I’ve got four posts up today, and I’m tired, but I can’t resist this one…
Outgoing D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith decided to show what she was made of as she spoke as the honoree in a good-bye ceremony yesterday. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform had accused her of manipulating data to make it seem that crime has decreased in the District of Columbia when it had not. She could have stuck around, of course, until the final numbers were in, but instead she decided that she would leave her post “to be with her family.” That’s always a good dodge when you’re being investigated. In her farewell speech, she played the God card (she’s also a reverend at a Baptist church in D.C.), then the “haters” card, and finally the “it’s not my fault” card. Wait: are the statistics correct, or are they wrong? Smith’s argument somehow came out, “The statistics were accurate, but if they’re not, somebody else rigged them!”
That’s accountability, D.C. Government style!
“How dare you? How dare you attack my integrity? Attack my character? You don’t know who I belong to!” she said. Wait, what does THAT mean?
It used to be that I could count on a tsunami of comments and clicks when I aired my unalterable conviction that pot, weed, cannabis, marijuana, what ever you want to call the junk, was a blight on civilization, that legalizing it would be a big net loss on society, and that the elite advocates for legalization were selfish, irresponsible creeps who wanted their little highs at the cost of kids, the poor, and the less-than-bright harming themselves, their families, their employers and their future prospects. Once the states started giving up after the culture had pushed them into the mendacity that the drug was as harmless as Junior Mints, I gave up too. I was right, they were wrong, the embrace of stoned kids and adults would be one more malady in a nation where we have too many already, but the metaphorical genie was out of its bottle and there is stuffing it back in.
At this point in my life, the whole subject just ticks me off.
“…we should acknowledge that policy moved faster than the evidence on public health effects. The challenge is whether we are willing to adjust course when we encounter unintended consequences…”
I wouldn’t call consequences that were completely predictable and likely “unintended.” The spoiled grown-up (sort of) college kids who just wanted their bongs had plenty of people—like me—telling them that siding with Cheech and Chong was irresponsible and reckless, but they didn’t care about kids, the workplace, side-effects, any of it. Next he writes in part,
This time of year, Ethics Alarms has many posts about Christmas music. Every year, it leads me back to the question: Did Alice Cooper write a Christmas song?
Mirroring the debate about whether “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie, or just a movie that takes place at Christmas time (some have credibly argued it is actually a Hanukah movie), is “No Man’s Land” by Alice Cooper a Christmas song, or just a song that is set at Christmas time?
“No Man’s Land”?
Yes, “No Man’s Land,” Track 4 from what is probably Alice Cooper’s most obscure album, “Dada,” the last of his “blackout albums,” released when he was stuck in the throes of severe alcohol and drug abuse. “Dada” is to Alice Cooper what Music from “The Elder” is to KISS, except that “Dada” is not derided nearly as much as “The Elder,” and is considered by many to be a hidden gem in Alice Cooper’s catalog.
“No Man’s Land” takes place around Christmas. Is that enough to make it a Christmas song? “Baby’s It’s Cold Outside” is considered a Christmas song and Christmas is not mentioned even as it endorses patriarchal rape culture. “Jingle Bells” is a Christmas (or Thanksgiving song) even though it does not mention Christmas, but perpetuates a culture of White Supremacy.
And, “No Man’s Land” is a love song. As I thought about Christmas love songs, of course, and Mariah Carey’s 1994 song, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” came to mind. As I contemplated the lyrics of that song (which I will quote as little as possible in order to avoid banishment from our esteemed host), I became convinced that Mariah Carey stole the idea for “All I Want For Christmas Is You” from Alice Cooper’s “No Man’s Land”. I am 29% positive of it. You can judge for yourself.
By way of introduction, for those who do not want to seek out the audio on the internet, “No Man’s Land” does not have the typical feel of a Christmas song, either in form or in content. There is not a lot of pausing between verses, as you find in “Little Drummer Boy,” “White Christmas,” or practically any other Christmas song. Many of the stanzas are a single sentence that are spat out without taking a breath. This is no “Silent Night.” The stanzas are often structured like a normal song, but the rhythm and word arrangement often uneven and offbeat as one stumbles through the story.
