Pete Rose, baseball’s all-time hit leader who received a lifetime (and justified) ban from baseball for betting on games while a manager, was my very first Ethics Dunce, way back in January of 2004, on the old Ethics Scoreboard. Since then Pete has come up here often, with a thick and varied ethics dossier. The man is a slimeball; there is no disputing it. He knowingly violated baseball’s most inviolate rule; he lied about it in more than one way; he ended up in jail for defrauding the IRS; he has attempted multiple schemes to cash in on his own misconduct. Rose is the poster boy for the King’s Pass: he assumed that rules and laws didn’t apply to him because he was a Great and Beloved Player. Yes, he was a great, beloved, unique and entertaining player, but Pete Rose wouldn’t know an ethical value if it were nailed to his forehead.
And yet…the most recent attack on Rose’s character is contrived and unfair.
The last thing Fred Guttenberg told his 14-year-old daughter was that it was time for her to go, that she was going to be late. Hours after rushing his two children to school that Valentine’s Day morning in 2018, a shooter unleashed a barrage of gunfire inside a Parkland, Fla., high school — killing 17 people, including Jaime Guttenberg.
During Tuesday’s sentencing proceedings for the convicted shooter, Nikolas Cruz, Guttenberg’s voice broke while he talked of the imagined future he had for Jaime, one that never came to be. But his were not the only tears falling in court — members of Cruz’s defense team were also crying, videos show.
“I cannot recall if I actually ever did tell Jaime that day how much I loved her. I never knew that I would lose the chance to say it over and over and over again,” Guttenberg said as public defender Nawal Najet Bashiman dabbed her eyes with a tissue. Two others on Cruz’s team also shed tears during testimony Tuesday.
That is Assistant public defender Tamara Curtis wiping her eyes in the photo above.
With his uncanny instinct for taking bows for making an obvious observation while missing the point, pseudo-comic Bill Maher once again engaged in his favorite topic of fat-shaming last week, this time with a “Eureka!” to share. The U.S. has inexplicably gone from fat acceptance to “fat celebration,” which the HBO wit <gag!choke!> calls a “disturbing trend.”
This isn’t a “trend,” nor is it disturbing, and it isn’t a phenomenon confined to obesity. Bill could have educated his audience—which, as usual, arfed and clapped like the human seals they are—but instead ignored the real problem, which is partially fueled by people like him.
And it’s an ethical one. Society’s goal is to make the human beings within it safe and happy. This requires setting standards, much of which it accomplishes with law and law enforcement, and the rest it pursues by making values, virtues and positive, societally beneficial conduct clear. Society then encourages and rewards those who meet those standards, and shames, disapproves and rejects those who defy them.
I actually have been lying awake with a not-quite-dismal headache, and all sorts of ethics nightmares real and imagined have been spooling through my fevered brain, so I decided to hell with it, might as well write an in-between warm-up and hope that it calms me down enough to get back to sleep.
Among other issues, I am annoyed that I didn’t get to a warm-up yesterday because August 7 is another date chock full of ethics milestones, notably the the passage of the infamous Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving President Johnson almost unrestrained powers to oppose “communist aggression” in Southeast Asia. Not only was this the floodgates-opening moment for the U.S.’s disastrous Vietnam entanglement, but it permanently (so far, at least) accelerated Congress’s abdication of its constitutional duties to oversee the Executive’s war-making proclivities. August 7 was also the date in 1912 upon which Teddy Roosevelt completed his fateful, ego-driven move to split the Republican Party, preferring a public tantrum that would ultimately inflict Woodrow Wilson, arguably our worst President ever, on the Republic, over accepting the consequences of his own impulsiveness when he foolishly forswore running for a second full term in office. Not surprisingly, Teddy had found his hand-picked successor (and best friend) William Howard Taft not sufficiently Teddy-like, and when the GOP dutifully renominated Taft for another term that he would have won easily, Roosevelt launched his Bull Moose Party to oppose both Taft and Wilson. His own party then nominated Roosevelt 110 years ago, violently changing the course of history in ways too convoluted to guess.
1. What’s going on with Disney? The best answer appear to be “Really, really, incompetent management.” When I read complaints about Walt’s creation retiring its creator’s opening day speech from its anniversary celebration after 67-years, I assumed that it was all just “Disney has gone crazy woke!” conservative hysteria. Then I read the speech, which I had last heard when I first visited Disneyland when I was a college sophomore, on one of the most fun days of my life. Here is what Walt said:
To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world. Thank you.
That’s the mission statement for the entire Disney journey, and eloquently stated too. What could anyone, especially anyone charged with continuing to make the company thrive, object to about that perfect expression of why Disney is important to American culture? An organization that becomes estranged from its founder (or Founders) is risking its soul and survival. I hope that the erasure of Walt’s words from this year’s celebration is just another in a long string of dumb management decisions. I fear that it is much more than that.
