Popular Culture

There is Hope! Part 2, The Vindication of Waylon Bailey

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Waylon Bailey, the social media-user who was arrested by a Wuhan virus totalitarian idiot for making a joke and initially denied justice by a U.S. District Judge who doesn’t know the law, finally was awarded $205,000 in compensatory and punitive damages by a federal jury. It’s not enough, not even close, and the publicity the episode has received (virtually none) underlines that point.

These are the kinds of cases juries should address with $83 million in damages (just picking a number out of the air, there) to make the next Gestapo-inclined officer who considers punishing a citizen for exercising his constitutional rights think twice, or even three times. At least, however, Waylon Bailey was vindicated by our lately maladjusted justice system.

There is hope.

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Observations on Media Research Center’s 2023 Political Joke Survey

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Media Research Center, a conservative “media watchdog” roughly the Right’s equivalent of Media Matters but with a much bigger job, analyzed six of the daily late night comedy shows: Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “The Late Late Show with James Corden” until its April exit, from January 3, 2023 through December 22, 2023. The results are here. The researchers counted 9,518 jokes they judged political in nature, and broke them down into categories. 1,601 targeted progressive, Democrats and figures on the left of the political spectrum. 186 aimed at people, groups, or institutions not associated with either side. 7,729 or 81% of the jokes were considered barbs at were directed at individual, organization or positions considered to be conservative. 493 targets were the objects of a single joke, with 285 of these on the right, 167 on the left, and the remaining 41 on non-partisan topics.

The unbalanced percentages are only a surprise in that they are less lopsided than I would have guessed, but still obviously showan absurdly unfair partisan bias. If, as was once the norm in all political comedy, all sides and parties were mocked relatively equally with the President in the White House taking most of the fire, political humor can be fairly categorized as entertainment with the primary objective being to make as many people laugh as possible. Distorted to this extent, however, late night comedy becomes a self-evident propaganda weapon that plays a significant part in the mainstream media mission to sway elections and manipulate public opinion.

Some telling findings:

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The Story Of “Do You Hear What I Hear?”….And The Christmas Kick-Off Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Last week’s forum was the deadest ever, so I’m hoping that injecting some holiday cheer into this one will spark more dialogue. After all, if the wind, a lamb, a shepherd boy, a mighty king and people everywhere can have a productive conversation, Ethics Alarms readers should be able to bring some Goodness and Light too.

As some inspiration, I’m reposting below the Ethics Alarms entry about the origins of my favorite of the modern—“modern” as in “post World War II”—Christmas songs, first sung by my favorite Christmas minstrel.

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“Dr. Who” Ethics: Isaac Newton Was Indian? I Did Not Know That!

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

In the latest “Dr. Who” adventure on the BBC (if you don’t know about this long-running cult scifi show, google it), Sir Isaac Newton is played by an actor of Indian heritage:

This raises several issues, most of which Ethics Alarms has delved into before:

1. Does it matter? As Curmie declared in his Comment of the Day regarding my post about another BBC production in which Anne Boleyn was played by a black actress…yes, it does, but it depends on the context and the objective of the casting. The major consideration in any non-traditional casting is whether it works, meaning that the casting isn’t distracting, that it adds something to the work beyond being just a gimmick. (The black Anne Boleyn was a gimmick.) In Curmie’s opinion, almost nobody was likely to see the black actress in the role and think, ““I didn’t know Anne Boleyn was black.” I am less certain of that assumption in the case of a brown Isaac Newton.

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Post-Thanksgiving Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 11/24/2023: Who Expected Anti-Semitism And Trump-Derangement To Translate Into Anti-Thanksgiving Assaults?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

As usual now, much of the mainstream media spent Thanksgiving and the days leading up to the holiday exploiting the opportunity to bash the tradition, the holiday, and the United States. There was special urgency this time: the negative emphasis on the unique American holiday was galvanized by the anti-Jewish/anti-Israel/pro-Hamas narrative a disturbing proportion of the American Left has embraced in its opposition of Israel defending its right to exist.

