Month: October 2013

Lessons of The Colorado “Trans Bathroom Harassment” Hoax

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

“It’s a liberal world gone mad at one Colorado high school, where the rights of one transgender student have trumped the rights of other students forced to share a bathroom. The transgender student, a male who identifies himself as a female, has sexually harassed female students in the girl’s bathroom at Florence High School, Pacific Justice Institute reported.Not only have parents’ complaints gone nowhere, but the female students have also been threatened with dismissal from athletic teams and hate crimes charges if the complaints don’t stop, according to the institute, a nonprofit religious-rights organization that was alerted by concerned parents.”

 

"Jane Doe": Victim

“Jane Doe”: Victim

This was the story breathlessly reported in various forms this month by conservative media sources, including Fox News. Apparently the sole source for the claim that “a male who identifies himself as a female, has sexually harassed female students in the girl’s bathroom” is the statement that this “allegedly occurred” in a letter to the school sent by the aggressively anti-transgender, ultra-conservative advocacy group, The Pacific Justice Institute.  The PJI has prominently opposed California’s transgender bathroom law, and it seem clear that it viewed this story as a means to an end.

In a case of the conservative media playing the old game of “Telephone,” the PJI letter suggesting that such harassment may have happened was morphed into media reports that it had happened, as Fox, the Examiner, The Blaze and others adopted the story published by the online version of British tabloid, The Daily Mail, as fact. It wasn’t fact, and the Daily Mail has quietly pulled its original story. What appears to have happened is that some virulently anti-trans parents who were livid that the school permitted a boy who self-identified as female to use the female rest rooms contacted the PJI with unsubstantiated and apparently fictional claims, in order to focus hostile attention on the school. Interviewed about the incident, the school’s superintendent flatly denied that any incidents of the kind hinted at by the PJI and reported in the media actually occurred, and to this day, no evidence has been presented that they did occur, no specifics, names, quotes or facts whatsoever, just vague allegations. One student in the school provided this perspective: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: The Buncombe County (North Carolina) Republican Party.

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments
"Who would have guessed that he would look so bad in that interview?"

“Who would have guessed that he would look so bad in that interview?”

If a Republican affiliate has to force its chairman to resign after he proves to the nation that he is 1) so racially insensitive that he might dress up in blackface, tell the AP that Steppin Fetchit was ‘hilarious,’ and call President Obama a “jigaboo”on “Meet the Press” and he 2) doesn’t see what the fuss is, such an affiliate is not responding swiftly to newly revealed crisis. Such an affiliate has a much bigger problem. It has a surfeit of racists, incompetents and idiots. True, Don Yelton, the recently sacked two-term chair of the Buncombe County Republican Party in North Carolina, didn’t quite go that far in his jaw-dropping interview on Comedy Central, but he still spouted enough offensive comments for Match.com to pair him with Michael Richards. Watching the interview, which one can see here, the first impulse might be to ask, “What was he thinking?” Upon reflection, however, the proper question is “Is this man capable of thought?” Continue reading →

Trapped In The Land Of Liars

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments

Liars“In a certain town there are two tribes—one  always tells the truth; the other always lies. A stranger arrived in the town and asked one of the natives whether he was a Truth Teller or a Liar. The native answered, but the stranger didn’t hear the answer. The stranger then asked two other natives who overheard this conversation, what the first man had said. The first replied, “He said he was a Truth Teller.” The second replied, “He said he was a Liar.”

—-Old Brain-Teaser

Senator Dick Durbin (D-ILL)  posted this on his Facebook page:

“Many Republicans searching for something to say in defense of the disastrous shutdown strategy will say President Obama just doesn’t try hard enough to communicate with Republicans. But in a ‘negotiation’ meeting with the president, one GOP House Leader told the president: ‘I cannot even stand to look at you.'”

