Author: Jack Marshall

Ethics Quiz: Tiger’s Sexist, Juvenile Gag

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Once again, we enter the weird realm of offensive or arguably offensive jokes that become public through accident, eavesdropping or betrayal. In such cases, the audience most certain to be offended by the joke learns of it despite the intent of the jokester.

The all-time champion in this category was Nixon/Ford Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz. At the 1976  Republican National Convention (which nominated President Ford, ultimately defeated by Jimmy Carter), Pat Boone asked Butz, then in a three-way conversation with Boone and John Dean, why the party of Abraham Lincoln couldn’t attract the support of more blacks. Butz, who may have been drunk, answered, “Because coloreds only want three things. You know what they want? I’ll tell you what coloreds want. It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit. That’s all!”

As Otter told Flounder, Butz had “fucked up.” He trusted John Dean, who was at the convention as a reporter for “Rolling Stone.” Dean repeated the joke in his published story, and  the uproar forced Butz to resign.

The Tiger Woods incident isn’t anywhere near as bad as the Butz episode, but it raised some of the same issues.During the first round of tlat week’s Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club on February 16, 2023, in Pacific Palisades, California, Woods out-drove friend and competitor Justin Thomas. As they walked way from the tee, Woods surreptitiously (he thought) handed Thomas a tampon, a hoary guy-gag meaning “You play like a girl.” But cameras caught the exchange (above), and though Thomas appeared to be amused, others were not. Veteran female sportswriter Christine Brennan’s reaction was typical, as she wrote in part,

I’m guessing most of the millions of fathers and mothers who support their athletic daughters probably have long since retired all their juvenile pranks that were intended to demean the ability of those girls they love and for whom they spend so much time cheering. 

But not our Tiger. 

No, he employed basic misogyny to insult his good friend Thomas, a knee-slapper of a dig against female athletes: You hit the ball like a girl!…

[W]hen the biggest name in the sport’s history is giddily spreading misogyny down the fairway, it might just confirm a woman’s suspicions about golf and send her to any one of the scores of other sports she can play for the rest of her life without running into a dude playing a juvenile tampon joke.

Woods sort of apologized… Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Dispatches From The Great Stupid, An Ethics Dunce Family, And West Coast Bizarro World”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

[Sherry Jackson’s famous turn as a comely android in the original “Star Trek” is a bit of a stretch to illustrate this post, but Sherry was a long-time crush (dating back to her role as Danny Thomas’s first daughter in “Make Room for Daddy”), and I always felt she deserved a better career than she ended up with.]

The tale of Jennifer Angel, the Oakland baker and social justice warrior who was killed in the course of a robbery and whose family asked that her killers not be subjected to punitive justice because that’s how Jen would have wanted it, generated a superb and varied discussion: Well done! The comments to “Dispatches From the Great Stupid, An Ethics Dunce Family, And West Coats Bizarro World” even took a side trip to Star Trek lore. One of the stand-out comments in this stand-out comment-fest was that of A.M. Golden, who generally delivers quality analysis—it also launched the “Star Trek” tangent. I immediately identified it as a Comment of the Day, and over the last eight days, as the metaphorical roof fell in here in Alexandria, my daily failure to post it (for eight days) has rankled me like the knowledge that one has left the bathtub faucet running.

Finally I’m getting A.M.’s COTD up; I apologize for the delay. Here it is (and you might want to check out all the comments; I just re-read them, and the array demonstrates how fortunate Ethics Alarms in its quality of readers):

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This kind of philosophy comes out of the belief that humans are naturally good and that all that is required to make them eternally noble is meeting their basic needs by providing free food, shelter, clothing, education and medical care. Providing these needs will, ostensibly, end poverty which will, ostensibly, end crime and war.

They think they can educate people into rejecting wants, ignoring the example of every socialist country in the 20th century that failed to prevent people from wanting cars, designer jeans and meat.

It is the philosophy behind “Star Trek” and every other utopian futurism that has secular humanism at the core of its philosophy. Continue reading →

“Good Censorship”(Cont.): “I Enjoy Being A Girl”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

No, I’m not ready for the epic job of defenestrating Seth Abramson for his ethics-anti-matter “justification” of re-witing Roald Dahl’s works. It’s not that its going to be difficult— most readers here could do it as well as I can—it’s just going to be tedious and infuriating, and I’m on edge already.

