I’ve been remiss in posting deserving “Comments of the Day,” and I apologize. It’s not that there haven’t been worthy submissions, its just been a fact that getting content up on EA at all has been especially challenging of late. The last Comment of the Day was almost a month ago. Yikes.
Below, after a brief observation on the specific incident inspiring the post, Charles Abbott segues from the CEO fired for trolling the Trump Deranged in social media with a photo saluting “Lake America” to the ideological grandstanding that has taken over Facebook, at least based on what I am reading there.
It seems the safest thing to do is simply to shut up. That will be a post for another day.
I want to redirect this comment to the topic of your experiences on Facebook. I’m not an expert on the the topic but I’ve had a Facebook account for approximately 20 years now. Like many of us.
You often post that you are surprised by the sorts of posts and comments and behaviors you see on Facebook from people you know personally and/or professionally.
Here’s the way it looks to me. If Facebook has ever been a place where people went to debate things in good faith, or to seek the truth, or to strive after correcting error, that time is long gone.
Toronto Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. kind-of, sort-of, not really “apologized” yesterday for the ethically brain-dead comments he made during a Spanish language interview about his $500 million, 14-year contract. I wrote earlier in the week about his absurd protestation that his huge contact wasn’t meant to pay for what he would produce on the field over the next decade-plus, but just a reward for what Vlad had already done. When the erstwhile slugger was criticized for the statement, he doubled down. Now, a scant two days later, he is suddenly contrite, or something.
“The main reason I’m here is because I regret my comments the other day,” Guerrero said through a translator. “I feel from my heart that my fans, my teammates, they needed an apology from me and that’s what I’m here for. Obviously, I’m also here because I’m just going to tell everyone that I’m going to continue to keep working hard to make my contract a great one.
“I just gave it some thought and I felt like the comments I made the other day is not what I really wanted to say, and I really feel that everyone, my fans, everyone deserves an apology from me and that’s the main reason I’m here today.”
Oh. What??? Wait, what exactly is Vlad apologizing for? He’s apologizing because others “needed” an apology because he didn’t say what he “really wanted to say?” We still don’t know what he wanted to say, or if he even understands what he’s apologizing for.
This isn’t even a level 10 apology on the Apology Scale ( “An insincere and dishonest apology designed to allow the wrongdoer to escape accountability cheaply, and to deceive his or her victims into forgiveness and trust…”). He might as well have said, “I apologize, whatever that means.” He regrets his comments because he’s getting criticism from fans, and someone, apparently his Hall of Fame father, Vlad Sr., told him that he had better say he didn’t mean what he said. Guerrero obviously did and does, because he said what he said twice, and that was essentially, “I don’t owe the team of fans anything going forward. So I stink this year; deal with it. I’ve got my money.” Guerrero’s contract includes a record $325 million signing bonus that protects his contract from the possible work stoppage everyone expects in 2027.
Now he says he “regrets” what he said twice, which is not the same as a sincere apology.
To be fair, I’ll concede that Vlad doesn’t speak English very well. I’ll also note that there’s no excuse for this, since he has split his residences between Florida and Toronto for at least seven years.
🚨 THE VIEW HOST QUESTIONS PATRICK CLANCY FOR DIVORCING LINDSAY CLANCY ‼️ Sara Haines questioned how Patrick’s marital love ended so quickly after Lindsay killed their 3 children. Patrick has since remarried. Do you agree with Haines? #LindsayClancy#PatrickClancy
[Sorry for stooping to using TikTok, but it had the only suitable clip that WordPress would let me embed…]
“The View” is trying to get its own private dining car on the Lindsay Clancy Trial Ethics Train Wreck. First Sunny Hostin uses the issue to declare that she was the “lone juror” who got a man declared not guilty after he killed a woman and made her into a delicious soup…and it turns out that she was lying about the whole thing and wasn’t the “lone juror” after all. Now Sara Haines—how can anyone determine which of these opinionated, wokeness-infected, ignorant women is the dumbest?—expressed her shock that Lindsay Clancy’s husband (now remarried) would divorce the woman who murdered his children. After all, Haines says, don’t the marriage vows state “in sickness or in health”?
Well yes, Sarah, but at least the vows I took didn’t have a “whether one of us murders our kids or not” clause in there.
Haines really and truly asks, “How did the marital love end so quickly?” Gee, that’s a real brain-teaser. Domestic abuse activists argue that “marital love” has been abandoned once a husband punches his wife in the face, but that’s obviously bad and inexcusable. Murdering the children is more nuanced. Good question, Sara. I’ll have to think about that….
