Etiquette and manners

The Vagina Dress: What’s Going On Here?

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Actress Gillian Anderson of “X Files” fame caused a stir at last night’s Golden Globe awards by wearing a dress decorated with meticulously embroidered vaginas. They were impossible to see on TV since they were the same color as the dress (thank goodness for that) but see? Look closely now…

Vaginas. Though she later said they were “peonies,” Anderson told several reporters that her dress was embroidered with vaginas. Why? “For so many reasons. It’s brand-appropriate,” Anderson explained cryptically.

What is this? A feminist statement, like the infamous “pussy hats”? A diabolical insult to the Golden Globes? If an obscene design can only be detected up close and with the aid of hints, does that make it less obscene? Would a male tux with almost invisible embroidered black penises in the fabric be considered appropriate formal wear? How about nearly invisible embroidery showing various graphic sex acts? What if the designs reveal to the sharp-of-eye acts of pederasty? What if Gillian dress had “Fuck you!” beautifully embroidered on it? Is a vulgar design at a public event not vulgar if nobody notices it? Has polite society vanished so completely that a stunt like this is considered acceptable? Social media apparently loved it.

Dana expresses my reaction perfectly…

I just don’t know, Dana. I really don’t.

Incompetent? Irresponsible? Dishonest? Whatever This Was, It’s Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Look! Another example of IIPTDXTTNMIAFB (“Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”)!

From the New York Times:

It took the Pentagon three and a half days to inform the White House that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had been hospitalized on New Year’s Day following complications from an elective procedure, two U.S. officials said Saturday.

The extraordinary breach of protocol — Mr. Austin is in charge of the country’s 1.4 million active-duty military at a time when the wars in Gaza and Ukraine have dominated the American national security landscape — has baffled officials across the government, including at the Pentagon.

Senior defense officials say Mr. Austin did not inform them until Thursday that he had been admitted to the intensive care unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The Pentagon then informed the White House.

The Pentagon’s belated notification, first reported by Politico, confounded White House officials, one Biden administration official said.

Meanwhile, conservatives “pounced”: “What possible motive could there be for doing this? Who knows? It didn’t make a lot of sense, but the Biden administration has an extensive record of covering up scandals, so it wasn’t exactly out of character for the Biden administration to cover something up,” wrote PJ media’s Matt Margolis. Other wags noted that hiding such health-related information about important government officials is the kind of thing China does.

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Ethics Quiz: The Christmas Flash Mob

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

A group of about 60 Christmas carolers the the local Cure Church staged a good cheer invasion at a Kansas City, Kansas, Walmart last Sunday. Shoppers and employees stopped to listen and some sang along. Naturally the scene was caught on video, and, predictably, the video “went viral” on social media.

Also predictably, Scrooges were out in force on social media. Reddit patrons were especially hostile. “Not the Bee” was depressed at the reaction, sniffing, “This is Christmas we’re talking about! We used to understand that things were a little more magical and glorious this time of year.”

Well, yes, I am certainly sympathetic, but it was still a disruption in a private business without prior consent, and if anything flies in the face of “diversity” cant, it’s a public demonstration of a particular religion’s beliefs to a captive audience. After all, the group wasn’t singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” One person’s Christmas magic is another’s inappropriate proselytizing.

Your Ethics Alarms Christmastime Ethics Quiz is…

Was the Christmas caroling flash mob ethical?

The Ethics Sage Asks, “Can America Ever Regain Its Civility?” No! Now What?

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Last month Steven Mintz, aka.”The Ethics Sage,” wrote a plaintive lament about how far civility has declined in our society. Steven is a distinguished philosopher and writes passionately about ethics. He’s passionate about this topic too, but can offer little in the way of solutions to a problem he has visited before. His most recent essay mostly describes the problem. He writes in part,

“Who should we blame for the decline in civility? There is enough blame to go around, but I will focus on the primary culprits. The ABA survey reports that 34% of those polled said family and friends should hold the primary responsibility for improving civility in society, while 27% said that responsibility should fall to public officials. And 90% of respondents said parents and families are most responsible for instilling civility in children, followed by schools at 6%. This result is surprising. What should a school do if not to foster good behavior, concern for others, kindness and empathy? We have clearly lost our way in that regard. We are only in control of our own actions. However, our behavior can influence others in a positive way. We need to model civil behavior, so our kids learn how to behave in the classroom and at home.”

Mintz ultimately concludes “call me a cynic but I expect things to get worse before they get better.” What would make them get better? The Ethics Sage is whistling past the graveyard to suggest that parents and school have the power to turn things around. The culture itself now encourages and glamorizes incivility.

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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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