2. Apparently racial discrimination is now the official policy of New York City. The New York Post reports that New York City Mayor Eric Adams has requested that city agencies provide photographs of potential candidates for jobs at City Hall ranging from assistant commissioner to departmental press secretary. The ubiquitous “unnamed city officials” explained that the request is part of an effort to hire more diverse staffers, a euphemism for “so the city can hire based on skin color.” Unethical. Of course. The officials the Post interviewed said they supported a diverse workforce but worried that the practice is causing the Adams administration “to make hiring decisions with a greater emphasis on race and ethnicity than merit.” The Mayor, ridiculously, swears that having the photos will merely help him recognize his employees in the sprawling city workforce. Continue reading →
In Part 1, I wrote: “Performance artists generally and across all levels and regions tend to be incompetent at ethical analysis, and their ethics alarms aren’t merely dysfunctional, they are warped.” Unfortunately, this applies to aspiring performance artists among amateur ranks as well.
RGV Productions works with The Door Christian Fellowship Ministries of McAllen, and thus was responsible for live-streamed performances of a youth production of the Broadway hit “Hamilton” this weekend at the Door McAllen Church in McAllen, Texas.The production added scenes and dialogue and changed lines. During the climactic (and historical) duel between Aaron Burr and Hamilton, for example, the titular character says, “What is a legacy? It’s knowing you repented and accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ that sets men free. You sent your sinless son of man on Calvary to die for me!”
Sure doesn’t sound like Alexander to me! At the end of the show, a pastor delivered a sermon that included a passage you will never hear on Broadway, except as satire: “Maybe you struggle with alcohol, with drugs, with homosexuality, maybe you struggle with other things in life, your finances, whatever, God can help you tonight. He wants to forgive you for your sins.”
Uh, can’t do that. The licensing rights to perform any show that hasn’t passed into the public domain specifically forbid it. Now, to be fair, RGV Productions and the church never obtained the rights: they are still unavailable, as is the norm when a Broadway show is in its initial run. Never mind: these disrespectful scofflaws did the show, or their mutant version of it, anyway. Continue reading →
More than a decade ago, while I was the artistic director for a Northern Virginia professional theater I had co-founded, I offered the greater D.C. theater association a draft ethics code that I had developed after I realizes that the ethics alarms of the typical area theater professional were approximately the same as those of the average drug cartel boss. The response was telling: I received a formal thank-you, but was told that the theater community had no interest in ethics, and had done just fine without any code.
This attitude is not unique to Washington D.C. and environs, or regional theater. Performance artists generally and across all levels and regions tend to be incompetent at ethical analysis, and their ethics alarms aren’t merely dysfunctional, they are warped.
From the world of professional performing, for example, we have this controversy, arising from the announcement that actor James Franco (far left), a Portugese-Swedish-Jewish American, has been cast as Fidel Castro in a film project, and celebrated Hispanic actor John Lequizamo (on the right) was outraged over the casting choice. “How is this still going on? How is Hollywood excluding us but stealing our narratives as well?” Leguizamo wrote. “No more appropriation Hollywood and streamers! Boycott! This F’d up! Plus seriously difficult story to tell without aggrandizement which would b wrong!”
As you can see, the actor was so upset that he lost the ability to communicate in coherent English.
That’s former Houston-area middle school teacher Marka Bodine above. Isn’t she pretty? Much too pretty to have to be in an icky old jail. So despite the fact that she was convicted of grooming, harassing, raping and continuously sexually abusing a 13-year-old student until he was 16 years old and finally alerted authorities, Bodine was only sentenced to to 60 days in jail with 10 years of probation. Shades of the infamous 2005 case of Debra Lafave, another sick but comely teacher who raped one of her 14-year-old students! Her lawyer successfully convinced the judge that their client was “too pretty for prison,” and honestly, who can argue with that? Here’s Debra:
As you can see, Marka isn’t quite the hottie that Debra was, so it’s only fair that she got some jail time. But wait! There’s more! Because Marka had given birth shortly before her sentencing (the baby was not her rape victim’s—Whew!— that would be the saga of teacher rapist Mary Kay LeTourneau), Harris County Judge Greg Glass postponed her imprisonment for a full year. Continue reading →
In 2019, Andrea Anderson’s primary birth control method had failed, so she called her health care provider to ask for a prescription to Ella, an emergency contraceptive tablet. But when she went to the local McGregor Thrifty White pharmacy in Aitkin County, Minnesota, pharmacist and local pastor George Badeaux refused to fill the prescription, citing his religious beliefs. He told her that a pharmacist working the following day could fill her needs if a snowstorm didn’t prevent the pharmacist from getting to work.The desperate woman ended up driving three hours round trip to Brainerd during a snowstorm to get her pregnancy-terminating pills.
