U.S. Society

Live Event Ethics: The Open Letter To Paul McCartney

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Ryan Ritchie, an LA witer, has written “An Open Letter to Paul McCartney Regarding Ticket Prices” in which he raises an important topic of societal ethics. His lament in part,

I had this great idea. I would surprise my parents with tickets to your Friday show at SoFi Stadium. Naturally, I would also be in attendance. The tickets would have been ideal because Mother’s Day just happened and my mom’s birthday is May 21.

…I don’t think my parents — individually or as a couple — have been to a concert. Ever. … wanted to change that by surprising them with tickets to your show. It would have been great…[but] sadly for us, when you look into that sea of 70,000 people Friday night at SoFi, we won’t be three of them because your prices are too expensive for my surprise gift. According to Ticketmaster.com, tickets for section 526 — which appears to be the absolute worst seats at the venue — are $190 each. Or, if we want to sit in section 539, tickets are a steal at $174. Let’s, Paul, for the sake of argument, say I want my parents to, you know, actually see you, so I buy three seats in section C129. Those seats are $450. Each. And, as Ticketmaster reminds me, “+ fees.”

I can’t surprise my parents with tickets to see Sir Paul freakin’ McCartney only for them to sit halfway to LAX. That’s like giving a child a toy without batteries. A $600 toy, mind you….Conservatively, if I bought the cheapest tickets, I would be looking at $700 to take my parents to your show and sit far enough away that we will not be able to see you. To be frank, Paul, that sucks. I don’t want to spend that kind of money to stare at the big screens that I am sure will be on stage. Certainly, you’ve heard of YouTube. My parents and I can get the same experience tomorrow morning for much less money.

Paul, serious question: What the fuck?.

…

“What the fuck” indeed.

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Update: The Dobbs Leak Pro-Abortion Freakout Enters The Hysteria Zone [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

If there are objective, legitimate, valid, ethical and legal arguments against overturning Roe v. Wade, why can’t the Axis of Unethical Conduct ( “the resistance,” a.k.a. (when Trump isn’t involved), anti-democracy progressive ideologues/ Democrats/ mainstream media) make them?

Since the leak, the desperate and furious fans of abortion have become increasingly unmoored to reason, resulting in disgusting mix of hysteria and dishonesty that is even more frightening than the usual Leftist freakout. And it is getting worse.

On the media side, the objective appears to dumb down the argument and allow emotion to persuade members of the public who lack the knowledge and skills to answer the question, “What’s going on here?” For example:

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Ethics Note To Margaret Atwood: “Oh, Shut Up!”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The previous post reminded me that I had intended to comment on Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, she of “The Handmaiden’s Tale,” issuing a mind-meltingly ignorant essay in The Atlantic claiming that her imagined Hell for women was coming true in the United States. Like so much of the utter offal that has been oozed out by pro-abortion fanatics since Justice Alito’s draft was leaked, the essay does serve as a useful test: anyone who reads it and exclaims, “By Jove! She’s exactly right!” is unfit for any substantive discussion about a topic more challenging than their favorite cookies.

Atwood’s screed, which, as usual,strongly suggests that she either didn’t read the opinion herself or, as a non-American without legal training, couldn’t comprehend it, is one howler after another but still capable of making dumb readers dumber still. In order…

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Surprise! NOT An IIPTDXTTNMIAFB!

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

IIPTDXTTNMIAFB are the Ethics Alarms initials for “Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.” There have been more of these than I could possibly keep up with. Part of the anti-Trump myth was and is that he lied constantly; there was even a Washington Post data base purporting to catalogue his “lies.” I examined the list, and as I expected, the vast, vast majority of the lies weren’t lies at all.

When Biden entered the White House, the news media showed no interest in cataloguing his lies, though this President has an impressive record in that regard, with such epic episodes as pretending that a British politician’s life was his. The lies have continued, and if one adds the mendacity of Joe’s paid liar, Jen Psaki, it is more impressive still.

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Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 74 Comments

Open Sesame!

Or as Popeye said, “Open sez me!”

The Supreme Court leak and the Roe v. Wade freakout ate the blog this week, but it couldn’t be helped. Maybe the Forum can generate some new distractions.

