Month: August 2021

Wednesday Ethics Catch-Up, 8/4/2021: Isn’t It Systemic?

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

This really is a catch-up, because i never got yesterday’s Warm-Up posted, and a lot has been going on…

1. Systemic denial! Name that rationalization! Governor Cuomo’s ridiculous excuse for his serial sexual harassment—that he’s touchy-feely-huggy-kissy with everyone, not just comely females in the workplace—needs its own rationalization along the lines of “I’m like this to everyone equally, so it’s OK!” it would be a sub-rationalization to #1, “Everybody Does It.” But I am torn: should I name it after the governor, or after George Bernard Shaw’s misanthrope Henry Higgins, who memorably argued (in both “Pygmalian” and the musical based on it, “My Fair Lady,”) that “the great secret…is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls”?

I’m tending toward “Higgins’ Misconception.”

2. Also in the category of reader feedback is my call for answers to this question, raised in the lively thread following the recent Comment of the Day: “How many of the Ethics Alarms readers know Idina Menzel, Kelli O’Hara, Laura Benanti, Audra McDonald, and Sutton Foster? How many could recognize their faces or voices?” My theory: systemic live theater decline…

3. Systemic confusion… Kate Coyne-McCoy, the top Rhode Island Democratic Party strategist and political consultant, sent a now-deleted tweet this week coyly wishing death on GOP Senator Lindsay Graham after his recent positive Wuhan virus test despite being vaccinated.

“It’s wrong to hope he dies from Covid right? Asking for a friend,” Coyne-McCoy tweeted. And who should register a protest but the Black Lives Matter Rhode Island political action committee, which issued a statement condemning Coyne-McCoy’s comments as “extremely distasteful and insensitive.” “Regardless of political affiliation the disregard for human life is unacceptable and should not be tolerated anywhere within any political party,” the group said. “How can we trust someone with such blatant disregard for human life with the will of RI voters?” The group added, “BLM RI PAC strongly urges RI Governor Dan McKee and House Speaker Joseph Shekarchi to call for her immediate resignation, as those views regardless of political affiliation should never be accepted.”

What’s going on here? Is BLM suddenly going bipartisan? Is this a trick? And aren’t they saying that “all lives matter”?

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Breaking! Joe Biden Wins The Gold Medal For Sexual Harassment Cluelessness With His Comments On Gov. Cuomo!

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Biden creepy

Unbelievable.

Jeez, somebody tell him…please? Not only are the President’s comments on the findings released yesterday by New York state Attorney General Letitia James regarding NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s serial sexual harassment, including his call for Cuomo to resign, are embarrassing and inappropriate, they are also…hmmm, let’s see if I can cover them all…

  • …the babbling of an Ethics Dunce and legal ignoramus who still doesn’t know what sexual harassment is, despite having engaged in it for decades as well as having been photographed while engaging in while Vice-President….
  • …a blinding example of hypocrisy and ethics estoppel, since while it is true that Cuomo should resign, Biden, of all people, as a sexual harasser himself, is among the last people on Earth (along with Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein and a few others)  who has any business saying so…
  • …an Olympics-level achievement in ethics ignorance, as it not only pulls down gold medals in Ethics Duncery but also Unethical Quote of the Month, Incompetent Elected Official, Ethics Corrupter, and Jack Marshall Head Exploder (not to mention the blasts, perhaps fatal, also triggered in the craniums of Tara Reade, Lucy Flores, Amy Lappos, D.J. Hill, Caitlyn Caruso, Ally Call, Sofie Karasek, Vail Kohnert-Yount and others who experienced sexual harassment from Biden…

….in addition to the fact that it is an abuse of power and position for the President of the United States to inject himself into the matters of New York State, the justice system, and the fate of a duly elected official put in place by the citizens of New York. Continue reading →

Questions, Theories And Observations On The End Of The Simone Biles Affair [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Biles medal ceremony

Well, the last on Ethics Alarms, anyway, I hope. I wish I could justify not dealing with the “rest of the story,” but I can’t: too much metaphorical ink has been spilled here, there and everywhere over this annoying Ethics Train Wreck.

