Peak “Great Stupid” in Oregon (Again)

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

I heard some mocking talking heads on Fox News joking about this yesterday and it made no sense to me at all, so I ignored it. Then I found out what had provoked all of the giggling about turtles.

The state of Oregon has appointed JD Holt to an Oregon Mental Health Advisory Board. JD says her pronouns are “they/them/terrapin.” She/they/it is not kidding. So she is out of her frickin’ mind.

From Fox News: “JD Holt, who also goes by “JD Terrapin” on Facebook, is one of roughly two dozen “consumers” on the OHA’s Consumer Advisory Council (OCAC). The council, established by administrative statute, is appointed by OHA Director Dr. Sejal Hathi, who was appointed by Gov. Tina Kotek (D, of course.) The purpose of the OCAC is to advise Hathi on the state’s provision of mental health services, including through investigations and reviews of current practices.”

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Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

The first post today already has me dreading what is to come, and, believe it or not, the next one is even more stupid than that one.

Help me out here by adding some challenging, enlightening, erudite discussions on the finer points of ethics while I stand over here wondering what the world is coming to, and trying to avoid the most likely answer…

Psst! Sam Jones! The Idea of Being an “Influencer” Is Not To Influence Stupid People To Be Even More Stupid!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I can already tell: this is going to be a Great Stupid day.

And what better way to start it off than to visit the idiot above,Samantha Jones, also known as @samstrays on Instagram? For some ridiculous reason, the American has over 92,000 followers on social media platforms, where she purports to be a wildlife and hunting enthusiast. Below Sam is shown in an earlier incident, molesting what looks like a giant echidna, though maybe Sam is only two feet tall.

Her current infamy, however, has resulted from the incident shown in the photo under the headline, when she recently, while visiting Australia, snatched a baby wombat from the side of a road and ran to her car with the creature’s furious mother in desperate pursuit. After the “influencer” posted the sequence, it sparked an international incident.

“I caught a baby wombat!” Jones says to the camera. “OK, momma’s right there and she is pissed,” Jones adds, as the animal’s mother runs towards her. Jones then put the wombat down and drove away. The footage, which she shared on Instagram, sparked immediate fury in Australia.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong called out the ‘ugly American,’ saying, “It looked pretty dreadful, didn’t it…I think everyone who would have seen that would have thought, ‘leave the baby wombat alone. Leave it with its mum.’” An online petition calling for her deportation from Australia started amassing signatures, as home affairs minister Tony Burke announced that the conditions of Jones’ visa were being reviewed. Reportedly, Jones has left the country before she could be kicked out, deleting the offending video in the process. The Australian Wildlife Rescue Agency WIRES has weighed in to state that separating a baby wombat from its mother is a crime.

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, even got involved. “Maybe she might try some other Australian animals,” he said at a press conference, when asked about the incident. “Take a baby crocodile from its mother and see how you go there. Take another animal that can actually fight back rather than stealing a baby wombat from its mother. See how you go there.”

Please, God, don’t let President Trump get involved in this and start a wildlife harassment war. Just have a bunch of birds shower this idiot with droppings, like that scene in “High Anxiety,” or something. Maybe have her social media followers bombarded as well.

Ethics Quiz: Scattering Ashes

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

See? The Washington Post still has some uses! A recent sort-of, kind-of, tongue-in-cheek essay by Rick Reilly raised an issue that has gnawed at my consciousness for a long time, namely the practice of scattering a loved one’s cremated remains in public places. A brief summary of my gut reaction: “Ick!”

Reilly writes in part,

Can you stop scattering your dearly departed’s ashes all over my favorite golf course? I want to play Pebble Beach, not your grandpa….Oh, and please stop littering your labradoodle’s ashes on the beach near my house. (A) Cremated remains include tiny fragments of bone and teeth and God knows what else, (B) I run there — barefoot, dammit — and (C) It’s illegal for dogs to be on the beach, whether on a leash or in a Folgers can. In fact, this obsession with unauthorized scattering of dead things all over America’s prettiest places needs to perish, too. Our most famous ballyards deal with these messes all the time….How many Cubs base runners have slipped rounding people’s uncles?

That’s pretty much the flavor of the whole piece, but as it coincides with a bias of mine—I think scattering ashes is pagan nonsense and stupid—it has the ring of truth. (And Tom Cruise sure didn’t love getting covered with the stuff in “War of the Worlds.”) The author concludes,

…3.2 million people die every year in America, and, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, 62 percent ask to be cremated. That’s more than double the rate 20 years ago. And nearly half say they “would prefer to have their remains scattered in a sentimental place.” Which would mean nearly a million incinerated Americans annually coating the sequoias at Yosemite and choking the loons on Golden Pond and sprinkling the churros of Santa Monica. It’s just bad taste.

Is it “ick,” unethical, or a perfectly loving and spiritual practice? As usual with the ethics quizzes here, I have my mind open at least a crack.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is scattering incinerated human remains in public places, in the air or in the oceans responsible, fair and justifiable?

Observations on a Jobs Graph

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

That provocative graph above is brought to you by Apollo Global Management.

It purports to reveal what proportion of new jobs added each year since 2016 were in the private and public sectors. I have no way of telling whether the numbers are accurate, whether the manner of presenting them is fair, and whether Apollo has an agenda in presenting them this way. I guess that’s the first ethics observation. It is now impossible to trust news accounts, statistics, analysis, surveys, studies and data, no matter where it comes from. We can add this to the fact that photographs, films, recordings and videos are also untrustworthy.

