It sure seems like everyone’s gone to the Moon in Virginia. No traffic, missing neighbors, nobody for Spuds to go nuts over when we take a walk: it’s so quiet outside, I feel like Burgess Meredith in “The Twilight Zone.”
If you’re out there, what better way to reach than to launch a thread about an ethics issue?
Ethics Alarms 
I sent this to Jack earlier in the week.
I am not entirely sure that it is an ethics story:
https://abc7news.com/new-ca-law-gender-neutral-toy-sections-retail-kids/14209705/
-Jut
I want to officially apologize for the forum going up late. Among its tics, WordPress sometimes publishes the first time I hit “publish” but occasionally has an “are you SURE you want to publish?” screen pop up. When I am rushing to get a post up while an alligator is nipping at my toes, I will hit publish and leave my desk, only to find out later that the draft is stalled waiting for me to click on a second “publish” button. ARRRRGH.
I recall someone going by the nym “Larry L. Jansen”, who poasted frequently on usenet newsgroups from 1996 to 1999.
Here is one of his posts.
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.conspiracy/c/C6_7r0Bh-5s/m/gLn7CqJRFJAJ
Back then, I never would have figured that by today, people like “Larry L. Jansen” would be indoctrinating our college students.
In fact, ti would not surprise me if this man turned out to be a professor at Harvard today
Not sure if this has already been brought up about the Gay Harvard Plagiarism debacle, but could any former student or faculty, whose career was derailed by similar allegations/charges/convictions, sue Harvard because they were treated differently?
PWS
I wondered the same thing. If the president of the university is held to a different standard, then there is no standard and those reprimanded and/or held liable should be allowed to have their cases reconsidered.
jvb
Sorry to butt in here, but sure. That’s the peril of the King’s Pass. In fact, I’m going to re-write the entry under Rationalization #11 to make Gay the prime example.
I am wondering about this from an ethics viewpoint.
My new favorite band is The Warning, a sister trio from Monterrey, Mexico. They are very talented and have worked extremely hard to gain a dedicated fan base, which has rocketed their success over the last year or so. These sisters age from 23 (the guitarist and main vocalist), 21 (the drummer and principal song writer), and 19 (the bassist, background vocalist, and keyboard player). Their most recent album, “Error” is excellent and their stage craft is impressive.
The last song on the album is a song called “Breathe” and I am not sure of the back story about the song but the drummer, songwriter and singer of the song stated that she would not sing the song live for personal reasons. “Breathe” is about someone coming to terms with life, with him-or-her-self, embracing who he or she is, and moving forward.
In November, they performed a sold-out concert at the Pepsi Center in Mexico City. During the show, Paulina (the drummer) performed “Black Holes”, a song written about someone struggling with addictions, solo at the piano. At the end of that song, she seemed to make a decision, apparently, on the spot to sing “Breathe”.
Here is a video of the performance:
As you can see from the audience reaction, they were surprised and overjoyed. The introduction of the song she says (paraphrasing) that the next song is one she stated she would never sing live, but she thought she would do it for the 8,000 fans in the audience. As she started the song, you can see from her reaction that she was not expecting such a positive response from the audience. At one point she “chides” the audience to let her sing it, which causes the audience to sing even louder.
At the end of the song, she is overwhelmed by the audience reaction and breaks down in tears (from my perspective tears of relief, joy, release [maybe?], and gratitude). The audience reaction is celebratory and positive. The string section also applauds her as she leaves the stage.
I think she was genuinely surprised by the audience reaction and handled the response with grace and gratitude. She thanked the audience, bowed to them, and left the stage to recover for the remainder of the set. I conclude that her reaction/action was ethical and honest. The audience and other musicians’ responses are ethical, too.
I wonder, though, if there is a “show must go on” ethic that would lead to a different ethical conclusion, as in “well, you knew this was a sensitive topic/personal song and you shouldn’t have performed it if you were not up to the task.” For me, that would be too harsh.
Thoughts?
jvb
I think it matters that this came fairly late in the concert. In other words, she’d heard the crowd’s reactions to other material, and the voice in the back of her head said “you can do this at this particular moment, in front of these particular people.” I’ve never been in precisely this situation (for one thing, my singing borders on cruel and unusual punishment), but I suspect I’m not alone in having searched for and ultimately found the place and time to stare down the Big Scary Thing, whatever it is, and to do it in public.
The audience obviously knew what was coming from the intro and the first couple of chords on the piano, and their support contributed enormously to the moment. There are no ethical issues here at all, from my point of view: just a mutual exchange of good will between a young musician and her fans. Kudos all around.
Not really an ethics question per se. Last year I had mentioned in one of the Christmas thread that ‘A Christmas Story Christmas’ was actually pretty good and recommended it to you. I’m curious if you ever watched it yourself.
Not exactly an ethics question, but I was doing some book shopping this morning.
Is anyone here familiar with Phillip Thomas Tucker? He is an American historian who seems to be a prolific author in military history and other history, many on the American Revolution, the Civil War, black history, etc.
I was looking at a number of his books that might be interesting, including on the battle of Trenton, several books on Gettysburg (including Custer’s charge), a plot by William Quantrill to assassinate Lincoln in 1865, and more.