U.S. Society

Ethics Extraction, 3/31/2022: Ethically, March Is Not Going Out Like A Lamb

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I just had a very infected tooth pulled, but it was considerably less painful than the ethics news of late. For example, the Oscars producers finally admitted that they asked post-slap Will Smith to leave the ceremony, and he refused….so they shrugged and let him stay. All righty then! One-way tiresome late night host Stephen Colbert told his audience that Fox News’ Peter Doocy should be “slapped” for daring to ask President Biden what he meant by the U.S. “responding in kind” if Russia used chemical weapons against Ukraine. Colbert and his allied Democrat propagandists claimed any Trump criticism of the news media, like Jim Acosta’s partisan and unprofessional harassment, was an attack on the First Amendment proving that Donald was “a threat to democracy; now Colbert wants to see journalists who ask Biden legitimate questions physically punished. And it was a legitimate question: what the heck does responding “in kind” mean? With more chemical warfare? With illegal weapons? Doocy’s question properly highlighted the unfortunate truth that Biden himself doesn’t know what he means much of the time. There would be a joke there, but comics like Colbert only mock Repubicans, apparently because they are terrified that a progressive will run up and slap them if they don’t follow the battle plan. More pain to come…

1 The words are “unprofessional,” “disrespectful,” and “irresponsible.” Country music superstar Eric Church announced this week that he was canceling his upcoming sold-out arena show on Saturday night at the AT&T Center in San Antonio. Is he ill? In mourning? No, the singer just wants to attend North Carolina’s Final Four basketball game against Duke. He wrote, through Ticketmaster,

“This Saturday, my family and I are going to stand together to cheer on the Tar Heels as the team has made it to the Final Four. As a lifelong Carolina basketball fan, I’ve watched Carolina and Duke battle over the years but to have them matchup in the Final Four for the first time in history of the NCAA Tournament is any sports enthusiast’s dream. This is also the most selfish thing I’ve ever asked the Choir to do: to give up your Saturday night plans with us so that I can have this moment with my family and sports community. However, it’s that same type of passion felt by the people who fill the seats at our concerts that makes us want to be part of a crowd at a game of this significance.”

What an asshole. He’s counting on The King’s Pass. He thinks he is owed the right to abandon his commitments. (As a professional stage director, I had several occasions when a performer asked to skip a performance to attend some event. In each case I said “No,” and added that if the performer abandoned the show for a single night, he or she would not be welcome back, to that production or any other.

The email is offensive: he isn’t asking the fans to do anything, its a fait accompli. The last sentence is really smarmy dodge. But that wasn’t all he ended his non-apology with a quote from UNC announcer Woody Durham: “Go where you go and do what you do,” an unethical motto if there ever was one. [Pointer: JutGory]

Continue reading →

The Great Smith-Rock Rumble Ethics Round-Up!, Part 2: “We Are All Rock Now”

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Such episodes are often useful as a way to gauge the ethics alarms, values, common sense and IQs of the public figures and others who comment on them. So it was yesterday. Before a survey, however, there was this provocative note from conservative site “Not the Bee”:

Will Smith’s aggressive defense of his wife on the Oscars stage occurs alongside his complete and utter spousal neglect of her off the stage. Smith has already admitted that he and his wife are in an “open marriage.” In other words, he allows other men to have sex with his wife. There are few more potent and enduring symbols of emasculated weakness—and of bad husbandship—than a man standing by while other guys hook up with his wife and make a mockery of their wedding vows. We should note that Will Smith presumably hooks up with women in his own right, but of course that simply degrades his own personal integrity even further—if you can’t defend your wife and your marriage from the impulses and the ego of your own sexual appetites, you’re not much of a man or a husband, whatever else you may be.

Getting back to the Round-Up…I believe we were up to #4?

4. The Smith’s son, actor Jaden Smith, tweeted, “That’s how we do it.” Ah! Attack people who make jokes we don’t think are funny! It looks like Will is teaching his offspring not to be the man he wants to be.

