I was going to post Steve-O-in NJ’s record-setting ( over 4700 words!) essay on the presidency of Jimmy Carter yesterday, and should have, but trips back and forth to the hospital (my Dad had his fatal heart attack in the midst of doing that, and now I know why) interfered with my best laid plans.
Then, last night, I read a head-exploding column by progressive Democratic historian, Kai Bird. His piece is an “it isn’t what it is” classic, as he tries to argue that Carter wasn’t the crummy President he unquestionably was. Bird can’t really do it, since the facts are so damning, the best he can muster being, “His presidency is remembered, simplistically, as a failure, yet it was more consequential than most recall.”
That evokes another terrible rationalization (“It isn’t what it is,” Yoo’s Rationalization, is #64on the list), #22, The Comparative Virtue Excuse, or “There are worse things,” of which “It could have been worse” and “It’s not as bad as you think” are sub-categories. This statement, however, demanded a “Popeye” (“It’s all I can stands, ‘cuz I can’t stands no more!”):
“Jimmy Carter was probably the most intelligent, hard-working and decent man to have occupied the Oval Office in the 20th century.”
Recent Georgetown Law Center grad William Spruance has written a chilling account of how he was treated by the administration at Georgetown Law Center when he challenged the school’s pandemic edicts. he begins “What Happened at Georgetown Law with Covid?” like this:
For questioning Covid restrictions, Georgetown Law suspended me from campus, forced me to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, required me to waive my right to medical confidentiality, and threatened to report me to state bar associations.
The Dean of Students claimed that I posed a “risk to the public health” of the University, but I quickly learned that my crime had been heretical, not medical.
All the harrowing and, for a Georgetown Law Center grad (and former assistant dean and director of development) like me, profoundly embarrassing and depressing details follow. Read it.
Usually Ethics Alarms has a special Presidents Day feature, but not this year. I hope the mood passes, but right now I am thoroughly sick of the office. Three passions have driven the course of my life, beliefs, interest, pursuits, education, relationships and careers: baseball, Gilbert and Sullivan, and the Presidents of the United States. At this moment, I am disgusted with two of the three.
The accolades being heaped on Jimmy Carter as he has announced that he will wait to die with his family near rather than seek more medical care further sours my mood, because it cripples me with cognitive dissonance. All Presidents deserve the nation’s gratitude and respect, and Carter has led a life devoted to public service. Yet he was a terrible President, and did as much damage to the nation in his four years as any modern POTUS—at least until Joe Biden arrived.
1. “Red Joan” Not helping my mood was watching “Red Joan,” the 2019 British film celebrating the foolish Melita Stedman Norwood, a British civil servant who became a KGB spy in the post-war years. She was convinced that she was doing a good and ethical thing to send nuclear secrets to Stalin’s government so the USSR could develop its own atom bomb. The movie is fictionalized enough that Norwood, played by Judy Dench, is given a different name (Joan Stanley), but the beliefs she espouses are accurate representations of Norwood’s various explanations and rationalizations.
She thought Communism was the hope of the future; she thought the Russians “deserved” to have the nuclear advances developed by the U.S. and Great Britain shared with them; she thought the US using the atom bomb to end World War II was mass murder; and she believed that giving the Soviets the ability to wield nuclear power would prevent World War III—and continued to justify her treachery with the last excuse after she was exposed and caught in her 80s, taking credit for “saving millions of lives.”
My head exploded when the British nuclear scientist who was her lover erupted over learning that she had sent his work to the Soviets, telling her it was madness to give such secrets to a “ruthless dictator” like Stalin. “But we didn’t know that then!” Joan protests.
I have been blissfully ignorant of the existence of Andrew Tate (above) until very recently; my life was better before. He is considered a social media influencer, aka “someone with power in the culture without any genuine reason to have it.” Tate was a professional kickboxer who appeared on the British reality show “Big Brother”—which is just as moronic as the American version— and was the source of controversy when his social media posts got him kicked off the show. He began offering paid courses and memberships through his website promoting an “ultra-masculine, ultra-luxurious lifestyle,” as well as sexism and misogyny. Last year, Tate and his brother were arrested in Romania on suspicions of human trafficking. He’s also been charged with rape.
