Are Americans Too Trivial and Easily Distracted to Run a Competent Democracy? The 100 Men vs. a Gorilla Controversy…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

When I heard that social media was in lather over the idiotic question of whether a hundred men could defeat a single silverback gorilla in hand-to-hand combat, I immediately thought of the scene above from the film “Stand by Me.” But those characters in the movie (based on Stephen King’s novella “The Body” and directed by Rob Reiner before Trump-Derangement ate his brain) were twelve. There are so many fascinating and important questions that not only are fun to ponder but that also are beneficial for society to debate that the social phenomenon of millions being obsessed with an idiotic hypothetical of no value whatsoever threatens to plunge me into a pit of despond.

Why should I devote my time and energies to trying to inspire my fellow human beings to become more skilled at ethical reasoning when this crap is what more of them find stimulating? “Fiddling while Rome burns” is dumb; arguing about impossible hypotheticals as ridiculous as whether Superman could beat Mighty Mouse in a fight—which in my view is a better question to argue over than the gorilla vs. 100 men nonsense—makes fictional Emperor Nero seem positively enterprising.

Calling this a “thought-experiment” is insulting to thought experiments, but it apparently first was raised on TikTok several years ago. Never mind that gorillas are generally reticent and would never engage in such a match: a Twitter/X post on the topic a week ago re-ignited the debate. As you can see, the author is a moron; @DreamChasnMike wrote, “i think 100 niggas could beat 1 gorilla everybody just gotta be dedicated to the shit.” Call me an elitist if you must, but as a matter of principle I would avoid reflexively pondering anything deemed worthy of discussion by someone like Mike. The fact that so many otherwise rational people are rushing to do so now is worthy of analysis, however.

Is it because so many, like me, have decided that the Trump-Deranged are officially mentally ill, and can only be engaged in infantile discussions? Is it because, as I have speculated here before more than once, the efforts of our rotten, political indoctrinating education system and our dishonest, biased, incompetent journalism have combined to lower the media IQ in the U.S. to around 83?

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Non-Citizen Speech Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

“Reason” (of course) has an article up headlined “Immigrants and Radicals Have the Same Free Speech Rights as Everyone Else.” That may be correct, but it’s not at all certain, and I’m not sure it’s ethically necessary either. (Shame on “Reason” for following the Left’s deliberate conflating of immigrants with illegal immigrants.)

Marco Rubio and the Trump Administration are asserting that foreign students, other aliens here legally but temporarily and illegal immigrants do not have the same rights of free speech as American citizens. This week, a federal judge in Massachusetts allowed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s deportation proceedings involving non-citizen anti-Israel college protesters and activists to go forward on the grounds that the government is targeting protected speech and therefore chilling the free speech rights of foreign university students and faculty. American Association of University Professors v. Rubio was brought by the American Association of University Professors, that organization’s Harvard and New York University chapters, and the Middle East Studies Association alleging the “chilling” of non-citizen members’ activities by federal policy.  The plaintiffs allege that members of their organization “have, variously, taken down social media posts and previously published writing and scholarship, stopped assigning material about Palestine in class, withdrawn from a conference presentation, ceased traveling abroad for conferences, ceased engaging in political protest and assembly in which they previously participated, ceased teaching a course they previously taught, and foregone opportunities to write and speak at public events,” because they fear deportation.

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Yecchh! Pooey! Instant Ethics Train Wreck In Minnesota…

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Nothing but dunces, villains and fools in this tale….

1.Unethical catalyst: In Rochester, Minnesota, a state that has gone certifiably nuts, home of the George Floyd Freakout and a government headed by Knucklehead Tim Walz while voters send anti-Semitic Rep.”Fuck you!”Omar to Congress, a woman named Shiloh Hendrix was at the playground at Soldiers Field Park when she found a young black child looking through her 18-month-old son’s diaper bag. The kid is a nascent thief and needs more attentive parenting.

2. First identifiable unethical adult: Hendrix, who upon discovering the invasion of her personal property called the child a “nigger.” That’s signature significance in 2025—indeed at least since the 19th Century. She’s a low-life racist, a blight on society, and deserves to be shunned and reviled. To Hell with her.

