The Story of Cosmetics, Personal Responsibility and Corporate Pride

1. CONSUMER

Environmental alarmist Annie Leonard returns to the world of online video with “The Story of Cosmetics.”

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Bureaucrash Crasher-in-Chief Lee Doren offers a great video rebuttal of Leonard’s video.

“So Annie Leonard, the creator of ‘The Story of Stuff,’ is back scaring people with her new video ‘The Story of Cosmetics.’ She made many claims in her newest video that require me to conduct quite a bit of research. [My] video will rebut many of her claims based on peer-reviewed scientific studies.”

2. LEGAL

A Baltimore woman receives no jail time after starving her 1-year-old son to death as part of a religious observance.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Attorney Hans Bader discusses this story and the disturbing questions it raises. 

“Being deprived of water and food is an agonizingly painful way to die, but that’s what Ria Ramkissoon did to her 1-year-old son Javon to punish him for refusing to say grace before meals, which the tiny child was unable to do. All she got was a suspended sentence. No religious influence could justify such wanton cruelty or make it anything other than aggravated murder and torture.”

3. ENVIRONMENT

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico calls into question conventional ideas of “corporate social responsibility.”

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Strategy Iain Murray on how business leaders should respond to anti-corporate challenges.

“So what is left?  We at CEI have been arguing for years that corporations need to do what they did en masse in the 1930s, the last time corporations came under as heavy attack as they are now, and legitimize their activities.  They need to point out the good that they are doing, how oil creates opportunities and wealth we would not have without it, for instance.  Apologetic advertising or pretending to be something they are not needs to be a thing of the past.”