Sweeney, the shapely and bold young actress who already angered the Left with her jeans/genes ad that supposedly dog whistled white supremacy, is now getting attacked by the Mad Left for the video above. She’s objectifying female athletes, you see. Or something. Because women athletes have never used sexual attractiveness to promote themselves and their sports…
Hey, how did pro-golfer Paige Spiranac get in there? Away with you, Devil Woman!
Now where were we? Oh yes, Sydney Sweeney….
I was going to write about another one of the aspiring Incompetent Elected Officials (probably this idiot) but decided that a current incompetent in the House needs another call out. Yes, it’s Nancy Mace. Again.
Mace, in an interview with TMZ, called for Lindsay Clancy not only to be executed but publicly executed.
Incidentally, it’s also incompetent to agree to be interviewed by TMZ.
“Her children are dead, she should be dead too,” said Mace, a 48-year-old mother of two who was not in the courtroom and has no business shooting off her mouth about a criminal trial in which the accused is supposed to be fairly tried without public figures trying to sway the jury pools and render a verdict without evidence. “She should get the death penalty. It should be public. It should be a public execution.” She also said Clancy “deserves nothing less.”
Uh, Nancy? How does a public execution punish the condemned any more than any other execution? A public execution punishes the public and society, by lowering the standards of civilization to those of the 19th Century, or the Middle Ages. “It could be by firearm, it could be electric chair, I don’t really care,” this lunatic ranted. “She’s a serial killer” and such an execution would serve as a “warning to women everywhere — you don’t kill your kids.”
Can we get technical for a minute, not that Mace cares about little details like the law and vocabulary? Killing three people, adult or child, in the same incident is not a serial killing. I also don’t think an obviously disturbed, though not necessarily legally insane, woman is the correct vehicle for the “Don’t kill your kids” message. Now, public executions of serial killers of their unborn babies, women who have multiple abortions, would send that message, but it would be, you know, unconstitutional in multiple ways.
Also, several news sources, like this one, wrote that Clancy “allegedly” killed her three children. No, she did it, guys, there’s no dispute about it. There is no “allegedly.” Oh, and back to TMZ: do you know what that “news for dumb 15-year -olds” outlet took away from Mace’s interview? “Nancy Mace Uses Offensive Slur While Calling For Lindsay Clancy’s Public Execution.” Guess what the “slur” was?
“Retarded.” The Horror.
A Congresswoman calls for public executions, but what was really outrageous is that she used a politically incorrect term to do it.
Maybe Mace is competent enough to be a leader in this increasingly silly and ignorant country.
The whole “Dreamer” thing seemed like classic liberal sentimental hogwash from the start, because it was, ethically, logically and legally. If illegal immigrants could be certain that their young children sneaking across the border when they did would suddenly become “good illegal immigrants” as soon as they approached majority and would be eligible for all sorts of benefits, that was just one more incentive for aliens to break our laws.
You may recall that President Obama issued an unconstitutional Executive Order to coddle the “Dreamers” that was struck down by the Supreme Court. I wrote at the time,
1. Phone Hold Music Ethics. DirecTV, which has bedeviled me, annoyed me and frustrated me for 30 years, had, all during that time, the worst on-hold music in human history. It was a scratchy recording of a high-pitched flute repeating the same unresolved bars over and over again. This selection was particularly crazy-making when DirecTV would, as was their wont, keep me waiting for ten minutes or more after telling me my wait time would be “less than two minutes.” Today I had an occasion to call the service again, and, mirabile dictu, the hold music is now a clear, crisp piano composition by Schubert. Small victories is all I have these days…
[Update: It wasn’t even a small victory! The new music was a tell: I was engaging with a fake DirecTV scammer. Irony: the lousy hold music helped make me check out the caller.]
2. More DirecTV…For weeks I have been getting robo calls from DirecTV telling me to call a phone number. Sometimes I would get ten such calls a day. As a matter of principle, I refuse to continue robocalls or the new AI calls in which a female voice begins with “Hello?” so I hang up, sometimes with a tart, “Bite me!” Finally I decided to call the number I had been getting ordered to call just to complain about being harassed. I then learned from the agent in Bangladesh or somewhere that because I had set some kind of record for legitimate complaints over the past six months (loss of signal, interruption in service, installment of equipment, incompetent agents, etc, etc.) I was receiving a special promotion to keep me from ditching the service like so many other subscribers apparently are. It will save me about 50 bucks a month for two years, so I’m not complaining. At least for now.
[Update: yes, this was a scam. I hate and distrust DirecTV so much that the ridiculously complicated script I was being read and the confusing payment process seemed consistent with my usual interactions.]
In 2023 I presented the Ethics Alarms “Do Something!” Scale, which was subsequently enhanced and expanded with suggestion from AM Golden and Michael West. Right now, in great part because one of our political parties depends on fearmongering as its primary campaign strategy, we have seen an increase in Doomsday scenarios regarding the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence technology, escalating protests, and various well-meaning prescriptions to save humanity, or something. A substack essay by Damien Charlotin has received a great deal of attention: you can read it here. It is thoughtful, erudite, thorough and deluded. The essay is also a typical “expert” reaction to “Do Something!” hysterics.