How is someone as dumb and confused as Haines on television anyway? The inconvenient truth about all journalism is that the vast majority of reporters just aren’t very bright, and certainly not as smart as they think they are. Nonetheless, we allow them to have public platforms and exposure that consistently accomplish the opposite of what our Founders believed made “the press” essential to a functioning democracy. Heck, we allow them to manipulate elections. Haines and her colleagues—not just the confederacy of dunces on “The View” but reporters and pundits generally—make the public less informed, less astute, less ethical and less responsible. Somehow this stupid woman—yes, I hold that asking why a man would divorce his wife after she murdered three children, especially their three children, is signature significance: no intelligent person even thinks that’s a puzzle, never mind announcing it on national TV—managed to be a correspondent on NBC and ABC. What does that tell us about the competence, judgment and trustworthiness of broadcast news?
Related questions:
Will anything cause ABC to recognize that calling “The View” a news program is a disgrace, and that the network metaphorically soils itself and the culture every time it gives this coven of morons gets another hour to lobotomize the public?
How do Democrats continue to get votes when siding with progressives means associating oneself with the likes of Sara, Sunny, Whoopi and Joy, never mind Bernie, Kamala, AOC, Fredo, Ayanna, Jasmine, Gavin, and Zohran?
When did American woman lose their ethical bearings?
Lyricist Oscar Hammerstein Jr. had many moments of great ethical clarity, as did his pupil and protege, Stephen Sondheim. I don’t think either topped this song, however, from the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, “The King and I.” I’ve highlighted the key sections.
When I was a boy, World was better spot. What was so was so, What was not was not.
Now I am a man— World have change a lot: Some things nearly so, Others nearly not.
There are times I almost think I am not sure of what I absolutely know. Very often find confusion In conclusion I concluded long ago.
In my head are many facts That, as a student, I have studied to procure. In my head are many facts Of which I wish I was more certain I was sure!
[spoken] Is a puzzlement. What to tell a growing son?
[sung] What, for instance, shall I say to him of women? Shall I educate him on the ancient lines? Shall I tell the boy, as far as he is able, To respect his wives and love his concubines?
Shall I tell him every one is like the other, And the better one of two is really neither? If I tell him this, I think he won’t believe it— And I nearly think I don’t believe it either!
When my father was a king, He was a king who knew exactly what he knew, And his brain was not a thing Forever swinging to and fro and fro and to. Shall I then be like my father And be willfully unmovable and strong? Or is better to be right? Or am I right when I believe I may be wrong?
Shall I join with other nations in alliance? If allies are weak, am I not best alone? If allies are strong with power to protect me, Might they not protect me out of all I own?
Is a danger to be trusting one another, One will seldom want to do what other wishes… But unless someday somebody trust somebody, There’ll be nothing left on earth excepting fishes!
There are times I almost think Nobody sure of what he absolutely know. Ev’rybody find confusion In conclusion he concluded long ago,
And it puzzle me to learn That though a man may be in doubt of what he know, Very quickly will he fight, He’ll fight to prove that what he does not know is so!
Oh-h-h, oh-h-h! Sometimes I think that people going mad! Ah-h-h, ah-h-h! Sometimes I think that people not so bad!
But no matter what I think I must go on living life. As leader of my kingdom I must go forth, Be father to my children, And husband to each wife— Et cetera, et cetera, and so forth.
If my Lord in Heaven, Buddha, show the way, Ev’ry day I try to live another day. If my Lord in Heaven, Buddha, show the way, Ev’ry day I do my best for one more day, But… Is a puzzlement!
But if I were running “The Ethicist” column, I wouldn’t dignify such a dunderheaded query with publication at all.
“Name Withheld” says that her boyfriend admits to “sexting women on the social platform YikYak, which lets you message anonymously with other people at your college.” She continues in part:
“I don’t know if I should break up with him. If he were cheating, I would do so instantly…This is a weird middle ground where he’s not really cheating, but he’s definitely crossing a line. He also told me that he first started sexting people (on other platforms) when he was in middle school… I worry that it may be a mental-health issue…We share a fair number of friends, and despite this major failing, I still think that my boyfriend is an upstanding guy. I don’t want to cause him harm by telling people why we broke up… But I also don’t want to harm my reputation — I can’t afford to lose friends because they think I’m in the wrong for breaking up with him.”
She closes her epically clueless letter with a surprise question. I assumed she was asking whether The Ethicist (NYU philosophy professor Kwame Anthony Appiah) thought she should break up with the creep. Her actual question: “Is sexting anonymously cheating?”
