The Great Stupid

San Francisco Spin, Brought To You By The Great Stupid: “Since Bob Lee Wasn’t Murdered By A Drug Addict, Homeless Person Or Coddled Criminal, The City Is Safe After All, So There!”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

It’s come to this.

San Francisco is one of many irrationally woke cities falling apart in chunks because of “social justice” policies that encourage crime, make responsible citizenship difficult, and devastate local businesses. “The City by the Bay” is a particularly depressing case study in the nationwide phenomenon, with the city’s most storied locations marred by human feces, discarded drug paraphernalia, and obstreperously entitled homeless. Meanwhile, businesses are fleeing because shoplifting has become epidemic.

When Bob Lee, the former chief technology officer of Square and one of the founders of Cash App, was stabbed to death ten days ago, his high-profile murder was pointed to by social media critics and conservative pundits as more evidence of San Francisco’s decline as its culture embraces progressive cant over the lessons of civilization. Ah, but this week a rival tech entrepreneur was arrested for the murder, prompting the city’s defenders–and the defenders of its bonkers policies— to launch into one of the most bizarre victory laps ever conceived.

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Lyric Political Correctness In “The Little Mermaid”: Not Unethical, Just “The Great Stupid” Doing What It Does…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

From the Ethics Alarms mailbag came an inquiry about the latest kerfuffle over the upcoming live action version of “The Little Mermaid.” There are two great production numbers in the original, both sung by a crab: the Academy Award-winning “Under the Sea” and the more sedate “Kiss the Girl,” in which Ariel’s devoted crustacean friend urges Prince Eric, Ariel’s secret love, to take the plunge and kiss the magically land-bound fish-woman.

Here are the original lyrics:

There you see her
Sitting there across the way
She don’t got a lot to say
But there’s something about her
And you don’t know why
But you’re dying to try
You wanna kiss the girl

Yes, you want her
Look at her, you know you do
Possible she wants you too
There is one way to ask her
It don’t take a word
Not a single word
Go on and kiss the girl

Sing with me now
Sha-la-la-la-la-la
My oh my
Look like the boy too shy
Ain’t gonna kiss the girl
Sha-la-la-la-la-la
Ain’t that sad?
Ain’t it a shame?
Too bad, he gonna miss the girl

Now’s your moment (ya, ya, ya)
Floating in a blue lagoon (ya, ya, ya)
Boy, you better do it soon
No time will be better (ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya)
She don’t say a word
And she won’t say a word
Until you kiss the girl

Sha-la-la-la-la-la
Don’t be scared (sha-la, sha-la-la ya, ya, ya)
You got the mood prepared (woah, woah)
Go on and kiss the girl
Sha-la-la-la-la-la
Don’t stop now (sha-la, sha-la-la ya, ya, ya)
Don’t try to hide it how
You want to kiss the girl (woah, woah)
Sha-la-la-la-la-la
Float along (sha-la, sha-la-la)
And listen to the song
The song say kiss the girl (woah, woah)
Sha-la-la-la-la-la
The music play (ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya)
Do what the music say
You got to kiss the girl
You’ve got to kiss the girl
Oh, don’t you wanna kiss the girl
You’ve gotta kiss the girl
Go on and kiss the girl

Via the surviving member of the team that wrote the songs in “Mermaid” (and better yet, “Little Shop of Horrors”), Alan Menken, we learned this week that Disney, which is too woke for its own good these days (and ours), ordered up some lyric changes in the song because “people have gotten very sensitive about the idea that [Prince Eric] would, in any way, force himself on [Ariel].”

Oh, please.

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No, This Is Not An April Fools Post. It Is A “Great Stupid” Post That I WISH Were An April Fools Post…

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

The standard issue virtue-signaling woke gibberish above introduces Michigan State University’s “Strategic Plan,” which is more virtue-signaling woke gibberish. You can’t “empower excellence” if you “advance equity,” since equity now means “pay no attention to excellence or actual qualifications and ability, the goal is to make sure everyone gets to the same place.” That requires penalizing excellence, or hobbling it. The strategic plan itself is introduced with this consultant-speak blather: “We envision a Michigan State University that has significantly expanded opportunity and advanced equity, elevated its excellence in ways that attach vital talent and support, and has a vibrant, caring community. Our trajectory is positive, and our will is legendary. We can and will achieve more in the decade ahead.”

Ramalalama-ding-dong! But that’s not what prompts this post.

