“We want victims of hate crimes and any crime to be believed. And so I think that, you know, in a sense, that was a good thing, that they came out and said, ‘We believe you.’”
—Sunny Hostin, throwing in her contribution to “The View’s” desperate efforts to offer excuses and rationalization for convicted hate-crime fraud Jussie Smollett and the race-baiting Democrats and pundits that instantly believed his absurd story and blamed his “attack” on Donald Trump.
Hostin, incidentally, is a lawyer. A lawyer actually made an argument that devoid of logic. What does that tell us about the law school that graduated her (Notre Dame), the Justice Department that hired her (Clinton’s), and the news networks that employed her as an analyst (CNN, Fox News, Court TV and ABC). Is there a dumber statement that is even possible to make? “It’s a ‘good thing’ that an obviously made-up hate crime account was believed, because we want everyone to believe even fictional accusations, though doing so wastes money, take police away from investigating real crimes, and increases societal divisions and suspicion.” Brilliant!
All right, all right: I know calling ethics fouls on the blather that passes for debate on “The View” is like beefy ex-male swimmer winning races against life-time females. Nevertheless, people watch “The View,” get fed “logic” like Hostin’s, and become dumber and dumber, until next thing you know they’re voting for Kamala Harris for President. Responsible citizens don’t just need ethics alarms, they need idiot alarms. If you can’t hear a comment like Hostin’s and instantly know what she said was idiotic, you’re not an asset to a democracy. Continue reading →
It’s Christmas season song time, and that means more political correctness “updates” of classic songs that someone spent a lot of time figuring out how to be offended by. #1 on the political correctness hit list is the Frank Loesser naughty duet “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” which I admit to calling “date-rapey” six years ago. I regret that, which is an over-statement, but not this post (#3 in a 2017 Warm-up) that expressed my annoyance at the song being treated as Christmas fare at all.
But I didn’t know until today that the song debuted in the Esther Williams watery 1949 musical comedy”Neptune’s Daughter” (which I have never watched), that it had nothing to do with Christmas in the film, and that the movie presented the song in two versions, one in which the man (Ricardo Montalban) is trying to get the woman (Esther) to stay over—neither of them can sing, incidentally—and a gender-flipped version later where an aggressive Betty Garrett (who can sing) is trying to seduce a reluctant Red Skelton (who can’t). Salon, of all places, featured a balanced analysis of the song last month, here.
1. Deception by omission, as usual. Kyle Buchanan, the New York Times movie columnist (“The Projectionist”), issued a column about how to “fix” the Oscars broadcast, which has seen its rating fall like Joe Biden’s approval numbers in recent years. Now what is the most obvious and annoying reason for much of America tuning out the Academy Awards when once following them was considered a national tradition? It’s the politicizing of the event, the woke speeches and virtue signaling, the decision to base awards on diversity rather than merit, the oppressive partisanship and Trump-bashing, and the stars revealing their depressing ignorance by shooting off their mouths as if anyone cares what they think, of course. Buchanan doesn’t mention any of this! It’s a Jumbo: “Politics? What politics?” Yes, it’s another “Bias makes you stupid” classic. Buchanan doesn’t think the oppressive politicizing of the broadcast is a problem, because it’s consistent with his politics.
The New York Times has an astounding, depressing op-ed by a black woman, a “journalist and an author” named Erin Audrey Kaplan in which she announces unequivocally racist, bigoted, anti-white sentiments without a hint of self-awareness. It would be nice to think the Times printed her hateful essay as a “Don’t be like this bigot!” cautionary tale. Knowing the Times as I do, I doubt it.
Kaplan writes that she lives in “a mostly Black and Latino city in southwestern Los Angeles County.” She decided to build a Little Free Library (one of my neighbors in Alexandria has one) in her front yard. The birdhouse-like object (see it in the photo above?) invited pedestrians walking by to borrow (and later return) a book. Kaplan says she erected hers “to signal to my longtime neighbors that we had our own ideas about [community] improvement, and could carry them out in our own way…I envisioned it as a place for my neighbors to stay connected during the pandemic.”
She relates that she took pleasure in observing various neighbors stopping at the tiny library and accepting its friendly invitation, until…
[Nat King Cole’s rendition of this song always makes me smile: his German is so dreadful. But what a voice! It’s like hot cocoa with a marshmallow melting in it.]
Well, the 8-foot Concolor fir tree goes up today, meaning about four hours of prickles and dead light strands lie ahead. Can’t wait!
