Well, I’m beginning the new year sick, and it hasn’t even done anything really sickening yet…

1. What does a Harvard grad’s high GPA mean? Nothing! A column in the Harvard Crimson revealed that the average GPA at Harvard is now 3.8 out of 4.0. Data analyst Aden Barton points out that this is up from 3.3 in 1991. “Are we supposed to believe that college students are just that much smarter now than decades ago?,” he asks? No. We should believe that college and higher education have become that much of a scam. Harvard had to abolish the “Dean’s List” because not making it proved you were an idiot: 92% of students were receiving the honor.

2. To be fair, Harvard is still serving as a role model...High schools are working hard to make sure that all of its students are also rated as outstanding. Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools paid almost half a million dollars to Oakland, California’s Performance Fact whose “Equity Imperative” is that all students’ academic performance result in “equal outcomes without exception.” Here’s the PowerPoint presentation for a Fall retreat.

3. If only anybody paid attention to boxing… World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman announced that the WBC is developing a system in which transgender fighters will compete against opponents who share the same biological sex. “In boxing, a man fighting a woman must never be accepted regardless of gender change. There should be no grey area around this, and we want to go into it with transparency and the correct decisions. Woman to man or man to woman transgender change will never be allowed to fight a different gender by birth,” Sulaiman said. “We are creating a set of rules and structures so that transgender boxing can take place, as they fully deserve to if they want to box. We do not yet know the numbers that there are out there, but we’re opening a universal registration in 2023, so that we can understand the boxers that are out there – and we’ll start from there.”

I’m not exactly sure what the system would be: he sounds a little confused, but who can blame him? At least he’s taken the first step toward sanity, ruling out the myth that a male boxer can become a female boxer by saying it’s so.

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I want to take this opportunity to thank the Ethics Alarms stalwarts who have kept the comments lively and substantive over the holidays. December usually is a wasteland here, indeed the cyber-tumbleweeds start rolling through the abandoned streets the week before Thanksgiving. This year the traffic fall-off was hardly noticeable due to the quality and quantity of the participation. Thanks.

1. What can be said about this depressing video? An unshakeable progressive is confronted with damning facts about the current child gender-swapping fad on the Left, and he insists that it is a conservative conspiracy theory lie, until he is shown convincing proof. Then his objection to the conduct evaporates, and he announces his approval.

pic.twitter.com/LTUCAY8JWi

— Gays Posting their L's Online (@GBT_Posting) December 28, 2022

Here’s what I can say…

• The mask is a tell. Outside, and he’s still virtue-signaling to the mask-fascists, “I’m one of you!”
• This could be staged. If so, the actors are excellent.
• Partisans like this guy roam on both sides of the political spectrum, They are blights on democracy, and why we can’t have nice things.
• Two likely trolls commenting on this post give every indication of being like that Masked Man. I’ve got a bet with myself that the get themselves banned by Monday. We shall see.

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This is the first ethics grab-bag in seven days, a record. I missed several historical dates with ethical import, none more notable than the 1914 Christmas Truce, which Ethics Alarms has discussed several times. It is remembered, for the most part, with dewy-eyed nostalgia: British and German soldiers on opposing sides at the Western Front, defying orders from superiors, pretended the war didn’t exist and left their trenches, put their weapons and animus aside, sang carols, shared food, buried their dead, and perhaps, depending on which source you choose to believe, even played soccer against each other. Awww. Somehow I couldn’t remember if I had ever fallen for this malarkey, so when I was considering writing a “Bah, humbug!” Christmas Truce post on December 25th, I began by checking the Ethics Alarms archives. The last time Ethics Alarms took up the topic was in 2020, and the post concluded in part,

I was moved to write about this event after reading one article that said that it demonstrated “the importance of choosing to see past our momentary hatreds.” How does it demonstrate that? The “truce” saved no lives; it didn’t shorten the war, lead to more mercy and compassion, orpromote understanding. The victors in the First World War still enacted such punitive measures against the Germans that it seeded World War II.

Soldiers who operate under the delusion that warfare is a noble pursuit tempered with honor and mutual respect are deluding themselves. The idea is to kill people, and to end the war as quickly as possible. The “Christmas Truce” was incompetent and naive.

