Kaboom!

DOUBLE KABOOM!! Ignorant, Abusive And Incompetent: How Much More Evidence Do We Need That Our Educators And Schools Are Untrustworthy?

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

double KABOOM

I’m sorry to endanger the integrity of your head—mine may never be reassembled, by the looks of things—but here are two recent high school horror stories, one in Texas and one in Arizona, and they do not even involve sexual predators or kids being suspended for pretending to shoot someone with a finger gun.

I. The Two Dollar Bill

Two dollar bill

I’m going to just summarize this stunningly stupid story, and you can read the details here. 13-year-old eighth grader Danesiah Neal, a student  at Fort Bend Independent School District’s Christa McAuliffe Middle School, attempted to pay for her lunch one day with a two-dollar bill given to her by her grandmother. The lunch lady had never seen a $2 bill, so she alerted the school administrators, who called the police. THEY had apparently never seen a $2 bill, and told the girl that she was being investigated for counterfeiting, a felony, as the school allowed this idiocy to unfold. They called the grandmother, and told her she was under investigation too.

A campus officer traced the bill to where granny got it, a 7-11, and then cleverly traced the bill to…THE BANK, which informed these officious, incompetent morons that the two is a genuine piece of currency, and has been in circulation since 1862. Continue reading →

KABOOM! ESPN Achieves A New Low In Unethical Journalism: Misinforming The Public Out Of Spite

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
If you told me ESPN COULD make my head explode, I wouldn't have believed you...

If you told me ESPN COULD make my head explode, I wouldn’t have believed you…

ESPN has been foundering in a sea of ethical ignorance for some time now, but this was shocking even for them.

In a petty exercise to express its disdain and and anger at dismissed baseball commentator Curt Schilling, the sports network excised an entire section of its documentary on the legendary 2004 American League Championship play-offs when it was shown last night prior to the scheduled Red Sox-Yankee game. I cannot think of a single example of unethical journalism by a major outlet so blatant and so offensive.

Let’s go back a bit. Schilling is an outspoken religious conservative, active on social media. He was suspended from his baseball game broadcasting duties last season after comparing Islamic radicals to Nazis in a Twitter post—not all that unreasonable, actually, but if ESPN has a policy against its employees making controversial political statements on social media, and apparently it does, Schilling was asking for trouble.

Indeed, Curt has nothing if not integrity when it comes to expressing himself, and he could not resist commenting on the transgender bathroom controversy, re-tweeting a particularly ugly meme on the issue:

transgender bathroom tweet

ESPN fired Curt. He had earlier in the year opined in a radio interview that “If I’m gonna believe, and I don’t have any reason not to believe, that she gave classified information on hundreds if not thousands of emails on a public server after what happened to General Petraeus, she should buried under a jail somewhere.” Allowing for hyperbole, that’s a perfectly legitimate position to take, but again, if ESPN doesn’t want Curt, who it was paying a million bucks or so, to take shots at someone it believed its audience members were fond of,  it can instruct its employees accordingly. It expressed its objections to Schilling, and he tweeted the meme anyway. Continue reading →

A Donald Trump KABOOM! How Can A Creep Like This Be Running For President?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

calvin_headexplode

A recently uncovered clip from a 1994 episode of “Lifestyle of The Rich And Famous” was shown on Comedy Central and left host Trevor Noah with a bad case of the oogies…as it will you.

I hope.

“Donald, what does Tiffany have of yours and what does she have of Marla’s?” the show’s host, Robin Leach, asked, referring to Trump’s then one-year-old daughter and her mother and Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples.

“I think she’s got a lot of Marla, she’s a beautiful baby. She’s got beautiful legs. We don’t know if she’s got this part yet,” Trump said, as he cupped his hands under his chest to signify breasts, “But time will tell.”

Kaboom. Continue reading →

Three Strong Links: NCAA Cheating, Minimum Wage Delusions, Journalism Standards and Teammate Betrayal

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

three-links

Here are three essays on current ethics issues, all worth reading and pondering.

