Character

It’s Asshole vs. Jerk vs. Troll, And May The…No, Let’s Hope They All Lose

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

It now appears that the controversial dinner former President Trump had with suddenly radioactive wacko Kanye West and racist, sexist, proto-fascist Nick Fuentes was a diabolical trap set by the “deliberately offensive former Breitbart editor, alt-right cheer-leader, misogynist and professional troll Milo Yiannopoulos, whom Ethics Alarms foolishly assumed was kicked to the curb for good (and I do mean good) when a tape surfaced of him making light of pederasty in an interview. Milo lost a book deal and his star status on the Conservative Creep Speaking circuit as a consequence. In declaring his professional demise, I wrote (in 2017), “Society and political discourse will be better off and more ethical without Milo’s hateful bile polluting them. That is a good thing.”

What do I know? Milo got himself hired as a staffer by Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, herself an Ethics Alarms designated waste of space. Ethics Alarms, 2021: “This, my friends, is a crazy person, and no party can ignore or tolerate a House member who embodies the worst and most fevered stereotypes spread by that party’s opposition. Rep. Greene…needs to be marginalized and isolated in Congress so that not only can she do as little damage as possible, but so that when she says ridiculous and offensive things, nobody can say that this loose cannon speaks for the party.”

Milo, who is also apparently “Ye’s” Presidential campaign manager (of course he is!), takes full responsibility for setting up the dinner that has even former Trump lackeys calling the hopeful Presidential candidate a fool for hosting. Milo:

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Who Would Have Suspected That A Historic Appointment Like Sam Brinton Would Embarrass The Biden Administration?

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

I wish I could say “I told you so,” but I didn’t, exactly. The last time Ethics Alarms discussed Sam Brinton, Energy Department’s chief of nuclear waste disposal, it was in an Ethics Quiz that asked, “Is it competent and responsible for someone like Sam to hold an executive  position of trust in a Cabinet Department?” To this I added,

“Within this quiz are several other questions, like “Should an individual representing the administration, the Energy Department and the U.S. government be publicizing his kinky ways?” and “Is the judgment of an official who behaves in pubic like Sam inherently questionable?” and “Is there a Simulated Sex with Puppies Deputy Assistant Secretary Principle?”

Yes, one of Sam’s passions is simulated sex with puppies. But he’s just pretending.

I said I would reveal my answers after the commentariat weighed in, but I never did. Now comes the news that Brinton, who was hired by the administration in February, was filmed allegedly stealing a woman’s roller bag at the airport’s baggage claim area by security cameras on Sept. 16, according to a criminal complaint filed on Oct. 27. Security footage also showed Brinton taking the woman’s luggage from the baggage carousel and then removing the tags before leaving the scene at a “quick pace,” according to the complaint. Brinton initially told police that be grabbed the bag and no clothes or objects had been removed. Later he changed his story. The contents of the bag, valued at $2000, have not been found.

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Ethics Observations On Trump’s Dinner With Kanye (And Nick)

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Last week Donald  Trump  had dinner at Mar-a-Largo with Kanye West—I’ll start calling him by his new name, Ye, once I’m convinced that it’s not just another gimmick, or in other words, “never”—as well as Nick Fuentes, a 24-year-old leader of an annual white-supremacist event called the America First Political Action Conference, and Karen Giorno,  a veteran political operative who worked on Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign. Never in my memory has the identity of dinner companions ever been used by the media as a supposed smoking gun against the dinner’s host. West, you may recall, had a much publicized meeting with Trump when he was President; he has recently been “cancelled” for making what seemed like anti-Semitic comments. (Kanye, it is fair to say, is mentally unstable and a publicity addict, and is likely to say anything at any time.) Fuentes dining with Trump, however, has been the focus of most of the criticism from the media, political figures, and others. The Times’ house anti-Trump specialist, Maggie Haberman wrote,

Even taking at face value Mr. Trump’s protestation that he knew nothing of Mr. Fuentes, the apparent ease with which Mr. Fuentes arrived at the home of a former president who is under multiple investigations — including one related to keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago long after he left office — underscores the undisciplined, uncontrolled nature of Mr. Trump’s post-presidency just 10 days into his third campaign for the White House.

