday without a problem, and were well adjusted part of society.  (This was in relation to Cobbett’s Britain, where the Catholics didn’t yet have full privileges, and the Irish tended to be seen as a poor underclass.)

Cobbett had a great respect for certain religious groups, even if he opposed the establishment of religion on a national scale.  In his objection to the tithe laws, Cobbett wrote that “tithing is not religion.”  The tithe in England and elsewhere on the British realm was more of a tax that went to support the priests in the Church of England.  People had to pay this whether they agreed with those priests or not.

The government in Britain treated its citizens and residents differently depending on which religion those citizens and residents professed to have.  The Established church in Britain wasn’t Cobbett’s favourite.

In the ‘New World’, by contrast, the government had a tradition of dealing with religion to a lesser degree.  That doesn’t mean that there was no religious persecution in the United States or elsewhere, but that persecution was likely to be result of the acts of unruly mobs or unstable individuals.

After independence, some state and city governments did pay the salaries of local ministers, and they did pay to build church buildings.  The wall between church and state was not complete.

However, men like James Madison thought that, where it existed, that wall helped the church to thrive. Seven years after the National Day of Prayer, James Madison proclaimed that “The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.”

It seems to me pretty obvious that James Madison would not have funded faith-based groups through government money.  Government funding made religion dependent on government, and seemed to contribute to corruption in religious leadership.  The separation of church and state, that “wall”, helped to preserve religious freedom, and it helped to preserve religious integrity by keeping religion independent.  To quote a letter (former) President Madison wrote ten years after the National Day of Prayer, “religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

So, did the National Day of Prayer, which was delivered by his secretary of State James Monroe, allow a crack to be made in that wall?

Well, Madison was merely executing the will of congress here.   Still, he should have vetoed it if he thought it unconstitutional.  Did preparations for war overturn any concern for the constitution?  I don’t think so. Madison continually warned about how war was used as an instrument to destroy liberty.  ”The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”  I don’t think he’d make any constitutional exceptions just because there was a war going on.

The day of Prayer does not prefer any religion above another.  Like Thanksgiving, prayer goes across cultures.  But what about those people who don’t believe in prayer?  Are they excluded by such a day?  Was Madison, or the Congress he was presiding over,  not establishing religion by proclaiming a day of prayer?

Well, I don’t know yet what Madison or his congress was thinking then.  There are all kinds of national days that don’t ‘include’ everybody, some people are too grumpy to be thankful for anything on Thanksgiving for instance.

Still, I can’t help but think perhaps they were a bit like my high school football coaches.  Before a game, one coach used to say “everyone in his own way” and he’d bow on one knee, close his eyes, and perhaps say a silent prayer.  If I remember correctly, those of us who weren’t very religious just stood there, in respectful silence.

Later, another coach had a moment’s mediation in the locker room.  I didn’t think of it as a prayer at the time, but I remember at least one teammate dropping his head and putting his hands together.  Personally, I just used that time to try and see if I could go through the plays in my head.  I also tried to clear my mind a few times, so I could be more focused when the game started.

Since most everyone else seemed to be closing their eyes (and maybe the coach asked us to) I remember doing it as well.

I wonder what anybody who didn’t really pray did during Madison’s proclaimed National Day of Prayer.  Did they go to National Day of Prayer sales and get used vehicles and cheap clothes? Probably not.  Did they decide to give prayer a chance, to pray for their country as it entered a war (or in later national prayer days, as it continued in war)?  It seems that some might have, but these were probably people who had prayed before.

When they were surrounded by others who prayed, a few who didn’t pray could have just tried it for the first time, but did they?   I haven’t found any evidence that this National Day helped to increase religious awareness in America.

I think the day was similar to Thanksgiving is today, as other proclaimed days of prayer had Thanksgiving mentioned alongside prayer.  Those who were inclined to see prayer as a good thing, but perhaps didn’t take the time to do it, now had no excuse.   Those who didn’t see the point continued to chop wood, play the lute, or otherwise treat it as any other day.