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Regarding “Conclave”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

As the Cardinals meet in Rome to find a new Pope for real, it is a propitious time to consider “Conclave,” the “thriller” (as Wikipedia calls it, a stretch) about a fictional conclave after the death of a fictional Pope. I had several friends recommend the film to me, and I finally watched it this week.

I’ll complete this ethics overview without spoilers since the film is relatively new, but wow, what a disappointment. Strong cast, excellent performances, brilliant production design and cinematography, but still, “Conclave” has to be one of the most wildly over-praised films I’ve seen since “Don’t Look Up!,” “The Crying Game” or “Ghost.” This overt Hollywood woke propaganda piece received eight nominations at the 97th Academy Awards, a number once reserved for all-time classics like “Ben-Hur,” “West Side Story” or “Lawrence of Arabia.” Its Best Picture nomination shows how far movie-making standards have fallen and that it won Best Adapted Screenplay is outrageous, since the screenplay was the worst aspect of the movie, predictable, over-wrought and unbelievable.

My late wife was superb at sleuthing out “surprise” endings of movies by the half-way mark or earlier; this time I felt like I was channeling her spirit because I guessed the movie’s ending (and woke propaganda mission) the second the key character showed up. I also thought, “Oh no, really? They are stooping to this?” Indeed they were.

“Conclave” is, ultimately, trivial and soap opera-ish, no better and less entertaining than the loony movie version of Dan Brown’s follow-up to “The Da Vinci Code,” “Angels and Demons.” Along the way to an anti-climax, we get more of the “white man bad/black man victim,” pro-LGTBQ+ proselytizing that Tinseltown has been addicted to for years.

I’ll give “Conclave” this: it was better than “Snow White” and a lot shorter than “Wicked.”

May Ethics Blooms, 5/3/25

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

I really don’t know what I’m going to do with my Trump Deranged friends. They literally are acting nuts; they don’t make any sense. The Axis allies—journalists, scholars, Democratic politicians, lawyers, ethicists <sigh!> and pundits are making even less sense, so there’s no one to pull the unhinged back onto their door-frames. In the Open Forum there was some discussion of Rep. Omar (D-Somalia) repeatedly telling a reporter to “fuck off.” This is not a sign of good mental health. Oh, heck, let me scroll though my Facebook feed and see what madness is afoot…Ah! Here’s a meme lacking juuuust a bit of context:

Like so much else I see from this clown corner, it’s too dumb to respond to. Then there are these certifiably idiotic political cartoons, which Steve Witherspoon linked to in the Open Forum. They reinforce my conviction, often stated here, that the entire genre of political cartooning is an anachronism and a vehicle for shallow thinkers to have their infantile analysis given undue gravitas by readers as dim as they are.

Meanwhile…

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Ethics Quiz: The Complimentary Dessert

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

My friend had dinner recently with his wife to celebrate their 38th anniversary at the hotel that hosted their wedding reception. The staff at the restaurant made a big deal over them, and they also gorged on a six-course meal.

At the end of the dinner, the waiter offered them a dessert, compliments, of the house. My freind said that at that point he and his wife felt like Mr. Creosote from Monty Python’ “The Meaning of Life,” so they declined. But, he asked, would it have been unethical to accept the gift without planning on consuming it there, and to ask for a box to take it home?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Would it?

Both my friend and I agreed that it would be crass and thus unethical to accept a gift intended to put an exclamation point on a celebratory meal only to wrap it up in a doggie bag. My mother, as I told him, would have accepted the offer in a heartbeat and asked for a box to accompany the dessert without any qualms at all. My sister, the metaphorical apple that doesn’t fall far from the tree, quickly took our late mother’s point of view when I asked her just now: free food is free food.

What do you think?

“THIS Is CNN!”..Also Incompetent Journalism, Punditry and Moderating

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

“Sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

CNN host Abby Phillips deserved this. She deliberately rigged this segment, stacking it with anti-Trump Republicans ( Shermichael Singleton and the consistently idiotic, Dunning-Kruger victim Ana Navarro) for “balance” and, as usual, leaving token conservative Scott Jennings to hold up the Trump administration point of view all by himself.

The discussion was supposed to be about deporting illegal immigrants, not that there should be much left to discuss. The U.S. should deport as many as it can, as quickly and efficiently as it can, so potential border-jumpers get the message that they are not welcome. What is there to argue about?

