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:
“Our people were rounded up, kids stolen from their families, sent to boarding schools … and stripped of their culture and identity. Their religion was outlawed, they could not practice their ceremonies, they couldn’t sing their songs. So why is it OK for the fans in Kansas City to play Indian, when our people weren’t allowed to be Indian?”
An argument worthy of a 10-year-old.
The station’s woke warriors were determined to die on this hill, adding,
“Scientific research backs her up: The American Psychological Association said in a 2005 report that “a growing body of social science literature shows the harmful effects of racial stereotyping and inaccurate racial portrayals, including the particularly harmful effects of American Indian sports mascots on the social identity development and self-esteem of American Indian young people.”
Science! Except that’s not quite how I remember it, and indeed, “Victory Girls” points out the deceit here:
The 2005 report KCUR links is not “scientific research;” it’s a one-page summary of a resolution from the American Psychological Association. Moreover, the references from the formal resolution date from 2004 at the latest, and as far back as 1971. Plus, only a handful cite actual research studies; most references are position statements. One of them is entitled, “Four MU students describe Willie Wampum as racist symbol,” and it came from a 1971 newspaper article.
An entire city is excited about the Super Bowl, and its own community’s PBS outlet uses the opportunity to call the team racist on trumped up evidence. That’s public service?
3. “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” I finally read the New York Times feature that provoked the Ann Althouse “big question” post that in turn triggered this ethics survey (which very few responded to, alas) here. The real value of the Times piece is how it proves how far the paper has moved to the extreme Left. The “more than 30 people from academia, fashion, media, the arts and business” that the Times chose to explain what the current U.S. society and culture should be embarrassed by (as in ashamed of) overwhelmingly issued socialist, anti-American, anti-capitalist, progressive, eco-fascist and/or statist cant thinly disguised as futurism. Not one mentioned my single choice: abortion. Too “conservative,” clearly. But the respondents did think we should be ashamed of…
- “Gender-reveal parties...when people realize that you won’t know the baby’s gender until quite some time later.”
- Having your first name decided by your parents
- Believing the amount you pay in taxes should be private.
- Eating dead animals.
- Not being able to have two spouses at once.
- Thinking you needed permission to visit another country.
- Plastic bottles
- “I think I’ll eventually be embarrassed to admit that I love a juicy steak, cook indoors with gas, fly across the Atlantic multiple times in a year and drive a hybrid that still needs gasoline.”
- “We will look back at tests based on memorization as a colossal waste of time and talent.”
- Elie Mystal, predictably, says we will be embarrassed to have allowed people to have guns. “We are actually more violent than they were in the allegedly Wild West,” he says. But nothing about abortion…
- “There’s this feeling that we are all somehow terminally unique and more important than any other beings, and we’re broadcasting that uniqueness by what we like and eat and listen to and look like and wear. I think that will be super embarrassing”
Now there’s an aspiring totalitarian for you!
Ethics Alarms 
And no one said we should be embarrassed that we let a scam, racist organization like BLM distort public policy, law and public discourse.
That F-Troop exchange was the FIRST thing that came to my mind, as well!
2–Morons; one could make the argument that it was…um…culturally appropriated.
“Chief comes from the French term chef, which originates from the Latin word caput, both of which refer to the head of a group.”
Getting Rid Of CHIEF IGNORES EYTMOLOGY
“Its use goes back as far as around 1300, when in Old French, it meant pretty much the same thing as it does now. In the early 1700s, the word’s use was extended to include the leaders of Native American tribes.”
It does my heart good to know so many F-Troop fans follow Ethics Alarms.
“Gender-reveal parties”
What! People actually have these? Do people really need to find any stupid excuse to have a party?
“Having your first name decided by your parents”
Are we going to call our children ‘Number One Child’, ‘Number Two Child’, etc. until they are old enough to choose their own name? Or is some government department going to name them?
“Believing the amount you pay in taxes should be private.”
Sorry, but I am not going to tell my tax details to every Tom, Dick or Harriet.
“Eating dead animals”
Ah! So from now on we have to eat live animals instead.
“Not being able to have two spouses at once.”
The writer must be from one of those Mormon sects that still practices polygamy.
“Thinking you needed permission to visit another country.”
Do you? I thought I could visit any country in the world that would let me in. Unless the writer thinks there should be open borders everywhere. No thanks!
‘“Not being able to have two spouses at once.”
The writer must be from one of those Mormon sects that still practices polygamy.’
I’d wager not, since members of such sects tend to be incredibly conservative, whereas the respondents in this piece are anything but. But it does make me wonder what they could be talking about if not that.