She (and her co-reporter Alan Feuer) also quoted several figures who condemned Trump’s guest list:

  • “To my friend Donald Trump, you are better than this,” David M. Friedman, who was Mr. Trump’s longtime bankruptcy lawyer and then his appointee as ambassador to Israel, wrote on Twitter. “Even a social visit from an antisemite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable. I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong.”
  • “This is just another example of an awful lack of judgment from Donald Trump, which, combined with his past poor judgments, make him an untenable general election candidate for the Republican Party in 2024,” said Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey who is considering a candidacy of his own.
  • “Matt Brooks, chief executive of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said, ‘We strongly condemn the virulent antisemitism of Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, and call on all political leaders to reject their messages of hate and refuse to meet with them.’”
  • Jonathan Greenblatt, the C.E.O. of the Anti-Defamation League, condemned Mr. Trump’s meeting with Mr. Fuentes, [saying], “Nick Fuentes is among the most prominent and unapologetic antisemites in the country…He’s a vicious bigot and known Holocaust denier who has been condemned by leading figures from both political parties here, including the R.J.C….[that  Trump ]“or any serious contender for higher office would meet with him and validate him by sharing a meal and spending time is appalling. And really, you can’t say that you oppose hate and break bread with haters. It’s that simple.”

Observations:

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The Ethics Alarms 2022 “It’s A Wonderful Life” Ethics Guide, Revised And Updated

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

2022 Preface

I had this year’s introduction all written in my head—that’s how I write, you know—and then discovered hat it was what I wrote last year. No wonder it seemed so obvious. Well, never mind: there are still plenty of new matters to consider.

The main one is that “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a Thanksgiving film as much as it is a Christmas story. In the end, it is all about being thankful and grateful for life, family, friends, being lucky enough to live in the United States, and avoiding bitterness and regret. George Bailey is a good man who is nearly destroyed by bitterness, anger, frustration and regret, and Frank Capra, who directed and partly wrote the screenplay, is telling us that this is no way to live, or even survive. It’s a tough lesson: I have been tempted many times to fall into that trap. Regular readers here have seen me do it. Like George, I often feel like I didn’t achieve and experience what I could have, that my choices too often didn’t pan out, that I barely missed the breaks that I needed when I most needed them. I feel this way even though my father constantly lectured me, really all the way through our relationship, never to fall into George’s pit of despond. As long as you’re breathing, he said, there is always opportunity and hope. Reflecting on what might have been is foolish, depressing and paralyzing.

Ironically, Capra’s fable shows a man for whom revelations of what might have been are decisive evidence that his life, however disappointing to him, nonetheless had meaning. “It’s A Wonderful Life” is perhaps the first screen time travel parable, a forerunner of “Back to the Future,” and anticipated chaos theory long before Edward Lorenz figured out how chaos works. Harry’s toast at the finale, as I wrote last year,

states a life truth that too many of us go through our own lives missing. What makes our lives successful (or not), and what makes makes our existence meaningful is not how much money we accumulate, or how much power we wield, or how famous we are. What matters is how we affect the lives of those who share our lives, and whether we leave our neighborhood, communities, associations and nation better or worse than it would have been “if we had never been born.” It’s a tough lesson, and some of us, perhaps most, never learn it.

I’m not sure I have learned it yet, to be honest with myself. Intellectually, perhaps, but not emotionally.

I just watched the film again today; every time I notice something new, which is reflected in the updated guide  below.  I am also convinced that this is the greatest, riches, most complex ethics movie of all time.  “A Man For All Seasons” was long my winner in this category, but having watched that film too again recently, it doesn’t measure up to Capra’s masterpiece. Recalling the the real Thomas More burned heretics alive rather takes the sheen off Paul Scofield’s marvelous performance.

I also realized that this is very much an adult film. Kids don’t get it; indeed, I wonder if anyone under 40 really does. That makes it a strange Christmas movie. I grew up without seeing the film; the period when it was sold at junk prices to local TV stations which then resuscitated it reputation by wide exposure (I live when that happens) began while I was in college. Now that I think of it, I don’t know if my son has seen the movie. The black-and-white film block for so many younger Americans is a genuine obstacle to both cultural literacy and ethical instruction, and no, Ted Turner’s colorized version of IAWL doesn’t help, since it stinks.

Last year I wrote—and this was one of the points I had forgotten that I had made in last year’s introduction—

This movie’s intended message needs to be considered and taken to heart in 2021. Frank Capra, the movie’s director, designed the film to explain why it’s a wonderful country we live in. It may be that more and more vocal and powerful people want to send the opposite message today than ever before.