1. At Slate, the topic is what constitutes legitimate news, and consequentialism: if a news source publishing non-news creates a real news event because of that publication, does this justify the original publication?

No, of course not. The incident in question involves a gossip site that posted a video shoing Los Angeles Laker Nick Young admitting to cheating on his fiancée, pop star Iggy Azalea. The video was surreptitiously recorded by Young’s teammate, D’Angelo Russell, and now the Lakers are shunning Russell, causing a problem for the team on and off the court. Now is the video newsworthy. Yes, but yecchhh.

The story is here.

2. Commentary discusses the strange trend of liberal legislators pushing extreme minimum wage increases on their cities and states despite risks of serious job losses. California is the latest example. Here is the head exploding quote:

“Why shouldn’t we in fact accept job loss?” asks New School economics and urban policy professor David Howell, who’s about to publish a white paper on the subject. “What’s so bad about getting rid of crappy jobs, forcing employers to upgrade, and having a serious program to compensate anyone who is in the slightest way harmed by that?”

Kaboom. Continue reading →

KABOOM! The Worst Presidential Endorsement Ever From The Biggest Fool Ever To Run For President

/ Jack Marshall / 77 Comments
"Excuse me, Can someone direct me to Dr. Carson's head?"

“Excuse me. Can someone direct me to Dr. Carson’s head?”

I must admit, I’m a little annoyed at my head for exploding this time, even given the provocation. After all, it involves Ben Carson, and I assumed that the small but nauseating doses of Ben Carson idiocy I was forced to listen to during all those debates served as an anti-head explosion vaccination of sorts, though if Donald Trump is to believed, which of course he isn’t, I was risking autism. I assumed there wasn’t anything the deluded doctor could say that would be so stupid and outrageous that it could cause a brain-pan eruption at this point. Obviously, as I stare up at the brain-splattered ceiling in my office, I was wrong.

I now realize that Ben Carson may be the only living human being alive whom I would consider voting for Donald Trump to keep out of the Presidency. I’m not certain, mind you, but it’s stunning to me that anyone is even close to that bad. What would a choice between Trump and Dr. Ben be like? It would be like choosing between Billionaire Biff in “Back to the Future II” and Chance, the well-meaning, lucky moron in “Being There.“ It would be like choosing between Mister Burns and Homer Simpson.

When Carson announced he was endorsing Trump, some pundit wrote that it was “huge.” I tried to imagine the kind of voter who would regard the judgment of a manifest dim-wit like Carson a persuasive reason to vote for a massive fraud like Donald Trump. See, endorsements are silly all by themselves, unless you are just lost. Who is so devoid of pride and self-confidence that they think, “Well, I admire X, and thus I will assume that X’s judgement about who I should vote for to lead my country is better than my own”?*

Now imagine someone thinking that when the endorsement comes from someone who isn’t wearing pants, has a gooney bird nesting on his head, and is carrying a sign that says “Kourtney Kardashsian is God.” What kind of a person is persuaded by that fool’s presidential choice? Yet Ben Carson, with his bizarre belief about how the best person to handle the most difficult job in the world would be someone with no relevant skills or experience whatsoever—let’s not even get into his beliefs about pyramids and other matters—is no less ridiculous than the pantless goony bird character, and a lot more arrogant.

Endorsing Donald Trump is foolish, but no surprise when a Ben Carson—you know, a moron— is the endorser. Today, however, he “explained” his endorsement, and revealed that it was even more incompetent and irresponsible than an endorsement of an atrocious candidate is by nature.

Interviewed  on the “Steve Malzberg Show” yesterday, Carson explained that..

