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 →

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,

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 →