“Hi there, everyone! It’s time to play the exciting ethics game that’s sweeping America: “Wait, Was That Ethical or Unethical?”! As you know, contestants are asked to decide whether an ambiguous statement or action was racist or not!
“Are you ready, contestants? Then let’s play, “Wait, Was That Racist or Wasn’t It?”! Introduce our subject for Round I, Johnny!”
“Sure thing, Jack! Meet Dixie Walker! Dixie was a star baseball player who died in 1982. He won a batting championship and a runs-batted-in title, and he played in two World Series and four All-Star Games. He is most remembered, however, not for his impressive exploits on the baseball field but as the player who led the campaign to keep Jackie Robinson from joining the Brooklyn Dodgers and integrating the game.
Both Democrats and Republicans are paying attention. Probably not enough of them, but still…
In 2020, about 46 % of voters, those terrified by months of deliberate Wuhan virus fearmongering by the CDC, Democrats and their news media, cast ballots by mail. This included 58% of Democrats and 33% of Republicans. A new NBC News poll finds that 69% of registered voter plan to vote in person and only 21% plan to vote by mail. Seventy-two percent of Democrats plan to vote in person and only 23% plan to vote by mail, down from 34% two years ago and far below 2020 levels. Among Independents, 20% plan to vote by mail, down from 28 % in 2024. Over half of GOP voters say they will vote in person on Election Day, and 16% plan to vote by mail.
I am reading that this change is based on diminishing fear of dread diseases. No, I believe that the message is getting through to the public despite relentless Axis lies and propaganda. Mail-in ballots are not secure, regardless of what party you belong to. The fact that cheating Democrats want it that way doesn’t mean that thinking Democrats shouldn’t want their own votes to be counted.
To quote Mammy (Hattie McDaniel ) in “Gone With the Wind”, “I done told you an’ told you!” In two scenes, she used that introduction to remindScarlett that “you can always tell a lady by the way she eats in front of people” and Rhett that “it just ain’t fittin’ for a girl child to ride astraddle with her dress flyin’ up!” Well, I’ve done told lawyers, business executive and anyone else with a job that requires public trust and that affects a larger organization to eschew making political statements on social media, even in jest. Nobody listens.
Jane Smith, the chief executive of a Family First Credit Union in Michigan was fired after posting a photo of her family in sweatshirts that read “Lake America.” She allowed the picture to go viral as her family left on September 11 for a 10-day trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Subsequently Family First Credit Union announced that Smith was no longer with the company.
“We weren’t trying to make a political statement,” Smith told Michigan outlet WJRT as she pleaded her case. “However, we were kind of poking fun at the fact that one of the Great Lakes’ names were getting changed.”
Her actions put me in mind of the New Mexico judge who recently excoriated a lawyer who had cluelessly submitted an AI-composed court document without checking its accuracy. “Do you watch the news? Do you listen to the radio? Do you read anything about what’s going on in the world?” she asked, incredulous that any lawyer would be so unaware of all the recent AI debacles in court. The same questions apply to lack of awareness regarding Trump Derangement. What a normal person might consider a joke about our President’s re-naming obsessions, a Trump Derangement sufferer, and there are millions of them, might well let the Cognitive Dissonance Scale take over and refuse to do business with a bank whose CEO goes on social media to extol the “Lake America” episode.
“We sincerely apologize for the concern, disappointment and pain this situation has caused our members and community,” the bank wrote on Facebook.
Of course it did. I don’t feel sorry for her, and neither should you. If Jane Smith couldn’t see this the danger of this familiar sequence playing out sufficiently to stop her from posting the “Lake America” photo, she’s not smart enough to be a CEO anyway.
Paving Paradise, a research analysis study of the loss of California’s agricultural and natural land due to rapid population growth found that 91% of land development since 1970 is a consequence of uncontrolled “immigration,” aka.illegal immigration.
California, a so-called sanctuary state, has the highest concentration of illegal immigrants in the United States, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. Over 400,000 entered the state between 2021 and 2023 during the Biden administration. Because population of California has doubled over the past five decades, 3,740 miles of California’s farmland, forests, wetlands and open spaces have had to be paved over to accommodate the all the lonely people, and we know where they all come from. 2.4 million acres of land, an area three times larger than Yosemite National Park, have been consumed. The overpopulation contributes to water shortages, loss of wildlife, more wildfires, traffic congestion, rising housing costs in the state, researchers found.
To be fair, at least there are more murders, rapes, and other felonies. And twenty-four million former California residents have legally migrated to other states to flee the effects of the open borders, so it all evens out in the end.