In summary, this creep makes Kim Kardashian seem like Eleanor Roosevelt. But he’s got a buff bod and drives cool cars, so British boys and teens are suckers for his act. In response, British schools, the New York Times tells us, are now spending class time condemning Tate rather than teaching their students math, reading and critical thinking.
“I am sad that I have taken up important curriculum time to talk about Andrew Tate,” Chloe Stanton, an English teacher in East London tells the Times. “But women have to fight enough in society without this type of attitude to deal with.” The Times writes, “Believing that schools are a microcosm of society — and a preview of its future — educators said it was crucial to target Mr. Tate’s influence early. Since last fall, principals have sent letters to parents warning of his reach, and Britain’s education secretary has said that influencers like Mr. Tate could reverse the progress made in countering sexism.”
Once again, we enter the weird realm of offensive or arguably offensive jokes that become public through accident, eavesdropping or betrayal. In such cases, the audience most certain to be offended by the joke learns of it despite the intent of the jokester.
The all-time champion in this category was Nixon/Ford Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz. At the 1976 Republican National Convention (which nominated President Ford, ultimately defeated by Jimmy Carter), Pat Boone asked Butz, then in a three-way conversation with Boone and John Dean, why the party of Abraham Lincoln couldn’t attract the support of more blacks. Butz, who may have been drunk, answered, “Because coloreds only want three things. You know what they want? I’ll tell you what coloreds want. It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit. That’s all!”
As Otter told Flounder, Butz had “fucked up.” He trusted John Dean, who was at the convention as a reporter for “Rolling Stone.” Dean repeated the joke in his published story, and the uproar forced Butz to resign.
The Tiger Woods incident isn’t anywhere near as bad as the Butz episode, but it raised some of the same issues.During the first round of tlat week’s Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club on February 16, 2023, in Pacific Palisades, California, Woods out-drove friend and competitor Justin Thomas. As they walked way from the tee, Woods surreptitiously (he thought) handed Thomas a tampon, a hoary guy-gag meaning “You play like a girl.” But cameras caught the exchange (above), and though Thomas appeared to be amused, others were not. Veteran female sportswriter Christine Brennan’s reaction was typical, as she wrote in part,
I’m guessing most of the millions of fathers and mothers who support their athletic daughters probably have long since retired all their juvenile pranks that were intended to demean the ability of those girls they love and for whom they spend so much time cheering.
But not our Tiger.
No, he employed basic misogyny to insult his good friend Thomas, a knee-slapper of a dig against female athletes: You hit the ball like a girl!…
[W]hen the biggest name in the sport’s history is giddily spreading misogyny down the fairway, it might just confirm a woman’s suspicions about golf and send her to any one of the scores of other sports she can play for the rest of her life without running into a dude playing a juvenile tampon joke.
[Sherry Jackson’s famous turn as a comely android in the original “Star Trek” is a bit of a stretch to illustrate this post, but Sherry was a long-time crush (dating back to her role as Danny Thomas’s first daughter in “Make Room for Daddy”), and I always felt she deserved a better career than she ended up with.]
The tale of Jennifer Angel, the Oakland baker and social justice warrior who was killed in the course of a robbery and whose family asked that her killers not be subjected to punitive justice because that’s how Jen would have wanted it, generated a superb and varied discussion: Well done! The comments to “Dispatches From the Great Stupid, An Ethics Dunce Family, And West Coats Bizarro World” even took a side trip to Star Trek lore. One of the stand-out comments in this stand-out comment-fest was that of A.M. Golden, who generally delivers quality analysis—it also launched the “Star Trek” tangent. I immediately identified it as a Comment of the Day, and over the last eight days, as the metaphorical roof fell in here in Alexandria, my daily failure to post it (for eight days) has rankled me like the knowledge that one has left the bathtub faucet running.