One of the ways MSU seeks to achieve its goals is by limiting WrongThink through the meticulous constriction of language using the excuse of, you guessed it, “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” On the MSU website, this is introduced by this self-contradictory, indeed Orwellian graphic:

Oh.

What????

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Ethics Hero: Avi Silverberg, Whose Pronouns Are “Whatever Lets Me Win”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Avi Silverberg, a Canadian male powerlifting coach, self-identified as a woman last week to participate in the women’s Heroes Classic Powerlifting Meet in Lethbridge, Alberta. (That’s “her” above.) As the current record holder, a transgender male-now-female, looked on, the large, bearded athlete broke the Alberta women’s bench press record. Appropriately, Avi didn’t even try to look like a girl. Priceless.

Silverberg could do this “fair and square” because the truly stupid Canadian Powerlifting Union (CPU) had established a liberal gender self-identification policy (the “Trans Inclusion Policy”) earlier this year, so any male can now compete as a woman as long as he/she feels like a woman on that particular day. “Based on this background and available evidence, the Expert Working Group felt that trans athletes should be able to participate in the gender with which they identify, regardless of whether or not they have undergone hormone therapy,” the policy document reads, deferring to the “inclusivity” guidance from the CCES (The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport)

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The “Shizzle My Nizzle” Saga

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

There are a lot of angles that I was tempted to apply to this Weird Tale from The Great Stupid about a longtime, popular talking head for a Jackson, Miss. news broadcast. It is obviously a “when ethics alarms don’t ring” story, for example. It could be used as evidence of persistent racial insensitivity in Mississippi, or the South, or the nation. The episode might be cited as more evidence that public apologies are usually meaningless, and that after-the-fact trainings for employees who utter words that suggest they have, let’s say, racial, gender and ethnic biases are window dressing and just about useless.

However, I’m going to cite the episode as an example of how broadcast journalists are hired more for their non-intellectual assets than any genuine talent in analysis and reporting, and also to illustrate how incomprehensible the current rules are regarding who can say what during The Great Stupid.

Barbie Bassett (above) was a popular news anchor, weather lady and a traffic reporter for WLBT, an NBC affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi. The former beauty queen—beauty queens are innately talented as journalists, did you know that?—has been a fixture at the station for 23 years, but hasn’t been seen on the air since March 8 though the station hasn’t make any official announcement. She has apparently been sacked, since her image and any traces of her have been purged from the station’s website.

Bassett’s demise was triggered when she participated in a segment on a new variety of wine from Snoop Dogg’s Snoop Cali Blanc wine collection. (Now there’s news the public has a right to know!) Barbie was chattering away and quoted Snoop’s trademark gibberish, “Fo’ shizzle, my nizzle!” “Nizzle” is Snoop for “nigga.” Even though the rapper is featured in national TV ads for a couple of products and treated as a cute and harmless celebrity, white people aren’t allowed to say “nizzle,” though heaven knows why they would want to.

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More Weird Tales From “The Great Stupid”: Neat Pantries Are Racist And Sexist!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Some of the Wokish opinion pieces being belched out of The Great Stupid are so outlandish they transcend being selected as Ethics Alarms “Unethical Quotes of the Month.” A truly deranged quote isn’t unethical so much as it is tragic, even one as brain-melting as this one, from “The Conversation,” a website which risibly claims to provide “academic rigor, journalistic flair.” Yeah, only academic rigor could produce an essay like “Pantry porn’ on TikTok and Instagram makes obsessively organized kitchens a new status symbol.”

Here’s the ‘money quote’, the section that proves beyond all doubt that the only reason to take the time to read this precious, arrogant clap-trap is to gain insight into just how crazy the victim-obsessed Left has become:

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From “The Great Stupid” Files, Ethics Dunce: Katy Perry

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

The simplest commentary on this episode would be, “Oh, grow up.”

A 21-year-old mattress salesman named Trey Louis performed Whiskey Myers’ 2016 song “Stone” as his “American Idol” audition for pop singer Kay Perry and fellow judges Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan. (He wasn’t bad at all.) After receiving a positive response from the three, Louis was asked by Bryan why he’s auditioning out for “American Idol.”

“I’m from Santa Fe, Texas. In May 2018, a gunman walked into my school,” Louis replied, becoming emotional. “I was in Art Room 1. He shot up Art Room 2 before he made his way to Art Room 1. I lost a lot of friends. Eight students were killed. Two teachers were killed. It’s just really been negative, man. Santa Fe’s had a bad rap here since 2018.”

