The Great Stupid

Ugh. The Great Stupid Snags “The Ethicist”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Not only is Kwame Anthony Appiah the most trustworthy and competent of all those who have authored the New York Times Magazine’s “The Ethicist” advice column, he’s also the only one who could be called a true ethicist, as he teaches philosophy at N.Y.U. Thus it is with great disappointment and sadness that I must report that “The Ethicist” has fallen victim to the dreaded Woke Virus, which, has, in the Times’ own lexicon, been “raging” through the paper for quite some time, poisoning its judgment, and as bias does, making its employees stupid.

Given Appiah’s assignment, which is to hand out ethical advice regarding various dilemmas and conflicts posed by correspondents, I would have thought that both he and the Times would have insisted that he practice social distancing and wear a Hazmat suit when visiting the office—maybe even eschew reading the paper. I guess not.

In this week’s column, a reader presented her problem thusly:

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Comment Of The Day: “Council Rock Elementary School, ‘Jingle Bells,’ And When Something Trivial Demands A Strong Response (Part One)”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The infuriating/ridiculous/frightening saga of an elementary school in Brighton, New York deciding to ban “Jingle Bells” inspired several superb posts, none better than the Comment of the Day by Charles Abbott. Mr. Abbott lives in Brighton, and provided much insight regarding this weird episode, which I wrote about here and here. And here is Charles’ Comment of the Day:

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Brighton is a suburb of Rochester NY. Rochester NY is about half way between Buffalo and Syracuse in the western part of New York State.

Brighton is a prosperous suburb, mostly inhabited by households in the upper middle class or professional classes. The suburb of Brighton is contiguous to the City of Rochester. The Brighton Central School District student performance consistently ranks among the 10 best school districts in all of New York State. This has a lot to do with the characteristics of the households who live there, as well as the quality of the teachers and the curriculum.

It’s worth mentioning that a Brighton zip code, 14618, is possibly the “most Jewish” zip code in New York State west of the Hudson River Valley. I live in 14618–offhand I can think of 5 synagogues within a 2 miles of my rhouse–two of them are pretty large by local standards. A Jewish friend of mine pointed out to me that I actually live within an “eruv” (look it up–it was news to me!). I mention this because observers have long noted the tendency of Jewish Americans to lean liberal or Left. The most conservative suburb of Rochester is probably Greece, NY to the NW of Rochester. Brighton tends to be a liberal suburb–upper middle class and liberal–perhaps smugly liberal. Continue reading →

What Is The Appropriate Response To These Companies?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Target puppy

With crime rates soaring in many cities and “smash and garb” raids disrupting large retailers, companies like Home Depot, Nordstom’s and Target are calling on communities to increase policing. By “like,” I mean companies that previously hailed Black Lives Matter and other anti-policing organizations,, festooned their stores, ads and websites with endorsements of BLM as it vilified law enforcement and called for “defunding” the police, and gave large grants to it and other “social justice” movements seeking to reduce police protection of communities across the nation.

It was all part of “The Big Pander” sub-division of The Great Stupid, itself fueled by the George Floyd Freakout, because it makes perfect sense to decide that a single brutal police incident proves that all police are racist menaces. The fake history “1619 Project” and offshoots of Critical Race Theory also were bolstered by these corporations’ cynical virtue-signaling, at a time when catering to criminals is seen as a virtue.

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Casting Ethics And The Great Stupid: So William F. Buckley Was Black…I Did Not Know That!

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Buckley Vidal play

“The Best of Enemies” is a stage adaptation of the film about the 1968 TV face-offs between arch-conservative pundit William F. Buckley and acerbic liberal author and wit Gore Vidal that climaxed with Buckley threatening to punch Vidal is the face. I haven’t seen it (which is now playing in London’s West End) or the film: I was lucky enough to see the original, live. Buckley was fascinating (and often hilarious); Vidal was the perfect iconoclast (I even had a correspondence with him briefly!), so I assume both play and film are at least entertaining. That’s not the issue at hand, however.

