apologies

“When Is The Best Apology The Worst Apology?”….The Sequel

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The silver lining in the horrible Hamas-Israel war, as I’ve already noted, is that it seems to causing a lot of people, groups, institutions and media outlets to expose their ethics void, their anti-Jewish bigotry, and, well, the fact that they are blots on decent society. I’ll expand on this theme later today, but for now, another asshole has emulated Mika Tosca, the associate professor with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who issued a pure Jew-Hate social media rant, and then claimed that she didn’t mean it in a mendacious apology.

The post about Tosca applies 100% to this bigot, Beverly Hills doctor Andrew Thierry, who was a apparently trying to top Mika and began by writing on on Instagram that “Zionists are gynocidal, demonic, greedy, pedophilic retards,” and followed that nice sentiment up with the two messages above. ExpertMRI fired Thierry—of course they did–and he then deleted his Hitleresque messages and had the gall to issue this gaslighting apology:

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When Is The Best Apology The Worst Apology?

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

One of the few benefits of the Hamas premeditated murder strike on Israeli civilians and Israel’s perfect response to it (‘OK, enough. You’re toast.’) is that it simultaneously ripped the masks off the corruption and the ethical vacuums in our two most ideologically compromised professions, journalism and education. Of course, the former will do its utmost to avoid reporting on the latter, but who knows? Maybe the truth will finally permeate the walnut shell-sheathed brains of the gullible and apathetic public.

Nah. What am I thinking?

Several professors have announced, often in truly disgusting terms, their belief that the Hamas terrorist attack was justified, and that it is “murder” for Israel to respond with deadly force. One poisoned school, CUNY, apparently has a faculty stuffed with such anti-Semitic fools: here’s a letter signed by over 80 professors and lecturers, including the celebrity ethics dunce Marc Lamont Hill, asserting the whole panoply of anti-Israel talking points. Any parent who allows their children to be indoctrinated at a college that would employ such intellectually dishonest activists as these as teachers is incompetent and irresponsible.

But I digress. Mika Tosca, an associate professor with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, went way, way beyond CUNY’s credentialed leftists in a rant on Instagram:

Yikes. Israelis are pigs, savages, and shit, disgusting and grotesque, and should rot in hell. How do you really feel, professor? Apparently, based on her subsequent post on the matter, she really feels completely differently:

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Hypothetical Ethical Quote Of The Month: Rep. Jamaal Bowman

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

To be absolutely clear, the hypothetical apology by Rep. Bowman that follows can’t occur now; it is too late. He has not only lied too much, but most of his allies are now totally committed to his lie, so he couldn’t back out if he wanted to.

However, there was one, brief, shining moment, as King Arthur sings in “Camelot,” when Bowman, realizing that his illegal and unethical conduct had been caught on video, had an opportunity to do a very good deed that would have created immense benefits for him, for his party, for Congress, for young American, for young African Americans, for Congress, for society, and for the nation. Bowman didn’t take that opportunity,because he is corrupt and stupid, and even today probably couldn’t be made to understand why issuing the following statement was the wise and ethical course. But it would have been.

Here is what I would have advised Rep. Bowman to say, had I been his ethics consultant:

“As has been widely reported, a video shows me pulling a fire alarm in the Cannon Office Building before the House’s vote on the interim funding bill. Let me be straightforward and honest now, because the American people deserve no less from their elected representatives. I did this deliberately, in a foolish rush to delay the vote, even though I knew at the time, as I have known all of my adult life, that it was a crime, and was wrong. I have no excuses for this. I committed the same mistake that we all must learn to avoid as we proceed through life: never make decisions rashly, in an emotional state, under the pressures of time and passion. Yet that is exactly what I did. I am ashamed of myself. This conduct was a serious betrayal not only of my constituents and my state, but also of my party and the nation I serve.

I apologize to all of them. I also betrayed myself and my values, and also  every young person in America who should be able to look to me, as they should look to all elected officials, as role models. At this moment, I am not a fit role model. I have a long journey back to be deserving of trust.

