Etiquette and manners

From The “A Nation Of Assholes” Files: Misogyny Against Republican Women Is Justified…And Funny! [UPDATED]

/ Jack Marshall / 72 Comments
Stay classy, Congressman!

Stay classy, Congressman!

Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) was speaking at the Washington Press Club Foundation dinner, and made the following “joke”  about  the photo of Presidential  adviser Kellyanne Conway  kneeling on an Oval Office couch in order to take a photo of President Trump with the heads of  the nation’s black colleges:

Directing his remarks to  Republican Sen. Tim Scott, who was at the White House event and, speaking before Richmond,  had previously alluded to the  (stupid, but typical of the manufactured Trump “scandals” of late) controversy over Conway being too casual, or something, by kneeling on the Oval Office sofa by noting that “a whole lot worse” had occurred on that sofa when Clinton was in office, Richmond  snickered, 

“I really just want to know what was going on there, because, you know, I won’t tell anybody. And you can just explain to me that circumstance — because she really looked kind of familiar in that position there. Don’t answer — and I don’t want you to refer back to the 1990s.”

HAHAHAHA! That’s denigrating  innuendo, clear as the prairie skies, suggesting that Conway, because she is a woman, routinely engages in fellatio.  It’s a powerful male slut-shaming  a professional woman, because Richmond doesn’t like her boss, so she deserves it. The “but don’t answer” makes the statement’s intent clear. This was as obviously an ugly, sexist, misogynist remark as Candidate Trump’s infamous, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever” in reference to Fox anchor Megyn Kelly. It is another example of the rampant Asshole Virus that has infected, perhaps fatally, the Democratic party,  its leaders, and its allies.

More proof of the scope of the epidemic is that no feminist activists, nor Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris or any  prominent progressive women, reacted by condemning Richmond—but then he’s a black Democrat, so nobody on the Left will hold him accountable. That’s how they roll, now. It isn’t what you do, it’s who does it.

The Washington Post, which last year meticulously set out to demonstrate that Trump’s ridiculous contention that by “wherever” he meant Kelly’s nose (it was a menstrual joke), naturally glosses over what Richmond said,  noting,

“But it seemed to some in the audience that he was making a reference to a sexual act.”

Oh did it? My, what dirty minds some have! It seemed to everyone but dim bulbs and those trying to cover for the smug, partyist, sexist pig (Ah, but a Democratic  smug, partyist sexist pig!) that he was alluding to blow-jobs, because of course women with influence and power in a Republican administration could only acquire them by submitting to male dominance  by servicing their baser needs.  The Post (and its female reporter) disgraces and exposes itself by pretending Richmond could have meant  anything else.  Then it offers Richmond’s mind-meltingly dishonest explanation without providing  a rebuttal or even a metaphorical arched eyebrow. Continue reading →

A Very Brief Observation On “A Nation Of Assholes”

/ Jack Marshall / 238 Comments

As those who have been reading Ethics Alarms over the past year know, I stated repeatedly that the greatest danger in electing Donald Trump President is that his boorishness, rudeness and vulgarity emitting from the very pinnacle of American leadership would coarsen the culture beyond repair, creating a nation of assholes for the foreseeable future. I did not expect the Democrats to get the jump on him, and to embrace asshole behavior as the norm for those who detest the President.

Yesterday, not one Democrat offered the President a hand to shake as he made his traditional way down the aisle in Congress to give his speech. Not one member of the opposition party possessed the courage, decency and respect to concede this minimum gesture of civilization in a televised event. Had Republicans treated Barack Obama like that, the entire party would have been condemned as racist. Well, it was anyway.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi had many of the female members dressed in Hillary white, a protest against the election. In Congress. During the equivalent of the State of the Union message. Four months after the election.

The Democratic Party has turned itself into the Asshole Party. Depressing. Disgusting. Despicable.

I’m rushing to a seminar.

More later.

Comment Of The Day I: “The “Transitioning” Female Wrestler: A Failure Of Ethics And Common Sense”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

toaster

Jeff H, along with Tim LeVier and Glenn Logan, represents the longest commenting ethics observers on this site, their participation going back to the old Ethics Scoreboard. It is always a special pleasure to welcome one of them to a Comment of the Day honor, for, like all who venture into the comment wars, they have done a great deal to provide lively, perceptive and useful content here, and I am more grateful than I can express. (Jeff, a cartoonist, also contributed the drawing of Muhammad as cute Teddy Bear you will periodically see in the side header.