To bring you up to date, Biles returned to Olympics competition on the balance beam today (well today in Japan) and did well enough to win the bronze medal. She performed back handsprings, flips, split leaps and a double back flip for her dismount, but it was a safe routine not calculated to win. She did not, for example, dismount with the signature move named after her.

What’s going on here? Damned if I know. After debating a number of Biles defenders and reading the relentless spin being offered up by the mainstream media, it is clear to me, at least, that whatever Biles did or didn’t do, said or didn’t say, these people would stick to the established compassionate narrative. Biles, meanwhile, would follow a scripted effort to salvage some of her value as a celebrity cash cow after an Olympics disaster that would have sunk any similarly acclaimed male athlete, and most female ones.

Here’s how the New York Times began its story about Biles, the Greatest Of All Time, aka GOAT, not being able to be better than the third best in a single Olympics gymnastics event:

“Simone Biles didn’t want her Olympics, and perhaps her career, to end with her in the stands and not on the competition floor. It couldn’t end that way, after all, considering everything she had sacrificed to make it to the Tokyo Games. She suffered through years of self-doubt as a sexual abuse survivor after realizing that Lawrence G. Nassar, the longtime U.S. national team doctor, had molested her. And she had endured an extra year of training on aching muscles and painful ankles and dealing with U.S.A. Gymnastics, the entity that failed to prevent her abuse.”

Such shameless framing of an elite athlete’s failure in order to ensure minimal accountability has surely never appeared in print before in a reputable publication. Did any account of Babe Ruth failing to come through for his team in a big game ever begin with a reference to his traumatic upbringing in a shabby Baltimore orphanage? Was Ty Cobb excused for attacking a fan during a game because of the trauma he suffered when learning about the tragic death of his father? [ Notice of Correction: In the original post, I wrote that Cobb’s father had committed suicide, which is what I thought I knew. I was wrong, and should have checked. I apologize for putting more misinformation into the web. Much thanks to LoSonnambulo for alerting me.] No, because the various traumas and tragedies athletes have suffered on their way to triumphs, celebrity, fame, and wealth are irrelevant to their performance in their chosen sports—except for Simone Biles.

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Comment Of The Day: “Sunday Ethics Warm-Up, 8/1/2021: Simone Biles-Free Zone Edition!”[Item #2]

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

David Rohde, a talented theater profession in the Washington, D.C. area and one of the smart ones too, has some thoughtful observations on the performing arts world’s adjustment to the Wuhan virus. Here is his Comment of the Day on Item #2 in “Sunday Ethics Warm-Up, 8/1/2021: Simone Biles-Free Zone Edition!”

I’ll be back at the end to return is volley on the future of live theater…

***

I agree with you that the universal masking requirement at Broadway theaters is likely to depress sales, even among those patrons who don’t yet think it matters. When they actually decide whether to go or not, hesitation is likely to creep in. I’ve been to several masked (and, in these cases, distanced) performances of things during the pandemic, and a universal feeling among the performers – who, yes, sense the audience even if there’s a “fourth wall” involved – is that it’s an odd atmosphere because they can’t read facial reactions.

It appears that performing arts presenters in general are trying to get “through the moment” by issuing clear, simple rules to get their institutions reopened. But if you really want to see a furious reaction, check out what happened after the Metropolitan Opera followed up its earlier announcement of required proof of vaccination with an edict that all children under 12 would simply be banned from the building. (As opposed to Broadway’s approach that families can bring proof of a negative test for their kids who are not yet eligible for vaccination.)

You can argue that fewer operas are geared toward attendance by children of those ages than musicals. But the Met’s announcement appeared to touch several cultural third rails, from an accusation that the opera company was acting in almost a Salem Witch Trials manner to a reaction that the Met was killing all global efforts to prove that opera isn’t only for old people. People posted photos on Twitter (I know I know, Twitter) of having taken 10-year-olds to the Met to introduce them to opera, and numerous people pointed out that actually quite a number of famous operas feature children’s choirs somewhere within their plots. The Met actually has a number of distinct challenges in opening its season on time, and this reaction, even leaving aside the obvious trolls and Twitter fakers who are reacting on that platform, is yet one more hurdle.

