Category: ethics

The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson

On By Rick McIn books, ethics, health & fitness1 Comment

The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World is a surprise hit.

“Captivating . . . The Book of Eels is, in the end, not really about eels but about life itself.”  – Wall Street Journal

The European eel has a lifespan of at least 80 years.

It’s a a critically endangered species.

Like Salmon, this eel has a crazy difficult method of reproduction. They must migrate all the way to the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda.

How do you feel about eels?

For reasons that aren’t the eel’s fault — its shape, color, lateral movements, nocturnal nature — you may feel the way I do, which is: Yuck.

Svensson is the most recent thinker to contend with what scientists call, I’m not kidding, the “Eel Question.” …

First, eels are fish, not aquatic snakes. …

Also, after roughly 40 million years on Earth, eels are mysteriously dying off at a rapid rate. Probably it is our fault.

What’s the Deal With Eels?

Stay Safe, America

On By Rick McIn economics, ethics, government, happiness, health & fitness, human rightsLeave a comment

On the 4th of July I want to send best wishes to all Americans navigating dread 2020.

So many challenges. 

American entrepreneurship is best at coming up with new business formation, survival, and growth.  Looking forward to better days.

Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

On By Rick McIn books, ethics, moviesLeave a comment

I’m not the target audience for this book.

Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a dystopian action-adventure novel by American author Suzanne Collins. It is a spinoff and a prequel to The Hunger Games trilogy. …

Critics had a mixed overall reception …

The central character is the teenage Coriolanus Snow who would 64 years later become the dictatorial president of Panem as Donald Sutherland.

This book didn’t really work for me.  And the 10th Hunger Games were pretty horrible.

The only character of interest is Volumnia Gaul – The Head Gamemaker of the 10th Hunger Games.

Fans of YA fiction where teens kill other teens will probably love it.

Needless to say, a film version is in the works.

Ken Burns on historical monuments

On By Rick McIn ethics, governmentLeave a comment

Legendary American documentary filmmaker Ken Burns said the country is “in the middle of an enormous reckoning” and endorsed the removal of statues of Confederate soldiers and the renaming of military bases.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

John Oliver on Confederate statues & memorials

On By Rick McIn ethics, government, things getting betterLeave a comment

Compromise – MOVE any controversial statue into a museum.  

Laying out the Confederacy’s rationale for seceding from the U.S.

Savannah, Georgia, March 21, 1861

Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens:

“Our new government[‘s] foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.”

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (2017)

ALL PARENTS MATTER – Boycott Father’s Day 😀

On By Rick McIn ethics, government, human rightsLeave a comment

My buddy Dean — a father on Father’s Day — posted something I’d not considered.

According to professor David Theo Goldberg, “All Lives Matter” reflects a view of “racial dismissal, ignoring, and denial”.

On Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill Maher expressed support for use of the “Black Lives Matter” phrase, stating that “‘All Lives Matter’ implies that all lives are equally at risk, and they’re not”. …

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

On By Rick McIn books, ethics, government, human rights, moviesLeave a comment

I post on Juneteenth, the day celebrating the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States.

Small Great Things (2016) was recommended for those who want to learn more about racism.

The American author, Jodi Picoult, is a white woman.

I’m a super privileged white man.

And I did learn from this book.  Especially many of the subtle instances where Black Americans are stereotyped by oblivious whites.  It made me wonder how many times I’ve done the same things.  I am often oblivious of the feelings of those around me.

The story concentrates on an African-American labor/delivery (L&D) nurse, Ruth Jefferson, in charge of newborns at a Connecticut hospital.

Ruth is ordered not to touch or go near the baby of a white supremacist couple. After the baby dies in her care, Ruth is charged with murder, and taken to court.

Small Great Things is being adapted into a film starring Viola Davis and Julia Roberts.

P.S.

I happened to have recently read a big chunk of The Innocents Abroad (1869) by Mark Twain, one of the best-selling travel books of all time.  Of course Twain was a humorist, skilled at making me laugh.

He’s an American imperialist abroad, mocking everyone and everything he finds abroad.  It was off-putting.  Later in life he became an ardent anti-imperialist.

Twain was an adamant supporter of the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of slaves, even going so far as to say, “Lincoln‘s Proclamation … not only set the black slaves free, but set the white man free also”.  Yet in his travel book you have to call him a racist.

That I found also off-putting.

The only instance of praise for anyone in the first part of the book, however, was for an African American tour guide working in Europe.  The only good guide they had in months.

make sure you have ID when stopped by police

On By Rick McIn ethics, government, human rightsLeave a comment

Standard procedure for bad cops is to say you “fit the description“ of some imaginary criminal as an excuse to question / hassle.

While I feel badly for the good police officers wrongly accused, at this one moment in time it’s OK with me.

If they can’t handle public scrutiny, get a new job.

#BlackLivesMatter