Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

Go into the light! Talk about ethics!

Which reminds me, somewhat related to this post: why in the world did Hollywood re-make “Poltergeist”? After years of avoiding the bad copy starring Sam Rockwell, I finally saw the thing, and it was even worse than I had heard. With the exception of Sam, the cast was inferior, the special effects weren’t so much better that they justified a new version, and the movie lacked any humor or quirkiness, which were the major reasons the first “Poltergeist” was fun despite being completely off-the-charts absurd. Why change the little girl’s name from Carol Ann to “Madison”? Who thought replacing the odd Little Person female psychic (Zelda Rubinstein, above) with a male actor reminiscent of an aging Richard Harris would be an upgrade?

Why not come up with an original idea?

Finally, The Evidence That Proves “Shoeless Joe” Wasn’t Just An Innocent Dupe (And That Hollywood Has Been Glorifying A Creep)

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Don’t you love it when new evidence is discovered that casts new light old historical controversies, or better yet, show that the popular version of history is dead wrong?

A long-buried trial transcript that has been withheld from public consumption for almost a century has finally been published. The case was Joe Jackson v. Chicago American League Baseball Club, a two week trial held in Milwaukee in early 1924. “Joe Jackson, Plaintiff, vs. Chicago American League Baseball Club, Defendant—Never-Before-Seen Trial Transcript” thoroughly disproves the popular image of Shoeless Joe Jackson, the greatest player among the eight Chicago White Sox players who were banned from the game for life after accepting money from gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series.

According to “Field of Dreams” (which also has the .400 batting left-handed hitter hitting right-handed) Joe is wise, passionate, and dedicated to the game. “Eight Men Out” the 1988 film about the scandal, based on author Eliot Asinof’s 1963 book, shows Jackson as an illiterate scapegoat who was not involved in the planning of the scheme and who only agreed to participate after the fix was in, The movie shows a conflicted Jackson telling “Black Sox” manager Kid Gleason that he does not want to play in the first game of the Series. Gleason orders Joe onto the field.

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When Is The Best Apology The Worst Apology?

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

One of the few benefits of the Hamas premeditated murder strike on Israeli civilians and Israel’s perfect response to it (‘OK, enough. You’re toast.’) is that it simultaneously ripped the masks off the corruption and the ethical vacuums in our two most ideologically compromised professions, journalism and education. Of course, the former will do its utmost to avoid reporting on the latter, but who knows? Maybe the truth will finally permeate the walnut shell-sheathed brains of the gullible and apathetic public.

Nah. What am I thinking?

Several professors have announced, often in truly disgusting terms, their belief that the Hamas terrorist attack was justified, and that it is “murder” for Israel to respond with deadly force. One poisoned school, CUNY, apparently has a faculty stuffed with such anti-Semitic fools: here’s a letter signed by over 80 professors and lecturers, including the celebrity ethics dunce Marc Lamont Hill, asserting the whole panoply of anti-Israel talking points. Any parent who allows their children to be indoctrinated at a college that would employ such intellectually dishonest activists as these as teachers is incompetent and irresponsible.

But I digress. Mika Tosca, an associate professor with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, went way, way beyond CUNY’s credentialed leftists in a rant on Instagram:

Yikes. Israelis are pigs, savages, and shit, disgusting and grotesque, and should rot in hell. How do you really feel, professor? Apparently, based on her subsequent post on the matter, she really feels completely differently:

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Enemy Of The People: “Journalists” Promote A Hamas Propaganda Lie

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Breaking! Yet this was entirely fake news..and ABC wasn’t the only major news organization reporting it as fact.

Before we go into that, however, here’s one more disgusting tidbit related to the fake news, widely disseminated by our incompetent news media, that Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza killing 500 Palestinians. Long after it had been decisively proven that a) Israel had absolutely nothing to with any such bombing, 2) no 500 people were killed and 2) the rocket that landed outside the hospital in Gaza was a misfire by Hamas itself, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of the “Squad” told a pro-Hamas rally outside the Capitol today that Israel bombed the hospital. She even broke down in tears over the fictional tragedy. When will the Democratic Party take punitive action against Tlaib for her pro-terrorist conduct as a virtual agent of Hamas? If it doesn’t (and it won’t) when will voters take the responsible course?