The issue is casting ethics. My position as a director and also from the ethics perspective is that a production’s obligations are to the audience and the work being presented, and everything else is subordinate at best. That does not mean that I am opposed to so-called “non-traditional casting;” indeed, I support it (and have done a lot of it as a director) when it benefits the play or musical. When funky casting accomplishes nothing but making activists happy or ticking off woke boxes at the expense of the show’s effectiveness, that’s unethical, plain and simple.

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Weird Tales Of The Great Stupid! Tonight’s Episode: “The Apologetic Gynecologist”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Weird Tales

Gynecologist Ryan Stewart announced that he is redesigning his office, and inquired on Twitter, “I’m asking women. How would you design/optimize a visit to the gynecologist’s office?” Terrified, he realized soon after that he had uttered the unwoke, offensive, excluding word…wait for it…”women.” My God, who in this enlightened age would trust a gynecologist who says “women”? So after being properly chastened on social media, Dr. Steward grovelled in a tweet, 

“Folks have [correctly] pointed out that I [incorrectly] said ‘women’ when what I should have said was ‘folks who may need gynecologic care,’ Stewart tweeted. “I named the practice with this in mind @midwestpelvis, but I find that I still have a lot of internalized/implicit bias.”

He needs to read his own website.  Ryanstewart.com,  informs readers,”Dr. Ryan Stewart is a fellowship trained pelvic surgeon specializing in treatment of women with pelvic organ prolapse, urinary incontinence, and pelvic floor dysfunction.” 

As the Crystals might sing,

“He’s a weenie and he’ll never ever be any good
He’s a weenie ’cause he has to talk like woke people would
And even though it makes no sense and he looks like a jackass
He’ll say anything to grovel for all their love…”
 
Seriously, when will normal Americab with self respect and functioning cerebrums wake up, slap themselves in the forehead, and say, “What? I can’t associate myself with these terrified, pathetic, weak-minded people! They’re nuts! They’re creating a police state of the self-deluded! I don’t want to live in a country that’s so sensitive and frightened of words that a gynocologist has to apologize for saying “women”! Have I encouraged this insanity by tolerating it? WHAT HAVE I DONE???“
 
Cue Major Clipton:

_________________________

Source: The Blaze

EARLY Morning Ethics Warm-Up. 12/6/2021: Christmas, The Great Stupid, Virtue-Signaling And A Fake Olympics Boycott

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Contrary to all predictions, we got our 8 ft, real, live Christmas tree, and it didn’t cost any more than last year. The hero was 40-year neighbor Ted West, who grabbed what we needed at his annual church Christmas tree sale which sold out in less than two days.

It was between Bing and Johnny Mathis for the Christmas season musical kick-off. It had to be Bing.

1. When taste alarms don’t work…Here’s a mall Christmas display.

Crappy Tree

How do these kind of things slip by?

2. Speaking of slipping by… The Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that a jury room in Giles County named after the United Daughters of the Confederacy and decorated with a Confederate flag as well as a portrait of Jefferson Davis mandated the reversal of a jury conviction of a black defendant for aggravated assault. The defendant objected on the grounds that the jury could not hold fair deliberations in such a room. Though the the trial court disagreed, but the appellate court threw out the verdict, concluding that …[b]ecause the defendant established that the jury was exposed to extraneous information or improper outside influence and because the State failed to sufficiently rebut the presumption of prejudice, the defendant is entitled to a new trial.”

I guess they have really suggestible juries in Tennessee. I cannot imagine my deliberation on a a jury or on anything being influenced by the name of the room I was in or what was hanging on the walls. Prof. Volokh notes,

Juries have deliberated in this room for more than four decades. Presumably, every black defendant convicted in that courtroom can now object and secure a new trial. The Court did not address this issue. And other courts in the state, and probably throughout the south, may have similar deliberation rooms, or even courtrooms. If these opinions catch on, countless convictions will be vacated.

