As we face these challenging times, we at Ethics Alarms salute the heroes, the indomitable, the resolute and the vibrant, who endure with good will and good cheer for the well-being of the community. We are Americans, and we are in this together, and
IF I HAVE to listen to insincere, calculated, virtue-signaling crap like this many more times, something is going to ‘pop!’ in my head and I’ll be grabbing the nearest long, sharp implement and leaving the confines of these walls to begin the historic Alexandria Massacre.
Go ahead! Test me!
The rule in our house is that any channel that runs a commercial that begins with “In these..” or that shows someone wearing a facemask or looking at a webcam will be switched to another channel, never to be revisited during that day. If everyone follows this simple rule, and makes their policy known, maybe we’ll be able to halt this torture.
1. What’s going on here? Is the idea now to proclaim how biased the news media is and the double standards it uses and mock those of us who care by showing there’s not a thing we can do with it? Is that it? Governor Cuomo actually said at a press conference yesterday that the pandemic virus came from Europe in January and “no one knew” about it. “With all the sophistication, with all the public health organizations, with that whole alphabet soup of agencies, nobody knew the virus was coming from Europe,” the governor said, on the same day he finally retracted his deadly order requiring nursing homes to take in infected, elderly residents. Then he called the virus “The European Virus.” He really did. No, seriously. I’m not making this up.
The mainstream news media just ignored this idiocy yesterday, though President Trump calling the virus the Chinese virus, which except for the obscure papers Cuomo was apparently citing, is consistent with what most researchers have concluded about its origin, was attacked as racist because, you know, Big Lie #4. Cuomo’s atrocious decision to expose nursing homes has also been barely covered in the left-leaning media.
2. If you are wondering why Ethics Alarms hasn’t covered in any detail the apparent emerging evidence that President Obama was intimately involved in the scheme to frame Michael Flynn, it is because there is literally no news source I can trust. Conservative sources are stating outright that Obama is squarely in “What did the President know and when did he know it” territory, with declassified documents indicating that Obama was aware of the bogus investigation and efforts to railroad Michael Flynn. The mainstream media appears to be doing what it did during Obama’s entire 8 years, which is refusing to probe suspicious activities and events, and maintaining the illusion that our first black President must be seen to be as pure as the driven snow, because he was the first black President. Unless a non-right wing source or reporter plays the role of the Watergate era Washington Post and “Woodstein” to get the truth out, we will be kept in the dark…and you know what the Post says happens in darkness.
3. More Orwellian language banning. Via Ann Althouse, I learned that the associated Press has banned the use of “mistress.” This sends Ann into one of her quirky tangents about words she doesn’t like or are misused, but the ethics point is that banning any words is a mind-control technique, and Ethics Alarms opposes the practice absolutely. My position has hardened, and it was hard already, observing how “illegal immigrant” has been virtually banned by the media so that the rather crucial detail that those in the country illegally are not “immigrants” or “migrants” indistinguishable from those who have followed our laws, but law-breakers. Mistress, as Ann goes to great length to explain, is the only word that describes a woman who is in an adulterous relationship with a man.
4. And speaking of political correctness…Nicholas Damask, Ph.D. (so he “doesn’t need to be dealing with shit like this!”) teaches political science at Scottsdale Community College in Arizona. He gave a class a quiz including these three questions:
- Q.Who do terrorists strive to emulate? A. Mohammed
- Q. Where is terrorism encouraged in Islamic doctrine and law? A. The Medina verses [i.e., the portion of the Qur’an traditionally understood as having been revealed later in Muhammad’s prophetic career]
- Q. Terrorism is _______ in Islam. A. justified within the context of jihad.
Damask maintains that “All quiz questions on each of my quizzes, including the ones in question here, are carefully sourced to the reading material. On this quiz, questions were sourced to the Qur’an, the hadiths, and the sira (biography) of Mohammed, and other reputable source material.”
A student in the class emailed Damask to complain that he was offended by these questions, which the student regarded as “in distaste of Islam.” A social media campaign began against Damask on the College’s Instagram account. Scottsdale Community College officials then posted on Instagram post that the student was correct and that he would receive full credit for contrary responses to all the quiz questions related to Islam and terrorism.”