Perhaps they just stayed quiet for a few moments, if not in respect to an outside being who they didn’t know, then in respect to those who were praying around them.

Fine, if you gave free webspace to a student, that student might exercise freedom of speech, and express opinions that no one else at the university shares.   A guest columnist might present an opposing point of view.  All that is obvious.

But when the dean of that same university, when the editor of that same publication, when the CEO of a company sent you an email with that same disclaimer, things started to feel a bit silly. Ok, so if the President of an organisation does not speak for that organisation, who does?

Well, recently I noticed something.  Those little disclaimers, they seem to have disappeared.  Okay, so maybe some of them are buried in the “terms of service” when you sign up for a new social media website.   So, if you’re part of the one percent who actually read the terms, and you’ve signed up for a new service, you might not miss the terms.

(Buried in legalese, however, the standard disclaimer is not so obvious.)

But what about all the readers of a message who didn’t tick that box?  (You know, the one your three year old ticked to turn the button blue and sign up to play the game. )  There are publicly available pages, webpages out there that don’t require a person to read that disclaimer.

Hey, I even got a flyer from a political party the other day, in which the party didn’t disown the views of their candidate.

I haven’t seen it as much in email anymore either.

So, where is this going?  Well, when I accept guest writers for this blog, it becomes apparent that not everyone shares my views.  Or, perhaps I don’t share all their views.

If I don’t share these views, should I tell people to get their own blog?  I could, but then, who would I get to write for Ptara.com?  Are there any two people who agree on everything?

So, here it is, my disclaimer.  None of the views expressed here-in, whether made by people living or dead (including the dead people that I quote) represent the views of Ptara or it’s owners.

Well, some do of course, but these views are subject to change as we gain more knowledge, wisdom and experience.  However, the guest bloggers have not been chosen to parrot my viewpoint, but rather because I trust them to write good copy.

So, if my name isn’t at the end of an article, then it’s not me who wrote it.  If you do write for Ptara, you don’t have to agree with the publisher.  And, if you do get published here, that doesn’t mean that the publisher agrees with everything you say.

In 1812, Martha Brotherton supposedly wrote the first vegetarian cookbook, or at least the first in Britain. It was called “A New System of Vegetable Cookery”.

Her husband, Joseph Brotherton (1783-1857), chaired the meeting that founded the Vegetarian Society of the UK in the 1847.

Animal rights

At the time, there had already been some animal rights advocacy and activism among prominent figures including philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) a founder of utilitarianism, and Lord Thomas Erskine (1750-1823).

From ‘Principles of Morals and Legislation’(Bentham, 1789):

“The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withheld from them but by the hand of tyranny. . . a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week or even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, can they reason? Nor can they talk? But, can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?”

Erskine, who had many pets including a goose, a macaw, two leeches whom he believed had saved his life, a rescued dog and another dog whom he had taught to sit on a chair in his office wearing a barrister’s wig and band with a book open in front of him, succeeded in passing an animal rights bill through the House of Lords and eventually the House of Commons.

From ‘Cruelty to Animals’, the speech of Lord Erskine in the House of Peers on the second reading of the Bill for preventing malicious and wanton cruelty to animals, 1809:

“Animals are considered as property only. To destroy or to abuse them, from malice to the proprietor, or with an intention injurious to his interest in them, is criminal. But the animals themselves are without protection. The law regards them not substantively. They have no RIGHTS!

… I am to ask your Lordships, in the name of that God who gave to Man his dominion over the lower world, to acknowledge and recognize that dominion to be A MORAL TRUST.

… For every animal which comes in contact with Man, and whose powers, and qualities, and instincts, are obviously constructed for his use, Nature has taken the same care to provide, and as carefully and bountifully as for man himself, organs and feelings for its own enjoyment and happiness. Almost every sense bestowed upon Man is equally bestowed upon them – seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking, the sense of pain and pleasure, and passions of love and anger, sensibility to kindness, and pangs from unkindness and neglect, are inseparable characteristics of their natures as much as of our own.”

It’s good for your health

Other characters of the time were aware of the health benefits of a flesh-free diet, including the poets Byron and Shelley.

