Ethics Dunces

‘OK, But What Has He Done Lately?’

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Conservative black scholar Thomas Sowell, now 92 but still as courageous and perceptive as ever, has, to engage in understatement, been critical of the fake history “1619 Project,” now being inflicted on school children across the country. That centerpiece of current CRT indoctrination is the brain-child of Nicole Hannah-Jones, an African-American reporter with an agenda, and for her divisive misinformation, declared hooey by a large number of historians who can smell rot when they encounter it, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, and later a tenured chair in “Race and Journalism,” as if that was a legitimate study rather than propaganda, at Howard.

Flushed with the perceived authority such a contrived position confers, and lacking the sense God gave a lemming, Professor Hannah-Jones took to Twitter yesterday to sneer, “Other than being Black, what exactly is Sowell’s expertise in slavery or history?” Proving that she asked this employing the same diligence and research skills that marked her “1619 Project” (which claimed that the American Revolution was fought to protect slavery, and is low-grade baloney), one of the many Twitterphiles who weighed in to mock her listed Sowell’s relevant publications by year: Continue reading →

Dispatches From The Great Stupid, An Ethics Dunce Family, And West Coast Bizarro World [Link Fixed!]

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

This story is so mind-meltingly stupid that it actually makes me angry.

I am not going to be kind. When woke delusions get this serious, innocent people are going to be hurt. That’s Jennifer Angel above, a small business owner and Oakland baker. She was an anarchist and extreme social justice advocate, as if anarchy doesn’t lead directly to injustice. I’m sure she was a nice person, just permanently crippled by living too long in California and hanging out with aging hippies. Jennifer didn’t deserve to die, and die horribly, but she did: when a thief broke into Angel’s car while she was in it, grabbed something and jumped into a getaway car, Angel chased the thief—after all, that’s what you have to do when there are no police, as Angel wished. Sadly, she got caught in the door of the fleeing vehicle was dragged down the street, her head smashing against the pavement repeatedly. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Angel’s family and friends issued a statement, and it is utopian claptrap for the ages. here is most of it, and when I can’t stand by without commenting, I will interrupt: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Fox News anchor Julie Banderas

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Journalists have pretty much jettisoned every other ethical value connected to their profession, so it shouldn’t surprise me that they’ve jettisoned professionalism as well. Come on, dude, you didn’t really think that Don “Isn’t it cute that I’m drunk and ranting on TV” Lemon was unique, did you?

Fox News anchor Julie Banderas—no, I don’t believe she got her lofty perch in broadcast news for her reporting skills, but then neither did Chris Cuomo—was one of the gang on “Gutfield!,” Fox News’ evening comedy talk show last week. She exploited the opportunity to announce that she was divorcing the father of her three children live as she launched into a bitter diatribe against Valentine’s Day..

“Fuck Valentine’s Day!” she said. “Yeah, it’s stupid. I mean, even when I was married, I didn’t get shit for Valentine’s Day.”

“Wait, you’re no longer married?” host Greg Gutfeld asked.

“Well, I’m getting a divorce. I’m gonna go ahead and say it right here for the first time,” the trusted news anchor replied. Her announcement was planned, because she told her Twitter followers that she would be making it on the show that night. “Thank you everyone, congratulations are already in order,” she continued. “If you know me, you’ll clap. That was breaking news, listen you don’t have to be a guy to not get shit on Valentine’s Day, come talk to me after the show. It’s a Hallmark holiday, it’s stupid. It’s just absolutely ridiculous and I don’t think you need one day.”

Observations: Continue reading →

Somebody Explain To Roseanne Barr What A Double Standard Is

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I guess I should start off by admitting that I have never found Roseanne Barr sufficiently witty, original or entertaining to make up for the ugliness of her world view, her horrible nasal screech, and her unjustified belief in her own brilliance.

I never could stand her hit sitcom or sit through an entire episode, so the reboot was about as welcome to me as most reboots (like the sad zombie version of “Murphy Brown”), but even a little less. When she managed to get herself fired and transformed into a pariah for making a racist slur against Barack Obama’s top advisor (and Michelle’s pal) Valerie Jarrett, tweeting in 2018 that Jarrett was the offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Planet of the Apes movies, I didn’t feel sorry for her. The tweet was racist, and it was a mark of Barr’s arrogance, built up over years of being excessively praised and rewarded for being “outrageous”—I file her in the same general category as similarly unfunny shock-jocks like Howard Stern—that no ethics alarms went off when she thought it would be hilarious to compare an Obama staffer to a monkey. It was also stunningly stupid. From my ethicist perspective, Barr made the offense worse by claiming that she had no idea that Jarrett was black. Sure, Roseanne. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Week: Former Head Of Twitter’s Office of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

CENSORSHIP IS SPEECH

“Unrestricted free speech, paradoxically, results in less speech, not more.”

