An actress who expresses a conservative viewpoint in liberal Hollywood. A teacher suspended for daring to assume a boy in her class goes by the pronoun “he.” A chef accused of cultural appropriation for cooking an ethnic dish. There’s no doubt that cancel culture – the attempt to ruin someone’s personal or professional life due to a perceived insult or insensitivity – is only getting worse.

In a woke world obsessed with meaningless microaggressions, it’s amazing how many macroaggressions continue to go largely unpunished. In fact, the list is so lengthy that a sub-list could be created for animal-related offences alone. So we made one.

Here are ten items that, hopefully, will wake up the woke to focus on something more important than playing purity police online.

Top 10 Great Scientists Who Would Be #Cancelled Today

10 Polar Bear Killings

Don’t polar bears have enough to worry about without jackass trophy hunters shooting them? With the Arctic sea ice they rely upon for hunting, resting, mating and dens rapidly diminishing due to climate change, it is estimated that less than 25,000 are left in the wild. Polar bears’ plight led to the US including them on its Endangered Species List in 2008 – and things have only grown worse since then.

Considering this, the idea that people are still killing polar bears for sport and money is disturbing to say the least. Even more insane is WHERE this practice is still legal; while one might expect it of Russia – a country whose macho dictator never found a barechested photo-op he didn’t like – the country to visit to senselessly slaughter a polar bear is Canada. Ah, Canada: clean air, universal healthcare and polar bear murder.

Why hunt them? Because killing a polar bear can make one not only a sick asshole but a RICH sick asshole. Polar bear skins can fetch tens of thousands of dollars; like hunting, such sales also are somehow still legal.

Per Freedom of Information divulgences, nearly 9,000 polar bears were killed by hunters in the Arctic between 2007 and 2016. More than 50,000 polar bears have been killed since 1960 – twice as many as today’s remaining population.

9 Seal Beatings

All reputations for being polite and generous aside, those Canadians are a bloodthirsty lot.

Canada’s annual commercial seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals on the planet. The hunt’s primary target is the harp seal, which might be the most adorable animal on Earth. Even more disgustingly, some 97% of the harp seals slaughtered are pups less than three months old. Weapons of choice include wooden clubs, hakapiks (large ice-pick-like clubs) and guns.

The hunts occur predominantly on ice floes in two regions, both off Canada’s East Coast: the Gulf of St. Lawrence, west of Newfoundland and east of the Magdalen Islands; and an area called the “Front,” northeast of Newfoundland. The mass killings come in addition to the harp seal population’s increasing vulnerability to diminishing sea ice.

The perverse practice is typically undertaken by local fishermen, who sell the seals’ fur and oils to supplement their income. Approximately 6,000 fishermen participate each year. The Humane Society estimates that more than ONE MILLION seals have been clubbed, stabbed and shot to death in the last FIVE YEARS.

The understandable international backlash has prompted a widespread and well-funded disinformation campaign by the Canadian government. What’s next, Canada? Drowning baby unicorns perhaps?

8 Sea Turtle Eyeglass Frames

“Comfort and refinement go hand in hand,” the website of France-based manufacturer Maison Bonnet reads. Matching its suspect morals with even more suspect English, it continues: “They provide the harmony between the model and the individual face, the true luxury of handmade glasses. Traditional handcrafting is essential. Only a firm hand can do justice to a one-off item.”

Harmony? Justice? I’m not sure the sea turtle butchered to make the spectacles frames would think so. An alarming example of how accepted this practice still is, Maison Bonnet goes on to namedrop famous customers, including two French Presidents: Francois Mitterrand and, more recently, Jacques Chirac.

The lingering legality of making products from sea turtle shells in certain areas has, unsurprisingly, spurned illicit poaching in other places. For example, last year, it was reported that traffickers were capturing and shipping thousands of sea turtles from Florida to Asia and other markets, where some can fetch up to $10,000. Over the years, the trade has caused the deaths of millions of turtles to make such frivolities as combs, eyeglass frames, guitar picks, ornaments and cheap jewelry.

