Latest news with #ThroughtheLooking-Glass
Spectator
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
The High Court's war on truth
In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, Humpty-Dumpty tells Alice: 'When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.' The assertion is intentionally absurd. If every-one adopted their own idiosyncratic lexical definitions, language wouldn't function, and we'd all blither unintelligibly in a Tower of Babel. But then, Humpty missed his calling as a British High Court judge. Sitting on the bench rather than a wall, the big egghead might never have had that great fall. During this Afghanistan data leak scandal, we've learned that Afghans deemed at risk of Taliban retaliation for collaborating with British troops have been allowed not only to resettle in Britain but to bring along as many as 22 'additional family members' (AFMs). The Ministry of Defence believes the 'vast majority' of 2022's preposterously profuse 100,000 claims to have worked with British armed forces were bogus. Obliged to house the purportedly endangered and their relatives, the MoD restricted AFMs at first to spouses and children. Yet UK-resident Afghans sued the Foreign Office in the hopes of importing fellow nationals with no legal or blood connection to them. One petitioner pleaded before an imaginative High Court judge, Mrs Justice Yip, who has a future as a postmodernist in her nearest philosophy department. (AI explains that the 'yips' are 'characterised by a sudden inability to execute a familiar and previously mastered skill' – in this instance competent jurisprudence.) 'The term 'family member',' her ruling states, 'does not have any fixed meaning in law or in common usage. Indeed, the word 'family' may mean different things to different people and in different contexts. There may be cultural considerations… there is no requirement for a blood or legal connection.' This novel lingual latitude greatly expanded the population of AFMs covertly airlifted to the UK. Funnily enough, the Oxford Desk Dictionary at my elbow doesn't identify 'family' as 'a word with absolutely no meaning', for a word with no meaning isn't apt to appear in a dictionary. Page 276 also says nothing about 'family' meaning whatever different people choose it to mean, because a dictionary doesn't have Carroll's sense of humour. Instead, it is shockingly specific: '1. Set of parents and children, or of relations. 2. Descendants of a common ancestor.' Though perhaps Mrs Justice Yip would countenance the third definition, 'brotherhood of persons or nations united by political or religious ties', as that definition potentially encompasses billions of people and would therefore mean that our Afghani petitioner could bring just about anybody to Britain. Which, thanks to her ruling, appears to be the case. This is important because – sorry to state the obvious – laws and regulations are drafted in words. Government can only function if language functions. MPs vote on bills written in words that must mean roughly the same thing to every other MP. Citizens are told what laws to follow in words as well. Yet if judges may subsequently interpret legal text like Humpty-Dumpty, there are no laws. The whole set-up falls apart. We're ruled by arbitrary court decrees, which are not bound by the Oxford Desk Dictionary or any other staid reference book insisting that words mean something in particular. Through the Looking-Glass ceases to be a satire and becomes a primer. Language joins truth – my truth – as capricious, mutable, mercurial and subjective. Presumably, then, maybe to you a law against 'theft' prohibits taking other people's stuff. But maybe to me 'theft' means crossing the street against a red light, so you can't put me in jail for lifting your laptop. Surprise – Justice Yip's ruling acknowledges the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the basis of so many similar decisions deeming 'asylum seekers' legitimate and impervious to deportation regardless of their nonexistent persecution or their criminality. The ECHR is itself notoriously vague, broad and flabbily written. It's this lexical blobbiness that enables judges to regard it as a 'living document', whose scope can expand without limit and whose meaning can be twisted to suit a judge's whim on a given day. The nebulous 'right to family life' has proven especially elastic, even preventing candidates for deportation from being separated from their pets – and the provision grows only more usefully ambiguous now that 'family' refers to people to whom you have no connection. I gather the ECHR was never intended to be the basis of adjudication in the first place. But then, pleas from countless pundits such as yours truly for Britain to please withdraw from this catastrophic charter for crooks and charlatans fall without fail on deaf political ears. Contorting once-standard vocabulary whose meaning we recently all agreed upon is a commonplace technique on the left. Aside from its secondary definition (the proportion of a property whose debts are paid off), 'equity' in my 1997 Oxford Desk Dictionary means 'fairness'. And who could oppose fairness? Except that, thanks to the wokesters, equity now means 'achieving an equal outcome', aka Marxism. 'Inclusion' means exclusion. 'Gender' used to be a synonym for sex and otherwise only applied to grammar; now it's a sensation of wearing a frock or growing a beard in your head. Most famously, of course, 'woman' now means 'man'. The lesson here? Not only should parliament renounce the ECHR, but lawmakers must routinely draft all legislation as plainly and simply as possible, nailing its purpose down so that activist judges cannot conveniently misunderstand complex syntactic constructions such as 'dog' and 'go'. Parliament might also pass a bill obliging these postmodernist adjudicators to rule in accordance with words as they are understood by ordinary people – some of whom may be stumped by 'eschatology', but none of whom scratch their heads over the meaning of 'family member'. The bill could even cite a reference book to which these befuddled jurists might resort when confused by challenging vocabulary ('a', 'an' and 'the' come to mind) whose precise meaning might be obscured by 'cultural considerations'. I'd be willing to loan out my Oxford Desk Dictionary for a good cause.
