Another Comment of the Day from CD-VAPatriot, who has to cope with the increasingly annoying glitch at WordPress that cases in to spam certain commenters’ posts for no apparent reason.
Gender and Sex
Ethics Hero: Florida Catholic School Principal Tonya Peters, No Weenie She
In a seventh grade English class at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic School in Port Charlotte, Florida, the teacher was presenting Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer,” using an uncensored version, which is to say, “Tom Sawyer.” The classic novel, like its larger, more ambitious cousin “Huckleberry Finn,” uses the now taboo “n-word” in a society today that should be too sophisticated and wise by now not to know that declaring words taboo is ethically and intellectually indefensible. One African-American community website’s news report on the incident states, “Anyone who has read an unedited version of those books know how racially insensitive they were.” Well:
- Any one who has only read an “unedited”, meaning bowldlerized, version of “Tom Sawyer” hasn’t read “Tom Sawyer,” and
- Great literature isn’t supposed to be “racially sensitive”; it’s supposed to be enlightening.
- The issue of watering down language that some may find offensive in literature is well-considered in this essay.
As described in the letter above, when members of the class read the book out loud and the word “nigger” was uttered, the students began “acting up,” laughing, making comments, and generally acting like undisciplined 7th graders, which they were. When the teacher could not calm them down, she improvised a creative but risky solution: having the children repeat the word over and over again. The idea, obviously (though not sufficiently obvious for any of the media reports to figure out) was to rob the “taboo” word of power by repetition. It’s an old linguistic trick that kids should be familiar with (i know I was): when any word is repeated enough, it becomes just a sound, which is all any word is. (This device becomes the climax of the excellent horror film “Pontypool,” in which something causes the English language to become deadly, destroying everyone’s brains.) Continue reading
So That Gay-Hating, Tucker Carlson-Inspired Killer Who Shot Up The Colorado Springs LGBTQ Nightclub Is “NonBinary,” Uses “They/Them” Pronouns, And Wants To Be Called “Mx. Aldrich.” Oh.
The public defenders for Anderson Lee Aldrich, the alleged perpetrator of the mass shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub, said in a court filing obtained by a New York Times reporter that their client is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.
Is it fair to say these revelations suggest that the rush to blame “anti-LGBTQ” rhetoric—you know, like ” we really shouldn’t allow people with penises to throttle biological women in competitive sports” and “drag queens are not appropriate library story-tellers for children,”hateful stuff like that—for the tragedy was a tad premature? Reckless even? Cynically exploitative, mayhap?
Why yes, I think it is fair.
Over at CNN, so crushed were the talking heads by the revelation that their usual conservative villification campaign would have to be more creative that they engaged in this desperate analysis:
ALISYN CAMEROTA: So, attorneys for the accused shooter, Anderson Lee Aldrich, say in new court filings tonight that the suspect now identifies as non binary. …They use they/them pronouns. And for the purposes of all formal filings will be addressed as Mx Aldrich….Joining me now CNN political commentator Errol Lewis, also back with me Al Franken and Joe Walsh. I don’t know what to say about that. I mean that’s not anything that we had heard from his background. People had been looking into his background, and I don’t know if anybody here–are you guys lawyers? I mean, you know, I don’t know what to say about that. That’s what he’s now saying.
ERROL LEWIS: It sounds like they’re trying to prepare a defense against a hate crimes charge. That’s the least of his problems, legally speaking. But it looks like they’re trying to build some kind of sympathy or at least confusion on the question of whether or not this was purely motivated by hate.
CAMEROTA: That is what it sounds like. We will wait to see.
“That is what it sounds like”? If you are an idiot, I guess: the “hate crime” enhancement is hardly a major concern when one has killed five and wounded 18. {Not to beat a dead horse, but Lewis’s statement perfectly embodies the utter stupidity of the “hate crime” blot on our criminal justice system. Sure, Errol, he might have shot all of those people out of mild pique.]
Surely…SURELY…The American Public Will Eventually Stop Tolerating This. Right?
RIGHT???
