competence

2020 Election Ethics Train Wreck Update: Well THIS Doesn’t Bode Well…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

spelling problem

That’s the embarrassing first sheet of the more than 100 page lawsuit filed by lawyer Sidney Powell asking that 96,000 ballots (“at minimum”) in Georgia be disqualified. This is apparently the attack on the Georgia election that Powell referred to as releasing “the Kraken.”

Nobody seems to feel it’s necessary to explain that “Release the Kraken” is a reference to the semi-cheesy Ray Harryhousen stop-action film “Clash of the Titans,” which starred “LA Law’s” Harry Hamlin as Perseus, the Greek mythological hero. In the movie (though not in mythology), Perseus defeats the monstrous Kraken, which is released by the bad guys to kill him and Andromeda (it’s complicated). For some reason Perseus, in addition to carrying around Medusa’s head (which turns the Kraken to stone), rides the winged horse Pegasus. Pegasus was the transportation of a different Greek myth hero, Bellerophon. Neither Bellerophon nor Perseus had anything to do with the Kraken, which is not even a Greek myth monster. It’s Scandinavian, and is basically a giant squid.

Observations:

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Saturday Ethics Aftermath, 11/14/2020: Art And Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Brussels statue

1. Movie plot ethics. It’s clear that I have watched far too many movie and TV programs. I am now at the point where certain routine plot and directorial devices not only annoy me, they insult me. I regard these now as disrespectful and incompetent, and in that sense, unethical. I’m not talking about the cliches that still work with the young and uninitiated, like how the apparently dead/injured/ betrayed/ rejected or abandoned character you forgot about is always the one who shows up to save the day. (Among the reasons I love the “Magnificent Seven” so much is that when the one member of the team who had quit shows up to rescue his pals in the final gun battle, he is shot and killed immediately.) I’m referring to tropes that are self-evidently stupid and should seem so for any viewer over the age of 12.

For example,  if there’s a vicious, murdering psychopath chasing you, and you knock him cold with a steel pipe or incapacitate him in other ways, you don’t assume he/she/it is dead and leave the killer there to revive and slaughter you. You make sure the manic/monster is dead. Beat his head to a pulp; heck, cut it off.  This is often paired with another idiotic scene, the ill-timed hug. The world is going to blow in seconds, zombies are coming, crazies are beating down the door: save that passionate embrace for later, you morons! The same applies to long, emotional conversations in the midst of disasters when every second counts. Which is worse, I wonder: the long debate in “Armageddon” between Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck when they have literally seconds to save the Earth from an asteroid apocalypse, or the even longer argument among three fire fighters in the middle of a burning building?  That was in “Backdraft,” and I never quite felt the same about director Ron Howard after that.

2. Statue ethics again.  A new London  sculpture dedicated to Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18th-century writer and feminist hero (and the mother of Mary Shelley) is attracting much hate from art critics and the public.

MW memorial

The work by the British artist Maggi Hambling features a small, naked woman standing on a pillar silvered bronze, set on a cube of dark granite. The overall form is just larger than an average person, and sits well with the park: “Why is Mary naked?” critics are demanding. One Twitter user said: “I had no idea Mary had shredded abs.”

Morons. Read the statue’s base: “For Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759-1797.”  This is not intended to be a likeness of, but a tribute to,Wollstonecraft, whose most famous quotation from her “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” published in 1792, appears on the other side of the base:  “I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.”

Before one starts criticizing anything, it is essential, fair and responsible to know what one is talking about. Every day I send to Spam Hell comments from Ethics Alarms critics who obviously didn’t read the post they are commenting on. I once went to great lengths to get a local theater critic fired who reviewed a show I directed after I saw her walk out before the second act.

On the other side, as a stage director who made being clear my prime directive, I hold the artist partially responsible when a large proportion of viewers don’t understand what is being communicated.

3. Then there is this:

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Rainy Day Ethics Warm-Up, 8/12/2020: More Ethics Thoughts On Kamala Harris [UPDATED!]

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I always thought Glenn Yarbrough was the B version of Gene Pitney, who was better. Did you know that Gene Pitney wrote “Hello, Mary Lou (Goodby Heart)” and “He’s a Rebel”? He’s a singer we don’t usually think of as a songwriter, but like the great Bobby Darin, he was a prolific and a successful one who is in the American Songwriters Hall of Fame. Unlike Darin, however, Pitney didn’t record his own songs, saying in one interview that as odd as it sounds, his best songs were not ideal for his own voice and style.

The melody of “Baby the Rain Must Fall” was the creation of Elmer Bernstein, the acclaimed composer of so many classic film scores, like “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape.”

And thus endeth the pop culture sermon for the day….