That was not a group that could possibly enlighten anyone except maybe a special needs kindergarten class, and Phillips clearly has no moderation or leadership skills whatsoever. Thus the discussion deteriorated into a disgraceful, shouting, rationalization-filled, virtue-signalling brawl with nobody’s words being decipherable over the din, not that Navarro or Singleton are worth listening to anyway.

Ethics verdicts:

Navarro: Incompetent, of course. What does the status of Marco Rubio’s grandfather have to do with 2025 illegal immigration policy? This woman broadcasts her bias and lack of critical thinking skills every weekday on “The View”: why is she deemed fit to participate in any broadcast public policy discussion?

Singleton: Signature significance! “I’m black and you’re not!” Anyone who stoops to that playground-level retort even once should be banned from television permanently

Phillips: Incompetent and irresponsible. If you can’t moderate a discussion better than that (and she could have hardly done worse) you have no business hosting a show.

CNN: Incompetent and irresponsible. The network morphed into “The Jerry Springer Show” so gradually that I hadn’t noticed. If it were an ethical responsible, trustworthy network interested in public service (and we all know it is not), CNN would ban Navarro and Singleton permanently.

First May Open Forum, or “The Ethics That Bloom In the Spring (Tra-La)”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Suddenly there are more stories and events of interest ethically than I can handle, so your contributions to the weekly free-for-all are even more needed than usual.

This is especially true because I am still picking bits of brain and skill off the walls, ceiling and computer screen after the jolt generating today’s first post.

So please, emote here early and often.

Where’s that Windex?

Post Script: That version of the famous song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado,” by the late, lamented D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1966 is 1) way, way too slow 2) exactly the kind of stodgy staging that killed the Victorian pair’s original production company and that gives G&S a bad reputation. I’ve played Ko-Ko in that number four times, and it should be a romp. (When I played the part in high school, I did an Adolf Hitler imitation in one of the encores…)

KABOOM! Well, My Head Just Exploded, and If You Read This, Yours Will Too…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Unbelievable. Outrageous. Disgusting. Amazing.

And yet, oddly satisfying and welcome!

That “60 Minutes” segment on Kamala Harris in which CBS and the once-respected new magazine tried to influence the 2024 election by editing a Harris interview to make her seem like less of a babbling, intellectually-challenged fool — the subject of Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against CBS — was nominated yesterday by Emmys for “outstanding edited interview.”

The revelation that the television industry approves of deceptive partisan propaganda that helps Democrats and advances progressive agendas isn’t the shocking aspect of the nomination. Anyone paying attention know that already. What is head-blowing is that the Emmys would be so open about its bias and rejection of ethics.

The nomination is a direct and flagrant gesture of defiance to President Trump. It is not merely political and partisan, but openly and intentionally political and partisan. Trump sued CBS for $20 billion as a result of this all-time low-point in fair, unbiased, and trustworthy journalism, and should have, if only to make sure the smoking gun “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” episode wasn’t jammed in a metaphorical memory hole as the Axis media continues to pretend that it is interested in informing the American public rather than manipulating it.

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President Trump Sacks Waltz: Good

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

From the New York Times: “President Trump is ousting his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and another senior member of the White House’s foreign policy team, the first significant personnel overhaul of top aides in his second term, according to people familiar with the situation. Mr. Waltz had been on thin ice since he organized a group chat on the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss a sensitive military operation in Yemen and accidentally included a journalist in the conversation.”

Readers will recall that Ethics Alarms issued several posts about the Signal chat debacle, the first of which , on March 24, ended thusly: “This will be an early test of how serious the new administration is about accountability. Someone’s head should roll for this.”

Someone’s head has. It was one of the right heads, too.

Trump’s action is absolutely the ethical and competent course, and should remind everyone, including the lackeys of the news media, that the previous administration didn’t care about accountability, nor competence, performance or merit—just “historic” DEI appointments who could never be fired. President Biden didn’t fire anyone, despite presiding over one of the most inept administrations in U.S. history.

Of course, Presidents are supposed to be demanding and to fire screw-ups, so Trump deserves no special credit for a decision that should have been as easy as it was necessary. Nevertheless, it’s gratifying to know the man in the White House is engaged and has standards he’s devoted to enforcing.

As for me, I’m just glad to get rid of Waltz because that “t” in his name kept making me misspell the last name of Governor Knucklehead in Minnesota.