I barely have to comment on this one. Incredibly, the British House of Commons sent the letter above to Chris Pavlovsky, asking Rumble’s CEO to censor actor/comic Russell Brand as YouTube has (discussed in this post from yesterday.)
Pavlovsky’s response:
The Brits really never have gotten our Constitution, have they? Unfortunately, an increasing number of Americans, including those who run news, social media and Big Tech platforms don’t get it either.
It is ironic that serial Ethics Villain and NEA president Randi Weingarten writes that her tweet “speaks for itself” when it is indeed a wonderful example of res ipsa loquitur, but not in the way Weingarten would have us believe.
The teacher was not fired for reading the “Diary of Anne Frank” to her class, but for using “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” without proper authorization from the school and using it to launch a class discussion of sexual molestation. The graphic version, in the style of a comic book…
…is true to Frank’s original diary but contains the sexual and other content that was taken out of the original version published by Frank’s father. The graphic novel-syle version has been critically praised, but the previously redacted material it includes are of a nature that require sensitive instruction and certainly prior approval by parents.
Weingarten misidentified the book involved due to carelessness, devotion to her political agenda, or deliberate deception, none of which are qualities any responsible parent wants in their child’s teachers. Yet Weingarten is the teacher the teachers’ union chose to represent and lead it.
Her tweet speaks for itself indeed.
Damn Palm Springs, California: I was about to quit for the day, but I had to return to the blog for this ridiculous story.
The Palm Springs AIDS Memorial Task Force is now backtracking after revealing its preliminary choice for a memorial to the victims of AIDS. The memorial is being funded privately with an expected cost of approximately $500,000. After considerable study, the winning design, planned for erection (Stop it!) in the Downtown Park near the Marilyn Monroe statue is a nine feet tall limestone structure with concentric carved circles, symbolizing, we are told, “the diverse impact of AIDS on the community” and ” intended to evoke feelings of connection, reflection, and hope.”
It also looks a lot like an anus. Not that there’s anything wrong with that….
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has directed the chamber’s sergeant at arms to end the centuries-old rule requiring male U.S. Senators to wear a suit and tie on the Senate floor, with members of the upper house to wear modest business attire. This move was clearly made by Schumer to relieve pressure on Frankensteinian Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa), who has been violating the Senate Dress code and appearing in shorts, T-shirts, and hooded sweatshirts since he returned from a hospitalization for depression. He had been criticized and mocked as a result—as he should be.
The King’s Pass, Rationalization #11 on the List, is a corrosively backwards reaction by organizations to unethical conduct that violates organization norms and values, the value in this case being “respect”—respect for the institution, respect for the public, respect for the United States of America. If the organization’s (company’s, institution’s, industry’s, government’s, sports team’s…etc.) member who is breaching norms, rules, laws and values is deemed sufficiently powerful, important or popular, the rules and norms are not enforced when the King’s Pass strikes. When the most prominent member of a hierarchy is allowed to violate standards of conduct, the conduct of those of lower status will deteriorate in response: this is what “the fish rots from the head down” means, with the head in this case being a brain-damaged one.
Jason Patterson, an African American artist who is obsessed with flags and who apparently can sniff out racism that normal people don’t notice, managed to convince the Washington Post to validate his hysterical assessment that the seven state flags pictured above (on a field of “The Stars and Bars” flags) are all secretly sending anti-black, racist, pro-slavery and pro-Confederate messages. He thinks they all should be removed, even though (I’m estimating here) not one American in 10,000 would detect any such messages at all. This is the weird state of mind that has led to statue-toppling across the country, movements to end the honoring of essential Founders like Washington, Jefferson and Madison, and, at its silliest, the elimination of “Turkey in the Straw” as the tinkly tune played by ice cream trucks. It’s fair to describe Patterson as obsessed and unhealthily so, making the Post’s effort to spread his paranoia unethical and irresponsible.
Here’s a summary of Patterson’s flag-o-phobia:
[Note: This post takes no position regarding the validity and justness of the Hollywood writers’ strike.]
Tough choice: is the now middle-aged former child star turned talk show host’s apology even more unethical than Broebert’s discussed here? It’s certainly more ridiculous, even though Drew’s was teary and seemingly sincere, unlike the Republican’s. In fact, this apology is unique in my experience: Barrymore was apologizing for something she had announced she was doing, then she went ahead and did it anyway. What is that?
