My wife and I are now in the throes of a painful ethics dilemma for any parent of an adult. Our son unexpectedly broke up with his long-time live-in girl friend, apparently ending a relationship that seemed serious, loving, and built to last. We both love his now ex-, a wonderfully candid, gentle, courageous young woman who has overcome a lot of tragedy in her life, and whom we know loves our son passionately. (She is also arguably Spud’s favorite human being on Earth.) Our son keeps his own counsel and always has; he gave us the news in his usual unadorned, unrevealing, terse manner. He did not ask for advice or counsel, and we know him well enough to understand that he would not appreciate our offering any; indeed, his trademark is taking the opposite course of that suggested by anyone other than him. So we will do the ethical thing, which in this case is also the only option available to us: mind our own business.
1. Speaking of my dog, Spuds-like dogs will continued to be cruelly and stupidly discriminated against in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which passed an ordinance in 2005 that outlaws the possession or sale of “pit bulls.” That’s in quotes because it is clear that the ignorant dog bigots who passed the law have no clue what a pit bull is: the law defines the “dangerous breed” as “any dog that is an American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier,” or any dog with a majority of the physical traits of one or more of those breeds. In other words, the law adopts the cretinous terms of the anti-pit bull breeds website Dogsbite.com, which says that “if it looks like a pit bull, it’s a pit bull.”
Owners of pit bulls sued the city in federal court, claiming the ordinance violates their constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. A U.S. District judge dismissed the suit on summary judgment, which the dog owners appealed.
A three-judge panel of the S Eighth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling, holding that the dog owners had the burden of negating every conceivable basis that might support the ordinance.
“The record here does not negate every conceivable basis for the Ordinance’s rationality,” U.S. Circuit Judge Duane Benton, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote for the unanimous panel. “While the resulting ordinance may be an imperfect fit, this court cannot second guess or judge the fairness of legislative choices on rational basis review.”
2. And speaking of vicious persecution and bad faith vendettas, The Washington Post, burying the lede, reports that it seems likely now that Donald Trump had no nefarious purpose in holding classified documents, that there were no nuclear secrets contained in them as speculated, and that the former President was probably keeping them as souvenirs he felt he had a right to:
Ethics Alarms 