I have a Christmas ethics dilemma on which advice would be appreciated. As I think I mentioned, Spuds, who is a canine battering ram, was romping at night in the field behind our house with a group of dog pals when one of the owners, a next door neighbor of thirty years, zigged when she should have zagged and Spuds ran right into her. Her leg was broken in two places, and now her 71-year-old husband is facing caring for her for at least several months, also taking care of their two large Belgian Shepherds, as well as a disabled family member who lives a few houses down the street. Lots of the dog-owners have dropped off holiday food for the couple, and we want to send a nice Harry and David package. How do we frame the gift in a way that sends the implied message we want to convey (“We’re thinking of you, and hope you can enjoy the Christmas in spite of everything”) and not “Please don’t sue us!” ? (I am not at all concerned on that score, for reasons social and legal.) Should Spuds sign the card, along with us?
I’ll be damned before I ask “The Ethicist,” or worse still, “Social Qs”…
1. Look! A competent list for a change! The Independent issued a list of “The Magnificent 20: the Top 2O Westerns of All Time.” I’ve lectured and written about this most ethics-minded and American of film genres, and I was pleasantly surprised that almost all of the Westerns I regard as essential made the list. Graeme Ross, the author, knows his stuff. That doesn’t mean I agree with all of it. I am not a Sergio Leone fan, and consider all of the spaghetti westerns as anti-Westerns at heart, so those are two slots I’d fill differently. As usual “The Searchers” is too high (it’s #1), and “Unforgiven” made the list, a film that I thought was over-rated from the second it came out (Sorry Clint.)
Still, only one of the Westerns included is affirmatively dreadful (Brando’s misbegotten “One-Eyed Jacks”) and an unforgivable choice. On my list (which is longer), “Lonesome Dove” is #1 (“Shane” is #2) but it’s not technically a movie, I guess. I also would include “Silverado” in the top 20. “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” is an essential inclusion on such a list; I don’t know how it was missed. Still, a responsible, respectful and fair effort—and John Wayne has more movies on the list than anyone else, even without “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” Good.
Let’s get the easy part out of the way right off the bat: Gil Hodges, elected this week to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, was not a Hall of Fame caliber player, and it was as a player that he was selected. He was also not qualified to be voted into the Hall as a manager, though there is no question that Hodge’s single famous achievement as a manager, the upset World Series Championship attained by the 1969 Mets, played a large part in burnishing his reputation.
And yet the group of old ex-players and others that make up what used to be called the Hall of Fame’s Veteran’s Committee put Hodges, who died suddenly 50 years ago at the age of 48, voted to place a plaque honoring him among those of Lou Gehrig, George Sisler, Harmon Killebrew, Jeff Bagwell and other far superior first basemen in the game’s long history. (To be fair, Hodges isn’t the least qualified HOF member at that position; that distinction goes to Tony Perez.) The reason for Hodges’ ascension was bias, the positive variety for a change, and lots of it.
Res ipsa loquitur and signature significance, all in a family Christmas card.
Wow.
Rep. Massie posted that heart-warming Christmas scene just four days after the Michigan school shooting, which came to pass because another family was so gun happy that it deliberately put a semi-automatic in the hands of a 15-year-old and allowed him to return to class after clear signs that he had murder on his mind.
Merry Christmas!
I don’t have space on the blog to detail all of what’s wrong with that photo, but here’s a brief summary:
The case has proven to be a revealing test on integrity, civic literacy and whether bias has led to stupidity for much of the nation, including its institutions. And much of the nation has flunked.
Take Princeton...please. Its woke dean, Amaney Jamal, sent out an email to the campus on November 20 (I’ve been telling you I’m behind!) about the Rittenhouse verdict.
“Last August, Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two protestors and wounded a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin. During his trial, he emotionally broke down on the stand, saying he was acting in self-defense. Today, he was acquitted of all six charges against him, including three of which were homicide related,” the email began.
Wrong, Tiger-Breath, as Johnny Carson might have said! First, there is little evidence those shot were “protesters.” They were all convicted felons, and what was going on wasn’t a protest, but rioting. Law-breakers like riots. Second, Rittenhouse’s emotional display on the stand isn’t why he was found not guilty by reason of self defense. The evidence is what acquitted him, and the applicable laws.
Then the Dean added that Rittenhouse was a “minor vigilante carrying a semi-automatic rifle across state lines, killing two people,” and stated that she “fail[s] to comprehend how he could be “declared innocent by the U.S. justice system.”
Black Lives Matter is promoting a boycott of all white citizen-owned businesses, urging supporters to buy “exclusively from Black-owned businesses’ through New Years. “Move your money out of white-corporate banks that finance our oppression and open accounts with Black-owned banks,” the group said on Instagram.
“Racism” and “racist” have both been watered down to near meaningless by the Left’s wielding of them as all-purpose weapons against critics, but under any definition, setting out to harm a business because of the race of its owners is racist to the core.
