How long before the sad and seamy saga of President Biden’s desperate, influence-peddling son blows up in Joe’s face? It would have and should have already, but the mainstream news media has scrupulously refused to publicize, much less investigate, the many hints of family-level corruption emerging from the First Family Black Sheep’s emails. The latest development is Hunter Biden, the Acclaimed Artist. No, that isn’t a microscope photo of the Wuhan virus above—that’s a Hunter Biden masterpiece. How much would you pay to have that hanging in your living room? (How much would you pay NOT to have that hanging in your living room?)
A New York gallery owner, Georges Bergès, is planning to offer Hunter’s artwork to buyers for prices ranging from from $75,000 to $500,000, despite the fact that art critics have described Hunter’s paintings as “not bad” at best, and “generic post zombie formalism illustration” at worst, which was the assessment of art critic Jerry Saltz in Artnet News. Scott Indrisek, the former editor in chief of Modern Painters magazine and a former deputy editor at Artsy, said: “I would call it very much a hotel art aesthetic. It’s the most anonymous art I can imagine. It’s somewhere between a screen saver and if you just Googled ‘midcentury abstraction’ and mashed up whatever came up.”
So why would anyone pay so much for paintings by someone who has no professional training and has never sold art on the commercial market? You know why.
Above is the mug shot for 31-year-old Bridgette Frank, arrested in California last week on a felony bad check charge and for failing to appear in court in a misdemeanor case. her record includes convictions for drunk driving, assault with a deadly weapon, child cruelty, and narcotics possession.
Note her shirt, which appears to be an incredibly inept knock-off of a Louis Vuitton T-shirt, since it, you know, spells “Vuitton” wrong. That’s Stupid Level One.
Stupid Level Two is that the knock-off was still not so stupid that it couldn’t fool Frank. Oh, you may choose to argue that Bridget is just full of sly, ironic humor and is wearing the self-identifying moron shirt for laughs. Go ahead. She strikes you as a P.G. Wodehouse aficionado, does she? That conclusion might qualify as Stupid Level Three, but it’s not.
This is: after the Smoking Gun’s article about the shirt concluded with “Public records do not indicate whether, at the time of Frank’s arrest, she was wearing a Rolez watch or carrying a Channel handbag,” commenter Thomas D Fitzpatrick asked, “What is a Rolez watch?”
Sigh.
The Ethics Alarms motto that “Bias makes you stupid” has its corollary in “Jack’s Observation” that “Stupid makes you unethical,” leading to the depressing but undeniable Ron White’s Law, “You can’t fix stupid.” How much of America’s ethics crisis flows from that sequence?
1. I’d make a whole post out of this, but it would be short. Conservatives are beginning to call for video cameras in classrooms. Tucker Carlson promoted the idea on his show last night. Naturally, teachers are horrified. There is no good reason not to video classrooms, from kindergarten through the 12th grade. Parents can’t take time off from work to monitor classrooms, as would be ideal, so they should have the option of reviewing videos of what transpired. Teachers were in a profession, like police, the clergy and journalists , who were once regarded as inherently trustworthy. That, we now know, was sentimental and lazy fantasy.
Carlson’s justification for the measure was to make sure Critical Race Theory wasn’t being jammed into impressionable young brains, but videos would have made sense before CRT was a twinkle in Cori Bush’s eye. I don’t want teachers pushing their political and social views about anything on kids. If they talk about current events, I want to see that they are competent, informed, and not injecting bias into education. Are they touching children inappropriately? Flirting with students? Treating boys tougher than girls? Being cruel or mean?
“Trust but verify” has few more appropriate applications than in checking the conduct of teachers.
1. What a surprise! Cheating works! Since Major League Baseball decided to enforce its 100 year old rule against doctoring the baseball as pitchers had recently begun using glue to let them throw faster and snap off devastating curve balls, the results have been obvious and significant. In a month since umpires were directed to check, the MLB batting average has gone up by seven points (it was at a record low before the enforcement). Scoring has increased, and several pitchers rumored to be dependent of “the sticky stuff,” notably Yankee All-Star Gerrit Cole, have been hit hard in recent starts. This is because, of the 35 pitchers with the highest four-seam spin rate on June 3, 33 of them saw a decline in spin rate since then by an average drop of 96 RPMs. Consequently, batters aren’t striking out as often.