Utilizing certain animals for food or clothing is one thing, but do we really need to be making extraneous items from slaughtered animals? Regardless, Maison Bonnet claims that its production process “totally respects the natural cycle of the sea turtles.” A sea turtle could not be reached for comment.

7 Ivory products

Given the worldwide fervor over the ivory trade – a matter made urgent due to the severely endangered animals whose deaths fuel it, especially elephants – it’s easy to assume that underdeveloped countries with ineffective law enforcement would have the most difficult time policing the globally-banned practice.

But surprisingly, among the biggest drivers of the illegal ivory trade is… Japan, one of the most advanced, law-abiding nations on Earth. The reason is something incredibly mundane: a signature-substituting seal. Called hankos: the small stamps are used in lieu of signatures for anything from opening a bank account to signing an employment contract.

According to Hideki Arami, a third-generation hanko carver with a shop in Tokyo’s busy Shibuya district, the best hanko ivory comes from the center of the tusk, where the bone is firm and flawless. What a wonderful reason for bringing multiple species to the verge of extinction.

Selling ivory legally entails proving that it isn’t new, meaning it was “harvested” before poaching was banned in 1989. Per the African Wildlife Foundation, while Japanese law states ivory tusks must be registered before a sale, the process has remained notoriously lenient. Owners often do not need to provide verifiable proof of how, where, or when tusks were acquired – opening the door for illegal ivory to enter Japan’s legal marketplace.

6 Animal Products in Perfume

Wearing perfume? Then you’re probably spraying liquified fauna on yourself. Animal parts are still widely used as ingredients in various fragrances.

One example is civet, a catlike animal with a long tail and pointed snout native to Africa and much of Asia. Its perineal glands produce a crude, buttery-yellow paste that turns darker with age. At full strength, the tincture smells fecal and nauseating, but when diluted it has a floral scent. Civets are “farmed and harvested” (read: born imprisoned and slaughtered en masse) at facilities in Ethiopia, with their paste exported to perfumeries in Europe and North America.

Like leathery scents? Then you’re likely wearing beaver taint. Vintage leathery notes are typically achieved via castoreum, which comes from the castor sacs of beavers, who use it to mark territory. After killing the beaver, harvesters smoke or sun-dry the paste-filled castor sacs, which come to resemble dried figs (yum!). The paste’s aroma eventually mellows into the smell of sweet, clean leather.

The hyrax, an African species resembling a large guinea pig, is another furry critter with perfume-centric secretions. Often called “African stone,” hyraceum forms when the animals’ urine and feces (they live together in colonies, and typically relieve themselves in a common area) petrifies. Luckily for the hyrax, this process takes hundreds of thousands of years, meaning their contribution to the perfume industry doesn’t carry a death sentence.

These animal materials were once used in huge doses in fragrances such as Miss Dior and No 5 and they continue to be used to this day in many perfumes across the industry.

5 Bone China

Bone china is a type of porcelain made from a significant amount – at least 30%, but usually closer to 50% – of animal bone ash. Why bone? Because it makes for an especially strong ceramic that offers premium chip resistance and high levels of whiteness and translucence. Among other benefits, the sturdiness provided by bone ash allows bone china to be produced in thinner cross-sections than other porcelains.

From its initial development in the early 1800s, bone china has historically been a British product; in fact, the term “English porcelain” often refers to bone china. In most cases, the bone comes from cows, though pig bone also may be used – prompting Middle East manufacturers to make halal versions that are verified cow-only.

So, is bone china ethical? Proponents argue that it basically just uses the bones of animals already set to be slaughtered for meat. Critics counter that, while less problematic than, for example, killing polar bears for sport or sea turtles for eyeglasses, bone china is simply an unnecessary animal-derived item. In addition to doing no favors to the animals, opponents contend, bone china imposes on vegetarians and people who avoid animal products.

In addition, human bone ash has been identified on rare occasions, and no one wants to eat off of great-grandma.

4 Industrial Cattle Production

Despite their growing ranks, animal rights activists calling for completely ending meat-eating remain overwhelmingly in the minority. Among other issues, such posturing and proselytising ignores the fact that humans are naturally omnivores – eaters of both fauna and flora.