It’s fascinating that no commenters have surfaced here willing to defend abortion in general and Roe in particular. One of the most useful and enlightening comments ever made on Ethics Alarms about abortion came from a progressive commenter and abortion supporter, the now AWOL Still Spartan. She declared abortion to be a “necessary evil.” Necessary evils are by definition unethical; the only other phenomenon I would put in the category is war. However, except for situations where the life of the mother is in peril, I’m not sure about “necessary.”

Broadway Ethics: Unethical Audiences, Unethical Actress

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

1. From Actor’s Equity:

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the creation and distribution of photographs and videos of our members during a nude scene. As actors, we regularly agree to be vulnerable onstage in order to tell difficult and challenging stories. This does not mean that we agree to have those vulnerable moments widely shared by anyone who feels like sneaking a recording device into the theater. Whoever did this knew not only that they were filming actors without their consent, but also that they were explicitly violating the theater’s prohibition on recording and distribution.

“At every performance, there is a mutual understanding between the audience and the performers that we are sharing an experience limited to this time and place; that trust makes it possible for us to be exposed both emotionally and physically.  Trampling on this agreement by capturing and distributing these photographs and videos is both sexual harassment and an appalling breach of consent. It is a violation that impedes our collective ability to tell stories with boldness and bravery.”

This completely accurate statement was prompted by an audience member taking forbidden photos of former “Grey’s Anatomy” star Jesse Williams during in a nude scene in the Broadway revival of “Take Me Out” and putting them online. The theater, Second Stage, also made a public statement condemning the conduct.

2. “The theater is a temple of virtue signaling! Bow, peasant!” Patti Lupone, long-time Broadway diva and the original “Evita” (in the musical, that is) confronted an audience member from the stage as she performed in the Broadway revival of “Company.” The audience member was wearing her mask below her nose.

Of course LuPone wasn’t wearing a mask at all, but never mind. Those are the rules on Broadway. “Put your mask over your nose, that’s why you’re in the theater!” she lectured, obviously breaking character. “That is the rule. If you don’t want to follow the rule, get the fuck out! Who do you think you are that you do not respect the people that are sitting around you!”

Then the audience cheered, because they are mostly Good Germans who put up with the garbage edicts of the reliably progressive virtue-signalling theaters and pay absurd amounts of money to sit in discomfort wearing useless cloth masks. I suspect that the audience member had the mask down below the nose because glasses fog up otherwise, and it’s really stupid to pay over a hundred bucks to sit in a dark theater blind. In Patti’s defense, masks are the rule, the House makes the rules, and she was technically correct that the target of her abuse was breaking them. On the other side of the ledger, it’s not her job to enforce the rules, and though audiences love seeing anything out of the ordinary like av actress berating a patron, LuPone sacrificed the performance to indulge her grandstanding. She has no respect, clearly, for the audience or her fellow cast members.

If I were the mask-felon, I would have left, and sorely tempted to shout out, “You’re the one who should be masked with that mug!”

But that would have been unethical…

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 5/12/2022: The Ethics Are Blowing In The Wind…Along With A Pilotless Cessna! [Corrected!]

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

A forgotten incident on this date should remind us that corporate censorship of political speech has been around a long time. In 1963, Bob Dylan’s appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” before he had become a nationally known artist was clotheslined after CBS censors rejected the song he planned on performing, “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues,” a satirical number mocking the ultra-conservative, conspiracy theory-minded, Joe McCarthy-esque John Birch Society. Ed had no problem with Bob’s political satire but a Big Eye executive from the Standards and Practices department announced that the network would not allow him to sing the song. Even though the appearance would have meant a huge career boost for Dylan, he politely declined to perform anything else, and the Ed Sullivan Show went on that Sunday without Bob Dylan.

1. GOOD! In 2021, as he was excoriating NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his sexual harassment hobby, Rep. Tom Reed, a Republican from western New York, was accused of rubbing a female lobbyist’s back and unhooking her brae without her consent, at an event in Minneapolis in 2017. The lobbyist, Nicolette Davis, told The Washington Post that Reed appeared to be drunk as he pawed her back and leg when the two were seated next to each other during a networking trip. There was quite a bit of evidence corroborating her story, though Reed said it was “inaccurate.” Eventually he admitted that she was telling the truth, and he apologized, saying that the incident occurred when he was “struggling” and “powerless over alcohol.” That, however, didn’t excuse his hypocrisy regarding Cuomo or his initial attempt to lie his way out of trouble. He had already announced that he would not run for re-election, but yesterday he resigned. Good riddance.

