Comment of the Day

Comment Of The Day: “The 2022 Ethics Alarms Companion To ‘Miracle On 34th Street'”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Of the three Ethics Alarms ethics companions to classic Christmas movies, the “Miracle on 34th St.” edition has attracted the most criticism. That’s strange, because 1) it is my favorite of the three and 2) I am more critical of the ethics features of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and even “Miracle’s” biggest fans ( I’me one of them) have to concede that IAWL is a great work of art, while the tale of Kris Kringle is “just” excellent entertainment. P.M. Lawrence is the only Ethics Alarms reader who attempted to jot down substantive objections to the post, and that alone made his comment COTD-worthy. He also did a good job, as usual, and his critique did not include a hint of “How dare you?”

I addressed those critics in a coda last year that I omitted in the 2022 version, beginning with one commenter’s  “I suspect we could poke holes in any film with respect to morality and ethics if we wanted to,” a commenter wrote last year”.

My retort:

  • I want to, because it’s my job
  • Movies are excellent for tuning up ethics alarms
  • Christmas movies, which are seen by children, have a special obligation to teach the right lessons, both prominently and subliminally, and
  • No, in fact you can’t poke holes in any film, at least not fairly.

I agree that this film is a classic. It is also clear that the story was constructed to reach the climactic trial gimmick, and scant attention was given to consistency or playing fair. I am a legal ethics specialist, after all. You can’t expect me not to analyze a crazy trial like that.

I will never try to “poke holes” in the greatest of all Christmas stories or its film adaptations,  arguably the greatest ethics story of them all, “A Christmas Carol.” That is because it is pretty close to perfect. There are other holiday films and ethics films that are written superbly, and have few if any ethics holes to find. Among these are “Toy Story,” “Finding Nemo,” “Mary Poppins,” “The Sound of Music,” “Babe,” and even “Groundhog Day.”

I’m not the Grinch, as even a perfunctory perusal of this blog’s endorsement of the Christmas holiday over the years will show. If you set out to make an ethics movie, though, you had better pay attention to ethics.

Here is P.M. Lawrence’s Comment of the Day on the post, “The 2022 Ethics Alarms Companion To ‘Miracle On 34th Street'”:

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Comment Of The Day: “At Least This Time They Didn’t Blame Pitbulls…”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Happy Boxing Day, for those of you who have servants, butler and and the like! Do make sure your underlings enjoy a Christmas-like experience a day late, after caring for you and your family yesterday!

Ethics Alarms will kick off its Boxing Day festivities with another terrific Comment of the Day by Mrs, Q. I’m hopping it over two other COTD in waiting, in part because I feel guilty: her post was stuck in moderation because I was “making a bit merry yesterday” (Source?) and neglected the blog comments. I apologize to Mrs.Q and my readers. Her comment was stuck because it included many invaluable links to additional information.

She addressed the horrible incident discussed in yesterday’s commentary regarding a fatal dog attack last week that took the life of a couple’s newborn child. Mrs. Q concentrates her ethics marksmanship on an aspect of the story that I mentioned, but only broadly: the parents’ accountability for the tragedy.

Here is Mrs. Q’s Comment of the Day on the post, “At Least This Time They Didn’t Blame Pitbulls…“

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Perhaps I’m being harsh, but I do think the parents and every parent or guardian this happens to, should be charged.

We have an incredibly irresponsible ethos going on in the world of dog ownership. People who willingly choose to have a dog, of any size dog, around small children, without educating themselves on danger behavior signals, is complicit in spreading such violence.

The killings of children is just a part of it. 50% of kids under 12 have been bitten by dogs. Most dog bites children experience happen over 70% of the time on the face and neck. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Still More Twitter Ethics: Musk’s Cynical Poll And Another Twitter Files Summary”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I’m a bit behind in posts covering the Twitter Files; I’m also behind in posting Comments of the Day. Ethics Alarms veteran Glenn Logan authored one more than a week ago, and had it not been for a recent comment that rang my “Glenn Logan” alarm, this one might have been lost.

