Month: January 2021

Ethics Quiz: The Fake Inspirational Story

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

1927NYYankees5

Ethics Alarms touched on this area here, when I related the example of a defense lawyer who won over the jury in the sensational Richard Scrushy fraud case with a vivid but made-up anecdote:

My favorite ethics moment is when Scrushy’s main trial lawyer, Jim Parkman, is asked about his headline-making anecdote in his opening statement, in which he quoted his grandmother as always telling him”every pancake, no matter how thin, has two sides.” “Did your grandmother really say that?” Parkman’s asked on camera. “No,” he admits after a long pause. “But she could have!”

Lying to a jury would seem to be a serious ethical violation for a lawyer, and by the wording of the rules, it should be. But every lawyer I’ve discussed Parkman’s tactic with agrees that such non-substantive lies would never result in professional discipline. (I think they should be.)

But what about inspirational stories and anecdotes that aren’t true? Does the end justify the means? Brian Childers’ story about Tommy Lasorda reminded me of another Lasorda story. Managing in the minors before becoming the third-longest tenured manager with a single team in baseball history, the ever-ebullient leader of the Spokane AAA team was faced with a dispirited squad that has lost nine straight games. Tommy bucked them up by reminding the players that the 1927 Yankees of “Murderer’s Row” fame, then and now the consensus choice as the greatest baseball team of all-time, also lost nine games straight. His team was cheered, and not only broke out of their slump, but went on a winning streak.

Asked later if it was true that the team of the Babe, the “Iron Horse” and the rest ever lost nine in a row, Lasorda answered, “Hell, I don’t know. But it turned my team around when they thought so!!”

Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up That I Forgot To Post Until Now, 1/12/2021, And I Am Abashed…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Businessman with a paper bag on head

1. More for the “Scared Yet?” Files; Many thanks to Michael R, in his comment on this post, for reminding me about the scary decision of the National Association of Realtors, one of the nation’s largest trade organization, to start trying to control members speech in and away from the workplace. This should be a stand-alone post, but I’m behind, so I’ll cover this revolting development now.

The NAR revised its professional ethics code to ban “hate speech and harassing speech” by its 1.4 million members. The new rules will allow investigations, fines or expulsion of real estate agents who insult, threaten or harass” people based on race, sex, or other legally protected characteristics. Of course, what is harassment or haye speech is in the eye of thebeholder, and all such rules potentially chill speech and expression by creating fear at the source. According to the group’s online training sessions, the sweeping prohibition applies to association members every minute of the day, covering all communication, private and professional, written and spoken, online and off. A maximum fine could be as high as $15,000.

Mary Wagner, a white, lesbian real estate agent, says the rule fits her vision for creating a fairer society, and she predicts predicts thousands of complaints this year. You know: fair. Want to wreck a competitor? Report a politically-incorrect joke someone claims the competitor made to a neighbor while walking his dog. Mary says she’s thrilled about the move….. because she’s a left-wing fascist. Res ipsa loquitur.

You can quote me on that.

Continue reading →

China. The Emergent Competitor

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

China

Guest post by Michael West.

[I realized…I’m a little slow sometimes…that it was silly to call outstanding posts on Ethics Alarms Open Forums “comments” when they are, in fact, stand alone essays. With this example by Michael West, Ethics Alarms will, when appropriate, designate such commentary as guest posts. That will not mean that my answer to all of the people who tell me they love Ethics Alarms and want to contribute with product promotions or articles on haberdashery, insect larvae or cosmetics will be changing. It’s still NO. JM]

This will be a tough nut to crack. We’re heavily “interdependent” with them economically (but we don’t have to be). We’re becoming direct competitors in the eastern Pacific.

From an “all nations are equal” point of view America has the distinct positional advantage. We have allies ringing the Chinese periphery on one side. As frontiers are described, nations prefer a “peripheral zone” around their “cultural core” before the nation even reaches the “fringe” or the “frontier”.

For the vast majority of American history, the core was the “Boston-Washington corridor”, with the periphery being the “North” +West Coast and the “fringe” being “the South and the West Coast” and the frontier being “the Southwest” and Alaska + Hawaii, with outposts in the wide ranging Pacific. America has been “comfortable”.

China…with landmasses in it’s ideal “peripheral zone” being oriented towards the United States: Japan and Taiwan, and several being neutral but more inclined to the USA, such as Vietnam….and with landmasses in it’s “fringe and frontier”, such as Indonesia and Singapore, being oriented towards the United States, has never enjoyed the “comfort” that the USA has felt.

But that’s okay…because all things are not “being equal”. I don’t care that a Communist country that inflicts as much pain on it’s landed periphery and fringe- Tibet and Western China- that it would love to inflict on its Pacific periphery. They are the Bad Guys.

