Month: April 2022

Comment Of The Day: “First Vice-Presidents And Supreme Court Justices, And Now NFL Offensive Assistant Coaches”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Existentialist warrior and unique Ethics Alarms commenter Extradimensional Cephalopod’s Comment of the Day on the post about the NFL’s requirement that all teams hire a “minority” assistant offensive coach in the pursuit of “diversity, equity and inclusion” marked the first mention here of the Matthew Effect, often loosely summarized to explain why, as the song says, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”

Here it is; the triggering post is “First Vice-Presidents And Supreme Court Justices, And Now NFL Offensive Assistant Coaches.”

***

Although I agree with most of the sentiment, I should clarify something about this point: Jack wrote:

“In other words, they must receive remedial training because they would not have been hired based on their experience or demonstrated skills.”

Highly competitive fields such as sports, entertainment, business…–okay, basically all fields on this inhospitable planet–are subject to the Matthew effect. . With multiple stages of competition, extra opportunities early on lead to exponentially more opportunities at each subsequent stage, due to the greater experience and exposure attracting more mentors and benefactors.

If you’ve read Freakonomics, you may be familiar with how hockey players’ birthdays are all around the same time of year. Based on the birthdate cutoffs for when they started school, they would have been the oldest students and therefore the biggest and strongest, and therefore they received preferential treatment from coaches looking to build competitive teams. Each year their greater experience and skill due to the previous year’s preferential treatment led to more preferential treatment, et cetera. These advantages added up over the years until they became professional athletes.

If we assume that a person’s minority status prevented them from getting any breaks early on, it makes sense that people would want to give them preferential treatment after the fact to make up for it. Those people would not assume that their current lack of skill represents an innate lack of talent. Continue reading →

On Ron Perlman, Whoopi, And The Intelligence Of Actors

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Yesterday, I commented on the depressingly incoherent and poorly reasoned defense of Will Smith by Denzel Washington, who, based on his performances, I had assumed could beat the Scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz” at Scrabble. Maybe not. “It was another reminder, and I have had many in my career, that even actors who excel at portraying complex characters and who can radiate perception, depth and wisdom in screen and stage roles are too often just not very bright,” I wrote.

This puts into perspective how absurd and destructive it is that these celebrities actually have influence over public opinion. One bit of proof that they are so often a couple of ice cream scoops short of a sundae is that some of the most dim and vocal Hollywood celebrities actually think they are smart, so they keep opining publicly on matters they know nothing about. Ron Perlman—he’s the “Beauty and the Beast” and “Hellboy” star whose defining characteristic is that he can play monsters and freaks with a minimum of make-up—provided a great example yesterday, when he tweeted,

Dear Gov. De Santis:

Don’t say gay? ‘Don’t say’ as the first two words in sentence spoken by a political leader in a state in the United States of America? Don’t say? Don’t fucking say, you Nazi pig? Say, the First Amendment. Read about it, then run for office you piece of shit.

See, Ron’s brilliant colleagues and peers referred to the new Florida parental rights law as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and he, trusting them implicitly, was certain that the law actually was about prohibiting people from saying “gay.” He didn’t bother to read the law, which doesn’t mention the word gay or the topic of homosexuality, nor prohibit saying anything.This is, of course, monumentally stupid.

Ron’s embarrassing blunder was spectacular, but not much worse than those made by such luminaries as Robert De Niro, Bette Midler, Alyssa Milano, Rosie O’Donnell, Jane Fonda, Leonardo diCaprio, Rob Reiner, and many, many others, all of whom have impressive talents in their own realm, but as much business expounding on public policy as John Lennon would have had teaching philosophy.

Then there is Whoopi Goldberg. In attempting to explain why the Oscar audience should be excused for giving a roaring ovation to a colleague who had just unapologetically committed assault and battery and had the gall to expound on the value of “love” from the same stage, Whoopi thought and thought and concluded that it was because her friends were “stunned.”

