Popular Culture

Unethical Website and Post Of The Month: Rant Sports And Its “Top 25 Athletes Turned Actors of All Time.”

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments
Maybe #1---but that would take some research.

Maybe #1—but that would take some research.

It is true that you cannot trust everything, indeed most things, that you read on the web, and thus should approach all supposedly factual statements with skepticism and ready access to Google. That does not excuse websites that recklessly and irresponsibly spread misinformation however, or that through their own laziness and ignorance spread ignorance among others.

A slick sports website called Rant Sports provided a particularly galling example this week, when it presumed to post a list it called “Top 25 Athletes Turned Actors of All Time.” All the sports sites draw traffic with this kind of trivia-mongering, but even trivia-mongering demands a modicum of research, care, and fact. This may be an opinion piece, but it isn’t the opinions that are problematical. Renae Juska, the fraud who created the list, obviously engaged in no research at all, so her”Top 25″ really was “First 25 I was able to jot down on a piece of paper.” As I will now demonstrate, Juska, on a site dedicated to sports, made an assertion that is demonstrably and objectively false, and under color of authority, misleading readers but just as wrongly, unfairly neglecting many athletes who would have to be ranked on any such list that was given the amount of research expected of a seventh-grader’s term paper.

Here are some examples of how misleading and poorly researched the list is:

  • To begin with, all but one of the “top athletes” are male. Wrong. One of the greatest athletes-turned actresses died just last month, the great Esther Williams, a record-setting competitive swimmer who was unable to compete in the Olympics because of World War II. She was an athlete IN her movies, the most famous of which were aquacade spectaculars featuring Williams swimming, diving, doing what was later called synchronized swimming (she is credited with helping to create the sport), all while smiling and looking drop-dead gorgeous in a one-piece bathing suit. Does Williams qualify as a “Top Actor” over Number 16 on Juska’s idiotic list, the immortal Stacy Keibler, the only woman he deems worthy? Here are her credentials, as Juska cites them: “She began acting in 1998 and was a professional wrestler from 1999-2006. Her most well-known appearances have been in WWE Judgement Day, Summerslam and WrestleMania XX. She has also had guest appearances on How I Met Your Mother, Mayne Street and Samurai Girl.”  Esther’s credits are here, and you can see her in action here:

To say there is no contest is not an opinion, it is fact. Of course, Juska probably never heard of Esther Williams, which means that she has no business making this list at all.

Believe it or not, it gets worse… Continue reading →

GLAAD Joins The Hilaria Baldwin Ethics Lionel Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

model_trainwreck2

Ethics train wrecks can develop at any time, though sometimes the participants and the incidents involved limit the results to small-scale ethics damage. Let’s call these “Ethics Lionel Wrecks,” in honor of the model train sitting in a cardboard box in my basement. This week’s tale of Hilaria Baldwin’s mistimed tweets defines the genre.

The progression:

1. George Stark Starts the Train

This one began when the pregnant wife of actor/ pitchman/liberal blowhard/ bully Alec Baldwin was called out by the Daily Mail for tweeting trivial, giddy messages during the funeral of recently departed actor James Gandolfini. That would have been certifiably disrespectful conduct in the rare sub-category of Funeral Ethics; indeed Ethics Alarms certified it. The problem is that Mail reporter George Stark was wrong.

Salon explained that the error was caused by “a technical glitch on Twitter that reflected GMT instead of ET…an analysis of the source code of Hilaria Baldwin’s tweets reveals that she tweeted between 11 am and 2 pm, as opposed to 8 am to 11 am. The Daily Mail has stated that “the tweets did appear accurately timed on mobile devices such as smartphones and iPads,” but “the only way MailOnline was able to establish the REAL time the tweets were sent was by viewing the twitter web page source code, something almost no normal member of the public would ever do.”

I have no idea what the hell that means, but I was one of the people who relied on Stark’s report, which seemed convincing, with screen shots of the tweets themselves and their timestamps. Was he unethically sloppy, as Baldwin and others have claimed, or was this just an excusable mistake? Twitter is new enough that there may be some justification for not checking the source code before using the time stamp to conclude something from a tweet: I can’t determine whether there is a journalistic protocol for this at the Daily Mail or elsewhere. Before a reporter attacks the conduct of a pregnant woman at a friend’s funeral, he would presumably be obligated to be certain of his facts, since readers, like me, will assume that he was. If this really was, as Salon says, a freak Twitter glitch, then Stark was unlucky rather than unethical.

2. Ethics Alarms rides the rails Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Jim Carrey

/ Jack Marshall / 49 Comments
Jim Carrey, not fooling as much as we thought...

Jim Carrey, not fooling as much as we thought…

There are no rule, laws, or principles of ethics that requires that an actor who usually portrays an ass actually has to be an ass, but if there were, Jim Carrey would be in complete compliance with them.

