Etiquette and manners

Once Again, Our Leaders Inflict “The King’s Pass” On Our Culture…Well, A Variation: “The Slob’s Pass”

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has directed the chamber’s sergeant at arms to end the centuries-old rule requiring male U.S. Senators to wear a suit and tie on the Senate floor, with members of the upper house to wear modest business attire. This move was clearly made by Schumer to relieve pressure on Frankensteinian Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa), who has been violating the Senate Dress code and appearing in shorts, T-shirts, and hooded sweatshirts since he returned from a hospitalization for depression. He had been criticized and mocked as a result—as he should be.

The King’s Pass, Rationalization #11 on the List, is a corrosively backwards reaction by organizations to unethical conduct that violates organization norms and values, the value in this case being “respect”—respect for the institution, respect for the public, respect for the United States of America. If the organization’s (company’s, institution’s, industry’s, government’s, sports team’s…etc.) member who is breaching norms, rules, laws and values is deemed sufficiently powerful, important or popular, the rules and norms are not enforced when the King’s Pass strikes. When the most prominent member of a hierarchy is allowed to violate standards of conduct, the conduct of those of lower status will deteriorate in response: this is what “the fish rots from the head down” means, with the head in this case being a brain-damaged one.

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Ethics Dunce (And A Tie For Worst Apology Of The Week): Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO)

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

One of Donald Trump’s proteges, Rep. Lauren Boebert, behaved so outrageously at a a Denver theater last week during a performance of the Broadway musical “Beetlejuice,” that she was asked to leave by the theater managers. She was loud, sang along with the performers in places, got in arguments with audience members, was ostentatiously groped by her male companion, and perhaps most objectionably, vaped during the performance, which is what you see her (in the middle of the frame, second from the aisle) in the act of doing—see the little puff?— in the security camera shot above. She also took a selfie during the second act. As she and her date were ushered out, the distinguished member of Congress actually uttered the magic phrase I regard as signature significance for an insufferable celebrity jerk, “Do you know who I am?” and threatened consequences for the staff.

That’s not all. She had her office deny that she had been vaping, not realizing that security cameras memorialized it. And still that’s not all. Here is her head-exploding “apology” for acting like a 17-year old raised in a barn who had never been at a live theater show in her life:

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Ethics Quiz: Oprah’s Surprise

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

I did not see this coming at all. Obviously, neither did Oprah Winfrey.

On August 31, Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson united on their Instagram and TikTok accounts to promote their People’s Fund of Maui, which they had co-launched with a combined $10 million donation. The fund would support the victims of the Maui wildfires, and O joined with The Rock to call on the public for more contributions. The following accompanied their joint video, shot in Hawaii, naturally:

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Ethics Quiz: Censorship At The U.S. Open [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Touchy-touchy!

During his a match at the US Open yesterday, German player Alexander Zverev complained that he heard a fan sing out, “Deutschland über alles!” Zverev went to umpire James Keothavong and said, “He just said the most famous Hitler phrase there is in this world, it’s unacceptable. This is unbelievable.”

The phrase, which translates to “Germany above all,” has been removed from the German national anthem, which is sung to melody composed by Haydn, (NOT Handel. as was initially posted). The original lyrics were written way back in 1800, but “Deutschland über alles” is associated with Hitler, the Nazis, the Holocaust, WW II, all sorts of bad things. It’s a casualty of the cognitive dissonance scale.

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The Kiss

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments

This topic was unwittingly recommended by my younger sister, a reliably liberal Democrat who, to my knowledge, has never read Ethics Alarms once in its 23 years of existence. (Don’t you think that’s strange? I think that’s strange, but I refuse to let it bother me. Much….). She had to tell me about the eruption of an international women’s rights, #MeToo, “sexual assault” cancel culture controversy in the wake of Spain’s first Women’s World Cup championship because I pay as little attention to soccer, international or otherwise, as humanly possible.

Shortly after the championship game’s final whistle, Luis Rubiales, the head of Spain’s Soccer Federation, joined the jubilant on-field celebration, and at the award ceremony, Rubiales took midfielder Jennifer Hermoso’s head in both his hands and…kissed her on the lips!!!!

Searching for relevance and headlines now that her own soccer career is mercifully over, woke activist Megan Rapinoe told The Athletic that the kiss reflected “the deep level of misogyny and sexism in the federation. It made me think of how much we are required to endure.” (I don’t know about the “we” part in Rapinoe’s case: I think an over-excited soccer official would be more likely to spontaneously kiss a scorpion.) Everybody piled on. Spanish soccer coach Jorge Vilda ripped Rubiales, saying in part “I regret deeply that the victory of Spanish women’s football has been harmed by the inappropriate behavior that our, until now, top leader, Luis Rubiales, has carried out.” Eleven members of the Spanish women’s team coaching staff tendered their resignations over the weekend, expressing “their firm and categorical condemnation of Luis Rubiales’ behavior towards Jenni Hermoso.” 81 Spanish players, including all 23 World champions, vowed to go on strike and refuse to play until Rubiales is removed from his position. FIFA, the international soccer organization, suspended Rubiales from all football-related activity for 90 days pending an investigation—yeah, maybe he secretly planned the kiss weeks in advance, for example). The Spanish government publicly supported the decision.