Here is Glenn’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Still More Twitter Ethics: Musk’s Cynical Poll And Another”Twitter Files” Summary”…

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Jack wrote:

“Musk can’t run Twitter by poll, though, if he is truly devoted to promoting free and open public discourse.“

No, you’re right about that. It needs to stop. The optics are very poor to anyone not invested in Twitter at the expense of rational thought.

“The past seven years (or more) make the conclusion unavoidable that the FBI is untrustworthy, partisan, corrupt,dangerous, and a threat to undermine the Republic. That is not a news that easy to process or accept, but it can’t be ignored or shrugged off any more…”

The FBI has always been a problematic venture. It was corrupt nearly from birth, and we are surprised that it somehow has changed its spots over the decades? Sure, there have been a few stretches where it was less corrupt than at others, but at its core, it is a functioning federal bureaucracy with a law enforcement component, largely governed by political partisans.

That partisanship has clearly been allowed to filter down to at least middle management and even the rank-and-file. Throw in the “You’re either with me or against me” politics of the social media age, and how can you not have a corrupt catastrophe?

Disbanding the FBI root and branch would be a huge public service. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz Of The Day: ‘Gotcha!’ Or ‘Benefit Of The Doubt’?”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The recent ethics quiz about the apparent swastika pattern in the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle triggered many fascinating responses, none more so than curmie’s Comment of the Day. Here (again) is the provocative puzzle:

…and here is curmie’s COTD on the post, “Ethics Quiz Of The Day: ‘Gotcha!’ Or ‘Benefit Of The Doubt’?”:

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This one is fascinating. Were I still in the classroom, I’d definitely be using it as an example of the way the postmodern idea of meaning being created by the receiver rather than the sender plays out in real life as well as in art per se.

There’s a little bit of Hanlon’s Razor, a little bit of Paul Simon’s line in “The Boxer” that “a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.” However we frame it, it seems to me that an individual’s response to this stimulus tells us more about the respondent than it does about the creator of the puzzle. I say this as neutrally as possible: there are those, like Steve Witherspoon, to whom “the white outlined swastika jumped off the page.” There are those, like P.M. Lawrence, who struggle to see the design even when knowing what to look for.

Two observations, both of them important. First, neither response is wrong, although they seem totally at odds. Second, I am not suggesting that an individual’s response is necessarily linked to an ideology or demographic. That is, having a positive or negative view of the NYT, leaning to the left or the right politically, being Jewish or not… any of all of these considerations might influence our reactions, but I’d be surprised if there aren’t a significant number of people from every combination of these factors on both sides of this issue. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Comment Of The Day: A Language Ethics Quiz: Regarding ‘Groomer’”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This is complicated. Humble Talent’s Comment of The Day, in addition to being sparked by Mrs. Q’s comment, also responded to the comment on Mrs. Q’s Comment of the Day by dekerivers, whose quote begins Humble Talent’s post. All are relevant to the assertions about the term “groomer” made by RL Stroller, which are discussed here.

Got all that? Good…now, as my dad used to say in such situations, explain it to me.

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“From my perspective as a gay man, teachers and school programs today are designed to foster a child to see themselves as who they are and allow for the expression of their individualism, which includes sexual orientation and identity.”

From my perspective as a gay man, if that actually all they were doing, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. Oh sure, there are legitimately Americans who still hate the fact that gay people exist, so *a* conversation would be going on, but it wouldn’t be this one.

And that, I think, basically encapsulates my disagreement with you: You ignore too much. you accept to much. You have done what so many people who identify with the acronym have done and taken in some awful people who have done shitty things and wrapped them up in the protection of inclusivity.