As a former resident of Lawrence, Kansas, I continue to be amused by the idea that the term “Indian,” when applied to someone not from an Asian subcontinent, is considered racist, and the use of “Indians” as a mascot for sports teams even more so.
Had I chosen to do so, I could have walked from my house to see athletic contests to cheer for the Haskell Indian Nations Indians. You can’t make this stuff up.
F Troop was a favorite of mine as a kid. We’re dating ourselves to admit it, but I’m certainly not embarrassed by it. You ever see the movie “Texas Across the River”?
2. I think the Tomahawk Chop may actually have been started by fans of the Florida State Seminoles, though I admit that I haven’t done any research on it…which makes me no worse off than KUCR. I also have a quote from a friend – who coincidently is an Atlanta Braves fan and endured the Tomahawk Chop with me at a double-header years ago. He said, “While I think the Chop is silly, I don’t find it racist in the slightest!” He is in Library Science, so his constitutes a quote from the scientific community.
But truthfully, I probably could have cited the side panel of a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints and had nearly the credibility of PBS.
The ownership of the Chiefs should just say raise the money, buy the team and then you can call it whatever you want. Until then “BiteMe”
This is really tangential, but I have a great theme for Pat Boone to use on his Sirius radio show, “The Pat Boone Hour.” But I can’t find the email address for him, though he’s always saying he gets them. Anyone know what it is?
My suggested theme is 50s songs that would be considered horribly politically incorrect today. That would include Pat’s own “Speedy Gonzalez,” plus “Please Mr. Custer!” among many others, like “I Told the Witchdoctor” and “Johnny Get Angry.” Knowing Pat’s politics, I think he’d love it.
“Eating dead animals.”
Call me crazy, but I think eating live animals is more cringe worthy!!
I plead guilty to not responding to your futurist poll question.
Frankly, because I hold my intellect in such high esteem, I can’t imagine my own folly. (That’s tongue in cheek, by the way.)
I would hope that we would look back at the abortion issue differently, but I am not sure that that will happen.
Transgenderism?
Fourth wave feminism?
Fifth wave feminism?
CRT?
AGW?
As much as I think all of those things are fundamentally foolish, I do not think my vision, the right side of history, will prevail.
The vast majority of human history involves the subjugation of the individual to the collective “for the greater good.”
The inclination of those in power is ALWAYS to repeat that formula.
The United States seems unique in bucking that trend.
But, authoritarianism is always waiting in the wings. People LOVE to control other people, more so than they love their own freedom (because, as long as THEY can control OTHER people, they are usually free to do the things they want to do).
And, as the world becomes smaller, governments get bigger, and the individual will eventually be subjugated fully to the needs of the whole.
-Jut
What’s fundamentally foolish about cathode ray tubes? They did and sometimes still do sterling service.
No, the vast majority of it made no such pretence. However, that theme did occur in many times and places – just not that much. For instance, the crusades did aim at the greater good, but did not seek that particular sort of subjugation; the crusaders understood the greater good as serving God, not serving any human collective.
Also guilty as charged. My father-in-law used to say that, as cancer treatment inevitably improves over the years, we would look back at the practice of surgically removing organs damaged by cancer as barbarous butchery akin to the way we view the old practice of bleeding patients.
There was actually one bit of common sense that made it past the NYT editors:
Watching the Left’s response to the balloon develop of the past few days has been eye-opening as the Left wing automatons have changed their narrative depending on what their intellectual puppet masters have needed –
“It’s just a balloon guys!”
“We can’t shoot it down over densely populated Montana!!!!”
“The USA does it TOO!!!!”
“The Chinese Communists say it is just a weather balloon, and you can trust what they have to say!”
“Yeah, sure it’s a spy balloon like we’ve been saying the whole time. But you rube Republicans are just war mongers and want to shoot things down! We shouldn’t ramp up antagonism with China! Leave this to the experts!!!”
“YEAH! BIDEN SHOT THE BALLOON DOWN!!!! SHOW OF STRENGTH!!!! YEAH!!!! WOOOOOOOO!!!!! SHOVE IT CHINA! SHOVE IT REPUBLICANS!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOO! YEAH!!!!!! GO BIDEN!”
“Elie Mystal, predictably, says we will be embarrassed to have allowed people to have guns. “We are actually more violent than they were in the allegedly Wild West,” he says. But nothing about abortion…”
Factually incorrect in terms of murder. Murder rates in the old West were commonly over 10 times our modern rates. And I don’t understand this line of reasoning – did they not have guns in the old West? They did. Yet he is implying that despite possession of guns the “Wild West” was less violent.
“That’s Our Ellie!” It would be a good sitcom.