Damask points out that this was done without any official complaint being filed and without him being offered any opportunity to respond on his own. The administration then issued an apology to the student and to the “Islamic community,” and stated on the College’s Instagram page that Damask would be “required” to apologize to the student for the quiz questions, as the questions were “inappropriate” and “inaccurate,” and would be permanently removed from Damask’s exams. “During one call with an administrator, Damask was told that his class content on Islamic terrorism would have to be revised after consulting with an Islamic religious leader, and that he would probably have to take a class taught by a Muslim before teaching about Islamic terrorism. He was also sent a Galileo-style apology he was told to release.
The professor has refused to apologize. Meanwhile, so many death threats against him (as well as against his 9-year-old grandson and 85-year-old parents) have appeared online from the peaceful practitioners of Islam that he and his family are in hiding.
Ethics Alarms 
I’ve never responded to a topic #0 – is that what we call your opening italicised text?
I’m glad I’m not the only one bothered by the commercials created in response to the Wuhan flu. These types of commercials really grate on me too. I don’t understand why people think they work. To me they sound like ridiculous pandering.
I have zero evidence and this is mere speculation: I think these commercials are created by those that live in a progressive bubble. This is just an extension of the vast difference in left vs. right on the reaction to the Wuhan flu. The left is afraid of any new risk, and thinks that “if it only saves one life” means that we have to over-react and anyone who disagrees with that is evil. The right looks at this as just another long list of things that kill people, and while it’s not a nothingburger, it should be kept in context and the response is more complex than just “shut it down.”
Those making these commercials think everyone is lapping them up because “it shows they care.” They can’t conceive in their minds that it make a section of society want to retch.
Those are preambles, or musings, or something. I’ll take suggestions.
And I concur with your theory.
My more cynical view is that these companies are afraid that running their ordinary advertising campaigns will be seen as distasteful during a crisis (or an overblown hysterical panic, as the case may be) but they want to keep their name in front of people. So they produce these saccharine commercials that solve both issues. It doesn’t solve the problem of annoying those who see through the ruse, but they’re probably relying on the heavy social pressure that’s being applied to keep dissenters quiet.
The “reporter on the street wearing a mask” nonsense on the news irritates me more, though. The camera guy is probably ten feet away (and you drove to wherever you are in the same car with him anyway), and there’s nobody else within a hundred yards. Take off the damn mask so you don’t sound like you’re broadcasting from inside a mattress. Your job is to speak clearly to relay information, not being a demonstration mannequin for public health techniques.
Our family mocks them and the companies making them. After a string of ads that are all the same repetition I actually cheered when a cereal ad came on. Advertise your products already! People still need food, clothing and shelter, along with painkillers for the headaches for all this fake caring.
Fake news has been joined by fake advertising. Why are they bothering spending the money as I think less of them and their product now. We don’t turn off for stupid ads right away as they dominate every channel… except the music channels.
I’m super-glad you commented, and glad Jack brought it up. Those advertisements have been driving me bonkers…they’re so all up in my “unprecedented” grill. Nauseating, for sure. I have told my wife on several occasions that there was no need to act all sympathetic as they still try to grab my money…just advertise their crap and let me move on. The hushed tones and the masks and the home-made videos of people in their homes is stupid.
Regarding #1:
On the one hand, understanding how the virus got to New York is a valid message to communicate. If the Virus primarily crossed the Atlantic, and was spread to New Yorkers by Europeans or people passing through Europe, that is an important to link to screen in future pandemics.
To call it the “European Virus” is asinine, and not fooling anyone. I briefly preferred Cuomo to Biden, despite believing him to be a clown. I guess I still technically view accidentally electing Cuomo President versus Biden preferable, but Cuomo has thoroughly sunk his own ship, and cannot even blame his sister-in-law at this point.
I did a quick reply on the zeroth topic because I am equally riled up by those commercials and responded right away without reading the rest.
#2 – I’ve long thought the republicans really needed to run a black president because the progressives, the democrats, and the media all would be stuck with the problem of being unable to criticize a black person. Now that we’ve seen the Tara Reade / Joe Biden debacle, I fear that won’t work. The entire spectrum on the left appears to absolutely free of a care in the world about how hypocritical they are, nor the damage they do to “me too” by ignoring the probable conduct of Biden for short term political expediency. I had a hint before about how Harry Reid’s comments about Clarence Thomas were buried. Harry Reid has made repeated racist comments about Thomas, and has more than once referred to the right side of the court as “Five old white guys.” All of it was ignored. Reade / Biden is the most recent and most flagrant, but this type of conduct of win above all has been going on a while on the American left.