Durbin, the #2 Democrat in the Senate, much like the #1, Harry Reid (and the GOP #1, Sen. Mitch McConnell, and…but I’m getting ahead of myself) is a serial shiv-master, adept at making explosive and unfair partisan accusations. This one is typically irresponsible and despicable, because he tells the tale of inexcusable disrespect to the President of the United States but does not attach it to any one individual. Unethical. Cowardly. If he’s going to blow the whistle, he has an obligation to blow it and point, so the accused can defend himself. The Golden Rule demands no less. Of course, this method indicts all GOP leaders, which is Durbin’s design.

The Illinois Senator is also not very bright, and thus his account, which is also based on hearsay so he actually cannot know if it is true or not, does not prove what he purports it to prove. The President’s obligation to negotiate and communicate is independent of what any one lawmaker thinks or how that lawmaker may act. Durbin’s argument is the Tit for Tat rationalization: bad conduct by Republicans…or just this one Republican…justifies the President not doing his job. Dumb. Unethical. Unfair.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Sen. Dick Durbin!

But wait, there’s more!

Republicans at the meeting Durbin referenced denied his charge, but we would expect that no matter what happened.  The amazing thing is this: Asked about the alleged incident at a press briefing, White House spokesman Jay Carney, who didn’t have to say anything, replied that he had investigated Durbin’s story, and “it did not happen.” Continue reading →

Case Study: The Botched DP, Baseball, Ethics Evolution, and “Getting It Right”

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

manager-mike-matheny-argues

I know this is a long essay.

Yes, it involves baseball.

Bear with me. I think it is worth your time.

Last night, in Game 1 of the 2013 World Series, embarrassingly kicked away by the St. Louis Cardinals and won handily by some team called the Boston Red Sox,  an intricate ethics drama appeared, allowing us to see the painful process whereby a culture’s ethical standards evolve and change in response to accumulated wisdom, altered attitudes and changing conditions. An obviously mistaken umpire’s call was reversed by the other umpires on the field as the Cardinals manager argued not that the original call had been correct, but that reversing it was a violation of tradition, established practice and precedent….in other words, doing so was wrong, unfair, unethical because “We’ve never  done it this way,” a variation of the Golden Rationalization, “Everybody does it.”   You should not have to appreciate baseball (but if you don’t, what’s the matter with you?) to find the process illuminating and thought-provoking. Continue reading →

If Your Institution Is Named After George Washington, Shouldn’t We Be Able To Trust It To Tell The Truth?

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

The General is not pleased.

The General is not pleased.

Shame on George Washington University (in Washington, D.C.), not only for lying to its students and community, but also for dishonoring the name of the scrupulously ethical American icon which they presumed to expropriate as their own. Such things carry with it some crucial obligations.

For years, the GW admissions and financial aid offices have claimed in printed materials and on the University website that admissions were independent of need. The admissions process does not consider financial need during the first round of screening applications. Before applicants are notified, however the University examines its financial aid budget and decides which students it can actually afford to admit. Wealthier students are accepted, taking the spots of students who would need more financial aid from the University.

Last week, a GW administrator confessed to a student newspaper—one ironically called “The Hatchet” after the apocryphal axe little George used to cop down that cherry tree in Parson Weems’ fable—– that financial resources indeed were considered in the admissions process, and have always been considered despite University statements to the contrary.  As  recently as last weekend, admissions representatives told prospective students that their applications would be judged without consideration of their financial aid profiles. Until it was removed Saturday evening, the newspaper reports, the undergraduate admissions website read, “Requests for financial aid do not affect admissions decisions.”

That site now confirms a “need-aware” policy that has always been in place. George Washington University just had another policy of lying about it. Continue reading →

“BULLY!” Is The New “WITCH!”

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments
"Bully!"

“Bully!”

The Texas father of a high school football player would have been right at home in Salem, in the British New World colony of Massachusetts, around 1692. Then, thanks to hysteria about witchcraft, a vengeful citizen could permanently set the populace against a neighbor who had offended him, say, by winning a lawsuit, stealing a recipe or looking lustfully at his or her significant other, by accusing that neighbor of being a witch. This would inevitably spark an investigation, suspicion, infamy, maybe even a trial…and if the accusation stuck, a sadistic execution, perhaps by piling rocks on the neighbor’s witchy chest until everyone heard the sounds of squishing and cracking.

