Etiquette and manners

Now THAT’s Going To Leave A Mark…I Hope!

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

[I am especially grateful for this story because it gives me a perfect oportunity to post my favorite John Wayne clip, from “McClintock!”]

One of the scholars that Harvard President Claudine Gay ripped off without proper attribution has issued a full-throated condemnation in the Wall Street Journal. Carol Swain, author, researcher and a retired Vanderbilt professor considered one of the pioneers in the field of race in politics and government doesn’t get into the high weeds of Gay’s pathetic performance before Congress on the matter of her campus’s harassment of Jewish students, focusing instead on the other reason the Harvard diversity hire is demonstrably unqualified for her prestigious position. Swain writes in part,

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Secret Santa Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

The New York Time’s Magazine’s ethicist answers ethics questions arising in everyday life. I ask them. I guess that’s why he gets paid…

But I digress: here’s my dilemma…I just received a nice Hickory Farms box of cheeses and summer sausage. There was no card, and no clue as to who might have sent it. I have a few candidates for the Secret Santa, but all of them, in the past, have included cards. A couple are long-time clients, but neither of them is under any obligation to send me gifts, and I am genuinely surprised when they arrive, as they have now for many years. If I thank them, and they didn’t send the box and have no plans on sending me anything this year, that will be awkward for both of us. If one of them did send the box, and the card that was supposed to accompany it was left out somehow the packing, I don’t want to seem like an ungrateful wretch.

What is the ethical way to handle this?

Comment Of The Day: “Romanian Flag Ethics, or ‘Who Cares About Chad?’”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

“Unhinged” is a Russell Crowe horror movie about a woman in a bad mood one morning who honks angrily at the driver of a car in front of her when a light turns green at an intersection. Unfortunately for her, she finds out that she has triggered a lunatic who decides to ruin her life as revenge for her impulsive honk. In the background to this Very Special Comment of the Day, I am the equivalent of the woman, and the author, “Stacey’s Friend Chad” is Russell Crowe, if the Russell Crowe character waited over six years to decide to go on his rampage.

Welcome to my world. I woke up this morning to not one but six posts scattered around Ethics Alarms by a commenter whose first comment had him banned from Ethics Alarms on this post, a tongue-in-cheek bit of fluff that I wrote in 2017 after reading about a flag dispute between Romania and Chad. Two commenters didn’t appreciate my whimsy (out of over 40 comments—I’ll take that ratio any day), one of whom was writing from Romania to defend his country, and another who launched into diatribe about my “dishonesty.”

Normally such a comment wouldn’t get out of moderation, but I was in a bad mood that day for some reason, and posted the comment just so I could abuse the jerk for all to see. That was stupid and unethical. I’ve done it a couple of times, and even warn commenters about my occasional outbursts in the Comment Policies above, but still, reading what I wrote in 2017 is embarrassing. This is my penance: that banned commenter returned with a vengeance this morning, and it is all my fault. Thus for the second time I’m posting one of his attack comments instead of sending it to spam hell immediately (which is where the other five comments are now.)

I’m hoping I remember this episode the next time I’m tempted to call a commenter a “butt-head.” Here you go…

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From Trump Crony Roger Stone, New Vistas In Shameless Deceit

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

The fact that Roger Stone supports Donald Trump and that Trump regards him as a friend, advisor and ally is almost enough, all by itself, to justify refusing to vote for Trump no matter who or what he runs against next. Stone, about the slimiest denizen in a scum-filled profession that includes such slimy practitioners as Dick Morris and Lanny Davis (that is, political consultants and operatives), stooped to a new low by calling the wife of Trump rival Ron DeSantis a “cunt” in the coded Twitter/X message above.

I did not know, prior to this incident, about the social media-speak “SeeUNextTuesday,” which means “cunt” like “Let’s go Brandon!” means “Fuck Joe Biden.” It’s pretty obvious, once you think about it, and gutter-level political rhetoric (though HBO allowed Bill Maher to use the term outright when GOP women were the target.). Stone, however, human fungus that he is, added to his ethics foul by denying that he called Casey DeSantis a “cunt,” tweeting ““NOT what I said! Typical @mediate smear.” (The mostly left-leaning political website had stated that “Stone Calls Casey DeSantis a C***,” though it wasn’t the only news source reporting the slur.)

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Confronting My Biases, Episode 4: People Who Are Still Wearing Masks

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I can say right up front that I’m not getting over this one.

I am a bit less hostile if the mask-wearer is elderly, as I can imagine that they might be seriously immuno-compromised. But when I see a family with young children and they are all masked, I can only think “child abuse” and “morons.” Indeed, I am tempted to ask them what the hell they think they are doing.

Today, in Northern Virginia, I still see teens walking alone outside wearing masks. I still see clerks at my CVS wearing masks, often working side-by-side with maskless co-workers. Most of the masks I’m seeing now are not the medical-grade masks that might have some small value in preventing infection: they are primarily plain old cloth masks or paper masks, as in “useless.”