In recent months there has been a lot of public discourse about double standards in our justice system, and the dangerous political use of our laws. I am stating right now that I will not be the beneficiary of any such double standard. I broke a law and an important one: I should face the same penalty as any citizen. After this statement, I plan on presenting myself to the proper authorities. There is no need for any investigations. I am guilty, and I will accept any punishment and consequences that the District of Columbia and Congress deem appropriate.

Polls show that there has been a terrible decline in the public’s trust in its democratic institutions. I am overwhelmed by regret and remorse that my conduct in this incident has probably exacerbated that. Today I vow that as part of my contrition and restitution for what I did in the Cannon Building, I will, if I am allowed to remain a member of Congress, dedicate myself to restoring that lost trust. I also call upon my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, to join me in that mission.

Thank-you.

Too bad he couldn’t see it. Too bad none of our members of Congress would, in all likelihood.

Ethics Dunce And A Tie With Rep. Broebert For Worst Apology Of The Week : Drew Barrymore

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

[Note: This post takes no position regarding the validity and justness of the Hollywood writers’ strike.]

Tough choice: is the now middle-aged former child star turned talk show host’s apology even more unethical than Broebert’s discussed here? It’s certainly more ridiculous, even though Drew’s was teary and seemingly sincere, unlike the Republican’s. In fact, this apology is unique in my experience: Barrymore was apologizing for something she had announced she was doing, then she went ahead and did it anyway. What is that?

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been on strike since May over more equitable wages and working conditions. Even though it is a talk show and theoretically shouldn’t require writers, “The Drew Barrymore Show” does employ some, and thus is officially being struck. Nonetheless, Barrymore announced that her show would metaphorically cross the picket lines to premier tomorrow as scheduled. Her announcement predictably attracted a “scab” response from the WGA and others on social media. Then Barrymore posted the mea culpa video excerpted above on Instagram.

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Ethics Dunce (And A Tie For Worst Apology Of The Week): Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO)

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

One of Donald Trump’s proteges, Rep. Lauren Boebert, behaved so outrageously at a a Denver theater last week during a performance of the Broadway musical “Beetlejuice,” that she was asked to leave by the theater managers. She was loud, sang along with the performers in places, got in arguments with audience members, was ostentatiously groped by her male companion, and perhaps most objectionably, vaped during the performance, which is what you see her (in the middle of the frame, second from the aisle) in the act of doing—see the little puff?— in the security camera shot above. She also took a selfie during the second act. As she and her date were ushered out, the distinguished member of Congress actually uttered the magic phrase I regard as signature significance for an insufferable celebrity jerk, “Do you know who I am?” and threatened consequences for the staff.

That’s not all. She had her office deny that she had been vaping, not realizing that security cameras memorialized it. And still that’s not all. Here is her head-exploding “apology” for acting like a 17-year old raised in a barn who had never been at a live theater show in her life:

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Ethics Hero: Jason Aldean, No Weenie He [Updated!]

/ Jack Marshall / 74 Comments

This is strange. Not only am I not a believer in one of John Wayne’s most quoted movie lines, I’m not especially enamored of Aldean’s latest hit song and the in-your-face message it conveys. However, in one key respect, I admire Aldean’s defiant speech before singing his song tthat has been the target of furious attacks across the progressive spectrum. Here’s what he said…

What makes it a heroic moment is that he didn’t apologize. Too many celebrities, public figures and athletes have grovelled for forgiveness when their words or opinions have prompted attacks on their character and efforts to, as the singer described them, “ruin their lives.” They do it because they fear losing jobs, money, friends and associates, because what we’re experiencing today is culture-wide McCarthyism of the Left. The objectives and the methods are similar, but the ubiquity and power of the electronic media make the threat to freedom of speech and democracy even more dire—and it was pretty scary there for a while in the Fifties.

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The White House Breast-Flashing Trans Activist Offers Authentic Frontier Gibberish And A Non-Apology Apology

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Ugh.