Here is Jeff H’s Comment of the Day on the post, “The “Transitioning” Female Wrestler: A Failure Of Ethics And Common Sense”:

OK. Here’s what I think:

I am the sort of person who thinks a person is whatever they feel they are inside. People like to talk about, ‘well, a transperson will never really be a woman” or whatever. I’ve not got much time for that. I ain’t got it in me to judge people for something like that. As I said to someone who was talking about the ‘perverts’ who dress like women, “Far as I care, I ain’t going to say you’re wrong. You are whatever you say you are. You say you’re a toaster, I’ll give you two pieces of bread.”

That also means that I think that a transperson should use the bathrooms they’re comfortable with. The notion that there are creeps purposely crossdressing to get into the ladies’ room seems basically fictitious. Even if it was true, unless it was to a gigantic density, I don’t see that as a legitimate reason to force them to use a bathroom they’re not comfortable with.

(It’s been going around, but there have been three Republican congressmen arrested for inappropriate conduct in men’s rooms, and they say no transpeople have been arrested for the same. I hope it doesn’t turn out that is HAS happened, but if it had… I think someone would have brought it up by now.)

So this is where I stand on the issue of the transgendered. I try to be as permissive and accepting as possible without being dismissively so. I’m not likely to budge on this, since most of the arguments against it seem similar to the anti-homosexual arguments most of us reject on sight.

Having said this… if Mack is really, in his heart of hearts, a male… then I don’t understand what possible pride he can take beating a bunch of girls at a sport when he’s ALSO taking performance-enhancing drugs. (Aside from everything else, I don’t really care if you have a legitimate reason to take steroids; I think you shouldn’t play competitive sports if you have to take them because they self-evidently give an unfair advantage.) Continue reading →

2017 Oscar Ethics Post Mortem

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

There were more ethics-related events and issues at the last night’s Academy Awards than usual, and that’s an understatement;

1. Jimmy Kimmel, the Oscars’ designated Johnny Carson this time around, automatically gave the ceremonies the stench of ethics blindness by his very presence. Kimmel, as this site has documented, delights in provoking parents to be cruel to their young children so he can present YouTube videos of the kids’ despair for his audience’s amusement. Kimmel, of course, being bereft of shame or decency, was the perfect choice to execute the Academy’s second most important mission of the night, which was insulting the President of the United States in an international broadcast. He did not fail his dark masters. One well-publicized “quip”:

“Maybe this is not a popular thing to say, but I want to say thank you to President Trump. Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist? That’s gone, thanks to him.”

Actually, the Oscars are racist, or at least racially biased, as we shall see, and there is proof. I’d like Jimmy to show me the evidence that the President is racist, however, other than the “resistance” talking points he gets in his e-mail.

2. More Kimmel: in a typical Kimmel “human beings are just props to me!” bit, he arranged for a group of unsuspecting tourists to be taken on a Hollywood bus tour that ended up at the Oscars.  The group was escorted through the back doors of the Kodak Theater with no idea what was in store, as  Kimmel had the house lights turned down. When the tourists—Awww, ordinary slobs! Look, Meryl! The little people!”—opened the doors to the stage, the lights came up and all the stars shouted, “Mahershala!” The tourists’ shocked, ope mouthed expression were broadcast live to the world, as their Hollywood betters laughed.

This is called exploitation, and using unconsenting human beings as a means to an end.  Jimmy thinks its funny. Kant didn’t. I think it’s sometimes funny, and always unethical. Candid Camera asked for written consent before broadcasting its victims’ amusing reactions to gags like this.

