“Sunday Morning Ethics With Ethics Alarms,” 2/5/2023: Embarrassing…

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Great thanks to my friend and Ethics Alarms reader Jeff Westlake for reminding me of the prescient and relevant episode from one of my all-time favorite (and shamelessly silly) sitcoms, “F-Troop.” That was “Crazy Cat” prodding the Hekawi chief; he took the place of medicine man “Roaring Chicken” Edward Everett Horton in the show’s final season (in color!) when the great old character actor became too ill in his eighties.

More spy balloon humor: one Twitter wag said that shooting down the Chinese balloon was the first thing the Biden administration had done to successfully combat inflation.

1 Regarding today’s headline: Not all that long ago, I used to watch as much of all the Sunday talking head programs on CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS and CNN (skipping Fox News and MSNBC because they were so one-note and shrill). Now I can’t watch any of them. All five shifted to full-partisan bias in 2016, and it just intensified since then. Even the evidence that Donna Brazile had used her role as a CNN “contributor” to let Hillary Clinton get advance notice of questions in a town meeting didn’t stop her from being featured as a pundit. George Stephanopoulos screaming Clinton conflict of interest continued to be ignored by ABC, and he stopped even trying to hide it. Chuck Todd turned “Meet the Press” into an hour-long infomercial for Democrats, and “Reliable Sources” under Brian Stelter became a literal fraud, an unethical media ethics show. I miss those shows, just like I miss journalism that at least tried to be informative, fair and ethical. Wouldn’t you think just one would have concluded that it would be wise to contrast with the others by actually being objective, rather than being indistinguishable?

2. Now that I’m reminded of our Native Americans so soon after this super-woke idiot complained about the Washington Redskins, the presence of the Kansas City Chiefs in the upcoming Super Bowl has once again triggered the Indian team names and mascots Nazis, notably in Kansas City itself. KCUR, the PBS affiliate in KC, published a story  on its website last week titled,  “As Kansas City Chiefs head to the Super Bowl, their violent traditions alienate even some local fans.” Violent traditions? What violent traditions? Do Chief fans traditionally try to massacre the fans of their opponents? No, the “violence” referred to is the “tomahawk” chop gesture the fans sometimes perform in the stands, like the home fans of baseball’s Atlanta Braves. You know, violence to the air. Or something. The petty, silly and obnoxious feature quotes Rhonda DeValdo, an activist and professor from Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas: Continue reading →

Good: The 5th Circuit Strikes Down An Unconstitutional And Slippery Slope Gun Control Law

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

A three judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit struck down a law requiring objects of domestic violence restraining orders to surrender their guns. Good.

The law is a Federal statute. The plaintiff, Zackey Rahimi, was convicted of possessing a firearm while he was subject to a domestic violence restraining order. His convictionhad been upheld by the district court and a prior Fifth Circuit panel. Following the Supreme Court of the United States’ Bruen (2022) decision, the Fifth Circuit panel “withdrew its opinion and requested supplemental briefing on the impact of that case on this one.” After reconsidering Rahimi’s case in light of Bruen, the Fifth Circuit panel reversed itself and vacated Rahimi’s conviction.

The statute makes it unlawful…

“for any person[] who is subject to a court order that: was issued after a hearing of which such person received actual notice, and at which such person had an opportunity to participate; (B) restrains such person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner of such person or child of such intimate partner or person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child; and (C)(i) includes a finding that such person represents a credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner or child; or (ii) by its terms explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury . . . to . . . possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition . . . .

The panel consisted of Judges Edith Jones, James Ho, and Cory T. Wilson. Judge Wilson wrote: Continue reading →

From The Ethics Alarms Life Competence Files: “Learn To Throw And Catch Keys!”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

That’s young Canadian woman Renée Lariviere above, before and after her weird injury. She was leaving her apartment to go to dinner and reportedly asked a friend to toss her the car keys.  As she awkwardly grabbed the keys as they hurtled through the air, she managed to jerk them into her face. The result was that the business end of a key, as resulting  X-rays revealed, was embedded nearly two inches into her nasal cavity and below her eye.

The car key was successfully extracted—get face started right up! (sorry)—and thanks to plastic surgery, she now doesn’t even have a scar. However, this was, I think all were agree, an accident that never should have happened. Who was her key-throwing friend, Roger Clemens? These are all basic life lessons:

  • Learn to catch. It’s an essential life skill. Practice. (My wife has never caught anything I’ve tossed to her, including keys. Ever. I stopped trying long, long ago.)
  • Learn what “toss” means. (Hint: it does not mean, “Whip it at me!”)
  • If you can’t catch, don’t ask people, even friends, to throw things to you or at you.
  • If you don’t know if someone can catch, don’t throw anything to them or at them, Walk over and hand it to them.
  • One tosses keys underhanded, like a softball. Although, given Renée’s apparent hand-eye coordination, even that kind of toss might have ended with her wounded, only with the keys impaled in the top of her head.

Saturday In The Great Stupid Continues: The “Waiting For Godot” Catch-22

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I love this dispatch from The Great Stupid! It has everything…

  • It involves a theater production…
  • It’s woke academia at its worst…
  • Copyright and artistic integrity principles are at issue..
  • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mania is at its core…
  • It’s another “It isn’t what it is” (Yoo’s Rationalization) classic….
  • It didn’t happen here, but I could easily see it happening here, and…
  • It’s really, really, really stupid.

