Arts & Entertainment

Martin Bashir Resigns From MSNBC

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

You can read details here.

Well, It's about time.

Well, It’s about time.

It has been about two weeks since MSNBC talking head Martin Bashir said, on the air, not spontaneously but reading from a script, that Sarah Palin deserved to have someone shit in her mouth. I have previously commented on the incident and its aftermath here, here, here and here, which is more than Bashir is worth.

Briefly…

  • Bashir should have been fired. That would have asserted that MCNBC had standards of civility and professionalism. This suggests it has none, at least when a conservative is the one being abused on the air.
  • He should have been fired immediately. Late is sometimes better than never, but it is also significant when a network, faced with an employee who engages in objectively outrageous conduct that doesn’t merely cross the line, but pole vaults across it, appears to be pondering, as in, “Hmmmm. How bad is it, really, when a host suggests that someone hold down a former vice-presidential candidate and defecate in her mouth? Tough one! What’s your take, Lou?”
  • Bashir’s producer and editor should have been disciplined, if not fired as well.  Continue reading →

“Walking Dead” Leadership And Israel’s Iran Nightmare

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments
You call this "escapist entertainment?"

You call this “escapist entertainment?”

For some reason, last night’s “mid-season finale” (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” caused me to think about what lies ahead in Iran-US-Israel relations. Can’t imagine what that reason is….

In this cataclysmic episode of the zombie apocalypse drama, the psychopathic character called “the Governor,” full of bloodlust and vengefulness and determined to press his conviction that the group of competing survivors “led” by Rick Grimes has no legal right to exist, confronted the alleged good guys’ leader in the abandoned prison they call home with an army, a tank and a demand that they surrender their shelter or die. Rick, who has repeatedly shown a flat learning curve in basic leadership skills and has already gotten many people killed by trusting the Governor rather than taking him out, despite ample evidence that the Guv is exactly as trustworthy as Vlad the Impaler or, say, Iran, engaged this murderous madman in a full-bore, Rodney King, “Can’t we all get along?” plea.

It was futile, of course, and only some lucky turns (an unlikely escape by the one individual who could turn the tide here, a well-aimed hand grenade there, and an unexpected rescue by sure-shot, gun-toting little girls elsewhere) prevented a bloody slaughter with the Governor’s objectives fully realized. Our feckless hero Rick, however, was obviously not willing to do what he had to do to prevent the carnage of an attack, and was going to depend on hope, passiveness and a refusal to be proactive to keep a proven predator at bay. Yet his approval percentage with his core constituency inexplicably still hovers in the 90s.

Ironically, Washington Post editor Fred Hiatt chose today to assemble his time-line of President Obama’s Rick-like handling of Syria, which you can read here. (Hiatt is a card-carrying liberal Democrat, like the rest of the Post’s editorial board.)

I wonder if they show “The Walking Dead” in Israel? It’s scary enough here, but I bet, given our President’s leadership similarities to Rick Grimes, it would be absolutely terrifying there.

 

Comment of the Day: “The Golden Rule Distortions”

/ Jack Marshall / 48 Comments

bread

In a comment on the post about the various versions of the Golden Rule, including popular distortions of it, Isaac revisited the ever-popular “Les Misérables” scenario, in which a desperate man steals a loaf of bread to achieve a greater good. Is such law-breaking still unethical? I have consistently maintained that it is from society’s standpoint, if not from the perspective of the lawbreaker. The issue has arisen in the past in relation to illegal immigration.I think Isaac nails it.

Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, The Golden Rule Distortions: Continue reading →

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Ethics Dunce: Bismarck, North Dakota’s CBS Affiliate, KXMB

/ Jack Marshall / 48 Comments

will Farrell

Actor and comedian Will Ferrell donned his  Ron Burgundy persona from “Anchorman”  and delivered the news for KXMB in Bismarck Saturday night. It was a promotion for “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues,” the sequel to Ferrell’s  2004 hit comedy about a fictional news team in the politically incorrect 1970’s. The station’s sales manager, Tammy Blumhagen, explained that Ferrell’s agent contacted her in May and asked if he could anchor or co-anchor a newscast as part of the promotion tour for “Anchorman 2.” “When they called us, we kind of jumped at the opportunity,” she said.

Well, why wouldn’t she? Since U.S. journalism has abandoned all but the wan pretense of being a legitimate profession, perhaps all TV news broadcasts should just go the route of Bismarck’s local CBS station, and let clowns, reality stars, high school athletes, citizens picked at random, talking macaws and trained seals deliver the news. After all, neither the news judgment, integrity nor competence of what passes for journalists these days can be assumed or even expected. Why not just turn over the broadcast of the evening news to a comedian who plays a idiotic anchorman in films? It’s not like informing the public about what’s going on in the nation and the world is important or anything. The public doesn’t have a right to know. The public has a right to be amused. Continue reading →

If You Are Surprised To Learn That “No Animals Were Harmed During The Making Of This Film” Doesn’t Mean That No Animals Were Harmed During The Making Of The Film, Then You Havn’t Been Paying Attention To The Ethical Culture In Hollywood

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments
"OK, the tiger almost drowned. No harm, no foul, right?"

“OK, the tiger almost drowned. No harm, no foul, right?”

Hollywood abuses its child actors routinely, and you really believed it was kind to animals?

Today the Hollywood Insider carries a thorough exposé revealing that the American Humane Association, which supposedly monitors films for their treatment of  animals and grants the familiar“No Animals Were Harmed” trademark accreditation seen at the end of film and TV credits, participates in the covering-up of animal deaths and cruelty as much as it prevents them. The report suggests that the AHA  has been thoroughly co-opted by the industry, so that it is not an objective advocate for the creatures it supposedly represents, but a willing participant in audience deception.