The Ethics Alarms verdicts are that a) it is ridiculous that the jury room wasn’t purged of Lost Cause propaganda decades ago, and b) the court’s ruling is irresponsible virtue-signaling. Continue reading →

The Great Stupid And “The Postman Always Rings Twice” Meet NPR!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Abbott-costello-meet-frankenstein-1

Like the classic film starring my favorite comedy team, this is more funny than scary. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving news organization.

An online NPR article and a tweet promoting the story reported that Michelle Wu, just elected as Boston’s  first woman and first person of color mayor, had disappointed some activists with her victory. 

boston-mayor-npr-03

“While many are hailing it as a major turning point, others see it as more of a disappointment that the three Black candidates in the race couldn’t even come close,” the story, like the tweet, read.  This being The Great Stupid, NPR was quickly accused of being racist. Trapped like a rat, NPR’s Boston affiliate apologized and said it had deleted the tweet which was “causing harm”, though all it had done is report, and accurately, the reaction of others in the city, notably the black community. “We realize we don’t always get things right the first time,” it groveled, saying that the  “tweet/headline misrepresented the story.” No, what NPR was really apologizing for is reporting the story, which exposes the fact that black race-activists only care about one race, their own. They did see Wu’s victory as a disappointment. NPR’s sin was telling the truth, instead of being a reliable propaganda organ and spinning the story to the satisfaction of those who want to avoid letting on that the conservative criticism of the Left’s race obsession is legitimate. What “harm” had the tweet done? The harm was not following the approved script and hiding the ugly hypocrisy at the core of progressivism.

Bad progressive lapdog! BAD!

“The story is still Asians vs. Blacks for some unknown reason. The ‘tweet/headline’ was hardly the issue,” one outraged Bostonian tweeted. Unknown reason? Harvard and other elite colleges are rejecting better qualified Asian-American applicants to admit Blacks with lesser credentials. A disproportionate number of the attacks on Asian-Americans hyped by the media was at the hands of Blacks.

Now the  updated tweet says that “many were hopeful Boston would finally elect its first Black mayor,” with “Black activists and political strategists” left having to “reflect on what they can learn from the 2021 campaign season.” But they weren’t disappointed that Boston didn’t elect a black mayor, you see? 

No, I don’t either. What NPR correctly noted is that “many” in Boston and elsewhere in Progressiveland care about color more than character and ability. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “…Andrew Sullivan Finally Sees Clearly That The News Media Is Completely Corrupt And Untrustworthy”

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

idiot meme

This latest opus by Steve-O-in NJ probably qualifies as a rant; I picture him furiously scribbling on paper in a trance, as in “automatic writing” when a medium is channeling Jean Dixon from the beyond. But it’s very good and thoughtful rant. I hope I edited it properly. Oh…I should mention that the tweets above echoing the meme Steve mentions at the start surprised me. I really didn’t think those celebrities could possibly be that stupid.

This is Steve-O-in NJ’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Well What Do You Know! Andrew Sullivan Finally Sees Clearly That The News Media Is Completely Corrupt And Untrustworthy.”

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I saw a meme yesterday that kind of says everything about where the mainstream media and the left (but I repeat myself) are coming from now. It had no picture, it simply said “I want to live in a country where Colin Kaepernick is regarded as a hero and Kyle Rittenhouse is regarded as a terrorist.” I bit my tongue and didn’t say what I was thinking: that ostentatious disloyalty doesn’t make you even close to a hero and let’s let a jury decide what Rittenhouse is, because 1. I wasn’t changing the poster’s mind; and 2. The problem was bigger than those specific examples. Anyone who writes or reposts something like that is in effect saying “I want everyone to think like me and agree with me.” The left and the media have been thinking like that since probably the Clinton days. There’s a reason CNN was then called “the Clinton News Network.”

