Daily Life

We Need a Little Christmas! Presenting the 2025 Ethics Companion To “Miracle On 34th Street” [Expanded and with a New Introduction]

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

[Johnny Mathis finally announced his retirement this year—he’s only 90. His has been one of the most recognizable, enjoyable, seductive voices in American popular music for almost 70 years. My college room mate always had his records on hand to create the proper mood for his dates. An old time crooner’s chances of being remembered rests now on whether there is a Christmas standard he can be associated with. Johnny’s best shots are “It’s Beginning to Lot Like Christmas,” and “We Need a Little Christmas” from “Mame.” He sings all the others beautifully too, but they are taken.]

I was informed by a fellow Christmas movie fan that it is almost impossible to watch the original “Miracle on 34th Street” film on streaming services or the networks. They prefer to show the various remakes, all inferior in every way. What made  director-writer  George Seaton‘s  movie (it won him an Oscar) so superb in addition to the casting, his straight-forward style and his obvious love of Christmas  is that it instantly felt perfect despite its many suspension of disbelief challenges. Why do they feel this film has to be remade? Is it the lack of color? (“Miracle on 34th Street” was one of the first movies Ted Turner colorizes, and that version is unwatchable.)

As I’ve stated here before I believed in Santa Claus until I was 12. I didn’t want to give the fantasy up: I loved magic, and my parents always tried to make the season magical. My late wife Grace and I tried to do the same with Grant, now “Samantha,” but he was a non-believer by the third grade. Is there anything more joyful to see than the look on a child’s face as he or she wakes up to find what Santa has delivered? Will anything feel that wonderful again?

“Miracle on 34th Street” is an ethics movie in many ways. The movie is about the importance of believing in good things, hopeful things, even impossible things. The movie reminds us that wonderful things can happen even when they seem impossible, and that life is better when we believe that every day of our lives. I’m engaged in that right now: all of 2025 has required it. I’ve had serious injuries, successes, new projects and setbacks. My father taught me to be ready for the worst but to never to give up on the best.

One thing this film does well is to concentrate on the secular holiday without any allusions to the religious holy day, but not being obnoxious about it. “It’s a Wonderful Life” also straddles the line very cleverly: it begins in heaven, after all. All the “A Christmas Carol” films include Bob Cratchit telling his wife that Tiny Tim mused about how his disability reminded people of Jesus’s miracles at Christmastime, and that’s Dickens’ only reference to Jesus in his story.

On the offensive side is the Rankin-Bass animated “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”—I can’t believe they still show that thing—when the “stormy Christmas Eve” causes Santa to decide to “cancel Christmas.” I’d say that’s above Santa’s pay grade, wouldn’t you agree? It also suggests that Christmas is only about gifts and children. (Do parents today explain that the singing snowman who narrates the story is based on, and looks like) the real person who also sings the most memorable songs? They should. Burl Ives had a fascinating life and a varied career, and those kids will probably be hearing him sing “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” for the rest of theirs. 

Interestingly, all of the perennial Christmas movies have been made into stage musicals of varying success—“White Christmas,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “A Christmas Story,” “Elf”—- but “Miracle on 34th Street” flopped so badly when Meredith Willson [“The Music Man”] adapted it as “Here’s Love” on Broadway that nobody has tried again. The show included the song, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” which Willson wrote long before the show was assembled.  But as with all the movie remakes, the show missed Edmund Gwynn, the best Kris Kringle of them all. He was a distinguished classical actor until that movie: he complained that after the film he wasn’t allowed to get rid of his bushy white beard and was type-cast as jolly old men.

I decided to post the Companion earlier this year; I also was moved by the fact that a number of EA readers had sought out the 2024 version today. When I’ve posted it on Christmas Eve, it has lacked views for the obvious reasons.

The 2025 companion reflects some additional thoughts upon my re-watching “Miracle on 34th Street” last week—I even took notes. Mostly, I though about how important the holiday, the stories, the music, the movies and what they signify taken as a whole is to our nation, our society and our culture. Thus it was that I decided that here was a good place to re-post “Christmas, the Ethical Holiday” Besides, I need to read it myself.