Finally I’m getting A.M.’s COTD up; I apologize for the delay. Here it is (and you might want to check out all the comments; I just re-read them, and the array demonstrates how fortunate Ethics Alarms in its quality of readers):
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This kind of philosophy comes out of the belief that humans are naturally good and that all that is required to make them eternally noble is meeting their basic needs by providing free food, shelter, clothing, education and medical care. Providing these needs will, ostensibly, end poverty which will, ostensibly, end crime and war.
They think they can educate people into rejecting wants, ignoring the example of every socialist country in the 20th century that failed to prevent people from wanting cars, designer jeans and meat.
It is the philosophy behind “Star Trek” and every other utopian futurism that has secular humanism at the core of its philosophy. Continue reading →
No, I’m not ready for the epic job of defenestrating Seth Abramson for his ethics-anti-matter “justification” of re-witing Roald Dahl’s works. It’s not that its going to be difficult— most readers here could do it as well as I can—it’s just going to be tedious and infuriating, and I’m on edge already.
Right now I want to pose a related issue: the song you can hear above from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Fifties Broadway hit “Flower Drum Song.” I hadn’t heard it myself for a very long time, and when it was played on the Sirius-XM Broadway channel, I almost drove off the road. It’s a famous song; Rodgers, as usual, provided a memorable melody to Oscar’s lyrics…but wow. Are there any demeaning female stereotypes that aren’t endorsed in this song? Here are the lyrics:
I’m a girl and by me that’s only great! I am proud that my silhouette is curvy, That I walk with a sweet and girlish gait, With my hips kind of swively and swervy.
I adore being dressed in something frilly When my date comes to get me at my place. Out I go with my Joe or John or Billy, Like a filly who is ready for the race!
When I have a brand-new hairdo, With my eyelashes all in curl, I float as the clouds on air do— I enjoy being a girl!
When men say I’m cute and funny, And my teeth aren’t teeth, but pearl, I just lap it up like honey— I enjoy being a girl!
I flip when a fellow sends me flowers, I drool over dresses made of lace, I talk on the telephone for hours With a pound and a half of cream upon my face!
I’m strictly a female female, And my future, I hope, will be In the home of a brave and free male Who’ll enjoy being a guy Having a girl like me!
I enjoy being a girl! I enjoy being a girl!
I flip when a fellow sends me flowers, I drool over dresses made of lace, I talk on the telephone for hours With a pound and a half of cream upon my face!
When I have a brand-new hairdo, With my eyelashes all in curl, I float as the clouds on air do— I enjoy being a girl!
When someone with eyes that smoulder, Says he loves every silken curl That falls on my ivory shoulder— I enjoy being a girl!
When I hear a complimentary whistle That greets my bikini by the sea, I turn and I glower and I bristle— But I’m happy to know the whistle’s meant for me!
Oh, baby, that whistle’s meant for me!
I’m strictly a female female, And my future, I hope, will be In the home of a brave and free male Who’ll enjoy being a guy Having a girl like…ME!
Clearly, by the criteria adopted by Puffin Books, that song would have to be re-written and censored, because they “regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.” I know women whose teeth would be set on edge right from the title, in which a fully grown woman refers to herself as a girl. As the song proceeds, she checks all sorts of sexist other boxes too, including expressing secret approval of sexual harassment.
Yesterday was a mess, as I was running back and forth to the hospital, trying to keep Spuds calm (he didn’t understand why I kept leaving the house and why Grace was missing), and because when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, detecting ethics dilemmas and issues at every turn. Here are some that stick out…
I was asked to buy two of the Juul vaping delivery sticks, which are sold at 7-11, and which cost about 10 bucks. The vaping system has been a godsend for my wife, who smoked two packs a day for most of her adult life: her lungs, the doctor says, are completely clear, pink and healthy. Nonetheless, the government is trying to send her back to cigarettes, which it refuses to ban ( it certainly could), and threatening to eliminate Juul. When I tried to purchase the sticks, I was informed that 7-11 is prevented by law from selling more than one to a single customer. The law is simply harassment and an abuse of government power. I could come back 20 minutes later and with a different clerk, buy a second one easily.
