My contempt for administrators who come up with such foolishness knows no bounds. I also find this one hard to believe. It’s not enough that our institutions of higher education indoctrinate their students, they have to infantilize them as well.
Increasingly, I do not understand the thought processes of the school administrators who come up with such crack-brain schemes. These are young adults being treated as children. Such coddling retards character and emotional development, and has dubious pedagogical value for students in middle school. College? I have a sneaking suspicion this scheme has DEI roots, but I can’t confirm that. Whatever the reason, it is an excellent way to raise a generation of weenies.
If you can’t handle the “stress” of college, go to a less competitive college, or a trade school. Life is stressful. Deal with it.
UPDATE: After this was posted, the Senate confirmed Blanche despite the fact, and it is the fact, that doing so was indefensible and irresponsible.
So much that it horrifying from an ethical perspective has occurred lately in all sectors and in both political parties (actually “all three” might be more accurate, with the socialist/communists slowly but surely stomping out the Democratic part like the Cro-Magnons wiped out Neanderthals) that I am searching through the thesaurus for synonyms. I’m sick of writing unethical, unconscionable, inexcusable, unforgivable, indefensible, disgraceful, nauseating, shameful, corrupt, incompetent and irresponsible, so I can only imagine how sick of reading it you must be. Let’s see: Execrable. Gotta use that one more. Untenable? Not strong enough. Of course, I could always default to Prof. Turley’s academic weenie-speak, with “troubling” and “problematic.” I’ll work on it. Meanwhile, here’s what I posted before Republicans mortified themselves…
***
I was just about to write a post about how confirming Todd Blanche as the new U.S. Attorney General is so unethical and unconscionable that any Senator voting for him should put a paper bag over his or her head. Then I was compelled to click on the above titled op-ed [gift link!]today by a former Trump first term Justice Department official. His analysis is so biased and frequently full of…beans that it made my stomach hurt. Nevertheless, Blanche is a disgrace. He should not only be be unanimously rejected, he should be disbarred. There are others, but one reason is enough. And EA has written about it several times.
“In May, Ethics Alarms expressed its horror here, here and here over the unethical, conflicted deal engineered by Trump’s acting-Attorney General and Trump’s Treasury Dept. to bestow undeserved benefits on the President, his family, and the Trump Organization. I wrote at the end of the last of these, “I continue to think, or at least hope, that this abomination will be stopped. As I already wrote when asked in a comment, this, unlike the artificial offenses behind the two purely partisan impeachments in Trump’s first term, is a genuine impeachable offense”…U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams said in her 56-page order yesterday that the President and his fellow plaintiffs, his adult sons and the Trump Organization LLC, may not refer in any judicial, administrative or other official proceeding to the “purported ‘settlement agreement’” that gave them broad protection from federal government audits and investigations. The judge then sanctioned the attorneys that represented Trump in his personal capacity, Daniel Z. Epstein of Epstein & Co. LLC and Alejandro Brito of Brito PLLC.Good. They should be sanctioned. They should be suspended. If I had the choice, I would disbar them. They are both a disgrace to the legal profession.”
An so is Blanche, who approved this illegal, unconstitutional, monstrosity. Senator Lisa Murkowski, the nepotism RINO Senator from Alaska, proved that, like a blind squirrel, she can find a metaphorical acorn when she became the second Republican to oppose Blanche’s confirmation. Murkowski said in a statement that she feared that Blanche would “fail to check the worst impulses of this administration,” and cited, among other less convincing examples (like the Epstein Files), the settlement agreement that included the creation of a $1.8 billion compensation fund that could have been used to pay people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. “The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration,” Ms. Murkowski said. “I hope Mr. Blanche is able to achieve that, if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case.”
Ya think? That he agreed to that deal at all is smoking gun proof that Blanche is a political hack who will ask “How high?” when the President says “Jump!” GOP Senators are, idiotically, saying that they will support Blanche if he promises that he won’t pursue that deal. So Blanche issued documents narrowing or dissolving aspects of the settlement that he shoould have never approved in the first place. So what? I don’t care if he groveled an abject apology, wore a hair shirt, flagellated himself and ate dirt in penance. He approved the evil thing: it’s signature significance for an untrustworthy, corrupt, incompetent wimp. Would he be worse than his predecessor Pam Bondi, whom Ethics Alarms flagged as one of Trump’s worst appointments from the start? Gee, I don’t know: was “Bay Watch” dumber than “Hart to Hart”? We are still talking about a level below reasonable tolerance.
