(And I haven’t even had time to read what you entered in the last one…)
This has been a genuinely rotten seven days for your host on all fronts including Ethics Alarms, where readership was down even considering the two-day interruption when my PC was fried. There weren’t even Red Sox games to take my mind off of more substantive matters, since this was All-Star Game week, and baseball’s All-Star Game is just one more piece of evidence of societal ethics rot. It used to have integrity and be played like a real game by the best in the sport; now the thing has all the authenticity of a company picnic softball game.
Oh…there was one bit of silver lining: Remember this post? To my shock and amazement, the organization reversed itself and asked me to do a new ethics seminar under its auspices. I had emailed a letter of protest to the Executive Director the same day I blogged about being fired for telling the truth; I did not apologize. The letter included the same points I made here: I said directly that the decision was not only unfair and unprofessional, but that as Continuing Legal Education providers, the company was ethically obligated to make every effort to get lawyers back in the classroom where training is more likely to be effective. I assumed that this would be the last contact I had with it.
And they reversed their decision. Having refused to grovel and held to my principles when faced with the negative consequences of a stand too many times to count over the years (a habit acquired from Jack Marshall, Sr.), I did not anticipate this result.
There is hope.
Ethics Alarms 
Glad to hear you prevailed
Jack, I am glad they gave you your contract back. Sometimes, the good guys do win. Congratulations for sticking to your guns.
I’m very glad to know they’ve changed their minds. I’m hoping that businesses and other organizations are starting to recognize the harm that has been done by the extraordinary divisiveness that has spread through our country over the last decade or so, particularly as it related to the pandemic.
A segment on my morning news today was about declining property values in large buildings while remote work is still an ongoing practice. Then there is this article about millions of school-age children not showing up for classes:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/too-many-kids-are-chronically-absent-how-can-schools-bring-them-back-153547903.html
The pandemic and the policies enacted during it will have ripple effects for a generation. To refuse to acknowledge the setbacks is the height of willful blindness.
The pandemic turned large cities into unlivable hellscapes while simultaneously raising rents to double their prepandemic values. People left and they aren’t moving back. Remote work isn’t going anywhere.
Personally, I could not care less that the commercial real estate market is bankrupt. The mega corporations played stupid, fascist government games and won stupid, fascist government prizes. They should have thought about the long term consequences instead of the short term profits of a locked down populace and rampant government stimulus.
Schools have started teaching lessons in how to self-mutilate without your parents finding out and kinky sex instead of reading, writing and arithmetic. I’m not sure the kids aren’t better off skipping school. If the kids are going to be uneducated and illiterate either way, better to be illiterate with your genitals intact, in my opinion.
Ignoring the consequences of the government’s actions seems to be a new national hobby. People seem to need the media’s permission to notice something didn’t work out well. Without that permission, they are incapable of noticing that the streets are covered in garbage and excrement, store windows are broken and the shops looted, and children are suffering at the hands of psychopathic zealots. Unless and until people start thinking for themselves instead of letting talking heads do it for them, things are only going to get worse. The willful blindness is most certainly unethical.
I figured the CLE organizers would see the light of day and reverse themselves. I have no truck with zoom seminars but I do understand that many zoom attendees play the video and do other stuff (for example, thinking about how truly great Rush is) – that is not respectful to the presenter.
Ethics seminars – in my experience from continuing legal education seminars – tend to be dry, with presenters simply going through the motions – usually with uninspiring PowerPoint presentations containing rulings and/or holdings and sound like the adults in a “Peanuts” cartoon. It is a rare treat when someone with a passion for the topic actually takes the time to make the presentation interesting, engaging and substantive. It’s nice to know that holding on to principles is not a quixotic or Sisyphean endeavor.
jvb
Oh, it almost always is, but these rare exceptions make the constant defeats more palatable.
Jack,
I am very pleased to hear you stood up for what you believed, and that the Continuing Legal Education provider reversed itself.
Now on to a topic:
I came across this program by happenstance. I noticed a change in the image of Washington on the face and the honoring of a person unknown to me on the reverse. Since I am curious by nature, I investigated the program. Some details from the Mint’s website are given below. I found the selection of honorees interesting. I thought about who should be on the list if other than Woke selections were included. I would like to hear others’ thoughts on selection criteria and possible non-Woke honorees.
American Women Quarters™ Program
https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coin-and-medal-programs/american-women-quarters
“The American Women Quarters Program is a four-year program that celebrates the accomplishments and contributions made by women of the United States. Beginning in 2022, and continuing through 2025, the U.S. Mint will issue up to five new reverse designs each year. The obverse of each coin will maintain a likeness of George Washington but is different from the design used during the previous quarter program.”