Oh. When in doubt, wildly applaud! That never occurred to me. Continue reading →

Andrew Sullivan Finally Can’t Take It Any More: Ethics Quote Of The Day

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

“This is the poisonous heart of CRT: that white people, by virtue of merely existing, are all morally problematic and always will be. Even if all the systems have been repealed. Even if you’d never racially discriminate yourself. Even if you spent your life fighting racism. That is why Bond called the Abolitionist movement indistinguishable in terms of its racism from the KKK! Why? Because whites are only ever whites…Absorb that for a moment. This foul race essentialism, this view of white Americans as a single, undifferentiated blob of hate existing through the centuries as a force for the oppression of non-whites is simply the inverse of the old racism. It’s replacing hatred of blacks with hatred of whites; it’s replacing discrimination against blacks with discrimination against whites and Asians and others. It’s being used to make even more money for rich white people, to provide some elite whites with a weapon to destroy their career rivals, and to help build a new racial spoils system that leaves any notion of colorblindness or individual rights behind.”

—Blogger Andrew Sullivan, after being metaphorically mugged on comic Jon Stewart’s new TV show on an episode titled “The Problem With White People,” where Stewart and another guest called him a white supremacist.

If Sullivan’s substack newsletter were Ethics Alarms, his intense post called “The Trouble With Jon Stewart” would be tagged as a “Popeye,” as in “That’s all I can stands, ‘cuz I can’t stands no more!”

Andrew is at heart a moderate conservative and an intellectual. He started playing a progressive on TV when he decided to elevate being gay above all of his other priorities and values, but he wore the mask uncomfortably. A wonderful writer, Sullivan had never aimed both barrels of his solid knowledge and logic at the George Floyd Freakout and the resulting rush to embrace anti-white racism in the schools, private sector and government, but apparently his mugging at the hands of Stewart, and especially Stewart’s woke guest Lisa Bond, a white woman who runs an organization called Race2Dinner that charges other white women $2,500 per dinner to be harangued for their racism, was a tipping point.  (You gotta admire her entrepreneurial brilliance for that one! P.T. Barnum would be proud of her.)

As Bruce Willis would have said to Sullivan in the actor’s better days, “Welcome to the party, pal!” Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Now We Have Will Smith’s ‘Real’ Apology”

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

I have a lot of reactions to mermaidmary99’s Comment of the Day regarding the Will Smith debacle that dominated the past week after it turned into a full-blown Ethics Train Wreck. But her post is provocative, and represents an important perspective. I’ll leave my comments until after she’s had her say.

This is mermaidmary’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Now We Have Will Smith’s ‘Real’ Apology”…

***

I don’t think it’s fair to assume the worst about him.
What he did would take a LOT of time to process.

When one snaps the way he did, it’s not because you had a bad day.
In my experience it’s because of a lot of things which have been buried, denied and all those things were trigged in that moment.

Will is a human being and I think it’s on us to extend a bit of mercy and kindness when we see good actions.

No one knows if the apologized to Chris Rock yet, and I don’t blame him or Chris if they kept it private, for now.

I just think that we could refrain from being so judgemental about every move he makes and if it means he’s sorry or not, or assign motives to everything.

Unless we know for certain, those things are pure speculation.

Why not hope the best?

I am speaking from experience. I am a bit reluctant to share them but I will for the sake of maybe some understanding and mercy being extended his way. Continue reading →

Saturday Ethics Stragglers, 4/2/2022: My First Mask Confrontation, And More

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Well, I finally did it. As I was returning with Spuds for a walk, I saw a tall young man standing alone in the middle of the athletic field behind our cul-de-sac, and couldn’t retrain myself.

“Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question?” I began.

“No,” he said.

I introduced myself, and then asked, “Why are you in the middle of a field, on a lovely evening, with nobody withing sight except me and my dog, wearing a mask? You’re vaccinated, right.”

He responded that he was. After a “So?” from me, he said, “It’s just that my friends and I think it’s important to wear a mask to show that we support science; you know, in climate change and all that.”

I had obviously chosen—not poorly at all.

“Interesting”, I said. “So in a state where health officials have said masks are unnecessary—and I assume you know that masks like the one you’re wearing provide no protection at all—you are wearing it anyway to show you believe in science, though “scientists” have been wrong and misleading repeatedly regarding the pandemic, and every scientist agrees that masking in your current situation is pointless. Is that fair?”

