Etiquette and manners

Is This Movie Marquee Clever, Unethical or Just Stupid? It’s Unethical, and Here’s Why…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I guess this is Ambiguous Bigotry Sunday.

Following a theme that began with this morning’s ethics quiz, we now have the viral controversy over the obnoxious Lake Aswego (Oregon) Theater and Cafe marquee for “The Odyssey.”

On social media (and elsewhere), the theater’s owners are being accused of “disgustingly blatant antisemitism” as Hen Mazzig, an Israeli writer and senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute put it on “X.” I’m sorry I haven’t kept up on Lake Oswego movie theater marketing trends: apparently this one makes a habit of cheeky, politically provocative or otherwise controversial marquee messages. In February, for example, the theater’s message promoting “Melania,” the Amazon MGM documentary about First Lady Melania Trump, read, “To defeat your enemy, you must know them. Melania starts Friday.” Amazon pulled the movie from the theater, and the proprietors reacted with a “Who, us?” shrug.

That example is not irrelevant: Lake Oswego is heavily Democratic, reliably voting for Democratic candidates for all federal and state offices. The last time a Republican was favored by voters was in 2016, when it narrowly favored Republican Secretary of State candidate Dennis Richardson while the city and the state went into Hillary Clinton’s column in the Presidential race. Lake Oswego is in Oregon, one of the most fanatically progressive, Democratic and woke states in the union. 80% of Democrats, the Pew Research Center says, hold “an unfavorable view of Israel” as of June 2026, an 11-point increase from 2025.

How likely is it that the marquee in a place like Lake Oswego, was deliberately praising “the Jews” (You know, as in “the Jews made a heroic odyssey”to Canaan”) as opposed to cheekily denigrating them? Not bloody likely at all. Is the message an innocent comparison of the endless warring between Israel and Palestinians to the Trojan War? If so, then why only mention “the Jews”?

The online debate has seen a suspicious effort to deflect the real issue by arguing over whether “the Odyssey” was really before “the Jews.” Does the theater mean the actual voyage (there probably wasn’t one), or Homer’s poetic description of it? That’s not the real issue, and the debate over it is pedantic sophistry. The issue is whether the marquee is anti-Semitic, designed to appeal to anti-Semites (you know, progressives and Democrats), and cleverly composed to do so while giving the theater and fans of the smear plausible deniability.

The answers are yes, yes, and yes.

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Ethics Quiz: The “Protected Species”

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

For a sports league that few care about and fewer watch, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) sure gets into a lot of ethics controversies. Take this one, for example:

The WNBA suspended Toronto Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello without pay for one game after she referred to black Atlanta Dream star Angel Reese as a “protected species” in a remark that was picked up by a hot mic during a game.

In the Dream’s 111-92 win over the Tempo last week a Toronto player had a foul called on her after an offensive rebound tussle involving Reese. As the foul call was being reviewed, Brondello yelled at the referees, “Angel…she’s a protected species!” The WNBA announced the next day that Brondello must sit out the Tempo’s next game, and won’t be paid for it, adding,”The WNBA expects all coaches and team personnel to uphold the highest standards of professionalism and respect that are fundamental to our league.”

Brondello, who is white, had issued a written apology earlier, reflexively groveling so she wouldn’t be cancelled as a racist in a league where 81% of the players are “of color.” She wrote,

“Angel, I’m sorry. Last night, in the emotion of the moment after Nyara’s injury, I used a phrase that I shouldn’t have used, and I take full responsibility for that. My frustration was with the officiating, but my words unfairly put the focus on you. I also understand that my words carried an impact beyond what I intended, particularly for Black women in our league, and I’m deeply sorry for that. I’ve spent my career competing with, coaching and learning from incredible Black women. I regret that my words caused hurt to a community I respect so deeply. I have a lot of respect for you as both a player and a person, and I sincerely apologize to you, your teammates, and the Dream organization for my comment.”