2. Please clarify: Should I apply the Julie Principle to Maxine Waters? We know she’s an idiot, ignorant, partisan to the point of poisoning democracy and a race-baiting, hateful blight on Congress, her party, the nation and homo sapiens generally. Is there anything accomplished by complaining about Waters acting like Waters, since she’s obviously not going to change? [You can refresh your understanding of the Julie Principle here.] Water was in fine, typical form over the Independence day weekend, blathering as only a fool like her could,
“July 4th … & so, the Declaration of Independence says all men are created equal,” Waters began. “Equal to what? What men? Only white men? Isn’t it something that they wrote this in 1776 when African Americans were enslaved? They weren’t thinking about us then, but we’re thinking about us now!”
Of course, we know that “they” were thinking about black slaves a great deal, as anyone who reads about the debate over the Declaration in the Continental Congress knows. But why should a senior Congresswoman know anything about the founding of the nation? Maxine continued,
“Further, the Dec. of Ind. says we hold these truths to be “self-evident”… yet:
– 17 states have enacted voter suppression laws
– Supreme Court gutted Sec. 5 of the Voting Rights Act
– George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice
Need I say more? #July4”
No, actually, Maxine, you didn’t even need to say that: we already knew you were a blathering, hateful dummy. But just to clarify:
Laws that are intended to ensure the integrity of elections are not “voter suppression laws”
The Supreme Court confirmed that the Federal Government should not meddle in state matters except for demonstrable evidence of racial bias, and since the standards in Sec. 5 of the Voting Rights Act were based on the conduct of Southern states through 1964 only (that’s 57 years ago) and thus did not reflect any reforms, changes or improvement, making the law out of date, SCOTUS quite correctly demanded new data and Congressional update. Get to work.
There is literally zero evidence that George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, or Tamir Rice met their unfortunate fates because of racial bias.
Or is it silly even to pay attention to Waters’ incurable bile?
Yesterday I was talking with my sister, who worked for years in the Justice Department dealing with the refugee mess, about the intentional use of “immigrant” as a word for “illegal immigrant” in order to warp political debate and confuse the public. She blames ignorant journalists, but then she is something of a progressive, and tends to the Hanlon’s Razor explanation of deliberate deception by what the U.S. now calls “journalism.”
The latest diabolical use of language to justify the unjustifiable is the media’s weaponization of “equity,” which most of the public equates with “equality” thanks to a deficient education system. Equity is the quality of being fair and impartial. In law, equity now means the judicial imposition of measures to prevent damage, as when an ex-employee who agreed otherwise is prevented from competing with a former employer.
A front page article in the New York Times a week ago read “Biden’s Efforts At Race Equity Runs Into Snags,” the “snags” being those evil racist white conservatives. “No part of President Biden’s agenda has been as ambitious as his attempt to place concerns about equity squarely at the center of the federal government’s decision-making,” we are told. But what the article, and many, many other media reports and enthusiastic pundit columns call “equitable decisions” are in fact straight up racial discrimination.
Racial discrimination is not equity and can never be equity, but we are currently under a severe brain-washing effort to make us think otherwise.
From the Times article:
“In late May, Syovata Edari, the owner of CocoVaa Chocolatier in Madison, Wis., was told she would receive $50,000 from Mr. Biden’s government, courtesy of the president’s efforts to ensure that pandemic relief aid for struggling restaurants and food businesses would be distributed equitably. But three weeks later, she instead received an email that broke the bad news: The award had been rescinded thanks to a lawsuit filed on behalf of white restaurant owners that successfully challenged the program’s policy of prioritizing applications from women and people of color. The check she was counting on would not arrive. “It doesn’t surprise me that once again these laws that we fought and died for, that were intended to benefit us — to even the playing field a bit more — are being used against us,” Ms. Edari, who is Black, said, referring to the Constitution’s equal protection clause. “You can’t promise something and then take it back.”
Wow! What breathtaking confusion and hypocrisy! The lawsuit was filed because the government giving benefits to one race and gender and not another for no reason except color and chromosome distribution is a slam-dunk violation of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, and only a cynical and irresponsible administration seeking to create division and racial animus would represent it as otherwise. Eadari is trying to evoke “equity” Bizarro World-style by the assertion that it is “unfair” to “promise something and then take it back.” Thus, in the now routine mental gymnastics of antiracism racism, it is ‘inequitable’ to make an illegal and discriminatory pledge and not follow through on it.
