Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.
Dutch colonial promissory note to a former slaveholder, Suriname, 1863. Rijksmuseum.
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Miscellany
In 2011 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed a lawsuit against SeaWorld alleging that five orcas were being held as slaves in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution; it is believed to be the first legal filing arguing that the amendment applies to nonhumans. The orcas, named as plaintiffs in the case, had been caught in the wild and were being used in performances in Florida and California. “Slavery is slavery, and it does not depend on the species of the slave any more than it depends on gender, race, or religion,” PETA’s counsel said. The following year, the judge ruled that the amendment does not protect nonhumans.
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
—James Baldwin, 1961Lapham’sDaily
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Roundtable
Lapham’s Quarterly Is on Hiatus
But the American Agora Foundation is already planning for the future. More
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Robert D. Kaplan
Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power. More