3. Mel Gibson, justly nominated for his direction of “Hacksaw Ridge,” which also was nominated as Best Picture, sat up front. The Daily Beast tweeted “For Shame!” when the film won a statuette for editing, which it deserved. Let’s see: the theory is that the talented film editor should be snubbed for his work because Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite?  Yes, that’s the theory. The Beast’s Amy Zimmerman wrote a pre-Oscar hate piece on Gibson, which really and truly contained these two sentences:

Hacksaw  tells the story of Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who enlisted as a battlefield medic during World War II. Of course, any drama that Gibson directs pales in comparison to his own behind-the-scenes odyssey: the story of an odious individual who, after years on the outskirts of Hollywood, has somehow managed to fight his way back into the mainstream.

That’s right: Amy Zimmerman thinks that the story of a religious man who volunteered to serve as a combat medic despite refusing to carry a rifle and who saved 76 wounded soldiers by dragging them to safety under enemy fire by lowering them, one by one,  on a rope device he improvised on the spot, thus winning the Medal of Honor, pales in comparison to Mel Gibson’s PR problems.

Have some damn respect for those who did risked their lives incredible things so hacks like you can write garbage like that and be paid for it, you stupid, stupid fool. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Would You Pay $15 An Hour To This Employee?”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Sylvia finger

The latest example of “How Not To Be Approved As An Ethics Alarms Commenter” comes from the pseudonymous “Joe Mama,” who wrote in response to the July 29, 2015 post about Sylva Stoet, an indignant ex-Penny’s employee (above) who took umbrage on Twitter at being asked to go home and change when she showed up dressed as shown to work in the “Career Department.”

“Note to the writer. Is it possible for you to write a blog without your opinion. That is how people would prefer it. You old sack of shit. You would think knee shorts are inappropriate. I agree with the ex employee. If that was in the career section, it should be changed.”

Notes:

1.  I wondered if it was necessary to specify in the commenting guidelines that calling the proprietor “You old sack of shit” in the commenting audition was not a recommended strategy.  That question has been answered.

2. No, it’s not possible for an essay on a blog about ethics not to contain my opinion. That’s the purpose of the blog. The better question is whether it is possible for alleged news reports by reporters on supposedly objective news sources to be free of the writer’s opinion. My opinion is, based on the current evidence, is that it’s possible, but increasingly unlikely.

3. Those “people” Joe alludes to who would prefer that a blog not contain opinion are also known as “people who don’t know what a blog is.” His suggestion is like recommending that I hold a dog show for people who think they are cats.

4. Of course knee shorts would be inappropriate; shorts are inappropriate for  most workplaces, especially in retail, unless the items on sale are shorts.

5. But it doesn’t matter what I think is inappropriate, but rather what then-17-year-old Sylva Stoel ‘s employer thought was appropriate, since Penny’s had as much authority to decide that short-shorts weren’t appropriate attire as I have deciding “You old sack of shit” is inappropriate comment discourse, especially from someone defending inappropriate workplace attire. Sylva’s response to that completely responsible exercise of the supervisor-subordinate relationship was a middle finger.

6. If Joe agrees with the ex-employee, I fervently wish him Sylva’s likely career path until she figures out that he’s an idiot.

7. Anyone who can decipher Joe’s last sentence, let me know. “If that was in the career section, it should be changed.” What’s “that”? What’s “it”? Is he saying that she should change her garb, since it was in the career section? That can’t be it: that’s the opinion he didn’t want to read.  Is he saying that since she showed up dressed like that, the name of the section should be changed, like to “The Inappropriate Workplace Dress Section”? Or is he saying that when an employee shows up dressed inappropriately for one section of the store,  she should be moved to another section to accommodate her fashion choices?

Joe’s not getting another comment published on Ethics Alarms on a prayer, and my opinion is that he should look elsewhere for an opinion-free blog…. the Moon, perhaps.

I Forgot George Washington’s Birthday! In Penance…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

portrait_of_george_washington

If there is any American whose birthday none of us should fail to note and celebrate, it is George Washington. In my case, he is in good company, since I have had difficulty my whole life remembering birthdays of close family members and friends, with the exception of my son’s, once the Boston Red Sox finally won their first World Series in 86 years on the same date, and my own, which I have been trying to forget ever since finding my dad dead in his chair on that date eight years ago. Nonetheless, my failure to salute the first and indispensable President is especially disgraceful for an ethics blog, and I apologize both to George and to all of you.

