But I am an ethicist, Kelly, not a money launderer. Money laundering is for sissies. Hide the money, and it looks like you’re doing something wrong. Even worse, it shows fear, and your enemies can smell that from a mile away. That’s why I advise the reader to face the problem head on. Sure you’ve got a conflict of interest, but so does the other guy, and pretty much everybody else pointing fingers. Call it even. I’m an ethicist; I know these things. And what’s the point of being an ethicist if all it means is playing by other peoples’ rules?

Ethical money laundering 101, really.

Thank you for you comments. They are poorly reasoned and empty of value. To explain the picture: Academic bloggers sometimes use images to illustrate abstract points. You seem to understand this, but you make a fatal and disabling mistake when you wrongly interpret the two-headed image to be an illustration of the reader’s (improper, false and defamatory) allegation of a conflict of interest. In reality, the image served as an abstract reference to the letter writer’s failure to grasp my distinct, separate roles as both Ethicator and as vigorous critic of cheapskate, plagiarizing older brothers. Just because person Q occupies position XXY does not mean that he or she cannot simultaneously and distinctly serve as XYY. This is a matter of basic critical thinking, and you should know this. An art history class, if not a logic class, would tell you as much, if you could pass it.

And finally, I notice that you have done nothing to address the fundamental question at hand, which is whether our letter writer has failed to acknowledge the distinction between my two separate and distinct roles. Victory is mine, once again.

Thank you for your comment. It is long, vituperative, and intellectually worthless. I notice that nowhere in your statement do you address the main topic at hand, which is whether a scholar who has wrongly conflated my distinct, unrelated roles as Ethicator and younger sibling should, in fact, publicly repudiate his own statement and resign from his job. Instead, you change the subject by engaging in ad hominems (which, by the way, will come as a handy example to ridicule in front of my next class. Thank you!), and leave my central thesis unchallenged. Champagne please!

Also, it is obvious to everyone that you are not the “Concerned” writer who wrote the original query. What is your agenda in impersonating someone else? Is someone paying you to comment and tweet?

I suppose the Ethicator does not see his classic white straight able-bodied handsome thin-privileged position as anything other than reason for us to allow him this kind of latitude, but I say we burn him in effigy, after connecting his dummy to one closely resembling either his brother or someone more attractive, in case there are any fetishists whose needs so require (recognizing that no one is quite so oppressed as the fetishists whose desires cannot actually be realized by the socially-constructed limitations of the material universe).

Unite! We have nothing to lose in this action but the comfortably cool spring temperatures that have finally descended over the upper midwest!

Dear Appalled: On what authority do you diagnose and prescribe medication for me? Are you licensed to do this? If I am suffering from an illness, as you allege I am, what pill do you have in mind? An amphetamine? A hallucinogen? You do not say. Only “take a pill”. Your words. There is nothing evidence-based about your diagnosis. It must be withdrawn, promptly and unreservedly.

Take a pill.

Sincerely,
Appalled

It has been more than an hour since I answered your question, and I have heard nothing from you. Inasmuch as silence bespeaks acquiescence, I take it that you agree with every point that I made, withdraw your question and apologize to me. I will now proceed to dance a merry jig in celebration of my victory in this debate.

Yours sincerely,
The Ethicator