Here is the revised scale….
Ew.
Joanna Wietrzyk is the world champion of Hyrox, a sport I had never heard of before today and was not the worse for it. It is an indoor fitness competition where athletes alternate between completing eight 1km runs and eight workout stations until they win or drop. Wietrzyk won the age 16-24 elite event in Beijing over the weekend, but the stress of the ordeal caused her to have a diarrhea attack mid-race. Video online shows Wietrzyk with brown stuff running down her legs as she ran.
It isn’t that rare for athletes to have such accidents while competing in high-stress endurance events. Severe stomach cramps forced Paula Radcliffe, a champion marathon runner, to, uh, relieve herself by the side of the road during the 2005 London Marathon. In 1998, Ireland’s Catherina McKiernan had the same mishap while winning the same race. It isn’t only the endurance competitions either where such involuntary occurances happen. Kansas City Royals pitcher Craig Kimbrel vomited on the pitcher’s mound this month while playing baseball in extreme heat.
Oddly, participants and fans of an athletic event that they know puts competitors under extreme conditions revealed themselves as weenies after the Wietrzyk episode. One male competitor in Beijing wrote on Instagram: “For people who were exposed to that situation, there could be genuine physical and psychological consequences. I paid Hyrox to provide a professionally organised and safe event. [Yes, competitors pay an entrance fee] So while I understand the athlete perspective, ultimately my contract and expectation is with Hyrox. If the organisation accepts that something went wrong, why not offer affected participants refunds, credits, or some meaningful form of compensation?”
Other social media mobsters attacked the organizers and Joanna Wietrzyk. What, exactly, did they expect the competition to do in the name of avoiding “genuine physical and psychological consequences”? Drop a tarp over her? Call in a HAZMAT team? Hose her down as she ran?
It’s depressing, but most readers here have probably never heard of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. They were (and are still) the most acclaimed husband and wife acting team in theater history, legendary in the field.
If you have never heard of Lunt and Fontaine, I doubt that you’ll recognize the name of actor Cameron Mitchell, though he had a long, varied and successful career in movies and television. He was never considered a star: in his 1994 obituaries, Mitchell’s supporting role in the long-running TV western “The High Chaparral,” a “Bonanza” rip-off, usually dominated. I first took note of his talents when he appeared in a TV production of the drama “The Andersonville Trial” as Judge Advocate Lew Wallace. In interviews and in his autobiography, Mitchell told the story many times about a crucial moment in his career when the ethics heroism of the Lunts changed the course of his life.
Mitchell was a 21-year-old aspiring actor frustrated in his efforts to get cast in New York City. For two years he struggled to survive, taking dozens of dead-end jobs, like ushering at movie theaters, mail clerking, and washing dishes. Then Cameron Mitzell (his name before he changed it) saw the 1931 film adaptation of “The Guardsman” starring Alfred Lunt, and was overcome with resentment, feeling that the supposedly brilliant actor’s performance hadn’t shown that he deserved his exalted reputation. So Mitchell wrote what he later described as “the world’s worst letter.” Mitchell wrote Lunt the opposite of a fan letter; it was a “You stink! letter stating that he was certain that he was a better actor than Lunt, but no one would give him a chance to prove it. After listing the inadequacies of Lunt’s performance as he saw it, he concluded the letter by writing, “If you think you can act, you should see me.”
Far from being insulted, Lunt was intrigued by the writer’s confidence and audacity. He wrote back to Mitchell and offered him an opportunity to, as the saying goes,”put his money where is mouth is,” by auditioning for Lunt and his wife. Mitchell was terrified but wasn’t about to chicken out. He came to the auditions and immediately apologized to Lunt. Lynn Fontanne told him there was nothing to be sorry about. “Don’t worry about what you’ve done,” she said. “Acting is your life’s work, and you’re not only going to be a good actor, but you’re going to be a great one!” The Lunts then cast the young actor in their production of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” on Broadway. Fontaine also persuaded him to adopt the stage name, “Cameron Mitchell.”
Mitchell went on to be a successful working actor for more than five decades. And he made certain that at every opportunity he would tell the story of how he owed his career to the Lunts’ spontaneous act of support and kindness to a rude and cocky young actor.
This is one of my biases that I am certain is completely justified, and I’m not giving it up. It also is linked to the recent posts about why the U.S. hasn’t yet had a female President.
I am involved in a project right now anchored by two qualified, smart women. However, much of the time when they make a suggestion or a decision, they giggle afterwards, often looking to each other for affirmation and getting a return giggle in response. This habit does not enhance their status, respect within the group, or perceived effectiveness, indeed quite the opposite. I have been observing this behavior, with alarm and disdain, for most of my life.