Right now I want to pose a related issue: the song you can hear above from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Fifties Broadway hit “Flower Drum Song.” I hadn’t heard it myself for a very long time, and when it was played on the Sirius-XM Broadway channel, I almost drove off the road. It’s a famous song; Rodgers, as usual, provided a memorable melody to Oscar’s lyrics…but wow. Are there any demeaning female stereotypes that aren’t endorsed in this song? Here are the lyrics:

I’m a girl and by me that’s only great!
I am proud that my silhouette is curvy,
That I walk with a sweet and girlish gait,
With my hips kind of swively and swervy.

I adore being dressed in something frilly
When my date comes to get me at my place.
Out I go with my Joe or John or Billy,
Like a filly who is ready for the race!

When I have a brand-new hairdo,
With my eyelashes all in curl,
I float as the clouds on air do—
I enjoy being a girl!

When men say I’m cute and funny,
And my teeth aren’t teeth, but pearl,
I just lap it up like honey—
I enjoy being a girl!

I flip when a fellow sends me flowers,
I drool over dresses made of lace,
I talk on the telephone for hours
With a pound and a half of cream upon my face!

I’m strictly a female female,
And my future, I hope, will be
In the home of a brave and free male
Who’ll enjoy being a guy
Having a girl like me!

I enjoy being a girl!
I enjoy being a girl!

I flip when a fellow sends me flowers,
I drool over dresses made of lace,
I talk on the telephone for hours
With a pound and a half of cream upon my face!

When I have a brand-new hairdo,
With my eyelashes all in curl,
I float as the clouds on air do—
I enjoy being a girl!

When someone with eyes that smoulder,
Says he loves every silken curl
That falls on my ivory shoulder—
I enjoy being a girl!

When I hear a complimentary whistle
That greets my bikini by the sea,
I turn and I glower and I bristle—
But I’m happy to know the whistle’s meant for me!

Oh, baby, that whistle’s meant for me!

I’m strictly a female female,
And my future, I hope, will be
In the home of a brave and free male
Who’ll enjoy being a guy
Having a girl like…ME!

Clearly, by the criteria adopted by Puffin Books, that song would have to be re-written and censored, because they “regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.” I know women whose teeth would be set on edge right from the title, in which a fully grown woman refers to herself as a girl. As the song proceeds, she checks all sorts of sexist other boxes too, including expressing secret approval of sexual harassment.

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Ethics Notes On A Very Strange Day…

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Yesterday was a mess, as I was running back and forth to the hospital, trying to keep Spuds calm (he didn’t understand why I kept leaving the house and why Grace was missing), and because when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, detecting ethics dilemmas and issues at every turn. Here are some that stick out…

I was asked to buy two of the Juul vaping delivery sticks, which are sold at 7-11, and which cost about 10 bucks. The vaping system has been a godsend for my wife, who smoked two packs a day for most of her adult life: her lungs, the doctor says, are completely clear, pink and healthy. Nonetheless, the government is trying to send her back to cigarettes, which it refuses to ban ( it certainly could), and threatening to eliminate Juul. When I tried to purchase the sticks, I was informed that 7-11 is prevented by law from selling more than one to a single customer. The law is simply harassment and an abuse of government power. I could come back 20 minutes later and with a different clerk, buy a second one easily.

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The emergency room admitting staff consisted of two grossly obese women wearing baggy sweatshirts and slacks. One was chewing gum. Both mumbled and were barely audible. What a confidence- and trust-building introduction to a hospital! How can any business allow employees to present such an unprofessional image to the public? Quizzing my sister, a health care expert (she wrote some of Obamacare), about what’s going on here, I was informed that health care facilities, including doctors’ offices, are experiencing such a staffing emergency that they have to accept sub-par employees. No, they really don’t. Health care facilities can’t allow unprofessional staff, and they need to pay enough to ensure that employees meet acceptable standards.

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“Good Censorship”: Regarding Ethics Villain Puffin Books And Its Defender, Seth Abramson

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Yes, that’s a dead and rotting puffin above. It should be the new logo for Puffin Books, a division of Penguin. According to Wikipedia, “it has been among the largest publishers of children’s books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world” since the 1960s. According to the Penguin website, Puffin Books is “prestigious.”

According to Ethics Alarms, the children’s book publisher has no regard for authors’ rights, integrity, fairness, literature or language, all rather crucial to its trade, wouldn’t you say? What’s happened at Puffin? Well, what’s happened to Disney, elementary schools and toy makers? ( Clue: Mattel has a gender-fluid line of Barbies).

