As the capper on a really bad year for Disney, Mickey Mouse finally loses its copyright protection on Jan. 1, 2024, and goes into the public domain. Disney unethically used its lobbying power to use its iconic founding rodent to persuade the U.S. Congress to extend copyright protection beyond all reason. Disney’s monopoly over Mickey will end95 years after his debut in the short film “Steamboat Willie,” long, long after the original copyright protection would have expired based on the correct theory thatonce an artist has gleaned a reasonable benefit and profit from a creation, it benefits the culture and society to be able to use the work to spark innovation and new uses for the original work.
As Carnac the Great would say, “Wrong, Ethics-Breath!”
Disney still has its hooks into Mickey, as the company continues to warp U.S. intellectual property law, setting the precedents for other properties to avoid the public domain far longer than is healthy for the culture. Yes, the original Mickey of 1928’s trailblazing Disney cartoon “Steamboat Willie” (above) has lost its copyright, but not this Mickey,
Steve-O-in NJ’s Comment of the Day was almost the last comment on this blog in 2023, and is an appropriate first COTD in 2024. I called it the “Comment of the Year” in my initial response, and though I haven’t done the homework to go back through all the year’s Comments of the Day to make that an official decision, his opus is certainly worthy of that honor.
Don’t waste your time with my introduction: Steve’s post is long, but both perceptive and a useful guide to some of what lies ahead.
You don’t give yourself enough credit. There isn’t that much to understand about it. It’s simple hatred of “the other,”especially “the other” who does well.
Throughout their 4,000 years or more of history, the Jewish people have always been “the other.” In ancient days they were “the other” because they worshiped one god while almost all the other people of the Middle East worshiped several. In the days of the Greek and Roman empires they were “the other” because they refused to assimilate the way many conquered peoples did. The Greeks tried to impose their own culture on the Jews and got the Maccabean revolt for trying. The Romans tried to take the Jews into the firm the way they’d taken many others in. They were never fully successful, and after one revolt too many the Romans dispersed them, creating the province of Palestine.
In Christian Europe they were “the other” partly because of their different faith, partly because they were closed off from most professions and closed themselves off socially. In the Muslim Ottoman Empire they were “the other” for the same reasons. The majority never likes “the other” much, and it did not help that one of the few businesses the Jews were allowed to engage in was moneylending. Moneylenders are not well liked. It did not help either that the Jews were usually merchants and moneylenders who did better than the European non-noble classes or the Muslims, who were mostly farmers and small shopkeepers.
This is a bridge from the previous post, since it also involves Minnesota, and gives some teeth to my argument that the Land o’ Lakes is facing a brush with ethics decay. At the root of our tale some yawning cavities in the ethical hygiene of a dental professional. (Note my generous restraint in leaving quite a few potential puns for you to add in the comments. Consider the challenge a moment of tooth, er, truth.)
But I digress. Dr. Kevin Molldrem and Molldrem Family Dentistry face a lawsuit from a disgruntled patient, Kathleen Wilson, who claims the Eden Prairie dentist harmed her in the process of performing over 30 dental procedures in a single five hour appointment. Molldrem, she alleges, put in eight crowns, did four root canals and filled the cavities in 20 teeth during a single visit in July 2020. In the process, according to the lawsuit, Molldrem used anesthesia “well in excess of (the) recommended dosage” and engaged in “falsifying medical records” regarding the amount administered.
Update 1: I finally have the complaint (thanks to JutGory). The news reports did not accurately convey the sense of the lawsuit, concentrating excessively on the sensational feature of all that dental work at a single session. The complaint’s complaints are:
—“Plaintiff has incurred and will continue to incur medical costs for the dental care required to address the harms caused by Dr. Molldrem’s negligence.”
—“Plaintiff has incurred and will continue to incur lost income and loss of earning capacity as a direct result of Dr. Molldrem’s negligence.”
—“Plaintiff has endured and will continue to endure pain and suffering, embarrassment, emotional distress, and disfigurement as a direct result of Dr. Molldrem’s negligence.”
