Arts & Entertainment

Patriotism And Citizenship Check Coming For Democrats As The “Golden Dancer” Presidency Nears Its Point Of No Return

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

almost_midnight_

I sense that time is running out.

This evening, around 8 PM, the New York Post released an exclusive story, citing a “reliable source,” claiming that the Census Bureau faked the September  2012 employment figures that gave a huge boost to President Obama’s campaign as the race against Mitt Romney was reaching its stretch run. The figures, which were challenged by conservative pundits as suspiciously and conveniently positive, finally put unemployment below the crucial 8% mark.

From the Post’s John Crudele:

“The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated. And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it. Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy. And a knowledgeable source says the deception went beyond that one employee — that it escalated at the time President Obama was seeking reelection in 2012 and continues today. “He’s not the only one,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous for now but is willing to talk with the Labor Department and Congress if asked. The Census employee caught faking the results is Julius Buckmon, according to confidential Census documents obtained by The Post. Buckmon told me in an interview this past weekend that he was told to make up information by higher-ups at Census.

‘“It was a phone conversation — I forget the exact words — but it was, ‘Go ahead and fabricate it’ to make it what it was,” Buckmon told me.”

Crudele notes that falsifying jobs figures has more consequences than just misleading voters and giving the President a basis to claim that the economy is improving. He writes, “I hope the next stop will be Congress, since manipulation of data like this not only gives voters the wrong impression of the economy but also leads lawmakers, the Federal Reserve and companies to make uninformed decisions. To cite just one instance, the Fed is targeting the curtailment of its so-called quantitative easing money-printing/bond-buying fiasco to the unemployment rate for which Census provided the false information. So falsifying this would, in essence, have dire consequences for the country.” [UPDATE (11/19)—“A Republican aide told the Washington Examiner the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is digging into the claim, published in the New York Post on Tuesday….”]

That’s not my hope.

I don’t know if this story is accurate or not. The New York Post is hardly…well, let’s see how to best put this…it’s hardly a reliable, trusted news source like the New York Times or the Washington Post were before U.S. journalism lost all credibility, objectivity and trustworthiness. This story could prove false,  but whether it is or not, the Obama Administration will deny it, stonewall it, make sure its media allies keep it isolated to “conservative media” so it can be discredited, just as it did with Benghazi, the IRS efforts to handcuff conservative groups during the campaign, Fast and Furious, Solyndra, and the real source of the problems with the ACA website. Whether this scandal, which would show that the Obama Administration used its various agencies to illicitly, unethically and dishonestly deceive the public to influence the Presidential election, is real or not, there are real scandals, many of them, waiting to be discovered, and still more that are in the process of developing. There is no doubt in my mind about this, just as there was no doubt in my mind a year ago that this wave of dashed hopes, uncovered lies, and desperate survival maneuvers was inevitable. The Obama Presidency is dysfunctional, incompetent, corrupt and rotten to its core, like Golden Dancer, the apocryphal rocking horse that Henry Drummond, the fictional avatar of Clarence Darrow in “Inherit the Wind,”  describes in a famous scene: Continue reading →

In Search Of Ethical Pop Songs

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

It was around this time last year that Ethics Alarms expanded its list of the top Hollywood movies with ethical lessons and themes to 25. (You can find the complete collection here, here, here and here.) I am researching a similar list for popular songs, and this task is far more difficult. Most pop songs, if they have a story at all, convey unethical lessons and cautionary tales: exemplary ethics are not, apparently, the stuff hits are made of.

I am soliciting nominations. To get you started, here are two on my list, both oldies. The first is “Ringo,” one of those talking songs like Jimmy Dean’s “Big John” (also a candidate for the list), performed by Pa Cartwright himself, Lorne Greene. The ethical values shown in this Western tale are kindness, reciprocity, loyalty, and gratitude:

My second nomination is one of several sound-alike hits from Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. In this song, Gary illustrates an understanding of Restraint Bias—none of us is as resistant to temptation as we would like to believe. The song is about responsibility. (I don’t think Roman Polanski was a fan of the Union Gap).

I await your playlists.

Ethics Dunce: Alec Baldwin’s Employer, Whomever It May Be; Currently, This Means MSNBC President Phil Griffin

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments
When MSNBC journalists attack!

When MSNBC journalists attack!

How is it that the old saw goes? “Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me; Fool me 3,256 times, I’m an idiot”? Something like that.

Actor Alec Baldwin has proven by his actions and words, over and over again and beyond a reasonable doubt, that he is a foul-mouthed, hair-pin tempered bully with poor impulse control and the flattest of learning curves. I could list the impressive number of incidents that he has been involved in making that statement beyond debate, from a leaked phone voice message of him verbally abusing his daughter, to his tirade against a airplane stewardess who dared to ask him to abide by the rules of the air and stop playing a game on his Iphone, to obnoxious tweets that have led him to suspend his account more than once. Lately, his specialty has been hurling anti-gay slurs at photographers. Baldwin has been in the public eye for decades, and knows how celebrity works, but either doesn’t care, or can’t help himself. He has also paired his atrocious behavior with the outspoken progressive tirades and half-baked opinions of a man who is nowhere as smart as he seems to think he is.