Everyone is writing me about the latest Sunny Hostin episode, and frankly, I don’t understand it at all so far. “The View” co-host, who is arguably the most annoying Dunning-Kruger sufferer on that joke of an ABC “news” program, was in a discussion about Lindsay Clancy’s insanity defense and Clancy’s lawyer’s attack on the holdout juror. Hostin, a lawyer who constantly reveals that she is a dim bulb with a law license, claimed that she was the lone holdout juror in the 1991 trial of the notorious Daniel Rakowitz,, known as the “Butcher of Tompkins Square Park.” Asserting that she was the sole juror who felt he was not guilty by reason of insanity, Hostin claimed she eventually convinced the jurors to vote her way. Rakowitz apparently killed his girl friend in an argument by accident, and subsequently ate some of her to conceal the evidence. Good plan!
“That’s how much I believe in the insanity defense,” Hostin said. noting that he fed her body parts to the “unhoused.” I admit to being biased against anyone so reflexively woke that they immediately adopt the latest politically correct lingo, especially one as stupid as “unhoused.” The New York jury, which was sequestered, became so angry with Hostin’s stubbornness, she claimed, that one of them threw a chair at her. ” One-by-one, I picked them off and said, ‘What about this? What about that?'” Hostin recalled. The jury eventually found Rakowitz not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.
The argument that Rakowitz was insane isn’t exactly a tough one to make: he cut up the body of a woman he had lived with, boiled her remains and made her into a soup, then chowed down on some of it and handed it out to homeless people. Yeah, he was as sane as the day is long…
Yet for once Hostin had the right analysis of something: she told the View Crew that the defense lawyer’s attacks on the lone juror in the Clancy case undermines the jury system. Correct! See, a blind squirrel can find a nut now and then.
The crazy part is this: several social media users tracked down a contemporary Daily News article that says that Asunción “Sunny” Cummings Hostin was upset with the holdout juror, who was a man, saying she believed the cannibal defendant was aware of his actions and that the Not Guilty verdict wasn’t justified. So she wasn’t the hold-out juror? She made up the tale she told The View?
The early Open Forum today was because I had to complete my annual ordeal driving to Richmond last night to make an early morning three-hour CLE ethics seminar for my oldest client organization (but not my longest continuous client because they’ve fired me twice, always to come crawling back…). The thing was a challenge when my late wife was helping me get organized, packed, get other work in order and so on: now it’s almost impossible, especially last night when late breaking issues from client lawyers, a printer break-down, a need pit bull and a torn suit delayed my preparation for hours.
I began the drive to Richmond at 11:45 pm, and most of it was in heavy rain surrounded by trucks, with me expecting to die at any moment. I arrived at my hotel at 1:30 am, got to bed about an hour later, and woke up at six for final prep only to discover that I had managed to do something to my back over-night and could barely straighten up. Once I did, it became clear that sitting aggravated the injury, triggering back spasms, so I needed to stay standing during my three hour presentation, the break, and the usual discussions with attendees afterwards.
One attendee said he had been retired from law for a decade, but after listening to me, he had decided to renew his license to start practicing again. He said I convinced him that lawyers really could be a positive influence on society, and that it was time for him to use his experience and skills to do that.
Yeah, this is what I love.
It’s worth the hassle, and money has nothing to do with it.
They have no shame. It’s bad enough that there is a bank with the ridiculous name of “Fifth Third Bank” (In 1908, Third National Bank and Fifth National Bank merged and nobody had the wit to come up with a better name. I wouldn’t entrust my money to a bank run by such dimwits), but a ballpark? What’s a fifth of a third out? A third strike? Houston briefly had its park named after Enron, and San Diego’s ball park is named after supplier of dog and cat merchandise, but at least “Petco Park” is alliterative.
I was sure that I had already written a rueful post about baseball teams that sell out their fans, history, traditions, cities and dignity for filthy lucre and name their home fields after any company who will pay to turn a stadium into its billboard. In 2010 I wrote a post about the adultery website Ashley Madison tried to by the naming rights to the NFL Giant’s stadium, and sure enough, decade ago I covered this revolting topic thoroughly. In honor of Fifth Third Park, I’m posting it again below, with a couple of additions and edits.
***
The Washington Nationals announced this week that it has partnered with Major League Baseball Advanced Media and the consulting firm Korn Ferry to sell naming rights to Nationals Park, as the team’s home field has been known since it opened in 2008.
After all, the team explains, plastering a corporation’s name on the ballpark could add between ten and twenty million dollars a year to the team’s revenue, and imagine how much better the team will be with another starting pitcher or slugging outfielder. Why wouldn’t a team sell its home’s name, and a large chunk of its identity, to a bank, a website, or a pet supplies company?
