I like Ryan Reynolds. Terrible Green Lantern, lousy in the remake of “The Amityville Horror,” but he radiates likability and good humor, and that’s a gift. I especially liked his performance in “Woman in Gold.” But Ryan, who has a new movie out, is being roasted on conservative media and by social media Maga-ites, because of his recent statement about the 1980s.
“Mayday” is Reynolds’ first major movie since “Deadpool & Wolverine” (a disappointment, from my perspective) over two years ago. It’s set as the Cold War was ending thanks to Ronald Reagan, and Reynolds stars as a U.S. Navy pilot who, trapped behind enemy lines, forms a friendship with an eccentric ex-KGB agent (Kenneth Branagh) who loves ’80s American culture. Reynolds told an interviewer that the warm nostalgia surrounding the decade, embodied in shows like “Stranger Things,” misrepresents the turbulent nature of the era:
“When you get far enough away from a time period that’s quite distinct, there’s always a lovely feeling associated with it, almost like you pave over all the trauma with puppy dogs and ice cream. The 80s was a brutal, brutal time for people. It was a fucking mess and people forget that…It was a tremendous strife. Socio political tensions everywhere. We were still pretty fresh off a Cuban missile crisis, which was only 15-20 years before. It’s a tumultuous period, but you look back at it now and you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah. ‘Top Gun.’ Cocaine!’ Like, ‘No!’ It was really scary.”
The mockery has been flying thick and fast. Much of it is unfair and deliberately misrepresents what Reynolds said. Here’s “Not the Bee”:
Playoff creep has made the regular season almost irrelevant in the NHL and the NBA, and Major League Baseball has been struggling with how to avoid a similar fate ever since it stopped automatically sending the two teams with the best records in the American League and the National League directly to the World Series. That last happened in 1968 when there were just ten teams in each league: now there are 15, with six divisions. The champs of each get into post-season play-offs, with three Wild Card teams, mandatory because otherwise random luck can have a mediocre and inferior team making the play-offs by winning a weak division while teams with a better records are left at home watching the games on TV, just because they happened to be competing with stronger teams in their division.
Fairness and perception are the issues at hand, as well as maintaining the quality of the World Series. Last year’s edition, with the L.A. Dodgers squeaking out an extra-inning, deciding game victory over an evenly matched Toronto team, gave the sport a boost that carried into this season. Pairing the Dodger with a mediocre team is a recipe for embarrassment on baseball’s biggest stage. No team with a losing record has ever represented its league, but this season that situation could indeed occur. That highlights a flaw in the system. Now what?
In “How to keep losing teams out of MLB playoffs,” ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle does an excellent job explaining the problem and analyzing potential fixes. Right now, there are just five teams (out of 15) in the American League with winning records: the leaders in the three divisions, and two more teams (including the Red Sox) in the Eastern Division. Those two teams, Boston and the Yankees, seem to have wrapped up the first two Wild Card slots, but six teams, all with losing records, are in contention for the third Wild Card, and a single losing streak by the leaders in the Central and Western divisions could give those losing champions as well. If the American League playoffs started today, the top three records in the league would all reside on one half of the bracket, with the Tampa Bay Rays awaiting the winner of a wild-card series between the Yankees and Red Sox. On the other side of the bracket, the leaders in the Central Division, the Chicago White Sox ,would receive a bye to face the winner between the Astros (72-69), winners in the West, and the Cleveland Guardians (70-70), the third Wild Card.
FanGraphs projects Chicago to win the Central with 84 wins, with Cleveland taking final wild card with 82 wins and Houston winning the West with only 82 wins. Those would be three of the six worst records to ever qualify for the postseason in a full season, yet one of those teams would be guaranteed to play for the AL Championship in the ALCS.
Here are Doolittle’s candidates for remedies going forward. This season, of course, all baseball fans can do is cross their fingers. Doolittle’s commentary will be in quotes:
I resist the temptation to emulate the less labor- (and thought) intensive blog formats of Instapundit and, much of the time, Althouse, which consist of posting a link and a brief comment, along with a substantial quote, followed by “Read it all.”