Dr. William Lambe (1765-1847), who made Leamington famous through his publications on the curative benefits of its mineral water, changed to a meat-free diet when suffering from complicated bodily disorders. He then enjoyed years of health and lived to an advanced age. He said in his late 80′s that he had had 38 years of health. He wrote about a meatless diet with liberal use of distilled water in “Effects of a Peculiar Regimen in Scirrhous Tumours and Cancerous Ulcers” (Lambe, 1809):
“We may conclude that it is the prosperity of this regimen, and in particular, of the vegetable diet, to transfer diseased action from the viscera to the exterior parts of the body – from the central parts of the system to the periphery…”
He produced a list of ailments, including brain disease, which could be cured by changing to a vegetarian diet.

Ferocious carnivores

And according to others the benefits were not only physical but also tempremental.

The prominent and highly esteemed agricultural reformer, politician and writer, Sir John Sinclair (1754-1853) compared his observations of characteristics of certain peoples with meat and meat-free diets in ‘The Code of Health and Longevity’ (1806):

“The Tartars, who live wholly on animal food, possess a degree of ferocity of mind and fierceness of character which form the leading feature of all carnivorous animals. On the other hand, an entire diet of vegetable matter, as appears in the Brahmin and Gentoo, gives to the disposition a softness, gentleness, and mildness of feeling directly the reverse of the former character. It also has a particular influence on the powers of the mind, producing liveliness of imagination and acuteness of judgement in an eminent degree.”

Quoting from the Encyclopédie Methodique:

“The man who sheds the blood of an Ox or a Sheep will be habituated more easily than another to witness the effusion of that of his fellow-creatures. Inhumanity takes possession of his soul, and the trades, whose occupation is to sacrifice animals for the purpose of supplying the [pretended] necessities of men, impart to those who exercise them a ferocity which their relative connections with Society but imperfectly serve to mitigate.”

Shortly prior to the appearance of Martha Brotherton’s cookbook, Sir Richard Phillips (1767-1840) published sixteen reasons for a vegetarian diet in the Medical Journal (27 July 1811). Among them were:

1. Because, being mortal himself, and holding his life on the same uncertain and precarious tenure as all other sensitive beings, [man] does not find himself justified, by any supposed superiority or inequality of condition, in destroying the enjoyment of existence of any other mortal, except in the necessary defence of his own life.

2. Because the desire of life is so paramount, and so affectingly cherished in all sensitive beings, that he cannot reconcile it to his feelings to destroy or become a voluntary party in the destruction of any innocent being being, however much in his power, or apparently insignficant.

9. Because he observes that carnivorous men, unrestrained by reflection or sentiment, even refine on the most cruel practices of the most savage animals and apply their resources of mind and art to prolong the miseries of the victims of their appetites bleeding, skinning, roasting, and boiling animals alive, and torturing them without reservation or remorse, if they thereby add to the variety or the delicacy of their carnivorous gluttony.

10. Because the natural sentiments and sympathies of human beings, in regard to the killing of other animals, are generally so averse from the practice that few men or women could devour the animal whom they might be obliged themselves to kill; and yet they forget, or affect to forget, their living endearments or dying sufferings.

11. Because the human stomach appears to be naturally so averse from receiving the remains of the animals, that few people could partake of them if they were not disguised and flavoured by culinary preparation; yet rational beings ought to feel that the prepared substances are not the less what they truly are, and that no disguise of food, in itself loathsome, ought to delude the unsophisticated perceptions of a considerate mind.

12. Because the forty-seven millions of acres in England and Wales would maintain in abundance as many human inhabitants, if they lived wholly on grain, fruits, and vegetables; but they sustain only twelve millions [in 1811] scantily, while animal food is made the basis of human subsistence.

14. Because the practice of killing and devouring animals can be justified by no moral plea, by no physical benefit, nor by any just allegation of necessity in countries where there is abundance of vegetable food, and where the arts of gardening and husbandry are favoured by social protection, and by the genial character of the soil and climate.