“The American Women Quarters may feature contributions from a variety of fields, including, but not limited to, suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space, and the arts. The women honored will be from ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse backgrounds.”
American Women Quarters
The pioneering American women celebrated on the quarters are listed below in the order the quarters will be released.
2022
Maya Angelou – celebrated writer, performer, and social activist
Dr. Sally Ride – physicist, astronaut, educator, and first American woman in space
Wilma Mankiller – first woman elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation
Nina Otero-Warren – suffrage leader and the first woman superintendent of Santa Fe public schools
Anna May Wong – first Chinese American film star in Hollywood
2023
Bessie Coleman – first African American and first Native American woman licensed pilot
Edith Kanakaʻole – indigenous Hawaiian composer, custodian of native culture and traditions
Eleanor Roosevelt – leader, reformer, first lady, and author
Jovita Idar – Mexican-American journalist, activist, teacher, and suffragist
Maria Tallchief – America’s first prima ballerina
2024
Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray – poet, writer, activist, lawyer, and Episcopal priest
Patsy Takemoto Mink – first woman of color to serve in Congress
Dr. Mary Edwards Walker – Civil War era surgeon, women’s rights and dress reform advocate
Celia Cruz – Cuban-American singer, cultural icon, and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century
Zitkala-Ša – writer, composer, educator, and political activist
I would have recommended:
Eleanor Roosevelt
Sally Ride
But also,
Phyllis Wheatley
Elizabeth Blackwell – the first woman to be granted a medical license in the United States
Emily Dickinson
Amelia Earhart
Grandma Moses
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman
Dolly Madison
Jeannette Rankin
Francis Perkins
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Helen Keller
I know, I know. Too white and no Latina, Asian or Indigenous/Pacific Islanders.
Abigail Adams
Clara Barton
Sandra Day O’Connor
Well…. It’s Friday. So this is when the Administration drops a bomb and runs away for the weekend so Karine can figure out how she’s going to lie about it on Monday.
On the heels of the administration losing their 441 billion bid for student loan forgiveness to a SCOTUS decision, the administration announced today a new!!!! 39 billion dollar forgiveness program…. Which is actually just an expansion of the discharge criteria to include people who have made payments for 25 years. Which they rolled out in April. And is taxed as income…. In the year of discharge.
Haven’t gotten the details on this yet, but these Bidenites are simply incorrigible adolescents. Is this “program” going to pass muster?
I think it probably does. It passed quietly enough last April, and loan discharges have been around basically as long as loans have. There’s a hoopla around it now because the Biden administration just “announced” it. I think they’re playing pigeon chess after getting beat like a red-headed stepchild by SCOTUS.
Also! Going to highlight how stupid my government is by plugging my post:
https://humbletalent.substack.com/p/c-18-the-link-tax-bill
The government of Canada has passed bill C-18, and it received royal assent, making it law. C-18 takes effect later this year, and will require social media platforms to negotiate payment structures with Canadian News Organizations for the privilege of linking to their content. This is almost blatantly the government subsidizing news orgs with big tech’s dollars, the PBO estimated that this will cost big tech about 330 million dollars, and subsidize about 30% of Canadian newsrooms.
Well… The tech companies really didn’t like that. Google is still negotiating, which is wild… Usually you do that before a bill becomes law, but the government rammed it through with all the fabulous energy of 1000 pride parades and are now flat footed because Google and Facebook are considering blocking adds to Canadian news outlets. In fact: Facebook has already done so, and that has had an immediate and negative impact on traffic to Canadian news sites, which Canadian News isn’t happy about.
In response, my esteemed Prime Minister has thrown a bitch fit and cancelled all Canadian government advertising on the platform. Because Facebook is acting as a “ThReAt To DeMoCrAcY”. But not his own party’s advertising though… The Liberals are still doing ad buys, so the Threat to Democracy isn’t like an 8 or anything, maybe just a 3. Enough to pull the official government stuff, but not the party stuff or to stop posting himself. Regardless, although the governments ad buys were about $10 million dollars, that’s probably not enough to coax Facebook into signing up for an extra 100 million in tax.
Go figure.
That’s great news, Jack!!
My wife and I were blessed to again watch “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” this week. Everyone should watch that movie just for the lessons it teaches in good conflict resolution, interacting with people with whom you disagree, and loving them even when you can’t agree.
If any of you have seen the movie and have thoughts or insights, I’d love to hear them.
I like the movie as 1) a snapshot in time 2) a great example of social issue film-making that can’t be done today. It is, I think, in many ways more interesting now than when it was released. Kramer was a brave and admirable director (Judgment at Nuremberg, Ship of Fools would get my vote as his best; “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” easily his worst), but in retrospect, having Sidney Poitier be the future son in law cooks the books. When I last watched it, I wondered how it would have worked out if the part were played by Samuel L. Jackson.