The cry of “Witch!” doesn’t work so well any more, but accusing someone of being a bully works almost as well. It can cause schools to impose punishment for words and activities that have nothing to do with school, and give law enforcement officials the power to pile rocks on the First Amendment. Now a vengeful father who watched his son’s hapless football team get the just desserts of all hapless teams—losing badly—has successfully punished the victors for being stronger, faster, and better coached, by accusing the superior team—it beat his son’s squad by a score of 91-0—of “bullying.” This mandates an investigation, so the winning team’s coach is now under a cloud, and in peril of seeing his career and reputation squished and cracked.

Mission accomplished! Continue reading →

Stop Lying To Us: Whatever It Is, A “Glitch” It’s Not

/ Jack Marshall / 141 Comments
Now that my head has explode, I need the website to work more than ever, because it's a pre-existing condition...

Now that my head has exploded, I need the website to work more than ever, because it’s a pre-existing condition! Oh, the irony!

The willingness of the media to embrace a carefully chosen cover-word favored by the Obama Administration to try to minimize the disgraceful failure of the Affordable Care Act website to function by deceiving the public regarding its seriousness and implications must be condemned, while not minimizing the blatant absence of respect and transparency President Obama is displaying by allowing such Orwellian tactics to take place with his approval.

Ah, that “transparent” administration! Where did it go? How despicable, and the sycophants, media hacks and Obama apologists are equally despicable for winking at such a cynical attempt at brain-washing by euphemism. The message: “Hey, no big deal! Nothing to see here! We’re doing fine! It’s minor!” It’s not minor. The episode, typical of the whole Obama experience, is reminiscent of one of my favorite exchanges in “Jurassic Park,” after the computer system has failed and prehistoric carnivores are running amuck:

 John Hammond: All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists.

The catastrophic failure of  Healthcare.gov is no “glitch.” Look it up! A glitch is a minor flaw; every definition of it includes “minor.” Most include “self-correcting.” The horrible design of the website has stalled the effective launch of Obamacare, wasted hundreds of thousands of hours, foiled many millions of dollars worth of efforts to correct the problem, and remains unsolved after three weeks! That’s no “glitch.” That’s not minor. That’s not just an inevitable flaw that even the best systems have to adjust to when they get started. That’s a failure. The O-ring that blew up the Space Shuttle wasn’t a glitch, and nobody had the wretched bad taste and disrespect for the victims to spin it as such. Three Mile Island wasn’t a glitch; the Eastern Seaboard Blackout wasn’t a glitch; 9/11 wasn’t a glitch;  Benghazi wasn’t a glitch. Neither is this. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero Emeritus: Sister Antonia Brenner, 1926-2013

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

 

Sister Antonia dies at 86

Sister Antonia caring for a prisoner in La Mesa in 2002

Once again, someone remarkable has died whose life was insufficiently celebrated while she was alive. I had never heard of Antonia Brenner until yesterday. I wish I had.

Mary Clarke was born on Dec. 1, 1926—we share a birthday!— the second of three children. Her father, Joseph, was a prosperous business executive; the family had a second home overlooking the Pacific. After her second marriage, to Carl Brenner, she was known as Mary Brenner, and was the mother of eight children, comfortably ensconced in Beverly Hills.  While struggling through her second divorce, she began doing charity work for the poor in Los Angeles.  A priest friend, Monsignor Anthony Brouwers, took  her to La Mesa state penitentiary in Tijuana, Mexico, which was filled with convicted murderers, thieves, gang members, rapists and other hardened criminals, all living in brutal and inhumane  conditions even by the horrible standards of U.S. prisons. Everything—her life, her name, and most of all, the existence of the prisoners, changed after that.

