Childhood and children

“As the NYT Enables Terrorism and Anti-Israel Hate With ‘Think of the Children!’ Porn”: The Sequel

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Today the Times published another in its continuing reporting efforts to demonize Israel, encourage anti-Semitism, support the unconscionable Biden -Harris pressure on Israel to agree to a ruinous cease-fire, and to validate Palestinian terrorism. The Ethics Alarms commentary on this piece is essentially identical to what appeared in its predecessor, As the NYT Enables Terrorism and Anti-Israel Hate With “Think of the Children!” Porn…which stated in that the Times report…

“…can evoke no possible response from typical semi-attentive and easily manipulated readers than “Think of the children! The Jews are monsters! Cease fire now! The Gazans have suffered enough! Justice for Palestine!”

And this is exactly the end result that Hamas sought when it launched its cease-fire shattering surprise terror attack on Israeli civilians, including infants, on October 7.”

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In Utah, How To Raise An Ethics Dunce

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Police in Brigham City, Utah responded to complaints that a young boy was selling beer at a roadside stand. Sure enough, the kid had a sign at his makeshift stand that said “ICE COLD BEER.” But upon closer examination, the police found that “root” was in tiny print in front of the beer. The admiring police posted on Facebook, “He’s selling beer … ROOT BEER, that is. His marketing strategy has resulted in several calls to the BCPD, but apparently it’s paid off as business has been good.” Indeed. Business is booming, the boy told the fawning news media. “We had to buy another cooler.”

So the child has learned that bait-and-switch along with deceptive advertising not only works, but that he will be praised for it. I’m sure he can make the connection that deceit is also a useful and profitable strategy, and find lots of ways to exploit people’s trust to deceive them for his own benefit.

Yup, his family has the makings of a real little con artist there, and they’ll have the police and the news media to thank. Maybe he’ll end up in jail, or in Congress.

________________

Pointer: JutGory

From the Toxic Popular Culture Files: Smalls Cat Food

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

J.D. Vance’s much maligned “cat ladies” snark , like many furiously slammed comments by conservatives and Republicans are, may have focused attention on to a societal trend seriously threatening the health of American society. (If only he could have articulated it better.)

Lately I have been bombarded with TV ads for Smalls cat food. The promotions and commercials claim that it is “human grade” cat food, and why not, since the TV spots feature disturbed individuals male and female, not just proclaiming these animal companions as their surrogates for children, but literally stating that they are children. “He’s my son,” a young woman says in one ad, speaking of her cat. “She’s literally my baby!” says some guy, also talking about a feline “fur-baby.” Literally!

This would be funny in a mordant way if it were not so ominous. I can’t blame cat food companies for taking advantage of the apocalyptic collision of progressive anti-family attitudes in the U.S. and pet mania: so many people do come to regard a dog or a cat as cheaper, more predictable, less demanding equivalent of a child. What is disturbing about the Smalls commercials is that they represent this mindset as healthy and normal.

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A “Great Stupid” Court Case SO Stupid That It Makes “The Great Stupid” Look Almost Smart…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

That crude, ambiguous drawing above got a first grader—we’re talking six-years-old here—suspended. That’s almost all you have to know for your head to explode if it is properly wired.

The Ethics Villains and Dunces are so thick in this fiasco you could use it to lay bricks. I’m almost embarrassed to tell the story, which I first saw at Reason…

In March of 2021, a first grader referred to as “B.B.” ” drew a picture we are told was intended to show people of different races, representing “three classmates and herself holding hands.” (I’d save the money the family was planning on spending on art school for B.B., if that was their intent.) Above the drawing, B.B. wrote “Black Lives Mater” (Latin!) with the words “any life” stuck in-between the slogan and the jelly beans, or whatever they were. B.B. then gave the drawing to a black classmate, as what B.B. testified was intended as a friendly gesture. But the classmate either ratted out B.B. or the principal was told about it by the teacher, or something (because school administrators don’t have anything better to do than to police the political correctness of kids’ drawings).

The school’s principal, Jesus Becerra, admonished B.B., saying that the drawing was “inappropriate.” B.B. was ordered to apologize to her classmate, prohibited from drawing any more pictures in school, and prevented from going to recess for two weeks.

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Incompetent Former Elected Official of the Month: Ex-North Dakota State Senator Ray Holmberg (R-Hall of Shame)

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Be proud, Republicans!

How do creeps like this get elected? Never mind: the question is futile. “Incompetent” doesn’t quite do Holmberg justice, either.

Ray Holmberg, a powerful GOP state senator served in the North Dakota Senate for 45 years, representing Grand Forks. He resigned in 2022 as a consequence of his interesting and expensive hobby. He admitted in federal court yesterday that he liked to take trips to Europe so he could have sexual relations with children.  “The boys rent at around $60 (sex is extra),” Holmberg wrote in an email to a friend using an alias. Good to know!

Holmberg traveled to Prague 14 times between 2011 and 2021 to purchase sex and other intimate contact with boys under 18. Some of the these trips were paid for with taxpayer money. Now that was just careless: I told you he was incompetent. Holmberge resigned after reaching the pinnacle of his power as North Dakota Senate Appropriations Committee chair because he was the target of a federal investigation into child pornography and traveling for sex with children.

A search of his home under a federal warrant had uncovered incriminating emails. The age of consent in the Czech Republic is 15, but U.S. law forbids travel for sex with adolescents under the age of 18 whether it is legal in the locale or not.  What do you want to bet that U.S. libertarians think Holmberg is a victim of excessive government interference with personal liberties, since he broke no laws in his man-boy sex playground?