Continue reading →

For The “Scared Yet?” Files: Glenn Greenwald On Parler’s Take-Down

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

List of apps

Greenwald, who lost his own organization for insisting on fair reporting on the Hunter Biden scandal deliberately hidden from the public by the partisan media, has delivered an excellent account of what was done to Parler. This is why Ethics Alarms subscribes to his new platform, substack. He is one of that nearly extinct species, a journalist who reports the facts, wherever they may lead.

Of the attack on Parler, the surging alternative to Twitter, Greenwald writes in part,

If one were looking for evidence to demonstrate that these tech behemoths are, in fact, monopolies that engage in anti-competitive behavior in violation of antitrust laws, and will obliterate any attempt to compete with them in the marketplace, it would be difficult to imagine anything more compelling than how they just used their unconstrained power to utterly destroy a rising competitor…In October, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law issued a 425-page report concluding that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google all possess monopoly power and are using that power anti-competitively. For Apple, they emphasized the company’s control over iPhones through its control of access to the App Store….Parler learned that Google, without warning, had also “suspended” it from its Play Store, severely limiting the ability of users to download Parler onto Android phones. Google’s actions also meant that those using Parler on their Android phones would no longer receive necessary functionality and security updates….

Continue reading →

Ethics Coda, 1/11/21, At The End Of A Long, Bad Day…

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

end

1. Let’s start with an Ethics Alarms project…I’d like to see as many people as possible to post this story on Facebook: “Facebook Suspends Ron Paul Following Column Criticizing Big Tech Censorship.” I did, just to see if Facebook would suspend me. After all, it banned Ethics Alarms for two years because I dared to question whether it was fair to regard Fred Astaire’s use of dark make-up to portray Bill Robinson in a “Top Hat”number as racist. Ron Paul did nothing except share an article he wrote criticizing Twitter and Facebook for banning President Donald Trump from their platforms. Paul wrote in part,“The justifications given for the silencing of wide swaths of public opinion made no sense and the process was anything but transparent. Nowhere in President Trump’s two ‘offending’ Tweets, for example, was a call for violence expressed explicitly or implicitly. It was a classic example of sentence first, verdict later.”

Yup. That makes sense. It makes more sense than a lot of what Paul says. There is no possible justification for what Facebook did. (So far, I haven’t been “deplatformed.” I just checked.)

What’s going on here?

2. Race-baiting at its worst. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)—yes, the same guy the expressed concern that U.S. troops on Guam might cause it to “tip over”—told a nodding Al Sharpton that he has “no doubt” that the Trump supporters who raided the U.S. Capitol would have “lynched” black lawmakers like him had not police prevented it. He really said this. He may even believe it. He is part of the Democratic House majority. Does anyone in that majority have the integity to tell him he’s an irresponsible fool, or is this the accepted narrative: that Americans who don’t trust the election results want to kill African Americans? That’s funny: it’s a lot like the idea behind the riots the Democrats and mainstream media were justifying over the summer,

But it’s not just Johnson, though he’s special.

Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Month:Rep. Alex Moody (R-WV) [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments

us-constitution-01a

“It is wrong to have sent members of Congress home and then try to adopt without any debate a precedent-setting resolution that could imperil our Republic. The U.S. House must never adopt a resolution that demands the removal of a duly elected president, without any hearings, debate or recorded votes.”

— Congressman Alex Mooney, blocking the Democrats’ idiotic and unethical attempt to pass a unanimous motion calling on Vice-President Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which is neither relevant nor legal under current circumstances.

Why yes, Congressman, it is! Not that you don’t deserve credit for speaking up, but it increasingly appears that the latest, most petty and potentially most dangerous effort by Democrats to prematurely end Donald Trunp’s tenure as President is incompetent, grandstanding, and not very serious, as if trying to remove a President shouldn’t always be serious.

On the other hand, after 19 previous attempts, maybe these mini-coups are like eating buttered popcorn to these vicious hacks. Once they start, they just can’t stop.

Mooney’s statement began, “Today I objected to Speaker Pelosi’s attempt to adopt via unanimous consent a resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump. Speaker Pelosi should not attempt to adopt a resolution of this magnitude without any debate on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.”

Exactly. It’s good to know someone in that big, white domey thing can read.

Pelosi’s statement, in contrast, suggest that she’s the one who has become unable to discharge the duties of her office:

Continue reading →

Wait..A Company Did WHAT To Its Own Employees??? WHAAAAT?

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

KABOOM!

Head explodes

I know there have been companies that treated their employees worse, but still, this story is truly horrible.