The latter, of course, has saved his career from one way ticket to Mel Gibsonville. As gay conservative-turned-liberal blogger Andrew Sullivan wrote after Baldwin’s latest fiasco, Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Michael Wilbon’s Politically Incorrect Confession

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

mike_wilbon

Sportswriter Michael Wilbon, Tony Kornheiser’s African-American foil on the fluffy ESPN show “Pardon the Interruption” and hardly a rabble-rouser, shocked his audience this week when he announced that he is an aficionado of the word “nigger” (but not in public), and objects to being told that there is something wrong with that, especially by white folks. The issue came up regarding an uproar over a tweet, since deleted, from an NBA player using the word to criticize his team mates. [ Aside: It is funny how frequently a single post on Ethics Alarms  about a topic—say political correctness, word censorship, civility and the morass of related ethical issues—seems to trigger an explosion of news stories in the same area. Undoubtedly it is because the proximity of the post itself influences my judgment regarding which events deserve comment, but it sure doesn’t feel that way. This is similar to the phenomenon where you think you have heard a word or phrase for the first time, and suddenly you’re aware of it everywhere.] Wilbon said, unapologetically,

“People can be upset with me if they want, I, like a whole lot of people, use the N-word all day, every day, my whole life … I have a problem with white people framing the discussion for the use of the N-word.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz this weekend is this:

Is Wilbon’s defense of using the word “nigger”ethical? Continue reading →

More Evidence That Word Banning Is Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments
WHAT did you say?

WHAT did you say?

There is more to discuss, a lot more, regarding what I will now call “The Klosterman Apology,” because it sounds like  a Robert Ludlum novel. For now, however, since it is fresh in my jet-lagged mind, I’d like to focus on the inevitable result of declaring certain words and phrases so objectionable, hurtful, uncivil or politically incorrect that extraordinary means are employed to eliminate them. In the case of The Klosterman Apology, the words were “retard” and “retard,” and a Mom with a blog threatened “The Ethicist” from the New York Times magazine with an onslaught of political correctness bullies if he didn’t immediately express his abject contrition for having used these words in a harsh way a decade ago, in another job that didn’t directly involve ethics. Chuck capitulated, gracefully and well. As I will discuss in another post, I don’t think he had much choice. Still, word-banning is an ugly, and ultimately unethical business. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Jimmy Kimmel, Child Abuse, And Signature Significance”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

(I am backed up three deep on the “Comments of the Day,” and I apologize to the deserving and patient commenters.)

And who can forget Mickey Rooney's hilarious turn in that beloved American film masterpiece "Breakfast at Tiffany's"?

And who can forget Mickey Rooney’s hilarious turn in that beloved American film masterpiece “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”?

Alex Yuan raised an element of the revolting Jimmy Kimmel stunt discussed in my post, an extension of his penchant for using children as uncomprehending props for his often ugly comedy, that I glided right over: Why was showing a child suggesting that wiping out the Chinese was  a viable solution to national problems even considered fit for broadcast, when a similar comment about Jews, gays, Hispanics or blacks would be considered instantly taboo? Why doesn’t the ethics alarm sound when the minority being slurred or threatened is Asian?

Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, Jimmy Kimmel, Child Abuse, And Signature Significance:

It is interesting that you should mention political correctness because I can’t help feeling that in deciding it appropriate to air this segment, ABC – perhaps as a reflection of societal attitudes at large – is illustrating the alleged double standard against Asians when it comes to how topics concerning minorities and other protected classes are handled in public. Continue reading →

Ethics And “The Rifleman”

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

If you want to ground your child in basic values and ethics, buying the new DVDs (available next month) with all 168 half-hour episodes of “The Rifleman,” the classic Western TV series, is a good way to start. I’ve been watching episodes recently (they are currently showing on both AMC and Starz), and am struck by how virtually every one has a strong ethics lesson to teach, and teaches it well without interfering with the drama. Most of the TV westerns from the genre’s Golden Age (which had already ended before the demise of “Bonanza,” the last of the great ones) had strong ethical values embedded in their plots, but few made ethics as thematic as the show starring Chuck Connors as a single father, living on the prairie in the 1880s, who used his Winchester rifle the way other cowboys used a pistol, but faster and with more accuracy.  Because Lucas McCain was trying to survive while teaching his young son (played by original Mousekateer Johnny Crawford) how to be a good man and citizen, he was always striving to be a role model while solving the difficult and often dangerous problems that came his way. Unlike many Western heroes, McCain didn’t always get it right, sometimes letting his emotions get the better of him or being unfair or impetuous, and had to undergo an ethical course correction by the end of an episode.