However, this is one of those weeks when I doubt my life choices that emphasized creativity and windmill-jousting over financial gain, because boy it would be great if I could devote full time to Ethics Alarms without ending up living in a cardboard box…
So while, as usual, the ethics issues battled out here on the Friday Forum are up to you, here are some links to content that might inspire you:
1. This op ed in the Times made my head explode, and it was so dishonest and partisan that an ethical newspaper would be obligated to reject. But this is the New York Times. Typical quote: “As Mr. Trump has pushed for partisan gerrymanders and a voter-suppression law like the SAVE America Act, we’ve seen strong voter turnout in races across the country.” Right. Trump’s at fault for the “partisan gerrymanders.” And partisan hacks like the author regard suppressing illegal voters as “voter-suppression”…
2. Former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who resigned in April, was not just engaging in inappropriate conduct with her staff (and one male member of her security detail in particular), but such flagrant violations of policy, rules and ethics that one has to question her mental stability. I wrote one post referencing her at the time, but the Axis news media soft-pedaled the story, probably because the scumbag in question was a Hispanic female. Three of the women appointed to Trump’s Cabinet had to resign in disgrace. The Inspector General’s report came out yesterday [Gift Link] Yikes. Typical quote from the Times piece:
“During a personal trip to Oregon, the report said, Ms. Chavez-DeRemer asked her driver to take her and the agent to a strip club. She also had the driver go inside with them and asked him to drop money from her purse onto a partially naked performer. When the driver hesitated, the senior agent told him to follow the secretary’s instructions; later, he told the driver not to tell anybody about the incident.”
Read it all.
3. The End is Near for the American Bar Association, writes conservative law professor Josh Blackman. Anyone who watched the disgraceful performance of the ABA’s DEI president being eviscerated by Rep. Gill for her evasive and disingenuous answers while testifying before Congress in July shouldn’t doubt Blackman’s analysis for a second. His article reports that the group is in full ideological capture by the Mad Left, and, as a result, is about to be stripped of its ability to confer accreditation on law schools.
Now do the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers….
Well, I’ll say this for my Trump Deranged Facebook Friends: they are useful for keeping up on that group’s rapidly progressing mental illness, which exhibits symptoms manifesting constant fury over trivia, obsessive behavior, presumptions of certitude, and loss of all perspective. Oh, and hypocrisy! Mustn’t forget hypocrisy.
My friend the Trump Deranged professor posted this today with favor:
“Today, a permanent artistic gift—Joel Shapiro’s “Blue”—was taken from the nation because Donald Trump didn’t like it.
“September 18, join Hands Off the Arts to raise your voice and make sure Trump pays the political price for his vandalism of John F. Kennedy’s memorial and our nation’s cultural center.”
I’m marking my calendar right now!
The alleged vandalism was Trump’s ordered removal of the ugly thing above, which, since I started personally boycotting the monument to one of our most unethical Presidents and his corrupt family dynasty that included a U.S. Senator who left a young woman to die in a submerged car, I had never seen before. Huh. Is the outrage over Trump getting rid of that piece of blue crap more contrived than the fury over the 250th Commemorative coin, or less?
In a risible report, the New York Times informs us that “Blue” is a “towering artwork.” And it fit so well with the neo-Classical style of the Edward Durrell Stone white marble box-shaped Center, too!
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts removed a major outdoor sculpture from the center’s grounds on Wednesday. The work, installed in 2019, was targeted for elimination after President Trump’s takeover of the center, according to internal documents obtained by The New York Times.
The Kennedy Center made no advance announcement of its plans to remove the towering, vivid blue metal sculpture of a stick-like human figure, called “Blue.”
On Wednesday morning, the limbs and torso of the figure were wrapped in protective material; an arm was the first to be removed.
The Kennedy Center confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that the sculpture was being deinstalled and that a foundation dedicated to the artist would determine its next location. It did not say the reason for the removal but noted that the deinstallation of artworks that had been donated or lent was common practice for conservation or preservation purposes.
A news release from around the debut of “Blue” describes it as a permanent sculpture for the grounds.
“We are deeply grateful to Joel Shapiro for the years ‘Blue’ has spent animating our campus and connecting visitors to his vision,” the statement said. “We are honored to have been stewards of his vibrant work and a part of his enduring legacy.”
Mr. Shapiro died in 2025. His daughter, Ivy Shapiro, who is president of his foundation, said in an interview that she thought her father would have been “alarmed” that the sculpture was being taken down from its intended location.
“In Joel’s mind, it was one of his greatest site-specific commissions, which celebrated joy, freedom and creativity,” she said.
Hear! Hear! I know I’ve always seen giant metal stick figures as celebrations of joy, freedom and creativity. Not as much as those inflated wiggly-men, of course, but still.