When an elected official is discovered to be this despicable, disgraceful and untrustworthy, the party that nominated him should have to suffer some kind of penalty, and a more serious one if it is determined that the party knew or should have known how bad its representative was. (Hi there, George Santos!) Maybe then parties will start taking their responsibilities to the public seriously.

A candidate for high state or national office should have to endure background checks as stringent as those one must undergo for positions requiring national security clearance.

Ethics Quiz: The Google AI Olympics Commercial

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Google pulled that ad after a wave of criticism on social media.

Is the ad encouraging children to use AI instead of writing their own messages and letters? Is it an invitation to cheat in school? Does it suggest that robots are better at expressing genuine human feelings than humans are? Is having someone, or something, write your fan letters to a personal hero a cop-out? A lie?

Is the commercial “Ick!”, unethical, or just ominous?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is that Google AI ad irresponsible, corrupting—unethical? Did an ethics alarm fail to sound that should have?

Before Offering Second Thoughts J.D. Vance’s “Childless Cat Ladies” Controversy, These Relevant Horror Stories:

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I was literally in the middle of a preparing a post about the cultural sickness J.D. Vance was allegedly trying (and failing miserably) to focus public attention on when he mocked “childless cat ladies” dictating U.S. policies when these two awful stories came across my screen.

In the first, I learned that Parker Scholtes, 2, was found dead in her parents’ Honda SUV parked outside their home in the Tucson suburb of Marana. Her father, an irresponsible man-child named Christopher Scholtes, had left the baby “to nap,” that is, to broil, for more than three hours on July 9. He said he left her in the car with the air conditioner on (like a good dad, or his warped idea of one), but got involved playing PlayStation video games and didn’t check on her until three hours had gone by. He confessed to police that he knew the car’s engine would automatically shut off after 30 minutes, but just got, you know, carried away and lost track of time. You know how it flies by when you’re having fun.

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Ethics Observations on J.D. Vance’s “Childless Cat Ladies” Controversy

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The Axis of Unethical Conduct “pounced” on newly nominated Trump running mate J.D. Vance this week over a “re-surfaced” video in which Vance said that the country is being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.” The comment was made in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson when Vance was beginning his ultimately successful campaign for the Senate.

Observations:

1. Gee, just the GOP needs—TWO candidates who lack functioning filters between their brains and their mouths.

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“OOOOOOKE—lahoma Where The Fools Want Bibles In the Schools…”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Morons.

Just as the Far Left plays into the worst conservative stereotypes about them with demands like abortion right up to birth and open borders, the Far Right parodies itself with Constitution-defying laws like Louisiana’s requiring the Ten Commendments to be displayed in public school classrooms. Now Oklahoma says, “Hold my beer!”with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters announcing in a memo today that every Oklahoma school must teach students the Bible the 2024-2025 school year. “The Bible is an indispensable historical and cultural touchstone,” Walters said in a press release unveiling the mandate. “Without basic knowledge of it, Oklahoma students are unable to properly contextualize the foundation of our nation which is why Oklahoma educational standards provide for its instruction. This is not merely an educational directive but a crucial step in ensuring our students grasp the core values and historical context of our country.”

There is no chance, none, zip, nada, that this obviously religiously motivated law will stand up to judicial scrutiny. This is pure grandstanding.

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The Guinness Book of Records Is a Catalyst For Self-Destructive Conduct, Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That…

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I guess it’s that time on a sweltering Friday afternoon that I am not quite up to finishing any of the more substantive posts on the runway, and only feel like tackling the stupid stuff. (These are the posts long-time critic/commenter Neil Dorr prefers. This one’s for you, Neil!)

Tara Berry just set the Guinness Book of Records record for “‘most tattoos of the same musician on the body.” She has 18. ( The former record-holder has 15 portraits of Eminem tattooed on her body.) A big Madonna fan from the beginning of The Material Girls’ pop-culture ascent in 1983 ,Tara only started her Madonna tattoo collection in 2016 when she was looking for fans who had Madonna’s image tattooed on their bodies to feature in a video. I guess she’s suggestive (or <cough> or something): she had an overwhelming urge to get her own Madonna tattoo. Once she started, she couldn’t stop.

Well, bless her heart. It’s her skin and her body: this is one example of “choice” that doesn’t hurt anybody except the chooser. Hey, if she wants to go for 20, or 50, I won’t criticize.

I do hear a bit of a ping one of my smaller ethics alarms about the Guinness Book of Records. Why does it even have a record in this category? I’ve touched on the issue in the past: the GBOR seeds the needs of narcissists and sad, insecure people searching for some level of fame or notoriety with records that can only be set or sought with some danger to the aspiring record-setter. There were “the Biking Vogels,” the various children endangered by their parents to have them be the “youngest” to achieve some pointless and dangerous goal, and my personal favorite, Sheyla Hershey, who ended up with size M breasts to set the Guinness record for “largest breast implants.” I concluded that 2010 post by stating that it was unethical for Guinness to publish “records” that can only be achieved by risking long-term harm.

And yet…blaming Guinness for Tara Barry mutilating her body is like blaming hip-hop records and violent TV shows or movies for people doing in reality what is only sung about or shown on a screen. It was her choice, albeit a crazy one. Tara is supposedly an “artist,” so maybe being festooned with pictures of a washed-up and aging pop-star won’t harm her at all, as long as she doesn’t seek employment at a school or a bank. Or with me.

As I said, that ethics alarm isn’t pinging very loudly. The GBOR doesn’t make anyone do anything. But the alarm has been pinging, however faintly, for 13 years.