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The New York Times Publishes A Feature About Ethics And Doesn’t Mention Ethics Once, Part 2

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

[Once again, I apologize for the dumb error in Part I, where the Unethical Conduct Score and Jerk Score for #8, “Playing gory video games,“ were both supposed to be zero and I inexplicably had them both as “4.“]

To recap, I am examining the ethical logic—if any— being displayed in each of the 16 sections of the Times piece titled “The Virtues of Being Bad,” rating the combination of unethical conduct described and rationalizing it in a public form from 0 (not unethical at all) to 5 (very unethical) as well as assigning a “jerk score” to each of the authors, writers all, again ranging from zero (not a jerk) to 5 (Jerk-o-rama). Part I covered the first eight; now here is 9-16. Warning: it gets pretty weird from here on…

9. “ I, a responsible parent, feed my kids McDonald’s and other junk food. Not all the time. But I do. And they love it.” Oh, so what? This is the most “unethical” conduct this writer engages in? I don’t believe it. It’s more unethical to accept free publicity in a New York Times feature and do so little to earn it.

Unethical Conduct Score: 0. Jerk Score: 2.

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My Answer To “Name Withheld’s” Question To “The Ethicist”: “Tell Sis To Shut The Hell Up!” Yours?

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

An inquirer to “The Ethicist,” Kwame Anthony Appiah, asked this week:

“A year ago, I was told I had a form of ovarian cancer and was given two to three years to live — five years, if I’m in the top quartile of patients. I nursed my husband through metastatic lung cancer for 15 months. It was horrific; I am hoping that God takes me early. My sister, whom I love very much, is part of a fundamentalist Christian church and is one of their top “prayer warriors.” As such, she calls me nearly every day and launches into long prayers asking God to send my cancer to the “foot of the cross.” She implores me to pray with her and says that if I just believe that God will cure me, he will.I grew up Catholic and have fallen away from the church. I believe God is bigger than what we can understand as human beings. I am a data-driven health care practitioner: I believe that everybody has to die of something, and this happens to be my fate. I’ve told her as tactfully as I can that her praying for me and expecting me to pray with her for my cure is upsetting to me. It makes me feel that if there is a God, he must really hate me; otherwise, he would have cured me. (She says that he wants to use me as a “messenger” to others and that it’s the Devil, not God, who gave this disease to me.)…

“What do I say to my sister without belittling her beliefs? I’ve told her that if she wants to pray for me, I would rather she do it on her own time and not ask me to participate. But she is persistent, thinking that she’s going to “save my soul” and my body at the same time. She disputes every reason that I give her and insists that what she is doing is helpful. But it’s not helpful; it sends me into a terrible depression.”

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Ethics Observations On A Bizarre Conservative Tweet Exchange [Name Confusion Corrected!]

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Lizzie Marbach, a former Ohio GOP official and currently director of communications at Ohio Right to Life, tweeted ,

This upset Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), who is Jewish,  so he tweeted, twice,

Ugh.

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Today’s Res Ipsa Loquitur Donald Trump Moment

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

During a speech at a high school gym in Windham, New Hampshire, former President Donald Trump was discussing recent polls that show him leading—Trump loves polls, ratings, IQ scores—- when he referenced former (and disgrace) New Jersey governor Chris Christie. “Christie, he’s eating right now,” Trump riffed. “He can’t be bothered.”

That guy Trump is a regular Mark Twain with that rapier wit of his.

Someone in the crowd picked up on Trump’s erudite insult, to which our ex-President responded to the laughs of the assembled, “Sir, please do not call him a fat pig! I’m trying to be nice. Don’t call him a fat pig. You can’t do that.”

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Two Schadenfreude Treats!

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

1. The deified U.S. women’s soccer team lost to Sweden and exited the World Cup in the round of 16, its worst performance ever. Megan Rapinoe, the ostensible leader of the squad who made the team’s image at least as political as it was athletic, was substantially responsible for the loss, shanking a penalty kick that could have secured a victory.

Good.

U.S. soccer fans shouldn’t mourn the team’s defeat because this team never represented the United States honorably or respectfully. It has “taken a knee” during the National Anthem’s playing on foreign soil; this time, its members slouched, looked down, and behaved like 10-year-old jerks before a baseball game (“Take off your cap, Billy!“) while a few of the women mouthed the words. They compete in international tournaments as our representatives, and don’t have the option of wokey, anti-American self-indulgence. When asked about potentially accepting an invitation to be honored by at the White House when Trump was in residence, Rapinoe spoke for her team, spitting out, “I’m not going to the fucking White House!”

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