apologies

The Harry Reid Asian Jokes “Gotcha!”

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments
margaret cho_lead shot

Sen. Reid’s crime: Pretending to be a white, old, male, unfunny Margaret Cho.

I cannot pass up an opportunity to come to the defense of Senator Harry Reid regarding a supposed ethical breach that doesn’t exist.

The Democratic Senate leader was addressing the Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce, and at one point told the audience, “I don’t think you’re smarter than anybody else, but you’ve convinced a lot of us you are.” Later, when another man named Wong came  to the podium, Reid took the microphone and ad-libbed, “One problem I’ve had today is keeping my Wongs straight.”

The horror.

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Henry Rollins Shows Us How To Apologize

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

MeaCulpaWriter, thinker, and philosopher  Henry Rollins wrote one of those columns that you should put aside for a weekend and think about for a while for the L.A. Weekly, essentially condemning Robin Williams for taking his own life. Reading it, I knew that he would regret it pretty quickly. It was obviously fueled by emotion and anger, and I’m familiar with that feeling. It was how I felt when John Belushi died, and it was how I felt when Philip Seymour Hoffman died—so much so that I had written one of those be-sure-to-think-about-it-over-the-weekend-posts when that great actor died, and fortunately trashed it. But I’ve had exactly the same thoughts that Rollins expressed so powerfully—he expresses everything powerfully—and I know I’ll have them again. He wrote:

“Almost 40,000 people a year kill themselves in America, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In my opinion, that is 40,000 people who blew it. Fuck suicide. Life isn’t anything but what you make it. For all the people who walked from the grocery store back to their house, only to be met by a robber who shot them in the head for nothing — you gotta hang in there. I have life by the neck and drag it along. Rarely does it move fast enough. Raw Power forever.”

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Apology Of The Year Nominee: Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

JESSICA_URBINAIn May, I wrote about the wretched treatment of student Jessica Urbina by her high school, Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep in San Francisco. Jessica was humiliated by the school when it refused to include her graduation photo in the class yearbook on the grounds that she had worn a tuxedo rather than a dress. I wrote…

“The rule is sexist, archaic, unthinking, prejudicial, arbitrary, cruel and wrong. The best way to change a rule that is sexist, archaic, unthinking, prejudicial, arbitrary, cruel and wrong is to break it, and see if those in charge have the sense and compassion to do the right thing. The administrators of Sacred Heart Cathedral High School flunked. I doubt that Jessica was even trying to provoke a confrontation: like any normal student, she wanted her image in the most important piece of memorabilia of her high school years to accurately portray her as she was, not as some alien ideal dictated by the Catholic Church. There was nothing to be achieved by banning the photo.”

It turns out that by the time I had discovered the story and commented on it, Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep had already reversed its decision. It wouldn’t normally garner much praise here for that: we have seen legions of stories of schools taking cruel, mean-spirited and idiotic measures against innocent students and then back-tracking later, only because the publicity and public backlash became too toxic. In this case, however, the school announced its reversal with an apology of unusual sincerity and grace, which I will reprint in its entirety: Continue reading →

Political Correctness Delusions #3: A Grovelling TV Anchor, An Archaic Term, A Dishonest Apology, And…The Redskins

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments
And by the way, what is this "hair" they were discussing?

And by the way, what is this “hair” they were discussing?

Really, creating this kind of singled-handed, one passenger Ethics Train Wreck takes some kind of talent; I’m just not sure what to call it.

Here is how Atlanta CBS affiliate morning show host Michelle Burdo managed to turn a hair care segment on her morning broadcast into a controversy for the station, a self-proclaimed racial incident, a pathetic example of political correctness groveling, and, on top of it all, a demonstration of the lack of courage, skill  and candor that now infects her profession:

1. In a hair treatment feature on Monday’s installment of Better Mornings Atlanta, Burdo said to her African American guest, “Let me tell you something. I’m not a colored woman but I have kinky hair just like her and when you straighten it every day, it’s…” I’ll let you guess what it is; I don’t really care. The point is that she said the dreaded “colored woman” phrase that was the approved genteel and sensitive word for African-Americans by the 1920s at least. The phrase was out of favor by the Sixties, although blacks and whites of earlier generations would still use it, like older Americans today will still call women girls, gals, broads and similar anachronisms of a less gender-sensitive time. Continue reading →

Apology Not Accepted: This Principal Needs To Be Fired

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

roosevelt_high_school_yearbook_0618

There are so many things ethically offensive about this story that I hardly know where to begin.

From NBC:

In a statement released Wednesday, Roosevelt High School principal Stephen Strachan said that an unedited draft of the message had been published in the yearbook, rather than the final version he intended to appear. The message borrowed heavily from one penned by a principal in Albany, California, to his school’s class of 2013. Strachan’s message even includes the sentence, “Congratulations to the Albany High School Class of 2013.”

