I’m still so happy about the mysterious return of my old “Ethics Scoreboard” that I could plotz.

1. Nothing to see here, move along! Brian Flood posted his list of the major news media scandals of 2020, conveniently leaving out the various transgressions of Fox News, since he works for Fox NewsAlso inexcusably missing: the various unprofessional episodes involving CNN’s Don Lemon and Brian Stelter, among others. Still, it’s a damning list:

• Chris Matthews forced out at MSNBC
• Chris Cuomo’s staged reemergence from his basement
• Misleading “peaceful protests” coverage plagues mainstream media
• Cuomo brothers joke around on-air amid COVID-19 devastation in New York
• New York Times staffers freak out over op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton
• Bari Weiss quits New York Times, claims she was bullied by colleagues over conservative views
• MSNBC host Joy Reid declines to apologize for Muslim comments
• CNN’s Miles Taylor revealed as ‘Anonymous’ anti-Trump author
• Project Veritas exposes liberal bias at ABC, CNN
• Ex-debate moderator Steve Scully gets suspended for lying about Twitter hack
• MSNBC’s Jon Meacham failed to disclose he was secret Biden speechwriter
• Media, Big Tech ignore, dismiss and censor Hunter Biden scandal
• Media fails to cover news that could hurt Democrats
• New York Times’ credibility crisis

…and some more. Among other stories missing: the taped Times meeting in which its editor, Dean Baquet, revealed the paper’s strategy of undermining President Trump, the Times interview with Baquet regarding the paper’s failure to report the rape allegations of his former employee, Chuck Todd’s moment of truth, and many other stories Ethics Alarms discussed under this tag.

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!

2. From the Ethics Alarms life competence files: British TV personality Eamon Holmes told reporters recently that he always wears loafers because he never learned to tie his shoes. Holmes is 61.

He’s an idiot.

3. Apparently this guy REALLY needs a friend. I think I’ll pass. Caleb Burczyk, 29, of Williston, North Dakota,was arrested after kicking in the front door of the home of his ex-co-worker when the latter did not reply to Caleb’s Facebook friend request. “Accept my friend request or I’m going to murder you,” Burczyk wrote in a message.

4. Worst business model ever? Casey Anthony has launched a private investigator business out of South Florida. You remember Casey, don’t you? She blithely partied while her 2-year-old daughter Caylee was missing, and in 2011 Casey was found guilty of providing false information to law enforcement authorities before and after the little girl was found dead with her arms and legs tied with duct tape. Anthony was still acquitted in the murder trial because it was impossible to prove murder: Anthony claimed that her daughter had died accidentally and she panicked.

Private investigators, among other things, look for missing people. And children.

5. Because men are intrinsically evil...I am not one of the great fans of  Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit,” chess-lover that I am and one with a chess-playing sister no less, but the reason is that the show is predictable and the actress playing chess whiz Beth has about two facial expressions. The Washington Post’s consistently vile Monica Hesse, however, has another reason: the men in the show are too nice because they don’t harass her. Carina Chocano in the New York Times agrees, finding it impossible to suspend disbelief in a series “in which a female character succeeds in a man’s world without being harassed, assaulted, abused, ignored, dismissed, sidelined, robbed or forgotten.” Of the character of the old school janitor,  Mr. Shaibel, who teaches the heroine to play chess, Chocono expresses astonishment that he doesn’t try to molest her. (Pointer: World Socialist Website)

I don’t think Chocono or Hesse understand the kind of guy who played chess seriously in the Sixties. Trust me on this, I knew a lot of them; in fact, I was one of them. A young, attractive woman like Beth couldn’t be more safe from sexual harassment in a nunnery.

6. A pathetic attempt at civility...Even though its name is meaningless in German, the small Austrian village of Fucking has changed its name, after hunderds of years, and beginning on January 1, its name became “Fugging.” Not only is this sad and desperate, it is unoriginal. Tennessee Williams used the silly stand-ins “fug” and “fugging” in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” to confound the censors.

At least they didn’t change the name to “F-Word.” [Pointer: Paul Schlecht]