So even 200 years ago, the observation was made that meat-free agriculture uses land and produces food more efficiently, so feeds more with less land, than meat production.

An article of faith

As for the Brothertons, vegetarianism was part of their religion. Joseph had been a member of the Swedenborgian Christ Church in Salford near Manchester, and then the Bible Christians, a breakaway church from the Swedenborgians, founded by Rev. William Cowherd (1763-1816) in 1809. The Bible Christians did not eat meat or drink alcohol.
Brotherton, Salford’s first MP, was important in the social and political activity of Salford and in Victorian social history as he stood up for vegetarianism, pacifism and anti-slavery. He succeeded Cowherd as pastor of the Bible Christian church in 1816.  The first president of the Vegetarian Society (elected at the meeting chaired by Brotherton in 1847) was James Simpson, the son-in-law of Martha Brotherton’s brother (or possibly cousin) William Harvey. Harvey, who was Mayor of Salford, suceeded Simpson as president of the Society in 1859. He gave the first recorded teetotal and vegetarian banquet.
Many of the key radicals in the early vegetarian movement in England were linked through family ties, the Bible Christian Church and maybe also political ties, and this probably contributed to its early success.

Whatever the reasons, there is much evidence in support of a meatless diet, and it would be interesting to see Martha’s recipes!

Sources: The International Vegetarian Union www.ivu.org

If you’ve been reading this blog, you probably know that 200 years ago, A British man named Daniel Isaac Eaton was sentenced to prison and the pillory for publishing a “Deist” track by Thomas Paine.

Daniel Isaac Eaton

Neither man got in trouble for being a disbeliever.  Aan is accused of misusing phrases from the Koran, and Eaton was accused of blasphemy against the teachings of the Church of England.

You can read what I had to say about Eaton’s trial and draw your own parallels.  If Alexander Aan receives a prison sentence, the similarities may end.

Technology, and the law, have changed a great deal in the past 200 years, or rather in the past 20 years.

Until recently, it was up to the publisher to review every story that was published.  If a journalist in a newspaper was accused of libel, the newspaper would be sued.

There were practical reasons for this.

1. Location. Controversial writers like Thomas Paine could leave the country, and many from abroad never entered the country in the first place.  It was the publisher who gave the controvertial thinker a platform to share his views.

2. Money.  Thomas Paine, and others like him, died broke.  The aggrieved party could challenge the offender to a duel, but not everyone who was offended or insulted was a fighting man.  It was easier to sue.

Publishers tended to have a little money, at least enough for a printing press.  Anyone who could afford a pen and paper could write a book or draw a cartoon, but it needed a publisher to provide the platform to share it with the world.

As time has gone by, the cost of publishing has gone up.  You may have your own website or domain name, or possibly even your own server, but few people have their own registrar.  It is even more difficult to get published electronically without the help of a third party.

More importantly, the courts have decided on the side of the Internet giants.   Internet publishers have much greater power than print publishers ever had, and much less responsibility.  And it’s increasingly difficult to get your message seen without it being linked to by the big players.

(This seems to have started when Bill Clinton signed an bill into law that made digital signatures legal.  However, the shift would’ve never been possible without legal interpretation.)

Well, these days there are a few large companies willing to provide you with “free” space, in exchange for the free content you provide to sell their advertising.  Social networks, free webspace providers, online video uploaders and others are a cross between ham radio (or public access television) and the old media giants of the television age.

Three big companies censor most of the content that goes on the web according to what they believe should and shouldn’t be shared.

If Daniel Isaac Eaton were alive today, I wonder whether he would be in prison, or if he would be a billionaire.  Would he be an Alexander Aan, a Rupert Murdoch, or some inconsequential blogger?

Perhaps as time goes on, some of my contacts from Indonesia will provide me with more information on Mr. Ann and what he is accused of.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you never heard of Ann and Adoniram Judson.   I hadn’t either, until I looked at old lists of significant dates and events.

To commemorate the anniversary of Judson’s departure, a re-enactment was staged in Salem harbour, Massachusetts.  The associated press ran a small story on it, but most of the media is more concerned with commemorating the wars and battles from the same year.