Jefry Yan, a minor league pitcher renowned as an oddity for his bizarre and unique manner of celebrating strikeouts finally got to perform on the major-league stage this week. In the New York Mets’ 6-5, 10-inning win over with the Cleveland Guardians this week, Yan preserved a one-run New York lead in the sixth inning, striking out two Guardians in the process and punctuating each strikeout with his characteristic, er, flair.
Not long ago, maybe a couple of decades, a rookie pitcher who acted like that during a game would be taken to the metaphorical woodshed by a coach or a veteran player and told, “Kid, that’s not how we act in the Big Leagues. Don’t do it again.” One reason would be that the team he “showed up” by celebrating would make sure their pitcher hit his team’s star player in the ribs with a fast ball as soon as the player came to bat. Before the Designated Hitter, when pitchers had to bat, a hurler who behaved like Yan would be taking his life into his hands.
Now MLB has adopted the attitude of “let the kids play” to appeal to younger fans. Being a “Get off my lawn” guy, I don’t like Yan’s antics much, and I suspect a lot of batters don’t either. But I also remember how Dick Radatz, aka “The Monster,”the huge Red Sox closer in the Sixties who for three years may have been the greatest relief pitcher ever, used to throw up both arms over his head in a victory gesture when he ended a game with a swinging strike-out, as he inevitably did. It wasn’t as outrageous as Yan’s split, but at the time it was considered audacious.
And the fans loved it.
Mets Manager Any Green isn’t worried that Yan’s antics will cause any issues with the opposition. “I worry far less (today) than 20 years ago,” Green said. “I think he has developed a reputation throughout the game that this isn’t showing up anybody else, and people have accepted, largely, that this is a good-natured human who’s enjoying being on the field playing baseball. We didn’t have many minor-league teams take issue with his enthusiasm. They end up smiling at it if they’re not the one getting punched out.”
Yan is a bit defiant. “I’m going to continue to go out there the same way, to go out there with the same emotion to have fun as if I’m playing a kids’ game, like I always have,” Yan said before his Mets debut. “I’m going to enjoy that first (strikeout), like it’s my first and last one. I’ve worked a long time for that moment.”
I would offer two points. One: his displays of joy will become less tolerable if he doesn’t have consistent value to his team. The second is that I worry about the gimmick becoming a slippery slope. At what point do such eccentricities constitute “making a travesty of the game,” an offense that remains in the rulebook? What’s next? Pitcher’s doing “the worm” after strikeouts? Trotting out a home run backwards, as emotionally-troubled baseball star Jimmy Piersall once did? Cultural norms exist for reasons. Sometimes we don’t remember those reasons until it’s too late.
I had a doctor’s appointment today. Taking the elevator from the 9th floor to the lobby, I encounter one you man riding in the elevator already, with his face buried in his phone. Two more riders got on at stops as we went down. All walked in already focused entirely on their phones, and their eyes didn’t move. I looked around for a friendly face, a smile, some hint of humanity. Nothing. I came this close to booming out, “Well, hello, everybody!” (I did that once.)
I regard this behavior as simply rude, and its slow but steady development into a social norm as ominous for society and the species. I was already pondering the problem earlier in the week after seeing another one of those Progressive ads about the coach who tries to stop young couples who have become home-owners from “turning into their parents.” It’s a funny series, but in this particular installment, most of the conduct from the young homeowner was simple friendliness to a stranger.
Indeed, my father was always prone to chat up strangers. Not my mother: if you weren’t Greek, a family member, or someone already known to her, you were presumptively an enemy agent or a disguised invader from outer space. In this realm, as with many others, I took Dad as a role model, and experience has taught me that it is the right approach to the world and society around us. For one thing, I have learned how a random act of attention and kindness can brighten an otherwise dreary day.
I was blissfully unaware of Joseph Fasano’s existence until one of my dear, Trump Deranged, progressively-addled friends posted that junk above to Facebook, to be greeted (of course) by all sorts of likes and frowny faces. He’s a poet, primarily, which means that Fasano expounds on reality from a perspective of sentimentality and idealism, and of course he is woke as woke can be. (He teaches at Columbia, where he couldn’t if he weren’t ideologically acceptable.)
