Good ethics history and bad ethics history on this date. The Good: in 1936, U.S. Olympian Jesse Owens gave a metaphorical “Bite me!” to Adolf Hitler, winning the second of his four gold medals (in the long jump) in Berlin, which had been carefully framed as Nazi Germany’s “master race” showcase. The Bad: this is also the date, in 1944, that the Nazi Gestapo seized 15-year-old Anne Frank and her family from their hidden hideaway in an Amsterdam warehouse.They had occupied the small space with another Jewish family and an unmarried Jewish man since 1942 with the help of Christian friends who brought them food and supplies. Anne spent much of her time in the secret annex working on her now immortal diary. After their refuge was discovered, Anne and all of the others but her father perished in the Nazi death camps.
Even today, more than 80 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, hardly a day goes by that some aspect of World War II isn’t directly relevant to unfolding events. Yet the war is barely taught in our schools: television and movies are the primary tutorials, and I doubt the rising generation is flocking to their WWII fare. This is not new, for my curricula through high school included little of substance on the most important historical event in the last 300 years (at least), and there was no requirement at Harvard, even for a government major like me, to study the World War II period in college.
I consider myself fortunate that my father, for whom the war was unquestionably the defining experience of his life, frequently used family meals when I was a child to discuss WWII history—except for his own combat experiences.
1. Lizzo may be “Hypocrite of the Year”! Lizzo…you know, this woman…
… the defiantly obese pop singer who has promoted herself as a champion of body positivity, is being sued by three of her former who allege that she subjected them fat-shaming as well as sexual and racial harassment. Of course these are allegations only, and if there ever was a lawsuit that seemed to demand a quick settlement to make it go away, this would be it. But the singer seems to be inclined to fight the action, which is admirable if she is innocent, but still likely to be unwise. When a celebrity’s carefully crafted image of virtues is shattered by such contrary claims, it often causes a dam of silence to break, as happened to Ellen Degeneris (who turned out not to be the super-nice lesbian she pretended to be) and Bill Cosby (who…well, you know.) This seems to be happening to Lizzo. Triggered by news of the lawsuit, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sophia Nahli Allison, who tried collaborating with the singer on the 2019 documentary “Love, Lizzo,” piled on. “In 2019, I traveled a bit with Lizzo to be the director of her documentary. I walked away after about 2 weeks … I was treated with such disrespect by her. I witnessed how arrogant, self-centered, and unkind she is.”
2. Devon Archer update. The transcript of Hunter Biden friend and associate Devon Archer’s closed door testimony before Congress has been released. EA discussed its import, and the desperate spin being placed on it by Biden’s Praetorian Guard media, here. As reported, Archer did indeed agree “that Hunter Biden was selling the illusion of access to his father.” He also described Joe Biden contacts with his son’s business associates and prospects that appeared to be designed to complete that “illusion.” Ludicrously, “it isn’t what it is” defenders of the President argue that Biden assisting his son in “creating the illusion of access” isn’t also assisting his son in, at best, fraudulent influence peddling.
3. Today’s “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” note. This:
I’m sure we can rely on the media to give similarly even-handed and accurate coverage of the latest Trump prosecution…
4. And speaking of Hunters…The Biden administration’s Department of Education is adopting a strained interpretation of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) to withhold federal funding for public schools that have hunting or archery instruction. Senior agency official Sarah Martinez wrote that archery, hunter education and wilderness safety courses utilize weapons that are “technically dangerous weapons” and therefore “may not be funded under ESEA [the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act]. The agency’s interpretation means funding for rifle and archery sport activities is being blocked across the country. The BSCA was passed in a bipartisan vote in Congress and signed into law by President Biden in June 2022 after the mass shootings at a grocery market in Buffalo, New York, and a school in Uvalde, Texas. Yes, mass shootings are sure to be fewer now that school archery classes are being banned.
5. Meanwhile, the First Amendment fights for survival against Big Brother...The Biden White House asked Facebook in 2021 to adjust its algorithm so Wuhan scaremongering stories from The New York Times would be highlighted rather than conservative journalists and commentators questioning the effectiveness of vaccinations. This was revealed in meeting notes the social media firm turned over to Congress. It is incredible to me that the people who once called themselves liberal see nothing wrong with this and other examples of government censorship by proxy. Yet that is where progressives are lining up: defending totalitarian creep.
Ethics Alarms 
4. My nephew is on the Autism spectrum. He has competed in archery contests as part of his school’s team for years. I think it’s a cool sport for him to learn. I wonder if mass shooters who start off by drawing violent imagery in art class will get art cancelled by the administration.
“Yet the war is barely taught in our schools: television and movies are the primary tutorials, and I doubt the rising generation is flocking to their WWII fare.”
I share the growing frustration. I know most of my generation are *great grandchildren* of those who fought the war. But by accidental familial tradition – the men of my family married and had children late bested only by John Tyler’s proclivities. My grandad was born in the early 1900s and my great-grandfather was born in the 1850s and his dad in the early 1820s. Whereas most of my generations’ great-great-grandfathers were born early 1900s. I only say this because I feel like I have a unique connection to the WW2 generation that a lot of my peers do not have.
Of my peers, very few deeply appreciate the significance of how much the world and the United States changed because of that event.
Having a teenager in the house, I also have a depressing view of the even younger generations’ attitudes towards that event. Without sharing exactly some of the comments I’ve heard – as many of them are just flippant jokes – but all of them betray how rapidly memory of cataclysmic events fades.
Needless to say, even with the lessons of mid-century totalitarianism firmly learned – I can see how we’ll go down this road again in a generation if we aren’t careful.
4) Speech and Rhetoric are taught in schools so that as children matriculate into full fledged citizens they can exercise their 1st Amendment rights. Just as civics is taught so that they can understand the Constitution their society operates within – wait…IS civics still taught?
