On Point: Food for thoughtless

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Poor Dr. Arthur Hoyte. He "purchased food products" at a KFC store in northeast Washington, DC, in 2004 and 2005, his lawsuit against the company explains, without knowing the store used partially hydrogenated oil in the kitchen.

To make this scandal immeasurably worse - yes, the mind reels! - KFC "did not display any warning or disclaimer to advise consumers" that they might be eating food prepared with the dreaded oil, which Hoyte claims (if not altogether plausibly) he was trying to avoid.

Given Hoyte's eagerness to go to court, surely he must suffer some actual ill effects from his harrowing encounters with fried chicken. But no, his lawsuit makes no such claim in its attempt to secure class-action status. Nor does it mention a single other person who links a specific health problem to an affection for the KFC menu.

The lawsuit is, in short, nothing more or less than an attempt by the Center for Science and Public Interest, which represents Hoyte, to promulgate food safety regulations through the courts.

Is fast food cooked in partially hydrogenated oil unfit for human consumption, as the lawsuit maintains? (Ironically, it was introduced some years ago because it was thought to be healthier than palm oil.) Should warning signs at least be posted in all restaurants that use the oil? Both questions should be answered by regulatory agencies or legislative bodies, not judges and juries.

In the meantime, neither Hoyte nor anyone else is obliged to spend so much as a dime on fried food at KFC. And in the future, if he doesn't know whether a restaurant uses hydrogenated oil, he might consider asking.

Self-inflicted wounds

Congratulations to the University of Colorado's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct for its blunt assessment of Ward Churchill's disgraceful scholarship, but what's with its hand-wringing over the Ethnic Studies Department?

"We recommend that the Chancellor consider means to ensure that the reputation of other faculty and staff in the Department of Ethnic Studies is restored and maintained appropriately," the committee wrote toward the end of its report.

First off, there's no way to know if the reputation of ethnic studies has been battered any worse than that of the university at large by the Churchill saga. But let's say the committee is right and it has been. Did the committee ever consider the possibility that the department - unlike much of the university - may have deserved it?

Unlike the vast majority of CU professors, those in ethnic studies actually know Churchill. He was even the department chair when the controversy broke. They're familiar with his behavior, with the controversies surrounding his scholarship and, at least in some cases surely, with Churchill's academic work.

So did any of them come forward during the past 18 months to confirm (or even hint) that, yes, their colleague was an insufferable fraud? Quite the contrary. In several cases they publicly rallied to his defense. If their department is bruised by the Churchill fallout, the wounds would seem to be largely self-inflicted.

Drop it, Mr. Holtzman

"You're allowed to vote anywhere in the state for a statewide candidate," observes Mark Grueskin, the attorney trying to get GOP candidate Marc Holtzman on the August primary ballot. "Why can't you get signatures from anywhere in the state."

Um, maybe because that seems to be against the law?

Holtzman chirps endlessly about the rule of law being flouted by illegal immigrants. Now he has a chance to do his bit to shore up respect for the legal system: Tell his attorney to drop his attempt to have a court rewrite the accepted petition process.

Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes On Point several times a week. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.