The increasingly unjust, unfair, harmful pandering to pseudo-transgender opportunists has got to eventually trigger a massive awakening in which Americans say, “Wait…what are we doing? This is crazy! Why have we allowed this to go on this long? Or at all?”
In the most recent debacle, Seattle Academy’s Aspen Hoffman, ranked 72nd in boys’ track as a freshman, transitioned to female, sort of, as a sophomore, was allowed to compete as girl, and suddenly started winning races.
Hoffman finished first in the 5,000 meter race, and broke Seattle Academy’s girls’ record with a time that would have achieved 48th place in the boys’ division. This is Barry Bonds-level cheating. It also shows how California derangement is infectious: both Washington and Oregon have lost their grip on reality, rationality, responsibility and ethics. When are their citizens going to stop being weenies and stop the madness? It’s their duty as citizens, after all.
Fifteen years ago, Washington state’s guidelines for transgender athletes held that male athletes had to undergo surgery and two years of hormone therapy before they could compete as females. Four years ago, the surgery mandate was lifted and only“documented testosterone suppression therapy” was required. Then, in 2021 as The Great Stupid raged, the state ruled that transgender athletes only had to “consistently express” a gender. Well, yes, that seems reasonable as far as it goes. You don’t want athletes saying, “I’m male!” “I’m female!” “I’m male!” “I’m female!” between races like Faye Dunaway between slaps in “Chinatown.” But then there’s the other matter—biological males have a huge advantage.
Weird Tales Of The Great Stupid: The 10-Year-Old’s Sexual Assault
Is there any time in U.S. history other than the Age of the Great Stupid that this could have occurred?
NBC News reports that a fourth grader was summarily suspended from the Holly Hill School in Volusia County, Florida after he hugged a school counselor late last month and, the counselor alleged, ‘grabbed her left breast” in the process. elementary school. The child now faces a potential misdemeanor battery charge after she filed a complaint with police.
The counselor—I wonder what she’s qualified to counsel about? — doesn’t have to give her name, thanks to a Florida law that allows “crime victims”—you know, like elementary school counselors who are sexually assaulted by hormone-crazed 10-year-olds—can remain anonymous.
The Return Of The Naked Teacher Principle!
Has it really been so long? Ethics Alarms hasn’t had a Naked Teacher Principle outbreak in more than three years! Oh, we’ve had related ethics tales of a naked Congresswoman (Katie Hill), a Santa in a MAGA hat, a naked ex-Miss Kentucky teacher who’s an idiot. a too-sexy firefighter scandal, the unfairly fired naked nurse, and this year’s ridiculous Cross-Dressing Future Congressman Principle involving ex-GOP House member Madison Cawthorne. No authentic Naked Teacher Principle (NTP), however, which states that a secondary school teacher or administrator (or other role model for children) who allows pictures of himself or herself to be widely publicized, as on the web, showing the teacher naked or engaging in sexually provocative poses, cannot complain when he or she is dismissed by the school as a result.
Oh-Oh: Time For Another GOP Ethics And Intelligence Test Already…
Republicans lost the chance to gain control of the Senate thanks to multiple ethical and logical mistakes, and now, as a direct result of that botch, Senate Majority Leaders Present and Future Chuck Schumer has announced that he will try to cement same-sex marriage into federal law. In July the House passed the Respect for Marriage Act, but the Senate delayed its vote on the bill until after the midterm elections. I’m sure, having a significant proportion of Neanderthals in their midst and being hell-bent on self destruction, the GOP was preparing to bury the bill once they had a majority, or filibuster it if they did not.
Morons. The hints in Clarence Thomas’s outlier concurrence in Dobbs that reversing the SCOTUS decisions declaring birth control and same-sex marriage as guaranteed rights may have cost Republicans more votes than reversing Roe v. Wade. Unlike abortion, which involves killing human beings (the question is “how human”), same sex marriage raises no such substantive ethical issues. Some religions oppose it: swell, they can refuse to allow it in their flocks. It is a down-the-metaphorical-middle-of-the -alley example of the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the vast majority of Americans accept it as one of those ancient taboos that made sense once but does no longer.
