Author: Jack Marshall

Return To “Pleasantville”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I just watched “Pleasantville,” the 23-year-old comedy/drama/ allegory/satire/pseudo-“Twilight Zone” rip-off film produced, written and directed by Gary Ross. I’m not going to write as much about the film now as I will later; instead, I’m going to ask everyone to watch (or re-watch) the film so we can have a rich discussion about it at a future date, maybe in a month, maybe less. It might even be a good topic for the Ethics Alarms Zoom conference I’m planning on having (No, I haven’t forgotten!)

Ross is unusual for Hollywood, thoughtful and interested in ethics. He is more of a screenwriter than a director, and I would categorize most of his work as centered on ethical conflicts, dilemmas and values: “Big,” “Sea Biscuit,” “The Hunger Games,” and “Pleasantville.” He is also a smug liberal who worked for the Presidential campaigns of Ted Kennedy, Mike Dukakis and Bill Clinton. The smugness bothered me the first time I saw “Pleasantville” two decades ago, but it is absolutely blinding now.

“Pleasantville” is still an excellent and thought-provoking movie, certainly as compared to most movies today; it’s just that the thoughts it provokes are disingenuously manipulated, and the movie isn’t quite as excellent as it obviously thinks it is. (Full disclosure: I grew up on Pleasant Street in Arlington, Massachusetts.)

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Crowbar, ProBar, Whatever…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

toy train wreck

Fake news, fake hero, media bias, unethical joke, Poe’s Law—this tiny ethics train wreck, an insignificant side-track in the 2020 Election Ethics Train Wreck, is still depressing…

First, CNN reported that the heroic Rep. Ted Lieu, one of the most unethical and hateful members of Congress (so naturally he’s been designated an impeachment manager by Pelosi) grabbed a crowbar as he prepared to do battle with the rogue demonstrators who rushed the Capitol for the hell of it on January 6.

Nothing like the news media pumping up a toxic jerk just because he’s a Democrat…confirmation bias at its worst. CNN’s reporter heard what he or she wanted to hear, but Lieu did not, in fact, grab a crowbar. He grabbed a ProBar energy bar, so CNN had to issue a correction:

“CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated that Rep. Ted Lieu grabbed a crowbar before leaving his office. He grabbed a ProBar energy bar.“

This, in turn, prompted some wag to post this fake CNN correction:

Fake CNN correction

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Saturday Ethics Alerts, 1/16/21: “Nevermore!” If Only…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Raven Addams

The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes,” was ratified by the requisite number of states on this date in, 1919. It was a great, botched, ethics experiment. Alcohol was too far embedded in the culture for too long and in too many ways, and the laws prohibiting alcohol were badly drafted and engendered public resentment and contempt. Still, as the Ken Burns documentary on the topic made clear, the damage being caused by alcohol abuse before Prohibition was permanently slowed down and reversed by the ban, though the ban itself was doomed from the start.

1. Quote of the Day: I just finished watching “We Bought A Zoo” again, and it reminded me of the quote, alluded to in the film, by the real life English man who did buy a zoo, and whose story was transferred to America in the film staring Matt Damon. Benjamin Mee said in his book (with the same title as the film) about the adventure, “You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

He’s absolutely right, and this principle has enriched my own life too many times to count.

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What Do You Do About Harvard?

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

orig

In particular, what do I do about Harvard?

Harvard, beginning approximately during the regime of the previous president, Drew Faust, has been infested with serious ethics rot, and it continues to progress. I have documented some, but far from all, of the most disturbing aspects of this process, like the University’s practice of discriminating against Asian-American applicants (as well as whites, of course), which they are now defending in court. What is supposed to be the role model for the entire higher education system in the United States continues to give credence and respectability to unethical practices and values, spreading its own affliction to other institutions far and wide. Worst of all, it is indoctrinating its students to be anti-American, anti-individual rights, anti-Western civilization and culture allies of the radical Left, while attempting to demonize opposing views on campus and off.

What’s going on here? The graphic above should make it clear, but if it doesn’t, this should:

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The Biden Nomination of Kristen Clarke To Be Assistant Attorney General For Civil Rights

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Biden Promise

Kristen Clarke is the African American attorney who Joe Biden announced will run the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, pending Senate confirmation.

From FOX News:

In 1994, Clarke wrote a letter to The Harvard Crimson in her capacity as the president of the Black Students Association to explain her views on race science.

“Please use the following theories and observations to assist you in your search for truth regarding the genetic differences between Blacks and whites [sic],” Clarke wrote.

“One: Dr Richard King reveals that the core of the human brain is the ‘locus coeruleus,’ which is a structure that is Black, because it contains large amounts of neuro-melanin, which is essential for its operation.

“Two: Black infants sit, crawl and walk sooner than whites [sic].

Three: Carol Barnes notes that human mental processes are controlled by melanin — that same chemical which gives Blacks their superior physical and mental abilities.

“Four: Some scientists have revealed that most whites [sic] are unable to produce melanin because their pineal glands are often calcified or non-functioning. Pineal calcification rates with Africans are five to 15 percent [sic], Asians 15 to 25 percent [sic] and Europeans 60 to 80 percent [sic]. This is the chemical basis for the cultural differences between blacks and whites [sic].

“Five: Melanin endows Blacks with greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities — something which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards.”

The technical term for such a screed is “Yikes!”