However, a more understandable candidate for cancellation is the way some meat is produced. For example, the American livestock stream is awash in antibiotics, used to keep cows and pigs in unhygienic, tightly-packed factory farms “healthy.” Not only is this indicative of the filthy, crowded conditions these animals experience, but also adds to the growing problem of bacterial resistance due to antibiotics overuse. A worrisome 13.6 million kilograms of antibiotics are used for US livestock each year, nearly four times the amount distributed for direct human consumption.

A legitimate case also can be made that humanity is eating too MUCH meat. More than six million animals are killed for human consumption every hour; in one lifetime, the average American will consume the equivalent of 11 cows, 27 pigs, and 2,400 chickens.

Another reasonable concern is the meat industry’s contributions to global warming: animal agriculture is responsible for an estimated 18% of global climate change. Each day, cows alone produce 150 billion gallons of methane, which is 25-100 times more heat-trapping than carbon dioxide. That’s right: cow farts are a flatulent factor in climate change.

3 Industrial Poultry Production

As concerning as some meat sector practices are, the fashion in which the United States produces poultry deserves an entry all its own.

Again, the issue here isn’t a total chicken-eating ban. The idea that we’re close to replacing real chicken with the sort of highly-processed, often high-calorie plant-based concoctions popularized as beef and pork substitutes is nonsense. Besides, faux chicken is notoriously harder to create, with most products discontinued.

Regardless, poultry often is raised in highly problematic conditions and, given its food industry track record, the US is unsurprisingly among the most blameworthy. Each year, America produces more than 44 billion pounds of chicken. That’s a lotta wings.

However, the trade off for making that much meat is truly horrific conditions for the chickens. US chickens are typically raised in crowded coops covered in droppings and devoid of sunlight. There, the birds are aggressively force fed to meet Americans’ ever-growing demand for cheap meat. Over their two-month lifespan, chickens grow so rapidly that their joints, legs, hearts and lungs are significantly compromised.

After slaughter, US factory chickens are rinsed in chlorine. And if you’re wondering whether blasting a food product with a dangerous chemical is problematic… well, join the rest of the world. Many countries ban the import of US poultry for this reason and, recently, Brits cried foul (or rather, fowl) over a backroom deal that allowed US chickens into the UK food stream in exchange for a broader post-Brexit US-UK trade deal.

2 Fur Farms

Humans have been turning furry animals into clothing for millennia. So as with the loud-but-miniscule minority who want to disallow all meat-eating, animal activists who want to cancel all dead animal-derived clothing – such as fur coats and leather – are unlikely to prevail anytime soon – though they certainly help the polluting paint manufacturers with all that red paint they buy!

However, one aspect of fur clothing is particularly problematic: fur farms, which raise foxes and minks in cramped, cruel conditions for the singular reason of fattening them up for maximum fur production. The first two sentences of an investigative report by the Humane Society are so powerful that they’re difficult to read:

“By the end of his life, the arctic fox, just 1 year old, has grown so large he barely fits in the bare wire cage on a farm in Asia. Overbred to produce a big pelt, he suffers from an eye condition made worse by obesity: His lashes grow inward and scratch constantly against his cornea.”

Estimates vary, but all available figures would place the number of foxes and minks slaughtered on fur farms in the tens of millions annually. In a developed world that has largely banned the commercial killing of dogs and cats (except for South Korea, which should be ashamed of itself because dogs aren’t food, ever, full stop), the idea that similar animals are being factory farmed for something as frivolous as fur is difficult to justify – and that’s putting it kindly.

1 Puppy Mills

The Sato Project is a nonprofit dog rescue organization headquartered in southeastern Puerto Rico. Its mission is to save as many of the 300,000 stray dogs that roam the Connecticut-sized Caribbean island. The Sato Project team manages to feed, shelter, vet and ultimately fly more than a thousand dogs per year to forever homes on the US mainland (including one lucky sato, Vector, who joined this author’s family in 2013).

Multiply Puerto Rico’s plight by thousands, and you begin to scratch the surface of the number of desperate dogs in need of good homes. Against such a backdrop, the fact that pully mills still exist is, simply, disgusting and unacceptable.

