Month: September 2022

Ethics Dunce: Fox Sports Radio host Doug Gottlieb

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I’ve been somewhat remiss in my coverage of baseball ethics in recent months; its been like Sauce Bearnaise Syndrome: the Red Sox have been having such a nauseating season that even thinking about baseball has been painful. This story broke through my wall of pain because it also pings my legal ethics alarms.

Back on June 29 (before the Red Sox turned into mud, in fact),  Fox Sports Radio host Doug Gottlieb tweeted that LA Dodger Freddie Freeman’s agent, Casey Close, never communicated a contract offer that the Braves had made to free agent Freeman last winter before Freeman left the team he had always played on to sign with the Dodgers. Freeman was upset about the report; the Braves, and the Atlanta fans were also outraged, because Freeman was a popular and superb player for the Braves. Casey Close, however, was more upset than all of them combined. Not communicating a contract offer to a client is a throbbing neon ethics violation for a sports agent (it would lead to suspension of a law license if a lawyer did it) and Gottlieb’s claim could ruin Close’s career if it couldn’t be disproved. Close sued Gottlieb for defamation in July. Continue reading →

Our Arrogant, Ignorant, Corrosive Celebrities

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Hollywood blogger Christian Toto can be forgiven for perhaps—perhaps—over-estimating the influence of celebrities on public opinion; he does live in Tinseltown, after all. But if he’s off in his alarm, he’s not off by much. Reacting to superstar Jennifer Lawrence’s political rants in a new Vogue interview, Toto writes in part,

There’s no reason for Lawrence to get political in a Vogue feature story….Lawrence mentioned politics to gin up support from her fellow progressive stars. It’s a career choice, and arguably a smart one considering the state of the industry. It still hurts the country, and apparently she doesn’t care.

Conservatives will blast her comments. Liberals will either nod in agreement or think she’s gone too far. Everyone, though, will acknowledge the obvious. It’s another sign of a country teetering toward a breakup.

Yes, Lawrence is just one celebrity. And no, celebrities can’t stop climate change, gun crimes or other maladies. They can’t even pull off an Oscars ceremony without a physical altercation …

They do have bully pulpits, though, and when their interviews go viral the messages reach the masses. For better and worse.

Lawrence’s message is clear. Hate half of the country that doesn’t align with your political party, even if they’re your own flesh and blood…she’s so intolerant she can’t share empathy with her family.

Where does that leave the rest of us?

Well, unless we recognize that in most cases celebrities don’t know what they are talking about when they delve into topics unrelated to their specialized niche, and have been made stupid by bias, narcissism and living in an echo chamber (if they weren’t stupid already), it leaves us being influenced by fools.

Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 9/7/2022: Neil, Sam, Kwame, Mehmet And More

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I took a wild guess that Neil had to have done this parody of his biggest hit because it was so obvious, and sure enough, I was right!

It’s not exactly an ethics story, but it does involve my home town of Arlington, Massachusetts: on September 7, 1813, a local newspaper in Troy, New York wrote about how Troy’s Samuel Wilson, a meat packer who supplied barrels of beef to the United States Army during the War of 1812, was being facetiously called “Uncle Sam” by soldiers because he stamped the barrels of meat “U.S.” The trivial story caught on and the nickname persisted. Decades later, brilliant 19th Century political cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902) began using a character called Uncle Sam as the personification of the nation, giving Sam the white beard and stars-and-stripes suit that he still wears today. Troy, quite reasonably, later dubbed itself “The Home of Uncle Sam.” But Wilson was born in Arlington, Mass., and the town management, frustrated with its relative obscurity despite being in the midst of other Greater Boston tourist destinations like Concord, Lexington and Cambridge, decided a few decades ago to promote Arlington as “The Birthplace of Uncle Sam,” essentially horning in on Troy’s historical territory (Troy was not pleased). Arlington even paid to have a statue of Nast’s Sam designed, cast and erected.

Nobody cared.