“I guess so,” he said.

“I think you’re really wearing a mask to signal conformity, and you’re doing it a way that is anti-science in any way. Will you think about that? Maybe talk to your friends?”

“Sure,” the young man said. “I will. Thanks.”

“Thanks for chatting,” I said. And I left.

I noticed that he kept his mask on.

The damage that the politicized reaction to the Wuhan virus and its relatives has done to our culture, society, nation and social structure is immense, and I suspect its full effect won’t be revealed for a long time. Best to start the long, hard road of undoing it as quickly as possible.

1. I thought this was inevitable. A Los Angeles judge ruled that California’s recent law mandating that corporate boards meet racial, gender, ethnic and LGBT quotas violates the state Constitution. The ruling last week granted summary judgment to Judicial Watch, the conservative legal group seeking a permanent injunction against the measure. The lawsuit argued it was illegal to use taxpayer funds to enforce a law that violates the equal protection clause of the California Constitution. I think the American Bar Association’s recent declaration that all Continuing Legal Education programs must have “diverse” panels or not receive certification violates the same principle, and the ruling will bolster the opposition to it. The California ruling might reach the Supreme Court.

I wonder how new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will rule on it… Continue reading →

The Freakout To Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Law, Not The Law Itself, Will Send LGBTQ Acceptance Backwards

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

There is nothing discriminatory, bigoted, ant-gay, anti-trans or unethical in the “Parental Rights in Education Bill’ signed into law by Florida Governor Jim DeSantis. Have you read it, or just relied on the hysterical and dishonest characterizations of the bill by the news media and woke activists like the three Oscar co-hosts, who chanted “Gay, gay,gay, gay!’ like four-year-olds in supposed bold and hilarious defiance of what progressives have been calling the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

Read the law. It doesn’t prohibit saying “gay” at all (the word doesn’t appear in the law), and as unfortunately vague as the wording sometimes is, no fair interpretation would find that it inhibits free speech.

Here is the closest wording in the bill to an “anti-LGBTQ” provision, in Section 3, page 4:

3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third  parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur  in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.

The Horror. Only the most committed and unhinged gay activist could find that provision problematic, and the fact that so many progressives do is signature significance: they lave lost touch with common sense and reality. The law isn’t anti-gay, it’s pro-parent (and student). Any parents who really think their 4-8 year olds need to be trained in human sexuality are welcome to do it themselves. I would not want my child introduced to those topic by kindergarten through third grade teachers, even if I had the opportunity to closely examine the teachers’ qualifications for doing so and the way it would be done. This is not their job, and no, I wouldn’t trust them to take it on if it were. They have a hard enough time teaching language, arts, math, science and history. I don’t trust them to teach ethics. Continue reading →

Now We Have Will Smith’s “Real” Apology

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

First he slapped Chris Rock in full view of America and the world, tainting a once-iconic tradition that was already shaky. Then he returned to his seat in the theater, as if nothing had happened, and shouted an obscenity at his victim. After being allowed to remain at the scene of the crime (and massive exposure of his broken ethics alarms) though he had been asked to leave and refused, Will Smith triumphantly accepted the Oscar for Best Actor, using his speech to rationalize his conduct, never coming close to a genuine apology.

Then he partied the night away like any other self-obsessed Hollywood celebrity.

Last night, after issuing a pro forma Instagram “apology” that was wretched by any standard (It was a #6 at best and a #10 at worst on the Ethics Alarms Apology Scale), Smith took a third metaphorical swing at the contrition ball he had missed twice, and at least made contact.

He announced that he was resigning from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hands out the Oscars, in the course of this statement:

Continue reading →

A Deceitful, Indeed Despicable Headline From Drew Curtis'”Fark”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I like Drew Curtis’ Fark a lot; it may be my favorite news aggregator. Drew and his staff devise often clever captions to dozens of news items off the beaten path every day. It’s a left-leaning site: it frequently engages in gratuitous Republican-bashing, and has all of the predictable biases you would expect. Nevertheless, it’s different, amusing and usually benign.