Jim Carrey announced via Twitter that he now objects to  “Kick-Ass 2,” the soon-to-be-released movie he stars in, citing as his reason the December, 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which he apparently thinks will be made worse by the movie, or would have been caused by it if the film had come out earlier, or, well, something.  “I did Kick-Ass a month [before] Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence,” Carrey tweeted. “I meant to say my apologies to others [involved] with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.” Continue reading →

Superhero Ethics: The Duty To Rescue

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments
Which is the cold, calculating, utilitarian face?

Which is the cold, calculating, utilitarian face?

In the new Superman film, Supie fails to rescue an important character in distress after the character requests that he allow him to perish.

Lawyer and superhero obsessive James Daily, co-author of “The Law and Superheroes” and the Law and the Multiverse blog, has taken to his keyboard to examine whether the transplanted Kryptonian had a legal duty to rescue the victim anyway.

His conclusion, and the law’s, is no. Daily writes,

“People are sometimes surprised to learn that, by default, there is no obligation under American law to help or rescue other people…Even “Good Samaritan” laws do not create an obligation to act as a Good Samaritan, but instead only encourage such acts of kindness by shielding some would-be rescuers from legal liability if they accidentally end up hurting rather than helping the victim. This “American rule” (not to be confused with the American rule for attorneys’ fees) applies even when a life could be saved with the most minimal of effort. As a result it has been called “morally repugnant” and “revolting to any moral sense,” but it is nonetheless the law in most states….” Continue reading →

Food Network Thought Crimes

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

[Now that is a headline I never conceived of having to use.]

"Love your cooking, Paula, but that joke you laughed at in 1996 means that you're racist scum. Rot in Hell."

“Love your cooking, Paula, but that joke you laughed at in 1996 means that you’re racist scum. Rot in Hell.”

Paula Deen, Southern cuisine star of the Food Network, has been fired because of the public uproar after she admitted in a law suit deposition that she had, on occasion and in the past, used the term “nigger” and tolerated racist jokes. This outburst of honesty (she was under oath at the time) apparently justifies social network hatred being directed her way in waves, and Jake Tapper, on CNN (WHY do I keep watching CNN?) conducting an inquisition this afternoon in which he asked third parties whether formerly using “the N-word” means Deen is a racist.

I don’t give two hoots about Paula Deen or her career. I watch the Food Network about as often as I watch MSNBC or YES.  She has always seemed more than a little bit silly and dim to me, and the reasons for her popularity elude me. But if there are many Americans who grew up in the South when Deen did who never used “nigger” and who never laughed at a racist joke, I’ll be shocked. That isn’t a “everybody does it” excuse. That is a “stop condemning people who reflected their narrow culture until they gained some perspective and wisdom” explanation. My father grew up in Kentucky in the 20’s and 30’s. Do I think he would have answered a deposition the same way Deen did? I sure do, and if one percent of those attacking Deen now possess sufficient integrity, honesty and essential fairness to be worthy of licking my Dad’s combat boots, I’ll be even more shocked. Dad is hardly the only admirable individual who spoke this way in his younger years. During his successful campaign for the U.S. Senate in Virginia, former Democratic Senator and war hero (and my classmate) Jim Webb bravely admitted that he had also used “nigger” when he was younger, and that crucifying his Republican opponent, George Allen, for similar, long-past indiscretions was unfair. He was right about Allen, and his  defense applies to Deen as well. Continue reading →

Here Is A Law Suit To Root For

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

birthdaycake1The continuing charging of licensing fees for commercial use of that most public of songs, “Happy Birthday,” has been an annoying anomaly for as long as I can remember. Why did TV families always sing some lame approximation or substitute when a character had a birthday? Just last week, I expressed my chagrin when Tom Selleck’s extended family on “Blue Bloods” brought out  granddad  Len Cariou’s birthday cake, blazing with candles, as they sang, “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow!” Who sings that at a birthday party today? People who don’t want to be held up for the licensing rights for a song over a century old, that’s who. I believe the first time this issue imposed itself on my consciousness was when they sang some lame birthday song stand-in on “The Flintstones.”

Jennifer Nelson, a film-maker, has had enough. She was producing a documentary movie about the song, and naturally wanted it to be performed at one point in her film. Like many before her, she was told she would have to pay $1,500  via a licensing agreement with Warner/Chappell, the publishing arm of the Warner Music Group, which acquired the rights to the song  in 1988.  Nelson’s company paid the fee and is now seeking certification for a class action law suit arguing that “Happy Birthday”  is in the public domain, and has been. Warner/Chappell collects about $2 million a year in licensing fees for it, and the suit seeks return of the  fees it collected over  the last four years. The lawsuit cites the research of Robert Brauneis, a professor at the George Washington University Law School and the author of a 68-page article titled “Copyright and the World’s Most Popular Song.” In the study, Professor Brauneis demonstrates, to his satisfaction at least, that the Hill sisters,  Mildred and Patty, wrote a song in the late 1800s with the same melody called “Good Morning to All.” Nobody is certain who wrote the lyrics referring to a birthday, but it was in popular use as early as 1911. Continue reading →

CNN, Making Us Trivial and Ignorant

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments
You got shortchanged, Edward G.!