I don’t know who “the Billionaire” is (I can guess), but of course billionaires are evil because capitalism is evil. Interestingly, when a rare commenter on Fassano’s own Facebook page challenges his facile pronouncements, Fasano refuses to engage and typically tells the writer to buy his next book. I’m sure he gives all his royalties to STOP ICE organizations.
But that’s only on my mind because I just stumbled on the meme above as I posted on Facebook about the incredible Red Sox game last night. (Baseball is my life.) I have to be out for a while, so I hope to return to a welter of fascinating new ethics issues.
I dived down Alice’s rabbit hole after seeing this head-exploder on Twitter/”X”. Planned Parenthood really is evil. It wants to kill as many unborn human beings as possible by bombarding vulnerable women with lies and euphemisms. I went to its website and couldn’t find the illogical nonsense above anywhere on that promotional and fundraising site, but there are many almost as absurd assertions:
“The U.S. Supreme Court is now dominated by justices hostile to our freedom.” If anything, this Court is more determined to preserve individual liberty than any preceeding court in memory, notably by reining in the power of federal agencies.
“[I]n June 2022, the court took away our federal constitutional right to abortion.” There never was a constitutional right to abortion, because Roe was a legally indefensible exercise of judicial activism and legislation.
“[I]t goes against the will of the American people, 80% of whom believe that abortion should be legal.” The Court didn’t say abortion was illegal. The Court says it isn’t a right. The public is too ignorant to grasp the distinction, but Planned Parenthood is deliberately trying to make it dumber: they can have more babies killed that way.
“This ruling robbed us of our power to make personal decisions about our own bodies, and gave that control to politicians.” No it did not. Women have the power not to get pregnant. No American has the power to take an innocent human life because it is inconvenient or its existence is badly timed. In a republic, the people delegate their lawmaking to elected representatives. That is the Constitution.
“Reproductive freedom means every person gets to decide what’s right for their own body. No exceptions.” Ah yes, the big lie. “Every person”…except the vulnerable, genetically unique, innocent and powerless person who others get to decide that being dead is what’s “right for their own body.”
But “Abortion is gender-affirming care” is worst of all. Planned Parenthood is just parroting a deliberate euphemism for the ugly process of distorting an individual’s mind, organs, hormones and secondary sex characteristics to conform with the current social pathogen of gender-warping, the opposite of “gender affirming.” How could an abortion be gender-affirming? I guess the theory is that if you have an abortion you are female, so congratulations? But being pregnant (without some weird zygote implantation process worthy of Dr. Frankenstein) is also gender-affirming. Is Planned Parenthood saying that a woman who really wants to affirm her womanhood should have an abortion? It would be in character for the group, which is Machiavellian.
“The language is Orwellian, really. The language has gone from “women’s healthcare” to “choice”, to “bodily autonomy”, to “reproductive freedom” through the years. Now, abortion is “gender-affirming care”. Everything BUT what it actually is.Mutilation of body parts is “gender-affirming”. Murder of an innocent and perfectly-formed CHILD is also “gender-affirming”. Planned Parenthood is not only mutilating lives but language here and this is very dangerous and indicative of the depths to which we’ve lowered. May God help us.”
I think PP is playing cognitive dissonance games. It is working hard to find an metaphor for abortion that leaves out the icky unborn baby-killing part and paints a positive, appealing picture for the Woke and easily indoctrinated. Apparently the little matter of some actual connection to abortion is now dispensable, which is great for abortion promotion. Abortion is a romantic walk on a warm Hawaii beach! Abortion is a basket of golden retriever puppies! Abortion is sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows!
Meanwhile, according to the US Abortion Data Dashboard, the number of abortions—that is, deaths of human beings who would be alive today if given the chance—has increased each year from 2023. Last year’s total: 1,129,650. Oh, but if only it could have been more! (I’m channeling the ghouls at Planned Parenthood.)
If women want to keep killing the unborn, there’s nothing more that can be done about it, is there?
Another discouraging note: approximately 40% of abortions eliminate black babies, in a U.S. population that is less than 14% black.
This is the level of intellect at which foes of enforcing immigration laws are functioning. The director of the Smithsonian American History Museum gives land acknowledgements, meaning that she must think that map is profound.
Is it really that hard to not be a total asshole while you are an elected representative supposedly serving the public good? Members of Congress represent the nation, our Constitution and the Founders while they have that honor. Why can’t they all recognize their duties, which include being a role model and not bringing disrepute upon the institution, and conduct themselves accordingly? (To turn it around a bit: why are voters so lazy and inattentive that they elect such creeps?)
Today’s featured creep is GOP Rep.Chuck Edwards, who just dropped out of the race for his seat, leaving his party with no candidate and no incumbant going into a crucial mid-term election that will determine whether Congress spends the next two years impeaching the President. He wrote on “X” yesterday,
“After much prayer and reflection, I’ve decided to withdraw from my re-election campaign. I will complete my current term. Serving Western North Carolina has been the honor of my life. Thank you for your trust, prayers, and support. God bless WNC and America.”
Gee, he mentioned prayer twice and God once in a 43 word post; I guess that means he must be a good man. (I’m sure a disturbing number of people believe that.) If serving was such an honor, why did he behave like Harpo Marx ? The House Ethics Committee recommended this week that Edwards be censured for “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers.” Translation: he engaged in sexual harassment in the workplace.
One of the few downsides of my resuming full attention to the weird Boston Red Sox 2026 season is that I now have to watch the paid political ads between innings on NESN, the New England Sports Network that broadcasts Sox and Bruins games.
As background [Note:this is NOT a baseball-related post, so ye who have been deprived of love for the National Pastime by a quirks of mysterious God, don’t stop reading], the team played so wretchedly for so long—three full months—that I was forced to suspend viewership just to preserve my sanity, as all rational analysis led to the unavoidable conclusion that the team was a hopeless, inexplicable flop despite what should have been sufficient talent to compete, and watching the group find infuriating ways to lose was a waste of time and emotion. Unexpectedly, and almost without precedent in baseball history, Boston climbed from a dismal 32–46 record on June 24 and a 1% playoff probability to 61–51, capturing the second American League Wild Card spot and tying an 80-year-old franchise record with a 15-game winning streak. They are now in the midst of a new 6 game streak now, and are playing exciting, spirited baseball, most recently sweeping the Best Team Money Can Buy, the L.A. Dodgers, in the Evil Empire’s home stadium.
But the political ads! They are insulting, as the authors obviously believe Red Sox fans are morons, and, to be fair since I read the comments after team reports, many certainly are.
Segers had taken to social media to posted his views on transgender athletes playing in women’s sports. “I don’t see transgender people becoming oppressed or being oppressed … life is unfair” he posted, along with, “I’m not against anyone living out their lives the way they want, but I am against their rights superseding the rights of other people. That’s a little bit foul.” He also mocked the posting of preferred pronouns: “If you asked me what my preferred pronouns are and it’s not obvious to you that I’m a he/him, that I’m good with he/him — Surely you don’t need any help. I’m not wearing a dress.”
The social media Furies descended on the actor with a vengeance, accusing him of being transphobic, homophobic, yada yada. You know the script.
Prof. Turley believes that the performer’s human rights have been unfairly and hypocritically “curtailed,” writing in part,
“Other actors have expressed support for transgender players without any response other than praise in the latest example of the rising McCarthyism on the left.This is only the latest termination over the political views of artists in New York. As the song states in Hadestown, “It’s an old song. It’s a sad song. But we’re gonna sing it anyway.” We have previously discussed how private companies can fire employees for public conduct or statements that bring controversy to their business or products. However, even though the First Amendment does not govern such controversies, there remains a free speech issue. Free speech goes beyond the confines of the First Amendment and private companies can engage in censorship that curtails this human right. The question often comes down to consistency in companies enforcing content-based standards. I did not like some of the comments of Segers, but there is little question that equally strong comments against “cisgender” athletes or for transgender athletes would not result in such termination…Whether it is actors, athletes, or academics, there is a demonstrably different level of tolerance for controversial views on gender. Take Segers’ statements, swap the nouns or pronouns, and ask yourself if there would have been a cancel campaign, let alone a termination. It is not the fact of the controversy but the lack of consistency that is so problematic in these areas.”
Yes, but. This is Broadway, and a Broadway musical. Broadway’s audience pool is shrinking and its ticket prices exclude all but the relatively wealthy. Musicals are especially dependent on the the affluent LGTBQ demographic: I would wager that the percentage of gay Americans who have heard of “Hadestown” is double or more the percentage of non-LGTBQ members of the public. Having a prominent cast member in a Broadway musical making public comments that are likely to offend its core audience is unacceptable, and the producers were only protecting their show, their investment, and the rest of the company by sending Segers packing.
Ethics Alarms 