Not this time.

Here was the NBC News headline FARK linked to: “A college professor called the police on two students who were late for class…”

Here is the story.

Now here is the Fark headline: “College professor calls police on two black students for being a) violent, b) drunk, c) late.”

In dozens of subtle and not-so-subtle ways, all across the news media, the web and Big Tech, writers, reporters, pundits and others work to maximize racial suspicion, hate and conflict, typically to ensure Democratic constituency animus towards whites and conservatives. This is a particularly revolting example. At best, the FARK headline is unethical, ruthless clickbait misrepresenting a non-racial incident as racist mistreatment of blacks by white authorities, in order to trick readers into clicking through and inflate traffic.

At worst, it is a deliberate deception to further the Left’s systemic racism narrative.

If you read the story, the students were black and the professor was also black. The NBC headline was fair and accurate: what was newsworthy was that a professor treated tardiness as a criminal matter. Race was irrelevant to the incident. FARK’s headline, in contrast invited the reader to think that a white professor was abusing black students because of their race.

Somebody should be fired for this, and FARK owes its readers, and the nation it is trying to divide down racial fault-lines—just like its favorite party and its current President— an apology.

As for me, I won’t be using FARK again for the foreseeable future.

“Rob Reiner, Are You That Smart?’

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Yes, Rob Reiner, son of the late, great Carl and director of some of my favorite movies (“The Princess Bride,” “Stand By Me”…) as well as a serviceable character actor when he’s got good material, and one of the most combative and seemingly immune from reality of all Hollywood progressives, tweeted that today.

I was, earlier today as I watched the chaos at the border start exploding again,  saw the latest price of coffee at the CVS, and reflected on Joe Biden’s sage recommendation to deal with the gas prices that he is at least partly responsible for (get a $60,000 electric car) going to again express my amazement on Ethics Alarms regarding the people on my Facebook feed, in polls, and a few other locales where Facts Don’t Matter, who still adamantly claim that President Biden is doing a wonderful job. At what? What is it they are so pleased with? The crime? The inflation? The worsening societal divisions? The government’s embrace of sexualizing and racializing education below the age of 12? His government using agents in the private sector to chill free speech and the freedom of association?  The looming nuclear war? The mask mandates? The casual racial and sexual discrimination? The exploding national debt? Something else? Which?

And then I saw “The Meathead’s” tweet, as well as the 52.7 “loves” it attracted, and all I could think of was poor Dana..

This is April 1. The tweet would be a deft April Fool’s joke, except that the tweeter is  Reiner, who never says a cross word about any Democrat (except Senators Manshin and Sinema, whom he views as traitors), especially Joe Biden. Do those “loves” come from people who think he’s being satirical, and thus slyly critical? Do they come from people who actually agree that Biden is having a successful—SUCCESSFUL??—Presidency? (You know…Morons.)

All I could hear was Wilford Brimley’s voice echoing through my brain, in his iconic scene from “Absence of Malice”: “Mr. Gallagher, are you that smart?” Except in this case, it’s “Mr. Reiner.” Is he so smart that he sent off this tweet knowing that could plausibly claim it was an April Fools joke if someone made the easy case that the tweet was idiotic, and made many of the people who read it even dumber than they are, yet at the same time he could pander to the hopelessly biased knee-jerk partisans in Hollywood and elsewhere who will cheer anything Biden does, thus maintaining Carl’s son’s woke credentials?

Could he possibly be that smart?

I don’t think so. I think he’s a deluded, Trump-deranged, fool.

The Herschel Walker Fake Credentials Scandal: Beyond The Fact That It’s Lying, Why Do Public Figures Do This?

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I don’t understand this kind of thing at all.

CNN did a deep dive into the educational boasts of Trump-backed Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, the former NFL star and college running back legend, and discovered that he had been inflating his scholarly achievements to a ridiculous degree. He has said for years (and had the claim on his campaign website) that he graduated in the top 1% of his class at the University of Georgia. Nope. He was a B student or worse. He didn’t even graduate, though that’s the norm for pro athletes. Continue reading →