But here are some more observations on the off chance that the numbers are correct and can be trusted:

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Today’s Unethical (and Stupid) Headline of the Day: “Ten Year-Old American With Brain Cancer Deported Because She Fell Out of the Wrong Vagina”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

To be fair, that headline is supposed to be funny: it is the work of the humorous news aggregator and satire site “Fark,” which posts links to stories that can support snarky, sarcastic, vulgar or wise-ass headings. I don’t find that headline anything but obnoxious, however, especially since a large number of “Think of the children!” saps and pro-open borders activists will be shaking their heads sadly after reading it.

The linked story is by NBC News which sports the only slightly less obnoxious header, “U.S. citizen child recovering from brain cancer deported to Mexico with undocumented parents.”

A fair, un-biased headline would read, “Illegal immigrant couple deported, along with their children.” That’s what happened. The fact that one of those children has a medical condition is irrelevant. (That’s the girl above. I would think her blurry face problem is at least as serious as her brain tumor…). The implication that the child was the focus of the action rather than her parents is deliberately misleading (that’s deceit, by definition). And the parents aren’t “undocumented,” they were here illegally. The use of “undocumented” is always a tell: anyone who uses it it trying to glide over the illegal status of someone who has no ground to complain if they are sent back to their nation of origin.

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Celebrity Ethics: Scarlett Johansson’s Manifesto

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

For some mysterious reason, Daily Caller reporter Leena Nasir felt compelled to attack Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson for her statements regarding fans who approach her when she is in public but not in a performing capacity.

“Scarlett Johansson put her arrogance on full display by issuing an unhinged statement about her celebrity status,” the indignant writer declared in an “Editorial.” “Clearly setting her bar as low as it can go, she casually blurted the selfish comments during the interview for her In Style cover story,” Nasir continued. “Johansson launched into a self-indulgent display of arrogance…I don’t think Johansson has a lot to worry about anymore. The people who did follow her career have likely just been turned away. It’s hard to imagine fans will care much about her anymore.”

Wow, two uses of “anymore” within three sentences. When I do that, I sentence myself to remedial writing exercises.

But back to Scarlett: what did the acclaimed actress tell the interviewer to justify such enmity from The Daily Caller? This:

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Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Rep. Rashida Tlaib, (D-Mich)

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

The neck-and -neck race to be the worst member of the House was narrowed down considerably last week after such worthy contestants on the GOP side as Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene were lapped by all of the Democrats who beclowned themselves during President Trump’s “Address to the Joint Session of Congress,” aka. “The State of the Union.” But “Squad” member Rashida Tlaib (above), already a strong favorite of the Las Vagas oddsmakers to win “Worst Member of Congress Alive,” seemingly swept aside her fellow Squad members, Jasmine Crockett, Eric Swalwell, Al Green, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the motley crew they as if they were flies on her face by being the only member of the House to vote against the Subterranean Border Defense Act.

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Ethics Quote of the Day: Prof. Jonathan Turley

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

“If you view conservatives judges and justices as “lawless,” then every decision that they issue can be construed as a “crisis” in failing to adopt your own interpretive approach.”

—George Washington University law professor and lawyer Jonathan Turley

I decided to ignore the recent open letter signed by approximately 950 law professors declaring the second Trump administration a “Constitutional crisis,” because it was so obviously a mass exhibition of both “bias makes you stupid” and the overwhelming partisan slant of the legal profession, upon which Ethics Alarms has commented many times. The letter is the equivalent of the infamous one in 2020 signed by all those national intelligence experts who wanted everyone to know that the Hunter Biden laptop was really Russian disinformation, but the current letter is worse. Lawyers, as professionals, are required to be trustworthy. Trustworthy lawyers don’t put their names on legal misinformation and political propaganda like this latest “Trump is a dictator” attack. (The American Bar Association has issued a similar statement.)

I’m glad I waited and let Professor Turley eviscerate these disgraces to the law and academia. Cruelly, he has more influence, visibility and credibility than little ol’ me. In his blog post and column for The Hill titled “Panic politics: Law professors’ umpteenth ‘constitutional crisis’ falls flat”, Turley neatly points out,

  • “The latest letter follows a familiar pattern that has played out like a political perpetual motion machine since the first Trump impeachment. It works something like this: A legal academy composed of largely liberal academics announces a “constitutional crisis” caused by conservatives, and then a largely liberal media runs the story with little scrutiny or skepticism. On most echo-chambered media sites, the public rarely hears an opposing view.”

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! On my Facebook page, lawyers and even a couple of professors regularly proclaim as fact that President Trump is “defying” the Constitution.

Biased, ignorant and Trump-Deranged is no way to practice law, son.

Read the whole thing, but here are some more excerpts: Continue reading →

Marketing Ethics: “That’s Some Bad Hat, MLB!”*

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

We shall see if the ethical value of accountability is completely dead in our culture by how many people are fired by Major League Baseball in the aftermath of the Great Baseball Cap Disaster of 2025. It should be a lot.

Baseball finally figured out that the clubs could make a lot of money by constantly adding new uniforms and baseball cap options to each team. (I blame former Commissioner of Baseball Peter Ueberroth, whose entire function during his tenure was to modernize the sport’s merchandising and public relations.) I thought this hustle had reached its apotheosis with the dreadful “City Connect” uniforms that were inflicted on the teams a few years ago, creating inexplicable eyesores like this for the RED Sox…

but the sport’s greed and lack of taste knows no bounds. Fans and collectors actually bought those jerseys and caps (to be fair, some of the redesigned uniforms aren’t quite that bad), along with the “vintage” uniforms and caps, the Mother’s Day uniforms and caps, the stupid “nickname” jerseys, the boring All-Star team jerseys and caps, “turn-back-the clock” uniforms….As P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

So someone got the bright idea to foist these ugly team caps off on the public, since obviously baseball fans will buy anything:

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