“De-colonization” is the 2023 buzzword. “Native Americans=blacks, Palestinians, and other victims whites and the United States. And, again as usual, we were told that it was our duty to ruin a warm, family-oriented, non-partisan tradition by using it to harangue other family members about the evils of Israel, the Supreme Court, Republicans and Donald Trump.

The Left’s growing anti-Thanksgiving tradition also seemed to gain intensity because of the widespread panic over polls showing Trump increasing his lead in voter support over the President as the 2024 election gets closer. Here’s a nice, unbiased cartoon from the Boston Globe, for example, simultaneously equating Trump with those evil colonizing Pilgrims and the turkey with foolish Americans who don’t know enough to avoid voting for a dangerous leader:

It was called “the Last Thanksgiving.” I really question this strategy. The Left is gambling that being the party of anti-Americanism is a winning approach. In fact, they are somehow turning Donald Trump into Ronald Reagan, the leader who saw the U.S. as a “shining city on the hill.” That seems especially foolish framing when Biden’s weak Presidency is already reminiscent of Jimmy Carter’s, complete with American hostages being held by radical Islamist terrorists. Good plan!

Here are some highlights of the anti-Thanksgiving craziness:

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Comment Of The Day: “What Do You Conclude From This Woman’s Head-Exploding Rant?”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Do you know what I am thankful for? I’m thankful for the engaged, wise,, articulate and loyal group of commenters Ethics Alarms has. Thank-you. You all make every day an adventure and a revelation. And you make me laugh.

For a vivid example, I awoke this morning to this Comment of the Day from Rob Thompson, who doesn’t weigh in here often—the last time was four years ago—but makes his contributions count. Here are his thoughts on this the likely roots of this horrifying and annoying video and its likely roots, which I apologize for having to post again but the discussion can’t be fully appreciated without it.

This is Robert Thompson’s Comment of the Day on the post, “What Do You Conclude From This Woman’s Head-Exploding Rant?”…and have a wonderful, warm Thanksgiving, everyone.

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Her video typifies what we see every day. Many high school students follow this mentality of “I wasn’t taught this” placing the onus on the educational system. And while this has merit, it isn’t the only problem.

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Rescued Comment Of The Day: “Ethics And The Joker’s Mustache”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

In honor of King Tut’s tomb being opened on this date in 1922, here is a recovered lost treasure from the Ethics Alarms vault…

I know there are many, maybe hundreds, of Comment of the Day-worthy reactions to Ethics Alarms posts that never made it to this point, for a welter of reasons good and bad. If all of them could be tracked down and resuscitated, I could avoid writing about Donald Trump or the ethics rot of the increasingly disturbing American Left for months—wow, an old COTD archeology project sounds better the more I think of it! Stop it, Jack, get back to the point…

The point is that I found this excellent Comment of the Day by Marie Dowd by pure chance as I was researching the site on another matter, and was annoyed with myself for missing it the first time, way back in 2019.

I apologize, Marie! I can only plead that I was distracted: there were 24 comments on that ethics and TV trivia post, but only two that could be called substantive. Three alerted me to my careless mistakes (like calling the collective noun for critics a “snivel” instead of a “shrivel”), and most of the rest were jokes. Actually, there was a second excellent comment in the thread, that one by Pennagain, who has been missing from the ethics wars for quite a while. (I’m worried.)

Anyway, the topic, like the Joker’s hair, is ever-green, so Marie’s Comment of the Day on the burning issue of Cesar Romero leaving his mustache on despite being cast to play Batman’s clean-shaven arch-nemisis remains as fresh today as it was more than four years ago. So here it is, on “Ethics And The Joker’s Mustache”:

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I’ve thought about this mustache far too many times for my own comfort.