A puppy mill is a commercial dog breeding facility in which the health of dogs is disregarded to maintain a low overhead and maximize profits. There are an estimated 10,000 puppy mills in the US alone, catering to customers who, for whatever reason, simply must have a pure breed or designer dog (oh cool! It’s another f*cking Labradoodle!).

While there are laws regulating facilities that sell to pet stores and through certain online forums, nothing can be done about black market operations that sell directly to consumers. The only way to eliminate puppy mills is for people to stop being so choosy about breeds and simply give a needy dog the home it deserves.

10 Insane Decisions That Nearly Ruined Pop Culture Classics

You might think cancel culture is a relatively new invention. Social media, particularly Twitter, seems to be obsessed with trying to get conservative people banished from their fields of work. These social media pile-ons often have no effect. Some celebrities have successfully manipulated cancel culture for personal gain and used their online notoriety as a way to play the victim.

But cancel culture existed long before the internet was born and “progressives” took the helm. For years, people have used spurn and blacklists to attack those who dare to rock the boat of public opinion. Throughout history, people have been “canceled” because of their gender, the color of their skin, or because they disagreed with the powers that be. Often they faced much worse than an online hate mob or being dropped from Netflix. They were thrown out of their homes, firebombed, even burned at the stake. From historical rewritings to Hollywood blacklists, the trend of cancel culture has a rich and varied past. Here are ten notable examples.

Top 10 Things Cancel Culture Has (surprisingly) Not Canceled Yet

10 Ostracism in Ancient Athens

Some of the earliest known examples of people being canceled date back over two thousand years. In the 5th century B.C., the Ancient Greeks used to practice ostracism, where wrongdoers were sent into exile by popular vote. Cleisthenes – the “father of Athenian democracy” – is widely regarded to have created the punishment.

Every year, the people of Athens would be asked if they wanted to ostracize anyone. If they voted in favor, they would meet in the public agora to hold an election. Under the watchful eye of the council, citizens would etch the name of the person they wanted to be thrown out of the city into a shard of broken pottery. Each fragment was known as ‘ostrakon’ – from which the word ostracism was born.

The shards were collected in an urn and counted. It took at least 6000 total votes for the process to be valid. Athenian officials would then sort the shards into piles, and whoever received the most votes was banished from the city. They were given ten days to prepare themselves and warned that they would be killed if they tried to return. The punishment would last for ten years, after which they would be allowed back into Athens.

Records suggest that around thirteen men were ostracized from Athens between 487 and 416 B.C. Some of those were pardoned and returned to the city before they had served their full decade, like Xanthippus and Aristides who were let back in to help fight the Persians in 479 B.C.

One of the most notable people to be kicked out of Athens was renowned politician Themistocles. It is said that Themistocles’ power went to his head and that he was ostracized to curb his arrogance. As the historian Plutarch explained, ostracism “was not a penalty, but a way of pacifying and alleviating that jealousy which delights to humble the eminent, breathing out its malice into this disfranchisement.”^[1]

9 Michael Servetus, the Theologian burned by protestants for Heresy

Born in Spain, Michael Servetus was one of the most controversial religious teachers of the 16th century. He was an outspoken critic of the Church who developed his own theories about the Holy Trinity and astrology. But his ideas outraged both Catholics and Protestants and he was forced to publish them in secret.

Like people today who dare to disagree with public opinion, Servetus received a barrage of hate. But the theologian’s fate was far more severe than a digital slap on the wrist or a bike-lock to the head. When a French inquisitor discovered his letters, Servetus was accused of heresy, forcing him to flee. He escaped Catholic France and ended up in Calvinist Geneva where, in 1553, he was captured and burned at the stake for his non-protestant ideas.^[2]

8 The Hollywood Blacklist

The Hollywood Blacklist was the cancel culture of the 1940s and 50s. During the Second World War, the US had teamed up with the communist Soviet Union to fight the national socialists. But after the war ended, anti-communist views began to spread across the states. People feared that pro-Soviets were infiltrating the US media to push global socialism.