Indian Express
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Callooh! Callay! 20 Jabberwocky words from Alice in Wonderland that still galumph, chortle & snark through English
O frabjous fourth! Every July 4, Alice in Wonderland fans flash Cheshire grins, chase White Rabbits down imaginary holes, hold tea parties and tip their 'Mad Hatter' hats to Charles Dodgson—better known as Lewis Carroll. After all, the fantastical tale was born on a legendary 'golden afternoon' on this very day in 1862. The ever-curious Alice was inspired by Carroll's young neighbour, Alice Liddell, a precocious five-year-old, who became his muse. During a leisurely boat trip along the Thames, Dodgson—a mathematician —improvised the story to entertain her. Lured down the rabbit hole, Liddell begged him to write it down. Two years later, she received the first manuscript, Alice's Adventures Under Ground, complete with Dodgson's illustrations. The Alice in Wonderland series includes two books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1971). Though 160 years have passed since its publication, Alice's magic only grows 'curiouser and curiouser.' Like the ever-accommodating rabbit hole that keeps Alice intrigued no matter her size — she keeps shrinking and shooting up — the story's colourful metaphor, fabulous imagery, and linguistic whimsy continue to captivate readers of all ages and from all walks of life. The childhood classic has become a cornerstone of English literature. This July 4th, we celebrate the novel's linguistic genius, its nonsense words and playful phrases, some of which have even made it to dictionaries. Aishwarya Khosla is a journalist currently serving as Deputy Copy Editor at The Indian Express. Her writings examine the interplay of culture, identity, and politics. She began her career at the Hindustan Times, where she covered books, theatre, culture, and the Punjabi diaspora. Her editorial expertise spans the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab and Online desks. She was the recipient of the The Nehru Fellowship in Politics and Elections, where she studied political campaigns, policy research, political strategy and communications for a year. She pens The Indian Express newsletter, Meanwhile, Back Home. Write to her at or You can follow her on Instagram: @ink_and_ideology, and X: @KhoslaAishwarya. ... Read More
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Florida attorney general held in contempt after enforcing blocked immigration law
A federal judge in Miami held Florida's attorney general, James Uthmeier, in contempt of court for continuing to enforce an immigration law she blocked, and bragging about it in media interviews afterwards. District court judge Kathleen Williams pointed to Uthmeier's defiance in a scorching ruling on Tuesday afternoon that accused the Republican of twisting words in her April stay of a February law making it a state crime for undocumented aliens to enter Florida. 'Respect for the integrity of court orders is of paramount importance,' Williams, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote. The contempt finding is the latest episode of an escalating power struggle between rightwing politicians and the courts, which have blocked several of Donald Trump's hardline immigration policies at the national level. Williams noted that Uthmeier, an ally of the hard-right Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and a vocal supporter of Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration, chose merely to inform state law enforcement agencies of her temporary restraining order preventing them from making arrests. He then issued a further instruction telling them to go ahead anyway, insisting that Williams's order carried no weight because no specific agency was named. 'It is my view that no lawful, legitimate order currently impedes your agencies from continuing to enforce Florida's new illegal entry and reentry laws,' he told them in a letter. A Tampa Bay Times analysis last month found that at least 25 people had been arrested under the law, many handed over into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention. Williams cited the children's book Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll in her conclusion ordering Uthmeier to file bi-weekly reports informing her of any more arrests or detentions made in defiance of her restraining order. ''When I use a word', Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less',' she wrote, quoting the 1871 classic. ''The question is', said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things'. The answer then, as now, is no. 'Litigants cannot change the plain meaning of words as it suits them, especially when conveying a court's clear and unambiguous order. Fidelity to the rule of law can have no other meaning.' Uthmeier had stopped short of calling Williams an 'activist judge', a favored refrain used by Republicans following legal setbacks, but boasted in media appearances following her stay that he was proud to have defied her, and would continue to do so. 'I'm not going to bow down,' Uthmeier said in a 6 May interview cited in Williams's order. 