A repeated theme in the show was redemption and trust, as McCain often became the champion of a fallen woman or reformed criminal, or had to rely on an ally with a less than sterling past.  Villains in “The Rifleman” sometimes saw the error of their ways at the last second, committing a noble act before dying or going to jail. And sometimes they didn’t, and got shot with the Winchester. I’m sure that “The Rifleman,” with its gun-happy opening sequence (it presents the rifle as the star of the show as much as Connors) will seem like an unlikely source of ethics to the gun-queasy parents out there, and that is a shame. There is much to learn from “The Rifleman.”

You can watch some episodes of the show here,  here and here. The catchy theme music is here; I was surprised to discover that it had lyrics, which by the standards of the generally terrible lyrics of westerns that had songs that were actually sung on a show, aren’t too bad. The best of its endless verses:

                           
THERE IS A MORAL TO HIS EXPLOITS                         

AND HE’S TAUGHT IT TO HIS SON

SPEAK SOFTLY TO YOUR ENEMY

BUT LET HIM SEE YOUR GUN!

Chorus:             

THEY CALL HIM THE RIFLEMAN
THE STRONG, COURAGEOUS RIFLEMAN
A GREAT BIG MOUNTAIN OF A MAN!

 

___________________________________

Sources: Wikipedia, The Rifleman, Chuck Connors,

Jimmy Kimmel, Child Abuse, And Signature Significance

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments
In Jimmy's defense, Japan thought "Kill the Chinese!" was funny too...

In Jimmy’s defense, Japan thought “Kill the Chinese!” was funny too…

What a surprise—Jimmy Kimmel did something despicable involving children.

This time, the smug and unethical-to-his-very-DNA ABC late night host may have also triggered an ethics train wreck. Perhaps at last the network and his tasteless, enabling viewers will finally conclude what has been obvious for years—that Jimmy is a cultural corrupter whose miserable methods and values should be rejected, condemned, and sent packing to an obscure corner of table TV!

Nah.

Kimmel’s latest hilarious stunt aired on Oct. 16, in a segment called “Kids Table,” where Funny Uncle Jimmy asks small children who have no idea what is going on or  that a creepy middle-aged man is luring them into saying things that will haunt them on Youtube until the day they die to comment on issues of the day. This time, Mirthful Machiavellian Jimmy caught comedy gold: when he asked a six-year-old how the U.S. could solve the $1.3 trillion trade imbalance, the giggling answer came back, “Kill everyone in China!”

Nice. Continue reading →

Unethical Magazine Cover Of The Year: Time (As Henry Luce Spins In His Grave)

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Time Christie

It really is past time for Time to go away.

Once the epitome of sharp, incisive, erudite weekly news reporting and commentary, it long ago morphed into just another left-biased shill for liberal politicians and positions, but with a desperate, tabloid-style habit of using intentionally gross, disturbing or controversial cover graphics to sell more copies than its equally biased and shameless rival, Newsweek. Now Newsweek is mercifully gone, but Time’s rude cover habit remains, culminating in the above disgrace to Time’s traditions and responsible journalism.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is fat, get it? He’s the “elephant in the room.” Continue reading →

“Walking Dead” Ethics: Hypocrisy, Substance Abuse And Survival

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments
"The Walking Dead"...as always, providing abundant ethical dilemmas to chew on...

“The Walking Dead”…as always, providing abundant ethical dilemmas to chew on…

If you can stand the periodic spectacle of shambling, rotting flesh and heads being lopped off or split down the middle, AMC’s “The Walking Dead” still provides the most daring and interesting ethics storylines available on television.

The latest episode, titled “Indifference,” raised two gutsy issues that are unpopular in today’s culture to the point of taboo. It was revealed that Carol, previously the simpering and tragic mother of the now dead, zombified and executed little girl Sophia, has morphed into a stone-cold pragmatic survivalist who advocates killing on instinct when the threat is sufficiently severe. In addition to teaching methods of mayhem to the children entrusted to her instruction in the grim, abandoned penitentiary where our heroes have fortified themselves against the roaming zombie hoards, Carol summarily executed two members of the community who were fatally ill with a pernicious virus on the grounds that they threatened the safety of the rest. For this, Rick, the sheriff-turned farmer alleged leader of the non-zombies, orders her out of the prison.

Strange. In a world without doctors, medicine and hospitals, where the objective is simply to survive long enough for some remote miracle to rescue humanity, a runaway virus is as much of a threat as a maniac with a hatchet. Rick and the rest have long ago accepted the necessity of killing members of their group who are bitten by zombies, since they are certain to “turn”after death and start indiscriminately eating people. True, the preferred method is to withhold execution until the second after the living become undead after becoming unliving, but this is a distinction without a difference. Carol is quite right that a breathing, doomed, virus-carrier is as much of a threat to the group—perhaps more—as a newly-minted brain-muncher. Why is her strong action in defense of the group, a defensible utilitarian act, reason for exile? Continue reading →