#3 – The reason they don’t like mistress is they seek to destroy societal norms. It’s a great example of the differences between liberals and progressives. Liberals are open to all viewpoints and just want acceptance of all. I’m rather libertarian, and I’m all for getting out of people’s personal lives so long as they’re not hurting children. Progressives seek to destroy Christianity and heteronormative monogamous relationships. They are every bit as intolerant of opposing viewpoints as the stereotypical conservative Christians they criticize.
#4 – This is similar to the gay cake in that all involved are assholes. I’m opposed to burying the reality of Islamic terrorism. The left wants to ignore it’s existence, at our peril. We can accept a majority of muslims are peaceful, but they have amongst them far more than enough to be a real problem. The Tsarnaev brothers were radicalized in the United States and that should be given muslims pause to realize they have a problem amongst themselves even here. The tolerance of radicals amongst the mainstream muslim community is contributing to the violence. The hypocrisy of the progressives who simultaneously bash Christians for their social viewpoints while embracing the protection of Islam is deadly.
All of that said, to imply that muslims have a lock on terrorism is bigoted. Timothy McVeigh is second to the 9/11 hijackers for terrorism in the USA. Catholics and Protestants in Ireland killed many. Sikhs bombed 3 Canadian airliners and killed almost 400 people. Hindus are running around terrorizing, beating and killing muslims in Northern India with the tacit approval of the Indian PM. The list is long.. and it is unfair what this professor did.
2. Any black candidates the GOP could run would be dismissed by the Left as traitors or Uncle Toms. Like women and gays, blacks aren’t allowed to be Republicans because that would working “against their interests”.
Look at how prominent black Republicans are treated. Clarence Thomas, Ben Carson, Candace Owens, Condi Rice. In the eyes of the Left, their flaws are just window dressing. Their real crime is being Republican.
That almost makes me want to see a black Republican president (maybe even a black Republican WOMAN), just to see progressive heads explode. If said nominee was overall a better person than Trump (not exactly a high bar, I know), then they’re partisan hatred would be that much more obvious, and anyone who wasn’t an extreme progressive would desert the Democratic Party.
*Make that “want to see a black Republican president EVEN MORE.”
I’ve maintaied that Condoleezza Rice would be phonominal. Very smart and wise.
1-IMO, “European Virus” is in the same Whiskey Tango Foxtrot JUMBO category as “White Hispanic.”
The only thing I could criticize in the professor’s questions is that not all terrorists are Moslem and attempting to emulate Mohammed. McVeigh and Kaczynski definitely weren’t following the Koran. But if it was in the context of a class on Islam, or the test was only about Islam, then I can understand not specifying Islamic terrorists.
On 4,
Nothing says “Religion of Peace” and “No terrorists here” like sending death threats to nine year olds because someone said something less than flattering, yet true, about your religious icons. I mean… How little self-awareness does someone have to have in order to act like a terrorist because someone called them a terrorist?
On the other hand… Let’s be clear: I take part in the annual “Draw Mohammad” day, because you’re damn right I do (and if anyone wants to see a doodle, hit me up on Twitter). No culture or religion is above reproach, and Islam in particular seems to be the motherlode of bad ideas. But I post the image anonymously because I don’t want to be randomly machete’d or thrown off a rooftop. To some extent, asking those questions on a test in a post-secondary institution is… provocative, at best, and the instructor forfeits the right to act surprised when people take issue with it.
He had it coming.
No, I’m not excusing the actions of the student, or the university.
This is fundamentally identical to the 19 year old girl walking home through 15 blocks of back alleys in a rough neighborhood, drunk and in her underwear at 2AM, after loudly announcing her intent to do so at a bar; No one has the right to sexually assault her, she didn’t ask for it, the people who assault her are bad people, they should be charged… But is anyone really surprised? And if one really didn’t want to be accosted, there are things you can do to avoid being assaulted.
You really think teaching a contemporary international political science course and talking about Islamic terrorism is the equivalent of the scenario outlined above? Wow! CAIR and its enablers have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, HT.