Time flies: I hadn’t issued a post specifically devoted to George’s remarkable character since 2011. (Something has gone seriously wrong when one has 287 posts on Donald Trump and only six about Washington.) In penance, allow me to atone with my favorite entry’s on the list of ethical habits some historians believe made him the remarkably trustworthy and ethical man he was, ultimately leading his fellow Founders to choose him, and not one the many  more brilliant, learned and accomplished among them, to take on the crucial challenge of creating the American Presidency.

Directed to do so by his father, young Washington had copied out by hand and committed to memory a list called “110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation”  It was  based on a document  composed by French Jesuits in 1595; neither the author nor the English translator and adapter are known today. The elder Washington was following the teachings of Aristotle, who held that principles and values began as being externally imposed by authority (morals) and eventually became internalized as character.

The theory certainly worked with George Washington. Those ethics alarms installed by his father stayed in working order throughout his life. It was said that Washington was known to quote the rules when appropriate, and never forgot them. They did not teach him to be a gifted leader, but they helped to make him a trustworthy one.

The list has been available at a link here (under Rule Book, to your left), almost from the beginning of Ethics Alarms. Would that readers would access it more often. Here are my 20 favorite highlights from the list that helped make George George, and also helped George make America America: Continue reading →

From The Ethics Alarms “What You Say Or Think In Private Is None Of Your Employer’s Business, Until It Isn’t Private Any More” Files: The Teachers’ Bar Game

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

teachers-at-a-bar

Akin to the Naked Teacher Principle is what this fiasco illustrates. If you allow conversations to make their way to the web and they insult or denigrate individuals who have to trust you or work with you in your employment, you cannot complain when your name is mud and your job is toast.

Some teachers and and staff employed by the Bangor Public Schools were relaxing at a local bar, and started playing a game  called “Fuck, Marry, or Kill.” The game challenges the players to name three celebrities they would marry, have intimate relations with or kill, but the educators decided to substitute students and other teachers for the celebrities.Some the students named as desired murder victims or sex partners were special needs students. What fun!

No ethics alarms sounded. Someone made a video, nobody grabbed the phone and stomped on , and the video ended up on YouTube.

Parents were not pleased. Continue reading →

The Sudden Fall Of Milo Yiannopoulos: An Ethics Cautionary Tale

/ Jack Marshall / 57 Comments

milo-y

Wow.

Frank Sinatra would have recognized this tale…

That’s life (that’s life) that’s what people say
You’re riding high in April
Shot down in May

But will Milo Yiannopoulos, the deliberately offensive Breitbart editor,  alt-right cheer-leader, misogynist and professional  troll be able to emulate Ol’ Blue Eyes and be back on top, back on top in June?

Uh, no.

Good.

In case you missed it, Milo had this very month soared higher than any vile, bigoted, uncivil loudmouth without any talent other than being vile, bigoted, and uncivil—are those really talents?—had soared before. Thanks to the fact that his threatened presence as an invited campus speaker had exposed the deep, anti-speech, totalitarian strain in U.S. higher education, and that the currently super-charged Leftist hypocrites who were already playing Brown shirts in response to the Presidential election smoothly transitioned to rioting at Berkeley because of the alleged threat posed by this silly, self-important jerk, Milo had become a genuine celebrity, thus ruining the name of Milo, maybe forever, which had previously evoked…

milo-oshea

…late Irish character actor Milo O’Shea

milo-m

…”Catch 22″ con man Milo Minderbinder (Jon Voight played him in the film), and…

milo-and-otis

…nauseating Japanese puppy and kitten-pal flick “Milo and Otis” (that’s Milo on the right).

But I digress.

Milo’s infamy  had snagged a book deal that would guarantee him millions. He scored a high profile interview on HBO with fellow troll, misogynist and jerk-in-arms Bill Maher, who is as much of an asshole as Milo but never gets shouted down when he appears on college campuses because he aims his vile words at conservative values, icons and figures, and most conservatives believe in free speech. Best of all, CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, debased itself by inviting him to speak, on the theory that the enemy of their enemies is their friend, or something like that.

Milo had hit the celebrity jackpot! Rich! Famous! Influential!

