Humor and Satire

No, Not A Divine Miracle, Nor Even A Religious Charlatan Who’s Now Overdrawn At The Moral Luck Bank…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

It’s a hoax.

The viral video above supposedly shows a Nigerian pastor with the handle ‘Pastor Daniel’ entering the lions’ cage at a zoo to show that nothing can happen to a man of God, just like in the Bible story. “Pastor Daniel brought his church members to show them that nothing can happen to a man of God,” a Nigerian blogger wrote on Instagram. In Kenya, a local television station shared the video and it caught the attention of a member of the Kenyan parliament, Ronald Karauri. “I volunteer to take him to the Maasai Mara [national park] please, all expenses paid. We look for the lions and he can go walk with them,” he posted on Twitter/X.

Uh, no. The BBC investigated, and the video is from Somalia, while the episode shot took place in 2021 in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The “pastor” was Mohamed Abdirahman Mohamed. He is a zookeeper and explained at the time that he raised the young lions that he is shown playing with.

Now, in 1991 a genuine emulator of the biblical Daniel, “Prophet Daniel Abodunrin,” actually did enter the lion enclosure at the University of Ibadan zoo in Nigeria. He was a real preacher, and invited his followers to watch him as he demonstrated how the power of faith can tame the savage beasts. After entering the lions’ den—it is believed a zookeeper let him in—Abodunrin chanted Bible verses while commanding communicating the big cats to be peaceful

The lions pounced on him, tore Abodunrin apart, and ate him.

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A “Ripley” For The New Republic! The Great Stupid Meets Trump Derangement!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Incredibly, amazingly, this appeal by the New Republic is not a joke or a Babylon Bee parody. I checked. I couldn’t believe it myself.

Ready?

Wow, what an all-star team! Trump’s really in trouble now!

The NYT Provides A Preview Of Its 2024 Campaign Toadying Strategy, Part I: Gaslight! [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

This is nice of them.

Today’s Sunday Times “Review” section, the punditry and analysis collection that once provided diverse political views and included unexpected perspective on modern life (but who cares about diversity and inclusion these days, right?) has two head-explodingly dishonest and diabolically-biased pieces that demonstrate how the paper will do its utmost to boost the Democrats back into the White House for another four years despite their epic incompetence and defiance of Constitutional government during the first three.

The first is epic gaslighting by Times editors and alleged conservative (diversity!) Ross Douthat. Like all conservative columnists that the Times subjects to its Stockholm Syndrome process, Douthat isn’t one anymore, just as the magazine he once edited, The Atlantic, has become a reliable Democratic propaganda mouthpiece (like the Times). He’s religious, believes in the importance of organized religion and opposes abortion, so he makes an effective double agent for the Gray Lady. He has contributed a subversive pro-Biden column with the hilarious headline, “Why is Joe Biden So Unpopular?” It’s a mystery! What could it be?

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The New York Times Publishes A Feature About Ethics And Doesn’t Mention Ethics Once, Part 2

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

[Once again, I apologize for the dumb error in Part I, where the Unethical Conduct Score and Jerk Score for #8, “Playing gory video games,“ were both supposed to be zero and I inexplicably had them both as “4.“]

To recap, I am examining the ethical logic—if any— being displayed in each of the 16 sections of the Times piece titled “The Virtues of Being Bad,” rating the combination of unethical conduct described and rationalizing it in a public form from 0 (not unethical at all) to 5 (very unethical) as well as assigning a “jerk score” to each of the authors, writers all, again ranging from zero (not a jerk) to 5 (Jerk-o-rama). Part I covered the first eight; now here is 9-16. Warning: it gets pretty weird from here on…

9. “ I, a responsible parent, feed my kids McDonald’s and other junk food. Not all the time. But I do. And they love it.” Oh, so what? This is the most “unethical” conduct this writer engages in? I don’t believe it. It’s more unethical to accept free publicity in a New York Times feature and do so little to earn it.

Unethical Conduct Score: 0. Jerk Score: 2.

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Ethics Quiz: Trump’s Mugshot

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

I’ll say right now, up front, I love it. This might be the most appealing, brilliant thing Donald Trump has ever done in the realm of politics. If he came up with that expression himself, bravo. As a director, I couldn’t have devised a better one for him under the circumstances.

What the photo communicates is…

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It’s Come To This: “Liking” A Politically Incorrect, Bad Taste Joke On Social Media Can Get You Suspended In The United States Of America

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Madness.

