On my birthday (also known as “Finding Jack’s father dead in his chair day”) in 2025, I began a post thusly…
“I missed this pre-Great Stupid story in 2019, when it was a harbinger of stupid things to come, and missed it again this year, when it was back in the news a few days ago. It wasn’t too long ago that Fred and Pennagain reliably alerted me to ethics stories around the web that I otherwise might have missed. A few of you do send me story ideas regularly, but something like this shouldn’t slip through the cracks.”
“This” was a recurring story about various reactions to absurdist artist Maurizio Cattelan taping a banana to a wall at an art show in 2019 and calling it “Comedian.” In 2019, performance artist David Datuna ripped the banana off the wall and ate it, so Cattalan just taped another banana to another wall. I missed that one and in 2024 was urging readers to keep my EA runway full. I am doing so again. I can’t find every rich ethics story out there all by myself. I still welcome guest post submissions too.
The story in 2024 was that a Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur named Justin Sun bought the silly artwork for $6.2 million at auction and, in front of cameras, ate the banana as a gesture of conspicuous consumption to show how rich he was. Well, “Comedians” sparked another stupid incident last month: The Pompidou-Metz museum in Paris announced that it had filed a criminal complaint for theft against the unknown art-lover (or banana-lover) who took down the most recent banana to be featured in “Comedians” and ate it.
The museum also announced that it had replaced the banana.
Now it’s your turn again to write about more trenchant ethics events like that one, or more sophisticated issue that may lack appeal.
Ethics Alarms 
“The museum also announced that it had replaced the banana.”
Until then, was their disclaimer:
PWS
The big story this week is in the UK, namely the conduct of the Southampton police related to the murder of Henry Nowak. This story gets a lot of attention in the USA and Australia as well, and according to conservative commentators the conduct of the police is comparable or worse than the conduct of Chauvin during the George Floyd incident.
Henry Nowak was an 18 year old who on his way home was stabbed by a Sikh. The police was called, and the Sikh and his brother made allegations of racism against Henry Nowak. The police took the words of both Sikhs at face value and handcuffed Henry Nowak as he lay bleeding to death on the ground, saying nine times “I can’t breathe”. The police was dismissive of Henry Nowak and proceeded with the arrest procedure; the last words Henry Nowak heard in his live was how the police read him his rights.
The killer was tried and received a life sentence with possibility of parole after 21 years; his “excuses” of racism were dismissed in court. After the verdict bodycam footage was released, and it is bad.
This is a story about how DEI, woke ideology, and anti-racism have corrupted policing in the UK. The story goes viral, and received a lot of attention in the USA as there is another trial in the USA going on for a race based murder at Anthony Metcalf by Karmelo Anthony, while the murder of Irina Zarutska is still fresh in memory.
Here is Farage addressing the UK calling for “rage”.
This story is terrible. The hobbit hole looks better and better. People are acting straight up stupid.
I am mildly surprised they haven’t arrested Farage for a hate speech crime.
I guess maybe if you are a top politician, you can get away with stuff ordinary subjects cannot. (or if you’re a billionaire author).
Wouldn’t they [artist or museum] have to replace the banana every week or so? Lest it be a disgusting, brown, flaccid, ready for banana bread thing?
Which reminds me of a cruel, but kind of funny birthday greeting card I read recently that said, “Another birthday? At your age maybe you should stop buying green bananas”
Check the linked story. The museum replaces the artistic banana every three days.
Do they make artistic banana bread with the previous one?
Scott Bessent is on a roll in how he answers questions in Congress.
BESSENT: “Sen. Wyden has slandered the Treasury building to cover up his son having an investment with Jeffrey Epstein.” WYDEN: “Nobody is interested in the rambling of a capo in the most corrupt regime in American history.” BESSENT: “Your son’s largest investment position was Rick’s Cabaret. Did your son and Epstein talk about pole dancing as he begged him for money using your limited credibility??
Congress has lost all respect from the Trump Administration, in my opinion deservedly so. However these type of interactions, entertaining as they may be, should concern us about the health of the Republic.
“Did your son and Epstein talk about pole dancing as he begged him for money using your limited credibility??“
That highlighted portiion was particularly brutal.
jvb
The banana finds a new home…meme-ing the newly installed statue at Obama’s temple to himself
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HJxox7NXIAA9WDX?format=jpg&name=medium
(And what’s up with the “Nazi salutes”? Nobody questioned the statue’s design leaving that avenue open?)
The “3/5th’s Compromise”, which was included as an uncomfortable political necessity to get slave states to sign on to the new arrangement replacing the ineffective Articles of Confederation reads:
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
This allowed those states to count their slaves towards their representation, despite those slaves having no voice in who those representatives would be. It was a cynical demand by the slave dominated states to boost their power in the House.
Repealed now, do we still have weird representation in Congress?