“I sincerely apologize to the Roosevelt community and to the class of 2014 for the inadvertent clerical error causing mistakes to be printed in the 2014 yearbook,” he said. Strachan said that a new version of the yearbook with the correct message and will be given out to students on Friday. The new yearbooks will cost about $800 and will be paid for with funds from the principal’s discretionary fund, Newsday reports.

“I take full responsibility for this oversight,” Strachan said.

According to Newsday, the first and third paragraphs were nearly identical to the California principal’s, with only the second paragraph differing. Strachan told Newsday that he received permission to quote one of his colleagues.

Wait…WHAT?? Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce (Live Performance Division): “Fox and Friends” Host Steve Doocy

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Daughtry

Boy, do I hate when someone does this.

Especially when they do it to me. Unfortunately, for him, the victim this time was Chris Daughtry.

On June 6, the 70th anniversary of the D-Day, Fox and Friends had rocker Chris Daughtry and his band performing (for some reason: D for Daughtry?). Later, during the after-show, host Steve Doocy was overcome with patriotism and bad musical taste and suggested that Daughtry return to sing a “My Country ‘Tis Of Thee” extemporaneously with the other hosts, Anna Kooiman, Clayton Morris, and Heather Childers.

Daughtry, nicely but unequivocally, refused, causing an awkward scene, and also bringing down a barrage of abuse on himself from Fox viewers, so much so that he later felt the need to explain and apologize in a video.

He shouldn’t have. Doocy was way out of line, incredibly so, for someone supposedly in a branch of show business. It is rude and unfair to put a performer on the spot in front of an audience and 1) ask him or her to perform something unplanned and unrehearsed; 2) to request musical services that were not required in the contract, essentially as free entertainment,  and 3) worst of all, to frame it as a patriotic act, making Daughtry look like a villain when he refused, as he should have, when the singer was in truth the victim of Doocy’s clueless presumptuousness.

Doocy and Fox owe Daughtry an apology. No performer, ever, should be put in this  position without his prior knowledge and consent.

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Pointer and Facts: Mediaite

 

Signature Significance For A Ruined U.S. Education System: The Tasteless School Drama Awards Ceremony

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

high_school ruin

How could this happen? I’ll tell you…but first, let’s be horrified together, shall we?

In Bellingham, Washington, the High School’s drama club held an evening awards ceremony.  A parent who attended the ceremony in the school auditorium with her 17-year-old daughter,  who was nominated for an award, reported to a local TV station that the ceremony was, to understate the case, “inappropriate.” In an email to KOMO News, the mother said the teacher, Teri Grimes, a 30 year veteran who is retiring after this year, repeatedly used profanity and told a vulgar joke.  Sex toys were given for one of the awards; the category was “Horniest Stud.” She  wrote:

“I sat there with my mouth open in shock and the final straw was when a joke was told on stage about a teacher, a lawyer and a priest on a plane. The plane was going down and the teacher says we have to save the children. The attorney says ‘Fuck the children!’ and the priest says “Ooooh..Do we have time for that???”

She left after that. Continue reading →

The Pazuzu Defense For A School Board President Who Called A Parent “Chubby-Wubby”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments
Exorcist IV: Pazuzu And The School Board

Exorcist IV: Pazuzu And The School Board

In the “funny but wrong” category:

Raymond Cote resigned as the head of the Mahopac Board of Education in the Putnam County school district (in upstate New York) after an open microphone at a meeting caused him to be overheard saying, “Oh I know, I know. This one here, ‘Chubby wubby.’ She gets fatter and fatter at every meeting. She really does!”

This isn’t political correctness. This is a leader demonstrating contempt and lack of respect for his constituency. Denigrating parents based on weight and personal appearance makes Cote untrustworthy as a school board member obligated to be responsive to parental concerns. He also announced he would not run for re-election. to the board. He got that right, at least.

His apology, however, was ridiculous: he embraced the Pazuzu excuse, in which someone who says something horrible claims that he was somehow not responsible for the words that cane out of his mouth, as when Linda Blair served as the ventriloquist dummy for the demon Pazuzu in “The Exorcist.” Cote emailed an apology to parents:

“I would like to apologize for my choice of words after the close of the board meeting on April 8, 2014, which are regretful. My words were inappropriate and do not reflect my feelings or attitudes. I will strive to regain the trust and respect of the community.”

Interesting!

1. If the words didn’t reflect his feelings, whose feelings do they reflect? Of course they are his feelings. Why would he say something completely alien to what he thinks…unless…it was the demon Pazuzu!!!