More on the scary-horrible Kamala Harris…

1. Well that didn’t take long! Already the narrative is starting that criticism of Kamala Harris is based on racism and sexism, and not her dreadful personality, sketchy past, and career baggage.  Wholly predictable, and designed to keep the public just getting to know Harris from really learning about her by stifling critics. Journalists, of course, can be counted on to stifle themselves when a Democrat has a problematical record.

2. More spin...Dumped “Meet the Press” host David Gregory actually went on the air this morning to say Harris was “the safe choice.” Biden had no safe choices once he was trapped into naming a check-box candidate.  What Gregory meant, I assume, was that she was the least risky in a slate of horrible options. That is true.

3. “How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky?“…I neglected, in last night’s post, to recall this example of Harris’ hypocrisy, from April 2019, when Harris was widely regarded as a frontrunner for the Presidential nomination:

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she believes women who say they felt uncomfortable after receiving unwanted touching from former Vice President Joe Biden.

“I believe them and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it,” Harris said at a presidential campaign event in Nevada.

 

Then, after Harris’s run for the White House flopped and she began stalking the Vice-Presidency, Harris supported Biden and dismissed the accusations of Tara Reade, though she had savaged Brett Kavanaugh based on Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s far more dubious accusations. I can’t wait to hear how feminists explain that one.

I wonder: Who has the greater integrity vacuum, Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris?

Luckily for Harris, if you are “of color,” you can’t be a  hypocrite, or at least no white critic can point out you’re one. Those are the rules… Continue reading →

Observations On Biden’s Choice Of Kamala Harris As His Running Mate [UPDATED]

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

1. Ethics Alarms readers called it! Among those who were willing to choose the least bad of the three choices remaining to Biden, given his mandate to choose a black woman, Harris was the winner.

2. How objectively awful is Kamala Harris? This is the woman Joe Biden placed a heartbeat from the presidency, from the post here of December 3,  2019:

Let us stipulate: the failure of Kamala Harris to thrive in the race for the Democratic nomination for President was not because Democratic voters are racist or sexist.  It is because she was a lousy candidate from the beginning. Checking off boxes is never enough, thank heaven. She is a woman, “of color,” a lawyer and a Senator from a large and powerful state. To top it all off, Harris is relatively young, and attractive. Perfect!

Except it was easy to see that she was an empty suit with a penchant for saying stupid things, often things she couldn’t possibly believe and that contradicted her record as a prosecutor. She said that it was “outrageous” that the Trump administration wanted to deport illegal immigrants who had committed crimes. [Me: “It is not and cannot be “outrageous” to say that any illegal immigrant, criminal or not, qualifies for deportation. To maintain otherwise is to say that the United States cannot enforce its immigration laws, and not only that, it is “outrageous” to enforce the laws. Is that the position of the Democratic Party? “] She said that she supported legalizing pot because it brought people “joy.” You know, like heroin, rape, and child molesting. She said, when Joe Biden correctly pointed out that a President could not ban “assault weapons” by executive order, she responded, “Well, I mean, I would just say, hey, Joe, instead of saying, no, we can’t, let’s say yes, we can.”  Horrified when she saw the exchange,, law prof Ann Althouse wrote, “The transcript cannot convey the feeling and expression in Kamala Harris’s  [ response]. It is so awful, so lightweight and dismissive of constitutional law (and without any of the dignity of constitutional critique.”

There are plenty more catalogued here, and it is hardly exhaustive. Harris flopped because she proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was unqualified to be a Senator, much less a President. As if that wasn’t enough, she couldn’t manage her campaign, which had disintegrated into finger-pointing and defections. When Barack Obama was challenged in 2008 over his lack of leadership experience, he cited the success of his campaign. Slim indeed, but  Harris couldn’t even say that.

As the writing on the wall began to be undeniable, Harris stooped to race- and gender baiting, expressing doubts as to whether a “woman of color” could be elected President (in such a racist, sexist nation, she implied.) No, Senator it’s just that you can’t be elected.

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Ethics Dunces: The U.S. Congress. Again

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Actor Mark Ruffalo (he plays the Hulk in The Avengers  movies, but it wasn’t because of that role) was invited to testify before Congress last year on public policy involving  public health, chemistry, toxicology, and epidemiology. He has no expertise in these areas at all. The reason was that he starred in “Dark Waters,” which I wrote about here.

Ruffalo is a 9/11 truther, believing  that the U.S. government helped destroy the World Trade Center. That would be enough for me to ding him as an authority on anything, but he has embraced other conspiracy theories as well, like this one.

Never mind: he was presented to the public as an authority on pollution whose opinions on environmental matters have weight. The don’t, and they shouldn’t.

This is a repeat offense. Members of Congress are addicted to the unprofessional and insulting stunt of inviting actors and performers to testify as substantive witnesses on topics that they acted about in movies. As a professional director, I can state with absolute certainty that if an actor is really an expert in something their character was supposed to experience or know something about, 1) that actor is very unusual, and 2) there will still be thousands of real authorities who know a lot more.