I. He wasn’t really all that sure that Trump would be a good President. See, Ben, an endorsement is supposed to tell people that you have decided that a candidate is the best candidate, and that generally is taken to mean that the endorser at least thinks he would be a good President. Ben is apparently from the Bizarro Planet, however, and he said…

“Even if Donald Trump turns out not to be such a great president, which I don’t think is the case — I think he’s going to surround himself with really good people — but even if he didn’t, we’re only looking at four years, as opposed to multiple generations and perhaps the loss of the American dream forever.”

Wait—who is running against Trump who will be elected for  “multiple generations” ? What the heck is Carson babbling about?

Get the gooney bird! But it got worse.

At least Carson thinks Trump is the best of a bad lot, right? Well, not exactly. Here’s Ben:

“I didn’t see a path for Kasich, who I like, or for Rubio, who I like. As far as  Cruz is concerned, I don’t think he’s gonna be able to draw independents and Democrats unless has has some kind of miraculous change… Is there another scenario that I would have preferred? Yes. But that scenario isn’t available.”

“With one of the other candidates, you mean?” Malzberg asked.

“Yes,” Carson replied.

What exactly does Carson think helps about a Presidential endorsement that is accompanied by the disclaimers that he isn’t really sure his candidate will be very good at the job, and that he would have preferred to endorse any of three other candidates? Does Carson think? Can he think? Continue reading →

Unethical Restaurant of The Month, Busted Ethics Alarms Division: Joe’s Crab Shack

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Joes Crab Shack

“Wait, someone took offense at the photo of a lynching that we had as a placemat? Who could have predicted that?”

Yes, in a case of a staff-wide ethics alarms breakdown that defies the laws of probability, Joe’s Crab Shack in Roseville, Minnesota thought it would be cute and entertaining to its diners to place on a table a large photo depicting the hanging of a black man before white onlookers. Labeled “Hanging at Groesbeck, Texas on April 12th 1895,” the placemat included a speech bubble coming from the doomed black man that  says, “All I said was that I didn’t like the gumbo.”

I don’t understand this at all. I know that Minnesota has as many African Americans as Washington, D.C. has albinos, but still: who would think this was appropriate decor anywhere in the U.S.?  And if there was one employee who did, due to a lesion or something, how did no other employee or no one in management intercept this atrocity, saying, “Whoops! Gotta watch Cletus the Closed Head Injury Busboy more closely, everyone. Look what he put on this table!” 

Surely most people in 2016 have better racism detectors than this. Please. Tell me this was a social science experiment or something. Please.

The evidence, though, suggests that the entire establishment is run by Cletuses…or maybe crabs! That would explain it—the Joe’s Crab Shack chain is operated by crabs! Crabs are notoriously insensitive. That would explain the restaurant’s apology: Continue reading →

Hugh Hewitt Bravely Takes Up The Challenge Of Identifying Substantive Reasons To Vote For Trump, And Fails Miserably

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Six reasons

Apparently “Anti-Trump Sunday” is going to bleed into Monday. Sorry. Can’t be helped.

I have been—all right, the term is trolling—some sites and blogs where Trump supporters hang out to try to get one of them to articulate a single rational, substantive reason to support him for President of the United States of America. They can’t. I am still searching, and I have put out a challenge, but still no takers. I doubt one exists.

Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt wrote a piece for the Examiner today called “Six reasons Trump is still better than Clinton,” which isn’t exactly my quest: I can give you six reasons why waterboarding is better than flaying, too. Still, it is as close as I’ve seen to an honest effort to justify voting for Trump, even though setting the only alternative as Hillary makes it a very low bar. Personally I think Hewitt is a knee-jerk hack and favored by CNN and others as the official “Right Wing Guy” because he makes conservatives look bad, but never mind: it’s an honest effort.

It is still a failure, however. He begins by destroyng his own credibility by excusing Trump’s insults and attacks on journalists:

“Bottom line: Insults of journalists don’t matter. Short of insulting my family, it simply doesn’t matter what Donald says to me or any reporters and pundits.”