If there is one thing I do not care to hear knee-jerk progressives bleat about in their ravings, it is President Trump removing a single ugly artwork from the grounds of a public building because “he didn’t like it.” In this case the President showed exquisite taste (for a change) but even if the thing weren’t a big blue metal stick figure, the reason “It stinks!” is still a brilliantly-reasoned critique compared to the Axis and Friends removing over 160 statues from public grounds …
…because a black lifetime petty thug died after an accidental use of excessive force by a Minnesota police officer while he was resisting arrest and over-dosing on drugs.
The hypocrisy—and willful blindness to it—exhibited in this latest episode of “Everything Trump Does Is Terrible And Justifies Impeachment If Not Death!” is…I need a new adjective for “beyond belief.” Let’s see…it looks like I use all of them, and the Thesaurus list doesn’t even include “gobsmacking,” “head-exploding” or the phase that keeps jumping into my mind right now, “so fucking stupid it makes my pancreas whimper.” I guess I’ll go with the Cambridge Dictionary’s more dignified and restrained “impossible to comprehend.”
Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon, died yesterday at 92. She was undeniably an important historical and cultural figure whose impact on American society was significant and predominantly positive. I’ll leave it to others to discuss that.
However, she was also critical to my understanding of how people drift into unethical habits and conduct, as well as my epiphany regarding the rareness of integrity among public figures, activists and celebrities.
Before Bill Clinton was President, Gloria preached the doctrine of inequality of power in the workplace. A woman could not meaningfully consent to social, intimate or sexual relations with a male boss, because he had so much power over her career and welfare. Sexual relations between male superiors and women who report to them was, she said, without exception, illicit, improper, abusive, and constituted sexual misconduct by the man.
Then came Monica. Feminists considered Bill Clinton an ally: I remember the scene in the Oval office where Bill signed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994, handing out pens to jubilant leaders of the feminist movement. When it was beyond denying that Bill had sexually exploited a young female intern; however, Gloria suddenly dreamed up rationalizations to let Clinton, who was and probably still is a serial sexual predator, off the sexual harassment hook.
She did so with gusto, too, in a New York Times op-ed, stunning in its denial of her previous positions. True, she said, there was an apparent imbalance of power between a young White House intern and THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, but “Whatever it was, her relationship with President Clinton has never been called unwelcome, coerced or other than something she sought. The power imbalance between them increased the index of suspicion, but there is no evidence to suggest that Ms. Lewinsky’s will was violated; quite the contrary.”
That was literally the opposite of what she had insisted was the standard before Clinton was useful to her movement. It was also the exact moment that I began thinking about how an objective ethical perspective was missing in our national discourse.
And the last time I cared what Gloria Steinem said or wrote about anything.
I was going to use Marlon’s “The Horror!” clip, but he’s been over-exposed here lately. I decided to use a shot of the 1926 Sesquicentennial of American Independence half-dollar, which carried the face of that infamous autocrat and self-promoting narcissist, President Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge. That coin caused no controversy at all; in fact, I’ve read three Coolidge biographies and not one of them thought it was worth mentioning…because it isn’t. But a commemorative coin bearing the current President’s face (you know, to provide historical context?), now THAT is scandalous. For the U.S. 250th Commemorative coin was released yesterday, and the Axis of Unethical Conduct is furious.
Michael J. Gerhardt, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, says that the coin “violates both federal law and historical practice.”
I smell the Axis “norms” canard again!
“The Department of Treasury is bound to follow federal law. Its efforts to maneuver around federal law are illegal,” Gerhardt tells said. “The fact that the coin is commemorative does not immunize it from being covered by relevant federal law.”
As far as I can see, it does follow Federal law. The Trump Deranged keep pointing to the federal law that states: “Only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities.” Commemorative coins are not currency, however, but collectables. If you spend one of the 250th coins on—what costs only a dollar now?—you’d be an idiot, because they cost more than twice that, and presumably will gain in value over time.
I don’t know how to categorize this. Perhaps the issue is how popular culture and show business make attention junkies out of people, making them do what former “Baywatch” (and “E.T.” !) actress Erika Eleniak is doing: making an exhibition of herself for sickos and fetishists, exchanging any shred of dignity for money.
I confess to always haveing a warm place in my heart for Erika. I first saw her as the girl Elliot kisses like John Wayne kissed Maureen O’Hara in “The Quiet Man” because he was psychically linked to E.T. who was watching the movie on TV. Next time I saw Erika she popped out of a cake naked in “Under Siege,” and then it was on to playing Ellie May Clampett in the movie version of “The Beverley Hillbillies,” then to “Baywatch.” Next came middle age and the fast slide to Hallmark films, then reality shows. Erika had some star power, but she wasn’t exactly Meryl Streep.