Update 2: The complaint also accuses the dentist of failing “to create a care plan that would effectively address decay and tooth dissolution” and “failing to control gingival inflammation and bleeding” during the lengthy visit. That’s the harm alleged, as well as damage that required repair by other dentists. Based on what was revealed about the suit in the media and the fact that the expert report for the plaintiff mentions “trauma,” discomfort” and “anxiety,” I assumed that pain and suffering were also alleged in the suit, as they virtually always are when medical negligence is involved. And sure enough, they were. However, my statement in the original post that the suit claims the dentist’s marathon session “caused great pain and suffering” was speculation stated as fact, so I’ve removed it.
The alternative headline was “We’re the government and we’re here to help you, we just don’t know what the hell we’re doing!”
For New Year’s Eve last night, in order to keep local revelers safe and as a nice, Big Brother wants to end the Old Year and start the new one showing that he cares gesture, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota had announced that Metro Transit would let customers ride free from 6 p.m. to the end of service on all routes including the return trip on the Northstar commuter rail after the Vikings-Packers game at U.S. Bank Stadium. The “Miller Lite Free Rides” promotion covered all buses and light rail, sang the public transit authority: “No fare, no coupons; simply hop on and take a seat for free!”
However, for some ridiculous reason, many of the main lines were scheduled to complete their final runs before midnight. The official reason was because Black Lives Matter planned its first 2024 mostly peaceful demonstration as the new year rang in downtown, and didn’t want white celebrants to be able to flee.
Just kidding! In fact, there was no reason at all for the self-defeating schedule other than typical municipal government bureaucratic incompetence
I don’t want to end the year on a down note, I really don’t, but…
The ugly head of anti-Semitism or, giving some of the reaction a more charitable spin, the callousness and lack of sufficient concern for the fate of Israel has been a revelation for me. I’ve never understood anti-Semitism, and being forced to acknowledge that this contagion that once was at the heart of the evil plunging the world into a catastrophic conflict is still thriving came as a shock this year. Over at Simple Justice, liberal (but not progressive) criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield neatly assesses the significance of the anti-Jew and anti-Israel sentiments erupting on college campuses, in the black community, in the Democratic Party and other places where the woke run free. He writes in part (today),
“….the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th and its ensuing war in Gaza has bubbled up the fundamental differences between a liberal democratic nation and the swell of simplistic authoritarianism of the young.
Others in my position have adopted the woke view of the world, some because they needed the validation that comes from espousing the popular views of progressives, and others because they were never quite as serious as I thought. Or hoped. But how many more marches by the young and unduly passionate who justify terrorism and suddenly find rape and murder acceptable when done by those their tribe tells them to favor?
Will 2024 be an inflection point, where people finally come to grips with the fact that they’ve become the enemy they righteously believed they were fighting? At first, it seems there might be an epiphany, a realization that dividing the world into the oppressed and oppressors was an infantile way to deal with the many problems facing society. But since then, it’s become apparent that the young and unduly passionate have fallen back into theirtribal ways, enjoying the fresh air of sowing misery on blocked highways for an irrational and destructive cause.
I never would have believed in my old man head that we would be back to open Jew hatred again. Yet here we are, and tens of thousands of people who would claim the mantle of progress fully embrace the end of Jews. Never in its wildest dreams would Hamas have believed that raping and beheading Jews would turn them into progressive darlings, but here we are.
Will this cause young progressives to recognize the error of their ideology? Will they realize that their sudden existential concern for Palestinians when they cared nothing about them until it meant they could openly hate Jews, proves that they are just another flavor of haters, of authoritarians, of racists?”
New Year’s is the one holiday that has a single ethics song permanently associated with it: “Auld Lang Syne,” despite the fact that almost nobody knows what the words mean if they know all the words at all. One problem is the title and the phrase, which is best translated as “old time’s sake.” The other is that it shares a text-setting flaw with the National Anthem, beginning with a question. Nothing in the music makes the line “Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?” resonate as a question; if fact, I’m ashamed to admit, for a long time I thought “should” was used in the sense of “if.”
I was stunned to learn recently that singing the song on New Year’s Eve is not an ancient tradition. In fact, the practice as a tradition began in 1929, when bandleader Guy Lombardo needed something to play at the stroke of midnight and chose “Auld Lang Syne” because it had a sentimental vibe and the band knew it. Then Lombardo’s (somewhat whiney, annoying version) continued to be a staple on New Year’s Eve TV broadcast as long as Guy was still kicking.