…Shunned. Continue reading →

Now THIS Is An Unethical IRS Employee…Howard Stern Too, But We Knew HE Was Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

[There is supposed to be a photo of Howard Stern here, but WordPress keeps refusing to embed it, thus showing the software’s admirable good taste.]

In May of 2015, Judith Barrigas of Sandwich, Massachusetts called the IRS service center  with a question about her tax refund. She reached IRS agent Jimmy Forsythe, who was goofing off on the job, on hold after a call to Howard Stern’s radio show on satellite radio. Forsythe, still on hold (or so he thought) took the taxpayer’s call, and when the Stern show took reconnected, Stern’s listeners somehow heard Forsythe’s conversation with Barrigas.  Stern and paid sycophant Robin Quivers then joked about the call, which concerned Barrigas’s payment plan: the IRS had applied Barrigas’s tax refund to pay her outstanding debts from 2011 and 2012, even though she complained she already had a repayment plan set up with the  IRS. Her call, which she assumed was private, should have assumed was private and was guranteed by federal law to BE private, was on the airwaves for nearly an hour.

“I’m learning so much,” said Stern at the time, before he finally cut off the surreptitious eavesdropping. “I feel like I’m in math class and I’m flunking because I don’t know one thing he’s saying. I think I’m going to bail on this guy. By the way, this is the most boring job ever. I’d rather live in my parent’s basement if I had to do that. I’d give out all the wrong information. All right, dude, later!”

Barrigas  has just sued  the IRS, the Howard Stern Production Company, and Stern individually for violations of the Federal Tort Claims Act,  unlawful disclosure of tax returns and personal information, and just the for the Stern side,  negligence, invasion of privacy, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Ethics Observations: Continue reading →

Bias Makes The News Media Stupid, But It Makes Politicians Untrustworthy Jerks

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments
Dad warned me about people like you, Al...

Dad warned me about people like you, Al…

The Stupid: Journalists

Let me begin by saying how happy I am that the mainstream news medias “fake news” gambit, where it attempted to blame President Trump’s election on ridiculous hoax stories spread on social media to distract from its own biased, dishonest and incompetent reporting, has blown up in its metaphorical face like those Acme booby traps do to Wile E. Coyote.

Here’s a new and especially stupid example of the biased, dishonest and incompetent reporting, although “dishonest” wasn’t in play.

The website Pop Suger posted an extremely inept and confusing story concerning U.S. Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, who made history in the 2016 Olympics as the first female Muslim American to medal for the United States and the first American to compete in the Games wearing a hijab. The site and the reporter signal their untrustworthiness and Bias Makes You Stupid (BMYS) credentials by writing of the controversial immigration halt Executive Order,

“The executive order blocked thousands of refugees, immigrants, and visitors from seven predominately Muslim countries from entering the United States before it was struck down by a judge many days later.”

No, you ignorant dolts, the order was not and has not been “struck down.” It has been subject to a temporary restraining order, which is absolutely not the same as being struck down, as any second year law student intern could have told you if you cared more about accurate reporting  than bashing the President.

The story described Muhammad’s statements when she took the stage at a conference last week  and answered a question about the “travel ban” by saying that she had been personally “held at Customs for two hours just a few weeks ago.”  The athlete is not as adept at time sense as she is at her sport, because she eventually had to clarify that “just a few weeks ago” meant “in December.”   The website followed  with an update, but never mind. TIME saw her statement, didn’t check the time frame or notice the update, and tweeted yesterday (remember, the story was clarified two days before, and was wrong to begin with) the headline in TIME’s “Motto.”

“Olympic athlete Ibtihaj Muhammad was detained because of President Trump’s travel ban”

The U.K.’s Independent went with a story titled, “US Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad says she was detained by Customs after Donald Trump’s ‘Muslim ban.’

The Hill published an article whose opening paragraph read, “A Muslim-American Olympic medalist says she was detained by Customs for nearly two hours without explanation after President Trump’s travel ban was instituted a few weeks ago.”

Sports Illustrated and ESPN also published stories implying that Muhammad’s Customs detention was triggered by Trump’s immigration order,  and other journalists and pundits expressed indignation on social media.

Remember,  Muhammad was detained in December of 2016. Barack Obama was President. Trump’s Executive Order was just a twinkle in his eye. Continue reading →