So, yes, “No Man’s Land” is a Christmas Love Song, the Christmas Love Song that only Alice Cooper could write! Here it is:
1. Once, a guilty pleasure of surfing the web and social media was seeing amusing videos of dogs and cats, and other animals too, behaving anthropomorphically, spectacularly, or adorably. Now, “thanks” to artificial intelligence, no such video can be trusted. The more remarkable it seems, the less trustworthy it is. Unethical people seeking views on Facebook and elsewhere post these fake videos as real, because viewers knowing they are staged and manufactured robs them of most, if not all, their entertainment value.
Above is a screen shot from one of the suddenly ubiquitous videos showing dogs frightening other dogs with Halloween masks. The link to the video, which WordPress wouldn’t let me embed, is here. It’s fake. Dogs, in my experience, are seldom fooled by masks. No dog would tolerate having a mask like that fastened to its head. No dog would go along with the gag and creep up on a sleeping canine companion. And no American Bully could leap like that all the way to the sofa.
There are quite a few versions of LeRoy Anderson’s medley “A Christmas Festival” on YouTube. The performance you usually hear had the legendary Arthur Fiedler waving the baton; Arthur was also the one who started using Anderson’s quirky, clever orchestral compositions in Pops concerts. You don’t hear Anderson’s works much any more except at Christmas, when his “Sleighride!” is unavoidable, but “Typwriter,” “The Syncopated Clock” and “Bugler’s Holiday,” among others, were all popular hits in the Fifties and Sixties.
I picked the video above because the Powerpoint reminded me of my wife, best friend, co-founder of ProEthics and indispensable partner Grace, who designed all of the presentations I used. She was proud of them and devoted so much care to making them colorful and interesting. And she asked me how the attendees of my ethics seminars liked each one of them. The sad fact was that nobody cared; the lawyers just wanted their credits. I might as well have been using a blackboard. The presentations were just a point of professionalism for us, and creative expression for her. Grace’s Powerpoints are still better than most of what you’re liable to see today. She was especially fond of the animations.
I don’t know about you, but I’m heading to the end of 2025, my third straight non-Christmas Christmas—-no tree, no wreath on the door, no music in the house, no decorations (well, I bought some red Poinsettias, but they’re all dead now) no parties, no Grace— at a near all-time low in optimism, happiness, financial security, confidence, companionship, self-esteem, trust in my profession, hope for the nation, and respect for my fellow citizens. This is unacceptable, and I am hereby inviting Cher to set me straight.
“The Trump Kennedy Center?” As one of my Trump Deranged friends posted on Facebook, quite appropriately, “What’s next, The Trump Washington Monument? The Trump Lincoln Memorial? The Trump Jefferson Memorial…?”
I don’t even want to think about what’s next. Ugh.Ack. Yecchh.
You would think that after his Rob Reiner fiasco, the President would be just a teeny-weeny bit wary for a while. Clearly not.
If President Trump had any sense at all, he would thank the board but turn down the wildly inappropriate honor. But he doesn’t have any sense at all, not in these kinds of things.
In fairness, the spirit of Christmas, and because it’s just an excellent post that interprets the song in a fresh manner that I have never encountered, here is Dwayne Zechman’s rebuttal of the criticism by me and others of the popular Christmas song written by American composer Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941. Did you know that the song was first recorded by the Trapp Family singers of “The Sound of Music” fame? That alone raises it a bit in my estimation. I also note that Dwayne, wisely does not defend the wretched lyrics in the David Bowie-Bing Crosby version. That would be impossible.
I have to take issue with all the dunking on “The Little Drummer Boy” that I’m reading here. It’s a favorite of mine, and the reason has nothing to do with the ridiculous scenario.
The reason is that this song is a microcosmic allegory of the Christian experience.
I don’t normally speak of my faith and religious beliefs here. I’m a firm believer in the notion that Truth stands on its own; it doesn’t need the support of religion in order to be true. So this post is definitely a bit of a departure for me.
“Come, they told me.” “A newborn King to see”
This is how it begins. We learn from others about the Gospel of Jesus. We are encouraged to come along on the journey.
“Our finest gifts we bring” “to lay before the King” “So to honor Him” “When we come”
We begin the journey and quickly learn that, to those who invited us on this journey, it’s a big deal. There are songs we may or may not have heard. There are responsive readings that we almost certainly don’t know. There are people here whose whole lives are dedicated to their faith and their church. Am I expected to do that too? What IS expected of me? What does Jesus actually want from me?
