Kristie Periera was told by veterinarians that her beagle-mix puppy Beau had serious neurological problems and advised that her most humane option was to have little Beau euthanized. Despite her determination to fight for the puppy despite the likely expense and slim chances of success, she was persuaded to end Beau’s suffering by colleagues at the shelter where she worked, the Lost Dog and Cat Rescue in Maryland. The little dog was scheduled to be euthanized in late March 2023, but Kristie was told she couldn’t be with him, as the shelter had a policy of not allowing owners to witness their pets’ demise.
As an aside, I have never heard of such a policy, and I would immediately question the competence and motives of any shelter that had one. Sounds like a dog trafficking operation to me….
As various pundits on Prof. Reynold’s Instapundit are wont to say of such news, “Who had “Presidential candidates with brain worms” on their 2024 bingo card?“
The New York Times tells us today that in 2010, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “was experiencing memory loss and mental fogginess so severe that a friend grew concerned he might have a brain tumor.” After consulting several neurologists, RFK had the mystery solved. His cognitive problems were “caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” Kennedy says.
Oh.
All righty then! What can we take from this development?
1. Kudos to RFK Jr. for candor and honesty. The other candidates haven’t been so forthcoming. President Biden won’t undergo cognitive testing, or if he will, he won’t reveal what the results were.
2. Yet the Times informs us that despite this startling revelation, Kennedy’s campaign refuses to release his complete medical records. There are worse things in there than the fact that a worm ate part of his brain? Oh-oh…
3. I still salute RFK’s courage. If this doesn’t launch a thousand jokes and memes, I’ll be disappointed. (I won’t offer any, because I don’t want to be accused of “worm-shaming.”)
4. Given Kennedy’s frequently extreme and even bizarre opinions, the reflex response from many will be, “That explains a lot.” Not from me though! Uh-uh.
5. When asked if any of Kennedy’s health issues could compromise his fitness for the presidency, RFK’s spokesperson, Stefanie Spear, replied, “That is a hilarious suggestion, given the competition.”
If she had not taken advantage of a straight line like that, I would have been disappointed. To her credit, Spear deposited that metaphorical hanging curve in the upper deck.
Ugh. More ignorant pit bull hysteria, as usual spread by someone who knows little or nothing about dogs.
“Not the Bee” is supposed to be a site the highlights bizarre events from a conservative perspective, so how its concluded that advocating a “pit bull ban” was a legitimate topic escapes me. However, people using false and misleading statistics to stampede lawmakers happens to be a topic of great interest to an ethicist. I’ve written about this annoying and recurring phenomenon before, many times. The primary post about the pit bull breed-deranged website Dogsbite.org, an Unethical Website of the Month back in 2015, and one of the all-time Ethics Alarms comment champions with 354 comments so far.
Ian Haworth wrote the irresponsible Not The Bee piece today, “Is it time to ban pit bulls?” I should title this post, “Is it time for people who write about pit bulls to learn what a pit bull is?” As soon as this article began, I knew readers were in the grip of someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about:
This is as good a place to note my disgust as any. In an example of life imitating the Babylon Bee, a bipartisan group of House members decided that in these “challenging times” they have nothing better to do than to troll Gov. Kristi Noem, she of the itchy trigger finger, while sucking up to PETA.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) announced in a post on Twitter, alias “X,” “In light of recent events, we’re launching the Congressional Dog Lovers Caucus today! This group dedicated to man’s best friend aims to foster bipartisan cooperation and will help put paws over politics.” His post featured photos of Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Susan Wild (D-Pa.), alongside Moskowitz, each with a dog.
Mace issued a press release blathering,“While Congress might disagree on everything, we can all agree that dogs are beloved companions, bringing us all so much joy. We started this caucus to champion legislation that protects the rights and well-being of dogs, ensuring they receive the care, respect, and recognition they deserve…In a time of polarization and partisanship, I’m proud to join my colleagues from both sides of the aisle and commit to working on behalf of our pets, who give us so much joy and comfort every day.”
The dogs might as well take over the state houses too. The Hill reports that Kristi’s spin on her animal-shooting rampage is now that the dog she shot was a veritable Cujo.
