apologies

The Eastman Kodak Affair’s Lesson: Corporations Only Signal Their Imaginary Virtue When It Doesn’t Cost Anything

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Wack

Eastman Kodak issued an Instagram post featuring images of Xinjiang, a western Chinese region where the government of China has committed horrific human rights violations

The post promoted the work of French photographer Patrick Wack, who made several trips to Xinjiang in recent years and has collected his damning images—all shot on Kodak film— into a book. Kodak shared 10 of his images with its 839,000 Instagram followers. In the Kodak post and on his own Instagram account, Wack described his images as a visual narrative of Xinjiang’s “abrupt descent into an Orwellian dystopia” over the past five years.

Oh-oh! As the disgraceful U.S. complicity in China’s Wuhan virus cover-up (also Orwellian) has shown, you don’t dare call China’s brutal regime what it is or demand accountability. Chinese social media users attacked Kodak, but Kodak, staying true to American principles of freedom of expression and refusing to bend a knee to tyranny, held its ground as it continued to support Wack and his work.

KIDDING!

I was just messing with you…of course Kodak deleted the post and grovelled an apology for “any misunderstanding or offense” that it might have caused. China, you see, is a big market.

So while our corporate giants have no hesitation in bombarding the gullible with nostrums during “these difficult times,” and announce their fealty to #MeToo, “antiracism,” and Black Lives Matter to pander to various consumers, never think that they really care about anything but their global profits.

Capitalism confers many benefits on society, but courage, integrity, and ethical values are not among them, and never have been.

A Follow-Up, An Apology, And A “Bite Me, Daily Wire!”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Charliebrown-1-

The previous post was one of the relatively few in which Ethics Alarms was suckered by bad information. As always when this happens, I am awash with regret and shame. Here is how it now begins, in bold:

“This is the revised part. The retraction is that despite the headline and what I wrote below, Twitter didn’t suspend New York Times columnist Bret Stephens account for violating Twitter’s rules with his recent op-ed calling anti-white measures showing up in the Biden Administration and elsewhere what they are: racism. The Daily Wire, a conservative website that was founded by right wing gadfly Ben Shapiro, wrote the post based on “a Twitter user” as its source,” and I foolishly assumed that the site would have checked out the claim before posting on it. It turns out the Stephens’ account says it’s “suspended” because he suspended it himself, in 2019.

Thus I am made an accomplice to this confirmation bias chain reaction, and I resent it. This is the kind of crap I experienced more than once from Breitbart and The Gateway Pundit, both of which are no longer cited as sources on Ethics Alarms, and whose stories I will not believe unless I find a credible source that independently confirms it. Now I’m adding the Daily Wire to that blacklist. There are plenty of left-leaning sites on that list as well, but since it is virtually impossible to ensure that a story that reflects poorly on the allies of progressive propaganda hasn’t been obscured or deliberately distorted by the mainstream media, conservative media has to be trustworthy and professional, and far too often, it just isn’t. Situations like this make it easier for the mainstream media to call every report they wish would disappear “conservative disinformation.”

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Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 5/28/2021: Memorial Day Weekend Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Jack Marshall Sr Army portrait

I’ll be visiting the Major (and Mom) at Arlington National Cemetery this weekend.

1. Well, let’s start the morning and end the week with evidence of progress…Mickey Callaway, the former manager of the New York Mets and recently fired pitching coach of the California Angels, has seen his baseball career implode because of what appears to be a habit of harrassing women in his workplace, which is Major League Baseball. Callaway, who has been banned from the game at least through 2022 after an investigation of the complaints made by more than five women, released a statement that is as close to a Level One apology on the Ethics Alarms Apology Scale as one is likely to see. That’s this one:

“An apology motivated by the realization that one’s past conduct was unjust, unfair, and wrong, constituting an unequivocal admission of wrongdoing as well as regret, remorse and contrition, as part of a sincere effort to make amends and seek forgiveness.“

Here’s Callaway’s version:

“My family and I fully support MLB’s strong stance against harassment and discrimination and are grateful to the Commissioner and his office for their thorough investigation. I apologize to the women who shared with investigators any interaction that made them feel uncomfortable. To be clear, I never intended to make anyone feel this way and didn’t understand that these interactions might do that or violate MLB policies. However, those are my own blind spots, and I take responsibility for the consequences.In my 25 years in professional baseball I have never taken for granted the privilege of being even a small part of this great game of ours. To say I regret my past poor choices would be an understatement. I remain hopeful that I can return to baseball when eligible at the conclusion of next season, but for now, I plan to work on my own shortcomings and repairing any damage I have caused with my colleagues and, particularly, my family.”

Joe Biden could have made that exact apology, without the baseball reference, of course. He never had to.

2. Incompetent question, perfect answer:

Monica tweet

Those are eye-roll emojis. Monica also gets points for brevity. She just missed tying author Victor Hugo for the record for shortest published message, in his case, a telegram to his publisher regarding the fate of his submitted manuscript for “Les Miserables.” Hugo wrote “?“. The publisher replied, “!“.

I won’t even take away ethics points from Monica for pandering to the Worst of the Woke by listing her preferred pronouns.

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More On The Andrew Yang “Racist” Cartoon: Some Perspective From The Ethics Alarms Archives…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

In contrast to the political cartoon discussed in the previous post, THIS is a racist cartoon. Below is the Ethics Alarms post from 2014 titled, “9 Observations On The Boston Herald’s ‘Racist’ Cartoon”:

1. I’m adding this new #1 right at the beginning—there were originally only 8 observations—because some of the early comments suggest that I over-estimated some of my readers’ scholarship, historical knowledge and/or sensitivity on this issue, so let me be direct:  the reference to any African- American having an affinity to watermelon is about a half-step from calling him or her a nigger, and maybe even closer than that. Clear? This is not a political correctness matter. If the reference is intentional, there can be no debate over whether it is racist or not. It is. The President of the United States should not be subjected to intentional racial slurs.

2. I’m amazed—I just don’t know how this could happen. How could this cartoon make it into print? Cartoonist Jerry Holbert explained that he came up with the idea to use watermelon flavor after finding “kids Colgate watermelon flavor” toothpaste in his bathroom at home. “I was completely naive or innocent to any racial connotations,” Holbert said. “I wasn’t thinking along those lines at all.” Is this possible? In a political cartoonist? On one hand, since the racial connotation is so obvious and so predictably offensive, it seems incredible that a cartoonist for a major daily would dare offer such a cartoon unless he really didn’t perceive the racial stereotype it referenced. On the other, the man is a political cartoonist, not a Japanese soldier who’s been hiding in a cave for decades. How could he not know this? How could his ethics alarms, racial slur alarms, survival alarms not go off?

I don’t get it.

3. Hence the quotes around “racist.” The only way the cartoon makes any sense to me is if Holbert is amazingly, wonderfully non-racist, and completely color blind. The flavor of the toothpaste is innocuous if one doesn’t think in racial terms at all. Maybe he just thinks about the President as the President. If so, isn’t that terrific? Wouldn’t it be great if everyone was like that? Wouldn’t it be swell if a dumb detail like the flavor of the toothpaste in a cartoon that has nothing to do with race OR toothpaste wasn’t even noticed?

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Dear Hawaii: Aloha! You Can Be A State, Or You Can Be A Country. Pick One.

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Surfer Hawaii

This was news to me: in the World Surf League and in international surfing competitions generally, surfers from Hawaii can represent island, or the United States. If they represent Hawaii, they are not regarded as representing the U.S.

Surfing will be an event in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and the option of just representing Hawaii will disappear. Hawaiian surfers will represent the United States, since, after all, Hawaii is a state. This, believe it or not, is causing outrage and consternation in the Aloha State. Two of the four Americans on the team, John John Florence (above) and the four-time world champion Carissa Moore, were born and raised in Hawaii and are accustomed to competing under the state flag. Moore is doing so again this month as the global tour holds major events in Australia.