Tragically, it is definitely true that more vocal and powerful people want to send the opposite message today than even last year. Show them the movie, and all they will do is count black faces: yup, the only black resident of Bedford Falls appears to be the Baileys’ maid. Clearly, that means that “It’s a Wonderful Life” is just one more relic of systemic racism, and should be ignored and forgotten.

A society that can or will no longer learn from “It’s a Wonderful Life” is doomed to creeping stupidity and confusion. Ethics Alarms presents this annual ethics guide in the hope that we have not reached that desperate state yet.

1. “If It’s About Ethics, God Must Be Involved”

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Ethics Quiz: The Elizabeth Holmes Sentence

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

A Federal judge sentenced Theranos, Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes  to eleven years and three months in prison last week. Essentially the judge had limitless options, with only execution being off the table. Based on the maximum sentences for each the four crimes she was convicted of, she theoretically could have been given the equivalent of life in prison.  Prosecutors asked for a 15-year sentence, three years of supervised release, and more than $800 million damages. The layers for Holmes, now 38, had asked for home detainment, community service, and no more than 18 months in prison. (My son spent half that in jail for a reckless driving offense when he was 18. Just for perspective….)

What did Holmes do? Wikipedia has an excellent one-stop summary: the short version is that she invented a purported blood testing system that didn’t work, faked data, sucked in investors, doctors and patients, made billions, and engaged in all manner of lies, threats, manipulations and schemes to avoid the consequences of her actions. The government argued that Holmes deserved a severe punishment because “dozens of investors lost $700 million and numerous patients received unreliable or wholly inaccurate medical information from Theranos’ flawed tests, placing those patients’ health at serious risk.” This is undoubtedly true. Her defenders counter than “she didn’t kill anybody,”  she is a first time offender, and her crime was one of non-violence. This is also true.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is….

Is Holmes’ 11 years+ sentence for her massive, 15-year fraud fair, just, proportionate and in the best interests of society—in short, ethical?

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Surely…SURELY…The American Public Will Eventually Stop Tolerating This. Right?

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

RIGHT???

The increasingly unjust, unfair, harmful pandering to pseudo-transgender opportunists has got to eventually trigger a massive awakening in which Americans say, “Wait…what are we doing? This is crazy! Why have we allowed this to go on this long? Or at all?”

In the most recent debacle, Seattle Academy’s Aspen Hoffman, ranked 72nd in boys’ track as a freshman, transitioned to female, sort of, as a sophomore, was allowed to compete as girl, and suddenly started winning races.

Hoffman finished first in the 5,000 meter race, and broke Seattle Academy’s girls’ record with a time that would have achieved 48th place in the boys’ division. This is Barry Bonds-level cheating. It also shows how California derangement is infectious: both Washington and Oregon have lost their grip on reality, rationality, responsibility and ethics. When are their citizens going to stop being weenies and stop the madness? It’s their duty as citizens, after all.

Fifteen years ago, Washington state’s guidelines for transgender athletes held that male athletes had to undergo surgery and two years of hormone therapy before they could compete as females. Four years ago, the surgery mandate was lifted and only“documented testosterone suppression therapy” was required. Then, in 2021 as The Great Stupid raged, the state ruled that transgender athletes only had to “consistently express” a gender. Well, yes, that seems reasonable as far as it goes. You don’t want athletes saying, “I’m male!” “I’m female!” “I’m male!” “I’m female!” between races like Faye Dunaway between slaps in “Chinatown.” But then there’s the other matter—biological males have a huge advantage.

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Who Couldn’t Tell That The Chrisleys Were Crooks?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Gee what a surprise.

Since my sock drawer has been in desperate straits, I missed the news that Todd and Julie Chrisley, the oogy, greed-obsessed mater and pater in the family reality show “Chrisley Knows Best,” had been convicted of federal charges of financial fraud and tax evasion in June. They are going to be sentenced today, maybe for as much as 30 years each, while having to disgorge about 20 million bucks of ill-gotten gains.

I watched less than ten minutes of the USA series maybe five years ago, got nauseous, and never went back. I was immediately reminded of the marketing line for the slasher film “Black Christmas”, “If this movie doesn’t make your skin crawl, it’s on too tight!” It seemed screamingly obvious that this family that gorged on bad taste, conspicuous consumption and nouveau riche excess and smuggery was as corrupt and ethically inert as human beings could be. Even as accustomed as I was to really awful and/or sick people being the stars of these trashy shows—Danny Bonaduce, Scott Baio, Ryan O’Neal, the “Jersey Shore” cast, Anna Nicole Smith and so many others—the Chrisleys were special, so throbbingly vile that I would be tempted to investigate anyone who tuned in for more than one episode.

