Is privacy being turned into a privilege that only the moneyed and the well-connected may enjoy? Two striking stories in the news last week suggest that it is.

In the first story, it was reported that activists and hacks are heaping further pressure on Mark Zuckerberg to improve the privacy settings on Facebook, so that they might update their statuses and post photos of their social shenanigans without having the world and its mother peering over their shoulders. In the second story, we were told that social workers, backed by much of the media, are calling on the prime minister to get rid of “red tape” so that they might more easily interfere in — I’m sorry, intervene in — so-called problem families. There are a lot of damaged families out there, the social workers hinted, and thus we need to rip up some of the rules governing when it is and isn’t okay to stick our snouts into their business.

That these two stories could appear in the same week, and not be considered contradictory, suggests we have a pretty screwed-up attitude to privacy today. Indeed, sometimes the very same members of the political and media classes who believe that their private lives must remain absolutely private will think it is perfectly logical that other people’s private lives — the lives of Them — should be thrown open to state snooping.

School food is always a hot topic, and is perhaps more so now than it’s ever been. From a publicity standpoint, school food has taken off as an issue largely due to the efforts of [British chef and food nuisance Jamie] Oliver and First Lady Michelle Obama. But viewed from the standpoint of edibility, cost, and healthiness, food served by public schools via the USDA’s National School Lunch Program was already an issue because that program and its food have a decades-long track record of sucking. And in spite of the best efforts of Oliver and Mrs. Obama, along with new rules set to take effect in the coming months, I’m not optimistic that the quality of school food is likely to change anytime soon. Why?

If you’re one of those who thought all this talk about the National School Lunch Program had translated into better food, think again. Contrary to any visions you may have of expensive reforms leading to school kitchens serving as virtual clearinghouses for fresh fruits and vegetables, that just isn’t the case. Expensive reforms? You bet. They crop up every few years. But schools are still serving kids nachos. And sometimes — as happened last week at a public school in Ohio — those nachos are full of ants.

Issues like ants in food are hardly rare. And other systemic problems persist.

I remember what kind of crap my middle and high school cafeterias offered … and if I’d forgotten to bring a sandwich with me that day, going hungry always seemed like the better choice. The food on offer always seemed to manage the difficult stunt of being visually unappealing (sometimes being actually disgusting to look at), nutritionally inadequate, and either utterly flavourless (the better choice) or actively nasty. No wonder the best sellers in the cafeteria were the milk cartons (especially the chocolate milk), pop cans, potato chips, chocolate bars, and Vachon cakes (all of which were pre-packaged and relatively invulnerable to further processing).

As a 12-year-old army cadet, my first experience of army cooking was a huge shock: it was actually good! I didn’t know that cafeteria-style cooking didn’t have to be bland, boring, or nauseating. Schools couldn’t seem to manage the trick, but the army could.

School lunches also neuter the ability of families to make dietary choices their children. Consider the pink slime controversy earlier this year. Whether you were up in arms over chemically treated meat or thought it was completely fine to eat, the truth is if you’re a public school parent whose child eats a school lunch you still have little say over whether or not your child eats pink slime — or genetically-modified foods, sugars, starches, and a whole host of other foods about which decent parents (and experts) disagree.

Another good example of how school lunches usurp family decision-making took place in Chicago last year, where a seventh grader named Fernando Dominguez helped lead a revolt against his school’s six-year-old policy that banned students from taking their own lunch to school. According to the Chicago Tribune, the principal argued that the policy was put in place “to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.”

[. . .]

These anecdotes help illustrate the point that food served in public school cafeterias has — along with prison food — long been one of the best arguments against the singular notion that big, mean corporations are responsible for all of the food problems we face in America. After all, public-school lunches are government creations. They’re subsidized by government, provided by government, served by government, and paid for by government. And they’re often gross, unhealthy, and wasteful.

But supporters of the National School Lunch Program, not surprisingly, argue that what’s needed are reforms, improvements, rejiggering, and — of course — more money.

So here’s the story: Five high school seniors in Indiana went into their school after hours, when it was officially off-limits, and decorated it with 10,000 Post-It notes. They used the notes to create a big, cheery “2012″ on the gym floor, for instance. They made bright patterns on the doors, and another big “2012″ on some windows. And for this, they were suspended for two days (during finals) and the janitor who supervised them got fired.

What kills me most, though, is how the superintendent described the event: “It was just Post-It notes: no damage, thank goodness, occurred. Nobody was injured, thank goodness. It’s the unintended stuff that sometimes causes issues…”

The five kids who were suspended got vocal support from their classmates, so another over-reaction was called for … and delivered:

Here’s an update on today’s story about the five seniors suspended from Indiana’s Cascade High School for decorating it, at night, with Post-It Notes. Now a whopping 67 students have been suspended, because they were protesting the suspension of the Cascade Five.