'This judge is considering whether or not to hold me in contempt. But I am not going to rubber-stamp her order, I'm not going to direct law enforcement to stand down on … carrying out Florida's law.' In another interview two days later, he said: 'She's issuing this order and saying you gotta tell them all to stand down. I'm not gonna do that,' the ruling states. Williams wrote that she was 'unconcerned with Uthmeier's criticism and disapproval of the court and the court's order', but maintained that respect for the integrity of her orders was of 'paramount importance'. She wrote: 'Within the bounds of the local rules and professional rules of conduct, Uthmeier is free to broadcast his continued appeal of the court's injunction and his view that the court's rulings are erroneous. 'However, when instructed to inform law enforcement that they are proscribed from enforcing an enjoined law, he may not tell them otherwise.' Uthmeier's only public reaction so far appears to be a defiant tweet posted on Tuesday night. 'If being held in contempt is what it costs to defend the rule of law and stand firmly behind President Trump's agenda on illegal immigration, so be it,' he wrote. The Guardian has contacted his office for further comment. DeSantis named Uthmeier, his former chief of staff, as attorney general in February to succeed Ashley Moody, whom the governor appointed to fill the remainder of Marco Rubio's US Senate term after he was chosen by Trump to be secretary of state. On Monday, Williams denied Uthmeier's request to put on hold her earlier injunction while it is being appealed, finding it likely the law will be found unconstitutional. That decision followed an appeals court ruling earlier this month denying a similar request from Uthmeier. The appellate judges said the case was far from being resolved. 'But we're mindful that the burden in this posture is for the attorney general to make a 'strong showing' that he is likely to succeed on the merits. And we do not think he tips the balance in his favor,' the judges wrote, also noting Uthmeier's 'seemingly defiant posture' regarding Williams's restraining order. The Associated Press contributed to this report
The Guardian
02-04-2025
- Climate
- The Guardian
I don't want to die with a freezer full of seeds. It's time to rethink biodiversity and preservation
About a month after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina last fall, Roger Wynn and I met in an Asheville, North Carolina, supermarket parking lot. He'd driven two hours from Little Mountain, South Carolina, where the passing storm had also left its destructive mark. 'When the power finally came back on,' Wynn said, 'two of my freezers didn't work.' Wynn was worried not about spoiled food inside, but his seed collection. On that autumn day, in an act of forced downsizing and seed philanthropy, Wynn handed over two boxes filled with seeds. He wanted me, as founder of the non-profit Utopian Seed Project, to share the seeds with farmers across the region. The boxes contained a trove of Appalachian varieties: speckled field peas, white mountain half-runner beans, purple-podded bush beans and lots of butterbeans. Over many years of being active in the seed-saving community, Wynn has more than 100 varieties of carefully stewarded seeds. He recalled collecting sugar maple seeds in third grade when he 'planted them in Dixie cups and sold them door-to-door'. As a child, Wynn helped his grandmother shell dry butterbeans on their porch. He remembers how she admired the spectrum of lavender and pink seeds. But 'when she died, [family members] basically cleaned the freezers out and threw everything away, including all her seeds,' he said. Unlike some of his butterbeans, it's not a rare story. Seeds have a finite lifespan, but when cooled to below-freezing temperatures, seeds' metabolism slows and they can remain viable for decades or more. This makes freezers an important, albeit mundane, tool for long-term storage. Essentially, the freezer is an insurance policy against the loss of seed varieties. That's also the principle behind facilities such as the Millennium Seed Bank in Sussex, England, which stores billions of seeds underground at -4F (-20C). This kind of institutional seed preservation is called ex-situ, which removes varieties from their natural environment. Wynn is growing and saving seeds within his community, practicing in situ conservation. Freezing seeds is a double-edged sword. The ability to store large seed collections with a few hundred dollars worth of plug-in technology has created a preservation problem. Or perhaps the problem is preservation itself. In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, the Red Queen said: 'Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.' The 'Red Queen's hypothesis' in evolutionary biology argues that species must be constantly evolving and adapting just to maintain their place in the ecosystem. A world without freezers would force seeds to be grown and saved regularly. But preservation can be a trap, both for the seeds frozen in time and the seed keepers who preserve them. Hurricane Helene reinforced another hard truth: a freezer full of seeds is the literal version of putting all your eggs in one basket. Dr Jim Veteto, living in Celo, North Carolina, manages the Southern Seed Legacy Project and recorded oral histories of people like Roger Wynn. His barn collapsed during Helene, burying his entire seed collection of hundreds of rare seed varieties collected from Appalachian and Cherokee seed keepers. In the days after