It reached such a furor that Hollywood began banning workers who were rumored to have far-left political views. In 1947, the HUAC started to look into the influence of communism on the film industry. Ten workers who refused to give evidence to the committee were thrown out of their jobs and each served a short jail sentence. The HUAC continued its paranoid investigation through the 50s, blacklisting workers who they suspected of subversion.

But perhaps the HUAC had ulterior motives. In the 1940s, lawyer Wendell Willkie showed that certain US politicians were using communist paranoia as a ploy to target Jews. Although they claimed to be motivated by patriotism, Willkie proved that some investigators seemed to be far more interested in starting an anti-Semitic witch hunt in Hollywood. My how the worm has turned!^[3]

7 Percy Julian, the Black Chemist Scrubbed from History

For years, people tried to erase the legacy of Percy Julian. The Alabama-born chemist faced multiple setbacks throughout his life due to his skin color. Even though his pioneering work saved numerous people’s lives, Julian is still a relatively unknown figure in US history.

Educated at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, in 1923 he became the first African American to earn a master’s degree in chemistry from Harvard University. However, Harvard refused to let him study for a PhD on racial grounds, so he completed his doctorate in Vienna.

Julian then returned to the US and tried to pursue a career in academia, but again racial prejudice stopped him from progressing. So he moved to the business world where he pioneered new uses for soybean chemicals. One chemical helped produce fire-retardant foam in fire extinguishers and saved the lives of thousands of soldiers during the Second World War. He also found a way to create artificial hormones. Due to his research, ludicrously expensive drugs suddenly became affordable for millions of people.

Julian’s work meant he could move his family to a better-off suburb in Illinois, but they were despised by many of their white neighbors. They faced several attacks – including arson and someone firebombing their house – but Julian and his wife refused to move. By the time he died from liver cancer, aged 76, he was a millionaire.^[4]

6 Lise Meitner, the Female Nuclear Physicist Pushed Out and Persecuted

Lise Meitner was a pioneer of nuclear physics. She should have made history as one of the first two people to explain the process of nuclear fission. But the Austrian trailblazer was never given the credit that people say she deserved. In 1945, when her collaborator Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize, Meitner’s contribution was sadly overlooked by the judges.

Besides her gender, it was the threat of the Nazi Party that ultimately led to Meitner being canceled. When Hitler’s regime annexed Austria in 1938, Jewish-born Meitner left Vienna and moved to Stockholm. There, one historian wrote, she was given “laboratory space but no collaborators, equipment, or technical support, not even her own set of keys.” She had to meet with Hahn in secret to continue their work exploring the behavior of uranium.^[5]

5 Ignaz Semmelweis, Hand-Washing Pioneer Committed to an Asylum

Ignaz Semmelweis should have been a medical hero, but his colleagues’ pride got in the way. The Hungarian doctor was the first person to advocate that people wash their hands.

During the 1840s, Semmelweis decided to explore the unusually high number of women dying from childbed fever. He studied two maternity wards at the General Hospital in Vienna. One ward was run by doctors and medical students; the other was staffed by midwives. Semmelweis quickly discovered that the death rate on the first ward was five times higher than that on the second ward. But, for a long time, he was unable to explain the disparity.

It turned out the key difference was that the doctors were carrying out autopsies. Semmelweis theorized that students were getting tiny pieces of corpses stuck to their hands, which then infected the pregnant women on the ward. Of course, we now understand that disease is spread by germs and not by pieces of dead bodies, but pathogens were barely understood at the time.

On Semmelweis’ orders, medical staff began washing their hands with chlorine and the death rate soon fell. The Hungarian scientist should have become the founding father of modern hygiene. But he did not.

You see, people at the hospital were not impressed by Semmelweis’ discovery. They thought it made them seem guilty of infecting women on the ward. Certain accounts also suggest that Semmelweis was a difficult man to work with. In the end, his colleagues hit back and he was kicked out of the hospital. By 1865, he had been sent to a mental asylum where he was beaten and, in a sad twist of irony, probably died of infection.^[6]

4 The Victorians and their Wild Cancel Culture

Cancel culture in the 1800s was brutal, far worse than the online pile-ons of today. Respected Victorians spent much of their lives locked in feuds. Some of them put an enormous amount of energy into trying to destroy each other’s reputation. Oscar Wilde often clashed with the Marquess of Queensberry, once publicly smearing him as a “foul thing” who “assailed” the world of academia.