The full poem, usually attributed to the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–1796) but probably with other contributors, reads,
1. Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?
For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
Chorus:
For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
2. And surely you’ll have your pint cup! and surely I’ll have mine!
And we’ll drink a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
Chorus:
For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
3. We two have run about the slopes, and picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot, since auld lang syne.
Chorus:
For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
4. We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne.
Chorus:
For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
5. And there’s a hand my trusty friend! And give us a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne.
Chorus:
For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
6. Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne!
The song tells us to remember the good times and not to forget that in the end it is human relationships, good will and kindness that matter most. We should sing in the new year with confidence that whatever happens and whatever it brings, we can endure if only we can keep our priorities straight.
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy on Reason’s website, where constitutional law experts hang out and opine and then mostly inarticulate readers pile on, Steve Cabrizzi has pretty much slam-dunked the position that the 14th Amendment’s prohibition against those who supported the Confederacy in the Civil War holding office in the re-united United States of America can’t be used against Donald Trump. Unlike the convoluted and boot-strapping decision of the Colorado Supreme Court and the transparently partisan decision by Maine’s Secretary of State (both part of the now eight year-old effort by Democrats to use extra-legal means to destroy an adversary they fear and loathe), Bacrizzi’s brief is clear and straightforward.
First he explains the technical reasons why “Donald Trump is obviously not disqualified from seeking re-election under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” writing in part,
The words “President or Vice President” were deliberately edited out of the final version of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. This, together with the disqualification of presidential electors and vice-presidential elector who have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” makes it clear that the Framers’ of Section 3 did not intend for it to apply to presidents or vice presidents who engaged in insurrection. This impression is augmented by the fact that Section 3 methodically applies in order from the highest office to the lowest office. Section 3 first disqualifies insurrectionist Senators and then Representatives. It then disqualifies all appointed civil or military officers; it then disqualifies insurrectionists from serving as a member of any State legislature, and it finally disqualifies in insurrectionists from serving as State executive or judicial officers. This careful hierarchy suggests that the phrase “or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States” does not apply to the President or Vice President, but applies only to appointed federal officers…
This fact is further confirmed by the Appointments Clause of Article II, Section 2, which says [The President shall nominate, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States.” The President does not appoint himself so obviously he is not an Officer of the United States under the AppointmentsClause. Moreover, the Commission clause of Article II, Section 3 says that “[T he President] shall” i.e. must, “Commission all the Officers of the United States.” No President has EVER commissioned himself or his Vice President either before or after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. The President is obviously not an Officer of the United States for the purposes of the Commission clause.
As I’m sure most readers here saw coming, I have elevated the Claudine Gay fiasco taking place in the halls of Old Ivy to official ethics train wreck status. This mess is not going to stop advancing or be cleaned up any time soon. The recent developments:
1. Winkfield Twyman Jr., the African-American author of “Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America,” authored a column for Newsweek arguing that the DEI-obsessed Gay doesn’t deserve to have “racial wagons” circled around her. “Did you know that Claudine Gay during her Harvard career has repeatedly targeted and disrupted the careers of prominent black male professors?” I did not know that, but he writes that she was behind the dumping of black law professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. as dean of Harvard’s Winthrop House in 2019 because he was representing Harvey Weinstein. (This episode was the major, though far from the only reason for my decision to boycott my Harvard reunion in 2022.) Twyman also writes that Gay “coordinated a ‘witch hunt’ against [black] economics professor Roland G. Fryer Jr. after his research into the killings of unarmed black men in Houston, Texas, found no racial disparities.” He concludes by stating that Gay “has waived any benefit of the ‘first Black’ defense.”
2. Roger Kimballwrites in “When will Harvard give Claudine Gay the boot?,” “Gay is bad for Harvard, but Harvard is bad for the country, so her continued presence is a net positive.” He also alerted me to this, from last week in “The Manhattan Contrarian”….