Rising NASCAR driver Noah Gragson was suspended indefinitely for liking a meme on Instagram. The meme was a pun evoking the “Little Mermaid” song “Under the Sea,” sung in all versions by Sebastian the Crab. It showed the crab with George Floyd’s head superimposed with a reference to his demise, like this:

Too soon? Once his politically incorrect sense of humor was brought to its attention, Gregson was suspended indefinitely by his team, the Legacy Motor Club, and by NASCAR as well. “NASCAR fully supports Legacy Motor Club’s decision to suspend Noah Gragson,” the racing association stated. “Following his actions on social media, NASCAR has determined that Gragson has violated the Member Conduct section of the 2023 NASCAR Rule Book and has placed him under indefinite suspension.”

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Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month (Well, One Of Them) And Unethical Tweet Of The Month: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

Observations:

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Ethics Dunce: Power Line

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The tweet above is a joke, and announces itself as one. What makes the joke especially funny is that it is conceivable that New York’s ridiculous, socialist, Dunning-Kruger victim Congresswoman would really say something like this. That is also why it is extremely important ethically for the satire account’s tweets to make it clear that its output is parody.

The site does that. The account has the handle @AOCpressTwo and the username Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Press Release (parody). Its bio reads, “I’m the boss – you mad bro? (parody)” (www.twitter.com/AOCpressTwo).

However, in conservative website Power Line’s weekly collection of memes, cartoons and jokes covering the previous seven days’ events from a rightish perspective, it includes this version of the tweet:

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Unethical Quote Of The Week And Worst Apology Of The Month: Doug Dechert

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

New York gossip columnist Doug Dechert (above right), during the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.presidential campaign event for the press that he was hosting, became enraged during a contentious exchange regarding climate change and shouted,

“I’m farting!”

as he did, in fact, fart loudly for the assembled. That’s The Ethics Alarms Unethical Quote of the Week, ironically, because it was completely honest and factual. Later, he provided the Ethics Alarms Worst Apology of the Month, and maybe the year, by telling the New York Post, “I apologize for using my flatulence as a medium of public commentary in your presence.”

This is also ironic, because it is a straightforward and seemingly sincere apology without qualifications, and yet is still terrible, indeed uniquely terrible, because it doesn’t even fit on the Apology Scale.

I suppose the closest would be #9: “Deceitful apologies, in which the wording of the apology is crafted to appear apologetic when it is not (“if my words offended, I am sorry”). Another variation: apologizing for a tangential matter other than the act or words that warranted an apology.” But the wording is deliberately humorous, raising the suspicion that Doug Dechert isn’t sorry at all, and doesn’t care if everyone knows he isn’t sorry. Moreover, intentionally farting at a public event you organized for a presidential candidate and announcing it, thus turning the event into a fiasco that can only embarrass the individual it was supposed to benefit, is one of those things that can’t be apologized for, like setting someone’s cat on fire.

Come to think of it, Dechert also should be in the running for the Ethics Alarms’ Asshole of the Year title. For more reasons than one.

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Spain Demonstrates Why We Have The First Amendment, And Why The US Must Protect It

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Spain’s Parliament, in its wisdom, has declared dwarf bullfighting illegal. Not because the bulls are treated cruelly, mind you: oh no, that part is fine. It’s the small bullfighters the legislators find intolerable. (That’s a group of them rehearsing above.)

Comic bullfighting shows in which individuals with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism, fight with juvenile bulls are now illegal. A new law bans “shows or leisure activities” employing a disability “to provoke public mockery, ridicule or derision.” As a result, the performers who earned their living putting on such shows are now forbidden from plying their craft, and citizens willing to pay to watch them can no longer do so. This is also embarrassing: the same law directs that “people with disabilities will participate in public shows and recreational activities, including bullfighting, without discrimination.”

Spain’s law arises from a failure to distinguish “Ick” from ethics, the same problem that has led some states to try to ban drag shows. There is no question that the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights would absolutely prohibit a law such as the Spanish dwarf bullfighting ban, and we should be grateful for that. The ethical principles embodied in freedom of expression include autonomy as well as intrinsic fairness and the Golden Rule validity of allowing others to have the same right to make their living as they choose without others deciding that because they wouldn’t make the same choices, those choices shouldn’t be available to anyone.

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