But that’s enough from me: this is your chance to howl…
Some of the comments on this post compel me to cross-post the following story from Facebook, as I continue to try to deal with the sudden loss of my wife on Leap Year. The contrast with Kristi Noem’s cruel and impulsive shooting of a young dog that displeased her didn’t occur to me for some reason until I read the recent posts of readers here.
Today I was driving home from the vet’s with Spuds and his newly drained ear, and “I Will,” Paul’s sweet little song from the White Album came on the radio. (“Who knows how long I’ve loved you…”)
Grace envied singers and always wanted to sing herself, but was convinced that she couldn’t…I tried to tell her that she didn’t have a bad voice and should take some coaching, but she wouldn’t do it. When she wanted to sing, only with me, she deliberately used a fake voice, either a high falsetto or sometimes a weird guttural voice that sounded eerily like Pazuzu in “The Exorcist.”
Grace shared her mother’s and oldest sister Edie’s deep connection to animals: all three loved them so much the animals could sense it. If one of our dogs or Kibber the cat had some wound or problem to be tended to, they would only let Grace do it: it was almost mystical.
When our beloved 160 lb. English Mastiff, Patience, had her cancer return in her seventh year (Grace paid $12,000 for her treatment when the cancer first appeared and didn’t tell me for years…I didn’t mind: Patience was worth it, and it bought her another year), the sweet, sensitive dog was so brave…she had no appetite and was fading away, but she always wagged her huge tail when Grace came near. One day, as we knew Patience was running out of time, I returned from an errand to find Grace lying on the floor with her head at Patience’s ear. She was singing softly in her real voice, “I Will” to Patience as the dog slowly wagged her tail. Grace had tears pouring down her face, and pretty soon, so did I.
Over the next few days, Grace sang that song to Patience every time she seemed uncomfortable or agitated, usually beginning with, “Don’t be afraid!” and then, softly, “Who knows how long I’ve loves you…” And Patience would look into her eyes, and wag.
Three days later, we called a vet who made house visits to come and end our dog’s suffering. We probably waited too long. Patience had to tell us it was time by wandering out of our back yard down the hill into the bamboo; I had to persuade her to come back. She had gone off to die. As the vet fed the fatal drug into the vein in Patience’s leg, Grace was lying right by Patience’s side with her arm around her. She sang “Who knows how long I’ve loved you” until that big tail stopped, and Patience was gone.
I’m so glad that Grace never heard the Kristi Noem story.
To many analysts, South Dakota governor Krtisti Noem checked all the right boxes to be Donald Trump’s running mate. She’s a hard-right conservative, a successful and popular governor, an effective speaker, attractive, and a woman. (I must interject here that I find it just a bit hypocritical that the GOP, as it derides and condemns the diversity fad as it makes tribal membership more important than merit, skill, competence and experience, that Trump is almost certainly going to choose a woman or a black man as his VP. The least he could do to defy the Left is pick a Jew…). Noem seemed to be leading the race to be Trump’s second-in-command, in the view of many experts.
And then, as Frank and Nancy would say, she went and spoiled it all by saying something stupid like ‘I shot my dog because I couldn’t be bothered to train it.’
“Ethics Dunce” doesn’t adequately describe what Noem’s new book “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward,” which will be released in May, reveals about her. Yes, she’s notably missing some key ethics alarms and some pretty basic ones at that, like “Be kind to animals, because they are innocents,” one of my late wife’s mantras. Noem is also, however, lacking in basic understanding of public sensibilities and has the political instincts of a Kamikaze pilot.
“I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here,” Noem wrote after detailing the horrible story of how she lured “Cricket,” a 14-month old wire-haired pointer, to a gravel pit and shot her because the dog had failed her first pheasant hunting attempt. This wasn’t “Old Yeller”: Cricket wasn’t sick, or dangerous, or old. Cricket, as Noem’s account makes clear, just hadn’t been trained….you know, like Joe Biden’s “bad” German Shepherd, Commander.
I had dropped off Spuds for an emergency visit to the vet: one of his ears suddenly started swelling for no discernible reason. On the way out, I chatted with another concerned pet owner, who was sitting with her adorable aged Yorkie-Chihuahua mix (known as a “Chorkie”: that’s not her above, but it looks just like her—the dog, not the owner). We talked for quite a while, then I took my leave, after asking her dog’s name (April).