Christmas: the Ethical Holiday

Benjamin Franklin recognized the importance of regularly focusing one’s attention on ethical conduct rather than the usual non-ethical goals, needs, desires and impulses that usually occupy the thoughts of even the most virtuous among us. He suggested that every morning an individual should challenge himself to do good during the day. In the 21st century psychologists call this “priming,” a form of beneficial self-brain-washing that plants the seeds of future choices.

The Christmas season operates as an effective form of mass population priming, using tradition, lore, music, poetry, ritual, literature, art and entertainment to celebrate basic ethical virtues and exemplary conduct toward other human beings. Kindness, love, forgiveness, empathy, generosity, charity, sacrifice, selflessness, respect, caring, peacefulness…all of these are part of the message of Christmas, which has become more universal and influential in its societal and behavioral importance than its religious origins could have ever accomplished alone. Secular and cultural contributions have greatly strengthened the ethical lessons of Christmas. “It’s A Wonderful Life” urges us to value our ability to enrich the lives of others, and to appreciate the way they enrich ours.  “A Christmas Story” reminds us to make childhood a magical time when wishes can come true. O. Henry’s story “The Gift of the Magi” proves that it is not the value of gifts, but the love that motivates them that truly matters. Most powerful of all, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” teaches that the admirable conduct the spirit of the season can inspire need not be short-lived, and that if we use Christmas properly, as Ben Franklin used his morning exhortation to good conduct, it can make all of us better, happier, more virtuous human beings.

At this point in civilization, the religious context of Christmas almost does more harm than good. Though the day chosen to celebrate Jesus of Nazareth’s birthday has been spectacularly successful in promoting the ethical and moral ideals he taught, the idea that Christmas is indistinguishable from the religion he founded has made it the object of yearly controversy, as if celebrating Christmas is an affront to other faiths.

This is a tragedy, because every human being, regardless of religious belief, can benefit from a culture-wide exhortation to be good and to do good. “Happy Holidays!”—the bland, generic, careful greeting of those afraid to offend those who should not be offended—does nothing to spur us toward love, kindness, peace and empathy. “Merry Christmas!” does.

This is not just a religious  holiday; it is the culture-wide ethical holiday, the time when everything should be aligned to remind us to take stock of our lives, think about everyone else who lives on earth with us, and to try to live for others as well as ourselves. Christians should be proud that their religion gave such a valuable gift to humanity, and non-Christians should be eager to accept that gift, with thanks.

It is foolish and self-destructive for there to be a “war on Christmas.” Charles Dickens understood. There is hardly a word about religion anywhere in his story.  There doesn’t need to be. Christmas is the ethical holiday. Christians and non-Christians can celebrate it or not as they choose, but whether they do or not, the Christmas season is more important than any one religion, even the one that gives the holiday its name.

Christmas is important because it primes us to be good, be better, be more ethical, for the rest of the year. There should be nothing controversial about that.

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And now, back to “Miracle on 34th Street”….

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Observations Upon Getting Fired By My First Bar Association CLE Client…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I got fired again yesterday. Sometime I need to go back through my memory banks and figure out how many times this has happened, but it’s a lot. My proclivity for getting canned was a main motivation for me starting my own business thirty years ago, because I was reasonable certain that I wouldn’t fire myself, and that I could probably talk my late wife, the company’s COO, from doing it.

Technically one could say that my company, ProEthics, was fired, but since I’m the only employee now, that would be nit-picking. This bar association had contracted with me as its primary legal ethics teacher for the entire 30 years, with my handling between three and five three-hour seminars every year, plus the ethics segment in the monthly bar’s orientation session for new bar admittees. Its support was a substantial reason Grace and I were willing to take the plunge as a small business in the first place.