Thomas Edison’s supporters wanted to cancel his rival George Westinghouse. They tried to make sure that his reputation would always be associated with the murder of animals. They used Westinghouse’s invention of alternating current to kill dogs, horses, even an elephant, hoping they could smear the entrepreneur.

But perhaps the worst was paleontologist Richard Owen. Owen had a long-standing rivalry with fellow dinosaur expert Gideon Mantell. When Mantell took his own life in 1852, Owen somehow got hold of his spine. He had it pickled and displayed it at the Royal College of Surgeons in London.^[7]

3 Galileo Galilei, Dared to Disagree with the Church

Galileo Galilei is an eminent figure in scientific history. Although he started out studying medicine, he soon changed fields and became an expert in maths and physics. Throughout his life, he looked into the speed of falling objects, mechanics, and pendulums.

But, apart from his iconic mention in Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Galilei is probably best remembered for his contribution to astronomy. In 1609, he created a telescope and began to study the Solar System. The Italian professor was one of the first people to suggest that the Earth orbited around the Sun.

Unfortunately, not being content to simply publish his additions to the already well-establish and Church-accepted Copernican theory, Galileo declared it proved the Church and Bible wrong. Galilei was convicted of heresy and died under house arrest in his villa near Florence.^[8]

2 Cultural Imperialism, the Canceling of Entire Cultures

Most of the time, when people talk about cancel culture, they are referring to something that might have an impact on one person or a handful of people. But, as several historians have pointed out, there are numerous examples of entire cultures being canceled.^[9]

European colonizers were notorious for destroying the cultures of the countries they took over. When Britain colonized India, they erased much of the existing heritage and imprinted their cultural dominance. The British colonizers often claimed that they were “civilizing” the natives. The same rhetoric was used by German officials who set about to “Prussify” the Slavic people of Eastern Europe. It was also mirrored by the European empires in their treatment of Native Americans.^[10]

1 Alan Turing, the Computer Scientists Persecuted for being a homosexual

Born in London, Alan Turing is remembered as one of the fathers of modern computing. His work at Bletchley Park played a pivotal role in Britain’s victory during the Second World War. As part of the Government Code and Cypher School, he used statistics and logic to decode secret Nazi messages sent using the Enigma machines. Historians say that his ground-breaking work saved more military lives than anyone else in the history of warfare.

But Turing had a deep secret. He was gay at a time when homosexuality was outlawed. Under Britain’s oppressive sexuality laws, the great mathematician was sentenced to a year of estrogen injections. British intelligence started to grow suspicious of his work, solely because he was gay. He died of potassium cyanide poisoning in 1954. An inquest found that he had administered the poison himself.^[11]

+ German Book Burnings

Myth: The National Socialists (Nazis) burned books. Truth: it was university students and it occurred on exactly two occasions in 1933. Effectively the German Students Union which supported the principles of national Socialism organised protests against the Institute of Sex Research which was studying transgenderism and even performing transexual operations (the famous Lily Elbe was a victim of one of their early surgeries in fact). The students destroyed all of the literature of the group and other “un-German” materials in a public book burning.

Today’s book burnings are mostly (though not always, as the feminists burning anti-feminist books in the above picture illustrates) digital cancellations of “un-progressives” but the perpetrators and principles remain the same. Young angry extremist students of our time may be more discreet, but the outcome is not.

It is somewhat ironic that the institute and its leader, Magnus Hirschfeld, were supporters of cultural Marxism, the theories and principles of which are now firmly entrenched in and form the backbone of much of the education in our universities—the source of cancel culture.^[12]

Interestingly book burnings had also happened 120 years earlier in the 1817 German celebrations in Wartburg for the 300th anniversary of protestant Martin Luther’s posting of his anti-Catholic “95 theses” in the 16th century.

Top 10 Plans Hitler Would Have Put In Motion If The Nazis Had Won