the storm, he tried to dig the freezer out of the debris and muck. Later, local seed-savers showed up to help, and they pulled the freezer from the wreckage. Amazingly, the seeds appear to have survived. Large-scale, government-funded seed banks also have their problems. They collect and store seeds from peasant, Indigenous and rural communities across the world. Bonnetta Adeeb, founder of Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance, refers to them as 'seed jail'. I visited the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) S-9 Seed Storage at the University of Georgia's Griffin campus. A large room cooled to a constant 18F was filled with hundreds of shelves, thousands of containers and millions upon millions of seeds. In theory, everyday people can request seeds from the USDA's extensive collections. But, in practice, the USDA seed banks are primarily accessed by academic and corporate plant breeders, who rely on crop diversity to develop elite breeding lines. The preservation can become predatory, leading to claims of biopiracy and the 'gene rush', equivalent to gold rushes where outsiders rushed in to extract precious metals and profit from them. Seeds over people, even when those people and their relationships to the land are the reason the seeds exist and endure. Often, 'improved' seeds are sold back to the original communities, further undermining their stewardship of biodiversity. Roger Wynn told me that the hurricane prompted an ongoing shift in his own thinking. 'This disaster made me start thinking about my seeds. For the most part, it's been fun. It's given me purpose.' Wynn highlighted the friends and community he had made along the way, all the times he had swapped and shared seeds. The Southern Seed Legacy Project's Veteto, who feared for his own life at the peak of the storm, said almost everyone he received seeds from had already died. 'It's just me out here with a freezer full of seeds,' he said. 'I've become the type of person that I started out documenting. But that's OK because these seeds give my life meaning.' Veteto was a student of Dr Virginia Nazarea, co-founder of the Southern Seed Legacy and author of Heirloom Seeds and Their Keepers. Nazarea once wrote: 'Seedsaver contribution to the conservation of biodiversity needs to be understood as conservation in vivo, or conservation as a way of life.' This speaks to something greater than preservation, which often treats seeds like artifacts, not living things. Seed-saving should not be the goal, but merely a skill that is used in an ongoing relationship with the plant. People, seeds and relationships change over time. Life is messy, and that's OK. In 2019, I accompanied culinary historian David Shields on a visit to the 'Dark Corner' of South Carolina, near Greenville. As part of his work with the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, he researched and sometimes rediscovered old seed varieties that dropped out of commercial circulation or had never achieved it. We traveled there to follow a lead from Craigslist, which mentioned someone growing what was believed to be an extinct corn. In the late 1800s, Cocke's Prolific was a nationally renowned corn, but became less available by the turn of the 20th century and was considered a lost variety until six years ago. That day, we visited 96-year-old Manning Farmer, who proudly showed us 18in corn cobs. They were perhaps the only ones in the entire world. He'd grown and saved Cocke's Prolific for nearly seven decades. Like any good seed-saver, he kept backup seeds in his freezer. His motivations were utilitarian, not preservation. It was his way of life. Farmer died shortly after his 99th birthday, in November 2021. Our desire to preserve is strongly linked to a narrative of loss, both for biodiversity writ large and for rare heirloom seeds. But we recognize the need for biodiversity and destroy it in the same breath. What if we protected the Amazon instead of just the genetics within it? What if we supported small-scale diversified agriculture instead of industrialized monoculture? Seed preservation has a place, but it's not the thing that will save us. Heirloom seed keepers attempt to preserve the past, while plant breeders control genetic resources to commodify the seed. Neither camp is particularly focused on how to expand biodiversity into the future, as if biodiversity and seed varieties are fixed and finite things. Compounding this problem is the climate crisis, which is dramatically affecting our ability to grow food. Diversity is a core component of resilience, so we need rapid, ongoing and diverse adaptation of our regional food systems – everywhere, all the time. If we've been preserving all these seeds for some imagined future need, then the need is now. Arguably, it's already too late. For me, events like Hurricane Helene represent the limits of adaptation. You can't adapt to a 30,000-year flood, which wiped entire farms and towns from the landscape. You can only roll the dice and cross your fingers. Enormous climate mitigation is our only hope. In the meantime, we need to heed the Red Queen's advice to 'keep running', to adapt while we still can. For me, this means emptying the freezers into the fields, a radical reverse flow from preservation back to the people. Because what's the point in dying with a freezer full of seeds?
