Month: October 2021

The Latest Chapter In The Trans Activism Ethics Train Wreck: The Loudoun County School Board Cover-Up [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Ziegler-email-e1634919234589

This scandal was brewing in my Northern Virginia back yard. I was remiss in not raising it earlier.

On May 28 a male student wearing a skirt entered a girl’s bathroom (he “identified as female, you see, so he was within his rights due to a new trans-catering bathroom policy) at a school in Loudoun County, Virginia and raped a freshman girl. Yesterday’s Open Forum marked its first appearance on Ethics Alarms, as Humble Talent linked to his entry on “Humble Musings,” his (excellent) substack site,where he wrote in part,

“This story broke as a result of the father of the victim, Steve Smith, being arrested when he rose to express anger and concern over the policies of the Loudoun County School Board. Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler has just said [in answer to school board member Beth Barts asking if there were sexual assaults in the bathrooms regularly] that “To my knowledge, we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms.” Smith, perhaps understandably, was upset by this, which led to an outburst that quickly became heated, and Smith was arrested and removed from the building.”

Shortly thereafter, the request was made by an activist organization, the National School Board Association ,to the Biden Administration regarding parental outrage at the conduct of school administrators placing school board members in peril, and indeed raising the specter of domestic terrorism. Merrick Garland’s chilling memo, much discussed on the Hill last week, followed. A coincidence, we have been assured.

It would be simplest if you read Humble’s post linked above: my efforts to quote from it have been foiled by WordPress’s horrible block-quote systems which make quotes within quotes a nightmare. But because of the investigative work of D.C. TV station WTOP, we now know that Ziegler, Barts and every other member of the board were aware of the May assault in a high school bathroom thanks to Ziegler’s own email posted above. Now Ziegler and the school board members are sending out statements that attempt to show no deception was intended. Indications are, however, that Ziegler and the entire board wanted the May assault to disappear, especially after the male student involved was transferred to another school and allegedly assaulted someone else. Steve Smith says he was repeatedly told that he needed to remain quiet if he wanted justice for his daughter. Moreover, state law requires “A division superintendent who knowingly fails to comply or secure compliance with the reporting requirements of this subsection shall be subject to the sanctions authorized in § 22.1-65. A principal who knowingly fails to comply or secure compliance with the reporting requirements of this section shall be subject to sanctions prescribed by the local school board, which may include, but need not be limited to, demotion or dismissal.”

What’s going on here?

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Comment Of The Day #2: ‘Ethics Quiz: Superman Ethics’”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I know, I know…enough Superman already. What is this, “Seinfeld”? I was fully intending to have a Superman-free zone this weekend, but Steve-O-in NJ’s deft and historically illuminating comment on the second of the four honored comments on the last ethics quiz could not be ignored.

Here is his Comment of the Day on Steve Witherspoon’s Comment of the Day on “Ethics Quiz: Superman Ethics”

I think it shouldn’t be lost on folks here that Superman first appeared in Action Comics No. 1 in 1938. He came to be during the Depression, when this country was at its lowest and believing in itself the least. He was the creation of two aspiring Jewish writers named Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who first conceived of him as a mind-reading, super-strong, and bald (!) villain given his powers by an experimental drug in a 1932 story called “Reign of the Supermen.” It wasn’t until 1935 that Superman became a hero and acquired his now well-known background, cape, and uniform. They had really wanted to get published in the comics pages as a strip, but when they kept getting turned down, eventually they signed away the rights to Jack Liebowitz, who had just formed Detective Comics, which would later become simply “DC” (although Detective Comics would continue to be published as a title and a year later Batman would debut there, but that’s another story). At least they’d finally see Superman published.