The Judson’s story was once big news. Adoniram’s son made the front page of New York’s top newspapers by retelling the story.  Ann Judson met with Wilberforce and other important people in Britain and Burma.  She is also credited with helping to mediate a peace treaty between the two countries.

Biographies of Ann Judson have been written by temperance movement and by feminists.

Not surprisingly, most recent books and websites written about Adoniram are aimed at the Christian market.  However, one of the best appears to be a secular story of the man and his achievements.

Adoniram Judson wrote a Burmese dictionary, and translated most of the Bible into Burmese.  He was a pioneer who started a trend, as before Adoniram Judson, his wife, and their friends Americans didn’t go abroad on missions.

It was Adoniram who raised the cash for the mission, who inspired others to join him.  It was his wife, however, who actually did most of the missionary work, speaking with natives, intervening for political prisoners and taking over social duties while Adoniram was writing books in his study.

Adoniram Judson was driven by a stronger than ordinary desire to make a difference, (and no, despite what some sources say, that desire did not come from hearing a deist die in the room next to him.)

This desire came to Adoniram through strong, faithful parents, and through a combination of extraordinary talents and powerful experiences.  It was strengthened by meeting friends who shared similar goals, by reading inspiring stories of German and British missionaries, and finally he was lucky to meet Ann, a charismatic and intelligent woman who knew how to deal with people.

The only book I’ve read so far that I could recommend about Adoniram Judson is “To the Golden Shore“, written in the 1970s by Courtney Anderson.

Anderson’s is a large book, and can be exhausting at times, but its well written and it presents a well rounded and interesting picture of the man.  What it lacks in humor it makes up for in thoroughness and an excellent pace.

Courtney Anderson came to Judson’s story almost by accident.  Anderson was a documentarian, working on a film about Adoniram Judson (I can’t find the title of that film) and became fascinated with him.   The documentarian did exhaustive research, but doesn’t detail every source in an academic manner.

Most other books I’ve read seem to be poor summaries of Anderson’s work (sometimes exaggerating certain events to try and create a teaching point or to promote a political prejudice.)

Anderson examines the relevant the details about Judson and his time, painting a personal portrait of religion in the early American republic.  Judson’s father, Adoniram Judson senior, was a Congregationalist minister involved in disputes between ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ Congregationalism, giving Anderson the opportunity to present an inside view of the way religion affected New England from independence to just before the War of 1812.   Judson’s wife was caught up in a religious revival in her youth, future President Monroe is said to have contributed to the missionary effort, and we see a Jeffersonian mocking Judson’s voyage.  President Adams lived near the Judsons at one time, but he doesn’t appear to have entered the story much, except as a kind of inspirational guide for an ambitious father (Judson senior) who saw one time President as a role model for his son.

However, powerful men are just a side note to an intricately personal story of a couple who overcame adversity and brought with them a desire to make the world a better place.

Whether or not you agree with Judson’s theology, it’s impossible not to root for them as they do the impossible, dealing with friends and foes alike, and keeping stubbornly to their own system of beliefs.

Anderson uses just the right amount of conjecture (and presents it as conjecture).  He also presents a few facts that aren’t exactly flattering to the Judson’s.  This is far from a Hagiography, it’s more of an adventure story.

When Judson’s set out, Americans didn’t do missionary work.  Ok, maybe colonists tried to convert the natives, and there were trips to try and convert the Catholics and the less church going people in the Louisiana territory, but the idea of going across the ocean was seen as more of a British thing.

Judson’s story changed all that, and today the United States sends out about a third of the world’s Christian missionaries, more than any other country.

If anybody has more to add about Judson, I’d love to read it.  We’re planning on adding three stories about him in the near future.  If you can’t wait, I highly recommend The Golden Shore by Courtney Anderson, (although if you can wait, we hope to add a little humour into the stories.)

Website Sources:  Adoniram Judson Biography – Worldwide Missions – Wholesome Words.

In 200-year tradition, most Christian missionaries are American | Reuters.

Book sources.

To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson