The Looney Tunes post was the latest in along line of those that I never anticipated provoking the rich discussions that they have, and this fascinating post by SamePenn really took off into an unexpected direction—ragtime and racist songs—that is still relevant to the post. Just read, enjoy, ponder and learn; I did.
Here is SamePenn’s Comment of the Day, and there’s a second COTD coming, on the post, Ethics Quiz: The Looney Tunes Cartoon Disclaimer: Continue reading
(If I believed in karma, which I don’t, I’d swear this has happened because I mocked my old school chum Dr. Peter Canaday for his comment proving that he was the exception to the rule—and it IS a rule—that supporting Donald Trump for President proves that a parasite has eaten your brain and defecated out your sense and values.)
During his Iowa press conference yesterday, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos insisted on asking questions (a.k.a. “making a speech”) of the current GOP front-runner for the nomination without waiting to be called on—-this is consistent for Ramos, who also feels that Mexicans should be able to jump ahead of legitimate immigration applicants and just enter the country at will…same principle, really—and when he refused to sit down, Trump had him removed.
OK, I’m settling my gorge, swallowing twice, wiping my brow, but…
ESPN pulled former baseball pitching star Curt Schilling from its Little League broadcast team yesterday after becoming aware of his tweet above, saying in a statement:
“Curt’s tweet was completely unacceptable, and in no way represents our company’s perspective. We made that point very strongly to Curt and have removed him from his current Little League assignment pending further consideration.”
Schilling then tweeted this apology: “I understand and accept my suspension. 100% my fault. Bad choices have bad consequences and this was a bad decision in every way on my part.” This appears to be a #1 on the Ethics Alarms Apology Scale...“An apology motivated by the realization that one’s past conduct was unjust, unfair, and wrong, constituting an unequivocal admission of wrongdoing as well as regret, remorse and contrition, as part of a sincere effort to make amends and seek forgiveness.”
If I had delivered it, however, it might have been a #7: “A forced or compelled version of 1-4, in which the individual (or organization) apologizing may not sincerely believe that an apology is appropriate, but chooses to show the victim or victims of the act inspiring it that the individual responsible is humbling himself and being forced to admit wrongdoing by the society, the culture, legal authority, or an organization or group that the individual’s actions reflect upon or represent.”
What was it exactly that Schilling’s tweet showed, implied, suggested or stated that was” completely unacceptable, in no way represent ESPN’s perspective, and that justified his employer’s action? Curt Schilling is an inquisitive, politically active and opinionated man, and has always annoyed sportswriters because 1) he’s openly conservative 2) he’s a devout Christian, and isn’t shy about talking about it, 3) he can write and speak coherently and was capable, while playing, of challenging their criticism, and 4) he’s a lot smarter than most of them. I am assuming in this inquiry that nothing in Schilling’s contract or agreement with ESPN restricted his right to express non-sports opinions on his own time.
Here are some possibilities: Continue reading
“Go visit that Loughner guy and see if you can get him to endorse Trump…
I’m really getting annoyed at unethical hacks—you know, journalists—forcing me to defend Donald Trump. Really, guys, if you can’t do this jerk in by reporting the facts and doing fair commentary, it’s time to send an application to Home Depot.
The fact that someone at a Donald Trump rally shouted out “White Power!” is no more significant or newsworthy than if someone shouted “Give peace a chance!”, “Kilroy was here!” or “Tippecanoe and Tyler too!” One person? Or even if it was six, or ten, so what? Maybe he was a Democratic plant. Maybe he was a Rand Paul plant. Maybe he was nuts, and maybe he was a white power advocate, so what? What control does Trump have over who comes to his rallies? Yet the news media is treating this one shouted idiocy like it’s a smoking gun.
Now the game is to see how many loathsome individuals the news media can find who will say they support Trump. using basic cognitive dissonance against him rather than facts, substance, or legitimately relevant issues. The Daily Kos looked under a rock and found a David Duke nod to Trump: pathetic. “Have you no sense of decency?” Pure guilt by association, and the worst kind: there isn’t even any real association there. Let’s see who else they can get to endorse Trump. Dylann Roof? Bernie Madoff? Jared Fogel? Lance Armstrong? George Zimmerman? Casey Anthony? Satan? Continue reading
Another day, another Hillary advisor, another scandal…
The private server of Hillary Clinton isn’t the only intrigue going on the should make us wonder just how corrupt our leaders and aspiring leaders are. There has been a new development involving another set of emails that should cause public outrage and alarm…if the news media had the integrity to report on it.
In 2012, Gawker filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request asking the State Department to produce e-mails related to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philippe Reines (now a top Hillary Clinton adviser) and his contacts with thirty-three listed media outlets. Reines was involved in an intemperate email exchange with Gawker journalist Michael Hastings in which he told Hastings to “fuck off;” naturally Gawker, being Gawker, wanted to dig up dirt on him.
[It’s a side issue, but any high ranking government official that tells any journalist to “fuck off” should be forced to apologize and be punished or sacked. This just one more example of the Obama Administration’s aversion to accountability and management competence.]
The U.S. State Department officially stated in 2013 that there were no such emails, reporting that “After a thorough search . . . no records responsive to your request were located.”
Last week, after a federal judge demanded a“court-ordered status report,” Justice Department lawyers, reporting on behalf of the State Department, announced that the previous statement was a teeny bit off. The State Department had found of “5.5 gigabytes of data containing 81,159 emails of varying length” sent or received by Reines, of which about 17,855, or 22%, were relevant to the initial FOIA request.
Wait…what?? Continue reading
Above is the disclaimer shown at the beginning of each DVD in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4, Volume 5, and Volume 6 sets, as well as the Daffy Duck and Foghorn Leghorn Looney Tunes Super Stars sets and the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection:
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:
It is times like this when I wonder if my theory that ethics evolves toward wisdom may be excessively optimistic.
In Norfolk, Virginia, Old Dominion University officials went bananas when a fraternity engaged in randy verbal hijinks of questionable taste at its off-campus home across the street from the institution. ( “Hijinks of questionable taste” is synonymous with “acted like a fraternity.”) Some frat boys hung painted bedsheets as banners to welcome incoming freshmen co-eds, thusly:
Well, THE HORROR!
ODU’s leadership responded to the tomfoolery by issuing the following statement:
“Messages like the ones displayed yesterday by a few students on the balcony of their private residence are not and will not [be] tolerated. The moment University staff became aware of these banners, they worked to have them removed. At ODU, we foster a community of respect and dignity, and these messages sickened us. They are not representative of our 3,000 faculty and staff, 25,000 students, and 130,000 alumni.
Ours is a community that works actively to promote bystander intervention and takes a stand denouncing violence against women. The ‘It’s on Us’ video is just one example of ODU students’ leadership on this topic. In addition, the University ensures all students receive education on the prevention of sexual harassment and relationship violence.”
Old Dominion’s Student Government Association also issued their own verbal condemnation of the incident. They filmed a video directly addressing the banners and stated: Continue reading
An unethical cascade…
Before we commence, I do want to thank all of you are keeping me away from Hillary and Trump with more horrible ethics stories than I can keep up with.
Now that I’ve got that over with:
Gad. It’s a veritable unethical cascade:
First, high school students takes surreptitious photos of their teachers while they should be, you know, getting educated…
Second, the students post the photos, which have not been consented to by the teachers, on Instagram…
Third, the students add salacious or otherwise provocative comments about the teachers as objects of their lust…
Fourth, the bottom-feeding website BuzzFeed picks up the photos and puts them in a feature called “13 Really Hot Teachers That Will Have You Begging For Detention.”…
How unethical is this? Let me count the ways… Continue reading
The involuntary liver transplant from Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life.” Why, you’re RIGHT, Amanda! It’s EXACTLY like a pregnancy!
(Part One is here.)
If an advocate has persuasive, honest, strong arguments not based on fallacies and rationalizations, I assume that those would be the ones he or she would use.
The recent Center for Medical Progress videos featuring employees of Planned Parenthood and StemExpress describing in graphic detail the process by which fetal tissue is harvested for research, and in some cases showing the process itself, have made abortion advocates squirm by making it difficult for them to deny that a tiny, growing human being is sacrificed in the act of abortion. This makes the evasive “choice” defense of abortion inadequate. Why shouldn’t unborn lives matter? Either because of neglect (“It’s legal” and “it’s my right” have been used to cut off debate for decades), because the rationale for debate has been built on a convenient fiction (“Life? I don’t see any life!”), or because there really aren’t any ethically satisfying justifications for abortion on demand, the pro-abortion lobby’s attacks on the videos have been notable for their lack of substance and abundant desperation.
This has been especially true of the analogies offered for the relationship between a mother and unborn child, and the fetus itself.
In the Washington Post last week, Margo Kaplan, who as an associate professor at Rutgers Law School should be skilled at analogies, attacked anti-abortion advocates with what she seemed to think was a definitive “gotcha!” She notes that there is nowhere near the same level of attention paid to frozen embryos that are donated to research as aborted fetuses, and from this concludes all manner of horrible things about abortion opponents: Continue reading
You tell it like it is, Chris!
—NFL Hall of Famer Chris Carter, speaking to first year NFL players in a 2014 league-sponsored rookie symposium to help them “adapt to professional football.” His advice was then echoed by fellow Hall of Famer Warren Sapp.
That the NFL’s retired role models and immortals were–Have been? Still are?—giving out such toxic and unethical “wisdom” under the league’s auspices went unnoticed until a recently retired player,the 49ers’ Chris Borland who quit after just one season because he feared brain damage, referenced Carter’s speech on ESPN. Not only did the NFL’s speakers instruct its rookies to make sure they have a designated “fall guy” if they decide to break the law, it had Carter’s speech on its website all this time.
Now it’s all about damage control, of course. ESPN, which currently employs this ethics-challenged “sportsman” as an analyst, said in a statement… Continue reading
