Right/Wrong or Somewhere Between?

It's hard to tell the difference between right and wrong these days as it's defined by so many variables: race, religion, cultural customs, sexual orientation, political preferences, age. Oh, the list is endless, and the list is being publicized like crazy this week. There is no single, solid ethical code of conduct, just the parade of situational ethics, and those encompass all of the other variables of life, such as one's perception being that person's reality, to the exclusion of anyone else's perception and/or reality, which forces all people to live by one person's perception.

For instance, high school refs wore pink whistles with their black and white striped ensemble, without asking the ref king for permission beforehand. Now, they didn't wear pink whistles on a whim, but to show support for breast cancer awareness -- 7 months ago. They were chastised at the time, but now they are being hammered because they didn't go through channels prior to wearing the whistles (channels being the ref king). So, although the refs thought they had been forgiven with the warning not to let this egregious action happen again, they are now going to lose play-off jobs for two (yes, 2) full seasons because the ref king is worried about the message being sent to young people by the refs who took it upon themselves to wear the pink whistles without first clearing it with the ref king.

Me, too.

It's clear that the young athletes are being sent a strong message, but I'm not thinking about the crime of wearing the whistle, but the strong-arm tactics from a control freak who negates the pride of supporting cancer awareness with his meglomania! Yes, the refs wore pink whistles to support breast cancer awareness, but it's clear to me that the more offensive action was failing to ask the ref king's permission. I totally hope everyone gets the real message: Do NOT leave the ref king out of the loop.

Moving on, is Patty, the Govenator's baby mama, going down with Arnold for fraud? She covered up his paternity throughout her pregnancy, birth, and infancy of the child before confronting Arnold with a toddler who bears an uncanny resemblance to him. She not only falsified the birth certificate, but lied to her husband, her employers, and her son, too. However, last January, she threatened/blackmailed the 'negger family into going public with the dirty laundry because Arnold's pissed-off wife fired her when she found out that the last 14 years of her life have been a fraud. What, really, did Patty expect, other than what she's already been given, that is.

Arnold is still an ass, but his housekeeper has gone from committing adultery with her employer to being a criminal. Arnold did not just kick her to the curb when she revealed his paternity about a decade ago: he bought her a very nice house far from the scene of the crime; he's paid her monthly child support; he kept her on the payroll for a dozen years after she told him her child is his; and now he's taking very public responsibility for what he -- and she -- did that has resulted in the destruction of his life as he's always known it, along with his wife and his other four children.

What more does she want?

This is another case of be careful what you wish for: you try to blackmail the really rich and famous, and you end up being dragged through the mud with them. Hope you enjoy reaping the rewards of the blackmail, Patty. Didn't turn out quite the way you envisioned it? Better check your immigration status while you're at it. You've shamed Arnold, but you've pissed off his wife, and you don't mess with a however distant Kennedy!!

And, the head of the IMF came out of the shower naked and sporting wood, saw the maid bent over her housecleaning tasks, and decided that was a come on? That she wanted him; she really, really wanted him ... to physically attack her and have sex? Really? That's all it takes, being in proximity to a rich, powerful, old man with a hard-on? Guess I'm all the more happy that I live in an unremarkable house in a marginal neighborhood, and don't clean motel rooms for a living.

Life used to be so much easier. If you went to church, you learned 10 simple rules for living life: The Ten Commandments. If that was too hard, society boiled it down to one rule: The Golden Rule. And, much later, we all realized that we learned everything we needed to know in kindergarten, and almost everyone made it at least that far in the public education system! Either obey the ten "thou shalt nots" or the one "do unto," or read the book about kindergarten, but for God's sake, at least have some sort of moral compass or ethical platform for living life. Today, we're just all behaving badly, pointing the fingers of blame anywhere but at ourselves, and bullying our way through anyone in our way, probably prefacing our rampage with a string of profanity in the process.

Two wrongs don't make a right, nor does doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, or the wrong thing for all the right reasons, or any of that other nonsense. Life is not all about me, it's all about all of us, but you'd never know it from the way people are living life this week.