5. Of course there was a Trump connection, imagined by Trump-Deranged CNN analyst Assah Rangappa (last seen making a fool of herself here). Her tweet:

Yes, such is the quality of thought one gets from CNN analysts. In what universe would the natural reaction of an audience to Smith’s solo meltdown be to walk out of the ceremony. Did she think it was staged? How does she lay the conduct of black, progressive, Hollywood star on Donald Trump? Well, obviously, if something is bad, it’s his fault. Continue reading →

The Great Smith-Rock Rumble Ethics Round-Up!, Part 1

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

As Glenn Reynolds often says, “You’re going to need a bigger blog!” But there are many ethics alarms a-ring in this fiasco, so attention must be paid.

Let’s get to it:

1. Will Smith’s apology, posted last night on Instagram:

Violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.

I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.  

I would also like to apologize to the Academy, the producers of the show, all the attendees and everyone watching around the world. I would like to apologize to the Williams Family and my King Richard Family. I deeply regret that my behavior has stained what has been an otherwise gorgeous journey for all of us.

I am a work in progress.

  • There are some acts that cannot be apologized for, and this was one. “I’m sorry I hit a fellow performer in the face during the live TV broadcast’ is required pro forma, but nobody should treat it as anything more than that. The conduct can’t be excused or forgiven.
  • As Tim LeVier noted in his Comment of the Day yesterday, Smith is obligated to apologize to his victim, Chris Rock, face-to-face. He did not mention Rock in his half-mea culpa while accepting his Oscar. Rock will be professionally obligated to be gracious, of course, when and if that happens.
  • Do not think for a second that Smith composed that statement. I wonder how much he paid for it. I would have written him a better one for less. I’m sure.
  • I would have, for example, omitted: “Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.” Jokes at Jada’s expense are also part of her job: she’s a celebrity, actress and talk show host. Furthermore, the joke was abut her shaved haircut, not her “medical condition”—this advances the dishonest “It’s Chris Rock’s fault” spin the Smith lobby is pushing. Hair loss is a medical condition, but as I wrote yesterday as a target of bald jokes and before that, “losing your hair” jokes since my early 20s, women are not exempt, by their own rules.

Oh, you acted emotionally by dashing up on stage, smacking Rock, and then shouting for him to keep the name of your wife out of his “fucking mouth”? Thanks for that clarification. Continue reading →

Will Smith-Free Zone Ethics Sign-Off, 3/28/22

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

I count this as a good day for Ethics Alarms. Mrs. Q even made an appearance, and any day in which she weigh in is a good one. There were excellent comments, and even the loss of two “echo chamber” counter-echoes of recent weeks couldn’t spoil the day. One broke the stated rules here, was given a chance to apologize and resume her often dubious commentary, and she refused: her 7 pm. deadline came and went. Too bad. The other thought he was so intrinsically indispensable to the proceedings here that he actually tried to force me to reinstate said rule-breaker lest he take his leave. For “A Friend,” he sure doesn’t know me very well.

There are a lot, and I mean a lot, of ethics related news regarding the Will Smith-Chris Rock slap, or as various members of our spinning rather than reporting news organizations called it, a “confrontation” or an “apparent” slap. I’m going to deal with as many of those as I can stand tomorrow, and leave this collection to other issues.

1. Jon Stewart, non-Ethics Hero. The former “clown nose on/clown nose off” star of “The Daily Show” made a play for integrity by using his Apple TV show, “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” to attack the coverage of the frame-up Mueller investigation as the orgy of dishonest and biased journalism that it was. News Busters reports, “On March 17’s edition…the comedian set his sights on the media as he spelled out how their outdated use of ratings coupled with perverse incentives were driving them into oblivion. And to make this point, Stewart focused on how the media was addicted to the largest story of the Trump presidency: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election, aka the Russia collusion hoax.”