Video evidence showed that a rocket was fired from Gaza, exploded mid-air, and then fell down onto the hospital grounds, but Hamas reported the fake story anyway. By early today, more proof had turned up, notably an intercepted conversation between jihadists admitting that a rocket had misfired near the hospital and caused the damage. Video showed no craters, and no massive damage. The hospital itself was not hit because the rocket fell into the parking lot. What damage there was—some burning cars— appears to have been from by burning rocket fuel. The report that 500 people were killed was a fabrication. There were some deaths in the parking lot.

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Cartoon Ethics Quiz: Hamas-Israel Ethics Train Wreck Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The British newspaper The Guardian fired its long-time (over 40 years) cartoonist Steve Bell after he submitted what is being called an anti-Semitic political cartoon (above).

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Does that cartoon justify termination?

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Comment Of The Day (2) : “Perplexed Ethics Thoughts On This Video…”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Now comes the second of three Comments of the Day on the screaming inhabitant of a “gayborhood” and what her outburst means. (We now know this is not a 2023 episode, but that is irrelevant to the issues at hand.) True to his quixotic mission, Extradimensional Cephalopod weighed in with a formula to deal with such people civilly and effectively. I can picture him (it?) trying these methods out on adversaries like Robespierre, Joe McCarthy, Ted Kaczynski and Abie Hoffman: I’d pay to see it. Nonetheless, EC’s methods are worth considering, as EC’s prescriptions always are. This comment launched a substantial thread with much more commentary from “The Squid”: I highly recommend checking them out at the link.

Here is Extradimensional Cephalopod’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Perplexed Ethics Thoughts On This Video…”

***

As it happens, I do have some tools that can help with a situation like this. For starters, both of these people are foolish, but probably not as cripplingly so as it may seem from this incident.

Relevant concepts:

Habits:
Street preacher believes gender/sexual/romantic nonconforming people are hurting themselves.
Person in the neighborhood is stressed when someone shows up in their neighborhood and tells people they need to conform, and thinks others will feel the same way.

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The Wholly Ethical “Cancellation” Of Ryna Workman

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Many NYU law students are indignant and outraged that Chicago-based super-firm Winston & Strawn has withdrawn its offer of employment to Ryna Workman. As president of NYU Law’s Student Bar Association, Workman issued a statement stating that “Israel bears full responsibility” for the long-planned terrorist attacks that left more than 1,300 Israeli citizens dead, including at least 30 Americans.

The law firm had every right and many valid reasons to reconsider its offer to Workman, who had worked at Winston & Strawn as a summer associate. In a statement, the firm said her comments “profoundly conflict” with the firm’s “values.” Yes, that, and there was also a substantial likelihood that having a terrorism-celebrating associate would cost the firm clients as well as risking tension among other firm lawyers. I would add that as a potential client, I would question the judgment of any law firm that would hire someone who showed such a reckless disregard for history, facts, and the impact of inflammatory rhetoric.

Like demented lemmings, other anti-Semites, race-baiters and critical thought-deprived NYU students issued a letter supporting Workman and condemning Winston & Strawn. The firm’s decision is an instance of the “systemic, concentrated violence” Workman has experienced since issuing her anti-Israel screed, the letter claims. That’s novel: deciding not to hire someone is “violence”! The letter’s signatories, including the Black Allied Law Students Association and the Women of Color Collective, declare that NYU is complicit “in the abuses of the Israeli government,” and condemns “the broader NYU administration for not protecting Ryna as a student and important member of our community.” How exactly can any school protect a loud-mouthed student from the consequences of her own foolishness? Oh never mind: people who reason like Ryna and her fans are always victims, and nothing is ever their fault. This is also a good reason not to hire her….or her defenders.

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Landscaper Ethics: Now THIS Is Contrived Ignorance…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I know this is a ridiculous story, but I need a break from the Israel-Hamas Ethics Train Wreck…

In China Grove, N.C., a landscaper encountering a dead body where he was supposed to be mowing, just mowed around the body. 34-year-old Robert Owen, deceased, was dumped on the grounds of an abandoned house, and police are now investigating.