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been on strike since May over more equitable wages and working conditions. Even though it is a talk show and theoretically shouldn’t require writers, “The Drew Barrymore Show” does employ some, and thus is officially being struck. Nonetheless, Barrymore announced that her show would metaphorically cross the picket lines to premier tomorrow as scheduled. Her announcement predictably attracted a “scab” response from the WGA and others on social media. Then Barrymore posted the mea culpa video excerpted above on Instagram.
One of Donald Trump’s proteges, Rep. Lauren Boebert, behaved so outrageously at a a Denver theater last week during a performance of the Broadway musical “Beetlejuice,” that she was asked to leave by the theater managers. She was loud, sang along with the performers in places, got in arguments with audience members, was ostentatiously groped by her male companion, and perhaps most objectionably, vaped during the performance, which is what you see her (in the middle of the frame, second from the aisle) in the act of doing—see the little puff?— in the security camera shot above. She also took a selfie during the second act. As she and her date were ushered out, the distinguished member of Congress actually uttered the magic phrase I regard as signature significance for an insufferable celebrity jerk, “Do you know who I am?” and threatened consequences for the staff.
That’s not all. She had her office deny that she had been vaping, not realizing that security cameras memorialized it. And still that’s not all. Here is her head-exploding “apology” for acting like a 17-year old raised in a barn who had never been at a live theater show in her life:
Donald Trump was on thin ice making fun of Chris Christy’s weight, but he just proved that he had better eschew impugning Joe Biden’s age-related cognitive decline as well.
Addressing the Pray Vote Stand summit in Washington, Trump said, “We have a man who is totally corrupt and the worst president in the history of our country, who is cognitively impaired, in no condition to lead, and is now in charge of dealing with Russia and possible nuclear war. Just think of it. We would be in World War II very quickly if we’re going to be relying on this man, and far more devastating than any war.”
Oopsie! Trump presumably meant (I hope!) World War III, not the conflict that ended in 1945. That was a Bidenesque gaffe, and the equivalent of a pundit making a grammatical error while writing about how current high school grads can’t write. And that wasn’t all. Later in the same speech, Trump started confusing Biden with Barack Obama.
…like Unethical Quote of the Month, Ethics Dunce, “It Isn’t What It Is” Master, “Biggest Hypocrite of 2023” frontrunner…oh, lots of Ethics Alarms awards. Plus, she outed herself as a rhetoric-challenged idiot who has no business teaching children, much less presuming to lead those who do. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Stacy Davis Gates has been an vociferous opponents of parents who advocate for the ability to eschew public schools (which, as we know, are terrible educationally and politically) for other options via school vouchers. Here are some of her publicized comments:
…and more. You know what I’m going to write next, don’t you? Surely you’ve seen this kind of set-up before. Yes, Gates recently placed her own teenage son in a Catholic high school located in Chicago’s South Side. This was so outstanding an example of hypocrisy by a politically involved public figure that even a CNN Democratic flack talking head was moved to challenge her on it.
I don’t know what you call this, but whatever it is, “ethics dunce” just isn’t enough.
That’s Susanna Gibson above with her husband (I don’t know where those annoying stars came from) performing on a porn website while she was already running as a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates. The 40-year-old Democrat, along with her lawyer husband, have been appearing in flagrante delicto on an X-rated website, and offering to perform sundry sex acts in front of the camera, including those involving violence and bodily excretions, in exchange for money—not that there’s anything wrong with that.
But after the conservative Washington Free Beacon was tipped off to this rare proclivity on the part of a political candidate and wrote about it, Gibson announced that she was shocked—shocked!—that anyone would feel that a candidate for the legislature soliciting money for sex acts was something the public had a right to know about. She found a lawyer willing to try to use Maryland’s “revenge porn” law to punish such people. Daniel P. Watkins of the Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch firm, argues that “it’s illegal and it’s disgusting to disseminate this kind of material”and says that he is “working closely with the F.B.I. and local prosecutors to bring the wrongdoers to justice.”
Sure, Danny, good luck with that! It’s a ridiculous idea for a law suit, but ya never know, so it slips under the wire as “ethical,” though any lawyer bringing such a suit should have to wear a bag on his head.
Ugh. Where to begin?
Ethics Alarms 