Hey, Peter Elkind.

Disclaimer: This post isn't going to be about ethics.

It was a real pleasure to meet Peter Elkind the other day. He was way more humble and down-to-earth than I thought he would be. In fact, I found him to be kind of awkward -- but in a good way. I like awkward. It's real.

Anyway, I got to hear him talk in my business journalism class about what it was like reporting on some of those big, sticky stories like the BP oil spill and Enron, and listening to him really solidified a feeling for me -- that this is what I want to do with my life. I mean, this is it. I'm pretty sure I could do this every day for the rest of my life. I at least want to find out.

He just sounded so sure when he was talking about those stories -- about the people he confronted, the questions he asked, the words he wrote and wrote and wrote. He sounded like he didn't think he had any other  choice, that this is just the way you do things. And that certainty was comforting because I guess I can relate.

I graduate in just 20 days with a bachelor of arts degree in news-editorial journalism and philosophy, and I think I am ready. I think I'm ready to learn from the Peter Elkinds of the world, to walk in their footsteps until I can cut my own path through that forest. I think I'm ready to give it a shot.

So, here's to Peter Elkind. He really brightened up my day, week, life. He's one of those salt-of-the-earth journalists, and I hope that one day I can be a little bit more like him.

Thank you, Peter.

Under the Palaver Tree

With the Buffett Rule and Palaver Trees, I think the world would be a much better place.

The Senate blocked a measure Monday that would allow open debate of the affectionately dubbed Buffett Rule, which would require the super-rich to pay a minimum tax rate of 30 percent. It came down to the party lines. The Democrats were just nine votes short of the 60 they needed to move the measure forward.

These days, it seems like congress can’t do anything without bickering. Each side is so busy ensuring its place and gearing up for the next election that the important issues they should be discussing are overshadowed by each side’s attempt to get one over on the other. They’re like children in the sandbox, kicking up dust and playing tug of war with their favorite toy. But Mommy never comes to the rescue like in real life.

If we forced the members of congress to sit under the Palaver Tree to discuss issues like higher tax rates for the rich, they might just come to a consensus. They would have to, or we wouldn’t allow them to leave that spot. We should amend the Constitution already because this system doesn’t seem to be working out so well. Each member of the community would be represented under the tree – from the super-rich to the super-super-rich to the dirt poor – so no perspective was excluded. The end product of the discussion under the tree would be harmony amongst all in attendance, not some arbitrary, alienated version of the truth (whatever that is). The goal would be a consensus upon which all could agree, and it would not matter how long it would take to reach that consensus. Congress wouldn’t be concerned with some looming election; it would be concerned with what’s right in front of it. For once.

Mother Nature

In order to determine whether it is morally upright or not to eat meat, one would first have to ascribe to a certain system of morality. For instance, if you believe that murder is wrong, then you have to define what murder is: the intentional killing of a living thing. (That's one way to describe it anyway.) In this scenario, eating meat would be morally wrong. But if this were the claim, then eating vegetables would be morally impermissible, and that just can't be right. What else are we supposed to eat?

I tend to think that morality is a human-made convention and that nothing is inherently wrong, as repugnant as that sounds. However, I do believe that nature has an order of its own and that we should adhere to that order to preserve life. Nature determines the things that we ought to do because nature rules us. We are products of nature, so we shouldn't go against it. Mother Nature is my god, I guess you could say. And nature reveres life. Nature's purpose is to sustain life on the planet -- to create it and sustain it -- but new life only comes in the wake of death. Spring arrives after winter concludes. Death is the other side of life.

So, I do not think that it is wrong to eat meat. But if morality is a system of that which we ought to do, then I would say that treating animals cruelly in the process of food production is something we ought not to do. In that sense, it is morally impermissible.

Kant would say it is morally impermissible to treat a living creature as a mere means to an end. I think this applies to animals, as well, for they are alive and sentient in their own ways. Humans cannot pretend to know the inner-workings of the minds of animals, as much as they would like to, but I believe that animals are at a similar level of consciousness as human beings. It just presents itself in a different manner. So, it is morally permissible to kill animals for food as long as they are treated as ends in themselves, not just a means.

Nature would not argue that you shouldn't use the resources of this planet to survive. Should we exploit those resources? No. Should we treat those resources as mere means? No. Should we revere those resources and treat them as ends in themselves? Yes. Emphatically yes. Nature urges us to treat all life with respect, even when we are destroying it.