Arts & Entertainment

Greta Thunberg Is Danny Bonaduce

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Now hear me out.

The National Review has a scalding—but more or less fair—-evisceration of Greta Thunberg, the past-her-pull-date former teen climate change activist. An excerpt:

You remember young Greta, right? The vinegar-rictused, Swedish ecological activist whom the media turned into a global celebrity back in 2018…Who can forget the climax of it all, the legendary comedy of Thunberg’s 2019 United Nations address? Visibly reading from a script and adopting actorly mannerisms — shrieking “HOW DARE YOU?” and bawling about “stolen dreams” and “stolen childhood” — Thunberg condemned the capitalist West for desecrating the hopes of neurotics like herself. “We’ll be watching you,” she warned icily…A neurodivergent teenage girl was granted supreme moral authority over mankind by adults desperate to weaponize her “vulnerability” to club the world into bending to the eco-socialist agenda pushed by her handlers. We were asked to take it all extremely seriously…Hungering for continued relevance, Thunberg responded by escalating her tactics, seeking arrest at anti-mining and anti-oil protests across Europe to garner headlines. But the media reaction was tepid, and the thrill was gone. It surprised me not the slightest bit when she instantly transitioned from environmental activism (old and busted) to pro-Palestinian activism (new and sexy with the kids these days) in the wake of the October 7 massacre. A year later, she was performatively arresting herself on podcast appearances to signal her solidarity with Hamas.

The bombardment ends with this: “As for myself, I couldn’t care less about Thunberg’s fate. If the Israeli Navy wants to hole her boat below the waterline as the French did to sink the Rainbow Warrior, then it’s no problem of mine. I don’t ever want to write about her again, and unless she escalates to suicide bombing, I intend not to. For as much as her astringent mien and unearned pretense make her a figure of comedy, I find her morally repulsive.”

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It’s Not The Ignorance and Cultural Illiteracy So Much, But The Shamelessness…

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Ugh. Ann Althouse flagged this comment from a reader named Malika, reacting to a New York Time Crossword Puzzle clue that read, “Girl in Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit'”:

“I love this style of clue, where even if you don’t know the exact trivia (I’ve never heard of the band or the song) you can puzzle it out based on the context.”

The answer is “Alice,” and if Malika doesn’t know the “exact trivia,” she never heard of “Alice in Wonderland,” which is a foundational work of English literature with important literary, historical and satirical significance. It means she is unaware of the many movies made of that book (and its twin, “Through the Looking Glass”), doesn’t know who Lewis Carroll is, has no idea what firmly established “mad hatter” in our lexicon, or “Cheshire cat,” or what “Jabberwocky” refers to.

Then there’s the ignorance of the Sixties, the Vietnam era and the drug culture indicated by her lack of familiarity with the iconic song “White Rabbit.” The Jefferson Airplane anthem has been used on “The Sopranos,” “Stranger Things,” “The Twilight Zone,” “The Simpsons,” in the films “The Game,” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “The Matrix,””Platoon.” Not only doesn’t Malkia know about any of this, she doesn’t think she should and is willing to broadcast the fact that she doesn’t.

What else didn’t her schools, parents and narrow culture teach her? How many reference points that would help her understand the context of the issues, events and people affecting her life is she lacking? As Don Rumsfeld might say, it isn’t just that she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know, and doesn’t know that it’s a problem that she doesn’t know it.

Oh Dear! Patti Lupone Took My Advice and Now Broadway Wants Her “Cancelled”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Back in November of last year, I wrote about the silly–but instructive—Broadway feud between diva Patti Lupone and performer Kecia Lewis, who is black, and who has received some accolades herself. Lewis was starring in “Hell’s Kitchen,” a 2024 jukebox musical about the life and career of Alicia Keys in a theater that shared a wall with the theater featuring “The Roommate,” a quiet, two-actor drama starring Mia Farrow and LuPone. The amplified sound in “Hell’s Kitchen” at two points in the musical could be heard by the audience LuPone’s show, so LuPone sent a polite note to the “Hell’s Kitchen” producers asking them to turn down the volume at those points in the sound design that were loud enough to interfere with her show. (The producer of “The Roommate”should have handled that, but Patti has power and influence and has never been shy about using them.) “Hell’s Kitchen” complied. LuPone, in gratitude, sent a thank-you note to the producers and flowers to the stage management and sound staff.

But Lewis decided to play the race card, because that’s what so many of the Woke of Color have been taught to do, because it works. She posted a video on Instagram reprimanding LuPone for supposedly engaging in race-based “microagressions.” I wrote in “Dear Patty LuPone: Please, PLEASE Tell Kecia Lewis ‘Oh, Bite Me!’” that I was ” hoping against hope that LuPone, who is the epitome of a diva (as this Ethics Alarms post demonstrates), either issues an emphatic “Bite Me!” to Lewis or ignores her completely as not worthy of attention from Patti’s perch on Broadway Olympus. Lewis is the racist here; she is the one who is stereotyping a white performer as insensitive and dismissive.”

