“Screw Bobby…grab the carry-ons!”
Apparently an unusual number of the passengers on board the plane that crashed yesterday grabbed their luggage on the way to safety, and at least one passenger grabbed his luggage before he thought to grab his child.
I don’t even want to think about the significance of this, but it can’t be good.
The story, in Forbes, is here.
I am pretty certain that actress Angelina Jolie could have undergone a prophylactic double mastectomy and never revealed it, She could have had reconstructive surgery and continuing to appeal to the sexual fantasies of moviegoers, which has been a significant aspect of her movie career. She had no need to disclose the operation, which she underwent last month, and no obligation to. Nonetheless,Jolie revealed her choice to the world in an eloquent, powerful, and courageous op-ed in the New York Times this week, and undoubtedly saved lives by doing so. She also made a critical cultural statement about the worth of women and how they are devalued by being reduced to their body parts in popular culture, the media, and the minds of men.
I think it is one of the most courageous acts by an entertainment figure that we have ever witnessed.
Jolie writes in part… Continue reading
I know the blog has been heavy with gun control essays of late, but the post-Sandy Hook Hysteria Express is the current runaway train wreck right now, with no end in sight. Michael R. (formerly just Michael) scores another Comment of the Day by focusing on one of the aspects of the President’s kids-and-guns show yesterday that set my teeth on edge but that somehow was left out of the post about all the other things that set me teeth on edge about the event. Well done.
Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, Ethics Quote of the Day: Blogger Jeff Dunetz:
“I always find it troubling when someone uses the sentence “If it just saves one life, it is worth [giving up one of our rights and freedoms]“. There is no way to say it without dishonoring the memory of the many people who have died to uphold those freedoms, to establish those freedoms. How many people have died to preserve these rights and freedoms? Will we willingly give them away so cheaply?
“As far as our problems go here are some causes of death: Continue reading
—- Jeff Dunetz on his blog “The Lid,” criticizing President Obama’s list of 23 Executive Orders as “a pile of nothing.”
There was a lot to dislike about today’s cynical exercise by President Obama on the topic of gun control. I already mentioned, in a post yesterday, its offensive exploitation of young children as props. James Taranto visited that issue today in his “Best of the Web,” pointing out the hypocrisy of White House spokesman Jay Carney going into high dudgeon and attacking the NRA for alluding, in a recent advocacy ad, to the fact that the President sends his own children to a private school that employs armed guards, and that his daughters are the beneficiaries of armed protection from the Secret Service. Said Carney:
“Most Americans agree that a president’s children should not be used as pawns in a political fight. But to go so far as to make the safety of the President’s children the subject of an attack ad is repugnant and cowardly.”
Taranto, who does not agree with NRA’s reasoning in the ad, writes of today’s White House performance,
“If the president wants his critics to refrain from even indirectly referring to his daughters, he ought to stop exploiting ordinary people’s children in this manner. Even if the NRA missed the mark in accusing him of elitist hypocrisy over school guards, his display today makes him a fair target for such a charge.”
Yup. Continue reading
Oh, yeah,THIS is going to turn out well...
How is this for a letter that makes proposals to require licensing for parents seem reasonable?
“DEAR ABBY: I have a beautiful wife, a dog and an 8-year-old son I love to watch sports with. My son loves sports, but he has trouble accepting a loss. He’ll take out his disappointment by beating the dog. My wife doesn’t want to get rid of “Patches” because she has had him since college. I don’t want to put my son through counseling because he said he’ll hate me forever if I do. I’m afraid if the problem isn’t controlled, my son’s life goals may be affected. What can I do? — GOOD DAD IN CLEVELAND”
What can you do? Well, to begin with, you can seek counseling for yourself and your wife, and read some books on Parenting 101. Continue reading
When the topic on Ethics Alarms is education, Michael frequently scores a Comment of the Day, and he did it again following the post on the University of Maryland spending a fortune on its president’s residence. Here is his effort to help us understand the conduct discussed in The Priorities of U.S. Higher Education Defy Understanding. And I’ll have a closing comment at the end.
“I have asked these questions about what is driving up college costs. Here is what I have found: Continue reading
The next president of the University of Maryland, apparently. Wait---that was the previous post!