Conservative gad-fly blogger Don Surber called this one nicely, sneering,

I checked that posting’s date 3 times. Each time it came up 2022, not 2018 when the Mueller investigation was relevant.Had Stewart spoken up then, why Republicans might have done better in the midterm election and Nancy Pelosi would never have been speaker again. Of course, Stewart would have ticked a lot of people in the media off, and he never would have gotten his Apple gig. But now that Mueller and Trump are off the stage, Stewart knows it is safe to say what he should have said back then…

A real man of virtue who tells it like it is would take on the media’s refusal to call Will Thomas out as he broke women’s swimming records. A real man of virtue who tells it like it is would take on the media’s labeling the protest at the National Mall on January 6, 2021, an insurrection….

Now, 40 bucks short and 4 years too late, Jon Stewart dares to mock the media’s coverage of Mueller…I look forward to his mocking Judge Ketanji Jackson’s inability to define a woman in 2030.

That’s about right.

2. Speaking of “the insurrection”...The Washington Post, as I mentioned once today already, called the stupid and pointless riot on Jan. 6 an “insurrection,” keeping it in Big Lie territory, in the process of explaining why Chris Wallace jumped from Fox News to CNN. Wallace says he quit, the Post’s Greg Sargent writes, “in part because of Fox host Tucker Carlson’s depiction of the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt as a “false flag” operation….” Wallace quit because Tucker Carlson was making stuff up? This was a shock to him? Sargent’s piece uses the Times’ interview with Wallace that has this telling quote: “I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion. But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable.” The TRUTH to Chris Wallace that must not denied is that Jan.6, 2021 was an insurrection: “an organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country, usually by violence.” “Organized?” “Attempt?” “Defeat?” “Take control?” The Black Lives Matter riots of 2020 came a lot closer to that definition, and still didn’t make it. Chris Wallace thinks calling the riot by 300 drunks with sticks and bear spray an “insurrection” is unquestionable fact. No wonder he ended up at CNN.

3. Today’s IIPTDXTTNMIAFB, (“Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”) This exchange with Peter Doocy, who almost makes Fox News’ nepotism look good. (Almost.):

Doocy: “Are you worried that other leaders in the world are going to start to doubt that America is back if some of these big things that you say on the world stage keep getting walked back?”

Biden: “What getting walked back?”

Doocy: “It sounded like you told U.S. troops they were going Ukraine. It sounded like you said it was possible the U.S. would use a chemical weapon. And it sounded like you were calling for regime change in Russia and we know—”

Biden: “None of the three occurred.”

Doocy: “None of the three occurred?”

Biden: “None of the three.”

(All three occurred.) Continue reading →

Now That Judge Jackson Has Settled One SCOTUS Recusal Issue, Another, Much Tougher One, Looms, Part 2: The Decision

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Under normal circumstances—but what is normal any more?—my conclusion regarding whether Clarence Thomas should or should not recuse himself in any cases involving the January 6 riot (which the Washington Post again calls “an insurrection” today)because of his conservative activist wife’s vocal support of vigorous responses by the Trump White House in response to what she felt was a fraudulent 2020 election would follow the same reasoning that my analysis of Justice Scalia’s recusal controversy trod almost exactly 18 years ago. The question then was whether Scalia’s participation in a duck hunt with Vice-president Cheney and his pals created a sufficient conflict of interest to trigger the “appearance of impropriety” standard that is supposed to govern judicial decisions whether to recuse, since Cheney was technically—but only technically—a party to lawsuit that had ended up in the Supreme Court.

Scalia adamantly insisted that there was no conflict and no impropriety, and authored an impressive memorandum to support his position. He indeed judged that case. I wrote in part,

Those who have criticized Scalia for his stance on this controversy have an obligation to read the Justice’s memorandum. They are sure to learn some things, such as why it is unwise to trust media accounts regarding anything more complicated than your typical Sponge Bob Square Pants episode; what constitutes a legally persuasive argument and why even Scalia’s ideological foes admire his sharp intellect and lively writing….

[I make] no pretense of being able to match Justice Scalia’s intellect or knowledge of the law. And he makes one especially chilling point: is appearance of impropriety sufficient to force recusal when that appearance is a false illusion created by inaccurate reporting, sloppy analysis, and misinformed reading of the law? It looked like an easy call based on what appeared in the papers; Scalia’s memorandum is a clarification that shows that his position is not just a product of stubbornness, but of careful scholarship. He wins the debate, hands down.