Reese, meanwhile, couldn’t resist the urge to play victim and to imply that either everyone knows that Brondello is a bigot or that white people in general think of blacks as a separate species. She piled on thusly on “X”:

Nice. What Brondello should have said about Reese was “She’s an asshole.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Was it fair and responsible for the WNBA to suspend Brondello for calling a black star a “protected species”?

Zach Dean, a pan-sports commentator for Outkick, the conservative sports commentary website absorbed by Fox New, pronounced the suspension wrongful and even dangerous. He wrote in part,

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Hypocrisy and Double Standards Like This Show a Corrupt Journalist and a Deeply Unethical Character:

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

I expect politicians to be hypocritical and without integrity. Journalists, however, especially those who engage in commentary, must display consistent principles, values and priorities or be disregarded, ignored and reviled as destructive, unprofessional, untrustworthy hacks.

Anahit Misak “Ana” Kasparian styles herself a progressive political commentator, a media host and a journalist. With the blatant hypocrisy revealed in the tweets above—first, her pious condemnation of anyone who would gloat about someone’s death, followed by her tweets today rejoicing in the death of lifetime public servant Lindsay Graham—Kasparian reveals herself to be a monster by her own standards.

An Old Friend Comes To Call…

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

I had a weird Independence Day weekend.

Six months ago an elementary and high school classmate whom I had not seen, spoken to or, frankly, thought about or missed in 50 years contacted me and said he and his family would be taking a cross-country road trip with his 86 foot long trailer in honor of the 250th Anniversary of our nation’s founding. For his D.C. stop, timed to take place on July Fourth, he was wondering if I could accommodate his monster vehicle. (He had checked my Alexandria home’s locale via Google satellite, and saw that there seemed to be a lot of space on my cul-de-sac.)

Let’s call him “Jeff.”

I said “Sure! It would be great to see you!” as a reflex, and promptly forgot about him as well as my commitment.

Well, Jeff arrived as planned after calling me for three days as he drove here. It was immediately clear that he expected me to be his family’s chauffeur, host and tour guide until they departed Monday afternoon. So I was. I took them to museums and D.C. area attractions. I accompanied them to restaurants. They left their trailer and knocked on my door early every morning—earlier than I would usually be up— assuming I was ready to start the day’s events.

This was a weird family. Jeff’s wife (his fourth, I learned) was an Armenian woman 25 years his junior who barely spoke English, and Jeff never indicated that he spoke her language. They had a delightful, happy four-year old boy (whom she dressed like a girl) whom the couple had adopted after his mother, Jeff’s wife’s niece, had been murdered by a serial killer.

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Ethical Quote of the Week: President Donald Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Exactly.

The President acceded to a “cease fire” that only gave America’s sworn enemy time to regroup, and Iran an opportunity to demonstrate that it cannot be trusted to meet the terms of any treaty or agreement, as Barack Obama cynically and foolishly pretended when he sold out our country and Israel’s in the “palettes of cash for lies” deal.

Iran is in the grip of a sick culture that cannot accommodate the modern world. I’m sure Trump will be assailed by the usual suspects for calling the Iranian leadership “scum,” and probably the Pope as well, because, you know, humanity, redemption, yada yada.

Islam is a religion that celebrates lying to the enemy as a virtue. To trust the current Iran regime is a death wish.

Show and Tell Ethics: Five Observations on Michelle Obama’s Unethical Skirt

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I was going to make this an Ethics Quiz, which is typically what I do with issues I believe can generate multiple and diverse ethics verdicts from the analytical and perceptive readers here, and often with matters I am not certain about myself. However, Michelle Obama’s custom designed skirt she decided to model as she appeared on a stage at the new Obama Presidential Center in Chicago this week before “stakeholders” (Translation: Donors) was so indefensible by anyone who has not been permanently Obamafied, the crippling mental state where one is incapable of criticizing anything either Obama does or has done, ever, that my building a quiz around it would be dishonest.

As you can see, the former First Lady “wore a pencil skirt adorned with a large portrait of her late mother. The custom Acne Studios design was a tribute to Marian Robinson who died in 2024, aged 86.”