This choice was tough: yesterday’s post on Nikki Haley’s bone-headed and tone -deaf answer to the soft-ball question about the cause of the American Civil War sparked several COTD-worthy observations, but I chose this one, by Chris Marschner, to represent the field. Haley’s gaffe, along with her typically weaselly attempt to wiggle out of it, is looking like that rare breed these days, a botched public statement that actually has “legs” and does serious harm to a candidate’s prospects, like President Gerald Ford’s assertion in a debate that Poland wasn’t an Iron Curtain country, or Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables”statement. Naturally some on the Right rushed to Haley’s defense, as with this WSJ piece, and critics on the Left “pounced,” as with historian Heather Cox Richardson’s substack piece that called Haley’s answer “the death knell of the Republican Party.” ( This is known as “wishcraft.”) To me, this was just one more instance of Haley proving that she is untrustworthy and excessively calculating to ever believe. In some respects she’s the opposite of Trump, who is, mostly correctly, regarded as an authentic character who believes what he says, at least when he says it. Like the vast majority of politicians, Haley appears to believe what she thinks the most people want her to believe, until shediscovers that they don’t.
I’ll say here that I think Chris is too easy on Haley. To answer that question without even mentioning slavery is incomprehensible, especially in 2023, when an entire political party has bet all its chips on racial grievances, “a threat to democracy” by racist fascists, and Trump Derangement. Any minimally educated and aware politician should be able to say, succinctly: “There were three primary causes: slavery, states’ rights, and to preserve the union. Next question.”
South Carolina the first state to secede from the union did so on December 20, 1860. The rationale for secession was the fear that the institution of slavery was being threatened by the federal government. There was no blood spilled until the decision to preserve the union was made a year later.
According to Historytoday.com, “The American Civil War was fought to preserve the Union. There had long been tensions between the rights of the states under the constitution and those of the federal government, so much so that South Carolina and the administration in Washington almost came to blows over the issue of tariffs in the 1830s. It was slavery, however, that brought matters to breaking point.”
The Civil war began in April of 1861 when Abraham Lincoln ordered that Fort Sumter, under the command of U.S. Major Robert Anderson who occupied the still under construction fort during the approximate 15 month standoff between Union forces and the South Carolina militia, be resupplied with fresh troops and “humanitarian aid”. Naturally this was seen as an encroachment by U.S. troops on sovereign ground by the South Carolina Governor. Nonetheless, Lincoln sent the ship called the Star of the West with 200 troops and supplies to resupply the fort. When it arrived in Charleston harbor it was driven back to sea by the militia.
Among the Ethics Alarms long-promised essays that have yet to be posted (you never know when one will finally pop up!) is the Ethics Alarms Fake News Directory. A story that has ended up on many MSM news sources reminded me of why what I thought it would be an easy list to compile turned into a chore. It has appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, Rolling Stone, Variety, CNN, the Hill, the Chicago Sun -Times, Yahoo!, AOL and dozens—yes dozens— more. The breathlessly urgent story: Barack Obama shared his list of favorite songs for 2023, or, as the Post put it, “Obama’s 2023 bangers include Beyoncé, Burna Boy and Blondshell.”
There was real news about Obama recently: several conservative-leaning news sources like the New York Post and Fox News reported that the ex-President had lobbied Harvard’s governing body to keep unqualified serial plagiarist Claudine Gay as president of Obama’s alma mater. Of course, the “good” media didn’t see that as newsworthy, or felt that the public didn’t need to know about it. Instead, many of them chose to treat Obama’s annual favorite music list as worthy of breaking news treatment.
This is favoritism and propaganda by innuendo. Only a celebrity presumed to be deserving of top of the cognitive dissonance scale status can get such treatment. The publications that printed this non-news as news are pushing readers to adopt their position: this is an inarguably good and great man of iconic stature, and so attention should be paid to his every thought, statement and opinion. It is a familiar media propaganda tactic and was one of the ways the news media propped up Obama during his mediocre terms as President (and I’m being kind) when they treated his college basketball tournament bracket choices as worthy of attention. These same news sources didn’t think the Hunter Biden laptop discovery was news in the middle of a hotly-contested election, nor did it rush to cover an accusation by a former Biden Senate staffer that he had raped her, but the music playlist of a politician with no special expertise in music at all—at least Bill Clinton played the saxophone—warranted coverage.
Ethics Alarms 