He should still recuse himself….

Scalia is right: there is the potential here for more than one bad precedent, and justices should not permit themselves to be run out of deliberating on politically sensitive cases by partisan misinformation campaigns. But the damage is done. To most of the public, the raw circumstances of the Scalia-Cheney outing will call Scalia’s impartiality into question, and because it is a high profile case, this will damage the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. It isn’t worth it. Americans, even Americans that don’t comprehend the legal requirements of recusal, need to believe in the integrity of the Supreme Court.

Next, the Court should recognize the new political realities of its role, and devise a review system that would make the whole court the arbiter of whether one of the brethren has a conflict, or an unacceptable appearance of one. Such a system would have made Scalia’s current dilemma less of a lightning rod for criticism.

For now, though, Justice Scalia needs to face facts: he may be right on the law, but he’s a dead man walking.

I like that post a great deal; I think I was right. (I also look wistfully back at the time when I could spend up to a week a week polishing a single post.) The parallels between Justice Thomas’s Left-and-news media contrived conflict is similar to Scalia’s. But if you think that means that I now must side with those who are pushing for Thomas’s recusal, you are wrong. Continue reading →

Looking Back: This Week’s Ethics Alarms Monday Retrospective

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I guess I should mark this weeks selection “BWSC”: Before Will Slapped Chris.”

Here are my top five picks from last week:

I’m cheating a bit here; this one was 8 days ago, but I didn’t do a Monday Retrospective last week (I forgot) and this is an important topic. Come for the post, stay for the comments.

From 3/21, and too astounding to miss.

On 3/22, we discussed how the District government, among others, are trying to over-ride parental rights.

From 3/24…, and,

From 2/26, just in time for Part 2 today.

Comment Of The Day: “Additional Morning Thoughts: ‘Smith Vs. Rock At The Oscars'”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

You never know.

I assumed yesterday that I wouldn’t be writing anything about the Oscars, which have politicized and wokified the ceremony into irrelevance, and here we are with the third Oscars-related post, following my my earlier ones here and here. This, a Comment of the Day by one of Ethics Alarms’ most veteran (and most restrained) commenters, Tim LeVier, is also by far the best, delving fearlessly and perceptively into the ethical issues raised by Will Smith’s astounding physical attack on Chris Rock in front  of the Hollywood glitterati and an American TV audience of diminished but still significant numbers.

Before turning things over to Tim, I will mention here, because I may forget later, that my print version of the New York Times today included a story covering last night’s awards and broadcast that did not mention the Smith-Rock episode at all. How do you explain that? The story included Oscar fashions and the “historic” awards (apparently whoever plays Anita in “West Side Story” must get a statuette); it mentioned the three smug hosts’ infantile “Gay, gay, gay!” chant. But a major star attacking a major comic on stage in an iconic awards ceremony wasn’t deemed by the New York Times as “news.”

What a great newspaper. If anything called for the “Naked Gun” clip, this does...

Now, here is Tim’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Additional Morning Thoughts: ‘Smith Vs. Rock At The Oscars'”….

***

Honestly, I’m more interested in the public reaction than the event itself. People seem to have this immediate need for clear thinking and the next chapter of the story. It’s a problem in our society more commonly referred to as instant gratification. Most of the posts and hot takes are in this vein but with varying objectives.

The pearl clutchers are the worst. “Why didn’t a police officer go an arrest him?” “Why didn’t the show director eject him?” “Why didn’t security intervene?”

Police need a complaint. The director needs time. Security aren’t in on the performance and have a tough time knowing reality from fiction particularly when the assaulted party engages with the assaulter and the assaulter casually moves into position.

It will be interesting to hear from Glenn Wiess the director and any producer about the mental gymnastics they were doing to figure out how to proceed. In the moment, during that commercial break, I’m sure it was “Is everyone cooled down now?” “Can we get through the remainder of the program?” “Am I required to take action?” “What does Chris Rock have to say?”