Ethics Observations:

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Unethical Quote of the Month: Hillary Clinton (Again), And Incidentally, What an Asshole

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“Joe Biden made a “terrible mistake for himself, his legacy and for the country” by trying to run for re-election on 2024.”

Thus quoth always bitter Hillary Clinton in an on-stage interview with The New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick at an event this week, conveying her considered wisdom regarding the reasons for the Democrats’ face-plant in 2024 to anyone breathlessly awaiting it.

Somebody should tell her—Remnick didn’t—that pretty much everyone in the nation who wasn’t in a coma during the Biden administration before the election—that’s almost four years of painful observation—had figured this out the second Biden announced his candidacy. Those few dense souls who hadn’t already recognized the obvious certainly saw the writing on the metaphorical wall when Joe descended into Authentic Frontier Gibberish during his debate with Donald Trump. And surely when the result of Joe’s egocentric and demented botch resulted in his party anointing the hopeless and hapless Kamala Harris, absolutely everyone with the possible exception of Harris herself knew that Joe had engineered a disaster, though not without the incompetence of many, many others paving the way.

Hillary also proclaimed that if Biden had decided to “pass the torch” and the Democratic Party had held a competitive Presidential primary, “whoever emerged from that contest — whether it was the Vice President, or a governor, or a senator or anybody else — would have beaten Donald Trump.”

If you say so.

Jerk.

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Unethical Headline, Trump Derangement Division: Variety

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Some recent studies suggest that Trump Derangement is taking on the characteristics of mental illness. That shouldn’t surprise anyone who isn’t suffering from it, and this latest example should go into the research files.

Anne Schedeen was one of those moderately successful, fungible and forgettable actresses who can most charitably described as a “working professional.” When a sitcom role that has you starring as a puppet’s protector—Alf was an illegal alien from outer space who had crash-landed in a family’s garage, and Schedeen played the mother in the family that helped keep him secret from government authorities—-is your most famous credit, you will not get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But upon her death at 77, Schedeen’s family thought it appropriate to virtue-signal to their fellow Trump Haters by issuing this tribute:

“She leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of creative energy, whip smart humor, delight in her family, adoration for little dogs, burning hatred for Trump, passion for second-hand thrifting, and love for a good story. We are bereft without her. We loved her so so much, as did all who met her.”

That, my friends, is insane. Variety, meanwhile, the so-called bible of the entertainment trade, didn’t have to put that feature in the statement in its headline, but did. None of the other outlets reporting the death thought that weird section was any more worthy of highlighting than Anne’s “passion for second-hand thrifting,” because it isn’t. Variety’s typical reader, however, is just as insane as Anne Schedeen.

I cannot imagine any previous President being used in this manner. Being noted for hatred of anything as a life highlight is hardly impressive; to me, that headline demonstrates what a wan career Schedeen had. No, she was never in a successful movie, never had a big role, never was nominated for an Oscar or Emmy, BUT she did hate the President of the United States, so there’s that.

The family might as well have pointed out that she won an award in the fourth grade for an essay about her goldfish. Having one’s family hurl your hatred at a President from beyond the grave is hardly as impressive as Ahab screaming at Moby Dick right before the Whaie Whale drags him down, “Thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee!” Ahab was nuts, but at least he wasn’t mad at Moby for mean tweets and enforcing immigration laws.

The family and Variety using the death of a minor actress to spit at the President, however, is a sad, foolish madness.

Now THIS Is An Unethical Judge!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia had a habit of having noisy sex with a police commander in her chambers during office hours. This resulted in a “chambers workplace that was extremely uncomfortable and troubling for clerks,” a judicial panel concluded.

Gee, ya think?

