Category Archives: Ethics

Celebrity Journos Green Over GloZell Green

Barack Obama, Celebrity, Ethics, Journalism, Media, Morality

Lamestream media is furious that President Barack Obama has granted interviews not to their own—to the likes of fancy pants Megyn Kelly, Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper or Rachel Mad Cow. Oh no. Knowing full-well that he presides over an Idiocracy—how else did he get elected?—the president has always made an effort to get in touch with idiots. (Interviewer Hank Green is not an idiot.) This time, it’s three YouTube “content creators,” as people who suction their faces and body parts to an internet camera are known.

I’m enjoying the whining of Kelly and company about Obama doing damage to the dignity of The Office. What dignity??!!

Other than their airs and graces, celebrity journos are not that different from the freaks of YouTube. (The Green kid is an exception; he seems to be doing a good job of it.) They’re narcissists, who live not for the truth, but for a seat at the Annual White House Sycophant’s Supper, or alongside the smarmy, unfunny Jon Stewart, or next to the vaginas of The View.

Bill O’Reilly or Bethany Mota: The number of hits, the ratings and the invitations; that’s what this lot lives for.

The new journalism:

Hank Green — One of the main voices in YouTube’s vibrant education community, Hank and his brother John produce content on a variety of topics, ranging from science to the environment to current events.
Bethany Mota — An iconic young millenial creator, Bethany connects with her subscribers around life as a young woman growing up in America.
GloZell Green — The most-followed African American woman on YouTube, GloZell engages her audience in conversations about topics such as music, popular culture, and current events.

UPDATED: Slow! Critters Crossing

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics

A delightful little opossum graced us with a visit the other day. Opossums are shy, nocturnal creatures, so it was indeed a treat to watch him and snap him drinking from the bird bath. My mother’s was the keen little eye that spied him.

Sadly, while out for a constitutional, I spotted the little guy. “When attacked by predators, opossums ‘play dead’ or ‘play possum’ by collapsing and lying still.” This little critter, however, was dead; roadkill of a careless driver. Probably a speeding kid.

Signs that read “Slow: [bloody, rude] kids crossing” are everywhere around the neighborhood.

These gentle critters deserve the same consideration.

UPDATE: In reply to the Facebook thread:

Fred, I hardly think that these sloth-like, slow and shy Marsupials can by their nature do the damage you describe. Sounds like nonsense on stilts. You must mean racoons; they are aggressive and quick to pounce. The creature that wreaks the most havoc on little critters in the wild is the common household cat: voles, shrews, birds: they don’t stand a chance. I recall once reading a study in Scientific American, I think (but unsure) about the eradication of small species by cats, feral and other.

UPDATE II (5/6/017): SeaWorld SUCKS (Secede From It)

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics, Ilana On Radio & TV, libertarianism

The issue, however, is this and this alone: It is worse than cruel and barbaric to keep a giant, sentient creature possessing of a sizable intelligence and complex social needs, in a small enclosure, for the mere amusement of the masses.

While this libertarian would never suggest any state regulation; she does advocate vigorous, voluntary attrition, and NOW! Stay away from SeaWorld! I’m with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals):

Animal rights advocates outraged that a SeaWorld float is included in next week’s lineup for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade unveiled plans on Wednesday for a naked protest outside the landmark store.
Demonstrators wearing nothing but black and white body paint to resemble orcas will squeeze into a bathtub outside the midtown Manhattan store on Thursday to mimic orcas held in captivity and to repeat last year’s demand – which was denied – that the float be excluded, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said.
“It is unacceptable to confine orcas to barren tanks that, to them, are the size of a bathtub,” said Delcianna Winders, PETA’s deputy general counsel.

And just this once, I’m with CNN, which screened a devastating documentary, “Blackfish,” on what befalls the huge and highly evolved Orca, when kept in a tiny tub of water.