The Times goes on…
“The small-business program that prioritized people like Ms. Edari was forced to change its rules last month after challenges by white Americans who say the policy is racist. And around the country, Republicans are promising to tie the president’s equity efforts to a broader culture war during the 2022 midterm elections, arguing that Mr. Biden is doing the bidding of liberal activists who believe that all white people are racist. On Capitol Hill, the $1.9 trillion relief package Mr. Biden pushed through in March, known as the American Rescue Plan, included money for health care, child care and poverty programs that disproportionately benefit minority groups, underserved communities and women.”
Being a now partisan and completely untrustworthy mouthpiece, neither the reporters nor their editors made any efforts to point out the logical and legal problems with the above, nor to avoid the bias the wording used perpetuates:
There are so many important and fascinating things associated with the Fourth of July, and “The Stars and Stripes Forever” is one of them. In his autobiography, “Marching Along,” Sousa wrote that he composed the march on Christmas Day, 1896, on board an ocean liner on his way home from a vacation with his wife. He had just learned of the death of David Blakely, the manager of the Sousa Band and was moved to create his most stirring march—which for Sousa is saying a lot— as a personal tribute. He composed the march in his head, not writing any notes down until he arrived in the U.S. The piece was first performed at Willow Grove Park, a Philadelphia suburb on May 14, 1897, and was an instant hit, as you would expect. An Act of Congress in 1987 made it official National March of the United States of America, so I assume that Gwen Berry hates it too, along with the Star Spangled Banner. (Gwen, arrogant and ignorant social justice warrior that she is, was recently exposed as racist and hypocrite with some old tweets that surfaced. Hilariously, she has defended herself by comparing her plight to that of Justice Kavanaugh, as if 1) she had ever defended Kavanaugh when he was being smeared, 2) there was any verifiable evidence against Kavanaugh as opposed to her smoking gun tweets, and 3) there is no distinction between a 35-year old rumor about a distinguished judge’s conduct as a child and published proof of an obnoxious athlete’s character as an adult. But I digress…)
In show biz, and particularly in the theater and the circus, Sousa’s masterpiece is sometimes called “the Disaster March,” because it was once common for theaters and circuses to have their bands or orchestras play it to alert the audience that there was a dangerous emergency, like a fire. (Yes, it is ethical to play “The Stars and Stripes Forever in a crowded theater). The idea was that the number was a code for staff that allowed them to organize the audience’s orderly exit without causing panic. The march was played, for example, during the Hartford circus fire of July 6, 1944.
One of the strangest and oddly fitting coincidences in U.S. history occurred on July 4th, 1826, when two of the primary architects of American independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, died within hours of each other.
Happy Fourth of July, everyone. Since the very first, the holiday has never been celebrated while under such cultural attack. Don’t let the propaganda of America’s haters diminish one of the most glorious and beneficent days in world history.
1. What do we make of this Gallup poll?In a generally confusing set of results, the one stand-out in the recent Gallup poll regarding public’s perceptions of the state of the pandemic was that 57% of Republicans think its over and only 4% of Democrats do. That’s a huge gap, showing an alarming disparity in world view, perception, attitudes and thought process. I tend to view part of the 4% as confirmation bias: conservatives are far more resentful of the State’s incursions on their personal liberties using the virus as a justification (or an excuse) than the totalitarianism-enabling Left. On the other hand, and there are many other hands here, being certain that the pandemic is over is dumb, since if we have learned on thing about the health care “experts,” they have been wrong as often as right. We have also learned that politics has driven the narrative about the virus as much as the facts have. I thought Democrats trusted science, and the GOP doesn’t. That would suggest that the latter would be more wary of the current green lights.
On yet another hand, Republicans tend to be far less risk averse than modern Democrats, adopting the traditional spirit of the nation that Democrats are in the process of rejecting. Gallup does not give the party- affiliation breakdown of the 40% of those polled who say that the nation will never return to normal. I know lots of Democrats who say now that they plan on wearing masks forever, and no Republican. On the OTHER hand, a non-Democrat could easily conclude that we will never return to pre-Wuhan normalcy because power-wielding Democrats will never allow it.
What would be more accurate term? Well, “asshole” comes to mind.