The rest, as they say, is history. However, Superman has, at least to some degree, always been an idealized “man of his times.” In the first few issues he was actually a bit of a smart aleck, and at one point anti-industrialist. Among other things, at one point he but two munitions manufacturers out of business, blaming them for war (THAT vanished with the coming of WW2). A real shocker was early on when he confronted a woman who had murdered someone. She drew a gun on him, whereupon he crushed the barrel out of shape, grabbed her hand, and asked her if she would surrender, “or shall I give you a taste of how that gun felt when I applied the pressure?” She of course surrendered, ruefully admitting that she would get the chair for the murder. Superman pitilessly replied, “you should have thought of that before you took a human life.” Obviously this would not fly now. It gets better when the character takes to radio in 1940, with a slightly modified origin story where he ages on the journey to Earth from Krypton and steps fully formed from the spacecraft, including being able to speak English. At one point he goes to confront a villain at his home, but finds only his Filipino houseboy, who of course speaks with a very exaggerated accent. He proceeds to intimidate him physically, and warn him, including a mild ethnic slur, that if he’s lied to him he’ll come back and kill him.

Continue reading →

Friday Ethics Distractions, 10/22/21: Foot In Mouth Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

foot in mouth Xray

Wow! People sure are saying some stupid things lately!

1. A David Manning Lie of the Month from Joe Biden! The David Manning Liar of the Month was a feature of the old Ethics Scoreboard honoring public figures or corporations that made obviously dishonest statements that they had to assume were harmless because nobody could possibly believe them. Thus Joe Biden really told reporters that he hasn’t gotten around to visiting the illegal immigrant mobs at the southern border because he’s just been too darn busy. All year. And, he added, it’s OK because Dr. Biden has been there. He also implied that he didn’t need to go to the border to see the utter mess his immigration policies have wrought because he’s seen the border

Let’s unpack this, shall we?

  • Joe has had time to go back to Delaware and Camp David, but not where there’s a border crisis of his making because he’s too busy. Does anyone believe that?
  • Let’s be fair: the President shouldn’t have to go to the border if he has competent subordinates to do it and accurately explain what’s going on. However, when President Bush chose not to personally visit the Katrina carnage, he was accused by Biden’s party and its news media of not caring, not doing his job, and, by Kanye West, of being a racist. What’s the standard? Bush felt that all he could do was get in the way. No, said Democrats, he had to go there, see what was happening with his own eyes. If that’s the standard, and I don’t think it needs to be, then why isn’t it also the standard for Biden and the border mess?
  • Talk about the cover-up being worse than the crime: Jen Psaki managed to top herself for mendacity and deflection when Fox’s Peter Doocy asked her why the President felt he had seen enough of the border. Why, she said, because he had been to the border in 2008! She really said that! “And nothing has changed since 2008?” Doocy reasonably asked. No! the President’s paid liar huffed. There’s been no immigration reform since then! And Biden knows President Trump has made everything worse by “separating children from parents” and building a “feckless wall” (whatever that means). So he doesn’t have to re-visit the border to know that, and again, he went there in 2008!

2. Shut up, or start a blog. The dim-bulb royals in exile decided that we need to hear their opinions on two issues. Prince Harry pronounced the First Amendment “bonkers”—yes, Harry, that attitude on the part of your relatives is why England doesn’t govern us any more—and his wife, Meghan Markle, received publicity for advocating paid leave for parents. Neither of these two people famous for being famous have done or said anything that should endow their opinions with any more persuasiveness or newsworthiness than the typical dogwalker’s. Harry was born well; Meghan married someone who was born well. It doesn’t matter what they think, or what they say. It’s not news. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day #4 on “Ethics Quiz: Superman Ethics”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Superman all-American

This, a Comment of the Day by Humble Talent, is the 4th of four fascinating and varied Comments of the Day that arrived quickly after I posted the ethics quiz about the evolving Superman mission statement. Now he’s not fighting for “the American way,” but for ” a “better tomorrow,” which is even more vague than “the American way.” (Consider the positions the far Left advocacy group People for the American Way has promoted.)

The four neatly explain why I made this episode in the culture wars (or was it?) an ethics quiz in the first place. I am pulled to both polls: the “Why should we care about the updating of a motto that is as corny as it comes relating to a comic book character whose importance is historical rather than current when it will have no effect on anything?” reaction, expressed in varying ways by Curmie and Humble, and the “This is part of the death of a thousand cuts being inflicted upon national pride and American exceptionalism by those who don’t like what the United States of America stands for and want to reject the Founders’ vision and the values that have served this nation and its citizens so well” response, represented here in differing shades by A.M. Golden and Steve Witherspoon (and in an upcoming Comment of the Day on Steve’s comment by Steve-O-in NJ).