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Lessons In Legitimacy From The War Of The Roses

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

History-Wars-Roses-Europe-1024x575

Guest post by Steve-O-in NJ

In the year 1399 a nobleman of the House of Lancaster named Henry of Bolingbroke ousted Richard II of the house of Plantagenet, son of Edward III, from the throne of England, partly over alleged tyranny and mismanagement (possibly brought on by a personality disorder), but just as much over pride, power, and differences regarding how to govern. Henry IV’s reign was fraught with problems as the nobles battled for power and influence under an unconsolidated rule, including Henry “Hotspur” Percy’s revolt, an attempt to restore Wales’ independence by Prince Owen Glendower, even an attempt to restore Richard to the throne in something called The Epiphany revolt. After all, once someone has ousted a rightful ruler by force (or fraud or corruption), why can’t he be ousted by force?

Henry IV died at 45 due to less than wonderful health. Henry V, Prince Hal, followed his father to the throne. Though Shakespeare portrays him as a hero, and he did achieve some great feats on the battlefield, he died at 35 (previously thought to be of dysentery, but now thought of as probably heatstroke from hacking and banging in full armor in August) leaving a young and mentally infirm son to inherit the throne as Henry VI. The English nobles hadn’t forgotten the recent dynastic struggle, and there was no reason for another nobleman, named Richard of York (you need a scorecard to keep track of all these Richards and Henrys), also a cadet branch of the Plantagenet house, like the Lancasters were, not to decide to press his own claim to the throne, starting the 30-year dynastic struggle known as the Wars of the Roses, since the Lancaster symbol was a red rose and the York symbol was a white rose.

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Ethics Dunce: Conservative Website “The American Thinker”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

monkey-thinker

It’s not just progressives who shut down dissent.

The American Thinker, a conservative website that Ethics Alarms has referenced from time to time, announced that it is shutting down its comments section, a move quite a few political sites have taken in recent years. Then, the next day, it published a jaw-dropping justification (or something) that justified nothing. I’m posting the whole, awful, self-indicting thing, and interjecting my comments as it proceeds:

Yesterday, we announced that we are closing comments at American Thinker.  We immediately received a couple of hundred very unhappy, angry, and sometimes insulting emails about that decision.  Without divulging why we made that decision, here are a few points to ponder.

Without divulging why? What’s the big secret? Why the tease? Why write this whatever it is and not explain the reasoning for cutting off debate and feedback?

First, 90% of the assumptions in the emails were wrong.  This meant that a lot of people were theorizing in advance of their data.  America is currently deeply destabilized, and things are happening that most people can’t imagine.  Sometimes, those things hit close to home.

I don’t know what this is supposed to mean either. What is The American Thinker saying? That its posts are unclear? That its readers are idiots? That those who disagree with its authors are too biased and emotional for their opinions to count? These would be important questions to answer on the site if anyone could ask them…

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Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 1/15/2021: Tapper, AOC, Fox, And The Brick

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Trump inaug riots

I don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to finding out how the media and Democrats distinguish the “mostly peaceful protests” in Washington around Biden’s inauguration next week and the equivalent in 2017, when the antifa was going around punching “Nazis” in the face. Funny, the fact that Hillary Clinton stated that she was part of “the resistance” and that the sainted John Lewis said that Trump was not a “legitimate President had no influence on that riot whatsoever…

1. I’m sure this is just a coincidence. During the shutdown which effectively killed the economy that was President Trump’s primary argument for re-election, I successfully fought off the nagging little voice in my head that said that this was a deliberate effort by Democrats to use the pandemic as a excuse to wreck the Trump administration’s record. I mean, who would be that Machiavellian to put millions out of work just to win an election? Then the teacher’s unions used their influence to keep the schools closed—but I still ignored that little voice.

And I’m still ignoring it now, but I have to say, the timing of this would support a conspiracy theory…

stephen_miller_lockdown_narrative_changes_01-15-2021

Nah. Can’t be.

2. Is it possible that Fox News doesn’t understand why it exists? Fox has had a catastrophic ratings crash since election night, when it called Arizona for Biden ahead of several other organizations, seemingly pointing to a Trump defeat. This, combined with Chris Wallace’s questionable fairness to the President when he moderated the first debate, caused an avalanche of conservatives to abandon Fox News for NewsMax, which is surging. Last week Fox News finished third behind MSNBC and CNN, which hasn’t happened since the Clinton administration.

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It’s Friday Again Already? Open Forum, Then!

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

come-in-were-open

Gee, I’m still catching up on the last one!

My only comment right now is, “Boy, it’s been fun watching my Facebook progressive friends try to rationalize viewpoint censorship!

Stay on topic, please!

Kevin

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Spuds head small

That’s Spuds above; the story only tangentially involves him. Today I took him to the Shirlington dog park about 7 minutes from our house. He loves it; it’s huge, and there are about 50 or more happy and generally well-behaved dogs of all breeds and sizes running and playing on a nice day, like today was. A half hour to 45 minutes is sufficient to get both of us exercised, him romping, me trying to keep him in sight.

When I arrived there were two geezers outside the gates, apparently leaving, one with a huge Bouvier that wanted to make Spuds’ acquaintance. I started chatting with the owner, and the older of the two men, who did not appear to have a dog, noticed my Red Sox warm-up jacket and launched into a pointless tale about Carl Yastrzemski. It turns out the guy—I later learned his name was Kevin—-had been an usher at Fenway Park 50 years ago. He was thrilled to learn that I was also a Bostonian.

I was mistaken, for Kevin wasn’t leaving; his dog was still inside the dog park. Spuds took off looking for pals, and Kevin latched on to me like a barnacle. I can match anyone in Boston-related anecdotes, and periodically interjected some while Kevin rambled on about Richard Cardinal Cushing, the Bruins, Boston College, Tip O’Neill, the death of Durgan Park, Jesuits and the Kennedys. He had done a lot of things and known some famous people; he also had a background in national intelligence. Unfortunately, he kept forgetting his stories mid-tale, and each incomplete story led to another: it was like spending time with Grandpa Simpson. Kevin also walked very slowly, so I kept losing sight of Spuds.

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