—-Yoel Roth, the former head of Twitter’s Office of Trust and Safety, testifying before the the House Oversight Committee.

Imagine: Twitter had someone who thinks like that running its content review operation.

Free speech may result in less speech in a setting where participants are required to defend their positions and opinions, and cannot claim the comforting protection of an ideological echo chamber. Roth was unable to distinguish between manner of speech, which requires moderation, and censoring speech for content, which is what Twitter did to please and placate its progressive users.

First, Roth said that “Twitter found that users were unhappy with the company’s approach to content moderation and that this … dissatisfaction drove people away from the service. This has consequences for what we mean by free speech on social media.” Then he said, “Again and again, we saw the speech of a small number of abusive users drive away countless others.”

Which was it, abusive speech, or content? As we have learned from watching student-driven censorship on college campuses, speech that counters leftist cant and challenges progressive positions is “unsafe” and thus abusive. A free society must have free speech, and that means that members of that society need to learn to communicate and accept that the marketplace of ideas is challenging, intense, and even frightening.

Roth literally said that Twitter believed you have to destroy free speech in order to save it—and he didn’t even realize how Orwellian that is.

I Excuse Rob Reiner For Saying Something This Stupid Because He’s An Actor. For A Pundit Inflicted On The Public By The New York Times To Say It Is Journalistic Malpractice

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Once again, Michelle Goldberg pulls into the lead for “Worst and Most Biased New York Times Columnist.” This is impressive, because so many Times columnists are unethical blights on national soul. Paul Krugman, Gail Collins, Charles M. Blow, Maureen Dowd, Jamelle Bouie…it’s an awful group; I could teach a “Bias Makes You Stupid” ethics course using only their columns as materials. I doubt that even these pundits would be foolish enough to claim Biden is a “great President.” Here I am, still comparing records to determine if he’ll be regarded as the worst President ever, and she claims that.

I try to rate Presidents by their own standards, and by his own stated standards, Biden has been a failure. He said he needed to bring a divided country together, and by fully placing himself in thrall to the most radical segments of the Left, he has made the partisan and ideological divide worse, and dangerously so. Like Obama, his policies and rhetoric have exacerbated racial tensions. Long a supporter of the military, he has overseen a brutal weakening of the Armed Forces, by making woke indoctrination a priority over national defense. A supposed women’s rights advocate, Biden has allowed trans-mania to undermine women’s sports. While giving lip service to Constitutional Rights, his administration has used its power and influence to illegally urge private entities to censor speech. He has allowed the National Debt to explode; he has presided over such extreme inflation that wage increases cannot keep up. The horde of illegal immigrants pouring over the border has never been more overwhelming, yet he allows his Vice President and Cabinet members to claim that “the border is secure.” He has openly endorsed racial discrimination in his appointments. After joining in the Democratic chorus that Trump “undermined democratic institutions,” Biden has used the “bully pulpit” institution to focus hate on political opponents. His Justice Department allowed illegal harassment of Supreme Court members. The FBI has been revealed as partisan and corrupt. Under his Transportation Secretary there have been more crises in the system than at any time since 9/11. His fecklessness in international relations allowed Putin to feel secure in invading Ukraine. Biden has harmed the nation with purely symbolic and otherwise useless climate change measures, like cancelling the XL Pipeline. Crime rates are soaring; and worst of all, he has indulged his party’s increasing thirst for constraining personal liberties, free expression and dissent.

I could go on, but it is exhausting and depressing.

And Michelle Goldberg says Biden is a great President, because… Continue reading →

“What’s Going On Here?” Why Does Disney Think It Is Appropriate To Produce And Circulate Abrasive, Divisive, Confrontational Interest Group Propaganda And Indoctrination Like This?

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Anyone?

I don’t like being shouted at by cartoon characters. Even if they had a valid point, my response to this kind of assaultive advocacy is, has ever been, and always will be…

Bite me.

Who Would Have Suspected That A Group Of Judges With An Average Age of 62 Would Not Be Competent At Cyber-Security?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I jest, of course.

Who couldn’t see this coming—years ago? A decade ago?