My analysis is that yes, sometimes, as Dr. Freud would have said if he was a Superman fan, a comic book slogan is just a comic book slogan. I am fairly certain that’s how the soulless DC Comics honchos look at it; that’s how they have looked at everything else. “Gee, how can we get some more publicity and compete with Marvel comics, which everyone thinks is cooler? Let’s kill Superman! Let’s put him in a black and gray costume! Let’s make Ma and Pa Kent young again! Let’s have Superman fight Batman, as ridiculous as that is. Let’s make Superman’s son gay! Let’s make Lois mutate into a Squid-Woman!”

OK, they haven’t done that yet, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Superman’s mission was arguably the last remaining part of his classic intro that wasn’t already retired as outdated. “Faster than a speeding bullet…more powerful than a locomotive…able to leap tall buildings at a single bound”—that one’s great and nostalgic, but I haven’t seen a trace of it in decades. The same goes for the wonderful, “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s SUPERMAN!” At least Superman’s motto is surviving in some form…not that I care. I watched the first Christopher Reeve “Superman” movie and admired the funky, “He can fly!” poetic section as a brave innovation, but the climax where Supie reversed time by making the world spin backwards was one of the most insulting things I’ve ever had rammed into my eyes by a major film, and that was the end of movies with Superman in them for me. And yet…

As I have discussed on Ethics Alarms before, there is a crucial difference between introducing something new and changing something. When a company (or a government) changes something that is already in place, it signals, intentionally or not, that what was in place was wrong, and had to be replaced. That may not be the intent, but that is what it does. The effect may be subliminal, but the change also can be exploited by those who believe that what what has been removed was wrong. It’s a victory for them.

I will give the international corporation that owns the copyright to Superman the benefit of the doubt and assume that its decision was based solely on seeking better penetration in international markets and pandering to the young, who are more likely to assume “a better tomorrow” means defeating climate change, ending “social injustice,” achieving world peace and generally making John Lennon’s twaddle come true. That’s good old fashioned capitalism, as well as classic marketing: appeal to the idiots out there, because their money is as good as anyone else’s.

However, at a time in our history where the foundations of American values are under coordinated attack and the public’s appreciation of its nation’s immense contributions to humanity and the world is being undermined, the symbolic import of stripping fighting for “the American way” from an American hero’s goals should not be ignored, and cannot be credibly denied. DC has allied its iconic character with those who want to dishonor Thomas Jefferson, replace the National Anthem and cripple the Bill of Rights. That’s how it will be seen, and perception, in this case, is reality. The United States needs all the allies of liberty it can get, and that means this is no time for Superman to go woke.

The change was irresponsible and disloyal.

That’s where I come out on the quiz. Now here is Humble Talent’s answer, his Comment of the Day on “Ethics Quiz: Superman Ethics”:

***

I think that we are rapidly falling into a trap, and that it’s in our best interests not to take the bait.

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day (#3) On “Ethics Quiz: Superman Ethics”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Curmie adds a characteristically restrained and nuanced reaction to testerday’s surprisingly provocative Thics Alarms quiz asking DC Comics changing Superman’s mission statement by substituting “a better tomorrow” for “the American way.” Here is his Comment of the Day, the third of four, to “Ethics Quiz: Superman Ethics.” (I hate the scansion too, Curmie.)

***

To the extent that I care at all about Superman, which hasn’t been a lot in over half a century, I’m actually rather ambivalent about this.

Indeed, I rather think we’re about to see a test case of the dictum attributed to P.T. Barnum: that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Taking a step back from jingoistic propaganda is hardly an embrace of totalitarianism. The line apparently was introduced during WWII, and the most famous (to me, at least) iteration is the one linked by Steve-O: the TV show which aired in the Cold War era. We don’t live in those worlds anymore. And certainly the folks who run the franchise have the right to do what they want. (New Coke, anyone?) Similarly, consumers can go elsewhere, and the colorist who resigned in protest is free both to do so and indeed to grandstand about it.