My runner-up answer to the letter after “RUN AWAY!” would be, “What the hell is the matter with you?” What’s the difference whether sexting women anonymously is technically “cheating” or not? Her sicko boyfriend has been sending anonymous sex messages to women since he was in junior high school! (“Dear Ethicist: Is torturing small animals cheating?”) Whatever you choose to call it, such conduct is signature significance: no “stand up guy” behaves like that. Case closed, boyfriend disqualified as trustworthy love-interest beyond a reasonable doubt, no appeal, end of story, bye-bye!
The number of flashing “IDIOT!” signs in the letter are impressive. She appears to think that “cheating” is the only permitted justification for breaking up. If she’s so worried about injuring his reputation by telling people that he’s a sick perv, then don’t tell anybody. How hard is that? But my favorite is “I can’t afford to lose friends because they think I’m in the wrong for breaking up with him.” She can’t afford to lose friends who don’t think sexting women anonymously is enough of a red flag for a boyfriend that it justifies telling him to hit the road? Who needs friends like that? Who wants friends like that? The doomed college co-ed—what becomes of women this confused? Nothing good—literally is saying that she would continue a dangerous relationship if her friends wanted her to. Wow.
Now let’s see what the Professor says….Ugh! Terrible. Equivocating academic-speak gobbledygook. Example: “Plenty of people would find his activities — para-sexual interactions with para-amours — cheating adjacent.” You can read it for yourself if, and only if, your sock drawer is organized.
An awful event that could have been avoided in many ways if even one of the key players had just behaved responsibly and ethically, or knew what behaving responsibly and ethically is…
Bert Atienza, 77, was shopping at Walmart with his wife after church a week ago when store a 17-year-old store employee rushed down the aisle narrowly missing Josephine Atienza with a cart. Bert sharply admonished the young woman, saying, “You almost hit my wife with your heavy cart, and you did not even say excuse me or apologize to her,” according to his wife in interviews after the event. The African- American staffer argued with him briefly and then tossed a can at the couple as they walked away. Minutes later Travis White and Erika Mitchell attacked Bert as their daughter, the reckless employee, watched according to store surveillance video. [Note:Accounts say they “allegedly” attacked him. It it’s on video, it happened, unless the claim is that the video is a “deep fake.” I hate that reflex news media characterization. (‘John Wilkes Booth allegedly shot Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theater in front of hundreds of witnesses…’) Even the attorney for White and Mitchell doesn’t dispute the attack].
The two parents shoved Atienza from the back, one punched him in the face, then they pushed him into the shelving unit. After he fell to the ground, as one of the attackers kicked him. “While he’s on the floor, they’re still kicking him and I told them stop. My husband has heart problems,” Josephine said.
Oh! We’re sorry, if we knew the 77-year-old man had heart problems, we never would have attacked him!
Bert Atienza lost consciousness before help arrived and he was rushed to a hospital where he died the next day. White and Mitchell were arrested days later and charged with second-degree murder. Their daughter (described as “no longer employed by Walmart”—ya think?) has also been charged with assault and battery, aggravated malicious wounding and conspiracy to commit a felony. Her name has not been released to the press because she is a minor.
The Impeachment Clause in the U.S. Constitution was written by the Founders to create an emergency “Get Rid of a Rogue President (or other high Federal official) Free Card,” to be used in a bid-partisan process featuring due process, hearings and a trial. The Democrats cynically used the process as part of their undemocratic and ruinous campaign to make it impossible for the elected President to govern, because he had committed the unforgivable sin of blocking Hillary Clinton’s rose-strewn path to the White House. Like the fake, Hillary and Obama engineered Russian collusion hoax (and in Trump’s second term, the J-6 kangaroo hearings in the House, both of Trump’s impeachments were contrived, politically motivated, and Constitutionally indefensible. The damage was done, the precedent set. Impeachment is now toothless; the Founders’ metaphorical safety valve is done. What once was framed as cooperative, bi-partisan inquiry to be triggered by genuine abuses of power is now just another toothless and corrupt tool of political warfare. Good job, everybody!
Rep. Thomas Massie(R-KY), on the way out after losing the primary for his seat earlier this year, filed eight articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth this week.
That’s New Zealander Jamie Beaton above, posing for photos during graduation days at Harvard, Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Oxford, Stanford, Columbia, and King’s College, London. He’s the subject of a profile in the New York Times (gift link), chronicling his status as a “perpetual student.”