There’s a lot of “it’s not the worst thing” and “everybody does it” lurking around the criticism of this professor’s course and his quiz. Kind of surprising.
No, Bill, I’m just not stupid.
You can pretend if you want that what happened to the professor wasn’t a foregone eventuality if it makes you feel good, but I’ll be over here in reality, where we realize that the raw-nerve reflexes of Islamic adherents and the paper-think skin of the progressive left make putting statements like “Terrorists emulate Mohammad” to paper an invitation for the aforementioned groups to take offense.
It’s not reasonable to expect these people to behave rationally, because they don’t. They won’t start just because you’d like them to. And this pearl-clutching, fart-huffing, fainting-couch naivete where we pretend to be Shocked, Shocked, I tell you, when the same groups who have been doing the same things for the last ten years do that exact same thing as they always do is disingenuous. Life is too short for that bullshit.
In a fully integrated world of electronic communication and jet travel, can we really just relegate five billion people to sitting over in the corner while the adults discuss things? Your approach reminds me of people who say, “Hey, the Middle East and Islamic countries are paternalistic back waters that need to be run by dictators and monarchies. That’s all those people understand. Leave ’em alone!” Or, “Junior’s acting up, dear. Let’s just give in to him. He’ll get over it. Life’s too short.” Strange, no?
I really wish you’d re-read what I’ve already written with a more open mind, I’m not making the argument you think I am.
I’m not saying that people should not do these things, I’m saying that at this point, we know what the reaction is going to be, so you forfeit the benefit of acting surprised when it does.
Knowing that, if you choose to, for instance, publicly assert that the correct answer to a test is that terrorists emulate Mohammad, there’s a certain amount of bravery to the act, because despite being a fair and defensible position, and one that deserves to be discussed, the baggage associated with it will per se bring you not just criticism, but death threats. That means, in my opinion, that there’s also a certain amount of stupidity to it, because there was a fair chance that he’d lose his job over this, and an outside chance he or his family would lose their lives over it. I don’t know how likely it is that a Truck of Peace™ would slam through his living room window, but the likelihood has increased over the last month.
My point is that we have to stop pretending like outrage and death threats aren’t the expected outcome, and start preparing like they are. because they are.
You mean like, “Us coloreds sho’ ’nuff oughts to not be upset when our young colored boys get lynched for walkin’ past de white girls without avertin’ they eyes. We’d best just keep to our own selves and tell them boys to keep them eyes to themselves. Yas suh! Sho’ ’nuff. Dat’ll fix it. Don’t want to create us no ruckus!”
You aren’t this stupid OB, and it’s a bad look.
Let’s step away from the Islamists for a second, because I don’t know what your hang up is, but it might be in there; Let’s talk about black boys being lynched for looking at white girls back when that was a thing;
Yes, obviously, they should have been able to do so without being lynched. Yes, obviously, they had every right to be angry. But the ones that did sometimes got lynched, and neither their human right to look at whatever their eyes could see, nor their anger about the injustice of the people lynching them, would keep them alive. And they probably knew that.
Which made looking at white girls an act of defiance. Was looking at the girl worth your life? Was the defiance of violent, petty tyrants worth your life? Was fighting for equality worth your life? Was that, literally, the hill you wanted to die on?
The answer could be yes. And I know that we all want to pretend that in a situation like that, we’d be all kinds of brave and stand up to the shitty people and die for our principles… But most people don’t.
I personally would not choose to die for my principles, especially when I saw ways to try to act on my principles that didn’t result in my death. That seems extreme to me. That might have seemed less extreme for lynching-era black boys. But if you chose to stand on your principles in a way that could result in your death, you can still be outraged by the injustice of your death, but you did it knowing that your death was a possibility.
My point is that if you know the response to your defiance will be violent, you should prepare for violence. And that’s not to say necessarily that you should stock up at your local Cabella’s, but there are things that you can probably do to prepare for that inevitable backlash, because it’s coming. Choosing not to prepare, pretending to be surprised, and getting caught flat footed, is just dumb.
I just don’t see where you’re coming from, HT. I’m surprised. I’m as much a pragmatist as their can be. For example, I think Jack’s refusal to vote for Trump on professional grounds is irresponsible since in the U.S., it’s either column A or Column B, no substitutions and therefore an empty ballot is a vote for Biden. So I’m very pragmatic and I fully understand what you’re saying. I just think it’s really wrong headed. If we can’t have open discussions in schools where young people are supposed to be encouraged to think freely and critically, where can we have those discussions? And what kind of a populous will we have going forward?