Understand, I have no doubt that SeaWorld imagines it treats these animals as “humanely” as possible under the cincumstances. As the silly SeaWorld spokeswoman Aimée Jeansonne Becka has promised, “SeaWorld’s animals are well cared for and their health and well-being is a responsibility we take extremely seriously. We are proud of our world-class standards of care.”

To those gung ho readers who disowned me when I penned one of my favorite columns, “Just A Girl With A Gun; Not A Gratuitous Killer, remember this: I’m also the writer who had written—I hang my head in shame—in defense of Michael Vick (I & II). While I regret the columns that got me on the Sean Hannity nationally syndicated radio show, I have not changed my views on natural rights. I have, however, become convinced about our moral and ethical obligation to treasure animals and the natural world and to shun those who don’t.

Secede from SeaWorld.

UPDATE: Facebook Thread:

James Huggins: Animals were put on earth for us to use and preserve. Not use and abuse.
10 mins · Like

Ilana Mercer: Why does the Orca need to be “used” by human beings? Haven’t we evolved enough to entertain our effing selves?

UPDATE II (5/6/017): Voluntarily withdrawing patronage from circuses that display these large sea mammals is the libertarian way. But I won’t be grieving France’s ban of “captive breeding of dolphins and killer whales.”

Your Life; A Playground For Rich Liberals

Business, Capitalism, Celebrity, Ethics, GUNS, Human Accomplishment, Judaism & Jews, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

“Your Life; A Playground For Rich Liberals” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“Make sure it doesn’t happen in your state next,” warns Michelle Malkin, in “Rocky Mountain Heist,” a documentary in which the columnist puts her trademark shoe-leather journalistic sleuthing to work in exposing the Democrat-rigged “democracy” of Colorado. There, a group of well-heeled liberals used its power—and “every scheme possible”—to transform Colorado into a playground for the rich (and their liberal ideology) and a nightmare for “common” Coloradans.

Malkin, who once resided in our state, might already know that the dice are loaded against decent people in Washington, too. Take I-594, a gun-control measure which, we are led to believe, expresses the legislative will—even though it is, as The Zelman Partisans have noted, “the anti-gunners’ dream. Under the pretense of being ‘only’ a universal background check bill (common sense, you know!), it will criminalize nearly all transfers of firearms, including the most essential, innocent and fleeting. Loan a gun to a friend in need? Felony. Instructor hands a gun to student and student hands it back? Two felonies.”

The measure was “bankrolled by billionaires on the left,” among them former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Microsoft billionaires Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer and, of course, Bill Gates. These busybodies—who reside in fortified castles and are cosseted by security details—raised millions and gave unstintingly to make it harder for ordinary folks to defend life and property.

It runs in the family. In 2011, we were menaced by another unfathomably wealthy “man,” who got behind an effort to bilk Washington-State businessmen and women of more modest means. The Service Employees International Union (state and national locals), the National Education Association, and Washington teachers union locals all united to champion a new income tax. The poster boy for this regressive measure was William H. Gates Sr., father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

The late Steve Jobs was not the only man who had no time for that excuse of a man, Bill Gates. Less well-known for his contempt for the patronizing Gates was hedge-fund founder Robert W. Wilson.

Having donated an estimated $600 million over his lifetime, Mr. Wilson was one of the most generous philanthropists in our country. Still, Wilson flatly refused to join what he derisively termed Bill Gates’ “worthless Giving-Pledge” charity.

And it was not only Gates’ showy, sanctimonious, very public giving that Mr. Wilson discounted.

But first—and against this background—let me add the following: The righteous give discreetly; the pious give publicly. Accustomed to the hedonism of Hollywood and the exhibitionism of cable news anchors, it may surprise some to learn that the manner in which most ordinary Americans give—anonymously—satisfies the exacting standards of righteousness specified by Maimonides. The 12th-century Jewish philosopher stipulated that the highest form of charity is practiced when “donor and recipient are unknown to each other.” …

… Read the rest. “Your Life; A Playground For Rich Liberals” is now on WND.