Star Jones vs Barb Walters: Qui es muy Hipócrita?

I saw a film clip of Ms. Walters last night saying, essentially, that Star Jones Reynolds (who was in fact fired from the View) should have left with dignity by finding another job and pretending to be moving up.

Here is an excerpt from People Magazine:

...she [Walters] felt "betrayed" by Reynolds's... "My [Reynolds] contract was not renewed for the tenth season...I feel like I was fired." Reynolds added that she got the news her contract wouldn't be renewed [about 90 days before the 'betray' comment]... Walters elaborated on the controversy: "We didn’t expect her to make this statement yesterday. She gave us no warning." Walters then went on to explain that Reynolds had known "for months" that she would not be returning in the fall, and that the network had given her time to exit the show with "dignity."... I[Walters said to her [Reynolds], "Handle this any way you want. You can say anything about a new job, you can say anything about a new road. Whatever you say, we'll back you up. We will never say that your contract was not renewed.'"

This is essentially Walters advising Ms Reynolds to be a hypocrite (or a liar) and being condescending about it at the same time.

Of course, Star is accusing Ms. Walters of hypocrisy but in truth Ms. Walters was sincere in advising Star to lie because Walters apparently believes that, in show biz, maybe elsewhere, lying is OK.

In short, this is a cat fight; not a hypocrisy fight (although Ms Walters makes me want to vomit).

Popsuger has a brief post on the Star vs Walters fight with a huge number of informed comments following it at: http://popsugar.com/8484

The People article is at: http://people.aol.com/people/article/0,26334,1208160,00.html?cid=recirc-top5-1-1208160

Pro-turtle, ecofriendly - self proclaimed hypocrite

A man named Michael Martino lives in Florida. He has a specialty license plate that reads "Helping Sea Turtles Survive". He has had two homes destroyed by hurricane (Ivan in 2004, Dennis in 2005). He supports sand dredging by the US Army Corps of Engineers to protect his home (and others) from another storm but it is mating season, or soon will be, for turtles.

The full article is at:
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/26/State/Endangered_turtles_th.shtml

Actually, the USCOE takes a number of steps to avoid or minimize damage to turtles, but, of course can not guarantee a 'no-turtle-killed' outcome.

Mr. Martino may have another reason to not want to kill turtles. If a mating turtle is killed and the USCOE observes it, the USCOE will have to suspend the dredging.

From the article, I'm not sure what Mr. Martino's actual motivation is. However, the fact that he likes sea turtles and the fact he wants his home protected at some risk to sea turtles (although I think a rather minimal risk) are not inconsistent. He may simply like his home more than sea turtles.

If so, one may ask, why not have a bumper sticker that says, "I love my home."

The reason is that most people love their home. The message would be insipid.

I'm afraid I don't have nearly enough information to support Mr. Martino's claim to hypocrisy.

Radiohead's Thom Yorke: self proclaimed hypocrite

The band "Radiohead" has performed at some environmental events and one of its members, Thom Yorke, is an environmental activists.

In an article at:

http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/yorke%20im%20an%20environmental%20hypocrite_1000208

Yorke proclaims himself a hypocrite, "...The whole apparatus of big festivals is not cool. If we could go to them and say, you can only use paper cups, you can't use generators, you have to use solar panels.... You technically can't make it happen. That stresses me out, because I am a hypocrite. As we all are."

I have a bit of a trouble understanding this because I'm not entirely sure what Mr. Yorke actually advocates. I'll assume for argument's sake that he advocates less consumption of fossil fuel. Assume also that Radiohead flys from venue to venue via corporate jet which renders him consuming fossi fuel at far greater than the normal per capita rate. If so, then he clearly is a hypocrite.

Oddly however, he think paper cups are environmentally benign. Apparently he doesn't understand that trees have to be cut down, processed, etc. and the cups transported to the venue. Thus, I would say his hypocrisy is mitigated somewhat by his ignorance and doesn't rise to a high harm.

Redefining Hypocrisy - What's that all about?

There was a opinion piece in a webzine, entitled, "Redefining HypocrisyReason No. 366 why people don’t take Congress seriously."

The URL for the opinion piece is at the bottom of this post.

In the piece, the author accuses Congress of being hypocritical with respect to the issue of the FBI search of the congressional office of U.S. Representative Jefferson (D-LA). This search took place about 9 months after a search of the home of Rep Jefferson resulted in the discovery of $90k in $100 bills wrapped in plastic and stored in the freezer (definitely cold cash). This was the first such search of a Congressional office in 100 years (probably longer).

The author (named Bryan Cunningham, who is a practising attorney in Colorado but who worked for the Clinton administration as assistant counsel to the CIA), has a pretty involved argument but it boils down to this:

1. Congress claims that the Executive Branch is preventing Congress from doing its job (i.e., violating the separation of powers doctrine) by having Rep Jefferson's office searched.

2. Congress is preventing the Executive Branch from doing its job by challenging the NSA monitoring of phone calls between US numbers and terrorist numbers overseas.

Thus hypocrisy.

The first part of the argument (#1 above) seems fairly solid.
The second part is quite a stretch. In fact, Congress (or at least some members) would certainly argue that their action re; the NSA searches is preventing the executive branch from doing thing that aren't its job. Now that arguement may be flawed, but it would seem it is none the less clearly believed by at least some in Congress.

Thus #2 is not certain and hypocrisy is not proved.

I'm not sure what the phrase 'redefined' means in the title.

source of article at:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzU2NDdiNDk3NzQzYTc2NGQ4OTA3N2VkNGI0MGZiZjY=