I don’t care about Amber Heard and I don’t care about Johnny Depp. However, when a celebrity says something this stunningly stupid, attention must be paid.

During an “exclusive interview” on NBC regarding her humiliating loss in her defamation trial versus her ex-spouse Johnny Depp, Heard was asked to comment on the fact that Depp’s lawyer said in his closing argument that Heard was “acting” and gave “a performance of a lifetime.” “What do you say to that?”

Heard’s response: “Said the lawyer of a man who convinced the world that he had scissors for fingers.”

Wait, what? Was anyone over the age of six convinced that Depp really had scissors for fingers, much less “the world”? This is the woman whose allegations “must be believed” and that #MeToo warriors found credible? What kind of thought process would permit someone to think that was a reasonable response to utter on television? If that’s how she thinks, then nothing, literally no fantasy, delusion or distortion is beyond her reach.

I just had to get this out of my brain or, like Louis Black’s story about an over-heard inexplicable comment at a restaurant triggering a fatal aneurysm, it might have festered and killed me.

It might anyway…

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Pointer: Not the Bee

I missed a couple of major ethics landmarks by skipping the ethics round-ups the past few days, so let’s catch up, beginning with today. The Ethics Alarms UK contingent has been AWOL from the comment wars of late, but this one’s for them: In 1215, after England’s rotten King John (you know, Robin Hood and all that) had been breaching tradition and law across the land, the barons rose up in rebellion. John, preferring to compromise rather than fight, agreed to sign a document requiring the king to guarantee rights and privileges as well as the freedom of the church. On June 15, 1215, at Runnymede on the Thames, King John set his seal to the Articles of the Barons, which was formally issued as the Magna Carta. It actually did little to restrain John and other British tyrants, but by standing for the principle that a king’s power could be limited by law, it laid the foundation for our own Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Clause 39, for example, stated that “no free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or [dispossessed] or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised…except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.”

On June 13,1966, the Warren Court announced its landmark decision in Miranda v. Arizona, establishing the principle that all criminal suspects must be advised of their rights before interrogation. This was important, but the Supreme Court should not have been the body to compose the now iconic warning, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you.” A clearer example of legislating from the bench would be hard to find, and though the words were clear and well-conceived, they represent an abuse of power and role.

TV writers will be eternally grateful, however.

1. Well, she’s good at grandstanding, we knew that…Yesterday, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a permanent member of the Ethics Alarms Hall of Unethical Officials since she directed that “Black Lives Matter” be painted on a D.C. street, hadg 51-star flags hung along Pennsylvania Avenue. She thus violated the United States flag code passed in 1947, which states, “The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.”

“Ahead of Flag Day, I directed our team to hang 51-star flags along Pennsylvania Avenue as a reminder to Congress and the nation that the 700,000 tax-paying American citizens living in Washington, DC demand to be recognized,” she wrote in a statement. “On Flag Day, we celebrate American ideals, American history, and American liberty. But the very foundation of those ideals, and the basis for our liberty, is representation.” Bowser is correct that the residents of D.C. deserve representation in Congress, but this is not ancient Greece, and city-states don’t belong here. The reasonable solution has always been either for the District to get a voting member or more in the House of Representatives, or, better yet, to become part of Maryland. If DC politicians would drop the non-starting demand to be the 51st state, there might be a workable compromise. DC mayors, however, especially this one, like grandstanding better.

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Have you heard about this? No? How is that possible? After all, we have so many news organizations that should be thrilled and eager to report that a planned school shooting was foiled because–wait for it!—everyone did what they were supposed to do.

The story: Someone driving past by the Walnut Park Elementary School in Gadsden, Alabama saw a man trying to get into the school and looking into cars. The citizen called the police to report what he saw. The man was aggressively trying to get into the school building, and went to several doors, all of which were locked, but the principal, once he was alerted to the threat, checked the doors to make sure. The school administrators then declared a lockdown and called the school resource officer, who called for back-up. The officer reportedly engaged the would-be invader, who allegedly attempted to break into a marked police vehicle and to take the officer’s gun. More police officers arrived on the scene and the individual was shot and killed.

Observations:

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