…or whatever you can come up with.
I have a tough day (and night) ahead with a major deadline looming, an anxious client, and some kind of digestive disruption that has me guzzling Pepto-Bisnol like there’s no tomorrow. I’m counting on the commentariate to keep things ethical and lively around here if I’m unable to add much.
One minor note of interest: apparantly at some point or other, as she’s been boasting about her eventual bust in the Capitol, Kamala Harris slipped up and referred to herself as the first Veep “of color.” This prompted several conservative news sources to bring up a fact check from USA Today in 2021 that pointed out that while Harris was the first female U.S. VP, the first black (sort of) VP, the first VP of “South Asian ancestry,” and the first woman of color to be elected to the office, first U.S. Vice-President “of color” is not on her dance card, that distinction going to this guy…
…Charles Curtis, who was Herbert Hoover’s VP from 1929-1933. His mother was one-quarter Kaw Indian (his father was all-white) making Curtis 12.5% Native American. Blecchh. Who…Cares? By my standards, Curtis isn’t “of-color” but white, and how I long for the day when these kinds of “historic distinctions” end up in history’s metaphorical dustbin where they belong.
Fun Fact: William M. Evarts, Rutherford B. Hayes’ Secretary of State, was the highest ranking U.S. official in history with a third nipple! Okay, I made that up, but that’s about the level of distinction Curtis deserves for having one Native American great-grandparent.
Now I have to get to work, and so do you….
Ethics Alarms 
Hmm, I’m wondering what other EA commenters feel is the fundamental ethical principle that guides their choices in life.
For me it is the distinction between service to self and service to others.
Oh, and it’s my birthday! Feel free to send your best wishes (it’s a landmark one — 70). Time flies…
My ethics are guided by my religious beliefs. Essentially, the Golden Rule. This doesn’t mean a selfish reciprocity, but is a reminder to value others, even those who are hard to love. I fall short an awful lot.
“I fall short an awful lot.” Yeah me too. Don’t we all? Integral to the human experience, it seems…
Happy Birthday, and many more. I’m a ’55 Model myself, and still trying to wrap my head around being a septuagenarian.
Still shaving a 20 something face, though…
PWS
Thanks! 55 is an excellent vintage IMO 🙂
I’ve always like the symmetry of my birthdate: 12 12 55 … which also means I don’t have to worry about whether I’m filling this out under the American or European convention of whether day or month come first…
Happy Birthday!! I grew up in the rural Midwest so my ethics are so cultural that I’m not even sure I can identify them. Honesty is a big one. Personal responsibility is another. Then you have priorities which might be the most critical of them all. My priorities are family, farm and everything else. Many place work at the top, but I never have. That might be the most telling on a value scale. When there’s a conflict (and there will be) what do you choose? Work or family? Something else?
Ah, an important point, when one wishes to choose service to others… but which others when they seem to conflict?
For that I fall back on Buddhist principles and ask myself (in a calm state so that I am properly open to guidance): What is right action here?
That has always worked for me.
Have a happy and hopeful birthday, Holly. A Holly Jolly birthday! Based on your verve and comments, I had you in a much earlier decade. Does EA have ANY readers under 40?
Thanks Jack! Hope you feel better soon… when my digestive system acts up I find Saltine crackers help, but that may be particular to my family…
I unfortunately no longer qualify as under 40, but I read some of your posts to my children, ranging from 0-11. My eldest knows that Jack Marshall writes Ethics Alarms. Does that count?
As an addendum, whenever I read any online article, my eldest asks, is that Mr. Marshal?
Yes, you do.
Happy Birthday!!!
Thanks Steve!
Happy birthday, Holly!
I could talk about how the constructive principle of ethics is about building and maintaining trust, and different ways we can do that. For me specifically, there’s the question of whether I’m making a situation better than it was when I found it, or at least no worse off. That’s partly based on the principle of investment. More specifically regarding ethics, I make sure that I’m being honest and transparent. So as not to overload people with information, I define honesty as making sure people aren’t missing information that I think they’d want to know about when making decisions.
Thanks Extradimensional one!
Happy birthday, nice to have two presents holidays in one month!
Happy Birthday.
jvb
Happy Birthday Holly! I’ll be 73 next week, and I do love the December birthday … everywhere you go it is festive, colorful, musical and decorated.
In addition to religious principles, my parents were big on honesty, best effort, hard work and humility. It’s a pretty good recipe for at least a modestly successful life. These days I try to stay out of trouble, and to support my husband, family and community to the best of my ability and strength.
Have a delightful celebration – I will raise a glass of eggnog to your seven decades.
Grandma Lisa
Thanks and Happy Birthday soon to you, too! I owe my name to the December birthday, and have always liked it. A friend who is also a Decembrist is named Merry.
Congratulations, Holly. Three score and ten: you are now off warranty.
It’s survivable. 1944 model here.
Be careful here! I learned the hard way that P-B has aspirin in it, and kept myself sick by drinking it daily for a month to treat an upset stomach….
Yikes. I had no idea. Great. Now what? (I’m not supposed to be taking NSAIDS)
7-Up and saltines, maybe?
I use Ginger Ale but 7-Up probably works too. I think 7-Up is harder to find now, not sure.