Just recently, during the Balenciaga SNAFU… There was a contingent of people saying that the moral panic du jour over pedophilia was an attack on LGBTQ people. Now, I believe that was a poorly designed shock campaign gone bad… But no one mentioned gay people. No one mentioned groomers. This is something the LGBTQ community took upon themselves, and I’m left standing at the outside of that, horrified at the implication. I don’t know how much lifting that + does for you, but it apparently does some heavy lifting elsewhere. I make it simple: Pedophiles don’t get to sit at my table. I don’t see an attack on pedophiles as an attack on me. I don’t know what exactly went on in Balenciaga’s office space, but it was fucking dumb, and no skin off my ass if they get called out.

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Comment Of The Day: “A Language Ethics Quiz: Regarding ‘Groomer’”

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

And now an important word from Mrs. Q that I wish could be circulated and read far and wide, on the post, A Language Ethics Quiz: Regarding “Groomer.” (I’ve just got to find a way to get more readers here. I’m sorry, Mrs. Q. You deserve better.)

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Gays Against Groomers is not a conservative group at all. The people in GAG are mostly gay or trans and stand against sexually inappropriate indoctrination of youth as well as against modifying the bodies of kids in the name of gender theory. This group has been denied services from several companies including payment processing and merchandise makers.

GAG’s crime, of course, isn’t that they’re “conservative” but that these renegade gays and trans citizens aren’t going along. In the world of progressivism, not knowing your place as a minority is even worse than being conservative. This is why people call GAG an “anti-gay transphobic hate group”— which of course makes no dang sense.

The Department of Justice has used the word Groomer for years. I read some of the DOJ’s reports on school grooming by teachers and other staff. This has been an unsaid issue for decades. The difference now is that the grooming is more diffuse in schools and done by woke staff who don’t see any issues down the road with exposing kids, including LGBT kids, to sex and gender identity concepts that are not age appropriate and that should be discussed with parents first.

Yes, this is grooming because such exposure seeks to eliminate innocence and circumvent parental moral teaching.

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Comment Of The Day: “The Other Shoe Drops: How Will The MSM Deny Twitter’s Viewpoint Censorship Now?”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Bill Wolf’s Comment of the Day is four days old, and yet in light of subsequent developments, like this, this, this and this, it seems as fresh as new-fallen snow….

Here is Bill’s self-described rant/analysis sparked by “The Other Shoe Drops: How Will The MSM Deny Twitter’s Viewpoint Censorship Now?”:

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Okay. I acknowledge that this qualifies as a rant. However, rants can be cathartic.

The “Free Press” is failing us again or more accurately stated: continues to fail us. The US being the American people. “Democracy Dies in Darkness”. True, but who is casting that shroud of darkness upon the country?

Our Founding Fathers were aware of the might and necessity of the “power of the pen” as they set upon their task to form the country’s government. So much so that they felt it necessary to address it as a preeminent limitation of government’s power. But why did they feel so strongly of the need for a free press? Perhaps Thomas Paine said it best: “Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.”

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Comment Of The Day: “Dispatches From The Great Stupid, “D.E.I.” Division: This Story From The Washington Post Was Not A Joke…”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

In addition to perfectly encapsulating the insanity of our times and being unintentionally hilarious, the Washington Post headline, “‘Shark Week’ lacks diversity, overrepresents men named Mike, scientists say” also did society a favor by triggering Chris Marschner’s Comment of the Day.

He has a lot of interesting observations here, as well as revelations about something I know absolutely nothing about, sea exploration, that wasn’t explained in old re-runs of “Sea Hunt.”

Here is Chris’s Comment of the Day on the EA post about the dumbest serious headline of the year...

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Have any of the researchers currently studying the number of times white males are showcased on these series actually pitched an idea to Discovery? I don’t think Discovery Channel calls guys named Mike to do a show for them about sharks. The only Mike that I am aware of on the series is Mike Rowe who has developed a number of programs for the Discovery Channel, most notably Dirty Jobs. I suppose because I don’t see a lot of women cleaning hog pens or standing next to a blast furnace that too is discriminatory. What that Mike has done for making non-white collar jobs desirable and dignified is what most of us should aspire to emulate.