“Let’s just give the Germans Poland, and Austria, and maybe the Alsace.” Do we really want to appease the radical Islamists and their enablers?
I once wrote a poem that was a guy talking to Thomas More saying, essentially, “Tom baby. What are you thinking man? Lighten up. You want to get yourself killed?”
How is not pretending to be surprised by bad actors acting bad enabling them?
Let’s say that the entirety of non-Islamic America decided to forego political correctness for a day, and everyone in booming unison said “Fuck Mohammad”.
What happens?
Well… A certain amount of hardcore adherents, it won’t be a majority of the Muslim population, but the number won’t be zero, will grab the nearest machete, gun, or Truck of Peace™ and try to kill people.
Is it better for those people to expect an attack and be on guard, or is it better to pretend that nothing is different, and get mowed down?
Truck of Peace™?
Heh! Urban Dictionary-worthy!!
“Driving down the road in a Truck of Peace™ down the busy highwaaaaaay….
Driving down the road in a Truck of Peace™
who do you think we’ll bump in to todaaaaay”
I am VERY familiar with getting angry, and no, I don’t act ethically when my blood pressure goes through the roof and my face turns purple, in fact I’m more likely to do or say something crazy.
4. Here’s something I find very distressing about this story (From the PJ Media story headlined like a Babylon Bee article, “Arizona: Muslim Students Threaten to Kill Prof for Suggesting Islam Is Violent”): “On May 1, Damask had a conference call with Kathleen Iudicello, Scottsdale Community College’s Dean of Instruction, and Eric Sells, the College’s Public Relations Marketing Manager.”
Scottsdale Junior College employs a Public Relations Marketing Manager? This is a public junior college. It needs to market itself so it can outdraw other public junior colleges, all of which suck at the teat of the Great State of Arizona and its taxpayers? A dean of instruction is taking input from the public relations marketing manager and allowing said manager to sit in on a phone call with a full professor to talk about a quiz?
What the hell? No wonder the American academy is drifting aimlessly.
You said:
The rule in our house is that any channel that runs a commercial that begins with “In these..” or that shows someone wearing a facemask or looking at a webcam will be switched to another channel, never to be revisited during that day. If everyone follows this simple rule, and makes their policy known, maybe we’ll be able to halt this torture.
Oh, Amen. I thought my wife and I were alone in hating this stupid nonsense.
I go one further — if it’s an advertisement, I think I’ll start boycotting that company for a week.
1. “European” virus
I think Europe might have an issue with this. Let’s see if any of the newspapers run with it, it will be instructive. If not, it just more evidence that Europe is prostrate, exposing their vitals to the Chinese.
2. Michael Flynn
You can read the documents, can’t you? You don’t need news analysis for that. It doesn’t matter what the news sources say — make up your own mind and offer observations if you have them.
The mainstream media desperately wants to keep the focus on Trump and his pandemic response, because they are convinced that will help cost him the election. There is no percentage in reporting about what Obama did, because it will not contribute to their overarching objective — getting rid of Donald Trump. For all I know, they may be appalled at this latest round of news, but they believe that anything that makes Trump look like the victim of the last administration helps him, and that’s a big no-no.
What this represents is focus — the media knows what they think needs to happen, and their stories must reflect that objective. To do otherwise risks the unthinkable; four more years of Trump.
3. Language
So Monica Lewinski was … what, to Bill Clinton? Also, Ann is wrong, unless they have banned “paramour” also? Maybe it’s the whole gender thing the AP has a problem with. That would be so SJW-typical.
4. Nicholas Damask, Ph.D.
You said:
The professor has refused to apologize. Meanwhile, so many death threats against him (as well as against his 9-year-old grandson and 85-year-old parents) have appeared online from the peaceful practitioners of Islam that he and his family are in hiding.
FIRE is on the case:
Arizona’s Maricopa County Community College District not only apologized for trampling on the academic freedom of a Scottsdale Community College professor, but promised an “immediate independent investigation” into its handling of the situation.