I have to ask, though, why is Andrew Sullivan just getting this now? Oh, that’s right, the right was opposed to a sudden and seismic cultural shift involving one of the basic building blocks of society, and nothing else mattered, it was all about the belief that heterosexual and homosexual couples were exactly the same and should be treated exactly the same. Single-issue voting is short-sighted, single-issue partisanship is just stupid. Like any other bias, it makes the objective inobjective, the wise foolish, the smart stupid, and the truthful liars.

Dutch missionary Andrew van der Bilj, aka “Brother Andrew” and “God’s Smuggler” used to pray “God, you have made blind eyes see, please make seeing eyes blind,” when he crossed the borders into Communist countries, carrying Bibles and other religious literature that would be considered contraband. Bias seems to do a far better job than God ever did blinding people to a lot more than a few Bibles being brought into an atheistic country.

I wrote three years ago,

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Depressing Dispatches From “The Great Stupid”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

moronic-idiot

I wish I could post each of these separately, but I already used up the extra hour today…

Perplexing Statement of the Week

“I understand one stab, 2 or 3 or 5, but 40 times, that’s like hate.”

That’s Jose Aguirre of Phoenix, pointing to the spot where his neighbor, Rodolfo Garcia, was brutally stabbed to death on Halloween morning. This gets Inigo Montoya’s attention:

Of course, his comment does embody the warped logic of hate crime laws, which we now should recognize as one of the early victories of those who want race and color to confer special advantages in society. I think the word Jose was looking for wasn’t hate but anger, as fury, at least as explained repeatedly by the profilers on “Criminal Minds” when they encountered a death by overkill, is the approved diagnosis with death’s like Garcia’s. I will assume that anyone who tries to stab me to death one, two, three or five times doesn’t like me very much. And frankly, those extra stabs after I’m dead won’t bother me at all. Hey, go crazy, man! It’s your time and energy you’re wasting!

A Minnesota community is confused.

What a surprise.

The city council in the Minnesota city of International Falls voted unanimously last week to prohibit dressing its sort-of famous statue of Smokey the Bear  in seasonal attire during teh year as the local tradition has been for decades. Smokey will no longer don earmuffs in the winter, or fishing gear in the summer, or the wags responsible will face fines.  No,  the iconic anthropomorphic bear cannot sport any  garb other than his traditional blue jeans, belt, buckle and “campaign” hat, with his shovel in hand.

Thank God they dealt with THAT crisis! Continue reading →

On Climate Change Fearmongering

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

As the United Nations COP26 climate summit among of world leaders proceeded, China continued to pledge coal-reducing actions that it has no apparent intention of actually doing, Joe Biden’s Energy Secretary laughed at the idea that the administration would even try to lower gas prices, and both the mainstream media and Big Tech moved closer to censoring anyone who dared to question climate change chic. Climate change hustlers and doomsayers were, as usual, predicting disaster. We are “quite literally” in the “last chance saloon,” said Prince Charles, though why anyone would pay attention to him is a fascinating question. Even Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, condemned leaders for not addressing climate change by accusing them of “a genocide on an infinitely greater scale.” Greta Thunberg accused politicians of not taking “our future seriously.”

Here, climate wackos confronted Sen. Joe Manchin as he stepped off his yacht with cries of “We want to live!” because Manchin has blocked pointless and expensive anti-climate change measures in the trillion dollar infrastructure bill. “Business as usual” will lead to a catastrophic collapse of Himalayan glaciers; and devastating heatwaves in the southern United States, sayeth the New York Times.

Facts Don’t Matter in the Age of The Great Stupid. I’m betting neither the idiots who harassed Manchin, nor “Green New Deal” guru Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, Al Gore, Greta Thunberg or Nancy Pelosi know that the extreme and apocalyptic predictions they are relying on is the IPCC’s RCP 8.5 scenario often described as “business as usual.” “Business as usual” in that scenario literally means no action by any nations whatsoever, so it is already useless—except to cause alarm and panic among those foolish enough to trust the hysterics.

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