On the other hand, I go back to my debate team days and remember that the presumption always rests with the status quo. Is there a significant reason to make the change? Not that I can see.

More importantly, the literary/dramatic critic in me doesn’t like the new slogan’s scansion.

Is there anything wrong with making the change? Sure. Is there a concomitant upside? Maybe. Would I have done it? Also maybe, but probably not.

Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

Cognitive Dissonance-SMALL

Me, I’m obsessed with fighting the cognitive dissonance scale and ugly schadenfreude, thanks to a celebrity I thoroughly detest being (apparently) innocently involved in a tragedy right out of a “Murder She Wrote” plot.

You, however, can be obsessed here and now abut whatever you choose, as long as it involves ethics, and as long as you don’t express yourself like Alec Baldwin, the poor bastard.

Ethics Quote Of The Month: AP Libel Victim Vito Gesualdi

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Vito-Netflix-walkout

“The media sucks!“

—-Comedian and videographer Vito Gesuald, after discovering that the Associated Press lied about his conduct while circulating his image to news outlets around the country.

A detailed account of this illustrative event is here, but the basic facts are these. During the walk-out of Netflix employees who want the streaming service to censor comedians who dare to make jokes about the anointed untouchables in our culture, currently transexuals (among others),  a counter-protester named Vito Gesualdi staged a mild counter-protest with a sign that read “Jokes are funny.” He makes videos and has a humorous podcast, and was on the scene to support  Dave Chappelle’s First Amendment right to make jokes even if some people find them offensive. Vito was photographed by an Associated Press photographer named Damian Dovarganes, with the result you see above.  But the AP captioned the photo, “Comedian and videographer Vito Gesualdi screams profanities as he engages with peaceful protesters begging him to leave…”

Vito was horrified and understandably so. “Screams profanities?” he tweeted. “Dude, I just yelled ‘I love Dave Chappelle’! The media sucks!”  A bit later, Vito discovered with a Google search  that the falsely captioned photo was turning up everywhere.

“Oh great, it’s a stock Associated Press photo caption so that lie is on dozens of news sites now. Any lawyers in the house? This is BS,” he wrote adding with another tweet, “Worth noting that my co-host Dick Masterson is currently at the hospital getting a CT scan after having his head bounced against a concrete planter by these ‘peaceful protestors.'”
 Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day #2: “Ethics Quiz: Superman Ethics”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Superman of Tomorrow

Steve Witherspoon is the author of the second (of 4!) Comment of the Day reacting to the query as to whether changing Superman’s motto to seeking “a better tomorrow” without any American reference is unethical, as in irresponsible, or disrespectful, or un-American. Here is his intense reaction to “Ethics Quiz: Superman Ethics”:

***

“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” George Orwell, 1984

Propaganda, that’s what Orwell was talking about.

Superman’s motto change; “Truth, Justice, and the American way” vs “Truth, Justice, and a better tomorrow.”.

“Is there anything wrong with DC making the Superman motto change?”

In keeping with what I wrote yesterday that “our society and culture has dramatically changed in the 21st century” I’m going to approach this from a changing cultural viewpoint.

Looking at Superman as a idealisticº cultural icon¹ (that’s what the character is) the answer to the question “is there anything wrong with DC making the Superman motto change” has to be no. The fact that they are changing the motto is signature significant, in that this single act is so remarkable that it has predictive and analytical value showing us how much our culture has actually changed and the act should not be dismissed as statistically insignificant. The Superman comic strip and its motto had an underlying theme that was pure propaganda² and that was to promote the American way of life as good, a huge cross section of our culture has moved away from that idealistic view of America and it’s inevitable that as the culture shifts away from American idealism that new propaganda will replace the old. Out with the old, in with the new.

SPECIAL NOTE: I think it’s very significant that we’re this invested in the motto of a comic strip character that was literally the purveyor of idealistic American propaganda.