[Update: I am happy to announce that the Nationals did not ultimately give in to greed and name its stadium MSNow Park. It is still Nationals Park.]
I admit it: being a life-time fan of the Boston Red Sox, who play in one of the the ten major league parks ( the others: Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Dodger Stadium, Fenway Park, Kauffman Stadium, Marlins Park, Nationals Park, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Turner Field, Wrigley Field, and Yankee Stadium ) belonging to teams that have not accepted filthy lucre to mar their stadium entrances with the names of companies Bernie Sanders would hate, I find the idea revolting. A baseball team represents its community; its lore becomes part of the culture and shared memories passed down through generations.. That has value, and symbolic significance. How much is it worth? It’s priceless, or should be. Continue reading →
I wonder if and when enough people will wake up to the fact that when they vote for progressives, this is the kind of culture they are voting to live in. You know: hysterical, power-mad, and insane.
The footwear and apparel company Converse was attacked this week by the woke social media mob for an ad in a new sneaker campaign. It featured the bottom half of a person wearing a white garment and holding a pair of black sneakers.
The shadows that suggest the outline of a long, tapering triangle was obviously reminiscent of the pointed hood of a Klan robe, see. And the lighting makes the black sneakers look like someone is being hanged. The sneakers are black, get it? And have a single leg in two shoes, or something. The alleged lyncher was K-pop singer Karina wearing a skirt and holding a pair of Chuck 70 X sneakers, but never mind: some genius figured out this was another opportunity to hold 21st century America guilty of racism.
Naturally, Converse groveled an apology, thus ensuring more of this crap from the race-baiters and political correctness thugs. “We’re sorry,” Converse said in an emailed statement. “We understand why this image is deeply upsetting and recognize that we got this wrong. We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared,” the statement added. “This should not have happened and we will do better.”
I wish I bought Converse merchandise so I could boycott the brand. Their craven behavior harms every American, the culture, society, commerce, kids, brains, everything. Just listen to these idiots:
“As a Black man and someone who loves Converse shoes, I find this very insensitive and distasteful,” Kendall Peacock, who runs the Education Firm, a tutoring and mentorship program in Atlanta, said on social media. “Deliberate racist intent hasn’t been established yet, but that doesn’t erase the impact,” he added.
Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney based in Texas, posted on Instagram that Converse’s apology “doesn’t undo what got past legal, marketing and leadership at every step.”
Stephanie Schwartz, a social justice photographer, wrote on social media, “Every photographer can tell you, whoever did this ad knew EXACTLY what they were doing.”
I discovered the racist sneaker ad because Holly Mathnerd wrote about it on her exotic and eccentric substack. I can’t do better than Holly’s evisceration of the latest woke obsession, and besides, she’s sharp, she’s funny, she writes well, and she deserves attention. She wrote in part,
Devoted fans of the long-time TV game show “Wheel of Fortune “—“You know, morons!”— are enraged, as least based on the uproar on social media, because the puzzle board above foiled a competitor in the “bonus round,” costing him a car.
David Shepard of Atlanta, Georgia, was the unfortunate contestant. The pop culture media seems to think it’s relevant that he’s a cancer survivor. It isn’t. If the puzzle was unfair, then it was just as unfair whether he was cancer survivor, Sydney Sweeney, a convicted felon or Eric Swalwell. The amplified fury is another example of “toxic empathy,” as well as ethics ignorance.
But back to the issue at hand:
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:
Is that puzzle unfair?
I can’t tell you the answer, because if you know it on your own, it will probably influence your answer to the quiz. According to TV Insider, fans of the show are screaming that “nobody uses that word” and that it was part of a conspiracy to avoid giving away a $50,000 Audi. I didn’t solve the puzzle in the time allowed ( I tried before my coffee) but I certainly know the word. “Have you ever heard that phrase? Let us know in the comments,” asks TV Insider.
Take me now, Lord.
And it’s a word, not a “phrase.”
On the side of the protesters as much as I can stand to be, that puzzle reminds me of the gag in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” where the mystical keeper of “The Bridge of Death” asks three easy questions of one of King Arthur’s Knights (“What is your name? What is your quest? What’s your favorite color?”) then replaces the color question with “What is the capital of Assyria?” for Sir Robin (who is magically flung into the gorge) and “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” for King Arthur.
Nonetheless, it is a real word, and the show never promised that its puzzles could all be solved by people who never progressed beyond Junior Scrabble…
Post Script:According to the AI bot I just asked, the average airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow is about 24 miles per hour, or 11 meters per second. Of course, that answer could be completely made up, and I don’t care enough to check.