A bit of background: Samuel Beckett, the late Irish novelist and playwright of Theater of the Absurd fame ,best known for his minimalist drama and “Waiting For Godot” in particular, was a cantankerous old coot who didn’t trust directors (with good cause, say I), and directed them in his texts to change neither lines nor character, or risk legal action. Edward Albee was similarly strict on this point, having seen what happens to plays in the public domain (like Shakespeare’s works) when far less talented “artists” decide to make them “relevant.” So if you are going to produce a Beckett play, it’s Beckett’s way or the metaphorical highway.

Oisín Moyne, a fellow countryman of Beckett, was directing “Waiting for Godot” in the Netherlands and auditioned only men for the all-male cast of characters, as he was legally and artistically obligated to do. the college production been in rehearsals since November and was due to be presented at the University of Groningen’s Usva student cultural center in March. (Don’t ask me how or why it would take more than three months to rehearse this play, which primarily involves two guys sitting around talking, but never mind.) Continue reading →

Plumbing The Depths Of The Great Stupid: I Usually Don’t Continue Reading Articles That Start With First Sentences Like This One, Missing Out On Hilarious Race-Obsessed Delusions…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Before we delve into the substance of the article at issue, let me express my gratitude to author David Kaufman for giving me another opportunity to post a brilliant cartoon by one of my heroes, New Yorker satirist/philosopher/humorist Charles Addams. If you read here often, you have seen his work highlighted periodically because it is so often appropriate. In this case, that cartoon above, which made me laugh out loud when I first saw it as a high school student, immediately leapt to mind when I read that Kaufman believes the little white figures in the “walk/don’t walk” traffic lights represent white people.

Did anyone, at the New Yorker, among its readers, among the millions of people who have seen that creepy but very funny drawing in the best-selling collections of Addams’ mordant humor think for a second that it had anything to do with race? No, because it didn’t, doesn’t, and until quite recently, before The Great Stupid spread hate, fear, darkness and toxic cretinism over the land, nobody would be so woke-mad and brainwashed to see racism in everything that they would come to such a bonkers conclusion. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Marie Osmond’s Formula For Responsible Parenting When You’re Filthy Rich

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Pop star Marie Osmond, seen above apparently being eaten by the same plant mass that devoured Barack Obama in his awful portrait that became a source of a scandal narrative, has announced that she will not be bestowing any of her current wealth, estimated to be about $20 million, on her 8 children or 8 grandchildren.

“Honestly, why would you enable your child to not try to be something? I don’t know anybody who becomes anything if they’re just handed money,” she said last month in an interview. “To me, the greatest gift you can give your child is a passion to search out who they are inside and to work. I mean, I’ve done so many things… I love trying. I wanna try everything,” she added.

Further parenting wisdom from Marie, whose plan is to spend what she has with husband Steve Craig and give whatever is left to charity when she goes to that big Osmond Reunion in the sky: “I just think all [an inheritance] does is breed laziness and entitlement. I worked hard and I’m gonna spend it all and have fun with my husband…” and she says she doesn’t want to set the stage for her heirs to fight over her estate. Marie has said that her role model in this conviction was actor Kirk Douglas, who reportedly left none of his wealth, estimated to be three times Osmond’s, to Michael (who was rich already).

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is… Continue reading →

The Race-Baiting, Divisive, Unprofessional, Unethical “Squad”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

What an embarrassment….to the Democrats, to Congress, to the nation, to women especially….and this display ought to embarrass anyone who voted for these three  blights on the Republic.

At least Rep. Omar, in the process of lying and playing victim to challenge her expulsion from the House Foreign Relations Committee, nearly stayed within the (unfortunately) acceptable range of elected official conduct—cynical grandstanding, claiming that she didn’t do what she did, you know, the usual.Though I must say, her sudden affection for Israel as she faced the just desserts of her repeated adoption of anti-Jewish stereotypes and rhetoric was breathtakingly hypocritical even for Congress. Risibly, Omar joined more than 30 House Democrats voting “yes” on a new resolution “recognizing Israel as America’s legitimate and democratic ally and condemning antisemitism.” Huh! lhan Omar has had many opportunities during her time in Congress to support America’s greatest ally in the Middle East, and did the opposite. Who knew Omar was such a fan of Israel after all?

I’m sure it was just a coincidence that what NBC News hackily calls her “evolution” happened as she was facing the consequences of her open anti-Semitic bigotry. Continue reading →

From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: This Isn’t Diversity. This Isn’t Inclusion. This Isn’t LGBTQ Respect…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

This is cruel and stupid.

And unethical.

The organizers of an international figure skating event in Finland last week decided to show their oneness with the times, known at Ethics Alarms as “The Great Stupid,” by featuring Markku-Pekka Antikainen in the opening ceremony of the ISU European Figure Skating Championships. Antikainen is a 59-year-old man who at age 50 decided to “transition” and become a female figure skater. He would have been just as successful aspiring to be a bunch of carrots. His skating name, which he will presumably use when he is featured in “Disney on Ice” (can you really say with confidence that that won’t happen?), is Minna-Maaria Antikainen. Continue reading →

Today’s Depressing Note…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The local Fox affiliate had a story this morning about a woman who found a bag full of money, thousands of dollars.

“You won’t believe what happened next!,” the newsreader teased!

What? Was she killed by mobsters? Was it a magic bag, and she turned into a cockroach? What? What was so unbelievable?

She handed the money over to the police instead of keeping it, as, apparently, the reporters would have done  and assumed “normal” viewers would do as well.

(Oh–the police located the newlyweds who had dropped their bag of money….the morons.)