It’s also creating a “Committee on Academic Freedom” to ensure that the district’s “longstanding commitment to the value of inclusion” does not come at the expense of academic freedom.
The Monday announcement from interim Chancellor Steven Gonzales came four days after the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education warned SCC that its actions were “flatly inconsistent” with its First Amendment obligations and would chill faculty expression.
Thank God for FIRE. They don’t do left and right, just free speech and academic freedom. I’m going to send them a contribution, and I recommend you all do the same.
“Thank God for FIRE. They don’t do left and right, just free speech and academic freedom. I’m going to send them a contribution, and I recommend you all do the same.”
Amen! And again, I say Amen!
I know auto-correct is horrible, but “in distaste of Islam” is just so juicy. I’m going to give the complainant the benefit of doubt and presume it was meant to be “in DISDAIN of Islam”. Though, any college snowflake who would complain might not know the difference.
Yes, I saw their headline in my email before I read Jack’s take. I’m getting really tired of extreme reactions to offenses far lower than lethal. Three questions taken from source material. testing comprehension is worth death threats against children and the elderly? That only proves the problem is not just international historical factoid, but an imminent threat in the faith.
Why is extremism of road rage by shooters such a hammer to rant about guns? Suspension and arrest over toy guns and Star Wars blasters? Responses MUST be appropriate to the offense and too many have no idea how to judge that anymore. They’re acting like three questions in a minor class in a minor school is a declaration to bomb the middle east.
Drop the class, give a bad review, that’s what social media should be about, not death threats. Death threats actually validate any concern about terrorism in a religion. How do they think to change that reputation by death threats? The worked so well for Capone, right? No one ever suspected he was involved in violence…
You can contribute to FIRE with every Amazon purchase through their Amazon Smile charitable program. I was surprised to find it on the list, but it’s there: Foundation For Individual Rights In Education Inc. They get a small percentage of every order you make, from Amazon’s cut. It’s an extra step when ordering, but I make it a point to make the effort. Although more narrowly focused, they seem to have the integrity that I foolishly thought the ACLU had, when I supported them years ago
Great to know. Now I have a reason to use it.
Is WAPO’s tagline the goal? It seems to me a newspaper that strives to inform and has the power to hide should use
DEMOCRACY THRIVES IN THE LIGHT.
Not dies in the darkness.
Considering the frequency with which advertisements trumpet their saccharine declarations of sympathy and moral support, you’ll probably save time if you just preemptively cut the plug off your TV.
Second. Hah!
It’s been in the last year that my TV is pretty much only used for streaming content.
It’s been a decade since I’ve watched TV news.
My father in law still faithfully watches TV news. When we visit, my family all watch in amazement. TV news is a parallel universe I don’t recognize.
It is on the “radio” that I run into the saccharine commercials come on. The radio is in quotes because it is usually some streaming content playing over Bluetooth in the car. They still have commercials there, and you’re a bit more captive to listening when driving.
PS. I love the term “saccharine”, it is one that I wouldn’t be naturally inclined to pick but fits so well.
Exactamundo.
OOps. That was an unneeded repeat of my response above to James M.
I am go glad you said this. It’s all over the radio and makes me nauseaous. I call it “pageantry speech”. **insert parade wave and flowers here**
No, actually, we are not “all in this together”
If we were all in this together the people still getting paid would have to give up part of their incomes to those they chose not to get paid. The costs should not be placed on the backs of future generations.
Great idea, CM. The other day my lefty son was bitching to me that maybe it’s time to cut the defense/military industrial complex allowance due to coronavirus. I sent him an article asking why government employees were immune from being laid off or furloughed. Then I asked him why he’d been working full time and getting half pay from the PR firm he works for while his older sister continues to get full pay while doing NOTHING for her full pay from the State of Arizona for her job in administration in an adult education facility, and why he and his wife (working in an essential industry) have to pay his sister’s salary through their property and state income taxes. No response to date.
I also told him it might be time for us to liquidate all our dollar denominated assets and buy gold bullion and put it under our beds.
As I sit and listen to Mark Levin on WMAL a psa comes over telling me to stay home and follow my state guidelines. The mind control is everywhere.
I’m contrarian enough to want to go out to the UPS store. Right now.
I’ve been a proud TiVo user for almost 20 years now.
What are these “commercials” you speak of . . . ?
–Dwayne