You got shortchanged, Edward G.!

I suppose I should give “New Day,” CNN’s revamped morning news show hosted by Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan a honeymoon before I start complaining about it, considering how I negligently blamed them for the conduct of their colleagues before their show as even on the air. Nonetheless, if CNN has decided to trade Soledad O’Brien’s biased coverage of real news for this pair’s avoiding it, I’d (I cannot believe I am writing this ) rather have Soledad back.

You may have noticed that there is a lot going on in this country and around the world. The conflict in Syria is at a critical point, and the U.S. may be preparing to play a greater role. Iran has a new president, Iraq is descending into violence, and the Middle East could still blow up at any moment.There are so many scandals to investigate emanating from D.C (and, uh, Cincinnati…) that the news media isn’t even bothering to keep us abreast on half of them. The stock market took a dive yesterday; illegal immigration is being fought over on Capitol Hill, where there was a big Tea Party rally against the I.R.S. yesterday.

Trust in the government is at low tide, which is more important than the usual polling nonsense, and President Obama’s poll numbers are beginning to look like Bush’s, but according to CNN’s Gloria Borger (WHY do I keep watching CNN?), it’s for a surprising reason. I watched with my jaw falling open as I heard Borger tell her CNN panel a couple of days ago that apparently citizens who had been thus far willing to “give the President the benefit of the doubt” were now—imagine this now!—beginning to associate him with the government they don’t like. That’s right—five years into his Presidency, and Obama is finally beginning to be held accountable for the government he heads and is supposed to be leading. Normally—sanely, reasonably—this calling to account would typically happen during an election, but hey, better late than never. (I believe I could hear Mitt Romney banging his head against the wall now, if the sound of my own head wasn’t so loud.)

Borger elaborated on her theory in her CNN column:

“Now, I know this president doesn’t like some parts of his job. He doesn’t much like schmoozing members of Congress, despite his recent share-a-meal plan with assorted Capitol Hill types. He doesn’t like the LBJ-style strong-arming, either. He doesn’t much like the messy lawmaking process in which personal relationships can often mean the difference between getting what you want and getting nothing at all. And he doesn’t ever like to be pushed. Ever. No-drama Obama, remember? But he does like speeches. He likes writing them, redrafting them, pondering them. He likes giving them, too — because he’s good at it.”

Gloria left out plenty of other things the President doesn’t like doing—managing, oversight, appointing non-cronies, firing incompetents, being straight with the public, making decisions, his job-–but she cut though it all to identify what he needs to do to address all the chaos around him: give a speech. And Borger is a big President Obama booster. She wasn’t trying to be cynical or funny.

BANG…BANG…BANG….

All of this is prelude to my objection to what the new kids on the CNN block decided was the top news of the day, worthy of more than ten minutes of exclusive coverage, remote oversees updates, two special live reports, a studio interview, and even a phone interview with Larry King himself. And what was this riveting news story that Americans just had to know about while they were having their coffee and chewing their Pop Tarts into pistols?

James Gandolfini died. Continue reading →

Emmy Ethics: Honoring Elmo, Or Honoring A Child Molester?

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

kevin-clash1

I am assuming, based on the fact that this story was featured on the conservative muckraking website Brietbart, that some people think it is inappropriate to award three Daytime Emmys for children’s programming to Kevin Clash, the Muppets puppeteer whose career as fuzzy red monster Elmo on Sesame Street ended with a series of child molestation accusations.

If I am right, these people are dead wrong. Clash is an artist, and a talented one. Whether or not the allegations of his having illicit contact with under-aged boys are true, and none have been tested in court, his skill in manipulating and voicing the cutest and most vulnerable of the Muppets is beyond debate. The Emmy has never been nor claimed to be a character award. An Emmy recognizes excellence in television, in this case children’s programming, and it doesn’t make a smidgeon of difference if an artist is a child molester, a bank robber, a cannibal, a Nazi or a Billy Ray Cyrus fan—if he or she delivered the best artistic product, the honor is deserved.

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Spark, Facts and Graphic: Breitbart

Hold On, Taylor Bigler: First Get Into A Bikini And Answer The Question, THEN We’ll Discuss Whether It’s Fair To Mock Miss Utah

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments
By all means, her views on social policy should determine her place in the MIss USA competition...

By all means, Miss Utah’s views on social policy should determine her place in the Miss USA competition…

Every year some columnist or internet wag attempts to perpetuate the dumb bimbo stereotype and get cheap laughs in the process by calling attention to a beauty pageant contestant’s incoherent or fatuous answer to a question in the interview round. On rare occasions, the ridiculed response is jaw-dropping and genuinely funny, appropriately triggering fears that “Idiocracy” is upon us. However, the nonsensical curvy-contestent answer flagged by Daily Caller entertainment editor Taylor Bigler had a perfectly good excuse: the question was impossible to answer. Continue reading →

Actor Patrick Stewart (“Captain Picard”) Is A Father’s Day Ethics Hero

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The video is self-explanatory.

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Pointer: Alexander Cheezem