As you can hear in the TV report — presented by the stations “Crime Beat” reporter (making you wonder what exactly constitutes crime in Indiana) — the kids who did the “prank” got permission from a school board member and the head custodian. And even if they didn’t, I agree with one of the commenters on my original post: While it’s being labeled a “‘prank” it could just as easily have been labeled a beautification effort, or a morale booster.

I too am incensed — but not surprised — when the TSA manhandles four-year old girls, children with cerebral palsy, pretty women, the elderly, and wheelchair users for humiliation, abuse, and sometimes theft. Any bureaucracy that processes 630 million people per year will generate stories like this. When people propose profiling, they are really asking for a security system that can apply judgment. Unfortunately, that’s really hard. Rules are easier to explain and train. Zero tolerance is easier to justify and defend. Judgment requires better-educated, more expert, and much-higher-paid screeners. And the personal career risks to a TSA agent of being wrong when exercising judgment far outweigh any benefits from being sensible.

The proper reaction to screening horror stories isn’t to subject only “those people” to it; it’s to subject no one to it. (Can anyone even explain what hypothetical terrorist plot could successfully evade normal security, but would be discovered during secondary screening?) Invasive TSA screening is nothing more than security theater. It doesn’t make us safer, and it’s not worth the cost. Even more strongly, security isn’t our society’s only value. Do we really want the full power of government to act out our stereotypes and prejudices? Have we Americans ever done something like this and not been ashamed later? This is what we have a Constitution for: to help us live up to our values and not down to our fears.

“Minimum alcohol pricing is a miserable, Victorian-era measure that explicitly targets the poor and the frugal, leaving the more expensive drinks of the middle classes untouched. It’s regressive and paternalistic, treating people as if they’re children to be nannied by the government.

“To make things worse, all signs suggest that the minimum price will be successively raised once it’s in place. This is what happened in the UK with alcohol and tobacco taxes, which are now among the highest in the world. It’s like boiling a frog – bring in a low minimum price that only affects the most marginalized part of society, the poor, and raise it gradually every year without people noticing.

“The reality is that Britain does not have a drink problem. The definition of “binge drinking” has been redefined so that a grown man drinking more than two pints of lager is considered to be “binging”. The number of diseases defined as “alcohol-related” has tripled in the last twenty-five years. In fact, we drink less than we did ten years ago, less than we did one hundred years ago, and far less than we did in the 19th Century. Hysteria about drinking alcohol is a red herring invented by the health lobby. Health fascism is back with a vengeance, and minimum alcohol pricing is just another brick in the wall.”

When it comes to building a comfortable bungalow, Jim Higgins has got the inside track.

The retired transport manager, 60, has one of the most unique houses in Britain… because it is built around a real railway carriage.

The property in Ashton, Cornwall, is a fully functioning house but bizarrely has the fully restored 130-year-old Great Western Railway car within its walls.

Mr Higgins, 64, originally from Buckinghamshire took over the property from his former father-law Charles Allen who was forced to build it around the railway carriage because bizarre planning regulations meant the train could not be moved.

Mr Higgins said: ‘The railway carriage was lived in by a local woman Elizabeth Richards from 1930.

Senior Downing Street sources said David Cameron is not yet at the stage of overruling Philip Hammond, his Defence Secretary, over his proposal to replace iconic names like the Black Watch with battalion numbers.

But they were keen to emphasise that no final decision has been made and the Prime Minister is aware of the potential political damage to the campaign to prevent Scotland separating from the UK.

[. . .]

Fury has been mounting since the Defence Secretary told the Daily Telegraph earlier this week that the “ancient cap badges have largely gone” and some traditional regimental names are now just “attached in brackets”.

Under Mr Hammond’s proposals, the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland (3 SCOTS), would become just 3 SCOTS and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlands would be names 5 SCOTS.

[. . .]

The former Labour Government faced a fierce backlash when the battalions were amalgamated in 2005 to form the Royal Regiment of Scotland, but they were promised they could keep their historic names.

Jeff Duncan, who managed the Save Scotland’s Army Regiments campaign, said yesterday it had restarted and nearly 1,500 had signed up in only 48 hours using the social networking site Facebook.

When is a politician toast — done-on-both-sides, pass-the-butter-and-jam toast? Well, one hint might be when you show up on blogs and in newspapers photoshopped as the Lone Ranger’s great Indian sidekick Tonto. Another might be when thousands of people spend hours making up sarcastic names for you, such as “Fauxcohontas,” or more brutally, “Dances with Lies.”

This is the unfortunate lot of Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat running for a senate seat in Ted Kennedy’s old district. During the course of the campaign it was revealed that Ms. Warren had listed her minority status in law school faculty directories, and that no less than the Harvard Crimson in 1998 declared in print that: “Harvard Law School currently has only one tenured minority woman, Gottlieb Professor of Law Elizabeth Warren, who is Native American.”

[. . .]

This bizarre comedy highlights the ugly absurdity that arises when people, or institutions, become so absorbed with the question of race that it eclipses their common sense. But what’s perhaps most telling is how all involved — the candidate herself, the faculties and administrations of various law schools, everyone — step back in pure shock, nay, horror, from the very notion that Elizabeth Warren may have been hired for any other reason than her professional qualifications. Race? Nothing to do with it. Minority hire? Never!