November 29 marks the anniversary of the world making a firm choice in a position of ethics zugszwang, as the United Nations voted in 1947 to partition Palestine and create an independent Jewish state. Things have never been peaceful or, apparently, resolvable since. Jews and Arabs had been arguing over the region since the first decade of the 20th Century, as both groups wanted the British-controlled territory. The Jews had come from Europe and Russia establish a Jewish state in their ancient homeland. The native Palestinian Arabs wanted to stop Jewish immigration and set up a secular Palestinian state. In 1929, violence between Arabs and Jews broke out, and Great Britain attempted to limit Jewish immigration to appease the Arabs. The Holocaust spurred many Jews to entered Palestine anyway, however illegally, and in the 40s the Jews were the terrorists, attacking British forces in Palestine. When the U.S. sided with the Zionists in 1945, Great Britain gave up and handed its dilemma over to the United Nation, which on November 29, 1947, voted to partition Palestine.
The Jews got more than half of Palestine, despite constituting less than half of the population. The Palestinian Arabs fought the newly empowered occupants, but the Jews prevailed, not only securing their U.N.-granted share of Palestine but some of the Arab portion as well. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel declared its official existence, and the the next day, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq attacked. They chose…poorly. The Israelis again prevailed, and again expanded their territories at Arab expense, taking Galilee, the Palestinian coast, and a strip of territory connecting the coastal region to the western section of Jerusalem. The Palestinians have never abandoned their goal of eliminating the Jewish state, and after so many decades, the chances of a peaceful and permanent resolution of this hundred-year-old ethics train wreck are approximately zero.
Meanwhile, Happy Hanukkah, and remember the Maccabees!
1. Note from The Great Stupid. In a new holiday-themed Peloton commercial, a modern Scrooge discovers his best self by peddling away. Awakening, he rushes to the window, just like in the Dickens tale, and shouts to the juvenile in the street, “What day is it, child?” Child? Everybody knows that the line is “What day is it, boy?” Ah! But because all commercials and casts must have a requisite number of black actors, the lad was black, and even Scrooge can’t call a black individual boy, even if he is a boy. So the “Christmas Carol” parody, which is the whole point, is knee-capped for political correctness. This director’s advice: either be bold and cast a white kid to play the white kid in the story, or ditch the concept entirely. Or…
…cast two white actors in a two-character TV ad. Now that would be revolutionary!
2. Did I miss Hillary Clinton taking over the Salvation Army? The Salvation Army’s solution to being called on it’s CRT embrace: deny, deny, deny. Also: lie. Indignantly!
As Ethics Alarms noted a few days ago, two internal Salvation Army documents, a guidebook titled “Let’s Talk About Racism” and another called the “Study Guide on Racism” fully endorse the “anti-racism” pro anti-white racism theme. “In the absence of making anti-racist choices, we (un) consciously uphold aspects of White supremacy, White-dominant culture, and unequal institutions and society,” the first document states—you know, like casting a black kid as Scrooge’s new friend. From the latter: White people are guilty “unconscious bias” and “unwittingly perpetuate racial division…We must stop denying the existence of individual and systemic/institutional racism. They exist, and are still at work to keep White Americans in power.”
I feel “Bite me!” rising up my gorge into my mouth even as I type that.
The Salvation Army is shocked—shocked!—that anyone would think it’s playing race games. In a perfect Jumbo, the group responded, “Critical Race Theory? What Critical Race Theory?”
“…[S]ome individuals and groups have recently attempted to mislabel our organization to serve their own agendas. They have claimed that we believe our donors should apologize for their skin color, that The Salvation Army believes America is an inherently racist society, and that we have abandoned our Christian faith for one ideology or another. Those claims are simply false, and they distort the very goal of our work….” The Salvation Army occasionally publishes internal study guides on various complex topics to help foster positive conversations and grace-filled reflection among Salvationists. By openly discussing these issues, we always hope to encourage the development of a more thoughtful organization that is better positioned to support those in need. But no one is being told how to think. Period.”
Except that both of the documents tell employees how to think… like Ibram X. Kendri.
The next part of the denial is hilarious…
In this case, the guide “Let’s Talk About Racism,” was issued as a voluntary resource, but it has since become a focus of controversy. We have done our best to provide accurate information, but unfortunately, some have chosen to ignore those efforts. At the same time, International Headquarters realized that certain aspects of the guide may need to be clarified. Consequently, for both reasons, the International Social Justice Commission has now withdrawn the guide for appropriate review.
Translation: “OK, you caught us!”
The explanation, perhaps even more than the anti-white play-books, makes it clear that this is a charity that no longer can be trusted.
Ethics Alarms 