By the time the axe fell, on a Zoom call, naturally, I pretty much knew what was coming. The CLE director, whom I had worked with amicably for ten years, had suddenly stopped responding to my emails until he sent me the dreaded “we need to talk” message last week. There had been no incident, screw-up, failure or apparent precipitating catalyst for the end that I could detect: my participant evaluations have remained in the 4-5 range in all categories on a 1-5 scale for all three decades years. My last seminar, an adaptation of my one-man show about Clarence Darrow with ethics commentary on the issues raised by his career, was especially popular, in great part because of the talented D.C. actor who played Clarence, Steve Lebens. One lawyer rushed up and after the program, grabbed my hand, and said the seminar had changed his whole perspective on practicing law as he choked back tears.

To be honest, the blow yesterday was more sentimental than anything. Dr, Fauci’s stupid Wuhan virus lockdown killed the live seminar part of my business, and it never recovered. I was paid by the head by this bar association as a matter of loyalty and courtesy, and the heads had almost completely disappeared. I used to have 100-150 lawyers in a classroom; for the last few years it’s been less than ten, with maybe 20 more online or zooming, sometimes a few more. Lawyers don’t like mandatory CLE, and the lockdown gave them an excuse to use remote technology and videos, meaning that they could be doing billable work or playing with their dogs, with no one the wiser.

Those methods don’t work pedagogically nearly as well as face-to-face training, and everybody knows it; they also do not let me do what I do better than most legal ethics teachers, which is engage and entertain while teaching. Most of my income is from expert consulting now, which I am good at but nowhere near as much fun. This association’s seminars were a loss leader for me by the end.

Still, the “we’ve decided to go in another direction” message was a bit mysterious. I was told by the CLE director that the orders came from “upstairs.” The numbers still said I was their best and most popular ethics teacher: why the new “direction”? I’ve won the bar two national awards for innovative CLE, and do the only musical ethics programs in the field with my long-time collaborator Mike Messer. What’s not to like?

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Unethical AI Use of the Month

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

In Great Britain, an A.I. generated image that appeared to show major damage to Carlisle Bridge in Lancaster prompted authorities to halt trains following a minor earthquake. The tremor was felt across Lancashire and the southern Lake District. After the image appeared on-line, Network Rail ended rail service across the bridge until safety inspections had been completed. The delay inconvenienced commuters and wasted public funds. Here is the bridge and the bot-built fake version:

As far as we know a human being was behind the hoax, not a mischievous bot. But A.I. is almost certainly going to challenge Robert Heinlein’s famous declaration that “There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men,” in addition to the fact that there are also a lot of dangerous women out there too.

ChatGPT has been accused of encouraging people to commit suicide, for example, and Professor Jonathan Turley wrote that ChatGPT defamed him for reasons yet to be determined.

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Comment of the Day: “Unethical Bank of the Month: Merrick Bank”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Diego Garcia entered an instructive description of an interaction with a bank on credit card matters that nicely illustrates a theme Ethics Alarms has been commenting on for quite a while. It is not exaggerated, because I have been enmeshed in dozens of these maddening experiences almost every month since my wife died last year. The practices are cruel, frustrating, time-consuming and hostile, and, I am convinced, often intentional. They are the product of multiple unethical conditions and practices, including incompetent management, needless technology complexity, sloth, poor hiring criteria, poor training, the public school system, lack of sufficient emphasis on English proficiency, corporate arrogance, outsourcing of jobs, inadequate staffing, and more. I also believe these systems and the factors creating them cause serious stress-related health problems among the public and even domestic and urban violence as well as mass shootings.

People have been conditioned to just shrug it all off as “how we live now.” We shouldn’t do that.

Here is Diego Garcia’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Unethical Bank of the Month: Merrick Bank”:

…I do have a recent BoA experience regarding account setups.

My sister has had a BoA credit card for something like 50 (!) years. She is very much not tech savvy, and is someone who always wants paper statements mailed to her.

On this card, she had made arrangements for her payment to be automatically drafted each month — the payment would be $150 or the statement balance, whichever was smaller. She had made this arrangement by phone as she never had set up an online account for this card. Well, a couple months ago they wrote her to say that they were cancelling this automatic payment and she would have to go online to set it back up.

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The Obligatory Joke Principle

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Today a Facebook friend who is addicted to posting about the most mundane and prosaic matters on her page. Today, the press had to be alerted to this revelation: “For some reason my phone no longer recognizes my thumb-print.” Talk about the problems of the privileged! I’m sure it’s Trump’s fault. She added, “Does anyone else have this problem?”