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Tokyo Olympics Update: Ethics Lessons From The Losers

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

laurel-hubbard

I’m not going to watch a second of these ethically offensive Olympics—it will just encourage them. But like most big, complex, messy human endeavors, the Tokyo Olympics has triggered some interesting ethics issues. Ethics Alarms has discussed some of them; here are some others:

I. The Transgender Weightlifter

Laurel Hubbard, the first transgender athlete to compete at the Olympics and was generally assumed to be the likely winner since she was a 43 year-old former male competing against young women who had never had the advantage of going through puberty and training while male, was eliminated. She failed to record a single lift in three attempts in Monday’s over-87-kilogram super-heavyweights competition. That’s terrific, since she shouldn’t have been competing at all, but it’s also just moral luck. It doesn’t change the ethics equation in any way.

She had an unfair and artificial biological advantage, and only cowardice in the face of the Woke Army could account for the Olympics allowing her to take her obviously un-female assets (above) into a female competition. This is wrong, and undermines women’s sports, but I feel like it should be obvious, and Ethics Alarms has discussed the issue thoroughly already. New Zealand was wrong to permit her to represent it in the Games; Hubbard was wrong to compete. Women and feminists are foolish to ally themselves with the trans activists who are undermining women’s sports.

It was nostalgic, I must admit, to have the reminder of the mysterious Press sisters, the oddly androgynous Soviet Olympians who set 26 world records between 1959 and 1966 and retired abruptly when the Olympics started checking under female competitors’ genes.

Press sisters

We never found out whether the Press sisters were altered or disguised males, intersex, or women who had been shot up with more male hormones than Arnold Schwarzenegger. But everyone in America knew that having the compete against our female athletes was typical Russian cheating. Good times, good times…

2. The Weird Case Of Novak Djokovic’s Inconvenient Truth

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Monday Morning Ethics Warm-Up: All Sorts Of Games, But Not The Fun Kind…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Wow, the ethics train wrecks that pulled out of the station on this date: Irag invading Kuwait in 1990, the conclusion of the disastrous Potsdam Conference in 1945, and the ascension of Adolf Hitler to dictator of Germany in 1934! Maybe we should just skip August 2 on the calendar like some buildings have no 13th floor…

1. This is good news, sort of…The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey announced that the obscenity charges against Andrea Dick for refusing to take down her “Fuck Biden” banners had been withdrawn by the town of Roselle Park, New Jersey. A municipal court judge had ordered Dick to take down the three flags, finding that they violated the town’s obscenity ordinance, which was ridiculous: the ordinance defines obscenity as anything that “appeals to the prurient interest; depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual conduct as hereinafter specifically defined, or depicts or exhibits offensive nakedness as hereinafter specifically defined; and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” Dick was not calling for a gang rape of Joe Biden. Moreover, his ruling was in direct opposition to the Supreme Court’s landmark 1971 ruling in Cohen v. California. We discussed the case here.

I say “sort of” from a Golden Rule perspective. I sure wouldn’t want her as a neighbor. This is squarely in the “right to be an unethical jerk” category. But the government tried to intimidate her out exercising her right to free speech, and whatever else she is, Dick is not a weenie.

She should give lessons.

2. Today’s American Olympics narcissists: Raven Saunders and Race Imboden. Even though they were directed by the nation they represent not to make political theater out award ceremonies in Tokyo, Saunders, a silver medal winner in the women’s shot put, and Imboden, a bronze winner in foil, went ahead with obnoxious grandstanding anyway. Imboden, who is a serial offender, had a symbol marked on his hand, while Saunders treated fans to this attractive display:

Raven protest

They were protesting injustice or something, as if anyone cares or should care what they think. It’s not their stage to abuse. Apparently there is a big debate over what the U.S. officials and Olympics authorities should do. Easy: send them home, take their medals, and ban them from representing the U.S. again. They were warned.