Yes, most of the shows do focus on the shark’s hunting behavior but the attacks showcased are not about attacks on humans but on prey species. Nothing captures the viewer like an 8-foot, 2000 pound Great White breach the surface as it hunts a seal (or a replica of one). The replicas are scientific instruments that take various measurements such as bite force and jaw size. When the focus is on the hunting behaviors of other pelagic species, the focus on speed and tactics. As a diver, I want to know as much about the behavior of certain species that I may encounter in the wild. One of my most favorite dives was a wreck called the Proteus where I had the privilege of swimming with over three dozen 6-8 foot Sand Tiger sharks. When I tell people about my diving, I often hear women claim they would not attempt to dive with sharks. Men probably think the same but are less inclined to admit it.

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Comment of the Day: “Dispatches From The Great Stupid, ‘D.E.I.’ Division: This Story From The Washington Post Was Not A Joke…Well, Not Intended As One, Anyway”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

In her Comment of the Day on the lament by female shark researchers that they are under-represented in their field (without any supporting evidence of how many aspiring but unfulfilled female shark researchers there are), Sarah B. neatly expresses how “diversity-equity-inclusion” based arguments for hiring create justifications for bias while supposedly addressing the problem of bias.

Here is Sarah B. on the post, “Dispatches From The Great Stupid, “D.E.I.” Division: This Story From The Washington Post Was Not A Joke…Well, Not Intended As One, Anyway”…

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Women do have trouble in the hard sciences. This is true. HOWEVER if we act like whiny little bitches, no one will take us seriously when we need to be taken seriously. Do these DIE-obsessed women not understand that not only are they shooting themselves in the feet, but they are making it harder for all the rest of us?

Employer-Employee relations suffer. If I were hiring researchers, it would be hard to WANT to hire women given the current rules. As a woman I also have confidence issues, as I am uncertain if I was hired as anything more than a diversity hire. Am I really the best for a job, especially if I’m finding something about it very challenging? Is this simply a case of needing to step up and improve myself professionally, or am I just a check-box who is under-qualified and never expected or even capable of performing?

Finally the relationship with coworkers suffers. If my coworker is a diversity hire, they get paid about what I do, but I have to do their work which has me put in hours of unpaid overtime to keep my job while they float. This leads to hate and discontent. And as a potentially qualified person seen as a diversity hire, we need to work much harder than our coworkers with more results than our coworkers to get the basic respect because we start so far in negative territory on the Cognitive Dissonance scale.

As a further note, even if DIE had a point, trans and BIPOC rules have essentially neutered it because who can tell if Mike on “Shark Week” doesn’t identify as Michaela in its personal life and is 1/1024 BIPOC?

Women need to stand up against DIE hiring (yes I’m aware of the real acronym) and work to get jobs due to our qualifications, not our box-checking.

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Comment Of The Day: On The State of Feminism (Open Forum, 11/25/22)

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Another Comment of the Day from CD-VAPatriot, who has to cope with the increasingly annoying glitch at WordPress that cases in to spam certain commenters’ posts for no apparent reason.

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I think it all depends on one’s definition of “feminism.” I used to think the term simply meant that women were overall equal to men in terms of career opportunities, earning potential, deciding whether or not they wanted to get married and/or have kids, etc.. These days it seems that a lot of women I know feel that being a feminist means that “women are the SAME as men”. Well, forgive me for being a traitor to my gender (which yes I have been called) but I believe that there ARE significant differences between the sexes. Oh, and I’m also apparently a traitor and a woman-hater for being pro-life. (Who knew?)

As the female half of a boring old married, heterosexual couple who has been trying to get pregnant for over a decade, I really don’t think my hubby and I fit the “norm” anymore. We’ve noticed that in just the last decade, our friends and the couples we’ve met during that time have significantly changed their overall outlook quite a bit. Fewer couples are getting married: “who, like, needs a stupid piece of paper or like, some rando God to decide if our love is like, legit?”

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