(That doesn’t exactly answer the question, but never mind…)

Perry quickly throttled the other judges in over-the-top emotional grandstanding, first putting her head in her hands and weeping, and then screaming, Continue reading →

“The Great Stupid” Across The Pond: We Helped Save Roald Dahl’s Children’s Books From The Censors; Now They’re Coming For OO7

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

…who might soon be called “008” to soothe readers offended by the number seven. Seven deadly sins, seven dwarves, that creepy Morgan Freeman movie with Gwinneth Paltrow’s head in a box…it’s a touchy number, you have to admit.

I’d like to think in some tiny way Ethics Alarms helped spread the news of the despicable bowdlerizing of Dahl’s classics that resulted in his publisher backing down and adopting the New Coke solution to a fiasco: the anti-authors’ rights business announced over the weekend that it will henceforth offer “Dahl Classic” along with the vandalized “New Dahl.” Yeah, let’s see which sells more copies. There was hardly time to pop the champagne, however: we then learned that Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels are being re-written for “modern readers“to omit alleged “racist language” and “racial references.” The censored novels will be published in April to mark the 70 years since “Casino Royale,” the first in the series, was published.

There’s nothing quite like honoring an author by defacing his most famous works. At least they’re leaving “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” alone. I think.

The indefensible conduct comes after Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, which owns the rights to Fleming’s work, commissioned a review by “sensitivity readers.” The British really don’t get that freedom of speech and expression thingy, do they? Neither does the rest of the world beyond our shores and porous borders. Now watch: U.S. progressives will argue that once again, the United States is out of step with its betters by not censoring literature and movies with the same wild abandon that it pulls down statues.

The disclaimer accompanying Fleming’s reissued novels, echoing Dahl’s publisher Puffin, will read: “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace. A number of updates have been made in this edition, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set.”

If Ian Fleming “might be considered offensive” to the political correctness police, imagine what’s going to happen to Mark Twain.

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Dispatches From The Great Stupid, An Ethics Dunce Family, And West Coast Bizarro World [Link Fixed!]

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

This story is so mind-meltingly stupid that it actually makes me angry.

I am not going to be kind. When woke delusions get this serious, innocent people are going to be hurt. That’s Jennifer Angel above, a small business owner and Oakland baker. She was an anarchist and extreme social justice advocate, as if anarchy doesn’t lead directly to injustice. I’m sure she was a nice person, just permanently crippled by living too long in California and hanging out with aging hippies. Jennifer didn’t deserve to die, and die horribly, but she did: when a thief broke into Angel’s car while she was in it, grabbed something and jumped into a getaway car, Angel chased the thief—after all, that’s what you have to do when there are no police, as Angel wished. Sadly, she got caught in the door of the fleeing vehicle was dragged down the street, her head smashing against the pavement repeatedly. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Angel’s family and friends issued a statement, and it is utopian claptrap for the ages. here is most of it, and when I can’t stand by without commenting, I will interrupt: Continue reading →

Saturday In The Great Stupid Continues: The “Waiting For Godot” Catch-22

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I love this dispatch from The Great Stupid! It has everything…

  • It involves a theater production…
  • It’s woke academia at its worst…
  • Copyright and artistic integrity principles are at issue..
  • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mania is at its core…
  • It’s another “It isn’t what it is” (Yoo’s Rationalization) classic….
  • It didn’t happen here, but I could easily see it happening here, and…
  • It’s really, really, really stupid.

A bit of background: Samuel Beckett, the late Irish novelist and playwright of Theater of the Absurd fame ,best known for his minimalist drama and “Waiting For Godot” in particular, was a cantankerous old coot who didn’t trust directors (with good cause, say I), and directed them in his texts to change neither lines nor character, or risk legal action. Edward Albee was similarly strict on this point, having seen what happens to plays in the public domain (like Shakespeare’s works) when far less talented “artists” decide to make them “relevant.” So if you are going to produce a Beckett play, it’s Beckett’s way or the metaphorical highway.

Oisín Moyne, a fellow countryman of Beckett, was directing “Waiting for Godot” in the Netherlands and auditioned only men for the all-male cast of characters, as he was legally and artistically obligated to do. the college production been in rehearsals since November and was due to be presented at the University of Groningen’s Usva student cultural center in March. (Don’t ask me how or why it would take more than three months to rehearse this play, which primarily involves two guys sitting around talking, but never mind.) Continue reading →