Ethics Dunce: Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom
…and aspiring First Lady, presumably.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a former actress and documentary filmmaker testified in the L.A. Harvey Weinstein trial yesterday. The wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (reportedly a possible 2024 Presidential candidate when the Democrats decide to kick Joe Biden to the curb from which he never should have escaped in the first place) told the court that the once powerful Hollywood producer and major Democratic Party donor raped her in a hotel room in 2005. She spoke of the devastating effect it had on her in the 17 years since…wait, what? Let’s go through that again 2005? And she never told the police or warned any of the other women who Harvey went on to sexually assault, rape and abuse? Why would that be?
“Because you don’t say no to Harvey Weinstein,” she ‘explained.’ “He could make or ruin your career,”
Oh.
Latest Development In The Search For The Greatest Stupid During The Age Of The Great Stupid: On Broadway, A “Good Racism” Classic!
I have come to the realization that those apathetic, half-awake Americans who shrug off the creeping fanaticism of the antiracism, “diversity, equity and inclusion” mob must not follow developments in the show business and entertainment world, for there the most throbbingly stupid and hypocritical outbreaks of The Great Stupid inevitably occur.
Last month, the ridiculous non-traditional casting version of “1776” opened. Ethics Alarms has discussed it a couple of times: the conceit of casting the Founding Fathers as female, non-binary, trans colonials of color is a naked “Hamilton” rip-off that mocks the show and our history for political grandstanding. As anyone could have predicted, it stinks, though the naturally sympathetic and woke theatrical critic community didn’t have the guts or integrity to say so outright. No, most of them just issued mealy-mouthed deflections like the Times critic, who wrote in part after delivering the mandatory “what a good idea!” virtue-signaling about what was always, absent a miracle, a wretched idea…
….the performances are so vastly histrionic and unchecked by the social situation (this is Congress, after all) that they seem inside-out….It does not help that the new arrangements and orchestrations, aiming to refresh the songs’ profiles in the way the casting is meant to refresh the story, merely make them muddy — and make many of the lyrics unintelligible….
When performers mime the emotions we should be having, the storytelling contract has been broken….What a wasted opportunity!…Instead we get subtracted value. I don’t mean for the cast, who deserve the opportunity, or even for the theater as an industry and an ecosystem….But underlining one’s progressiveness a thousand times, as this “1776” does, will not actually convey it better; rather it turns characters into cutouts and distracts from the ideas it means to promote…. theater makers should have enough faith in the principles of equity and diversity to let them speak for themselves. Are they not, as someone once put it, self-evident?
But of course equity and diversity are not self-evident, and the complete confusion over casting ethics demonstrates this fact beautifully. Let’s see: BIPOC performers can be cast as anyone, regardless of color, ethnicity, gender or race, but white performers can only play white characters. Turning a white fictional character black is to be desired whenever possible (Tangent: My CVS is filled with black Santa dolls and images. Where are the Hispanic and Asian Santas?) but making a fictional character of color (a FCOC) white is “white-washing,” and racist. “The Simpsons” won’t allow white vocal actors to do the voices of a black doctor or an Indian 7-11 owner, but Will Smith can voice a Middle Eastern genie without controversy. Ariel the Little Mermaid will be sung by a black actress; true, they turned Arial black first, but don’t think the same actress wouldn’t have voiced her if they hadn’t: Diversity! Inclusion! Meanwhile, Tom Hanks said it was wrong for him to be cast as a gay man, though gay men portray about 50% of all the heterosexuals you see on screen and stage.
Clear? Of course not! These aren’t rules or principles: this is racially motivated Calvinball, compensatory racism and related discrimination under the cloak of imaginary virtue.
