So I saw an ad on the website of the far-too-nearby gun club for a book by one of its members (“The Gun Guy”) that “takes the reader through the joyful and humorous stories about life at the hunt camp, hunting culture, and the joys of nature and wildlife.” I wrote him a short letter: …
Category: ethics
Nov 01 2021
Open Season on Women: More evidence of the pornification of our society
I live in a small lake-centered community about three hours north of Toronto, consisting of about thirty houses: about ten are occupied year-round; the others are occupied mostly just during the summer. So, small neighbourhood. Over the past few years, I’ve experienced six instances of what I would call over-the-top insult. Specifically misogynist insult. Man …
Feb 19 2021
from We are the Weather, Jonathan Safran Foer
Reason to stop eating meat (well, would’ve been that back in the 70s … now, well, it’s reason to accept the blame, to feel the guilt for our demise … ): “Globally, humans use 59 percent of all the land capable of growing crops to grow food for livestock.” (p79) “One-third of all the fresh …
Jan 01 2021
Picard … Seriously?
So I watched Star Trek: Picard, wherein he saves the day, and the future, for the creation of synthetic life. A surprising move for someone so … intelligent. With respect to the creation of organic life … We have not been able to control how many we create. Our planet can comfortably sustain 2-3 billion …
Sep 29 2019
Business, Responsibility, and the Environment
The following is the introduction to Chapter 10, Business and the Environment, of my business ethics text, Ethical Issues in Business 2e, Peg Tittle (Broadview Press, 2016). I post it here, motivated by the recent astounding meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet, and the reports that the Alaska glaciers are melting 100 times faster than …
Aug 10 2018
Noise Trespass
We need a noise trespass law. At the very least, the concept of noise trespass should be as familiar among the general population as physical trespass. Why is going onto someone’s private property without permission (physical trespass) considered a wrong? Because doing so is intrusive (presuming a right to privacy) and potentially damaging. The same …
Jun 10 2018
Private Property and Visual Intrusion
There should be regulations about what people can put on their private property that will be in view of their neighbours. Even more than in public spaces, visual material on private property is not easily avoided. If you put a swastika or a pornographic image on your garage door, and that door is right across …
Apr 02 2018
And here’s something else that would never happen to a man …
So this guy in our neighborhood has early Alzheimers and dizzy spells. He’s looking for a babysitter (his word) and someone to cook for him and do his cleaning so he doesn’t have to go into a home. And he asked me. I have no experience babysitting. And absolutely no aptitude for it. Yes, I …
Apr 02 2018
New and Improved
‘New and improved’ is not just a bit of harmless puffery; it’s a two-party addiction. Stupid consumers must have and stupid companies must produce – new and improved stuff. And it hurts third parties. Such as the animals who are used to test a product every time it changes, every time it becomes new and …
Mar 26 2018
Solo Women’s Invisible Economic Expenses
It really hit home when my father gave me twenty bucks for a pizza, his treat. As if I were a teenager. Instead of a 50-year-old woman with a mortgage to pay, property taxes, and monthly bills for oil, electricity, phone, internet, tv, house insurance, car insurance… Amazing. He was sitting in my living room …
fiction