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Unethical Tweet Of The Month: Speaker Nancy Pelosi

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Unethical tweet Pelosi

Ah. Let us count the ways the Speaker’s tweet is unethical:

1. It is false, meaning true disinformation, not only about the power of the incompetent and untrustworthy Centers for Disease Control, but also regarding the law.

2. How is the tweet still up? Why isn’t Pelosi’s account suspended? She has not only delivered false information about the moratorium, but about limitations on government power. Twitter has been banning tweets from no-name dufusses that make erroneous assertions (or just opinions that Twitter would rather see not made), but complete misrepresentation of the system spread by a high-ranking leader is as serious as it gets. (The answer, I suspect, is that “disinformation” coming from a powerful Democrat is hunky-dory with our Big Tech Masters.)

3. Is Pelosi lying, or does she just not follow the legal news? Either way is unethical for someone in her position. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on two weeks ago that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lacked authority for the national moratorium it imposed last year on most residential evictions as part of the effort to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. They did this knowing the Supreme Court would back them up, because in a narrow 5-4 ruling upholding the moratorium temporarily on June 29, Justice Kavanaugh, the swing vote in the decision, wrote,

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Comment Of The Day: “Anatomy Of An Ethics Train Wreck: The Amazon Warehouse ‘Nooses’”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Amazon nooses

SSM Citizen‘s 6th Ethics Alarms comment is a Comment of the Day (and the previous five weren’t too shabby either.) Here it is, on the post, “Anatomy Of An Ethics Train Wreck: The Amazon Warehouse ‘Nooses’”.

***

Quite simply, you get more of the behavior you encourage. Finding “racism” and “racists” is encouraged and desired, so there will be more of these situations. In my opinion this is an unproven allegation at best. Really? No one has taken photos of these “nooses”? It’s a construction site. Rope ties of that nature are not unusual and are quite useful for a number of situations, such as hoisting equipment or tools up to a higher level. What is the proof that they were used as a threat against, well, anyone?

Unfortunately, ethics and ethical behavior are hard. Ethical behavior is often unpopular and people want to get along to go along, and get on with their lives. It’s easier to make an apology, maybe some kind of restitution for something that may or may not have happened and MAKE THE COMPLAINERS GO AWAY! Except they never will. They have tasted the power, and they want more. Plus, it’s easy. Racism is something that our society condemns. Rather than take on difficult issues that will make the person pointing out those issues unpopular, though maybe proven right in the long term, it’s easier to take the shortcut. Scream about something you KNOW that society will not defend, and pretend to be brave, revolutionary, standing against the tide. Easy satisfaction, lots of publicity, on to the next target. And there will always be another target. The ones who fight back will be smeared and while they may be vindicated later, it might not happen. And in the meantime, lives are still destroyed.

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This Ethics Alarms Rebuke Of Instapundit Is Brought To You By Spuds

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Spuds head small

Proving once again that dog ignorance and breed bigotry knows no partisan, ideological nor erudition boundaries, a bunch of conservatives are spreading false anti-pit bull propaganda. As is often the case, they don’t know what the hell they are talking about.

The impetus was an anti-pit bull abuse organization citing the work of Ann Linder, a Legislative Policy Fellow with Harvard Law School’s Animal Law and Policy Program, who wrote a paper, “The Black Man’s Dog: The Social Context of Breed Specific Legislation,” that argued that pit bulls have been unfairly tied to “gang violence by urban youths, as well as the hip-hop music scene.” The group then made the leap to arguing that anti-pit bull restrictions in the many American cities that have them are racist. Well, that’s demonstrably idiotic: the reason for all of those ignorant laws isn’t racism, but that the legislators passing them know zilch about dogs and are pandering to public hysteria. The hysteria is spread by the news media, popular culture, and a lot of otherwise intelligent people who should know better but don’t, and are too lazy and irresponsible to educate themselves. This group includes Conservative law prof and conservative pundit/blogger Glenn Reynolds. Shame on him.

