I am really trying to find ethics topics that don’t focus on Trump Derangement, the 2024 Post Election Freakout and the Post 2024 Election Ethics Train Wreck. I am. I’m as sick of the idiocy and ethically-clueless (Accountability? Responsibility? Honesty? Fairness?) outbursts as much as you are. More than you are—I have to write about this crap. Then a story like this one slimes by my eyes. I can’t ignore something this stupid. So, it pulls me back in.
Before I get into this embarrassing muck: above is a clip from the Ethics Alarms Hollywood Clip Archive, listing the videos I use regularly to categorize a particular type of ethics tale. I considered commenting on this story by posting every video that applies. I think it’s an all-time record—go to the post and see how many you would include. I count nine.
Now hold on to your skull: The New York Post reports that students and alumni of Pomona College are furious with Donald Trump because…wait for it…he has ruined their favorite number for them.
You see, 47 is Pomona’s lucky number. Now, I would think that one of the purposes of an institute of higher edication is to disabuse its eventual graduates of the idea that there are such things as lucky numbers, but never mind.
The number 47 has eerily appeared repeatedly in the 137-year history of the private liberal arts college, located in Claremont, California. Exits on the 10 and 210 freeways to get to Pomona College are both number 47. The organ at the college’s music auditorium has 47 pipes in the top row. There were 47 enrolled students at the time of the first graduating class in 1894. The largest dorm on campus, officially known as Florence Carrier Blaisdell and Della Mullock Mudd Hall, has 47 characters in the title and was completed in 1947. The dorm’s staircase contains 47 balusters. So, naturally and completely reasonably, alums of the school have a “47 Society.”
No I’m not making this up. See?
But the evil…EVIL! Donald Trump is the 47th President, damn him, so now it’s all ruined…
Graduate Terril Jones told reporters taht he fears that he can’t wear his Pomona 47 hat in public, lest he be identified as a Trump supporter in public. “I definitely feel that the Trump campaign has co-opted it in a way that makes it difficult for all people who love 47 to display it.” Another alumni scratched his number 47 car sticker off of his rear window. Yet another has reconsidered getting an honorary 47 tattoo since Trump’s win. Trump’s victory “is the worst thing to happen to our beloved number, possibly ever,” one graduate wrote on the “47 Society’s Facebook page.
Trump now sports a MAGA hat with the numbers 45-47 on the side. His campaign platform was called Agenda 47. An LA Times assistant editor complains in an op-ed “It feels like Trump and his followers have appropriated my favorite number,” he whines.
It feels to me like you’re a Trump Deranged idiot.
Ethics Alarms 
Again, what is wrong with these people? They are out there evidently able to function in society?
I bet 46 is available. How would the Pomona students and alumni like to be associated with a decrepit, mentally disabled President that would have LOVED to come speak at their campus in incomplete, meandering prose, then play “scratch-n-sniff” with the young ladies?
College used to make people smarter…now some of them just turn out morons.
And everybody knows that 17 is a WAY better prime number than 47!
I agree with you on most of the examples of Trump Derangement you highlight. I think the students and alumni of Pomona can be forgiven for this one, though.
College is a time for doing goofy and whimsical things. I don’t have time to trot out a list, but we’ve all been to college, so you know what I’m talking about. The 47 Club seems like just that. A whimsical activity related to the random coincidence of 47 continuing to pop up in things related to Pomona, (and people no doubt seeking out 47’s for anything related to Pomona since it was first noticed). Good, harmless fun. I would bet most students and alums are perfectly aware it’s not magical.
If I were an alumnus of Pomona, I would be sad too that 47 was now associated with a President. For me that would be true whether it was Trump or Harris. I wouldn’t have been able to wear my 47 Club swag without being associated with whichever of the two had won. They’re probably mostly Team Blue, so they’re not happy that 47 is now associated with Trump. But if I were Team Blue, I’d feel the same way, and if I were fervently Team Red, I’d either be happy with the new association or still sad that 47 had taken on a new, less proprietary to me, meaning. Perfectly understandable.
On a somewhat different topic, only because I don’t have anywhere else to post this right now, one of the top quotes I’ve heard so far regarding Dem reaction to the election, from the unfortunately named Krystal Ball at the Breaking Points podcast:
“The Democrats seem intent on learning absolutely nothing from this experience.”
I posted on Kristal before she was a “thing.”
But do you really think the alums would be bitching if 47 was Historic Kamala?
If they were Team Red and Kamala had won, then absolutely yes. The quote at the end of the LA Times article says it all:
“My hope is that this will die down after four years, if not earlier, and the number 47 won’t be associated with any particular politicians,” he said.
Was it this post:
https://ethicsalarms.com/2010/11/04/election-ethics-scorecard-did-virtue-and-trustworthiness-prevail-was-dishonesty-and-corruption-punished/
or did you write more extensively about the incident in another post?
I’m not really a fan of Ball’s, though I do watch Breaking Points clips regularly. I did like the quote I mentioned.
Regarding her Christmas Party Photos scandal, I’d say at the time it was recent enough to be relevant, (2004 photos, 2010 campaign), but at this point it’s almost 20 years ago, and she would have been in her early 20’s, so I wouldn’t judge her for it.
I hereby claim the number 42…just in case they were thinking about going after that one. Nothing to do with presidents; I just want it.
I have a full-blown case of that condition that causes a person to think even numbers are nice and odd numbers are mean. Maybe it’s simply caused by odd numbers being called “odd.” That, and they’re harder to do basic math with.
You will have to fight the mice for it.
Well, yeah, there is that….though it seems improbable.
One could argue infinitely improbable….
–Dwayne