Anderson sued under the Minnesota Human Rights Act, alleging sexual discrimination. The jury ruled against her.
Ethics Alarms verdict: the jury was right on the law, but the pharmacist was unethical. Continue reading →
What? Democrats manipulate health protocols for political advantage and expediency? Another conspiracy theory, conservatives? “Not hardly,” as Big Jake would say. Democrats are flagrantly disregarding their sacred Wuhan virus safety protocols because they can’t afford and positive testing or quarantines when the upcoming vote on the latest spending and tax bill (the hilariously oxymoronic titled Inflation Reduction Act) is expected to be razor thin. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said there is no “plan B” when it comes to passing the controversial spending package, because Democrats are “going to stay healthy.” Reportedly Democratic Senators could “bring [their] ventilator and still vote.” The Hill nickname for this hypocritical exercise, far from the first involving progressives and the pandemic, is “Don’t test, don’t tell.”
And yet people doubt the sincerity of the Left’s pandemic scaremongering….
1. And while we’re on the topic of trustworthy science, a French physicist posted this photo, writing (in French, of course), “Photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years from us. She was taken by the [James Webb Space Telescope]. This level of detail… A new world is revealed day after day”:
It was really a slice of chorizo sausage. Trust the science! (Just not the scientists…)
2. At what point will the vast majority of the public just point and laugh at people who react like this? U.S. and British TV personality Gordon Ramsey, a chef, food critic and restaurateur, was shown in a video surveying a flock of lambs for future consumption while saying, “Yummy yum yum yum yum yum. I’m going to eat you. Which one’s going in the oven first?” Then he picked one.
Social media critics were horrified. Morons.
3. And speaking of morons: Alex Jones. A jury found the “Infowars” conspiracy theory hack guilty of defamation for falsely claiming—ridiculously claiming— that the 2021 attack on the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school that took the lives of 20 children was a hoax. He was ordered to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages, then another $45.2 million in punitive damages…and this was just for two of the families. Expect the damages to be significantly reduced, but it appears to be a good verdict. Lying is protected under the First Amendment, but Jones’ lies in this case implicated the parents of murdered children in a plot with no evidence whatsoever, though Jones implied that there was. That’s defamation. (I know, because that’s not what I did when an Ethics Alarms reader claimed that I defamed him.)
4. I won’t say Georgia candidate for Governor, Stacey Abrams, is a moron, but her “explanation” of how she squares her faith with her support for abortion is, shall we say, interesting:
It is a medical decision. And while your faith tradition may tell you that you personally do not want to make that choice, it is not my right as a Christian to impose that value system on someone else because the value that should overhang everything is the right to make our own decisions, the free will that the God I believe in gave us. And my responsiblity as a legislator is to make certain that we allow doctors and nurses and medical professionals to make medical decisions and that politicians stay out of it.
Incoherent and insulting. The decision of a healthy woman to terminate a healthy fetus is not a “medical decision.” Moreover, if an individual believes that killing a fetus is ending the life of a human being, it matters not how an individual reached that conclusion, be it the Bible, biochemistry or experience: that individual has an obligation to act on that belief. Abrams is endorsing subjective ethical standards even when they involve homicide, an inexcusable position for a lawmaker. All laws involve elected officials deciding on what societal values and standards must be, and imposing them.
5. Bottom ethics item of the day: Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s state budget included a pardon signed by Massachusetts’ Governor Charlie Baker, thus exonerating Elizabeth Johnson from her 1692 conviction for practicing witchcraft in Salem.
This was the culmination of a three-year effort by civics teacher Carrie LaPierre and students at North Andover middle school, who relentlessly campaigned to exonerate Johnson with an assist by a state senator who apparently doesn’t have enough to do.
My verdict: stupid grandstanding and virtue-signaling. None of those found guilty of witchcraft require exoneration, because everyone knows there were no witches. The linked article describe’s Johnson’s name as”seemingly-forever smeared by the witchcraft conviction.” To whom? Who knows her name at all today? This isn’t like Bill Clinton finally pardoning the captain of the “Indianapolis,” who was unjustly court-martialed for an infamous naval disaster he could not have prevented. [Pointer: JutGory]
There probably isn’t a more explosive ethics event, literally or figuratively, than the dropping of the first atom bomb on Hiroshima on this date in 1945.
My father attributed this date to the fact of my existence. Dad had received word that he was to be part of the first wave invasion force to take the Japan mainland, and estimated casualties were as high as 1 million. He said that he had fully expected to be killed. But on August 6, in 1945, the Enola Gay changed all of that. I suppose you could say that I have a strong bias in favor of President Truman’s decision.
Hiroshima was one of the first historical topics I wrote about on this blog. Ethics Alarms had been around for less than a year in 2010, when I wrote this post, “The Ethics of Commemorating Hiroshima”:
Ethics Alarms 