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Fan Ethics: The Diane and Joe Saga [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Guest column by AM Golden

[From your host: This scary, poignant guest post sat un-noticed in my in-box for many weeks. I would have posted it immediately if I hadn’t missed it. Regular commenter AM Golden paints a vivid picture of how celebrity worship, then pursuit, can lead down dark alleys and perhaps to tragedy. At the end of this cautionary tale, AM writes, “Joe can obviously handle this situation himself.” I’m not sure it’s so obvious. Rebecca Shaeffer couldn’t handle it. Jody Foster didn’t handle it sufficiently wee to prevent her fan from nearly killing Ronald Reagan. John Lennon couldn’t handle it. Among AM’s provocative questions at the end of this case study is what ethical obligations an observer has to try to persuade someone in the throes of a dangerous obsession to change course, back off, or seek help. My reflex instinct is to say there is such an obligation, as there always is when one is in a unique position to prevent harm and fix a serious problem. That is a far easier position to defend in the abstract than in reality.–JM]

About 18 months ago, I made a comment about the importance of one’s Good Name – one’s reputation – that was honored with a Comment of the Day.   Among the stories related in that comment was the recent crushing experience of a fan I called Diane, who had a less-than stellar encounter with her favorite actor whom I dubbed “Joe Darling”. 

It seems that Diane had been sending Joe emails through the public contact option on his website.  Many emails.  She had also been sending gifts to his private residence: All unsolicited; all unanswered.  This had gone on for three years before she met him at a pop culture convention.  Her thinking seems to have been that he would have told her if he wanted her to stop.  She’d also ordered a Cameo from him that had gone unfulfilled. I’d admitted back then that I had gotten vibes from her social media comments that she was a little fixated on Joe, who by all accounts a happily married man.  It had never occurred to me that she had been contacting him directly. 

When she went to his table at the convention, he figured out who she was.  He told her that he considered her behavior borderline stalking and that it needed to stop or he would take further action.  Mortified, she apologized and assured him she would leave him alone.  She admitted online that she feels like she ruins everything.

Admittedly, I felt sorry for her.  No fan likes these kinds of stories.  They reflect poorly on all of us.  I also felt that she had probably overlooked warning signs along the way that would have spared her such embarrassment.   Could there have been a misunderstanding?  Curious, I looked over her public social media page.  Sure enough, there was enough evidence there to indict her as an obsessed fan and a particularly obtuse one. Her behavior since then has not changed my opinion.

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In a Competitive Commencement Season, Evelyn Harris Makes a Strong Bid For Most Unethical Speech of 2025

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Favorites Tim Walz, Scott Pelley and Kermit the Frog may have fallen to an underdog: “musician and activist” Evelyn Harris (whoever she is) may have succeeded in embarrassing her host school the most of all with her 2025 commencement speech.

For some reason, Smith College, which has apparently become too woke to function, included Harris, a relatively obscure singer (but more importantly, an activist) among its all female honorees this year. The most prominent one of these would probably be far-left historian Danielle Allen, who has several items in her Ethics Alarms dossier. Or maybe it would be the (historic!) highest ranking trans official in US history, former assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service Rachel Levine, one of Biden’s DEI appointments. Then there was new age-y guru Preeti Simran Sethi, the only one of the four who is a Smith grad. All of these, however, whatever their issues, at least managed to compose their own speech to give to the graduates.

Harris didn’t. Smith officials learned that her entire speech had been cribbed from other sources without attribution (you know, like Joe Biden once did), and had to inform the Smith community that it had been deceived. “It has come to our attention that one of our honorary degree recipients — musician Evelyn M. Harris — borrowed much of her speech to graduates and their families from the commencement speeches of others without the attribution typical of and central to the ideals of academic integrity,” the letter read in part.

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“The Case of the Cut-Short Crucible”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

That’s what this unholy mess of a high school play ethics train wreck would be called if it were an old “Perry Mason” episode.

The run of a student production of “The Crucible” at Fannin County High School in Blue Ridge Georgia was cut from two performances to one for reasons unknown. Understandably, the students and their parents were upset. The administration explained that the reason was a licensing agreement violation, and the school was afraid of having to pay damages, or something. It said in a statement,

“After Friday night’s performance of “The Crucible,” we received several complaints as to an unauthorized change in the script of the play. Upon investigation, we learned that the performance did not reflect the original script. These alterations were not approved by the licensing company or administration. The performance contract for The Crucible does not allow modifications without prior written approval. Failing to follow the proper licensing approval process for additions led to a breach in our contract with the play’s publisher. The infraction resulted in an automatic termination of the licensing agreement. The second performance of The Crucible could not occur because we were no longer covered by a copyright agreement.”