Long before the leak of Justice Alito’s draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade,  Supreme Court justices often used personal email accounts instead of secure servers designed to protect sensitive information. Security lapses by the justices apparently were routine, making the embarrassing and public-trust-wounding leak all but inevitable while also rendering an effective investigation difficult as well.

Supreme Court employees used printers that didn’t produce logs. They were able to print sensitive documents off-site without tracking. So-called “burn bags” containing materials that needed to be shredded were left open and unattended in hallways. Employees could remove documents, including draft opinions, from the SCOTUS building Continue reading →

Observations On The Cardinal Local School District’s Abrupt Cancellation Of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Let’s get one thing settled right off the metaphorical bat: the Cardinal Local School District is run by a bunch of incompetents and ethics dunces. However one thinks this fiasco could and should have been handled, they made the worst possible mess of it possible.

On January 25, 2023, the school board for the district (in Middlefield, Ohio) killed  a student production of the 2005 Tony-winning Broadway musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” citing as a justification their assessment  that it was “vulgar.”The show is, as that date would suggest, 18 years old now, and has been performed all over the world as well as at many high schools. Its artistic pedigree is impeccable: the lyrics and music is by William Finn (“Falsettos”) and the original production was directed by Stephen Sondheim collaborator James Lapine. The show is excellent theatrical training for students as it involves improvisation.

Presumably the “vulgar” accusation arises from “Chip’s Lament,” a controversial song in which one of the young characters blames his failure in the competition on an embarrassing erection. Here are the lyrics:

Fritos! M&M’s? Oreos. All for one dollar!
It is tradition
that the person eliminated from the competition,
is fair game for derision,
especially the Alpha-Male,
who will sell goodies at the bake sale.
Anyone for brownies?
Anyone for chocolate chips?
Anyone for anything that isn’t dated?
How could I have been eliminated?
You wanna know how?
You wanna know how?
You wanna know WHY?
My unfortunate erection
Is destroying my perfection
It is my recollection that everything I once did
I did perfectly.
LAST YEAR’S CHAMP, DEFEATED!
Because of
Marigold Coneybear
Because there’s something and not a thing between us
I don’t blame my brain but I do blame my penis.
My unfortunate protuberance,
seems to have its own exuberance.
Anyone for M&M’s?
Delicious and appropriate!
Anyone for Chewy Goobers?
Inexpensive…
Anyone for buying the SHIT that I’m selling
because my stiffie has ruined my spelling.
ERECTION!
ERECTION!
MY UNFORTUNATE ERECTION!
WHY?
Is ruining my life
Is ruining my world
Is ruining my
Ruining Ruining Ruining
My Life
MY LIFE
Adulthood brings its own peculiar rejection
Which is why I’m selling this PTA
Confection
It will ruin your complexion
All because of my unfortunate
Erection
Oh God!

Following accusations in the wake of its decision, the Cardinal School District denied that the move was made because the musical includes two gay parents. Jesus also makes a comic appearance in the show. (He also appears rather prominently in “Jesus Christ Superstar,” which is frequently performed in high schools.) If that had anything to do with the show’s demise, this school district is a danger to intelligent life on earth.

Points: Continue reading →

And There It Is, The Smoking Gun! A Pulitzer-Winning Journalist Declares That His Biased Partisan Opinion Is “Fact”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

This is a fact: most of today’s journalists really think like this, being arrogant, self-inflated, ignorant and incompetent hacks who believe “journalism” means advancing the “greater good” through their craft, the “greater good as defined, of course, by them..

During a National Press Club panel last month supposedly on the journalistic challenges of covering extremism—meaning “How do we make sure as many Democrats are elected as possible, since that is the party 98% of us support?”, Wesley Lowery, the former Washington Post reporter who won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism for his coverage of the Ferguson race riots, told his fawning audience,

“We have one political party that traffics in the same talking points as white supremacists, be it on immigration, be it on Muslims, be it on any number of issues, where the mainstream political rhetoric could be written by avowed racists…I’ll be honest, I don’t think very much about the mantle of neutrality. It’s either raining outside or it’s not raining outside. I’m not particularly interested in sounding neutral about which it is….[The Republican Party] is a mix of nativism, of anti-urbanism, of anti-cosmopolitanism, a fear of immigrants. It’s the exact same things that drove the Klan movement of the 1920s. But to say that in public—the way that Newsbusters is going to headline the write-up of this panel is going to be that I compared Donald Trump to the Klan. Right? Now this is a literal true factual description. How can we understand our moment if we are not allowed to make any comparison or add any context?”

Continue reading →