In my family, the women did not giggle, cackle, or feel it necessary to defuse their opinions with inappropriate laughter. As a result, I was puzzled when I started noticing the practice, which must be ancient: in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta “The Mikado,” the “Three Little Maids from School” giggle to punctuate their famous song. For heaven’s sake, why?
One online forum on the question concluded that women giggle as “a natural physical and emotional response to nervousness, polite social easing, shared humor, or romantic attraction.” Giggling is a gender-based coping mechanism for anxiety, stress, or embarrassment; in short, it signals insecurity. I know that is my reaction to it: when a woman follows a statement with a giggle that isn’t a response to humor, I think that she isn’t confident and is girding herself for rejection.
Women have also been socialized from girlhood to think that the male of the species finds the rote light laughter appealing, in part because it sends a message of submissiveness and determination not to offend.
Boy, did the women in the Marshall family not share that theory.
In a Medium essay from 2023, Emma Radmilovic wrote of giggling in part,
I noticed myself doing it when I spoke to colleagues, friends, acquaintances…it was incessant.Then, I started noticing it in the women around me.
I have one friend who laughs loudly at the end of her sentences, but only when she’s trying to be assertive or make a point. The giggling obviously has the opposite effect, and leaves her listeners (me included) a bit confused. Is it supposed to be funny? Is she upset, or nervous, or confused, or all those things at once? It makes her sound more friendly, sure, but it robs her sentences of the intended effect…Somewhere along the line, my brain said — if you giggle at the end of sentences you will seem more likable! It will stop the end of your sentences from sounding harsh! It will cover any awkwardness or nervousness you feel! Oh, and you’ll sound like a complete weirdo, but that’s a small price to pay to come across as amiable surely?
…It reminds me of how many women feel the need to say sorry so often, or use too many exclamation points in communications to maintain a positive tone. Chalk it up to years of being told to be mindful about “how you come across.”
How giggling women “come across” to me is as lacking confidence and character, people trying to force themselves into roles where, deep down, they don’t believe they belong.
If you want your daughter to grow up to be President, teach her not to giggle. It won’t be enough all by itself, but its a start.
White leftists are the only groups that considers the natural human preference for one’s own ethnic group to be wrong, toxic, racist and a mark of bigotry.
This certainly shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been paying attention for the past, oh, 50 years or so.
Now what?
My reflex instinct is to presume that a group that vilifies those who display natural human characteristics that are not only permitted for everyone else but extolled (“I want to see performers/ elected officials/ judges/ Cabinet members/ etc. who look like me!”) is an unethical group.
Is that instinct wrong?
I must credit Ann Althouse for pointing me to an August opinion piece by the New York Times’s NeverTrump fake conservative Bret Stephens (who wants to repeal the Second Amendment!). I guess I should check out the Times more often; it’s just that it is an enemy of the people, one of the worst, and I resent what the paper has done to American journalism and, as a consequence, our nation.
But I digress. The subject of Stephens’ August column, “I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I.,” is that learning to write clearly and well is an essential human skill, and one that has important feedback. In addition to making communication between human beings better (more effective, more persuasive, more rational) writing also clarifies the writer’s thoughts, requires close examination of arguments, biases and assumptions, and, essentially, the more one writes, the more adept one becomes at life competence.
I agree with the theory, with a blazing caveat. Stephens is speaking from the biased perspective of one whose associates are all in the upper echelons of educated society, are well above average intelligence, and who work, play and live among the minority of Americans who read, have articulate conversations, and place a high priority on verbal interaction. My late wife and I would sometimes change our table at a restaurant because the conversation at a table next to us was so banal and inarticulate that we wanted to scream.
Military analysts have noted that one of the reason Ulysses S. Grant was such a successful general during the civil war was that his written orders were masterpieces of clarity, telling subordinate exactly what they had to do in straightforward prose. You can see that same skill in his autobiography, which Grant wrote in his final days while dying of throat cancer so his family could pay off his debts with the income from its sale. (Which it did. Mark Twain published Grant’s story.) Today, most students graduate from high school unable to write well, or even coherently. You learn to write by reading and writing; I had to compose five-page essays in the 5th grade, ten-page essays in the sixth grade, and up to 20-page compositions, (with footnotes!) in high school. I wrote a 116 page honors thesis as a senior in college. Later, when I was an administrator at Georgetown University Law Center, I was stunned to learn that GULC was admitting students who had never written a substantive paper at all.
I’m digressing again, but my point is that for, tragically, the majority of Americans, being able to let a chatbot turn their jumbled thoughts, flawed logic and infantile vocabularies into clear prose is a major boon for them and the people they are trying to communicate with. Is it likely to be great writing or even good writing? Not right now, it isn’t. I am working on a project that requires a clear web page to describe it, and the content I have seen was heavily dependent on AI. Nobody had to tell me that; it was obvious, and bot-writing usually is. And it’s bad.
However. the theme of this post is that Stephens felt that he had to somehow virtue-signal to the Trump Deranged. Here is how he ended the column:
Ethics Alarms 