The mask-wearers are, I am certain, almost 100% woke, virtue-signaling knee-jerk progressives who would happily elect Kamala Harris as President if given the chance. Wearing the things is a political statement as much as anything else. I perceive the masked as gullible to government propaganda and media scare-mongering for political advantage. I view them as fearful, lazy and apathetic individuals who have completely rejected core American character traits, like risk-taking, autonomy and independence.

Perhaps most important of all, I view the wearing of masks now as a deliberate signal that the individual does not want to interact with me, the community or society. I can’t read their expressions; when they talk, it is muffled and I have trouble hearing them. For me, they might as well be wearing paper bags over their heads.

I believe the masked among us are eroding the vital inter-relationships, human contact and communication that makes society enjoyable and productive.

No, I’m not getting over this bias.

I’m not even sure it is a bias.

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Nikki Haley

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“You’re just scum.”

—-GOP Presidential nominee hopeful Nikki Haley, taking her feud with debate troll Vivek Ramaswamy to the next, uncivil, level in last night’s debate.

Nice. I suppose this is a victory for feminism, as the first Presidential candidate debate participant to resort to direct personal insults is a woman. Yay! I knew they could do it! Prior to this, the limits of what had been considered over-the-line personal denigration had been Barack Obama’s snotty “You’re likable enough” faint-praise shot at Hillary Clinton, and, though technically a Vice-Presidential debate, Lloyd Bentsen hitting Sen. Dan Quayle below the metaphorical belt by saying that he was “no Jack Kennedy.”

Ramaswamy and Haley have been spitting criticism at each other from the first debate, but when the tech entrepreneur accused the former South Carolina governor of hypocrisy for criticizing his having a TikTok account while her adult daughter also uses the the platform, the feud escalated quickly.

“She made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time,” Ramaswamy said. “So you might want to take care of your family first before preaching to anyone else.”

“Leave my daughter out of your voice!” Haley said, doing her best imitation of Will Smith after he slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards. When her derivative line prompted a few claps after his remark had sparked some boos, Ramaswamy added, “You have her supporters propping her up — that’s fine.”

“You’re just scum,” Haley responded wittily.

Nice. Be proud, Republicans! It was only moral luck that we were not treated to an ensuing exchange of,

“Bitch!”

“Asshole!”

“Slut!”

“Dickweed!”

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Political Cartoon Ethics: The Washington Post Apologizes For Being Mean To Terrorists

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Long-time readers here know that I believe political cartooning has outlived its usefulness, and now, not all the time but most of the time, such cartoons on editorial pages of newspapers are just excuses to make misleading generalizations with which the cartoonist, who typically has the political sophistication and depth of comprehension of your average rioter, grossly exaggerates one crude point, usually using gross stereotypes, in a manner that could only be amusing to a partisan. Political cartoonists virtually always rely on reader bias as their sharpest hook.

The cartoon above, by Las Vegas Review and Journal editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez, was published in the Washington Post. I was shocked to see an editorial cartoon that a current day Republican would applaud. The Post’s grotesquely unfair, hyper-partisan (guess which party) political cartoons have been a regular feature of the paper since I was a child. For decades, Democrat ideologue Herb Block was regarded as brilliant by using such lazy cliches as portraying conservatives as cavemen and “big business” as a fat white guys puffing on cigars. Naturally, Block regularly won Pulitzer Prizes for this juvenile junk, which was usually about as objectively funny as a “Kick Me!” sign, like this witty example…

Later, a succession of Block’s successors at the Post were equally restrained; here’s how Tom Toles portrayed the President of the United States:

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10 Ethics Takeaways From Wapo’s “Students Hated ‘To Kill A Mockingbird.’ Their teachers Tried To Dump It”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Subhead: “Four progressive teachers in Washington’s Mukilteo School District wanted to protect students from a book they saw as outdated and harmful. The blowback was fierce.”

To begin with, read it all, and to the extent you can stand it, the comments. I included some trenchant quotes below, however.

Now the takeaways:

1. If there is a more vivid and depressing illustration of how far public education, teacher competence and race relations have declined since, oh, let’s say 2008, I don’t know what it could be.

2. The episode was triggered, a black student told the Post, when a white teen read “nigger” while reading “Mockingbird” to the class. The student disobeyed the teacher’s instructions to skip the slur, and “the kid looked at every Black person — there’s three Black people in that class — and smiled.” Well: a) Asking a student to read a passage of any book to the class when she feels part of the text must be skipped is incompetent. b) Of all the passages to have a student read from “Mockingbird,” choosing one that includes “nigger” smacks of deliberate sabotage. c) Presumed facial expression racism? At this rate, we should be back to “separate but equal” in no time.

3. “Freeman-Miller wondered: Did the school really have to teach Harper Lee’s classic but polarizing novel, as was mandatory for all freshmen?” There is no reason for any novel to be regarded as “polarizing,” except to those who regard literature as indoctrination tools. The educational process is to read the novel, discuss its literary merit, its context, its cultural significance, the ideas it communicates, and it why it works (or not) for a particular reader.