Puffin has decided that the demands of wokism, political correctness and child indoctrination justify rewriting the works of iconic British author Roald Dahl. Since Dahl’s death, Puffin has made hundreds of changes to his childen’s classics, removing words and passages that The Wonderfully Woke might consider offensive or harmful, even to the extent of adding passages that Dahl never wrote.

What?? I’m assuming that Puffin owns the rights to the books somehow and can do this legally. You want to know why authors like Samuel Beckett made sure his estate had iron-clad control over his works? THIS is why. Please note: it doesn’t matter one whit that Puffin can allow some anonymous censor to rewrite “Charlie and the Choaolate Factory,” it is throbbingly unethical for it to do so.

In the original edition of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” Grandma Josephine speaks of a “crazy Indian prince.” The 2022 edition describes the character as a “ridiculously rich Indian prince.” Augustus Gloop, one of the horrible children in the novel, is no longer described as “enormously fat” as Dahl wrote; he is now   described as “enormous”(whatever that means). Puffin apparently has a fetish about “fat.” Aunt Sponge, in the 2022 edition of “James and the Giant Peach,” is now “quite large” instead of “enormously fat,” leaving the possibility that she could be the size of  The Rock or even a T-Rex. Other passages where Aunt Sponge is described as “fat” have been excised.

Meanwhile, “two ghastly hags” has been changed to “two ghastly aunts.” “Queer” is apparently no longer acceptable to describe a house—just in case its a gay house, I suppose—and was replaced with  “strange.” In “The Witches,”  edits by Puffin made character descriptors gender-neutral, so “chambermaid” became “cleaner.” Though Dahl wrote that a character said, “You must be mad, woman!,” the line is now, “You must be out of your mind!” The line describing a, “Great flock of ladies” was changed to a “Great group of ladies.”

And so on. Continue reading →

Apparently White Springfield, Ohio, Elementary School Students Were Ordered By Black Students To Say”Black Lives Matter”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The story is officially in the ‘allegedly” category until all of the facts can be confirmed.

The principal at Kenwood Elementary School in Springfield told police that a group of black students gathered several white students in the school playground and forced them to say, “Black Lives Matter.” The suspects also recorded the students who were threatened into making the statement, police said. Students who tried to resist were dragged or carried to a section of the playground and beaten, with one white student getting punched in the head.

I don’t particularly blame the black students at all. They have been told for all of their lives by adults, politicians and the news media that whites hate them, that police are trying to kill them, that the nation is overwhelmingly racist and that systemic racism and rampant white supremacy is the norm and will be, unless they do something about it.

Yesterday, in his remarks after a screening of the new Emmet Till movie, the President of the United States said (according to the official transcript posted by the White House)…

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Saturday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 2/18/23: Palin, Pete, “Eco-grief,” Progressive Gun Law Schizophrenia And A Critic-Attacking Choreographer Update

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

It’s been a while between warm-ups, I know. They are a necessary feature to cover the myriad ethics issues that arise daily, even though even with them the task is impossible. Unfortunately, the format also requires almost twice as much time as a normal, single issue post, and the warm-ups usually prompt fewer comments and clicks, I’m not sure why. Fortunately, I don’t write Ethics Alarms for clicks. But it’s been chaotic around here lately, and I haven’t had many uninterrupted hours to prepare on of these multi-matter posts. This certainly isn’t one. Well, let’s just see what happens…

1. Of all people….Sarah Palin has advised Ron DeSantis to “stay Governor.” “DeSantis doesn’t need to [run],” Palin said in an interview with Newsmax. “I envision him as our president someday but not right now. He should stay governor for a bit longer,” she added. “He’s young, you know. He has decades ahead of him where he can be our president.” Someone needs to explain to Sarah the principle of ethics estoppel. Palin abandoned the job the citizens of Alaska elected her to do based in the belief that she would fulfill her commitment to do it, resigning as governor in 2009 after just three years on the job. If there is one person in the U.S. who has no standing to advise anyone to “stay governor,” it’s her.

Palin was horrible and unethically mistreated by the news media when she ran for VP with John McCain. Savaging her was part of the MSM’s push to elect Barack Obama; meanwhile, it ignored the obvious deficits of Obama’s running mate, a guy named Joe Biden. I defended Palin then, ethically so, but virtually everything she has said or done since has almost—almost-–made me regret it.