Nevertheless, Congress keeps doing this, apparently believing that the public is so naive and gullible that they really believe that because a performer credibly pretends to know what a script-writer prepares to make them sound like the know, they really are experts. Sadly, a lot of the public does believe that. (More sadly, a lot of actors do too) Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “From The Ethics Alarms Archives: ‘Age and the Judge’…” And A Current Day Example.

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Pretty late last night, an Ethics Alarms post about mandatory ages of retirement for judges moved JutGory to offer this remarkable Comment of the Day, a tribute to a role model in his life. Coincidentally, it now follows yesterday’s last post, about a failed role model, or perhaps someone who should have become a role model but who never did.

I’m hopping Jut’s comment over a couple of waiting COTDs because I think it’s good to start off the day with some inspiration when possible.

Here is JutGory’s Comment of the Day on the post, “From The Ethics Alarms Archives: ‘Age and the Judge,’ And A Current Day Example.”

Meet Floyd.

And, if nothing else, this is the perfect post in which to mention Floyd.

Floyd was at the top of his class at West Point.

Scwartzkopf was a plebe when Floyd graduated.

Floyd injured himself parachuting into Germany on a training exercise.

He became a lawyer and the consummate Southern Gentleman.

He told me about the time that he handled one of those big divorces and his firm submitted a one-page bill in the amount of over $500,000.00 “For Services Rendered.”

He told me about the time he was able to obtain a Writ of Ne Exeat (I had never heard of it either).

And, after a career of legal practice in Georgia, this principled conservative southern lawyer relocated to the State that Mondale Won.

He did it for two reasons: his wife and one of his kids needed a change of environment because of pollen counts, etc., and Dick.

Dick was looking for a legal partner and Floyd was looking to move north. Dick was Floyd’s exact opposite in every way. Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On This Hilarious Trolling Competition

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

  • The President  wins, obviously. It does not demonstrate good judgment to challenge a master at his own game, on his home turf.

The ethics values at issue: hubris, competence.

  • It’s good to see that Mike Bloomberg is determined to elevate the level of campaign discourse, isn’t it?

Of course, Trump’s trademarked person insults about adversaries’ appearance are unpresidential and infantile, but they are his unapologetic style. Did Bloomberg not watch the 2016 GOP debates, when Marco Rubio lowered himself to Trump’s level with return personal insults only to see his support erode as a result? Did Bloomberg’s advisors?

Running against a President on the basis that he is a boor and an asshole and behaving like a boor and an asshole to do it is both hypocritical and stupid. Moreover, Rubio’s blunder is a matter of record. Bloomberg isn’t doing his homework.

Ethics values: Honesty, integrity, competence, diligence. Continue reading →

The Democratic Party’s Unethical And Irrational Obsession With Diversity, Part Two: Amazingly, It’s Even Worse Than I Thought

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

On December 14, 2019, I posted “The Democratic Party’s Unethical And Irrational Obsession With Diversity” at a point where I concluded that the Left’s diversity con had reached res ipsa loquitur dimensions, at least for Americans still capable of hearing what this res was loquituring despite years of pummeling by consultants and diversity seminars. That would be that “diversity” is a cover word for “quotas and affirmative action.”

I’ve been in some of those seminars; to my undying shame, I’ve even taught a couple for a fee. They are intellectually dishonest to the core, resting on the Bizarro World  argument that more diverse groups and bodies are necessarily better, wiser, and more effective than  homogeneous groups with more ability and talent. This is manifestly nonsense, except that it is not politically correct to say so. Is President Trump’s Cabinet better in any way because Ben Carson is Secretary of HUD? He’s a dolt, as anyone who watched the GOP Presidential debates knows beyond a shadow of a doubt. Is the Supreme Court better because Justice Sotomayor is on it? Read one of her opinions and then try to say that with a straight face.

The proof that diversity activism is a rationalization-based scam is everywhere, with the fact that it is only applied in one direction the smoking res. Nobody argues that NBA and NFL teams would be better of they had demographics closer to the nation’s. The Oscars were attacked because there aren’t “enough” black performers or female directors nominated this year, but no one complains about the lack of diversity in all-black awards shows. The impetus for December post was all the Democratic and mainstream media flesh-rending over the fact that the erstwhile Presidential candidates “of color” had been so weak and feckless that even Democrats had rejected them. “But…but..diversity!”

Pointing to the Washington Post’s assessment of the top 13 people with the best chance of being on the party’s ticket as Vice President—all are women, minorities or both—I wrote, “What subliminal message are Democrats sending to the world when they exclude straight, white men as qualified candidates for Vice-President? That’s easy. They are saying that the party cares more about diversity than it does about leading the nation.”

Diversity without rigging the result can be a valuable measure of how race, ethnicity and gender-blind the culture has become, but the fact that any group or body happens to appear diverse is itself no indication of excellence. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying or deluded.