A comment read: “Yes. My phone doesn’t recognize your thumbprint either.”

I hope, if I had seen the query first, I would have issued the same mandatory response. When Fate, or God, or whoever is in charge of cosmic humor delivers to you through the mouth or text of an agent a slow, hanging curve-ball of a straight-line that begs to be knocked out of the metaphoric ballpark and you let it go by, you have violated a sacred obligation to the human race. It needs as much mirth and merriment as it can get, and if a perfect opportunity to get a laugh like that set-up goes unrealized—because of fear, lack of attention, witlessness or self-absorption—a grievous ethics offense had been committed. Shame. Shame.

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Ethical Motive, Stupid Idea: The 6 pound Smart Phone

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

There are quite a few posts on Ethics Alarms about the scourge of smart phones: mothers’ eyes glued to the screen when they should be watching the kids; dog-owners ignoring their canine companions on walks, teens interacting with the web while ignoring the world around them; narcissism-feeding selfies; intrusive assholes looking for social media fame while destroying any semblance of privacy by taking photos and videos of everyone and everything, and more.

But start-up company Matter Neuroscience has a solution! Their masterstroke is to create the most inconvenient smartphone case imaginable to make using one’s phone tiring and uncomfortable. It’s stainless steel phone case weighs 6 pounds, mote than a 16-inch MacBook Pro laptop and light dumb-bell. Two separate pieces that screw together around the phone ensure that you can’t wait to put the damn thing away unless you’re a pro arm-wrestling champ in training.

The stainless steel smartphone case won’t fit in your pocket and becomes more annoying the more you check your phone. The 6-pound smartphone case is currently in the crowdfunding stage on Kickstarter, but you can pre-order one for $210, or opt for the brass version, which is heavier and costs a $500.

I cannot imagine any adult, even one acknowledging that he or she is addicted to cell phones, buying one that is inherently inconvenient to use. Maybe, maybe, giving unwieldy phones to one’s kids will have some appeal, using the “Look, it’s this, two vans with a string, or nothing” ultimatum.

I doubt it, however. The too-heavy phone gets ethics points for good intentions, but loses them and more for incompetence.

Matter Neuroscience has a $75,000 crowdfunding goal, but has raised just $17,000.

Needed: A Smart Phone and Social Media Code of Ethics (At Least)

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Begosh and begorrah! “Rolling Stone” published a useful ethics essay! The topic: Gen Z altering their conduct and becoming wary of social contact because of fear of public shaming.

Eli Thompson writes in part,

At the Chicago high school I graduated from in June, phones were out during private and public moments. It could be in class when someone fumbled a presentation, or the cafeteria when someone tripped. Most clips stayed in private Snapchat group chats, shared among a few dozen kids. But they could spread further, and cut deeper. Last year, a friend from another school was filmed in his attempt to ask a girl out in the hallway. Even though it was awkward, he didn’t do anything crazy in the video and it was mostly just a rejection. But someone recorded him and posted it on a Snapchat story. The video had the caption, “Bro thought he had a chance,” and over 200 people saw it by the time he got to lunch…Trends such as “fail compilations” or “cringe challenges” — posts showing awkward mistakes or uncomfortable situations meant to make others laugh — encourage people to document embarrassing moments…After seeing these moments play out, I realized this was no longer a far-off fear. It changed how young men conducted themselves in real life. The threat of public shaming makes normal interactions risky and at times can lessen the chance young men will pursue relationships or go on dates. Constant fear of embarrassment can leave some young men too hesitant to take the social risks needed for dating. The fear of online exposure doesn’t just stop certain young men from asking girls out — it can plant seeds of resentment that threaten to fracture gender relations for a long time. 

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A Brief Tale of “The King’s Pass”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

This is a personal anecdote that I should relate before it is lost in the fog of memory.