2. Oh for heaven’s sake….The Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is offering “eco-grief” training to employees who are anxious and depressed about the impending planetary doom from climate change, among other things. The training is supposed to define their eco-grief and allow employees an opportunity to “examine their emotions” while giving them “and “tools to cope.” The HBO series “Big Little Lies” had an episode where second-grader had a crippling panic attack while her teacher was explaining that global warming was going to end life on Earth if we didn’t act quickly. But then she was six. Any U.S. government employee who suffers from “eco-grief” is too juvenile, emotionally stunted and unstable to be a public employee. The remedy for “eco-grief” is to grow the hell up.

An employee of Fish and Wildlife said, “The FWS is in absolute crisis when it comes to funding and staffing. Most refuges I know have lost 50 to 60% of their staff over the last 12 years. And yet consider how much time, money, energy and staff time is being spent on spreading the woke message. Would the FWS support its employees having a booth and being dressed in uniform and while on the clock supporting a pro-life festival?”

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Sometimes Republicans Really DO “Pounce,” Or Stop Making Me Defend Joe Biden!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Speaking in Maryland, President Biden fumbled while extolling Maryland’s first black governor’s days playing wide receiver on the Johns Hopkins football team.

“You got a hell of a new governor in Wes Moore. He’s the real deal and the boy looks like he can still play,” Biden said. “He’s got some guns on him!”

Obviously the President was showing his racist streak, right? After all, calling a black man “boy” is a racist slur. Watch “In the Heat of the Night.” Thus conservative websites, blogs, pundits and news sources have feigned horror, and produced condemnations of Joe’s words–racist dog whistles!—worthy of Charles M. Blow or Joy Reid.

Oh, I get it, I do. This is a genuine IIPTDXTTNMIAFB (Ethics Alarms initials for “Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”) if there ever was one. The news media’s double standards in regard to Trump and Biden are ridiculous: Donald Trump would be called racist if he referred to a black 7-year-old as a “boy.” In all matters, actions, words and policies, Trump is presumed to have a malign motive, because he’s baaaaaad. Joe, in stark contrast, is always given the benefit of the doubt because he is obviously a nice guy who has never had a mean thought in his life. (He’s not a nice guy, but never mind; I assume you know that.) The conservative and Republican pouncers are just trying to inject some equity into the “gotcha!” wars. “Sauce for the goose” and all that.

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I Am Sorry That Senator Fetterman Is Clinically Depressed But My Sympathy Is Limited

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

ABC News reports:

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman on Wednesday checked himself into a Washington hospital “to receive treatment for clinical depression,” his chief of staff said on Thursday. “While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks,” Adam Jentleson said in a statement.

Jentleson said that Fetterman was evaluated on Monday by Congress’ attending physician, Dr. Brian P. Monahan, who “recommended inpatient care” at Walter Reed hospital. “John agreed, and he is receiving treatment on a voluntary basis.” “After examining John, the doctors at Walter Reed told us that John is getting the care he needs, and will soon be back to himself,” Jentleson said.

This comes shortly after Fetterman had been hospitalized for “light-headedness.” So, so predictably, the Democratic propaganda agents in the mainstream media are spinning this “time to pay the piper” story as a good thing. “Fetterman draws praise for getting help  for depression” cheered the AP. “John Fetterman is openly discussing his treatment for depression. Few politicians do,” gushed Vox. Wow! Isn’t it wonderful that this guy is unable to do his job, after anyone who questioned his fitness during the campaign  was attacked as being “ablest”?

The announcement raised other questions. Clinical depression is a serious condition: Fetterman never revealed to voters that he experienced depression off and on throughout his life. That information was relevant to voters’ decision, but his office only revealed it now to lessen suspicions that the current problem was related to his stroke. But just last week, the same spokesman blamed his previous hospitalization on the stroke, saying, Continue reading →

Open Forum! (Whew, That Was A Close One…)

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

I’ve been running back and forth to the hospital, fielding phone calls, dealing with a dog with some kind of digestive issue, and looking at some of the damnedest ethics stories I’ve ever seen ( like this: “UFO shot down by $400K US missile may have been a $12 hobby balloon: report”), so I came within a hair of forgetting to open today’s Friday Open Forum.

Not knowing it was Friday didn’t help.

These have been excellent lately. Keep it up!