Very, very, wrong. Presidents and national leaders undermine democracy by attacking the news media and specific journalists. Leaders who do that are sliding into censorship and autocracy, and devaluing the First Amendment. Obama has already started that process; it’s unethical, irresponsible and unprofessional, as well as unpresidential and an abuse of pwoer. Before Obama, the last President who made a habit of attacking the press was Richard Nixon. Are you surprised?

After that beginning, proving to me that  Hewitt really doesn’t comprehend the vital role a President has in upholding our democratic values, I’m not that interested in his analysis, but still, here are his “six reasons”: Continue reading →

KABOOM!* The YMCA Camp Slavery Re-Creation And I Can’t Believe I’m Typing This…

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments
Another day of fun at the YMCA Camp!

Another day of fun at the YMCA Camp!

Maybe the reason I can’t believe it is that it’s difficult to believe anything when one’s brains decorate the walls.

The Detroit News  reports, in a story that I initially assumed was a hoax, that the YMCA Storer Camps in Jackson, Michigan included an  “educational” activity called “Underground Railroad”) in which black children were asked to play runaway slaves, as some teachers and camp instructors acted as slave masters, chasing them down using real horses. Once captured, the children were “auctioned off.” One of the young “slaves” complained to her mother, who wrote an e-mail to the elementary school that subjected its charges to this fun exercise, reading in part:

“As the mother of an African American son and daughter, I am dismayed that Pardee Elementary would authorize and condone such an extremely racially insensitive and damaging activity…The slave masters (camp instructors and teachers) had certificates which allowed them to pay for the slaves, and the students were required to hold up the certificates when they were bought or sold.”

“My daughter said she was scared,” another mother complained. “One of the guys (camp instructors) re-enacted killing a deputy. They should not do that in front of a 10-year-old, and not when kids are hundreds of miles away from home. If they want to teach black history, they should do that in the classroom.”

Ya think? Continue reading →

KABOOM! The School System “Applauds The Efforts Of Students Who Act In Good Faith To Assist Others In Times Of Need” And Is Therefore Exacting Punishment So They Know Never To Do It Again

/ Jack Marshall / 97 Comments

HeadExplode3

I swear, I didn’t believe I heard this right. There was an earlier story about a student who was punished for letting an asthmatic classmate use her inhaler, and I thought this was the same one. But no. Now my head is all over the place, and I am once again rejoicing at our decision to pull our son out of those dens of incompetence, abuse, indoctrination and confusion known as “the public schools.”

Anthony Ruelas, an eighth-grade student at Gateway Middle School in Killeen, Texas, watched as a classmate announced that she was having trouble breathing, gasped for about three minutes, and fell to the floor. The teacher emailed the school nurse, which is apparently the policy now. At least she didn’t sent a fax. Or a carrier pigeon.

Be still, my ticking head…

She ordered students to remain calm and stay in their seats, as they watched the girl struggle to breath like a goldfish out of its bowl.

Anthony, however, decided that his classmate needed immediate help, so he picked her up and carried her to the nurse’s office.

And was suspended from school for two days.  School district superintendent John Craft did say in a statement that the district “applauds the efforts of students who act in good faith to assist others in times of need.” Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Hillary Clinton (And By The Way, KABOOM!)

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

head exploding

“I was surprised that he used personal email account if he is at State.”

—Hillary Clinton, responding to a 2011 e-mail sent by senior aides  about a dispatch from John Godfrey, a State Department employee.

This wasn’t the most explosive of the Clinton e-mails revealed today by the court-ordered State Department release, but it’s the one that made my head explode. How long did Hillary claim that her using a private e-mail sever for official communications was “permitted,” that she did nothing wrong, that no State Department procedures or policies dictated otherwise, four years after she expressed surprise at the irregularity of Godfrey’s conduct? Hillary wasn’t just careless or clueless—she knew all along that using a personal e-mail account was wrong and risky. Why else would she be “surprised”? Who is surprised at employees doing what is allowed and appropriate? Continue reading →