Earlier this month I attended a major law school class reunion despite boycotting the previous one (as I discussed on EA) following Georgetown Law Center’s disgraceful handling of the Ilya Shapiro controversy. I showed up at the big, fancy dress, all-classes gala in D.C.’s impressive National Building Museum, and when I checked in, was sent to a special “problem” desk because my name wasn’t on The List.

There I was told that I had been registered for the evening’s festivities and dinner by “someone”—not me—but that the fee hadn’t been paid. I offered to pay it (I was told it was $225) but they were not equipped to take a credit card. “Why would they have pre-registered you?” I was asked.

Well, I explained, I am something of a celebrity in my class, having founded the school’s musical theater company as a student, and that group is still active and also celebrated a reunion just last month. And I was the law school’s first Director of Capitol Giving. “Ah!” the guy behind the desk said. “So you’re a VIP!” He whispered something to his colleague, who whispered something back, then he said, “You will sit at Table #2!”

“Really?” I replied. “What about the $225?” “Oh, you can take care of that later,” I was told. “You know, I’m an ethicist, and this kind of thing is called “The King’s Pass” on my list of rationalizations,” I said. “It’s when someone isn’t held to the same rules and standards that everyone else is because of his perceived value and importance. It’s very common, but an unethical practice.”

“That’s interesting!” he said, as he handed me my freshly printed badge with my class’s ribbon. And printed in block letters above my name was “The King’s Pass.”

I was never charged for the event.

How could I participate in the “No Kings” demonstrations after that?

Let’s Begin With The Comment of the Day, Shall We? In Response to “On The Axis Hypocrisy Re Letitia James, Tit-For-Tat, and Trump’s ‘Revenge'”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Either the Comment of the Day by CEES VAN BARNEVELDT on yesterday’s post on “tit for tat” needs to introduction, or I’m not awake enough to write one. I was just made nauseous by catching Letitia James’ shrill, shouted address declaring her self a victim of a politicized Justice Department. How does anyone that hard to listen to get any votes at all? I would rather listen to Kamala Harris until they hauled me off to padded room before I’d endure a whole James speech even once.

Ah! This reminds me of how most women in politics desperately need to seek vocal and public speaking training if they are going to successfully compete with (competent) men in elections without depending solely on pro-female voter bias. Don’t giggle, ladies, and don’t shout in a strident high-pitched tone! That’s the short version: give me two hours of coaching, and I might make one of you President.

But I digress. Here is CEES’s Comment of the Day on the post, Let’s Begin With The Comment of the Day, Shall We? In Response to “On The Axis Hypocrisy Re Letitia James, Tit-For-Tat, and Trump’s ‘Revenge'”(that’s clip #24 from the Ethics Alarms Hollywood Clip Archive above.)

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Late Wednesday Ethics Notes

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

1. Ethics Dunce: The New York Daily News, which joined my Rogues Gallery of websites that use unethical tactics to force readers to tolerate ads or pay to subscribe. This was a new one, though: I disabled my ad-blocker, and was returned to the Daily News home page. But now the link I had opened was no longer available. I searched for it: the piece, an editorial, was gone, at least for me. Assholes. If they think I’m going back to that site again or ever link to it here, they can bite me.

2. Damn ethics alarm: I was in a tight time frame this afternoon and had to deposit a check and mail a letter (returning a jury questionnaire saying I was willing to do my civic duty even though getting stuck in a trial is the last thing I need) then get back to the office and handle a problem. I mailed the letter and was rushing to my car when I saw a young black man painfully crossing the parking lot using a walker, with both hands holding plastic grocery bags. So I had to ask him if I could help—I had been stuck using a walker not that long ago—and he demurred…but also wanted to talk. He was so grateful that I, anyone, had cared enough to ask. He wanted to share the horrible sequence of events that had but him in his current state of limited mobility, his bad medical advice, his work interruption, the burden on his family. So I listened. I wasn’t going to walk away saying, “I’m sorry, but I have things to do.” This was a pure Golden Rule situation, Ethics 101, non-ethical considerations vs. the ethical values of kindness, compassion, empathy and respect. Once upon a time, before Ethics Alarms, before I began teaching ethics, I would have ignored that ethics alarm, if it rang at all. The man’s name was Kevin, incidentally.

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