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Sunday Afternoon Ethics Reflections, 11/20/2022, Part I: The Nuremberg Trials And Donald Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This time I’m separating the usual intro to these ethics potpourris with the enumerated stories. I began by noting that this is the anniversary of the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials in 1945, as notable an ethics milestone as one could imagine, from several perspectives. The trials were an admirable effort to make grand statement about the line of inhuman evil that even war could not justify and that a world would not countenance. They were also significantly hypocritical, just as the post-Civil War trial of Andersonville Prison commander Henry Wirz, the sole judicial precedent for Nuremberg, was hypocritical, punishment inflicted on the losers of a terrible war that could easily have been brought against the war’s victors if the results had been reversed.

There really was no enforceable international law to base the Nuremberg Trials on, making the trials illegal if not unethical. Did they stop genocide? No, and one could argue that the show trails didn’t even slow genocide down. They did, I guess, make people think; one important result of the trials was that the films of liberated death camps, made by U.S. troops and supervised by the great Hollywood director George Stevens, were finally shown. How much the trials made people think is much open to debate. I have always been fascinated by the issues raised by the Nuremberg Trials, and Abby Mann’s 2001 stage version of “Judgment at Nuremberg” was one of the productions I oversaw at The American Century Theater. Directed by Joe Banno, it included post show discussions after every performance, some with D.C. area historians, lawyers and judges as guests. Incredibly, I felt, the show had never been produced in the Washington D.C. area, professionally or professionally. Disgracefully is perhaps the better word. TACT’s was a professional, thoughtful and excellent production, yet the Washington Post refused to review it. “Dated,” was their verdict on most of my theater’s productions. The apathy about “Judgment at Nuremberg” was a major factor in persuading me to end my theater’s 20 year-long mission of presenting neglected American stage works of historical, cultural, theatrical or ethical significance.

But I digress. While I was checking to see whether I had noted this anniversary before (I had not), I found the following post, which was the earliest Ethics Alarms entry featuring a reference to the Nuremberg Trials. Written in 2012, it makes fascinating reading today, so here it is. One nostalgic note: Among the commenters on that post more than a decade ago were Michael Boyd (last heard from on this date ten years ago), Brook Styler (final comment), Chase Martinez ( left in 2015), Julian Hung (last heard from in August of last year), Danielle (who wished me a Merry Christmas in 2016, and vanished), Modern Knight ( final comment in 2017), and several one-time commenters who never returned. But Michael Ejercito was among them, speaking of loyalty. The good kind.

The Donald’s Dangerous Ethics: Loyalty Trumps Honesty On “Celebrity Apprentice”

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Ethics Dunce: Elon Musk

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Sigh.

I can’t decide whether it is completely predictable that the richest man in the world has a 5th grader’s comprehension of ethics and integrity of principles, or whether it should alarm us all. I do know that those of us hoping that Musk could transform Twitter from the censorious, leftist propaganda organ that it has become into a fair and valuable platform for public discourse are probably going to be disappointed.

Musk said on Twitter yesterday that he was reinstating former President Donald J. Trump to the platform, and poof!, Trump was back on the site. That’s fine: Musk should have reinstated him immediately as soon as he had the metaphorical reins of Twitter in hand. His banning in 2021 was both partisan and political; as the immediate former President, Trump’s ability to express his opinions and positions on the most used social media platform was essential to the national dialogue, regardless of what he had to say, or how obnoxiously he might say it. The principles that supposedly led Musk to spend billions of dollars buying Twitter demanded that Trump be reinstated.

But what did Musk do? He put the matter up for a vote on Twitter. How does that compute, as the robot on “Lost in Space” might say? Allowing a group to vote to decide whether an individual gets to speak or not is the epitome of censorship. Stifling free expression by those who are unpopular or who have unpopular opinions is the antithesis of the First Amendment. Doesn’t Musk understand that? Apparently not, or, perhaps more likely, he does understand it to the extent he has thought about it in his brilliant but weirdly wired brain, but doesn’t care. The vote was good publicity. The vote would get headlines. The vote would attract new accounts. Principles, shminciples; ethics, shmethics. I own this place and I’ll do what I want.

That’s basically the Donald Trump approach to ethics. Great.

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