The out-of-control costs of higher education are one of many systemic problems that plague America, and it is one that I confess baffles me completely. I do not understand why tuition is so high and continues to climb. I do not understand why universities pay professors huge salaries for minimal teaching duties, and I don’t see what expensive buildings and beautiful surroundings have to do with education. I don’t understand why students pay outrageous sums to be educated then take trivial and absurd courses, like the now-cancelled Columbia University undergraduate course that was to consist of hanging out with the Occupy Wall Street gang to endear oneself with course’s OWS-loving professor.
Most of all, I do not understand the persistence of the myth that a college education can, does, or should qualify a graduate for good job, when it appears that a large percentage of students, if not a majority, leave the campus unable to write, think, or name the men on Mount Rushmore. Decades ago, as an administrator at major law school, I was shocked to discover that the school held remedial reading and wring courses for some first year students, one of them a graduate of Yale. Do you think the problem has improved since then? A college education in the U.S. is a poor and declining product that is over-priced and over-hyped, and I don’t understand why people are willing to go into debt to purchase it, and why the manufacturers haven’t cut costs, improved the product, and lowered the price.
Well, maybe I do understand. Like so many other problems, the reason for this one may be no more mysterious than the fact that those in charge are irresponsible, incompetent, and unaccountable.
This week brought the news that crews will begin demolishing the president’s house at the University of Maryland, and begin construction of a new 14,000-square-foot mansion that will cost the school at least $7.2 million. The palatial new digs for Maryland U’s president is being built in the midst of the university’s pleas for donors to contribute funds to rescue Maryland students who may be forced to drop out because of their family’s financial plights.
Meanwhile, the current president, Wallace D. Loh, has said that he will cut eight varsity sports teams in June to save an estimated $29 million over the next eight years. Do you understand this? Continue reading
I'm sorry! This was supposed to be a picture of Albert Pujols, not King Midas. Well, six of one, half-dozen of the other...
Cardinal free agent first baseman Albert Pujols, generally regarded as the most talented baseball slugger alive, just jumped from his supposedly beloved St. Louis to the Los Angeles Angels because they offered him several more millions of dollars per year that he couldn’t possible spend if he tried than the Cardinals did. The attitude of most players, fans and sportswriters, not to mention the players’ union (naturally), is “Of course! Who wouldn’t?”
Who wouldn’t? A more ethical, less greedy, more thoughtful human being, that’s who.
The Angels won Pujols with an offer of $254 million dollars for ten years, making him the highest paid player on captivity. The Cardinals. on the other hand, whose fans had cheered him, embraced him and worshipped him, and which had established Pujols as one of the franchise’s icons fit to stand with Stan the Man Musial, Bob Gibson, Dizzy Dean and Lou Brock, had offered a measly $204 million for nine years, or about 23 million a year. The difference between the two offers is minimized, if not eliminated, by the cost of living disparity between the two locales: housing, for example, is about 250% more expensive in LA. Continue reading
Seldom is a solution to a problem so obvious, and so conducive to bi-partisanship. It is a solution to two problems, really: America’s dangerously rotting infrastructure, and the nation’s dismal unemployment rate. Spend the money, trillions if necessary, to repair and replace existing roads, railway beds, waterways, sewer systems, airports and bridges. It still won’t get us where we need to be, but we’ll be much better off than if we let the current deterioration continue, and we’ll save money in the long run, too—real savings, not phony health care reform savings that evaporate once reality kicks in.
There is no justification not to do this, nor is there any legitimate excuse for any elected official not to vote for it. (And no, not wanting to give the President a victory is not legitimate…or ethical, or patriotic.) Repairing the infrastructure isn’t “discretionary spending,” it is essential, unavoidable and cost-effective spending, unless it is diverted into new boondoggles and pork. No new structures, unless they replace unrepairable old ones. No light rail systems or bullet trains; what is needed is basic maintenance and repair….everywhere. It is already late, but “better late than never” has seldom been as appropriate. Continue reading
"So, Newt: you'd rather be tanned than be President? Fine. Bye!"
One can tell a great deal about leaders from the quality of those who choose to follow them, and one can tell a great deal about followers by whom they choose as their leader. When Rick Tyler, a longtime Newt Gingrich spokesman, Rob Johnson, Gingrich’s campaign manager, Dave Carney and Katon Dawson, senior strategists to the former House Speaker’s presidential campaign, media consultant Sam Dawson, Iowa strategist Craig Schoenfeld, South Carolina operative Walter Whetsell and adviser Scott Rials resigned en masse from the Gingrich campaign organization last week, we learned a lot. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 