As a kid, the intended audience even if I was too young to care during its run, I really did not notice. The reception was always fuzzy out in the country. >not a problem

In-universe, Joker’s insane. Merry prankster is the most forgiving way to tag him. Any version would grow a handlebar or do anything to mess with people’s heads, especially the Bat. Annoying Batman would be a laugh in character. >not a problem!

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Really, New York Times? Stephen King’s Facile, Ignorant Appeal To Emotion And Anti-Second Amendment Bias Is Worthy Of Space On Your Op-Ed Page?

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Well, to be fair, Stephen King is an acclaimed writer of horror fantasy, so he qualifies as a thoughtful authority on…wait, no he doesn’t, does he? King does live in Maine, though, so there’s that.

Here’s King’s entire opinion piece titled, “We’re Out of Things to Say.” (I’m not going to read the Times readers’ comments, because they will just send me to the wood-chipper.) as he pretends that a sloppily-conceived, virtue-signaling sigh is enlightenment:

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Cultural Literacy Competence Fail!

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

As frequent vistors here know, I would argue that competent citizens should be sufficiently aware of cultural history to know who Bill Russell, Bob Feller and Bob Gibson are at very least. The elderly female contestant was alive and conscious while Bob Gibson and Bill Russell were active and frequently in the news. Surely someone presuming to appear as a contestant on “Jeopardy!” should have this level of U.S. sports history knowledge.

But perhaps you disagree…

Saturday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, Oct. 7, 2023: It’s Not Like The Old Saturday Morning Cartoons, But It Will Have To Do…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Some upsetting ethics episodes, like a Democratic Congressman behaving like a 7th grade jerk, lying about it, and being supported by his party and the news media, and this story, sufficiently monopolized my time and thoughts this week that quite a few issues and stories that need exposing risk being left behind…so here we are.

And I find myself wishing there was some Saturday morning adult TV equivalent to the old array of Saturday morning entertainment shows for kids that used to begin my weekends when I was just a sprout. Those shows above were actually a later generation’s (inferior) options. For me, my Saturday mornings were affirmatively weird, including non-cartoon fare like Andy Devine’s show (“Twang your magic twanger, Froggie!”), Ventriloquist Paul Winchell with his dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smith (why Edgar Bergen didn’t sue, I’ll never know) , lisping vaudevillian Pinkie Lee (“Hello, it’s me! My name is Pinky Lee! With a checkered hat and a checkered coat, a funny tickle in my throat, and a silly laugh like a billy goat…”) and of course, “The Howdy Doody Show.” Cheap Hanna-Barbara cartoons were just starting to take over: “The Adventures of Ruff and Reddy” was the camel’s nose in the tent.

Well, maybe I’ll see if I can get early morning Saturday ethics entertainment up on Ethics Alarms for adults and ethics-minded teens needing stimulation. I guarantee it will be better than “The Banana Splits.”

1. Trick or Treat! Where to begin? Well, Halloween has become a frolic for The Great Stupid in recent years, and 2023’s scary days are starting off in a similar vein. In my increasingly silly state of Massachusetts (which is considering killing Columbus Day and replacing it with “Indigenous Peoples Day”) the Northboro Public Schools sent a letter to parents this week noting that students aren’t allowed to wear costumes to school for Halloween and the traditional parade through the hallways was canceled. Why? Oh, come on, it’s easy. DEI! The banning of the Halloween fun will supposedly advance the district’s “core values of equity and inclusion.” How, nobody would say. Instead of costumes and a parade, the school district told parents that students would participate in a “Fall-themed spirit day.” Catchy! I feel more inclusive already. Still, nobody really explained why not letting kids dress up in costumes one day a year advances “diversity, equity and inclusion.” One knee-jerk woke parent quizzed about it ventured, “There is the money aspect: Not everyone can afford a Halloween costume.” BUZZZZZZZ! Wrong, Equity Face. Great Halloween costumes require creativity, not money. Schools are supposed to cultivate creativity. Dumb, woke, incompetent people are running public schools, and the result is going to be more dumb, woke, incompetent citizens.

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