Popular Culture

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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Ethics Quiz: The NFL Turns Compassionate

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

This past Saturday night in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Isiah Bolden, a cornerback for the Ne England Patriots, collided with a teammate, lay motionless on the ground, and was put on a cart to be rolled off the field. Though there was little more than 10 minutes to play, the NFL canceled the rest of the game. Patriots coach Bill Belichick praised the NFL for acting quickly. Patriots players then praised Belichick. Bolden was released from the hospital the next morning and appeared to be in good health, but the Patriots canceled a pair scheduled of joint practices anyway.

Conservative political pundit and sports commentator Jason Whitlock wrote of the episode, “The enemies of football and masculinity have won. They killed football. They won the long war of convincing men that the key to happiness is choosing safety over freedom, safety over everything.” Whitlock is saying, in essence, that the incident has greater significance beyond football, that it demonstrates that the progressive weenification of the culture has reached a critical and dangerous level that has ominous implications for American society at large.

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I Know It’s Too Easy But I Can’t Resist: “An Irish Actor Playing Oppenheimer Proves Once Again That Jews Don’t Count” May Be The Most Hilariously Confused Casting Ethics Rant Yet

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

There is only one ethical way to cast a play, musical or movie: pick the actor whose portrayal will most entertain the audience and realize the full potential of the script. Casting is not the place (if anywhere is) for political correctness, quotas, “diversity,” or affirmative action.

Ethics Alarms is full of discussions of this issue, most recently here, in the post just last week about how Disney decided it was offensive to cast seven little people as the Seven Dwarfs in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Hollywood and Broadway are completely confused and hypocritical in this area, because the people who run both places are 1) desperate to be seen as progressive and to signal their virtue at every opportunity, 2) terrified of being branded as non-woke, giving extreme activist groups representing various tribes and interests groups the upper hand in their bullying efforts, and 3) not very bright, frankly.

This is why a Samoan-African American actor was found insufficiently black to play folk legend John Henry, but a black woman was cast as red-headed fish-girl Ariel in “The Little Mermaid,” and the Founding Fathers ended up being portrayed by black, Asian, and Hispanic women and “non-binary” performers in the revival of “1776.” Tom Hanks now says only gay actors should play gay characters, but a director who refused to cast a gay actor as a non-gay character would be run out of the business. It is, as I have written here before, Calvinball.

All of which brings us to the head-exploding essay by Malina Saval, editor in Chief of Pasadena Magazine, titled “An Irish Actor Playing Oppenheimer Proves Once Again That Jews Don’t Count.”

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And Still More From The A.I. Ethics Files: “Looker” Again Raises Its Perfect Virtual Head In The Hollywood Actors Strike

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Back in March, Ethics Alarms discussed the ethical issues implicated when marketing departments begin using Artificial Intelligence to “increase the number and diversity of our models for our products in a sustainable way,” as one retailer phrased it. The scenario echoed the plot of “Looker,” a 1981 Michael Crichton science fiction thriller in which a high-tech research firm convinces companies that real, live models, even after cosmetic surgery, can’t approach the physical perfection that will optimally influence consumers. In its diabolical scheme, models are offered a contracts to have their faces and figures scanned to create 3D computer-generated avatars, indistinguishable from the live versions, which would be animated by A.I. programs for use in TV commercials. Once their bodies are duplicated digitally, the human beings get lifetime paychecks and can retire, since their more perfect CGI dopplegangers will be doing their work for them. As he did so often during his brilliant, too-sort life, Crichton anticipated a serious ethical crisis arising out of developing technology. “Looker” is almost here.

Last week,the 160,000-member union SAG-AFTRA announced that it would join the the screenwriters union in its industry strike after failing to secure a new contract with movie studios and streaming services.  The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists President Fran Drescher—yes, “The Nanny” herself—- condemned the AMPTP’s “shameful” and “disgusting” treatment of the union’s members. Among the major points of dispute is how to preserve acting and writing jobs that could soon be imperiled by the rapid development of computer technology and artificial intelligence.

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Ethics Verdict: Disney Is Officially Incompetent

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Yes, those are “the Seven Dwarfs” of “Snow White and” fame, according to our national steward of childhood fantasy and iconic fables, the Disney Corporation. That photo is smoking gun evidence of insanity, a production shot from the upcoming live action version of the 1937 movie that made Walt Disney’s artistic vision a cultural force, now retitled “Snow White.” Of course Snow White is going to be Snow Of Color, as the actress playing the German fairy tale princess is Latina Rachel Zegler, who has already embraced the company’s current “screw tradition, common sense and legacy” attitude by tweeting, “Yes I am Snow White; no, I am not bleaching my skin for the role.”

You do recall why Snow White was called Snow White, right?

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