The smoking gun quote may be this one, from Dr. S. Kwane Stewart, the veterinarian who took over as the national director of the AHA’s “No Animals Were Harmed” program in April:

“This whole idea that we’re cozy with the industry — it’s simply not the case. We first and foremost want to keep the animals safe…[but] we need to keep in mind that [the producers and directors of productions the AHA monitors] want to arrive at their vision as well.”

This means, of course, that the AHA representatives are not acting as an advocate for the animals, but as a participant in the film-making process that balances the lives and welfare of the animals against the concerns, needs and profit motives of the speaking, spending, threatening and otherwise powerful human beings with which they share a species and common values. Gee–I wonder who has the most weight in reaching that balance… Continue reading →

“Would You Rather”: An Ethics-Horror-Health Care-Dinner Party In Hell Movie You May Have Missed

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“Would You Rather” is an odd 2012 film that sets up a film-long set of unlikely ethical dilemmas for its characters to solve. Desperate to save her dying brother with expensive medical treatment she can’t afford, the heroine (played by Brittany Snow) finds herself at a dinner party with seven other desperate strangers, hosted by a wacko family of millionaires who will help one of them after the others have been “eliminated” during the course of the evening. As what is described as a game progresses, each contestant is put through escalating rounds of risk, pain and torture in which they must make various Sophie’s Choices, such as…

  • Would you rather administer a painful shock to yourself with high-voltage electricity, or the person next to you? What if that person has been weakened by a previous shock? What if she is in a wheelchair?

Is It Ethical To Take, Display and Publish Photos Of Sleeping Sunbathers Without Their Permission?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

That’s what Tadao Cern did for his his art project, entitled Comfort Zone, to “explore how different surroundings can affect people’s behavior and inhibitions.”

When someone takes a photo of you in such circumstances, you suddenly find yourself in a gallery in front of  a giant photo of this, while your husband busts a gut:

Sunbather art

Of course it’s not ethical!

If you need some more hints as to why, read the tags below.

________________________

Pointer: Althouse

Source: The Guardian

The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove, Cultural Pollutor…But Only One Among Legions

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments
Interestingly, THIS grove understands ethics better than Lloyd.

Interestingly, THIS grove understands ethics better than Lloyd.

There are three primary reasons the United States of America is getting steadily disoriented, more gullible, less discerning, cruder and unethical. The first is that our leaders now only care about maintaining power, where once  leaders tended to their duty of being what John Adams called America’s aristocracy. Such leaders, not too long ago, modeled the best values and behavior for the public because they carried the most crucial responsibilities, and thus had to be trustworthy. They understood this obligation was theirs because they had the most visibility, and recognized that this demanded positive, admirable, virtuous public behavior. Now our leaders use sophisticated modern marketing techniques to package themselves and ideas like a phony weight-loss remedy, gradually dropping the facades once they are too entrenched to remove. The dispiriting journey make us cynical, less civically involved, and confused. Continue reading →

Joke Ethics, Jay Leno, And The Rats In The Pantyhose

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Ugh. Come on.

Fortunately, Jay's successor is ready to go...

Fortunately, Jay’s successor is ready to go…

Jay’s ethics alarm was sure malfunctioning during THAT taping. The Golden Rule is made for situations like this. Surely Jay knew about it? Once?

Louann Giambattista, a former American Airlines flight attendant, had sued the airline in June, claiming that American had discriminated against her as a result of her co-workers’ false allegations that she carried pet rats on board planes in her pantyhose and underwear. I get it: it’s an inherently funny story.  But Jay charged over every line of fairness, respect, compassion and common sense when he showed Giambattista’s photo to his national TV audience, and then, in a repeating segment called  “Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda,” challenged three guest comics to make their best jokes about the material. They were rolling, too—some examples..

  • “If I were one of those rats, I would’ve been very upset. I prefer not to sit in cooch.”
  • “I don’t understand this woman at all. If she wanted something that creepy in her underwear, she should have hooked up with me.”
  • Giambattista “coulda used what the rest of us ladies use … a Rabbit” (a popular vibrator).

Classy as ever, I see, Jay! Continue reading →

(PSSST! Conservatives! Here’s Why Democrats Win Elections By Claiming a Republican “War On Women”: You Tolerate Too Many Pigs, Sexists And Misogynists)

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

[WARNING:  For some bizarre reason,the second half of this post will not let me space out the paragraphs properly; WordPress is having some issues. I apologize, and I’ll fix it as soon as I can.]

I regularly peruse about 50 websites as part of my search for provocative ethics issues, including Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller. It’s a conservative blog, of course, similar in content to Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, and a fair reverse-negative politically to the leftish Daily Beast. Scrolling through its various stories, I hit this headline:

Double Feature: Jennifer Lawrence Shows Sideboob AND Underboob Simultaneously [PHOTOS]

Now THAT’S “news you can use”!

Why is this kind of leering, sexist, fratboy junk—exactly what used to cause us to ridicule the British tabloids back when American newspapers had integrity— appearing on what is supposed to be a serious political commentary website? Simple, really:

  • It’s linkbait.
  • Most of the Daily Caller’s readers are conservative males, a disturbing number of whom will drool over revealing [PHOTOS] of comely actresses young enough to be their granddaughters.
  • Too many conservatives, like Carlson, have deficient ethics alarms when it comes to reducing women to their body parts.

This wasn’t a departure for the Daily Caller, not at all: it posts this kind of crap regularly. (Here’s another.) The entire story regarding actress Lawrence’s exposure read as follows:

“Jennifer Lawrence clearly did not mind (or was not aware) that the Internet was abuzz with her flash of sideboob last week.Over the weekend, the actress simultaneously showed some sideboob AND underboob during “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” premiere in Paris. It was glorious.”

Wow. Stop the presses. Continue reading →