I wouldn’t expect the individual who thought this…

…was a reasonable or ethical way to behave at the White House or to thank President Biden for inviting her and other LGBTQ activists to attend a political suck-up event would be revealed as a smart, articulate, ethical force in civic discourse. That three-minute babble-fest above, however, is special. I’m not even certain what the transsexual’s intention was. I can determine what it communicated, however:

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Bill James Shows How To Maintain Trustworthiness

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The Bill James Baseball Handbook is full of useful facts, stats and analysis for baseball aficionados as usual this year. Bill hasn’t written as much this year as he has in the past, but his contributions are provocative, informative and sharp. James has been a major influence on my approach to ethics, even though he has devoted his considerable analytical skills to baseball, only occasionally crossing over to other realms (like true crime) with mixed results. Readers here encounter James’ concepts most frequently when I reference signature significance, but in a broad sense, reading his work over the years also heightened my appreciation of the dangers of confirmation bias and the importance of challenging conventional wisdom.

James has an unusual article in this year’s Handbook: an apology. In “OPS and Runs Scored,” he begins by saying he has “40-year-old egg on his face,” It was that long ago that the baseball stat world, in part because of James’ work, began lobbying for OPS to be the standard by which a batter’s effectiveness was measured. OPS is a stat that combines on-base percentage—how often a player reaches base via walk or hit (any being hit by a pitch), a statistic that logically is more revealing than a batting average—-and slugging percentage, which indicates power by dividing bases (a home run is four bases, a single just one) into at bats.

Bill explains that the OPS stat was sold as having an arithmetic relationship to runs scored, a straight-line relationship that meant that if a team increased it OPS by 10% it would score 10% more runs. The apology is based on the fact that James, he says, accepted this conclusion and advanced it himself like everyone else in the sabermetrics community—and the conclusion was wrong. He writes that he is very, very, very ashamed to admit that he never checked himself, but relied on what he was told. The claim was “completely wrong,” he writes. When he finally did check the relationship between OPS and runs score, he found that it was a geometric relationship, not arithmetic. If a team increases its OPS by 10% it won’t score 10% more runs. It will score 21% more runs. That’s a big difference. You have to square the OPS to get the right result in predicted runs scored.

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I Don’t Know Exactly What This Story Signifies, But I’m Going To Write About It Anyway…

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis posted about her chairs on Instagram for some strange reason, and in so doing, revealed the creepy photograph she has hanging in her home. Conservatives, who have been in an art critic mood thanks to “The Embrace” were triggered. “Why does Jamie Lee Curtis have a picture of a naked child stuffed inside a suitcase on her wall,” said rightish broadcaster Stew Peters. “Strong Epstein vibes.” Right-wing activist Rogan O’Handley tweeted in part, “Hollywood has-been Jamie Lee Curtis posted …an extremely disturbing picture she has in her home of a child stuffed in a suitcase. We have serious questions.”

Curtis then took down the post and photo, explaining,

What’s going on here?

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Ethics Quiz: The Cartoonist’s Regret

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

                                        Hell’s video store

Sometimes Ethics Alarms is on these matters quicker than anyone; sometimes it takes a while. Two years ago, retired “Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson confessed that the above cartoon was the only one he could think of at the moment that he felt he should apologize for. He wrote,

Ace Ethics Alarms commenter JutGory alerted me to Larson’s lament, which had been recalled in this recent post on the site “Screen Rant.” I tended to find that the cartoonist’s apology reflected well on his  ethics alarms, as did the Screen Rant pundit, who wrote,

In the end, he put his ego aside and admitted he unfairly judged the movie and criticized it without ever seeing it. The Far Side creator sharing his mistake shows that even the most talented and self-aware cartoonists can accidentally cross a line without initially realizing it. Thankfully, after seeing the movie for himself, Gary Larson understood an apology was warranted for the Far Side comic.

Jut, however, has a different take. He wrote,

It was a joke that landed well because of popular sentiment at the time it was made. Thinking about it another way, what if he saw Ishtar at the time and liked it?  He could still make the same joke because it would resonate with the public.  It would still be funny. I guess the real question is whether comics are bound by the same rules as a critic.  A critic should know what it is criticizing.  A comic is going for a laugh.  And, to the extent it was an “unfair” joke (I am not sure it is, as the movie had a widely-known bad reputation), is an apology necessary.  Most jokes are “unfair” to some extent.  But, does that, in itself, require an apology.  From a critic, yes; from a comic, no.

Ooooo, I think I may have to agree with Jut.

Maybe.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Does Gary Larson have anything to apologize for?

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