Here’s the “AI Overview” from Google search: “7UP is a lemon-lime soda with a citrusy, sweet taste, while ginger ale is flavored with ginger, giving it a spicy, earthy warmth, though both are carbonated, sugary soft drinks that can be used for upset stomachs, with ginger ale often preferred for nausea due to its ginger content“
If nausea is the problem: Peppermint tea is pretty good on an upset stomach. Depending on how upset your stomach is, warm flat Ginger Ale or 7-up/Sprite may be better than the cold fizzy kind. Saltines are good. Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, and Toast are options too. All are soothers for an upset stomach. If your stomach is really bad, make that dry toast.
If diarrhea: cheese, yogurt, or cabbage, especially sauerkraut (for some this causes diarrhea, so be cautious). Saltines and the drinks from above can help too.
I’ve had pretty good luck with simple tums, and occasionally “Nauseam”, which uses citric acid to somehow reduce stomach acid.
Here is something worth writing about.
https://x.com/nicksortor/status/1999316142058254498?s=46&t=qeA47-JjK6vq0pfnxg60dA
Here’s a real life ethics quiz. You’re standing in line at the grocery store self-checkout. You accidentally entered the wrong produce code for your bag of apples and charged yourself $4.99/lb instead of $1.50/lb. Looking around for the staff to help, you notice they are busy with a man trying to buy a ham that the butcher didn’t put a barcode sticker on, a college kid buying alcohol and acting as a servant for an unkempt obese woman. It would no doubt be several minutes before they can change your produce code and there are other people in line waiting for a scanner to open. What do you do?
A) Make yourself and everyone else wait to correct the error
B) Choose not to scan an item of equivalent value (“steal” it)
C) Accept the petty ~$5 loss as a penance for your time and sanity
I’d go with A. For B I doubt you’d be lucky enough to have an item that would cover the difference, and you might get caught. C might be an option, but I wonder if that would screw up inventory. A is the most honest option. Yes others have to wait but that’s how it is sometimes.
Choice A is the only sensible answer. All customers are equal and while you wait to be helped you may also at some point be behind someone else waiting to be helped. Over time all things even out. You are not really the problem. The store created the potential for such errors and wait times are a function of the number of store personnel they make available. Anyone in the self serve line should understand that people are bound to make errors during checkout and make a determination whether the quick self serve line will be better than a full service line.
Ask yourself, if the situation were such that the situation were reversed and the correct price was 4.99 and you keyed in 1.99 # would you consider leaving to expedite the process for the person behind you. Moreover, would you be upset if you were the person behind a person who made that same mistake.
May I suggest option D) Finish scanning your groceries and then go to the customer service window to have them fix the problem. Otherwise I would recommend A.
This is what I do after going through the full service line. If I check my receipt, I’ll take it to customer service before leaving the store so that they can correct it.
I have actually done that for corrections in both directions, although I see more over than under charges.
https://www.agweb.com/news/policy/politics/death-def-trump-says-hell-roll-back-environmental-requirements-cut-farm-equi
”Trump said he’ll cut environmental requirements on tractors and other farm equipment”
I’m wondering if this will become a bit of a battleground item when the next democrat returns to office and will go back to DEF. Is this something the President should do? This type of policy change has caused a lot of uncertainty the last few years because what one president does, the next tends to reverse without even thinking about the consequences. That said he is right about DEF. It causes more trouble than any other item on the tractor. It also uses more diesel fuel than our older non DEF tractors use. Regardless it worries me that it’s just one more line item that he’s changed that will probably instantly e be changed back or something worse implemented the next election cycle.
I am not familiar with DEF. All the story said was that it was diesel emission fluids, but not what that meant or why they are bad.
Google can explain it much better than I can, but basically the DEF system breaks a lot. It’s illegal to work around it or turn it off although Trump pardoned the mechanic, here is that story, https://oilcity.news/community/feature/people/2025/11/21/pardoned-by-trump-diesel-mechanic-joins-fight-to-decriminalize-emissions-system-tampering/
On a tractor or over the road truck when it breaks your vehicle will no longer run and so your truck will require a tow and it costs time and money. It will not stay repaired and my guess it’s likely the most common reason needing repairs in the shop.
Not only that it’s made from Urea, ie fertilizer, ie the largest pollutant in agriculture. It’s also touchy with contamination. You have to keep the system very clean which isn’t really possible on a farm or with over the road trucks. Now let’s talk school busses which have broke down taking kids to school activities hours from home. If the DEF sits too long it crystallizes and you guessed it. Suddenly you have a school bus filled with stranded kids.
So here is a topic I’ve discussed on forums in Quora.
I’m not discussing monuments or statues here, although I do have an opinion on them. This is a quote from one of the commenters over there:
————
And this was my response:
So what do you folks think?
This is great,.
Northern Black codes were a thing even before the Civil War.
Well, to be fair, no whites did, anywhere.
True. But the guy is arguing that if you hanged the top 1500 rebels leaders those things wouldn’t happen to blacks.
I think that would provoke more of a guerrilla warfare similar to Ireland, and blacks would still be discriminated against.
Not that long prior, those in the colonies, particularly in the north, had separated themselves from England in a similar manner, often using more atrocious tactics. They called them “patriots”. Very few acknowledged (or maybe even realized) the irony of their high-sounding proclamations on freedom and liberty applying only to the white population. The same lot criticizing the south now, raised statues to those instrumental in fighting for their new country in the 1700s. They now want to tear those down too, condemning persons in the past for not foreseeing and applying modern sensibilities to all their actions. They’re spoiled, irrational children.