“Company officials admitted that the perception of racism was more important than whether or not my tweet was actually racist.”

—Amber Athey, explaining how she was fired as a morning co-host of D.C.’s WMAL’s public affairs show, “O’Connor & Company.”

I will assume (Arguendo!) that Athey’s account is accurate; so far, the executives responsible haven’t denied it.

This is one of those periodic episodes that should be a trivial local story but that reverberates with significance. WMAL, owned by Cumulus Media, is a popular D.C. AM radio station (especially at “drive time”) regarded as “conservative” because it employs conservative talk radio pundits here and there until they cross some invisible line and get fired or driven away. Amber Athey, the Washington editor for The Spectator magazine, was fired from the “O’Connor & Company” morning radio for a stupid tweet on a stupid topic regarding a stupid woman.

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I was searching desperately for a YouTube clip of the memorable climax of “Michael Clayton,” in which the soul-dead law firm fixer played by George Clooney reveals to the Machiavellian general counsel of an industrial polluter that he is wearing a wire and that she has just been recorded admitting to murder. I couldn’t find the clip , but that memorable line (The New York Times would have written, “You Are So F-worded,” which just doesn’t work as well, somehow) jumped into my head the second I saw the photos of dead Ukrainian civilians in Bucha, murdered in undeniable war crimes and thrown into ditches.

Putin and Russia are so fucked. Neither can come back from this. The only thing delaying the inevitable is the news blackout in Russia, but that can’t last too much longer. Putin is actually claiming that the bloody corpses are “actors”—Russians may have a self-destructive addiction to dictators, but they aren’t stupid. The latest horrible news from Putin’s unprovoked invasion—as if there hadn’t been too much all ready—clinches it. Russia is now globally reviled, and it won’t come back from that until Putin is dead or standing trial.

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I went downstairs to eat lunch and realized that I couldn’t leave Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” out of the discussion started in the last post.

It may not be one of the 40 saddest songs of all time, but I know this: Marlene Dietrich’s performance of the anti-war ballad was the most emotional performance of any song I have ever witnessed in my life. She used “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” as the encore in her concerts, and the combination of her unique voice, amazing face, and what we know of her activities during the war, made the whole package overwhelming.

Here it is, essentially the same performance I saw live, almost 20 years later.

I know, I know: these slideshows are clickbait. That’s no excuse for presenting what is supposed to be a definitive list when you haven’t done any research, talked to anyone with more perspective than you, or bothered to even think hard about what you are doing.

A web hack named James Cannon purported to have a slideshow of the 40 “saddest” songs “in history,” —someone may have even paid him for it—but as is usually the case with such stunts, “history” meant the obscenely narrow band of this guy’s experience, Because he didn’t know what he was talking about, he had to resort to filler, including songs that aren’t sad by any standard, like “It’s a Wonderful World,” while somehow missing classic songs that are world famous as heart-breakers. like, for heaven’s sake, “Danny Boy,” written by English songwriter Frederic Weatherly in 1913, and set to the traditional Irish melody of “Londonderry Air.” The song is still played at funerals, which would be a big hint, if Cannon performed a modicum of due diligence before making readers culturally and musically ignorant.

My objective isn’t to argue about all 40 songs; he’s as welcome to his list as I am to mine. But if your category is “history,” you can’t limit the field to recent pop music, which is, with a few (and seemingly arbitrary) exceptions what he does. You can’t make the list he purports to have made and completely stiff country western music, which is famously sad. This Hank Williams classic isn’t on the list of 40, for example:

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I bet everyone has forgotten about this series, which began on Ethics Alarms almost a year ago. I haven’t.

The first metaphor for the Trump Presidency was that of the passengers in an airplane navigating a storm voting to let a dog (in some versions, a chimp) try flying the craft. The metaphor was apt, and it’s still apt, even though moral luck worked its magic, and not only did the plane not crash, the dog turned out to a better pilot than anyone could have predicted. It was still irresponsible for this country to permit a man with Trump’s well-documented character flaws and proven proclivities both and executive and a human to be given such control over the destiny of the nation.

The second metaphor was from “Animal House”:

As I wrote:

A segment of the population decided that the system was rigged against them, that Democrats and Republicans were both involved in a massive, decades long con in which their primary goal was not to do what was in the public interest, but what was most likely to keep them in power and eventually line their pockets, and that their voices were not just being ignored, but that they were being insulted while being ignored. The so-called “deplorables” were mad as hell, and they weren’t going to take it any more. Voting for Trump was an “Up yours!” to the elites, the sanctimonious media, the corrupt Clintons, the hollow Obamas, and obviously corrupt Democrats like Pelosi and Harry Reid, machine Republicans like Mitch McConnell, and pompous think-tank conservative like Bill Kristol…It’s idiotic, but the message isn’t. It’s “Animal House”! and “Animal House” is as American as Doolittle’s Raid….In Germany, The Big Cheese says jump and the Germans say “How high?” In the US, the response is “Fuck you!” Obama never understood that…. I love that about America. And much as I hate the idea of an idiot being President, I do love the message and who it was sent to. America still has spunk.

