Nah, the mainstream media isn’t a woke propaganda machine! That’s just a conservative conspiracy theory.

Sure.

Subliminal advertising in movies and on TV began in the Fifties with things like this..

…being flashed before viewers’ eyes in fractions of a second. As a result, in 1958, the National Association of Broadcasters banned subliminal ads in 1958. The FTC views such ads as inherently deceptive and therefore illegal. If you look really closely at that screenshot, it says “Try racial justice” in faint grayscale letters.

Sharp-eyed Ann Althouse gets credit for finding this, which she posted and then, being Ann, ignored the real issues the stunt raises in order to go off track about the lyrics of “Try a Little Tenderness,” among other things.

Ooops, gotta run…I’ll have more to say in the comments…

I challenged veteran EA commenter Jim Hodgson to respond to the oft-repeated accusation that “all cops lie.” Here is his response, a Comment of the Day on the post about the retired Boston detective who manufactured evidence to get more than a dozen (at least) innocent people convicted and jailed, “KABOOM!! Apparently There Is No Criminal Law To Charge This Police Detective Under”.…

Oh…I do want to make it clear that the choice of Mark Fuhrman to lead off this COTD is not in any way intended to subvert Jim’s points. I just believe that when asked for an example of a cop lying on the stand to avoid revealing information that might endanger a conviction, Fuhrman is who most Americans would think of first. My mind goes immediately to the corrupt detective played by Orson Welles in “Touch of Evil,” but you know me and old moves….

***

I think a lot of the phenomenon of police corruption (of all types) is dependent on where an officer works (the particular agency and its culture as well as the jurisdiction and its culture, crime rate, etc.), in addition to the moral character of the individual officer. I spent my whole career here in the mid-south, the so-called “Buckle of the Bible Belt,” in small cities and rural counties. The largest agency I worked for (27 years) had about two hundred officers and maybe forty civilian employees when I retired in 2014. Crime rates where I worked were nothing compared to major population centers. Our citizens were typically much more worried about residential burglary than violent crime. We usually had no more than two or three homicides per year, and perhaps six to ten armed robberies annually, mostly traveling criminals off the interstate highway.

I began my career in 1974. New York’s Knapp Commission had just released its final report on NYPD corruption (think “Frank Serpico”) a little over a year before I began. The report of the U. S. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice report was pretty fresh, as well as the multi-volume report of the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals. Most agencies in this region were trying to overcome the stereotypes of Southern “good-old-boy” knuckle-dragging law enforcement, and embracing new and higher standards in recruitment, hiring, training, retention and performance. Police corruption of all kinds was certainly at the forefront of concern for local politicians and police executives, and that trickled down throughout their agencies.

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This was so predictable it’s almost funny. Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), one of the most slimy and unqualified members of Congress in U.S. history, is about to be expelled after an epic Ethics Committee report on his myriad crimes and ethical lapses.

The 56-page report said the panel’s bipartisan investigation found a “complex web of unlawful activity involving Representative Santos’ campaign, personal, and business finances.” The committee’s investigation found that Santos had committed multiple frauds and thefts from his campaign while falsifying campaign and personal finance reports. This is all on top of the nearly two dozen federal criminal charges that Santos faces from two indictments, including wire fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds. And, of course, it has long been established that virtually his entire resume was fiction.

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Little by little, bit by bit, this insanity is being exposed and opposed…

Item: The International Cricket Council this week barred transgender women from competing against biological females. The organization says the “new gender eligibility regulation” is intended to protect the integrity of women’s cricket and was established in the name of safety.

Item: Mid Vermont Christian School is suing after it was barred from all athletic competitions when the team refused to play against a Long Trail girls high school basketball team that had a (big and strong) biological male on their team earlier this year. The Christian school’s complaint alleges that it was “irreparably harmed by being denied participation” and “losing out on playing competitive sports as well as academic competitions.” Ethics Alarms designated the team an Ethics Hero here.

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He can’t.

Next question!

Well, let me expand on that a bit. The Ethicist received this query from someone with a guilty conscience:

“I’m from a West African country, and I moved to the United States to attend graduate school. I am a recipient of two academic scholarships, sponsored by the local and federal governments of my birth country. The paperwork I signed before departing for the United States specifically stated that, on completing my studies, I would return to assume a government post commensurate with my academic accomplishments and professional experience. [Instead of following through on this commitment] I stayed, became a naturalized citizen, raised a family, held several academic and administrative positions in the United States and retired in the thick of the pandemic.

I had long concluded that my research activities — e.g., publishing peer-reviewed research in books and journals, reviewing research proposals and doctoral theses, presenting conference papers and giving workshops — could serve as an acceptable proxy for returning to my birth country after graduation by contributing directly to its economy and well-being. Now I am increasingly concerned about such a justification, particularly in the absence of data that my academic products had any measurable impact on government policymaking. How do I make taxpayers in my home country whole, following a robust government investment in my master’s and doctoral education?”

The Ethicist, being more diplomatic than I and having to fill his column, says, “I’d urge you to turn your gnawing guilt into something of genuine value.” His suggestions: “In this age of Zoom, would you be able to provide expertise as a consultant to worthwhile development projects in your home country? Is there a charitable venture there that you could help raise money for? Could you help create a partnership between a research institution in this country and that one? Could you serve as a mentor to students or young professionals there?” Prof. Appiah also muses, “One way to think about what you owe is to ask what the current value of the money would have been if it had been a loan, assuming a modest percentage of interest for intervening years. You could consider spending that much on projects in your country of origin over the next few years. But I doubt you could afford to do it.”

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