Michael Rausch, a 46-year-old Cherry Hill, N.J., lawyer, threw three punches at a Scranton lawyer who, he said, called him stupid and bald.
The fisticuffs occurred in July at the Lackawanna County Courthouse during a civil suit regrading a car accident. Lawyer Rausch was placed on probation, and he resigned from his law firm as a result of the incident.
Hey…what’s wrong with being called “bald”?
Much of my weekend was occupied by reading, writing, thinking, and talking about the bizarre controversy over a community theater production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado,” which, by a series of misunderstandings, misdeeds, hypocrisies and journalistic malpractice, has created much anger and unhappiness for no legitimate reason at all. If you are late to the story and want to catch up, you can do so here, here, here, and here.
For the first and perhaps only time I can honestly say that Ethics Alarms is the most reliable source on a story. There may be plenty of ethicists who are more knowledgeable, scholarly, prudent and experienced than I am regarding ethics theory, but none of them knows this topic—Gilbert and Sullivan and “The Mikado”, like I do. I have 50 years experience performing, directing, studying, parodying and laughing at the works of these Victorian geniuses. The second I read the astoundingly wrong-headed interpretation being attached to the Missoula Community Theatre’s inclusion of Sarah Palin in Ko-Ko’s famous song “I’ve Got a Little List,” I surmised exactly what was going on, and my assessment has been confirmed by everything that has come to light since.
I will summarize what we now know in brief (well, briefer than reading all the posts) form:
Well, why not…before all-Mikado Saturday comes to an end, I might as well highlight this astounding example of spectacularly incompetent journalism by the Northern Broadcasting Network’s Aaron Flint, who actually posted this hilarious idiocy on his “Flint Report” (I will have to comment on the text as it goes, since there is too much nonsense to take in all at once.)
His headline: “Palin Beheaded in Missoula Play” Continue reading
I promise I won’t do this often, but this Comment of the Day is by me, a reply to a comment by Ichneumon, which you will find at the end. I have been involved in this debate elsewhere, and a common “gotcha!” being employed against me is the argument that I jumped the gun defending the production of “The Mikado,” because I didn’t (and don’t yet) know what the exact lyrics were. I think this is worth expanding on, since Ichneumon and others have accused me of being “unethical” for calling the critics of the Palin lyric, whatever it was, ignorant. Saturday is usually quiet, and this seems to be all that is going on other than the Middle East blowing up; by tomorrow I’m hoping to be able to move on to issues having nothing to do with Sarah Palin, Missoula, or “The Mikado.” So here is my reply to Ichneumon, with sample verses, on the original post, “Next: A Version of “The Mikado” Without Execution References”:
“The fact is, everyone from the Wall Street Journal to local websites to conservative commentators have been slapping around the production without an exact quote from the production. I am in touch with someone in the cast, and am hoping, waiting, to learn exactly what the lyric was. So what, exactly, would you have me do, when the vast majority is citing this, and only this, as the basis for its condemnation: the production put Sarah Palin, by name on Ko-Ko’s list, and this constituted a declaration that she should be killed? Continue reading
The more I think about the controversy over the Montana production of “The Mikado,” which I discussed in the previous post, the more it bothers me.
The fact that some conservative Missoulans were disturbed by Sarah Palin’s inclusion on the iconic “little list” carried by the fictional Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner in Gilbert and Sullivan’s classic musical comedy “The Mikado” is disturbing. The fact that the Missoula Community Theater actually caved-in to ignorance and hypersensitivity and removed the lyric is more so. but the fact that some sensible commentators, like the Wall Street Journal’s usually perceptive and witty James Taranto, have had their brains addled by the current attempt at language, metaphor and humor purging by politically correct hysterics is genuinely terrifying. Continue reading
For a text-book example of how political correctness, ideology, ignorance and a humor deficit can undermine speech, culture and entertainment, we need look no further than Montana, and its public critics of the Missoula Community Theater’s production of “The Mikado,” perhaps the best of all Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and one of the very best musical comedies ever written. Continue reading
During the recent eruption of a national obsession with civility in the wake of Jarod Loughner’s shooting rampage—odd, because his actions had nothing whatsoever to do with civility—it became disturbingly evident that most journalists have only a vague sense of what incivility is. For example, using shooting or death metaphors and imagery are not uncivil. Criticism, even strongly-worded criticism, is not uncivil. Calling lies lies is not uncivil, nor is suggesting bad motives for official actions, if the critic believes that bad motives are involved. The fact that intense and passionate condemnation of an individual’s or a group’s actions angers or inflames others does not necessarily mean that the inciting words were uncivil, or even inappropriate.
At the risk of being accused of proving the old proverb that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, let me offer the observation that the apparently acrimonious departure of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC, despite being the cable channel’s biggest star, is a cautionary tale about ethics.
The lesson: the absence of respect for the opinions of others, accompanied by a lack of humility and a surplus of contempt for fairness and civility, will doom even intelligent, talented and hard-working individuals to inevitable failure, because they cannot be trusted, not by employers, not by colleagues, not by friends.
This is why ethical values are valued: they are essential to individual success, because they contribute to societal and social success. This is, I believe, the fourth time an Olbermann show has ended like this, and like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day,” he is doomed to repeat the pattern until he learns how to be a more caring, more trustworthy human being.
I hope he makes it. Keith Olbermann has the ability to help make this a better country, instead of a nastier, meaner, more divided one. I hope he gets another chance, and that this time, he figures out how to use his abundant talents to do it.
First, the quote:
“I said Goebbels lied about the Jews, and that led to the Holocaust. Not in any way whatsoever was I comparing Republicans to Nazis. I was saying lies are wrong…I don’t know who got everybody’s panties in a wad over this statement.”
—–Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), in his initial dismissal of criticism over his rant on the House floor regarding Republican characterizations of the health care bill.
This quote is really remarkable, for it is hard to pack so many kinds of dishonesty into so few words.It’s hard to know where to begin. Continue reading
One of the characteristics of a true Ethics Train Wreck (or ETW for short) is that it eventually reaches the point where unethical and ethical responses to it are indistinguishable. The Tucson shooting ETW officially reached that point today, when Speaker of the House John Boehner apparently yielded to the complaint that referring to the health care reform law as “job killing” was inappropriate in light of Jared Loughner’s near-murder of Rep. Giffords along with killing or wounding 19 other victims.
In a post on his official blog, Boehner referred to the law as “job destroying” and “job crushing,” an apparent concession to critics like Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree, who argued that the House bill called the “Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law Act” should be renamed something without “killing” in it, “for Gabby’s sake.” By doing so, the Speaker of the House gave credibility to an argument that… Continue reading
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