She became devoted to their plight as human beings, and brought the prisoners basics of comfort that were being withheld from them, at her own expense. She gave them aspirin, blankets, tooth paste, soap, even prescription eyeglasses. She carried spare toilet paper with her, and kep a lookout for other missing essentials. Brenner acquired a prison contract to sell soda pop to prisoners and then used the proceeds to post bail for minor offenders. She began spending more and more time with the prisoners, gaining their affection and trust, even singing in their church services. She treated them with dignity and kindness: when prisoners died, it was Mary Brenner who prepared him for burial. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The SpongeBob Headstones

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

SpongeBob Gravestone Removed

You can’t make stuff like this up.

Apparently I was last one in the nation to learn about the surreal dispute between the parents of the late Kimberly Walker, a 28-year-old Iraq War vet who was  found murdered in a Colorado hotel room eight months ago, and the owners of Cincinnati’s historic  Spring Grove Cemetery, concerning the headstones erected over her grave on October 10.

The cemetery reversed its official approval of the twin monuments, apparently bestowed by someone who had momentarily been possessed by the spirit of Chuck Jones, saying that it would be inappropriate for a traditional and historic 19th Century pastoral cemetery that serves as the final resting place of Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, several Civil War generals including “Fighting Joe” Hooker, who lost the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Hall of Fame manager of the 1927 Yankees, Miller Huggins, and many others, to sport not one but two hideous 6-foot-high, 4-foot-wide, 7,000 pound slabs of granite lovingly carved to depict SpongeBob Squarepants in military gear, one of which displays Kimberly’s name on his uniform. (For those of you who are hopelessly estranged from popular culture, SpongeBob is a fictional deep sea yellow sponge who stars in a popular Nickelodeon cable TV children’s cartoon show. Kimberly, we are told, loved the show. SpongeBob is an idiot, by the way.)

The family is outraged, and feels abused. “I feel like, and we all feel like, SpongeBob should stay there. We bought the plots, all six of them. We put the monuments there, we did what we had to do and they said they could provide that service to us,’ said Walker’s twin sister Kara, who was looking forward to eventually being buried under the second headstone. “I thought it was the greatest thing in the cemetery. I even told the people there that I think this is the best monument I’ve ever seen. It’s the best headstone in the cemetery and they all agreed. It came out really nice.”

Yyyyyyyeah.

Still, putting considerations of taste aside—-and what American these days doesn’t do that daily?—the Walkers duly purchased the plots (they have four more…and just think of what might end up on them) and properly cleared the monuments.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for this lovely Fall day is this:

Does fairness dictate that the Walkers be allowed to erect whatever monuments they choose, including giant, garish sculptures of a cartoon character, to honor the memory of their daughter? Continue reading →

The Unprofessional Cause Of Unprofessional Lawyer Brian Zulberti

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

Brian ZYoung Brian Zulberti may be nice guy. He may even be a competent lawyer, though the chances of his being able to demonstrate that are diminishing daily. Nevertheless, his quixotic and misguided, and dare I say it, really stupid, quest to show that professionalism, judgment and character are not properly relevant to the practice of law is an exercise in hubris that must fail, deserves to fail, and of course, will fail, leaving him to pick up the pieces of fifteen minutes of media fame purchased at the price of a reputation. It looks like he’s having fun, and that’s something, I guess. Ten years from now, I doubt that he’ll think it was worth it.

Shortly after passing the Delaware Bar, Zulberti, a 2009 law school grad,  emailed the entire Bar membership asking for a job. In lieu of his résumé;  he attached a photo of himself in a Villanova Law muscle shirt that would be more at home on a dating site for the shallow. The web also contained his half-naked selfies, and various websites with varying motives picked up the story. Interviewed on YouTube, Zulberti proclaimed that being true to himself was more important to him than getting hired, and that he wasn’t about to change his Facebook privacy settings to portray himself as a traditional, dignified, applicant for legal work.

Let me pause here to say that in many ways I sympathize with Zulberti. Continue reading →