What about children? They don’t get to vote, but their numbers, remarkably, skew power towards voters in states with younger populations. While my numbers aren’t 100 percent accurate (I rapidly crunched census data) –
California, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Rhode Island and Nebraska are all “overrepresented”. Meaning their portion of children skews their population “up” gaining more representatives *per voting age person*. Idaho, Arizona, Texas, and Florida are all “underrepresented” by the reverse effect. However, other than California, which is off by 2, and the rest, which are off by 1, I don’t necessarily see a problem with this. Children being a special category of person who society entrusts most decision making authority to parents, I don’t mind parents vicariously voting on behalf of their children.
(Side bar – while I’m not advocating this, I also wouldn’t argue to vehemently against the idea that people with children, who by definition are more invested in the future of a society, *should* get more say in government).
That being said, I don’t have a problem with that skewing of the representation.
What about illegal immigrants? They *shouldn’t* get to vote…maybe in some locales their votes are counted (but that’s a different ethical problem than I’m discussing here), but by census permissiveness, as long as they submit a a form, they are counted and their count goes towards the apportionment of Representation.
My numbers here are even less than 100% accurate (I rapidly crunched census data AND compared it to another website’s estimate of illegals) –
California, Illinois, Rhode Island, Oregon and New York are all “overrepresented” while Ohio, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Texas and Florida are all “underrepresented”.
Again, the numbers seem to indicate that most of these states are only off by 1 maybe 2 representatives – California seems to be off by like 4 or 5. In this case, even single digit errors seem egregious when we’re discussing voting power.
(Another sidebar here is that the House of Representatives at about 750,000 people per Representative, is unethically small)
While Constitutionally we don’t have a “3/5ths compromise” anymore accounting for slaves, we certainly have a “1/1th compromise” accounting for illegal immigrants.
Back to the original 3/5ths compromise:
“excluding Indians not taxed”
Is interesting. Our Founders’ primary beef with the mother country was “Taxation without Representation”. They believed if they were being taxed, they should have a right to say what how those taxes are used. Clearly they’ve articulated in the 3/5th Compromise line that the inverse seems to be important also “No Representation without Taxation” either.
Is there an ethical argument that people who pay no taxes (or people who are actually a net gain after taxes) shouldn’t have a right to vote?
The 3/5 compromise sounds ethically terrible because it implied that a slave was less worth than a free citizen. The reason why it was 3/5 and not 1 was that the states without slavery tried to prevent the states with slavery to get too many representatives in the House plus electoral votes, as they did not want slavery to become the law of the entire nation. This is an unethical compromise made to prevent an even more unethical outcome.
I do not have any ethical issues with children being counted in the census towards the number of electoral districts; but counting illegal immigrants in the census creates the moral hazard that a state wants as many illegal immigrants within its borders to have as many electoral districts, and become sanctuary states.
The insane number of drag queen story hour events at public libraries this year. The be gay do crime sticker.
On a more personal note, I recently went to Mo Bettahs. I ordered their egg rolls and spam musubi (the order is important). I ordered ahead. Usually I go through the drive thru, but the line was long so I went inside.
I had to wait 30 minutes for a really simple order that I placed 10 minutes in advance. I went the counter and told someone my order when I got there. The guy nodded and didn’t say anything. After waiting about 25 minutes, I went to the counter again and asked to check on my order.
The cashier (a different person) then told me they were out of spam musubi. So, the first guy didn’t do anything and basically just ignored me. I was thinking about how long I would’ve just waited if I hadn’t checked on my order. The communication was awful.
Everyone was working very hard. Everyone was moving, cooking, etc. It wasn’t a work ethic issue, but it definitely was a customer service issue.
“The insane number of drag queen story hour events at public libraries this year.”
Gosh; I wonder why they want such a young audience…
PWS
I came of age when same-sex marriage became legal in 2015. I was 28. I remember everyone said the LGB (back then) community was just like everyone else. Just a little different but they deserve love and respect. I bought into those claims and became an overly zealous defender of gay rights. I cut my grandma off because she didn’t support my brother when he came out.
Fast forward to now, 11 years later. The road to normalizing much of the excesses of our society began with recognizing something that never should’ve been recognized, at least from a policy perspective. The more you normalize outliers, the more outliers you get. I don’t believe in discrimination in jobs or bringing back the sodomy laws, but the law shouldn’t encourage certain behaviors. That decision has also led to an undermining of religious liberty.
Now, we have grown men doing modern blackface (or womanface?) in front of small children, often dressed in very provocative clothing, and the people who DISAGREE are considered the problem. Even in 2008, drag queens were considered to be weirdos, and if they wanted to go into schools and dance sexually in front of children, there would’ve been a bit of outrage. Some of these performances in front of children are a striptease without taking the clothes off.
Not everyone in the LGBT community is extreme, but there is a large number of people who are highly promiscuous and obsessed with sexuality, to the point that they want to normalize everything in front of kids. The books in public school libraries are another example. It’s degenerate. No healthy society would ever condone stuff like this. We are becoming desensitized to the insanity because it happens so often.
I watched an interview with Hugh Hefner and William Buckley Jr from 1966, and I kept thinking to myself that Hugh Hefner won. Our culture has largely turned into exactly what he advocated for in that interview.