I thought the bloviating about the Democratic debate line-up was as ridiculous as this sham could get, Boy was I wrong. Continue reading →

Will The Democrats Really Let Someone As Obviously Addled As Joe Biden Be Their Nominee?

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Doing so is per se irresponsible and incompetent.

Before someone tries to play “whataboutTrump” with me, I would remind him, her or it  that in 2016 I wrote that the Republicans had an obligation to refuse to nominate Donald Trump, having failed their obligation not to let him run in the primaries. I was right then, despite the fact that nominating Trump ended up well for the  party, and so far, on balance, for the country, especially when one considers what the Democrats have become. I’m also right about Biden now. If the Democrats expect to catch lightning in a shot glass like the GOP, they are taking a really reckless gamble.

Let’s look at what old Joe said just over the last few days…

  • During a December 29 campaign even in Peterborough, New Hampshire,  Biden completed an attendees question “If we don’t stop using fossil fuels…” with “We’re all dead!”

Now, what is that? Deliberate hyperbole? Outrageous fear-mongering?  Complete ignorance? Nobody has suggested that “we’re all dead” even under the most extreme projections of climate change doom. My guess is that Joe knows nothing about climate change, and that he’s just pandering to the substantial climate change nut-case component of the increasingly hysterical Democratic base. But he could be so stupid that he really believes this.

In addition to the undeniable fact that this is exactly the kind of statement that the mainstream media  pillories Donald Trump for even when it’s clear  s clear can be that he’s exaggerating, Biden’s over-the-top rhetoric feeds the rising Democratic drift toward totalitarianism. If we’re all going to die, then a dictatorship can be justified as a last resort. Continue reading →

The Democratic Party’s Unethical And Irrational Obsession With Diversity

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

There is mass outrage in the Democratic Party, we are told,  over the fact that Cory Booker and Deval Patrick won’t be on the debate stage in December’s candidate’s debate, and neither will former housing secretary Julián Castro, or Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. True, Andrew Yang has qualified, but Asians don’t count as minorities to progressives, because they are so successful and don’t commit many crimes, heaven knows why.  That’s why Harvard can discriminate against them and get away with it. But I digress…

There’s just one reason Yang will be the only non-white candidate on the stage: the other minority candidates couldn’t justify their candidacy, even among the frightening weak competition of Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar. Naturally, Democrats being Democrats and primed to blame any result they don’t like on racism, sexism or bias, this obvious example of democracy working the way it’s supposed to is being condemned.  Well, I should clarify that: It’s working the way I think it’s supposed to, the way the Founders thought it was supposed to, and pretty much the way everyone thought it was supposed to until progressives came up with the moonbat idea that results were only fair if they distributed benefits in strict accordance with demographic percentages, and were even better if they gave an edge to “historically disadvantaged minorities.”

Thus, even though the process of deciding the winners in the slow motion musical chairs of the Democratic nomination game seems to rely on who the voters think is best qualified, that process is, according to moonbattism, bad, as in racist and unfair, if the process doesn’t yield sufficient numbers of contenders with the  right skin shades. The party really thinks like this, or at least significant numbers of the party to render the entire party untrustworthy.

I don’t understand how anyone can responsibly put a party in power that has adopted such an obviously destructive and non-democratic position.

“What message is that sending that we heralded the most diverse field in our history and now we’re seeing people like her dropping out of this campaign?” Senator Booker asked a crowd in Iowa. He darkly suggested that Kamala Harris left the race “not because Iowa voters had the voice. Voters did not determine her destiny,” but because bigotry was afoot.

The message being sent , Senator, was that lousy candidates like Kamala Harris (and you), who bungled every debate and who appear to have no leadership qualities at all, don’t appeal to voters seriously looking for a President rather than a symbol, like Bracak Obama. It is deeply self-serving for Booker to attribute Harris’s failure to racism, since he appeals to even fewer voters than she did, and is also, like her, wearing skin in the darker range.

The New York Times gasps, “The Democratic primary is facing a reckoning. In two weeks, Democrats will gather in Los Angeles for a debate that is likely to feature an entirely white roster. That is not, several candidates and prominent party members say, how the party that emphasizes diversity and fairness should want to represent itself.”

How about the fact that none of the candidates on that stage appear to be competent, trustworthy or responsible? Shouldn’t that be more of a concern than the skin-tones of the various socialists and panderers debating each other?

Not in Democrat Quota Land, I guess. Here’s a howler from the Times that only a thoroughly brain-washed progressive zombie could read without laughing:

“Some blame the rules for qualifying for the debates. The polling requirements give an advantage to candidates who can invest in extensive television advertising to get their name out. Others note, however, that the candidates of color in the 2020 field have not drawn significant support from black and Latino voters.”

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