Ah, but woke theater Fury Howard Sherman, the same guy who thinks that it’s okay for actors to boycott performances they are contractually obligated to perform because they don’t like the political views of particular audience members (like, say, the President of the United States), is muckraking again. He writes on his website that he’s sure that the show was really cancelled because “the play about witch hunts, about the persecution of people out of hysteria, despite being an acknowledge American classic widely taught in high school classrooms and performed frequently on high school stages, had provoked the same moral persecution it portrayed as unjust.” See, somebody’s mother told a student that the principle had said “that somebody in the audience didn’t like the context of the play and said that it was demonic and disgusting” so the final performance was cancelled.

Does Sherman produce any evidence that isn’t double hearsay that such a sequence occurred? Nope. Do we hear a quote or see a message from the alleged illiterate lunatic who registered such a complaint? No again. But never mind: Sherman is a progressive (to be fair, most theater types are progressives…welcome to my world) with an agenda.

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Tough One: Who Is a More Unethical Choice For a Commencement Speaker, Tim Walz or a Muppet?

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

How can we continue to believe American higher education is anything but an unethical, greed-propelled fraud if the institutions themselves don’t take their official mission seriously? (That would be education and the conferring of wisdom and inspiration, in contrast to the real mission, ideological indoctrination. Here is a revealing article about Harvard’s corruption, for example.)

The University of Maryland will have Kermit the Frog as its commencement speaker today to send the graduating class of 2025 off into the real world.

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Hollywood Film Clip #40, Dedicated to Jake Tapper, the Lying Axis Media, and the Unmasked Democratic Party

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

This clip was just recommended by commenter deacondan86 in response to “How Can These People (Democrats, Journalists) Look Themselves in the Mirror Without Retching?,” and I thank him for it. I have a feeling it will get a work-out here in the coming months.

Unabomber Memorial Ethics Explosions, 5/15-18/25 (PS: I’m Not Dead, but Thanks Neil, Ryan, Jon et al. for Worrying About Me…)

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Yes, it is I.

My internet went out right before midnight on the 14th, which means my office and home phones also haven’t worked since then until just a little while ago. Neither did my streaming services. Verizon, which I switched back to in November because Comcast was unreliable and cost too much, put me through the usual customer service Hell before I reached what I thought was a competent human being. It took me almost a half an hour of arguing with Verizon’s “automated assistant” to get to said CHB, who immediately contradicted hiscyber-colleague by confirming that yes, there had been an “incident” in my area (the bot had denied it) and a crew was working on the outage. That was the supposedly the good news; the bad news was that I might be trapped in the Stone Age (okay, I’m exaggerating: that statement would go into the Washington Post’s Trump Lie Database if the President said it) until as late as 4:45 pm on the 15th.

But you didn’t read this post on the 15th, did you? That would be because 4:45 pm. came and went, and still I couldn’t communicate with the outside world. Meanwhile, clients were screaming, Ethics Alarms was languishing, “fish is jumpin’” and I was reduced to singing “Summertime” from “Porgy and Bess” for some reason. In a 52 minute phone call with Verizon in which I listened to a very polite, pleasant, customer service representative who spoke relatively clear pidgin English in a high-pitched voice (I couldn’t place the accent), I discovered that the company couldn’t send a technician to my house until Friday afternoon. Next, my phone stopped receiving signals too, so I couldn’t even keep up with comments.

A very nice technician showed up at 1:30 pm and was fooling around with things for an hour. He replaced “the box” and then told me that he had been informed that the problem couldn’t be resolved by him, and that his supervisor told him to tell me that the outage wouldn’t be corrected until 6:45 am yesterday, Saturday the 17th. It wasn’t. Verizon promised to have another technician come by between 11am and 3pm on Sunday. That actually came to pass, and it turned out the previous technician had inserted the wrong thingy in the wrong plug, or something.

Ol’ Crazy Ted, the Harvard grad terrorist, has again been proven right: it’s ridiculous what I (you, we) can’t do without key technology, and one of them is maintaining an ethics blog.

Well, I still could prepare a post on Word and have it ready to go up when civilization reappears, so that’s what I started to do Friday morning and am revising now, as I try to forget that I have God only knows (I switched to singing the Beach Boys because I can’t remember all the words to “Summertime” right now) how many emails to answer that I haven’t seen yet. I don’t have email on my cell phone, you see, because I tell my ethics classes that the less confidential, client-related stuff you have on your phone, the better.

Meanwhile,

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Confronting My Biases, Episode 20: The Chessboard Tell

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

It’s been three years since I last mentioned this ethics pet peeve. I was triggered just yesterday by the commercial above, which I was inclined to favor because it includes my late father’s favorite dog breed (also one of mine), the majestic Irish Wolfhound. I have nothing new to say about the issue, but as I wrote in 2022, “If this post stops just one human being from making that stupid mistake, my life will not have been in vain after all.”

In the ad above, we twice catch glimpses of a garden chessboard, like those royalty once would use with human beings as the chess pieces. (Mel Brooks spoofs this recreation in his “History of the World, Part 1.”). I saw the ad several times before I realized the board was set up wrong. I would never buy a Range Rover Sport anyway, but if I were in the market for one, that inexcusable gaffe would ensure that I bought something else. Or took the bus.

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