June is Gay Pride Month? Is there still a need for this in the USA? I always resented the fact that in June other people’s sexuality is thrown in my face (e.g. at work or when I go shopping), while in December we were all forced to follow mandatory sexual harassment training as that is legally required. Are all these gay pride celebrations at work (flag) not a form of sexual harassment? Should we not move on since the Obergefell case legalized gay marriage?
“June is Gay Pride Month?”
If you’d like something else to celebrate, and I’d hazard a guess you’re not alone on that, there’s always WESconsin’s June Dairy Month
PWS
Posting this announcement again on the actual Open Forum:
For Ethics Alarms commenters in the area of Madison, WI, our local Braver Angels alliance is holding an event on Saturday, June 20th from 1 PM to 4 PM called Being Red in a Blue Environment. It is a free workshop about communicating conservative-leaning values so that liberal-leaning people are better able to understand and appreciate them. (You’ll also be able to meet me in human form, if that interests you.)
This workshop also welcomes political independents! If you want to stand up for your principles and have people listen respectfully instead of shouting you down, check out the link below.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/being-red-in-a-blue-environment-registration-1989726420285?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true&discount=BRAVER
For commenters elsewhere, you can find your local Braver Angels alliance on this page and ask them about running a Being Red in a Blue Environment workshop, or whichever introductory workshop seems best to start with: https://braverangels.org/braver-citizens/find-a-local-alliance/
I registered; however, that’s the day before Father’s Day and if others in my family happen to schedule something that directly overlaps this workshop, I won’t be there.
Understand that family comes first.
Absolutely, and thanks! Looking forwarding to seeing you there, but hope you have a great weekend regardless!
Well, the kids and grandkids scheduled a Father’s Day gathering for Saturday afternoon so I won’t be there. Again, family comes first.
I was looking forward to meeting you and participating in the workshop. Too bad it wasn’t being held before noon. Maybe next time they can choose a weekend other than Father’s Day.
Thanks for letting me know, Steve! Family does come first.
Aye, picking the right day is always tricky. There will be more workshops this year, and I look forward to the possibility of meeting you in person at one of them. This one still has space available, so if you know any conservative- or independent-leaning people in the area who may be interested, feel free to send them the link; we’d be happy to meet them.
In the meantime, have a great Father’s Day weekend!
I got a story for you Jack that may be up your ally. As far as I can tell, its non-political and is currently developing.
It’s about Legos.
At the center of the story is Bryan Mansell and his elderly father, who claim they entrusted a valuable collection of LEGO sets, including rare Star Wars items, to a Bricks & Minifigs franchise in Salem, Oregon, under a consignment agreement. According to the family, the agreement allowed the store to sell the items while ownership remained with them until the sales were completed. The collection’s estimated value has been reported anywhere from tens of thousands of dollars to as much as $200,000.
The situation became controversial when the family alleged that after changes in ownership and corporate involvement with the store, they were unable to recover most of the collection or receive compensation for items that had been sold. They argued that the collection effectively disappeared and that neither the store nor the company adequately addressed their concerns. Bricks & Minifigs, however, disputed the family’s version of events.
Apparently, people have been arrested in attempts to serve papers, the claims of the LEO playing bodyguard for the store owner, and youtuber’s been threatened who have taken the story nationally. As of yesterday, at least one distributor cut ties.
I guess “Believe all women” is inoperative these days:
Chris Hayes Interviews Platner On NYT Abuse Allegations: “Anything Alleging Physicality Is Simply Not True” | Video | RealClearPolitics
How is it Dems can just throw away the rule book whenever they see fit?
if you think the banana is silly, go to the pompediu-metz site and fix your eyes on a piece entitled, “THE MUTUAL GAZE,” Women sitting on folding chairs staring at eeach other. I suppose it becomes “dynamic” when one needs a bathroom break!
Did somebody say banana bread?
Even though I don’t live in Oregon, this made my head explode. It’s Monday but this is the open forum and I didn’t want to post off topic on another post. I used AI for the details below.
Oregon Initiative Petition 28 (IP28)
Oregon Initiative Petition 28 (IP28), also known as the PEACE Act, is a controversial proposed ballot measure for the November 2026 election that aims to eliminate most exemptions from the state’s animal cruelty laws. If it passes, the measure would effectively ban hunting, fishing, trapping, livestock farming, and animal research across Oregon. Supporters call it the People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions (PEACE) Act, while opponents heavily criticize it as an extreme push that would outlaw standard agricultural and outdoor practices.
Core Changes Proposed by IP28
Under current Oregon state law, animal abuse is defined as intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly injuring an animal. However, activities like farming, hunting, and fishing are legally protected by specific exemptions.
IP28 would remove those exemptions, extending the same legal protections currently given to pets like dogs and cats to all animals—including livestock and wildlife. The measure would impact several major areas:
Signature Progress and Ballot Status
To qualify for the November 3, 2026 general election ballot, campaigners must gather 117,173 valid signatures from registered Oregon voters by the July 2, 2026 deadline.
In late May 2026, the campaign group Yes on IP28 announced they surpassed the raw signature threshold, submitting over 126,000 signatures to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office. The signatures are currently undergoing a statistical verification process by election officials to confirm there are enough valid, unique entries to officially certify the measure for the ballot.