And yet we hadn’t reached peak stupid yet. Is this latest episode it? Probably not, but behold: Continue reading
Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 11/7/2022: Approaching Dread Edition
Speaking of threats to democracy: this is the anniversary of the day in 1944 that voters elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt to a fourth consecutive term. There is little question in my mind that had FDR been healthier, he was perfectly capable of deciding to run for fifth and sixth terms too; this was a looming American dictator who wasn’t hiding it, and Americans still blithely voted for him. Everything about Roosevelt made him the template for a democracy-busting, cult-of-personality Big Brother USA, including his ruthlessness. We were lucky: another of the many examples proving Bismarck right when he said, “There is providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America.”
Oh, he probably didn’t say it, but I’ve taxed quote maven Tom Fuller enough for one week…
1. For my own mental health, I’m going to eschew reading the pre-election freak-outs by New York Times pundits showing up today with titles like “Republicans Have Made It Very Clear What They Want to Do if They Win Congress” and “Dancing Near the Edge of a Lost Democracy.” Still, I couldn’t resist starting to read “What Has Happened to My Country?” but quit when Margaret Renkl made me read, “…Right-wing politicians and media outlets have turned American democracy upside down through nothing more than a lie. They put forth Supreme Court candidates who assure Congress that they respect legal precedent but who vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade the instant they have a majority on the court….”
There is nothing inconsistent about respecting precedent while deciding that a particular case precedent is too misguided and destructive to uphold, Margaret.
“…They endorse political candidates who openly state that they will accept only poll results leading to their own election….”
No candidate has stated that, openly or otherwise, Margaret, you hack.
“They denounce calamities where no calamities exist…”
That was it! I quit. A mouthpiece for the party claiming that electing Republicans will destroy democracy, whose #3 ranking official in Congress compares the U.S. today to Germany in the 1930s when Hitler was on the rise [Pointer: Other Bill], that thinks “The Handmaiden’s Tale” is about to become reality because of the Dobbs decision, and that has gone all in on speculative climate change doomsday predictions does not get to say that about Republicans and be taken seriously.
2. Dangerous slippery slopes ahead….NBA superstar Kylie Irving shared a tweet that promoted the “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America” documentary and book. Both are, by all reports, pretty vile, with familiar anti-Semitic tropes like Holocaust denial and claims of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy. There is nothing inappropriate about employers disciplining employees who put their organizations in unflattering light that might hurt reputations and profitability, nor with the Brooklyn Nets suspending Irving for “at least five games” without pay over the controversy. That’s reasonable, even a bit lenient. He responded with a publicist-drafted apology. Then Nike announced that it is suspending its relationship with Irving and will not release Irving’s highly anticipated new shoe, the Kyrie 8, which was scheduled to be released this month.
That’s also fair. A celebrity who represents a corporation and its products can’t engage in high profile prejudice and expect to keep the gig. The loss of the Nike deal will cost Irving many millions of dollars, and that’s what happens when you embarrass a business partner. However, now the Nets have given Irving an ultimatum of sorts: in order to rejoin the team and start collecting his salary, he must.fulfill six requirements:
- Apologize and condemn the film he promoted
- Make a $500,000 donation to anti-hate causes
- Complete sensitivity training
- Complete anti-semetism training
- Meet with the ADL and Jewish leaders
- Meet with team owner Joe Tsai to demonstrate an understanding of the situation
I think it all depends on one’s definition of “feminism.” I used to think the term simply meant that women were overall equal to men in terms of career opportunities, earning potential, deciding whether or not they wanted to get married and/or have kids, etc.. These days it seems that a lot of women I know feel that being a feminist means that “women are the SAME as men”. Well, forgive me for being a traitor to my gender (which yes I have been called) but I believe that there ARE significant differences between the sexes. Oh, and I’m also apparently a traitor and a woman-hater for being pro-life. (Who knew?)
As the female half of a boring old married, heterosexual couple who has been trying to get pregnant for over a decade, I really don’t think my hubby and I fit the “norm” anymore. We’ve noticed that in just the last decade, our friends and the couples we’ve met during that time have significantly changed their overall outlook quite a bit. Fewer couples are getting married: “who, like, needs a stupid piece of paper or like, some rando God to decide if our love is like, legit?”
Continue reading →