Across the islands, on cars and on porches, Hawaii flags fly upside down, signifying distress. “Hawaii has had so much erased history,” said Duane DeSoto, the 2010 longboard world champion, told the New York Times. “Surfing prevailed against the possible suppression into oblivion. It endured the challenge of being exterminated at one time. And now it needs to be a source of Hawaiian pride.” Another surfer said, “In surfing culture worldwide, everybody looks at Hawaiian surfing as different. Even California surfers look at Hawaii different. But the Olympics see us as the same.”

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Most Ethical Quote Of The Month Apologized For After Being Called Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Singing Conductor

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys!”

—A British railway conductor to his train’s passengers. After a “non-binary” passenger complained, the London North Eastern Railway apologized profusely.

The complaint, via Twitter, stated, “As a non-binary person, this greeting doesn’t actually apply to me, so I won’t listen.” As is now the pattern, the railway’s management grovelled,

grovel2

The better response would have been, “Thank-you for alerting us. In the future, we will have all our conductors greet the passengers with “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, and assholes!” so you feel included.”

I’m kidding…but barely. The presumption by extreme minorities that they have justification to claim mistreatment if society does not distort its traditions, customs and procedures to include every variation of the norm, no matter how exotic, is pure narcissism and imaginary entitlement. The railway’s management’s response would have been appropriate for a conductor who spewed obscenities and blasphemy, not a cheerful welcome that conservatively applies to 99.9% of the population, and those who it does not apply to are in such outlier category based on a conscious choice: intersex individuals once did the practical thing and picked a gender. That was before they realized that power and victim status lay waiting for them by remaining ambiguous.

Did non-English speakers on the train complain bitterly that the conductor’s greeting wasn’t repeated in their language? Were deaf passengers offended that the conductor didn’t sign? I wonder if an expectant mother felt that her unborn child was being snubbed because the conductor didn’t welcome fetuses…

“Laurence” set out to get an innocent conductor disciplined or fired so in the future conductors would be less welcoming to everyone.

Maybe I wasn’t kidding.

Introducing The Ethics Alarms “Weenie Of The Week”! The First Recipient: Jay Leno

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

edible dogs

“The Weenie of the Week” will recognize those who enable censors, political correctness mobs, totalitarians, cancel culture terrorists and the rising fascist tide in America by prostrating themselves and groveling for forgiveness when in truth they have done nothing wrong.

Although the term “weenie” is light-hearted in its terminology, the conduct earning the title is serious and despicable. These are not only pathetic cowards, though they are certainly that. They are the modern, domestic versions of “good Germans,” who, for their own self-interests and nothing more, are willing to reject our nation’s core rights and liberties, weaken them, and indeed join the increasingly ominous effort to suffocate free expression, dissent, creativity and humor.

Comedian and former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno begins what I fear will be a long line.

Yesterday he issued an apology for making jokes in the past about Koreans eating dog meat after a 15-year campaign by the activist group Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA).

“At the time I did those jokes, I genuinely thought them to be harmless,” Leno said in a joint press release with MANAA leader Guy Aoki: “I was making fun of our enemy North Korea, and like most jokes, there was a ring of truth to them.”

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Question: Should Ethics Alarms Develop An Official “Groveling Weenie” List?

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Apology Adams

The above was authored by Scott Adams, the “Dilbert” cartoonist, who has also gained fame (or notoriety) as a “Trump whisperer.” He recently composed this “preemptive apology” for when the Cancel Mob comes for him, as it surely will. Reader Richard Marr, who pointed EA to this, asks where it fits on the Ethics Alarms Apology Scale. He’s joking, of course: it’s a gag apology, and there is no category for that. It’s also a terrific grovel, which is what so many apologies from those accused of being “insensitive” or otherwise speaking or behaving contrary to mandated opinions and values from the increasingly dictatorial and threatening Left.