The news media seems to be accepting the excuse given by the landscaper that he thought the body was a dummy left in the field as a Halloween gag. “Don’t know how you can do that,” Owens’ sister, Haley Shue, told reporters. “Mow right beside someone and assume that they’re Halloween decorations at a house no one lives at?” I concur, Haley, particularly since the body was spotted on October 11, almost three weeks before Halloween.

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Unethical Quote Of The Week: “Squad” Member Cori Bush (D-Mo.)

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

“I am grieving for every Palestinian, Israeli, and American life lost to this violence, and my heart breaks for all those who will be forever traumatized because of it. War and retaliatory violence doesn’t achieve accountability or justice; it only leads to more death and human suffering.Today I am introducing the Ceasefire Now Resolution, vital legislation that calls for de-escalation and an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Occupied Palestine, and for humanitarian assistance to urgently be delivered to the 2.2 million people under siege and trapped in Gaza. The United States bears a unique responsibility to exhaust every diplomatic tool at our disposal to prevent mass atrocities and save lives. We can’t bomb our way to peace, equality, and freedom. With thousands of lives lost and millions more at stake, we need a ceasefire now.”

—Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), idiot.

To be fair, I could have found equally fatuous and ethically inert quotes from any of the anti-Semitic, intellectually vapid and ethically-challenged “Squad” members, but all indications have been that Bush is the most afflicted by the Dunning-Krueger Effect of them all, even more than Rep. Bowman of “I thought that pulling a fire alarm would open the door. Who wouldn’t? What’s the big deal?” fame, and the ridiculous AOC. Moreover, the offensive, dishonest and irresponsible statement by Bush came as she introduced an offensive, dishonest and irresponsible resolution urging the Biden Administration to push for a “ceasefire” because the October 7 Hamas sneak attack on Israel civilians was just “armed violence” (not terrorism), ‘American hostages? What American hostages?’, and “the targeting of civilians, no matter their faith or ethnicity, is a violation of international humanitarian law.”

Of course, Israel is not targeting civilians; Hamas, like the evil terrorist organization it is, is using civilians as human shields and hoping for mass civilian casualties to wield as a propaganda tool against Israel. Like so, so many on the Left for too many decades to tote up, Bush, “The Squad” and their ilk don’t get that “war” thingy.

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I’m Shocked…SHOCKED!… To Learn That DEI Policies Harm Black And Hispanic Students!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Back when the Great Stupid was really picking up steam in 2020, the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD), the second largest school district in California with over 106,000 students, announced that it would be overhauling how students will be evaluated as part of a larger “a larger effort to combat racism.” The school board voted unanimously to eliminate yearly grade averages. Meeting deadlines for assignments and classroom behavior would not affect academic grades. The district decided to de-emphasize discipline and penalties for cheating.

This crack-brain approach to education, essentially rejecting everything that had been learned over centuries about how students learn, was justified as way to eliminate the accumulated deficits of “systemic racism.” Soon “Diversity Equity Inclusion” budgets exploded and almost every school system jumped on board the latest fad. This was reparations, not education; no respectable research supported the theory that holding minority kids to lesser standards would help them succeed, but never mind: Fact Don’t Matter to ideologues and race-hustlers.

Now come Jay P. Greene and Madison Marino of the Heritage Foundation’s Center on Education Policy with a study suggesting that black and Hispanic students had “significantly greater learning loss during the pandemic in the school guided by diversity officers than those schooled in districts without one.” Minority students lost more ground than their white classmates, especially in math, the researchers found. “Racial achievement gaps went from bad to worse in these districts.” Of course they did: having an official directing policy who insists that black and Hispanic students not be held to the same standards of behavior or academic achievement as other students—must combat that structural racism!—was guaranteed to undermine minority student success.

The news gets worse: nearly half of the school districts with at least 15,000 students employ a chief diversity or equity officer, and the number is 89% for districts with more than 100,000 students, the study found.

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