2. It wasn’t his choice of words, it was what his choice of words expressed. Is there a choice of words that would be a, kind, civil, respectful and acceptable way to say the parent gets fatter every meeting?

3. The words may have been regrettable, but they were not “regretful.” Maybe finding  a literate, English-speaking head of the school board is an idea whose time has come.

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Pointer and Facts: ABA Journal

 

 

Ethics Quiz: If There Is Going To Be A Racial Double Standard For Bigoted Statements, Can We Please At Least Know What It Is?

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

stop-sign2

Item: Donald Sterling, billionaire owner of the NBA Clippers, while speaking with his mistress/girl friend/ escort in the bedroom, announces that he doesn’t want her bringing black men to Clippers games. In the process, he does not say anything specifically derogatory about African- Americans. He believes the statement is private, and that he is talking to someone he could trust.He was wrong. A recording of the conversation was leaked to the press, and Sterling has been roundly vilified as a vile racist, threatened with a boycott by the players, mostly African-American, in the NBA, fined 2.5 million dollars and banned from the game.

Item: Via Mike Wise, Washington Post sports writer—

“Following Wednesday’s Pacers-Wizards game in Indianapolis, during the time when NBA rules permit media members to be present, the music blaring in the Indiana locker room was filled with vile language: racist, homophobic and misogynist. Afterward, I complained on Twitter that if Commissioner Adam Silver truly wants an inclusive league, he ought to address this (common) practice.”

Result: Wise, who is white, was attacked as a racist. What NBA players listen to in the locker room is none of his business, he is told (but what Donal Sterling says in his bed room is their business.) The NBA has done, and is expected to do, nothing.

Item: Appearing on ESPN where he is a commentator, Charles Barkley, former NBA star (and an African-American), decided to deride the women of San Antonio, Texas as fat. “There’s some big ‘ol women down there,” said Barkley. “That’s a gold mine for Weight Watchers.” He added, “Victoria is definitely a secret. They can’t wear no Victoria’s Secret down there.” A spokesperson for a fat acceptance group protested:

“Making slurs about body size is just as offensive as making comments about body color. One would think being a black man, he’d be more sensitive to having his physical body criticized. It’s totally out of line. He should absolutely apologize.”

Barkley not only refused to apologize, but defiantly challenged anyone objecting to his remarks, jokes or future comments to “change the channel.”  Nobody expects Barkley to suffer any consequences from this series of events.

Item: In 2007, talk show provocateur Don Imus got into a facetious discussion with a broadcast team member about how te women’s basket ball team from Rutgers was “rough looking” and had some “nappy-looking ho’s.” He also referenced Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing,” and the film’s “Jigaboos vs.  Wannabes.” Imus apologized profusely, pronouncing the exchange inappropriate, thoughtless and stupid. Under pressure from various civil rights groups,  WFAN, which produced his show, fired Imus, who has never regained his previous prominence.

Item: In 2013, media professional Justine Sacco tweeted a race-based joke before boarding a plane to Africa: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” A furious cyber mob condemned her as a racist, and demanded her punishment. When she landed in Africa, she learned that she had  been fired.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for today is…

What the hell is going on here?

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ABC Quietly Apologizes For Being An Unethical, Unprofessional, Biased and Unfair News Organization. Not Accepted.

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments
"Oops! Did we use THAT clip! Silly us!"

“Oops! Did we use THAT clip! Silly us!”

“Reporting”—in scare quotes because it was in fact advocacy, character assassination and blatant news manipulation—on the successful totalitarian movement by gay rights advocates to force Mozilla to fire its CEO (for the thought crime of not opposing an anti-gay marriage ballot initiative in California, but rather being so evil as  to exercise his rights of political speech and support the traditional definition of marriage), ABC news accompanied the report on “Good Morning America” with video of a Westboro Baptist Church demonstration, complete with its charming “God Hates Fags” signs.

This, of course, implicitly sided with those, led by the CEO of OKCupid,  trying to rob Brendan Eich of his job for having a different view than the intolerant Left, while imputing to Eich ugly attitudes that there is no evidence whatsoever he possesses. It seem ABC selected the same clip in 2012 in a story about the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling, making the illicit  suggestion in such a choice that there are just two sides in this issue; those who “hate fags,” like the Phelpsians, and those who want all Americans, whatever their sexual orientation, to be able to have their relationships with committed loved ones recognized as a legal marriage.

Mr. Eich has the money and the team of lawyers to make ABC pay dearly for this slur on his character (there is no similarly expensive way to make the network—and the others, for this was just ABC’s turn—accountable for blatant news distortion and advocacy in the guise of “objective news reporting.”), so ABC pulled the false video and issued this wan and dishonest apology: Continue reading →