pomposity

Professor Who Most Needs To Get Over Himself Of The Month

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Gilbert Kalonde, a Montana State University assistant professor of technology education, says an employee at the Bozeman, Montana Wal-Mart wrongly listed his occupation on a fishing license as “toilet cleaner” rather than “pompous assistant professor.” This, the toilet cl…er, professor says, constitutes libel, and he is suing for damages because the license has held him up to “hatred, contempt, ridicule.”

Boy, you can say that again. I know I always judge people by what it says on their fishing licenses. Come to think of it, I just judge people harshly if they have a fishing license. Actually, I’m not sure I wouldn’t regard a toilet cleaner as more admirable than a college professor. True, he doesn’t teach at Wellesley….

Why would anyone get upset over something like this? I would be hauling out that license at parties. Yes, that’s not exactly sterling service he got, but it’s Wal-Mart. Besides, based on the law suit, I bet the prof was so insufferable–“See here, my good man, make sure you place the correct occupation on that document, lest my credentials are obscured!”—that the Wal-Mart clerk decided to teach him a lesson in humility. I guess it didn’t work.

The ethical values involved here are proportion, compassion, humility, and kindness, none of which Gilbert Kalonde appears to possess.

At least he has a sense of humor.

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Pointer: Fark

Ethics Dunce: Laurie Penny

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Laurie Penny, in an alternate universe America where we don't bother about trivial things, like saving pompous, ungrateful British journalists.

Laurie Penny was the woman saved from being flattened by a New York cab this week by none other than Ryan Gosling, the dashing actor and and celebrity heart-throb who has already been honored here for his willingness to come to the rescue of others in peril. He pulled her back as the British journalist was about to step off the curb in Manhattan without looking, right in the path of a speeding vehicle.

The celebrity and gossip media went bonkers over this, as you might imagine. After all, a typical headline for this crude segment of the media is that Tia Tequila got a new tattoo or that a Kardashian broke a nail. Let’s see…what’s today’s buzz? Ex-child star Amanda Bynes was bailed out if jail following her DUI arrest, and Heidi Klum filed for divorce. But the attention being paid to Gosling’s good deed just annoys Penny, and, she says, is proof that America is trivial and misguided. In a piece authored for the gossip site Gawker, entitled, “Ryan Gosling Saved Me From a Speeding Car But There’s War In the Middle East So Everyone Calm Down,” Penny exposes herself as the kind of person Gosling might live to regret rescuing. Continue reading →