1. “Where have you gone, Ross Perot? Our nation turns its stupid eyes to you…” Congress got together to pass a wildly irresponsible 1.7 trillion dollar spending package, so it is now officially clear that neither party is paying any attention to the National Debt. What the hell. they’ll all be dead before it triggers a financial catastrophe, so why should they care? The public will keep voting for them, because the schools don’t teach basic mathematics skills, and nobody understands economics including economists. America’s debt has now reached 31.3 trillion dollars. Boston Globe business and finance reporter Jim Puzzanghera pointed out last week that this level of debt represents a “rapidly growing death spiral” for our nation. Actually, the level of debt thirty years ago threatened the same death spiral—that was when Ross Perot ran for President with a campaign infomercial in which he explained with simple charts why federal spending was out of control and eventually the U.S. would regret it. A lot of Americans got the message, too–but they’re all dead or senile now.

The federal government has to pay interest on the debt; it will pay nearly $400 billion in interest in 2022, and that figure is currently projected to climb to about $1.2 trillion over the next decade. The GDP now is virtually the same as our national debt. The interest on the debt will equal more than 3% of the nation’s entire economic production over the next decade. The CBO projects that figure will eventually surpass 7%, and the CBO’s record lately suggests that the real figure will be higher. The Bipartisan Policy Center think tank told Puzzanghera that a debt like that is like termites in your home’s porch: “They’re working away at it, you don’t see them, but one day you step out on that porch and you go through it.”

Except that our elected leaders do see them. They just don’t care.

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This one is complicated.

A classmate wrote an anniversary report that was exactly as I would have predicted. I know him well; we roomed together for three years. It was virtually a parody of what people think Harvard grads sound and think like in the autumn of their years. And it bothered me.

My old roomie wrote about how the pandemic had adversely affected his life. He and his wife were used to going to fine restaurants, the Met, the ballet, the Philharmonic and Broadways shows. In retirement, he was still on several corporate boards. Things got so bad when New York City was shut down that his family had to flee their Park Avenue penthouse apartment for their other apartment in Newport, Rhode Island. The compensating aspect of this hardship was that he was able to take his large sailboat out frequently, as sailing has always been his passion.

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Christmas Eve Ethics Gift Wrapping

Ever heard that one before? It’s the late Art Carney, best known for his reliably brilliant portrayal of sewer worker Ed Norton as Jackie Gleason’s foil on “The Honeymooners” pioneering Christmas rap. Carney also won an Oscar, like a lot of comics managing a successful late career pivot from clowning to drama, and had another Christmas credit on his CV. Art starred in “The Night of the Meek,” a memorable “Twilight Zone” episode in 1960 that aired on December 23. Carney played a drunk and depressed department store Santa who, through wishes, fate and the regular “Twilight Zone” magic, becomes the real Santa Claus in the show’s climax. Rod Serling, who wrote the episode, ended it thusly,

A word to the wise to all the children of the twentieth century, whether their concern be pediatrics or geriatrics, whether they crawl on hands and knees and wear diapers or walk with a cane and comb their beards. There’s a wondrous magic to Christmas and there’s a special power reserved for little people. In short, there’s nothing mightier than the meek.

Some politically correct idiot at CBS deleted Rod’s Merry Christmas wish from the episode in the 1980s. Can you believe that? “And a Merry Christmas to each and all” is not heard in reruns, VHS releases and the five-DVD set “The Twilight Zone: The Definitive Edition.”

1. Here’s as good as an apology as you can make when you are videoed trying to kill someone.  New England Patriots great Willie McGinest, a three-time Super Bowl winner, issued an abject mea culpa on  social media after an ugly incident in which he attacked someone in a restaurant this month in California turned up streaming  on the web. The onetime star linebacker was seen on video obtained by TMZ Sports  punching a man in the face and then attacking him with a bottle. McGinest was arrested for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon, then was released on bond. He wrote on Instagram:

This apology would rate a #1 on the Ethics Alarms Apology Scale, as it hits all the marks. It also convinces me that the scale needs to be revised, something that has been suggested by several commenters over the years. There has to be a special category for professionally-crafted public apologies designed to avoid the natural consequences of outrageous conduct. Can one adequately and credibly apologize for attacking someone in a restaurant? Should they be trusted again? Attacking someone with bottle in a public place is signature significance, is it not? Someone with adequate ethics alarms doesn’t do that even once.

Oh, I’m sure Willie is sorry: that video can cost him a great deal…much more than he paid his PR firm to draft it. [Pointer: Arthur in Maine] Continue reading →