Half-way to my car in the parking lot, I started thinking, “That was rude. I talk to this nice, friendly woman for 15 minutes, ask her dog’s name, and never ask for hers or identify myself. I acted like she didn’t matter, and all I was really interested in was her dog. How dehumanizing and disrespectful.” Then I recalled all the other dog owners I know only by their dogs. (Everybody know Spuds.) One of them came by my house two days ago, knocked on the door, and gave me all the ingredients for tacos. “I know you’re having to cook for just one now after your wife’s death, and we had this left over,” she said. I had no idea who she was because she didn’t have her dog with her, a very old Sheltie named Lilly. Eventually I figured it out. (She pretty clearly doesn’t know my name either.)
Back to the vet’s…I turned around, went back into the pet hospital, and found the woman I had just left. “I came back to apologize,” I said. “I asked your dog’s name but never asked what yours was. I really did enjoy speaking with you. I’m Jack.” She smiled and said, “I’m Carla! You don’t need to apologize. That happens all the time!” “I know it does, and it shouldn’t,” I said as I left.
As I drove home, I found myself wondering if the fact that she was black helped trigger the alarm. It might have. Whatever the reason, that alarm is set now.
…because it would have made her cry. Heck, it very nearly made me cry. But as much as I hate posting this awful story of animal cruelty on what would have been my wife’s birthday (I guess it still is) attention must be paid. Attention must be paid, and this vicious asshole needs to be shunned by all decent people.
It is things like this that prompted me to designate Animal Kind International as a charity Grace would be proud to have someone give to in her memory.
That’s Wyoming ethics villain Cody Roberts, 42, smiling and raising a can of beer in the picture above. Next to him is the cowering, terrified, injured wolf he disabled by running it over with his snowmobile. Instead of putting the wolf out of its misery, Cody, who calls himself a hunter, dragged it to a bar with the wolf’s mouth taped shut to show it off in front of his friends, all of whom are obviously assholes too since they didn’t tell him to stop. After everyone had a good laugh, Cody took the suffering beast behind the building and killed it, but not before reportedly torturing it some more, you know, for fun.
After an anonymous tip was received from some weenie who witnessed this atrocity but who didn’t have the guts, integrity or decency to intervene, Wyoming Game and Fish investigated. Roberts was fined only $250 for a a”wildlife violation,” the only penalty that Game and Fish said it had the power to enforce because animal cruelty is only applied to cases involving pets and domestic animals. Yes, in Wyoming it’s not a crime to torture wild animals. No wonder Cody Roberts lives there.
I guarantee Grace would have adamantly argued that Roberts deserves to tortured and shot himself. He’s a monster, after all.
Be proud, Wyoming…as if Liz Cheney wasn’t embarrassment enough.
I don’t think I want to write about this any more. Grace’s birthday made me too sad already.
In the Zambia’s Kafue National Park, at 8,600 square miles one of Africa’s largest animal reserves, an 80-year-old American woman, doubtlessly filling out her bucket list, was killed when a bull elephant charged the truck containing her and five other tourists on a morning tour to see wild game up close. They got close, all right: That relative of Ethics Alarms favorite Jumbo upended the truck (above) and precipitated the woman’s demise. The other tourist were injured but survived.
The story was sent to me by commenter JutGory, who pronounced it an assumption of the risk by the deceased woman and the others, which it is provide the safari company was crystal clear about what the risks were. I wonder. This has been an obsession with me lately, as lawyers require consent and waivers from clients after what is supposed to be full disclosure and I am convinced that most of the time the supposedly “informed consent” and “knowing waivers” are anything but.
We began this day with head-exploding stories from the Weird, Woke and Wonderful, so we might as well end with another. This one is genuinely funny; indeed it made me laugh out loud twice, something I haven’t been able to do for four weeks. Thank you, silly, humorless hyper-sensitive people!
As a special bonus, it involves a baseball team, and today is MLB’s Opening Day!
The St. Paul Saints announced the name for the baby pig that will deliver baseballs and provide refreshments for umpires during the first half of the 2024 season. This is a tradition for the minor league team, which has had many baseball pigs as mascots over thirty years. The Saints recently began using two pigs per season,because they grow so fast. This time, the fan submission included f a masterpiece of topical swine-naming: “Ozempig.” Here’s the announcement:
Ethics Alarms 