Internet service and website company GoDaddy apologized to its employees for not having a Christmas party this year—pandemic you know—but announced with a cheery card that the company would make it up with a holiday bonus instead.

Go daddy fake

Who wouldn’t prefer a bonus to a party? All they had to do, they were told by the email from HappyHoliday@GoDaddy.com,

Go Daddy 2

…was to click on a a link asking them them to verify their identity by entering their company login credentials. About 500 eager employees signed up.

A few days later, they received another email from the company informing them that they had flunked a company phishing test. The bonus offer was fake, and because they had fallen for it, they would have to attend a remedial class on Internet security.

If fact, GoDaddy didn’t give out any bonuses this year.

What’s wrong with GoDaddy’s conduct?

How about…everything?

Continue reading →

From The “Scared Yet?” Files…Ethics Dunce: Cumulus Media; Ethics Hero: Mark Levin

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

zipping the lip

It’s interesting, isn’t it? The Washington Post, which has been suppressing news unfavorable to progressives and Democrats for years, delivered a thorough and competent report on conservative Cumulus Media muzzling its hosts regarding doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

The Post reports:

Cumulus Media, which employs some of the most popular right-leaning talk-radio hosts in the United States, has told its on-air personalities to stop suggesting that the election was stolen from President Trump — or else face termination.…

“We need to help induce national calm NOW,” Brian Philips, executive vice president of content for Cumulus, wrote in an internal memo, which was first reported by Inside Music Media. Cumulus and its program syndication arm, Westwood One, “will not tolerate any suggestion that the election has not ended. The election has been resolved and there are no alternate acceptable ‘paths.’ ” The memo adds: “If you transgress this policy, you can expect to separate from the company immediately.”

Some comments, in no particular order:

Continue reading →

“Scared Yet?” (Cont.)

/ Jack Marshall / 67 Comments

Instagram take-down

In what will likely be, I’m sorry to say, a continuing feature here as social media and the Big Tech firms attempt to misuse their power to restrict the flow of information that might be unfavorable to their political allies, this post is a follow-up to this one, and this, the original “Scared Yet?”

“Not the Bee,” a conservative site that, as the title suggests, writes about current events and political horror stories that read like satire, but are, unfortunately, true, reports that Instagram took down this post…

Instagram takedown2

…with the message above.

The post is absolutely true, as NTB points out,

Because, you see, the day after permanently banning Trump for “inciting violence,” Twitter really did allow “Hang Mike Pence” to trend. Multiple forms of that sentiment, actually.

If anyone can figure out how the removed post “incites” violence, please explain it to me and the Ethics Alarms readership.

When Tommy Lasorda Coached “Danny Kaye”: An Ethics Tale

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Brian and Tommy

I wrote about my friend Brian Childers, a brilliant actor, singer, and all-around great guy, in this post, “An Act Of Kindness, Danny Kaye And Me : An Ethics Case Study,” from five years ago. It’s worth reading, if you haven’t already or don’t remember it. Brian continues to have a thriving career in New York City, with a successful album, roles in plays and musicals, and periodically, thrilling audiences with his dynamic recreation of Danny Kaye’s legendary one-man performances, the legacy of an adventure he and I set out upon over two decades ago.

I was recently tagged in a Facebook post by Brian, who related for the first time a revealing encounter he had with Tommy Lasorda, the Hall of Fame manager of the LA Dodgers for many years and legendary for his leadership abilities, lovable personality and positive attitude. Tommy died recently at the age of 93, and baseball fan that I am, I had been trying to justify mentioning him in an ethics post. Well, Brian took care of that with his usual flare.

He wrote in part,

I had the enormous privilege to meet this sports legend while performing at the Hollywood Bowl for 3 nights in 2008. The event was called “A Ball at the Bowl” and it was celebrating 50 years of the Dodgers in LA. I was there to sing Danny Kaye’s “D-O-D-G-E-R-S” song and one other with the LA Philharmonic.

Tommy’s dressing room was right across the hall from mine. On the first night, Tommy, whom I had never met, surprised me by knocking on my dressing room door. He introduced himself and was incredibly friendly. When he asked what I was doing in the event, I said I would be singing Danny Kaye’s Dodgers song with the orchestra.

He was ecstatic, but IMMEDIATELY put on his coach’s hat. “ You gotta go out there and you gotta sing great! You gotta go out there and knock em dead, Just focus on the song and you are gonna knock it out of the park,” he said, just like I was a rookie getting ready to play my first game. I thanked him for his encouragement.

While I was performing, I could hear Tommy in the wings yelling and clapping. When I walked off stage, he pounded me on the back, shouting, “Great job! You hit a home run buddy!”

Continue reading →