Fish Wrap
News flash: Al Gore's daughter weds and the rehearsal dinner features (gasp!) Chilean sea bass. In Australia, an outraged Rebecca Keeble, program manager for Humane Society International, angrily denounces the vice president's hypocrisy in the Daily Telegraph. The slug: "ONLY one week after Live Earth, Al Gore's green credentials slipped while hosting his daughter's wedding in Beverly Hills."
Back inside the Beltway, the story gets picked up by hard-hitting Washington correspondent, Jake Tapper, in his blog, Political Punch. In a post headlined, "Fishy behavior," Tapper asks readers whether the seafood selection could "be seen as the environmentalist version of Sen. David Vitter's public santimony/private enjoyment of love with a red-lit glow?" thereby combining two great news traditions -- purplish prose and yellow journalism -- in one short sentence.
It doesn't take long for Tapper's readers to remind him that: a) the groom's family throws the rehearsal dinner, not the bride's; b) while sea bass is indeed a fishery of serious environmental concern, some of the fish are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council; and c) Jake Tapper is a two-bit hack.
Perhaps stung by that criticism, Tapper picks up the phone, makes a few calls, and posts an update: More on the Fish story, in which he writes:
I've wasted too much time on this already, but allow me to wrap up with a story from my brief tenure working at one of the the fish counters in Seattle's Pike Place Market. I remember standing behind the display case one day when a woman, clearly indignant, pointed to the sea bass chilling on the ice and, in a demanding tone, asked, "Isn't this fish endangered?" I studied the fish for a few seconds before answering, "No, ma'am. That fish is dead."
Back inside the Beltway, the story gets picked up by hard-hitting Washington correspondent, Jake Tapper, in his blog, Political Punch. In a post headlined, "Fishy behavior," Tapper asks readers whether the seafood selection could "be seen as the environmentalist version of Sen. David Vitter's public santimony/private enjoyment of love with a red-lit glow?" thereby combining two great news traditions -- purplish prose and yellow journalism -- in one short sentence.
It doesn't take long for Tapper's readers to remind him that: a) the groom's family throws the rehearsal dinner, not the bride's; b) while sea bass is indeed a fishery of serious environmental concern, some of the fish are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council; and c) Jake Tapper is a two-bit hack.
Perhaps stung by that criticism, Tapper picks up the phone, makes a few calls, and posts an update: More on the Fish story, in which he writes:
I reached out just now to Kitty Block, director of treaty law for Humane Society International and the Humane Society of the United States.I'm still left with a couple of questions: 1) How do these folks at the Humane Society know so much about this particular wedding? And 2) Who really cares?!?!
Block says that the Humane Society International "greatly respects the environmental work of the Gores. Both the Gores and the Humane Society of the US agree that there's a huge problem with Chilean Sea Bass and overfishing."
The Gores, she says, took great steps to make sure that Sarah Gore had a "Green wedding."
"Unfortunately," she added, "the Chilean Sea Bass turned up at the rehearsal dinner where the Gores were just guests," the dinner having been hosted by the groom's family.
Block says she's contacted her critical counterpart in Australia -- "it's 4 a.m. there, so we haven't spoken to them yet" -- to inform her of this fact.
I've wasted too much time on this already, but allow me to wrap up with a story from my brief tenure working at one of the the fish counters in Seattle's Pike Place Market. I remember standing behind the display case one day when a woman, clearly indignant, pointed to the sea bass chilling on the ice and, in a demanding tone, asked, "Isn't this fish endangered?" I studied the fish for a few seconds before answering, "No, ma'am. That fish is dead."
11 Comments:
Santimony? What the hell is that?
Right! Make that three great traditions: purple prose, yellow journalism and misspelled words. Lord knows, I never misspell anything.
hilarious
Damned funny. Jake Tapper ratifies Robert Novak's criticism of bloggers, saying that they're not concerned with facts, that they just digest things they read and repeat the errors of others. He also declines to apply a little critical thought to his own work.
The problem? Jake Tapper is a professional journalist.
Tapper used to be a good journalist too. What happened?
If you consider yourself an environmentalist or conservationist, you should not eat animals. A completely plant-based vegan diet has the least impact upon the Earth. If you think it seems hard to give up all animal products, it's really not. It's quite easy in fact, and you feel a lot better. Give it a try: http://www.friendsofanimals.org/img/Vegan_Starter_Guide.pdf
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This post has been removed by the author.
Brandon wrote:
"If you consider yourself an environmentalist or conservationist, you should not eat animals. A completely plant-based vegan diet has the least impact upon the Earth."
Baloney. You don't give a damn how many animals die or suffer to feed you, as long as you don't eat them in recognizable chunks.
For example, I had a delicious elk strip steak for dinner last night (~0.002 death, and a humane one). The rice that I ate with it causes the death of ~50 vertebrate animals per pound of finished product, including some pretty horrible suffering.
So, Brendan, I'd like you to explain how you measure the deaths caused by every food you eat, because I don't see a bifurcation between vegetable and animal anywhere.
Our choices cause immense animal suffering, but your pig-ignorant one of lumping vast numbers of foods together in categories is useless.
Brandon, you didn't take into account the PERCEIVED reality of the clinically insane. You're lucky Smokey came along to straighten you out.
Instead of catching Duran Duran at a local ribfest or bat mitzvah, I decided to flip on Al Gore's "Live Earth" concert on Saturday for Simon LeBon and the other musical artists with a social conscience, as self-advertised.
About two hours after stapling my eyelids to my forehead to ensure that I didn't miss single epiphanous second, I got bothered.
It was not the noise pollution from climatologists like Kayne West and the Pussycat Dolls. No, that didn't bother me.
The fact that there was more reasoned reflection at Jonestown than there was on the NBC set manned by Today Show host Ann Curry, that didn't bother me.
Enduring the sanctimony of Alicia Keys calling out the "hate skeptics" for their intolerance of non-peer reviewed scientific findings and spiteful distinctions between hypotheses and conclusions, that didn't bother me.
The delicious irony of watching the Dave Matthews Band, the same eco-friendly Dave Matthews Band that dumped 800 pounds of human waste from their tour bus into the Chicago River during their stop through three years ago (well, maybe the irony wasn't exactly delicious), that also didn't bother me.
Reminiscing about a 1975 Newsweek cover story entitled "The Cooling World" in which the scientific community was then allegedly predicting the next Ice Age and suggesting that, among the options, we consider purposely melting the Artic ice cap, and now 30 years later we're to believe that after 3.5 billion years of life (and 1 million years of human life) on this planet, we are collectively on the verge of going up like a Roman candle because of the amount of Aqua Net consumed by Bon Jovi groupies--no, the fickle nature of the global alarmists didn't bother me either.
What bothered me, what truly bothered me was three words uttered by Al Gore, "Thank you, Leo." "Leo" as in Leonardo DiCaprio who introduced Gore to the global audience.
I'll sign Gore's 7-point pledge. I'll install CFL light bulbs in my home. I'll buy a car that runs entirely on switchgrass. I'll even stop clubbing baby seals. I'll do anything they want me to do as long as Al Gore stops his "hep cat" routine.
Watching Gore keep it real with his Hollywood friends is kind of like watching your dad shake his groove thing at a wedding.
Global cooling, global warming, sign me up for whatever. Just make him stop.
As featured in Human Events
email me at dan@urqmedia.com
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