Here’s the way it goes: since the pro-pit bull group cited a race-baiting Harvard scholar, that meant that the group must be made up of progressives, and thus wrong about everything in Instapundit Land. Conservative site College Fix posted about the foolishness of the “racism” claim. Instapundit host Reynolds snarked to his millions of followers:,

“Academics say fear of pit bulls is linked to… racism? I thought it was more about the biting: “Despite accounting for just 6.5% of all dogs in the United States, pit bulls were responsible for 66% of total fatal dog attacks between 2005 and 2017.” Why aren’t these academics following the science? I think they should be banned for “spreading misinformation.”

HA HA HA! Good one, Glenn! Why isn’t this academic checking his sources before making a high-profile ass of himself by spreading misinformation? As anyone with a smattering of canine education knows, there is no breed called a “pit bull,” but anywhere from four to eight distinct breeds that are lumped together as “pit bulls” by people, apparently like Reynolds, who don’t know a dog from a garden hose.

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Sunday Ethics Warm-Up, 8/1/2021: Simone Biles-Free Zone Edition!

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Tower shooting

I don’t think that we need to debate the ethics of deranged mass shootings. The first one I was ever aware of occurred on this date in 1966. Charles Whitman, a former Eagle Scout and Marine, brought a stockpile of guns and ammunition to the observatory platform atop a 300-foot tower at the University of Texas. He had packed food and other supplies, and before settling in for 90 minutes of deadly target practice, killing some victims from as far away as 500 yards—he was a trained marksman—Whitman killed the tower receptionist and two tourists. He eventually shot 46 people, killing 14 and wounding 32 before being killed by police. The night before, on July 31, Whitman wrote a note saying, “After my death, I wish an autopsy on me be performed to see if there’s any mental disorders.” Whitman then went to his mother’s home to murder her, using a knife and a gun. He returned home to stab his wife to death.

Whitman’s story does raise medical ethics issues. He was seeing a psychiatrist, and in March told him that he was having uncontrollable fits of anger. Whitman apparently even said that he was thinking about going up to the tower with a rifle and shooting people. “Well, your hour is up, Mr. Whitman. Same time next week, then?” The intersection of mental illness with individual rights continues to be an unresolved ethics conflict 54 years later. In addition, the rare but media-hyped phenomenon of mass shootings has become a serious threat to the right of sane and responsible Americans to own firearms. See #5 below.

1. The King’s Pass in show business. A new book by James Lapine tells the antic story of how the Sondheim musical “Sunday in the Park With George” came to be a Broadway legend. Lapine wrote the book and directed the show. The cult musical—actually all Sondheim shows are cult musicals–eventually won a Pulitzer Prize ( you know, like the “1619 Project”) and bunch of Tony nominations. I was amazed to read that the show’s star, Mandy Patinkin, at one point walked out on the production and was barely persuaded to return. Lapine writes that he never fully trusted Patinkin again. Why does anyone trust him? In fact, how does he still have a career? Patinkin has made a habit of bailing on projects that depended on him. He quit “Chicago Hope,” and later abandoned “Criminal Minds,” which had him as its lead. To answer my own question, he still has a career because of “The King’s Pass,” Rationalization #11. He’s a unique talent, unusually versatile, and producers and directors give him tolerance that lesser actors would never receive. Mandy knows it, too, and so he kept indulging himself, throwing tantrums and breaking commitments, for decades. He appears to have mellowed a bit in his golden years.

2. Speaking of Broadway, the ethical value missed here is “competence”…There is more evidence that the theater community doesn’t realize the existential peril live theater is in (the medium has been on the endangered list for decades) as it copes with the cultural and financial wreckage from the Wuhan Virus Ethics Train Wreck. Just as theaters are re-opening, the Broadway theater owners have decreed that audience members will be required to wear masks at all times.

I have one word for that: “Bye!” Maybe some fools are rich, submissive and tolerant enough to pay $100 bucks or more for the privilege of being uncomfortable for three hours. Not me. My glasses fog up when I wear masks. I have been vaccinated; I’m fairly sure I was exposed to the virus before then and had minimal symptoms, and much as I believe in live theater, I will not indulge the politically-motivated dictatorship of virtue-signalling pandemic hysterics. The industry is cutting its own throat, but then theater has never been brimming with logic or common sense.

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