“A 5-foot-6 personification of naked ambition whose LinkedIn profile has been the subject of memes and Reddit threads, Beaton has gone to the head of a rarefied class — perpetual students,” the Times relates. “If he continues collecting advanced degrees at such a swift pace, he will surpass Benjamin B. Bolger, who has racked up 16 at age 50. He might even beat Michael Nicholson, an octogenarian forever scholar with more than 30 degrees to his name.”
With me, this resonates exactly like the Guinness Book of Records item about the only man to eat a whole automobile. One of my favorite oddball baseball players and historical figures was Moe Berg, a man who spoke Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Sanskrit, had degrees from Princeton and Columbia (in law), read ten newspapers a day and put all those skills to work playing major league baseball as a third-string catcher, never married, never owned a home, never started a business or earned a regular salary after retiring from the game. Beaton is more productive than that (arguably: Moe was recruited as a spy during World War II), but I still regard spending so much time and money accumulating academic credentials as pathological.
On the other side of the argument, of course, is the refrain of The Animals: “It’s my life and I’ll do what I want!” I endorse such autonomy and eccentricity, but still find the spectacle of someone with obvious ability, talent and work ethic spending so much of it on himself rather than the betterment of society, creation, and leadership as less than admirable.
At my undergraduate school, there were notable permanent students, mostly chubby middle-aged bachelors who arrived as undergrads, proceeded to graduate school, kept adding degrees, chased Masters and PhDs and never left the academic womb. They became “resident advisors” or “resident scholars” in the Harvard House system. They all gave me the impression that if they walked off the campus they would crumble to dust like vampires in sunlight.
I have an unmarried nephew who is 37, unmarried, and has been living in a university town for more than a decade as he pursues an elusive PhD. He does some teaching at the school, but he is, or was, a lively, funny, brilliant young man who had so many options after he graduated from college. As I increasingly regard higher education, in its current state of rot, a blight on American society, the phenomenon of the perpetual student seems increasingly indefensible, or at least tragic.
If you have never heard of Lunt and Fontaine, I doubt that you’ll recognize the name of actor Cameron Mitchell, though he had a long, varied and successful career in movies and television. He was never considered a star: in his 1994 obituaries, Mitchell’s supporting role in the long-running TV western “The High Chaparral,” a “Bonanza” rip-off, usually dominated. I first took note of his talents when he appeared in a TV production of the drama “The Andersonville Trial” as Judge Advocate Lew Wallace. In interviews and in his autobiography, Mitchell told the story many times about a crucial moment in his career when the ethics heroism of the Lunts changed the course of his life.
Mitchell was a 21-year-old aspiring actor frustrated in his efforts to get cast in New York City. For two years he struggled to survive, taking dozens of dead-end jobs, like ushering at movie theaters, mail clerking, and washing dishes. Then Cameron Mitzell (his name before he changed it) saw the 1931 film adaptation of “The Guardsman” starring Alfred Lunt, and was overcome with resentment, feeling that the supposedly brilliant actor’s performance hadn’t shown that he deserved his exalted reputation. So Mitchell wrote what he later described as “the world’s worst letter.” Mitchell wrote Lunt the opposite of a fan letter; it was a “You stink! letter stating that he was certain that he was a better actor than Lunt, but no one would give him a chance to prove it. After listing the inadequacies of Lunt’s performance as he saw it, he concluded the letter by writing, “If you think you can act, you should see me.”
Far from being insulted, Lunt was intrigued by the writer’s confidence and audacity. He wrote back to Mitchell and offered him an opportunity to, as the saying goes,”put his money where is mouth is,” by auditioning for Lunt and his wife. Mitchell was terrified but wasn’t about to chicken out. He came to the auditions and immediately apologized to Lunt. Lynn Fontanne told him there was nothing to be sorry about. “Don’t worry about what you’ve done,” she said. “Acting is your life’s work, and you’re not only going to be a good actor, but you’re going to be a great one!” The Lunts then cast the young actor in their production of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” on Broadway. Fontaine also persuaded him to adopt the stage name, “Cameron Mitchell.”
Mitchell went on to be a successful working actor for more than five decades. And he made certain that at every opportunity he would tell the story of how he owed his career to the Lunts’ spontaneous act of support and kindness to a rude and cocky young actor.
White leftists are the only groups that considers the natural human preference for one’s own ethnic group to be wrong, toxic, racist and a mark of bigotry.
This certainly shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been paying attention for the past, oh, 50 years or so.
Now what?
My reflex instinct is to presume that a group that vilifies those who display natural human characteristics that are not only permitted for everyone else but extolled (“I want to see performers/ elected officials/ judges/ Cabinet members/ etc. who look like me!”) is an unethical group.
