Though admittedly a silly word, it aptly describes a silly form of argumentation. And now the New York Times vocabulary blog, which features a “miscellany of modern words and phrases”, has acknowledged the birth of “yesbuttery”:

Portmanteau term denoting agreement tempered by a contrary view.

Criticising the view that Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan has inspired homegrown terrorism, Adrian MacNair wrote for The National Post:

There is something altogether insincere about condemning terrorism on the one hand, and then rationalizing it on the other. It is a form of “yesbuttery,” a term coined by an unknown author which describes the “troops out” crowd who believe that Afghanistan would be better off on its own, despite the brutal bloodshed of Taliban retribution that would ensue.

Naturally, I acknowledge no original ownership of the term, as quoted in the Times. Indeed I heard it first from Terry Glavin, who has created his own share of Fotheringhamisms.

The proposed site of a new mosque in New York City, 2 blocks from the World Trade Center

Family members of those who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center are understandably upset at a proposal to build a 13-story mosque and cultural center within a stone’s throw of Ground Zero. While most media organizations have been slow to pick up the hot potato, the idea of a mosque towering over residents of New York so close to the big hole where the twin towers once stood has to be infuriating more than just New Yorkers.

It would be one thing if the city of New York had built that much-vaunted memorial for the victims of September 11, nearly a decade after the attacks. But the fact is that progress on that file has been slower than the attempt to catch the guy who is believed to have orchestrated the attacks themselves.

Although the religion of Islam itself is not an organization in which the actions of the few speak for the thoughts of the many, one can’t escape the fact that it was radicalized Muslims inspired by hatred for America that resulted in the pile of rubble in Lower Manhatten. And although the country has had 9 long years to build a fitting tribute to the victims of that day, the only thing surrounding the site of ground zero is plywood hoarding.

Still just a hole at Ground Zero

Think about this for a moment. In March 1965, the New York Port Authority began acquiring property at the World Trade Center site, and later that month the city had thirteen square city blocks demolished to make way for construction. Groundbreaking took place on August 5 of 1966. The building of the North Tower didn’t begin until two years later, and the South Tower wasn’t started until January of 1969.

The topping out ceremony of the first building took place in December of 1970, while the second tower had their party in July of 1971. Although tenants already moved into the buildings in late 1970 to 1972, the official ribbon cutting took place on April 4, 1973.

From groundbreaking to ribbon-cutting, it took 6 years and 8 months to build two towers at 110 stories tall with 930,000 cubic metres [10 million square feet] of office space. But they can’t get a memorial built in 9 years.

“This is a place which is 600 feet from where almost 3,000 people were torn to pieces by Islamic extremists,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother died in the Pentagon on 9/11.

“I think that it is incredibly insensitive and audacious really for them to build a mosque, not only on that site, but to do it specifically so that they could be in proximity to where that atrocity happened.”

The mosque is planned on the site of a four-story building that was the Burlington Coat Factory retail store until 9/11, when part of the plane’s landing gear crashed through the roof. The building already serves as a mosque, but the tenants want to raze it and build a brand new 13-story mosque and cultural centre. While the site of the World Trade Center cannot be seen from the proposed mosque, it is only two blocks away.

Although the mayor’s office says it’s fine with the proposal, one wonders how Saudi Arabia would feel if New Yorkers built a giant church across from the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. Of course that’s not quite a fair comparison, since Mecca is actually the only city in the world in which non-Muslims are forbidden from entering under punishment of death.

Not only is the proximity of the mosque a rather sensitive issue, the perception of an expansionist Islam probably won’t sit well with a number of people. Although the developers of the mosque insist the mosque would be a means of bridging the pain felt by residents of New York by opening the community centre up to all people, it begs the question of why it needs to be a mosque, instead of a multi-faith community centre.

One would hope that the city can get its act together and focus on building a fitting memorial for the victims of Islamic extremism, rather than concern themselves zoning approval for a 13-story mosque.

Salt and pepper magnified.

You may have read about Brooklyn Assemblyman Felix Ortiz last week, for his proposal to ban salt in New York restaurants. After that idea didn’t go over so well, he issued a clarification that his legislation was to prohibit the use of salt as an additive to meals. Basing his concerns on reports from the World Health Organization and a study issued by the Annals of Internal Medicine, sodium intake in the United States is over double the recommended daily dose.

A study done by the World Health Organization showed that if everyone consumed half a teaspoon less per day, there would be between 54,000 and 99,000 fewer heart attacks each year and between 44,000 and 92,000 fewer deaths. This same study also showed that lowering the amount of salt people eat, even by small amounts, could reduce cases of heart disease, stroke and heart attacks as much as reductions in smoking, obesity, and cholesterol levels.

Fighting obesity has been a difficult task in the United States, leaving legislators faced with the unpleasant task of inventing ways to wean people off of fatty and salty foods. The latest such idea, proposed in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, would be to slap an 18% tax on pizza and pop to push the average weight of Americans down by 5 pounds per year.

The argument for this is based on the health costs associated with fighting obesity and heart disease:

The researchers, writing in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine on Monday, suggested taxing could be used as a weapon in the fight against obesity, which costs the United States an estimated $147 billion a year in health costs.

“While such policies will not solve the obesity epidemic in its entirety and may face considerable opposition from food manufacturers and sellers, they could prove an important strategy to address overconsumption, help reduce energy intake and potentially aid in weight loss and reduced rates of diabetes among U.S. adults,” wrote the team led by Kiyah Duffey of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Of course, I can think of some obvious flaws with this idea. People don’t generally consume pizza and pop because of the addiction to junk food, although salty pizza does have that effect on a lot of us. No, we consume pizza and pop because it’s cheaper than the alternatives that are offered, particularly when out of the house. As the Reuters article points out, if current government subsidies were shifted into production of “healthy foods”, it would lower the cost to the consumer, thereby allowing them to make their own health choices.

h/t IOTW