A Frederick County deputy pulled over a vehicle for a tag violation on June 20 when he noticed another vehicle pull up nearby. The deputy reportedly first feared for his life, and that it could be a cop assassination set-up. But the driver of the second vehicle introduced himself as Democratic county councilman Kai Hagen, and he refused to leave the scene until the detained driver, an African-American, acknowledged that he was “OK.” County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins, a Republican, went on WFMD-AM’s “Mid-Maryland Live” last week to condemn the grandstanding Councilman.
“I’m enraged, I’m angry, I was livid when it happened, there’s no excuse for it, it’s unlawful,” Jenkins said. “This is outrageous. Who in the hell does he think he is?” Jenkins added, while noting that Hagen could legitimately have been cited for his actions.
Not could have been, should have. The deputy handled the matter badly, falling for the old “Do you know who I am?” trick. It doesn’t matter who the interloper was. He was interfering with lawful law enforcement.
Hagen then called in to the radio station to explain his conduct, confirming that he had turned his vehicle around and circled back to the scene to ensure that the stopped driver was all right when he noticed his skin color—you know, that he wasn’t being beat up, shot, having drugs planted on him, being made to sing “The Camptown Races” or having his neck knelt on, which we all know is what white cops want to do to blacks.
I lost an ethics training client over the issue now raising its ethically-muddled head in New Jersey. Several years ago, during a day long seminar I taught for a teachers association, I stated that a teacher who taught grade school, middle school of high school students while pregnant and unmarried was harming her students, and that responsible school were ethically entitled to make pregnancy outside of marriage grounds for dismissal. Literally all of the attendees were outraged (even the two men in the group), though none could articulate a valid argument against what I said. (“The right to choose!” is not a valid argument in this context.)
I was right, they were wrong. The controversy now over a Catholic school art teacher who is demanding that she should have been able to keep her job despite being pregnant is much easier, or should be.
Victoria Crisitello was an art teacher at the New Jersey’s St. Theresa elementary school in Kenilworth. In the course of negotiating for a raise, she mentioned that she was having a baby. Weeks later, she was fired by the principal, a Roman Catholic nun, who explained that she was being terminated “because she was pregnant and unmarried.” “Sex out of wedlock violates a fundamental Catholic belief that the school in this instance felt it could not overlook,” lawyers for St. Theresa’s wrote in a petition to the state Supreme Court. Crisitello’s lawsuit was tossed out by two trial court judges, only to be restored each time when an appeals court sided with the ex-teacher. Now the state’s highest court, acting on an appeal by the school, has agreed review the case, which raises the continuing thorny question about the relationship between the government and religion.
I was afraid of this: devoting the warm-up to Gettysburg left me with all of these noisy ethics stories hanging around my office and yelling at me. So here are some ethics stories and issues to unclog the drain…
The Supreme Court denied certiorari in Arlene’s Flowers v. Washington, letting stand a 2019 decision by the Washington Supreme Court against florist Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers, for refusing to supply flowers for a same sex marriage. Upon reading the decision of the Washington Court, I was struck by the fact that the plaintiffs were not individuals who had made the request deliberately to force a confrontation with a vendor they knew had religious objections to same sex weddings. Robert Ingersoll had been a regular patron of Arlene’s Flowers for years, so it seemed natural for him to use the shop to supply the floral arrangements for his wedding to Curt Freed. Nor did their truncated conversation involve special requests for any particularly expressive arrangements. Florist Barronelle Stutzman just refused to sell any flowers to the couple for their wedding and reception, and that was it. The case was ruled one of discrimination in public accommodations, and the opinion went to great pains to say that no animus against the defendant’s religion was involved.
SCOTUS turns down cases for many reasons, and in contentious social matters, they often will reject a case that has too much gray, triggering the “hard cases make bad law” principle. Cakes, catering, photographs and flowers at weddings fall in various places along the “commodities/art” spectrum, depending on the specific facts of each case. This one is too close. The florist wasn’t asked to deliver the flowers or to participate in the marriage in any way. There’s got to be better case on this topic somewhere. The Court was wise to pass.
And the florist was the jerk here. I don’t have much sympathy for her. Selling flowers to a gay couple doesn’t entail an endorsement of gay marriage, kinky sex, or anything else. Continue reading →
Lots going in the Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of Ethics, as usual, so here is the weekly invitation to readers to dive in unfettered by the host’s obsessions and predilections..
Ethics Alarms 