I’m too easily distracted. For example, I am shocked at how old Spencer Tracy looks, and he was only in his sixties…
Tracy died just weeks after filming that movie completed. He must have been in very poor health, because yeah, he didn’t look good. I’ve seen “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” a couple of times and it’s a favorite of mine – the first time as a youngster and I thought it was hysterical. The initial gymnastics of dividing up the money was a hoot.
Anyways, I agree that “Guess Who’s…” is very interesting now with the push to cancel anything we find disagreeable. This movie harkens to a time when people understood the real meaning of “tolerance”.
Everybody loved MMMMW when they were 12, and I still am glad we have it as a record of that amazing era of comedians. I thought Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Sid Caesar and Buddy Hackett were excellent; Ethel Merman was so abrasive and unfunny that she ruined the film for me, and Tracy was horribly miscast—he was a tragic figure, which isn’t exactly comedy fodder.
Speaking of movies, anyone seen the movie, The Sound of Freedom?
For some unfathomable reason, the MSM is pretending it does not exist and proglibot podheads are smearing it as false conspiracy propaganda.
And then there is this: Published July 14, 2023 11:19am EDT
Biden nibbles on frightened young girl during trip to Finland, weirding out Twitter users
Video footage shows little girl squirming to avoid kiss from Biden
There is clear video that I am not going to post because it will probably be taken down soon to protect our creepy pedo-Prez. After attempting to nibble her, he finished by sniffing her.
Some good friends we know from church have seen the movie, and highly recommended it to us. We have yet to watch, but intend to at some point.
“Speaking of movies, anyone seen the movie, The Sound of Freedom?
For some unfathomable reason, the MSM is pretending it does not exist and proglibot podheads are smearing it as false conspiracy propaganda.”
I haven’t seen it but you’re right. I see countless articles on my home page and news feeds diminishing it with loaded headlines tying it to Qanon and other right-wing conspiracy theories.
Fact: Americans like seeing the good guys win.
Fact: Especially when the good guys save innocent people.
Fact: Especially when said innocents are children.
Fact: Sex trafficking of children is real.
Replying to AMGolden: Human trafficking profits at roughly 154 BILLION/year. Not sure if organ harvesting is included in that figure.
I am confused by the QANON angle in the media. There is nothing “MAGA” or conspiratorial about the movie, aside from the facts that our government has wholly failed to secure its borders which allows these monsters to run amuck. I guess the QANON angle relates to Caviezel’s relationship to the group. In most instances, an actor’s political positions don’t poison his/her work unless that actor is conservative and/or religiously motivated. Ho hum.
The movie is based on the work done by a former Homeland Security agent named Tim Ballard.
My wife and I saw the movie last weekend. It is very good. The cast is excellent, with many Latin American movie/television stars who are not very well known in the U.S. James Caviezel does an admirable job as the main character, shows some dynamic range I didn’t anticipate, and the cinematography is excellent. The movie is hard to watch at points because it shows the sick, dark, underbelly of child sex trade. There is a five minute or so “epilogue” where Caviezel discusses his interest in making the movie, how he conferred with the actual Homeland Security agent who brought these issues to Congress and broke up a sinister ring of sex traffickers in Columbia. The movie also shows how children are deceived into the trade by adults and systems that fail to protect them. The connection between narco-gangs and sex traffickers is blown wide open, as well as corruption from the local levels to the highest branches of government.
jvb
Congrats on the CLE contact renewal.
Here’s a story around buying support to bend the rules toward participating in a political debate. I was exposed to this story via an unsolicited campaign text message to my cellphone. Besides the optics, the execution was incompetent. Initially thought it was a scam, and in addition the web address used in the text wasn’t even valid.
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1186991717/doug-burgum-gift-cards-gop-republican-primary-debate
Here is an arrticle of interest.
https://reason.com/2023/07/14/a-grand-jury-considers-the-question-of-whether-trump-sincerely-believed-he-won-reelection/
Any thoughts on this grand jury.
I very happy to hear that, Jack! I was shocked the other day that they’d not only drop you, but not let you know until you contacted them. That was awful.
Another article of interest.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-unprecedented-2024-campaign-pitch-elect-revenge-government/story?id=100778347
This would explain why his base did not abandon him after he went full Cuomosexual.
Of course, federal law enforcement and intelligence agents did a lot to earn distrust.
Projection.
Time and again we’ve seen Trump’s persecutors cast aside norms and ideals this country was built on for two hundred years just to let them get Trump.
Trump has not done half the damage Dems and media have accomplished.
See this quote from this article by Jacob Sullum.
https://reason.com/2023/07/14/a-grand-jury-considers-the-question-of-whether-trump-sincerely-believed-he-won-reelection/