All that said…

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day #1: “Ethics Quiz: Superman Ethics”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

WokeSuperman-HP

Well, once again my assessment of what post will generate the most provocative discussion was dead wrong. There were at least four Comment of the Day-worthy responses on the post regarding D.C. Comics’ decision to remove a dedication to the “American Way” from Kal-El’s creed. I’m going to post them all, and I think I’ll leave my own position until after the last one.

First up is A.M. Golden’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: Superman Ethics”:

***

Full disclosure. I love Superman. Since I was a kid, no fictional character has ever supplanted the Man of Steel in my heart. I’ve met several actors from various Superman television shows and films, I’ve been to the Superman Celebration in Metropolis, IL many times. His goodness, his sense of justice, his love for his adopted home, who wouldn’t cheer Superman?

I haven’t read Superman comics in years, though. I can’t keep up with the post-crisis (1980’s revamp) universe and I wouldn’t be able to wrap my mind around Lois Lane and Clark Kent being married anyway. I watched one episode of the new TV series “Superman and Lois” before quitting in annoyance.

Clearly their motivation is more leftist indoctrination. Climate change and illegal immigration are becoming bulwarks of the left and, if Superman battles on behalf of that type of activism, the way he battled the Klan back in the day, it carries weight. Making John Kent bisexual is pure pandering.

But changing the motto is a kick in the face to American ideals. Superman is an American hero. This is another attempt to downgrade American ideals in the minds of readers. A better tomorrow? What’s that? It’s not a tomorrow (or a world) we can all agree on, that’s for sure. Instead of fighting the Klan, he will fight so-called White Nationalists who protest CRT at school board meetings. A better world in the mind of a woke corporation is not something I want Superman taking a part in creating.

That’s unethical.

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 10/21/2021: Looking For That Beautiful Land…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Leslie Bricusse has died, the less famous of the Anthony Newley-Bricusse song-writing team, though he also had hits with other collaborators. Easily the most profitable and annoying of their creations was “The Candy Man,” from the score of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” But it was the opening number from the show that included my favorite among their scores that kept going through my head as I perused today’s ethics developments. There’s a beautiful land out there, I’m sure of it. But it sure is hard to see lately.

1.Yesterday, October 20, had two major ethics milestones attached to it that I should have noted. The first was in 1947, when the Red Scare began its assault on freedom of thought and association as a Congressional committee began investigating the allegedCommunist influence in Hollywood. The unconstitutional investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) grilled witnesses by asking “Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” Those who refused to answer were found in contempt of Congress and jailed. Others, including director Elia Kazan, Gary Cooper and studio heads Walt Disney and Jack Warner, gave the committee names of colleagues they suspected of being communists. It all led to a so-called “blacklist” that kept actors, writers and directors, including some of the most talented in the industry, from working for years.

I thought of those hearings as I watched (as much as I could stand) the disgusting House January 6 riot hearing this morning where Attorney General Garland allowed the prestige of his office to be used for a flagrant abuse of the committee system for pure partisan propaganda of the most bilious sort, executed by the House Judiciary Committee. (More on that later.)

Garland also reminded me of the other ethics event in U.S. history that took place on the 20th: the so-called “Saturday Night Massacre.” Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, an esteemed Harvard law professor so trusted that the Supreme Court once allowed him to argue both sides of a case before it (which was ridiculous), was getting too close to the ugly truth, so Nixon ordered his Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire him. Richardson refused, and resigned. The mantle of AG then fell on Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who also refused to fire Cox, and also resigned. Finally, Solicitor General Robert Bork did the deed, reasoning, as he explained later, that Nixon’s order was legal and not an abuse of power.

As I listened to Garland huminahumina this morning when asked by GOP committee members about this memorandum, which was designed to chill the speech of parents raising their legitimate objections to attempted political indoctrination in the public schools, I found myself wondering if he would have had the integrity and guts to refuse a lawful order by Nixon that nonetheless undermined the Constitution both the Attorney General and the President are sworn to defend. I doubt it. That memo was probably not Garland’s idea, and its goal was to stifle political dissent by using vague words like “harassment” and darkly suggesting that law enforcement would be watching.

Continue reading →