2. Today’s desperate Roe v. Wade defense…Now try to stay with me here. Sheila Briggs, an associate professor of religion and gender studies at the University of Southern California, wrote in an op-ed that striking down Roe v. Wade would jeopardize religious liberty. Got that?

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Ethics Observations On The Failed “Women’s Health And Protection Act”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I just didn’t think the Democratic Party’s ethics rot had progressed this far. I’m still stunned. Yesterday the Senate Democrats attempted to pass a pro-abortion bill that would have legalized a vague medical standard permiting late-term abortions right up until birth, prohibited states from restricting abortions until after 23 weeks gestation, and eliminated parental notification laws for minors, among other restrictions. Every Democratic Senator voted for the provision except West Virginia’s pariah of the Left, Joe Manchin. Every Republican Senator voted against the unethical monstrosity, so the bill was blocked from coming to the Senate floor for debate, 51-49.

However, the ethics story is how the Democratic Party has allowed the pro-abortion fanatics in its ranks and among its “base” to thoroughly corrupt it to the point at it would openly endorse allowing unborn human beings to be killed at a point in their progress toward full citizenship when they are physiologically indistinguishable from newborns. (That’s a third-trimester fetus above). Not only that, the Party appears to think the majority of Americans are similarly inert ethically (or too apathetic and ignorant to deserve a democracy), and will support a position that is hostile to the concept of human rights and the foundational national principle of the right to life.

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Ethics Quiz: The Vulgar Exclamation That Wasn’t

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

This is a weird ethics quiz, I’ll admit: it involves conduct that didn’t really take place.

In a game between the Cleveland “Guardians” (they are really the Indians) and Chicago White Sox, Cleveland had a runner on second with two outs when Owen Miller lifted an easy fly to right field, where Chicago outfielder Gavin Sheets should have easily made the play. Instead, in what is technically called a “clank,” the ball bounced right off his glove and went past him for an embarrassing error. The runner on second scored, and Cleveland’s radio color commentator, former player Rick Manning, could be heard saying “Are you shitting me?” as play-by-play man Tom Hamilton described the error.

Much hilarity ensued on social media.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

What is the fair and responsible consequence for a professional broadcaster who utters a spontaneous vulgarity or obscenity on the air?

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Monday Ethics Madness, 5/9/2022: Villains! Leakers,The Paid Liar, The ABA, And More

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Major Clipton’s been AWOL lately. Good to have him back, since his commentary is especially germane.

To begin on an upbeat note: there is a house on the route I walk Spuds in the evening that has started having elaborate lawn and porch decorations all year round. The elaborate Halloween display began in late September and lasted until November, when a giant inflatable turkey took over as well as some horns of plenty. Right after Thanksgiving the outrageous Christmas decorations went up. January featured a 2022 display, which gave way to the family’s best yet, a Mardi Gras-themed salute complete with purple, green and orange lights, New Orleans street signs, and plastic beads hanging from the trees. That was up through March. During April, the yard was being landscaped, and I wondered what was in store for May.

There is a full-size inflated Jabba the Hutt on the porch.

I am tempted to knock on their door and tell the family what a boon their whimsy is to the neighborhood. It is such a welcome contrast with the many virtue-signalling scolds who subject us to Black Lives Matter endorsements and various rainbow lawns signs shouting such profound messages as “Love is Love” and “Ramalamadingdong.”

1. Ethics Villain: Jen Psaki, and President Biden is accountable. The demonstrations outside the homes of Supreme Court Justices continue, Justice Alito has been moved to a secure, undisclosed location, and Psaki muttered platitudes when asked if Biden condemns the [illegal!] harassment of the Justices. She also was asked if Biden condemned the leak, and she ignored the question.

But Donald Trump undermined democratic institutions. Continue reading →