Ross was nominated to the bench in the Northern District of Georgia in 2014 by President Obama. Of course she was. She’s a Democrat, she’s black, she’s arrogant, and she’s unqualified to be a judge. A special committee released damning findings of misconduct in a report two weeks ago. Ross was found to have lied about having sexual intercourse in her chambers—judges aren’t supposed to lie either—but inexplicably, the Eleventh Circuit and Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability decided sufficient punishment was to bar Ross from serving as a chief judge and require her to write apology letters to her clerks. Other than that, she only received a private reprimand. The disciplinary report signaled a whitewash by stating, “Although the special committee is deeply troubled by the conduct in which the judge engaged, the subject judge has demonstrated a strong propensity for rehabilitation and continued diligent service to the judiciary.” She lied to investigators! She was screwing around during work hours. That’s “diligent service to the judiciary”?

The lack of serious sanctions is indefensible. Ross shattered the following Canons in the Federal Judicial Code of Ethics:

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The “Unconscionable” UFC Flag Day Fight At The White House

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

For a long time, I have been sick of writing about Anti-Trump bias, anti-Trump hate, Trump Derangement and “Get Trump” indoctrination and propaganda the Axis media, I really have. After all, it has been more than a decade since the Post 2016 Election Ethics Train Wreck first jumped the rails. But these awful, unethical fanatic unethical people keep getting worse, lying, and saying increasingly crazy things. Among the worst of the worst, ex-CNN hack Jim Acosta, who CNN elevated to White House Correspondent during Trump’s first term, compared the court ordered erasure of the President’s name from the Kennedy Center to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He really did. These people don’t even realize how insane they sound to normal people. Wrote one wag on “X”: “I missed the time when people were SHOT DEAD trying to get into the Kennedy Center for 40 years.”

The Trump Outrage Du Jour yesterday was the Flag Day UFC cage match on the White House lawn. On PBS—BOY am I glad not a penny of my taxes go to that propaganda machine!—erudite professional intellectual David Brooks provided Exhibit A of the class snobbery that has always been the root of so much Trump hostility. Asked about the event, Brooks huffed,

“Well, I first thought of, like, who are the artists John F. Kennedy brought to the White House? It was like W.H. Auden, Robert Frost, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein. And now we have got cage fighting. Don’t anybody say America’s in cultural decline!”

Got it. Because Brooks doesn’t enjoy the UFC, the White House hosting a popular sports event means America is in decline. I don’t care for either, but if I had an Uzi at my head and was forced to pick one, I’d take a UFC cage match over one of President Obama’s hip-hop artists he hosted when he was President. Funny, Brooks didn’t mention JFK’s preference for Robbins and Bernstein. Let’s see: Barack and Michelle feted Kendrick Lamar, Janelle Monáe: Common, Queen Latifah, Big Sean, and Chance the Rapper, among others.

You know who would have lovedthe cage match? Teddy Roosevelt. He was the first President I thought of when Trump’s spectacular was announced. Young Teddy was a boxer and a lieftime fan of “manly arts.” His most famous speech is titled “The Man in the Arena,” which I wrote about here.

Progressives don’t much care for Teddy, one of Trump’s favorite Presidents (and mine). They keep waxing poetic about Kennedy, who has a large mausoleum that holds cultural events for the rich glitterati of D. C. memorializing his largely negligible Presidency. Kennedy was also maintaining sexual affairs with the help of the Secret Service as he and Jackie posed as the ideal couple, but he pretended to be admirable well. And he went to Harvard.

Ann Althouse reports that, contrary to how the UFC event was reported as Trump celebrating himself (Flag Day is his birthday) didn’t have any birthday celebration vibe at all:

“The event was called UFC Freedom 250, and, true to that name, it turned out to be about the UFC and the United States of America. Three days before his birthday, Trump had said — quoted at USA Today — “You don’t have to wish me happy birthday because I’m not happy about that birthday that I’m having. That’s a number that I never thought really too much about. It’s not a number I like, but I’m here, nevertheless.” And at that huge event on the White House lawn on the evening of his birthday, last night, I don’t think there was even a passing mention of his birthday.”

Fact Don’t Matter, however. All that matters is to denigrate President Trump for anything and everything. What kind of nation has a news media that devotes itself to projecting hate on its elected leader? Answer: a very, very sick and confused one. Here is the current headline at Salon, the virulently leftist site:

Nice.