Wow…the day exploded right in my face the second I got out of bed. I’d have to start with an Open Forum today even if it wasn’t Friday, the way things are looking…

Please make my likely extended absence today irrelevant….

This is why this blog takes too much time: I just tried to find a song about Thursday. It isn’t that there aren’t any, although I hadn’t heard of a single one though at least one and often many ditties about the other six days rattle around in what I laughingly call my brain. It’s just that they all—and there are a lot– are lousy or forgettable, and if there is a Thursday song written before 2000, I can’t find it. It’s as if we hit the 21st century and a bunch of song-writers said, “Hey! Nobody’s written a hit song about Thursday! I can write the next “Monday Monday” or “Never on a Sunday” but about Thursday! I’ll be rich and famous!” Uhhhh…no.

Is it unethical to waste time going down dead ends like this when there are so many half-completed posts and languishing Ethics Alarms projects? Yes. But it is the story of my scattered life and incoherent career. I am like a dog with squirrels.

1. Speaking of dogs...I’m going to cross-post this on the endless comment thread regarding pit bull breed bias here. Yesterday I was walking Spuds, as usual changing directions and routes constantly to avoid encounters with children (who he loves, but he’s too strong to bet on random meetings), scooters, skateboards and bicycles (which frighten him for some reason) and other dogs, which he always wants to play with, but they and their owners are not always of a similar mind. Two little girls on scooters were zipping along on the sidewalk right at us, so I prepared to cross the street. But someone walking two other dogs was on that sidewalk, and cars were coming by from either direction. On the grass to my right was large groups of people, and someone was also coming up behind us. Trapped, I shouted to the girls to stop. They kept coming. I shouted again. They paid no attention, and now Spuds was wagging his tail. Finally, I stepped out, pointed my finger as I raised my arm, and said, in my best public speaker voice, “Both of you, STOP RIGHT NOW! I’m warning you!” I scared the hell out of them. Good. They froze. Then they got my lecture about paying attention to their surroundings, understanding that they don’t own the sidewalk, and not being stupid about dogs. If they had kept coming, Spuds might have reacted to their scooters, one of the girls might have fallen and been hurt, and that would be curtains for Spuds. Meanwhile, another “vicious pit bull attack injures child” story would be published on Dogsbite.org. Parents have an obligation to teach kids the basics of community, and it is clear to me that most don’t. “Did you hear me? Do you understand?” I said to the girls as I finally could cross the street. I felt bad: they looked like they might cry. “Y-y-y-yes,” the older girl stammered. “We’re sorry.” It’s OK,” I said. “But remember what I said.”

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September 29 should be celebrated as Barn Door Fallacy Day. More than the last historical episode I flagged as illustrating the phenomenon, the Tylenol poisoning fiasco (I’m taking Tylenol this very second, because I’m in agony) illustrated the human race’s irrational instinct to go overboard after an unprecedented event by installing measures that would have prevented it if a time machine were available.

Flight attendant Paula Prince bought a bottle of cyanide-laced Tylenol on this date in 1982, and was found dead two days later. Six other people had died in northwest Chicago, and investigators eventually realized all seven victims had taken Extra-Strength Tylenol poisoned with cyanide. Extra-Strength Tylenol was recalled nationwide, but the only contaminated capsules were found in the Chicago area. The poisoner was never caught, but the cost to consumers and corporations of the sudden rush to make all containers “tamper-proof” is in the billions. I think about that random killer every time a have to grab a knife to cut off what is supposed to be an easy peel-off paper seal to use a new bottle of Ketchup or to open new jar of peanut butter. Thank to our product liability jurisprudence: once there was a high-profile poisoning of a container, all manufacturers faced liability if their product was similarly contaminated. It was suddenly “foreseeable.”

Manufacturers have no choice, I suppose, and a statistical cost-benefit analysis that balances the expense of eliminating the tiny risk with the odds of another deadly incident carries unacceptable perils of reputational devastation if metaphorical lightning strikes twice. Then there is always the copycat phenomenon to worry about. Essentially, the Tylenol tragedy shows how societal trust among millions can be shattered permanently by a single sociopath.

Once Americans trusted each other not to poison food and drugs just because they could. Now we don’t. Can’t.

1. Officials who use religion this way undermine both their own credibility and religion. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who took over after Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned, told members of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, “There are people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants. You know this. You know who they are. I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it and say, ‘We owe this to each other. We love each other.’ Jesus taught us to love one another. And how do you show that love, but to care about each other enough to say, ‘Please get vaccinated because I love you. I want you to live.'”

Ick, ptooi, yuck, gag, gack! So, the first female governor of New York is also an idiot, though not the first. Let’s see: pandering, exploitation, appeal to authority,and fear-mongering. The odds that an unvaccinated worshiper will die is less than 1%. “Jesus would want you to get vaccinated” is presumptuous and insulting.

Good luck, New York.

2. Paid liar ethics…is it fair to keep pointing out what a hack Jen Psaki is? I found myself defending one of her endless series of obfuscations and double-talk spin attempts to my wife, saying that every White House press secretary has an impossible job and has to engage in daily misrepresentation or excuse-making to a greater or lesser extent. Her response: an ethical person doesn’t take that job.

Jen was in top form two days ago, when she responded to reporters citing data indicating that President Biden’s proposed increase in the corporate tax rate from 21 to 26.5% would lead to lower wages for workers and higher prices. Psaki said, “There are some… who argue that in the past, companies have passed on these costs to consumers. We feel that that’s unfair and absurd and the American people will not stand for that.” 

There aren’t “some who argue” that. It is a matter of history and predictable cause and effect. Companies pass on costs to consumers. Fact. “It won’t happen because ‘we’ think that’s unfair” is magical thinking. It instantly reminded me of a memorable discussion with my parents when they were both in their late 80s.

My mother suddenly said, “Do people wake up feeling fine and then just drop dead the same day with no warning?” My father, who was always amused by my mother’s ongoing battle with mortality, said, “Of course! It happens every day, to millions of people! It could happen to either of us, today!” “Well, I just refuse to accept that,” Mom replied. “You have no choice but to accept it, Eleanor,” Dad said, laughing. “That’s how it works.” “Nope,” she insisted, not smiling a bit. “I don’t accept it.”

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