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Ethics Quiz: Is A Candidate Who Records Herself Urinating In The Snow And Posts The Video To Social Media Fit To Serve In The Virginia Legislature?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I’m kidding. This isn’t really an ethics quiz post. It’s a “When did the Democratic Party completely lose its collective mind?” post.

In Old Virginny, where I live, where multiple communities feel it necessary to criminalize over-age trick-or-treating, where the state Democratic Party felt that Clinton bag man Terry McAuliffe was a fine choice to be governor, and where the same party was until recently running a candidate who performed sex-acts for cash with her husband on a porn site, Jessica Anderson (shown proudly peeing in the snow above) is a nominated and widely endorsed candidate for Virginia’s House of Delegates.

Her professionally-designed website describes her as “not a politician; she is an everyday person who advocates for her community.” When did people who piss in the snow and publicize the process start qualifying as “everyday people”? I’ve known a lot of normal and abnormal people in my epic life, and I’m fairly certain that none of them have done this or would consider doing this. In truth, I was considering an ethics quiz involving another TikTok post by Jessica; this one:

The question would have been, “Is it fair to judge a grown woman who dresses as an eggplant and flaunts herself doing so online as not sufficiently trustworthy to be an elected official?”

Close reading of Jessica’s website reveals other red flags, one being that she favors unconstitutional “red flag laws” inflicting pre-crime breaches of due process and individual rights based on vague standards applied by the government. Her aspiring totalitarian explanation: “The idea that someone is seen as a substantial threat and could face little legal ramifications and endanger members of our community, should warrant stricter criminal consequences.” Being “seen” as a threat warrants criminal consequences! That the mark of a 2023 progressive Democrat, even one who doesn’t revel in peeing in the snow…

The peeing eggplant candidate also proves herself to be deliberately misleading, describing abortion (one must assume that’s what she’s talking about) on her site’s homepage as “reproductive rights,” the current cover-term now that “choice” has been outed as the disinformation it is. If one clicks through, abortion is finally extolled by the candidate, but the page presents another red flag regarding Jessica’s fitness: professionally designed as it is, her campaign site reveals her as careless, ungrammatical and inarticulate or, in the alternative, someone who delegates to incompetents. Here’s the text on the abortion issue, highlights mine:

Youngkin and VA-GOP have advocate for abortion bans, recently pushing for a 15 week ban specifically, Yet, they fail to discuss that a 15 week ban does NOT stop elective abortions and instead causes doctors to hesitate, putting patients at risk of sepsis, blood loss, organ failure, reproductive organ loss, coma and even death. These types of laws also eliminate families ability to make a personal decision when they are presented with the horrible reality that their wanted child is not viable and will not survive childbirth. We also know that 93% of all abortions nationwide, occur by or before 13 weeks, with only 6% occurring between 13 and 20 weeks. So we need to ask ourselves why politicians are trying to legislate a 15 week ban, that only impacts 2.5% of all abortions, which are medically necessary due to fetal abnormalities and/or maternal mortality. Legislators have no business in our doctor’s offices, making our personal and life-altering medical decisions, and putting our healthcare providers at legal risk simply for providing us care. I believe the long-standing law in Virginia, which allows for abortion access through the 2nd trimester and that in the rare instance of a 3rd trimester abortion, healthcare providers must respond quickly and ethically. It outlines that if a pregnancy is terminated in the 3rd trimester, it requires a physician along with 2 consulting physicians, to deem the procedure medically necessary. The further arbitrary laws being discussed and introduced are nothing more than political grandstanding and serve no purpose than to control this deeply personal decision.

This section and others on the site do explain why the candidate believes that education is important, I suppose. I also concede that this is how most “everyday” people think and write. Elected officials and representatives responsible for our laws and policies, however, should be better and smarter than the average American, a rather low bar to clear. The 2023 version of the Democratic Party and their progressive allies clearly don’t accept this rather obvious principle (See: Rep. Jamaal Bowman). Anderson’s endorsement page shows that she’s the darling of all the usual suspects, and enthusiastically supported by the leaders of her party in Virginia, who, by extension, apparently also applaud public peeing.

Comment Of The Day (3): “Perplexed Ethics Thoughts On This Video…”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Behold the third in a series of Comments of the Day on the post about the woman who started screaming as her measure response to a speaker whose opinions she didn’t want to hear, and has ordered out of her “gayborhood.” This one is by Sarah D (the others are here, and here); the inspiration was the post, “Perplexed Ethics Thoughts On This Video…”:

***

Assuming that this man is preaching peacefully on a street corner, even if he is stating things this woman disagrees with, and she came up and accosted him (perhaps not fair assumptions), her screaming like this seems to me to be res ipsa loquitor on the matter.

As for how we can engage people like that, well, I think what we need to do is treat them the way I treat my four year old when she engages in such behavior. However, I do not believe the law allows me to ask a person over the age of eighteen (I refuse to call this woman an adult) to stand in a corner, be grounded, scrub baseboards, or be spanked. If my eldest, still in single digits, acted like this, I’d never have to clean my house again.

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