The Adams satire moves me to ask a serious question: Should Ethics Alarms add a page listing the revolting grovelers that have marked The Great Stupid, Americans who in fact did nothing wrong, but to keep their jobs, or status, or please demanding and arrogant peers, have prostrated themselves with statements that sound like excerpts from “The Manchurian Candidate” screenplay? The Ethics Alarms term for them is “Weenies”—weak, cowardly, venal or desperate people and entities who are content to have speech censors and ideological bullies gain power and slowly crush the spirit of liberty that has defined the United States of America. The Weenies lack the character and fortitude to stand up for the nation and its values, and would rather signal phony virtue as it is being defined by the cultural wrecking crew than display the real, more difficult virtues these times demand.

The Weenies include sports organizations like the NBA, entertainment companies like Turner Classic Movies, consumer companies like Brigham’s, journalism organizations like ESPN, and many more. They include celebrities like Sharon Osbourne, athletes like the recently retired Drew Brees, performers like Lady Antebellum, journalists like fired New York Times science and health reporter Donald McNeil, as well as professors like Matthew Mayhew and other teachers and academics too numerous to mention here. And, of course, politicians.

I will have to create a clear definition to distinguish the Weenies from the totalitarians, who they aid and enable with their groveling and virtue signaling. Georgetown Law Center, for example, is a genuine engine of totalitarianism; the two professors who meekly left its faculty because they were caught on Zoom explaining the realities of affirmative action are Weenies.

I envision this list as a group project, something like the “hate group” lists compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center, except that it will be honest and fair.

Your opinion is officially sought.

The New York Times Refusing To Inform Its Readers What Meyers Leonard Was Suspended For Saying Is Far More Unethical Than Leonard Saying It [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

This is beyond crazy. I’ll play the “Bridge Over The River Kwai” clip…

…but it’s not sufficient. How crazy is this story? This crazy: Ethics Alarms is informing you of a critical fact in a news story that The New York Times and almost every other mainstream media news source will not. Here it is:

The anti-Semitic slur that Miami Heat center Meyers Leonard has been fined and suspended for saying, apparently putting his NBA career in jeopardy, is “kike.” K-I-K-E.

I had to hunt through many reports to find a source that would reveal the taboo word so horrible and vile that to even print it so readers could know WHAT THE HOLY HELL THE CONTROVERSY WAS ABOUT was, apparently, unthinkable. I finally found the word in “The Scotsman,” which, as the name might suggest to you, is a Scottish publication. The closest I found in a U.S. source was an invitation to play “Wheel of Fortune” or “Hangman.” (Can you still play “Hangman”? It requires drawing a noose, and if you draw a noose, you must be a racist.) The exclamation that has made Meyers a pariah, according to the Miami Herald, was “F—ing cowards, don’t f—ing snipe me you f—ing k–e b–ch.” Sorry, not good enough, not sufficient, not competent, not responsible, and not ethical. If the story is worth publishing, then the word at the core of the story must be published too.

The Times wouldn’t even use code. “Meyers Leonard Fined $50,000 and Suspended for Using an Anti-Semitic Slur” reads the headline. [Wait. What slur? ] It continues [the bracketed comments are mine],

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Regarding Governor Cuomo’s Apology…

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Schodengers douchbag

[I’ve been looking for a chance to use this expression for a while. It derives from the quantum mechanics paradox called Schrödinger’s Cat in which a hypothetical cat in a closed box may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead as a result of being linked to a contingent subatomic event that may or may not occur. I’ve really never understood the cat, but Schrödinger’s Douchebag I get.]

He was cornered, so the Governor of New York, already being buffeted by one serious scandal, decided to try to talk his way out of another one. Two staffers have gone on the record to accuse him of sexual harassment, and one of them related two instance of sexual assault (a kiss and a stroke on the legs). The Gov’s initial vague denials didn’t work, so yesterday the falling Democratic star tried a sort-of apology. Here is the statement:

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