Among the many reasons that President Trump’s attack on Rob Reiner before the shock of his murder at the hands of his own son had subsided was stupid (as well as unpresidential and cruel) was its ignorance of the Streisand Effect. The completely predictable reaction of the Trump Deranged, always seeking a new metaphorical drum to beat, and the similarly inclined Axis of Unethical Conduct, ensured that the President’s gratuitous Truth Social post would trigger an eruption of outrage that will fuel attacks on the President’s character for months, perhaps reaching into the mid-terms.
For this to really work, of course, Reiner must be elevated to near saint-like status, and sure enough, that’s what is going on. The higher Reiner (he was a wonderful, flawless man, we are now being told) and his films ( one of his movies is a favorite movie of everyone, one article claimed) can be pushed up the Cognitive Dissonance scale, the lower Trump goes by attacking him. Trump is first and last a salesman; how could he not know his gratuitous outburst would deeply wound his “brand”?
Among other gifts to Trump’s political enemies. this Cognitive Dissonance Scale botch makes defending or even continuing to support the President perilous. If you link yourself to President Trump (based, as it must be based, on his policies and actions rather than his character) by defending him you are simultaneously proclaiming your opposition to “The Princess Bride,” “Stand by Me” and “When Harry Met Sally” and the unassailable murder victim who made them.
This, in turn, poses the real danger that Trump’s revolting post will prove to be a tipping point, that last, tiny, thing that makes the Jenga tower fall or Mr. Creosote’s stomach explode as it does after eating the “wafer thin” morsel offered him in the clip above from “The Meaning of Life.” Trump’s stupid, mean words may well tip public opinion against his whole Presidency permanently and completely. If so, it will undoubtedly be the most trivial verbal tipping point in U.S. political history. By comparison, George Romney saying he had been “brainwashed,” President Ford saying in a debate that the Soviet Union did not dominate Eastern Europe, or President Carter claiming in his debate with Ronald Reagan that he consulted daughter Amy on nuclear weapons policy seem positively earth-shattering.
And yet if attacking a recently slaughtered director crushes Trump’s chances of holding off the Far Left’s siege on American values and core individual liberties, it may prove to be the most consequential moment in his Presidency.
I’m surprised she didn’t ask if she could cook his little girl’s bunny too, like Glenn Close did in “Fatal Attraction.”
It amazed me that someone like this reads a NYT column called “The Ethicist.” She’s sounds like she’s never heard of the concept. She writes,
Last summer, I was dating a man in our weekender community outside New York City who seemed like a wonderful guy. A month after we became intimate, he told me that he was married but that he had been separated from his wife for a year. He explained that the reason he has not gotten a divorce is that she has cancer and is on his health insurance. He said she had just had surgery and was recovering. Naturally I felt compassion and said I wouldn’t push him. Eventually, I ended the relationship, because I started feeling I wasn’t getting the full story. When I mentioned our relationship to a friend who also knows him, I learned that my instincts were correct. Apparently, he is very much still with his wife, and she is healthy. I am so shocked by this. Should I contact his wife and let her know this is what he is doing and saying? Given that they are both journalists, I would think veracity would be a priority.
Translation:“I hate this lying bastard and want to hurt him, and his wife too. That’s OK, right?”
Uh. no. I haven’t even read The Ethicist’s answer, but Prof. Appiah, for all his faults and weaknesses, surely can get this one right. Let’s see…
This is serious. The last week or so has been disastrous for the Trump Administration, almost entirely because of its own foolishness, recklessness, and lack of competence. As I have noted more than once in this period, its missions are too important to be placed in jeopardy by hubris and stupidity, but that is what is happening. This is a phenomenon for which the President himself is entirely at fault. I have scant hope that he is capable of either recognizing the peril he is placing the nation in, or reforming. The President and his hand-picked loose cannons aren’t just shooting themselves in the metaphorical foot. The photo above is more accurate.
First, of course, we have the President’s own cruel, useless, gratuitous post insulting Rob Reiner after the director and his wife were murdered. Trump might as well have hit himself in the face with a cast-iron frying pan on national TV. It gave people who already hate him ammunition to say, “See?” It made moderates question his stability, self-control and character if they already didn’t, and it put his defenders in the position of defending the indefensible, thus diminishing their credibility and influence.
Ethics Alarms 