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Yesterday, I commented on the depressingly incoherent and poorly reasoned defense of Will Smith by Denzel Washington, who, based on his performances, I had assumed could beat the Scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz” at Scrabble. Maybe not. “It was another reminder, and I have had many in my career, that even actors who excel at portraying complex characters and who can radiate perception, depth and wisdom in screen and stage roles are too often just not very bright,” I wrote.

This puts into perspective how absurd and destructive it is that these celebrities actually have influence over public opinion. One bit of proof that they are so often a couple of ice cream scoops short of a sundae is that some of the most dim and vocal Hollywood celebrities actually think they are smart, so they keep opining publicly on matters they know nothing about. Ron Perlman—he’s the “Beauty and the Beast” and “Hellboy” star whose defining characteristic is that he can play monsters and freaks with a minimum of make-up—provided a great example yesterday, when he tweeted,

Dear Gov. De Santis:

Don’t say gay? ‘Don’t say’ as the first two words in sentence spoken by a political leader in a state in the United States of America? Don’t say? Don’t fucking say, you Nazi pig? Say, the First Amendment. Read about it, then run for office you piece of shit.

See, Ron’s brilliant colleagues and peers referred to the new Florida parental rights law as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and he, trusting them implicitly, was certain that the law actually was about prohibiting people from saying “gay.” He didn’t bother to read the law, which doesn’t mention the word gay or the topic of homosexuality, nor prohibit saying anything.This is, of course, monumentally stupid.

Ron’s embarrassing blunder was spectacular, but not much worse than those made by such luminaries as Robert De Niro, Bette Midler, Alyssa Milano, Rosie O’Donnell, Jane Fonda, Leonardo diCaprio, Rob Reiner, and many, many others, all of whom have impressive talents in their own realm, but as much business expounding on public policy as John Lennon would have had teaching philosophy.

Then there is Whoopi Goldberg. In attempting to explain why the Oscar audience should be excused for giving a roaring ovation to a colleague who had just unapologetically committed assault and battery and had the gall to expound on the value of “love” from the same stage, Whoopi thought and thought and concluded that it was because her friends were “stunned.”

Oh. When in doubt, wildly applaud! That never occurred to me. Continue reading →

Well, I finally did it. As I was returning with Spuds for a walk, I saw a tall young man standing alone in the middle of the athletic field behind our cul-de-sac, and couldn’t retrain myself.

“Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question?” I began.

“No,” he said.

I introduced myself, and then asked, “Why are you in the middle of a field, on a lovely evening, with nobody withing sight except me and my dog, wearing a mask? You’re vaccinated, right.”

He responded that he was. After a “So?” from me, he said, “It’s just that my friends and I think it’s important to wear a mask to show that we support science; you know, in climate change and all that.”

I had obviously chosen—not poorly at all.

“Interesting”, I said. “So in a state where health officials have said masks are unnecessary—and I assume you know that masks like the one you’re wearing provide no protection at all—you are wearing it anyway to show you believe in science, though “scientists” have been wrong and misleading repeatedly regarding the pandemic, and every scientist agrees that masking in your current situation is pointless. Is that fair?”

“I guess so,” he said.

“I think you’re really wearing a mask to signal conformity, and you’re doing it a way that is anti-science in any way. Will you think about that? Maybe talk to your friends?”

“Sure,” the young man said. “I will. Thanks.”

“Thanks for chatting,” I said. And I left.

I noticed that he kept his mask on.

The damage that the politicized reaction to the Wuhan virus and its relatives has done to our culture, society, nation and social structure is immense, and I suspect its full effect won’t be revealed for a long time. Best to start the long, hard road of undoing it as quickly as possible.

1. I thought this was inevitable. A Los Angeles judge ruled that California’s recent law mandating that corporate boards meet racial, gender, ethnic and LGBT quotas violates the state Constitution. The ruling last week granted summary judgment to Judicial Watch, the conservative legal group seeking a permanent injunction against the measure. The lawsuit argued it was illegal to use taxpayer funds to enforce a law that violates the equal protection clause of the California Constitution. I think the American Bar Association’s recent declaration that all Continuing Legal Education programs must have “diverse” panels or not receive certification violates the same principle, and the ruling will bolster the opposition to it. The California ruling might reach the Supreme Court.