Frankly – firearms safety should be a required elementary school subject, firearms familiarization in middle school and firearms use in high school. No citizen should hit adulthood without understanding and appreciating the 2nd amendment.
4. Unfortunately, original sources sometimes are very difficult to come by, so, despite spending some time trying to track down just what was put into writing, I am left with what biased news sources and a couple of reasonable bloggers have said about ESEA funding.
I don’t think it’s a strained interpretation. I think it’s a stupid provision in the law.
The law clearly says ESEA funds may not be used for providing to any person a dangerous weapon (as defined in 930(g)(2) of title 18, United States Code) nor for any training in the use of a dangerous weapon.
The US Code defines a dangerous weapon as anything which is readily capable of, causing death or serious bodily injury. An exception is made for small knives.
So, it is not straining to consider guns and arrows as dangerous weapons. What is remarkable is other items that are being ignored. FBI data shows that all of the following have been used for murder, so, these also should be cause for withholding ESEA funds: knives with blades longer than 2 ½ inches (Home Ec, anyone), blunt objects (bye, bye baseball), poison (shut down the chem lab), explosives (chemistry again!), fire (several places in any school), and narcotics (be very careful, Nurse Ratched).
Now, considering the value of programs (that use dangerous stuff) for hunter safety, rifle marksmanship, archery, baseball, and others, and considering the requirement that the laws be fully and faithfully executed, it obvious that schools will have to use other than ESEA funds for such programs until the law can be fixed. The latter is unlikely, given the current composition of the legislative and executive branches. So, it’s time for community and parent clubs to step up. And, maybe an expansion of Junior R.O.T.C, since DoD funds still can be used for gun safety and marksmanship training.
#2 (sort of) & #3: Some sources are retroactively editing old articles to include grandchild # 7:
https://twitchy.com/amy/2023/08/02/stephen-l-miller-discovers-media-backdating-stories-about-the-number-of-bidens-grandchildren-n2385939 The Orwellian revisions covering for the Bidens are extending past the Hunter/Joe business relationship and presidential transcripts, apparently.
Anne Frank/WWII If attendance at the Amsterdam house is any indication, at least some people are aware of history. It had over a million visitors a year before chinavirus, and probably would have more if the physical venue could accommodate it (line was several block long and a few hours wait when we went). Aug. 4th is also the birthdate of Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who save over 30,000 jews (and was ultimately imprisoned and killed by the Soviets).
#2, Hunter & Joe: Part of the current claim is that Hunter was just promoting the Biden “Brand”. You don’t have a “brand” without a product, and that product certainly wasn’t the skillset of a kicked-out-of-the-navy habitual crackhead.
New contradiction of the ongoing spin that nobody thought they were buying access or protection through Hunter: https://nypost.com/2023/07/20/biden-bribe-file-released-burisma-chief-said-both-joe-and-hunter-involved/
Another comment has gone into hiding instead of showing up here. Seems to happen more often than not. I try to re-post and the god of Word Press sneers and says it looks like a duplicate comment.
Frustrating.
Repost it but add a random space somewhere so WordPress reads it as a unique comment.
That sometimes works for me.
It is tempting to do that with maybe a dozen slightly different versions and see which ones, if any, make it through. So far, I’m resisting the temptation.
I just rescued it from Spam. Always email me when this happens. WP has been weird lately.
Speaking of Hunter – Joe has finally recognized his 7th grandchild.
I think that it’s brazenly political – Joe’s narrative has had to shift a couple of times as more details come out and more information we already had was corroborated I think we’re approaching the reality where Joe is going to have to recognize that his son is a fuck-up. Oh, they’ll spin it…. He just loves his family so much. His son was suffering, wracked with survivor’s guilt and depression, in the thralls of addiction…. It feels a little convenient this late in the game, but I’m sure there’s a lot of families out there that can have empathy for someone sticking by their family in trying times.
But how do you argue that the reason you put yourself in all these compromising positions was out of a deep-seated sense of familial love, when you’ve cut a grandchild out of your life over a difference of opinion with her mother? The same man that hung six stockings for his grandchildren and one for his dog at Christmas wants to argue that he’s too big a family man to let influence peddling get in the way of his relationships? Ok.
So he’s recognized Navy, waving past the last four years of concerted indifference by saying that the reason he didn’t talk about her was out of respect for the process her mother started two months ago.
And as an aside… I want to highlight the insanity of trying to respect either the process or the privacy of Navy and her mother. The only reason I know Navy’s name is because Joe has let this scandal fester. I don’t know the name of any of Joe’s other grandchildren. I don’t know the name of the woman who was Beau’s with that Hunter started seeing after. Generally, the family of powerful people are allowed a certain amount of privacy unless something noteworthy occurs.
Having a kid out of wedlock is blasé… I’m sure there are other examples I don’t know about.
Having a kid out of wedlock, fighting paternity until a test came out, suing to keep the child from having his last name, paying 5 figure monthly child support and having a president who pretends to be a family man while simultaneously pretending a branch of his family tree doesn’t exist is a story.
So obviously political that even some of his normal supporters are mentioning the curious “reset”. You could envision his puppeteers’ pleadings: ” Please Mr. President! You’re making it impossible for us to continue pushing the fiction that you’re NOT a cranky mean-spirited old
bastard….ummm, coot.”In Joe’s defense, would there be a legal ramification for acknowledging Navy as his grandchild that would impact any process to form an aggreement between Hunter and the mother?
No, the paternity test had already determined that Hunter was Navy’s father, I can’t think of anything being recognized by the grandfather would change legally.
That’s the official story now, apparently.
AHA!!!! You didn’t read the last potpourri post! Item #1…