It was an unprecedented moment for sure and I guarantee there are some figures having discussions this morning on how to treat this going forward. There will be bright line rules put in place for the future. Everyone has now considered this predicament. Should it happen again, that person will be ejected….and then we’ll get to hear about “double standards” and “hypocrisy”. Continue reading →

Smith Vs Rock At The Oscars: Res Ipsa Loquitur, And In So Many Ways

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments

Yes, that’s actor Will Smith, who later was awarded the Best Actor Oscar, physically battering comedian Chris Rock during the live Academy Awards Broadcast last night. Rock staggered back and said,  “Wow, Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me!” Then Smith returned to his seat and shouted: “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth!”

Rock had made an ill-considered wisecrack about Jada Pinkett, Mrs. Will Smith.

I know the headline is “Res Ipsa Loquitur” (“The thing speaks for itself”) and the photo does, but I’m going to list some ethics observations anyway. Continue reading →

Sunday Ethics Break, 3/27/2022: An Oscars Date That Will Live In Infamy

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I’m squeezing today’s potpourri in while I labor to finish a client’s opinion letter on a weird type of lawyer conflict of interest where an attorney represents multiple clients seeking damages from the same defendant who doesn’t have the assets to satisfy everyone. Yes, compared to technical legal ethics, thinking about the rest is recreation.

Tonight is the Oscars broadcast, which I will assiduously miss despite having seen at least some of more Best Picture nominees than in recent years. From an ethics point of view, I must note that on this date in 1973, Marlon Brando confirmed his status as one of the biggest jerks in Hollywood by declines his Academy Award for Best Actor in “The Godfather.” Instead, he inflicted Native American activist Sasheen Littlefeather (that’s her, today and then) on the attendees and the TV audience. She appeared in Brando’s place and said that the actor “very regretfully” would not accept the award, in protest of the portrayals of Native Americans in film. This abuse of the ceremony for narcissistic political grandstanding helped start the Oscars on their long decline from being a celebration of popular entertainment to becoming an obnoxious platform for ill-educated and ill-informed celebrities to presume to lecture the American public.

1. From New York City, a “laws are for the little people” classic. NYC Mayor Eric Adams formally announced last week that he was lifting the vaccine mandate in for professional athletes and performers. He can spin all he wants, and the news media will spin for him, but there is no ethical way out of the hypocrisy. Adams claimed that his decision was driven by concern for the economic recovery of the city from the pandemic, noting that sports and entertainment played vital roles in generating jobs and tax dollars. Yes, and they also poured thousands of dollars into lobbying for this exemption. Adams said he had always believed it to be unfair that New York City-based athletes had to be vaccinated to play but visiting players did not, under an earlier Mayor De Blasio executive order dating to the prior administration. The disparate treatment of highly paid, celebrity workers and less starry, influential and powerful ones looks bad, and is bad.

Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Death Of Dr. Cat Pause [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Massey University (New Zealand) Fat studies scholar Cat Pause ( I cannot determine if this was her real name) has died suddenly and unexpectedly. The PhD specialized in “Fat studies” and lectured on “fat positivity,” how to fight “fat stigma,” and achieving well-being for overweight people.

She was just 42 years old. [Notice of Correction: My original source said she was 50. That was wrong.]

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day—it’s more of a query than a quiz, really—is

What is the most ethical reaction to this news?

I ask because I’m puzzled, frankly. Obviously, it’s a tragedy for a woman to die so young. On the other hand, as Capt. Hook used to say, this doesn’t exactly validate her life’s work, does it? If you devote your research to showing how being obese is nothing to hide from, worry about or accept criticism for, I’m inclined to say that you better make damned sure you don’t drop dead suddenly at the tender age of 42. Isn’t this like defiant smokers getting lung cancer before retirement age, or Timothy Treadwell, aka “Grizzly Man,” getting mauled to death by a bear at 46?

Stipulated: It is mean and heartless to find such outrageously predictable demises funny, or to think, “They asked for it, they got it.” So what should we think that is constructive as well as compassionate?