Everybody acting like affirmative action hires are something to be ashamed of and denied, something rudely pushed aside as unthinkable, is baffling. In every other context, affirmative action and its attendant policies and protocols are looked upon as the secular world’s highest forms of public virtue. Companies and institutions boast about their so-called equity policies and minority placements. Does not every university, in every hire, on every bulletin board, and in every online notice — spell out every so proudly that applications from minorities and special groups will be given “special” attention, or are specifically urged to hire. Does this not right historical wrongs? Is this not part of enriching the educational experience?

And yet, any suggestion that a particular individual may have benefitted from these wonders of our modern age is treated as a slap in the face to said individual. How can a policy be a triumph in enactment but an insult in execution?

Update: Even the 1/32 claim appears to be failing, as the claimed documentation does not seem to exist:

I reached out to Christopher Child, the well-known genealogist who was the source of the claim, and his employer, the prestigious New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), but they have gone silent, refusing to comment on, defend or correct their claim that Warren was 1/32 Cherokee. The e-mail exchange appears at the bottom of this post.

The fallout from Elizabeth Warren’s claim to Native American status threatens to drag down not only her campaign, but also the credibility one of the premier genealogical societies.

You know the background, as I have posted extensively about the Warren Cherokee saga. The media and various pundits have continued to assert that Warren was 1/32 Cherokee based on her great-great-great grandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith.

I understand that the US has a law on the books to allow the prosecution of people who falsely claim to have won military medals — I think it’s something like the “stolen honour law” — is there anything similar for those who falsely claim minority status in order to benefit from legislation intended to aid members of minority groups? (Not that I think there should be such a law, but I’m just curious about whether such a thing is on the law books already.)

This week, in the case of Pridgen v. University of Calgary, the Alberta Court of Appeal affirmed that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the free speech rights of university students on campus.

[. . .]

The University of Calgary prosecuted the 10 students who had joined the Facebook page, and found all of them guilty of “non-academic misconduct” — including students who had not posted any comments. The university accused the students of defaming Mitra with “unsubstantiated assertions,” yet refused to hear any evidence from the students about the professor. Nobody testified to deny that the professor had asserted, bizarrely, that Magna Carta was a document written “in the 1700s for native North American human rights purposes.”

The University of Calgary threatened the Pridgen brothers and the other eight students who’d joined the Facebook page with expulsion if they failed to write an abject letter of apology.

Having been found guilty of non-academic misconduct, Keith and Steven Pridgen took the university to court, which declared in 2010 that, “the university is not a Charter-free zone.” That judgment was upheld this week by the Court of Appeal.

While the ruling is a victory for the free-speech rights of university students, it is disheartening that the University of Calgary needs a court order to compel it to fulfill its own mission statement: To promote free inquiry and debate.

There has been a lot of talk by media-types lately about VQA … about how the VQA symbol is finding its way onto inferior wines; inferior, bland, uneventful, non-descript wine blends — the latest culprit in this category are whites … a growing segment of the LCBO market. These white blends seem to encompass the kitchen and the sink … everything is fair game in them, from Chardonnay Musque to Viognier to Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc (just name a white grape and it’s in there) and of course there’s always some Gewurztraminer thrown into the mix. I find myself on this topic after reading Rod Phillips’ musings, [who] went so far as to accuse the Ontario wine industry and the VQA of dumbing down wine — actually regressing us back to a time when Ontario wine was the laughing stock of the wine world.

[. . .]

Let’s get back to VQA … I’m gonna let you in on another highly guarded secret: VQA is NOT, repeat NOT a sign of quality … it’s a symbol of origin. That’s’ right, according to executive director, Laurie MacDonald, whom the Wine Writers’ Circle of Canada members had a meeting with back in 2011. She was adamant the VQA was all about origin — not quality … so why is the word “Quality” in the acronym? Good question … to which I would hazard a guess there is no really good answer besides it sounded good at the time; but I also offer you this: it sure sounds better than Questionable?

I’m sure, in the past, that you have tasted a wine with a big VQA symbol on it and thought “this is some nasty-ass sh*t … how did that pass VQA?” Yes there’s a tasting component to the process, but I have been assured by many a winery that they just think it’s cash grab by the VQA. It costs a winery $265.50 a shot to run tests through the VQA lab and get authorization to use the symbol on their bottles and a wine can be submitted up to 3 times.

I usually check any Ontario wine for the VQA symbol, and almost always put back any that don’t carry the “stamp of approval”, but I’ve certainly bought more than a few wines carrying the VQA symbol that were unpleasant drinking experiences.

In fairness, I’ve also bought more than a few French wines with AOC designations that failed to live up to expectations, and even more Italian DOC wines that were a waste of money. Wine, by its very nature, can’t be as consistent as other products, so things like the VQA/AOC/DOC are only guideposts, not destination markers. You still have to exercise judgement and roll the dice now and again.