I wonder how new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will rule on it… Continue reading →

Way back when Ethics Alarms was just beginning, I got flamed by a bunch of nasty lawyers for suggesting that it was unethical for a criminal defense lawyer to use his website to perpetrate a hoax on April 1. You see, it wasn’t technically unethical because 1) it was April Fools and 2) the Rules of Professional Conduct prohibition against lawyers lying only applies to lies that would justify an ethics complaint. Obviously punishing a lawyer for an April’s Fools gag, even a bad one, wouldn’t be grounds for professional discipline, so I apologized and pulled the post. As a legal ethicist, I should have been clearer.

But I still believe it is unethical for lawyers to lie in public, whether it is sanctionable or not. And I still hold that April Fools posts and articles on platforms and sites that the public has been led to trust that are not obvious to all but complete mutton-heads are unethical, as in “wrong.”

In another realm, I just learned that my Wuhan-phobic sister has been exposed to the virus while on a cross-country trip. Now she doesn’t know what to do, since her destination is a home just as pandemic-phobic as she is, and if she is tested, as she will be required to be, and tests positive, they won’t let her inside the house. Nobody has taken more extreme precautions than my sister. Now she says that she hopes al the masks and shots and social distnacing that had made her live like a leper the past two years will protect her from infection, though she says there is no guarantee. Be proud of me: I didn’t say, as I desperately wanted to, “If you don’t have confience that all of that will protect you, why the HELL did the U.S. cripple its society, economy, education, social structure, politics, families, culture and trust based on politically-fueled and mainstream media-promoted hysteria?

1. Pssst…ethics dunces! It doesn’t matter. Now some sources are disputing the Oscars’ statement that Will Smith was asked to leave the ceremony after his slap-fest and refused. So what? Smith’s conduct isn’t mitigated either way. He should have left the auditorium without being asked immediately after battering Chris Rock and embarrassing the Academy. But he wanted to get his Oscar, because he’s a sociopath, or plays one at award ceremonies.

One more Will Smith note: Fellow Hollywood asshole Jim Carrey floated this excuse for his pal:

“I also think that people not unlike Will, or myself, we live in a lot of pressure. We set up a lot of pressure for ourselves, [and] we’re encouraged by this country to never stop and never be satisfied and never look at our lives and going, ‘You know what? I’m enough. I have enough. I’ve done enough…It’s beyond our bandwidth. And we’re starting to see the symptoms of what it’s like to be living beyond your bandwidth and cracking under the pressure. That’s what that was.”

Was it? It’s called being a grown-up and dealing with life, Jim. Normal people who don’t have millions in the bank and are adulated for making movies don’t get any sympathy from the law or society when they “snap.” The “little people” have a lot more pressure on them than Will Smith, and those who have grown up learn that they have to deal with it  without beating on whoever is nearby.

2. I confess! Schadenfreude! The Los Angeles Times, reports that Rep. Maxine Waters (Is she the worst Democrat in Congress? The amazing thing is that she isn’t, not even close )requested that the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority show up in her district  to provide assistance to her homeless constituents. However, “an unofficial social media post erroneously promised that those who showed up would get rare vouchers for permanent, subsidized housing” resulting in homeless people showing up in packs while “heated arguments broke out among the hundreds of people who turned out for assistance.” Overwhelmed and surprised, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority workers “were unable to meet more than a small fraction of the need and left while throngs of people were still waiting for help.”

 Waters, quick-thinking as ever, tried to take control of the situation by telling the group that they needed to “go home.” Ha! The crowd of mostly homeless people responded to that angrily. As one participant shouted at Waters, “We don’t got no home, that’s why we’re here. What home we gonna go to?”

I’m sorry, but I have to laugh. Imagine what Waters would have said (or Don Lemon, or Nancy Pelosi, or “The Squad,” or Charles Blow, or Joy Reid, or Hillary Clinton, or Stephen Colbert…) if a President Trump had told a homeless group to “go home.” Waters’ response was pure Waters: she indignantly told the crowd, “There’s nobody in Washington who works for their people any fucking harder than I do!”

This is the ethical equivalent of “Do you know who I am?”

Finally, when The L.A. Times tried to interview Waters about the fiasco, she  threatened the reporter by saying “you’ll hurt yourself” if he proceeded to publish a story. “I don’t want you to start trying to write it, you won’t understand it,” she said.

Oh, I think we understand Maxine perfectly by now. Continue reading →