Now TMZ brings the depressing report that at 56, Elliot’s true love joined OnlyFans to let foot fetishists pay to see her apparently still-comely feet. Soon she was enticed into more daring peep shows. Erika is earning $10,000 a week, with 1,100 ill people who are eager to pay to gawk at an over-the-hill actress as she debases herself.
I wrote about this phenomenon in April in one of the “Confronting My Biases” posts. But then the OnlyFans sellout was Shannon Elizabeth, whose career, if you can call it that, makes Erika seem like Katherine Hepburn by comparison.
Today Erika has arms covered with tattoos, which, as I wrote recently, is often a symptom of someone coping with deep emotional pain. I can’t find anything exactly unethical in this scenario, except to think that if there weren’t an OnlyFans, someone like Erika would have to find a more promising, nurturing, productive way to find fulfillment in her post-celebrity existance. Now she’s at a dead end, a lucrative one, perhaps, but still perilously close to a life nadir.
In “Nightmare Alley,” Tyrone Power ends up as a carnival geek, biting the heads off of live chickens. That’s worse, certainly, but then his character only starts out as carnival barker who once said of the geek, “I can’t understand how anybody could get so low.”
I wonder what Erika Eleniak, when she was young and gorgeous with what seemed like a vibrant career ahead of her, would have said about women who expose themselves to creepy men, alone, through a video camera in their bedroom.
The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) has filed an appeal of the rejection of its complaint against E. Jean Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan by the Attorney Grievance Committee (AGC) of the New York Supreme Court.
On August 3, the Committee, or rather its Chief Attorney Jorge Dopico, who apparently serves as political gatekeeper, rejected the complaint alleging that Kaplan failed to inform the court or President Trump’s lawyers that Carroll falsely replied in October 2022 to a deposition question about whether anyone else was paying for her lawsuits against President Trump. Carroll replied “No” even though Kaplan knew that the suit was funded by an organization bankrolled by left-wing billionaire and Jeffrey Epstein associate Reid Hoffman.
As the complaint noted, “At that moment, Kaplan knew that answer was false but waited almost six months later until the eve of the trial to correct the record by informing opposing counsel and the court that Hoffman had funded the lawsuits”…
As an exhibit to the Request, Kamenar submitted an Expert Witness Report by noted ethics expert Jack Marshall of ProEthics. His Report concludes: “The deliberate failure of Attorney Roberta Kaplan to follow the requirements of the New York State Bar’s Rules of Professional Conduct was serious and substantial. It caused significant harm to her client’s adversary and the administration of justice in the case at issue, as any distortion of the relevant facts in any matter will. The record, in my expert opinion, demonstrates Ms. Kaplan’s lack of honesty, trustworthiness and competence, rendering her continued engagement in the practice of law to be a threat to the integrity and reputation of the legal profession.”
“If the committee does not reverse the summary dismissal of our complaint, it smacks of a coverup,” Kamenar told the Daily Signal
Readers here know my opinion of Ms. Kaplan’s ethics orientation. I would not publicize the fact that I was hired to issue an ethics opinion for a client, but this client chose to publicize it themselves.
You can read the NLPC appeal here. The original ethics complaint is here. Click here for my Expert Witness Report.
If I have learned one thing writing Ethics Alarms since 2009 is that I don’t know anything, particularly regarding which posts will spark the most interest or the most lively debates. I never expect the usual volume of commentary on my baseball ethics posts (the first ethics post I ever wrote, on the old Ethics Scoreboard, was on baseball: Pete Rose), but yesterday’s quiz regarding Red Sox pitcher Peyton Tolle’s impulsive hug of an opposing player as he applied an inning ending tag spawned commentary that raised some aspects of the incident that I never considered.
[Oh: I’m from Old School Boston. I have always been uncomfortable with hugs of any kind, from any one, for any reason. I have learned over the years when to submit and also when taking the initiative in a hug is expected of me and therefore only polite.]
***
For transparency purposes, I have to disclose that I am a big fan of hugging.
It took a very long time for me to realize that not everyone likes to be hugged, though. Also, that there is a time and a place to hug people.
A workplace setting, for example, that wants to be taken seriously might want to discourage hugging among colleagues and, especially, between superiors and subordinates. An employee that wants to be taken seriously might decide that hugging people in the office undermines that goal. One never knows how another person may react to spontaneous hugging, after all. It might be welcomes, it might be spurned, it might give you an unwanted love interest or it might get you reprimanded by HR.
During a baseball game, a player is expected to be professional. Is it any different from being in a boardroom, a classroom or an examining room?
Ethics Alarms 