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The emergency room admitting staff consisted of two grossly obese women wearing baggy sweatshirts and slacks. One was chewing gum. Both mumbled and were barely audible. What a confidence- and trust-building introduction to a hospital! How can any business allow employees to present such an unprofessional image to the public? Quizzing my sister, a health care expert (she wrote some of Obamacare), about what’s going on here, I was informed that health care facilities, including doctors’ offices, are experiencing such a staffing emergency that they have to accept sub-par employees. No, they really don’t. Health care facilities can’t allow unprofessional staff, and they need to pay enough to ensure that employees meet acceptable standards.
Yes, that’s a dead and rotting puffin above. It should be the new logo for Puffin Books, a division of Penguin. According to Wikipedia, “it has been among the largest publishers of children’s books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world” since the 1960s. According to the Penguin website, Puffin Books is “prestigious.”
According to Ethics Alarms, the children’s book publisher has no regard for authors’ rights, integrity, fairness, literature or language, all rather crucial to its trade, wouldn’t you say? What’s happened at Puffin? Well, what’s happened to Disney, elementary schools and toy makers? ( Clue: Mattel has a gender-fluid line of Barbies).
Puffin has decided that the demands of wokism, political correctness and child indoctrination justify rewriting the works of iconic British author Roald Dahl. Since Dahl’s death, Puffin has made hundreds of changes to his childen’s classics, removing words and passages that The Wonderfully Woke might consider offensive or harmful, even to the extent of adding passages that Dahl never wrote.
What?? I’m assuming that Puffin owns the rights to the books somehow and can do this legally. You want to know why authors like Samuel Beckett made sure his estate had iron-clad control over his works? THIS is why. Please note: it doesn’t matter one whit that Puffin can allow some anonymous censor to rewrite “Charlie and the Choaolate Factory,” it is throbbingly unethical for it to do so.
In the original edition of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” Grandma Josephine speaks of a “crazy Indian prince.” The 2022 edition describes the character as a “ridiculously rich Indian prince.” Augustus Gloop, one of the horrible children in the novel, is no longer described as “enormously fat” as Dahl wrote; he is now described as “enormous”(whatever that means). Puffin apparently has a fetish about “fat.” Aunt Sponge, in the 2022 edition of “James and the Giant Peach,” is now “quite large” instead of “enormously fat,” leaving the possibility that she could be the size of The Rock or even a T-Rex. Other passages where Aunt Sponge is described as “fat” have been excised.
Meanwhile, “two ghastly hags” has been changed to “two ghastly aunts.” “Queer” is apparently no longer acceptable to describe a house—just in case its a gay house, I suppose—and was replaced with “strange.” In “The Witches,” edits by Puffin made character descriptors gender-neutral, so “chambermaid” became “cleaner.” Though Dahl wrote that a character said, “You must be mad, woman!,” the line is now, “You must be out of your mind!” The line describing a, “Great flock of ladies” was changed to a “Great group of ladies.”
The story is officially in the ‘allegedly” category until all of the facts can be confirmed.
The principal at Kenwood Elementary School in Springfield told police that a group of black students gathered several white students in the school playground and forced them to say, “Black Lives Matter.” The suspects also recorded the students who were threatened into making the statement, police said. Students who tried to resist were dragged or carried to a section of the playground and beaten, with one white student getting punched in the head.
I don’t particularly blame the black students at all. They have been told for all of their lives by adults, politicians and the news media that whites hate them, that police are trying to kill them, that the nation is overwhelmingly racist and that systemic racism and rampant white supremacy is the norm and will be, unless they do something about it.
Yesterday, in his remarks after a screening of the new Emmet Till movie, the President of the United States said (according to the official transcript posted by the White House)…
Ethics Alarms 