1. More on “quiet quitting”:  Gallup estimates that at least half the workforce is “quiet quitting,” meaning that it does the bare minimum required to keep jobs rather than working to do their best. Gallup’s analysis blames management, which is certainly part of the problem. It does not address the serious cultural ethics issue of workers seeking to be excellent because it is beneficial for society as a whole and an embodiment of the Golden Rule, as well as a life habit that develops good character and justifies trust. Quiet quitters are just a few degrees better than freeloaders, an anchor on the nation, the economy and the quality of life. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I guess I’m going to have to show young Doocy more respect. The flagrant nepotism that allowed him to acquire an on-air job with Fox News made me reflexively suspicious of his qualifications, but he has proved himself to be a quick learner, a tough questioner, and as in this latest episode, gutsy.

Doocy asked President Biden’s paid liar Karine Jean-Pierre about Democratic claims that the 2016 election was “stolen” or illegitimate as a counterpoint to the President’s Reichstag address last week asserting that GOP rhetoric that Biden’s 2020 election victory was illicit threatened democracy.  When Jean-Pierre ducked Doocy’s question, saying that the White House will focus on the present rather than 2016 (baseball fans recognize this as the “Mark McGwire Deflection”), Doocy read her some of her own past tweets, like…

and…

“If denying an election is extreme now, why wasn’t it then?” Doocy asked. Continue reading →

Afternoon Ethics Provocations, 9/6/2022: The Angry Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Close calls: I recently stumbled upon some polling from the period preceding World War II regarding the American public’s position on whether the U.S. should fight Germany. Here’s the most depressing of the surveys:

Another set of figures, from Gallup, are a bit better. These old survey results lead to the following notes:

  • What would the world be like today if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor, and Hitler had not preemptively declared war on the U.S.? The attack might be one of the best examples I know of how a terrible event can lead to an objectively beneficial outcome: moral luck exemplified.
  • Karine Jean-Pierre, who speaks for the White House, said last week that “when you are not with where a majority of Americans are, then, you know, that is extreme.”
  • You know: polls.

1. I did not know this, and I’m now sorry I do. But not especially surprised: a Pew survey from 2019 revealed that the “U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households.” I see no reason for the data to have improved in three years, do you? And, of course, the reason this terrible condition exists is for the reason discussed frequently here: an elimination of crucial ethical norms because the society decided that it was more important not to shame or stigmatize irresponsible and damaging conduct than to minimize it. The consequences flowing from this failure in maintaining ethical standards is wide-ranging, disastrous, and too extensive to analyze here. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Day: Arizona Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Kari Lake

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

“Since when can we not ask questions about our elections? As a journalist for many years—I was a journalist after 2016 and I distinctly remember many people just like you, asking a lot of questions about the 2016 election results and nobody tried to shut you up….”

—-GOP candidate for Governor of Arizona Kari Lake, responding to a reporter who baited her with a “whataboutism” question referring to Donald Trump “dividing the nation” by “falsely telling people he won [the 2020] election”?

I don’t know much about Lake or the Arizona governor race, but GOP leaders, candidates and party supporters should study and memorize Lake’s full response to the Democrat-pimping reporter’s question, ““You feel like Joe Biden is dividing the country. Do you feel Donald Trump is doing the same by falsely telling people he won that election when he lost it?”

Lake’s full (perfect) reply:

“How does that divide the country? Questioning an election where there are obviously problems is dividing the country? Since when can we not ask questions about our elections? As a journalist for many years—I was a journalist after 2016 and I distinctly remember many people just like you, asking a lot of questions about the 2016 election results and nobody tried to shut you up. Nobody tried to tell Hillary Clinton to shut up. Nobody tried to tell Kamala Harris when she was questioning the legitimacy of these electronic voting machines to stop. We have freedom of speech in this country and you of all that people should appreciate that. You’re supposedly a journalist. You should appreciate that. So I don’t see how asking questions about an election where there were many problems is ‘dividing’ a country. What I do see divided a country is shutting people down, censoring people, canceling people, trying to destroy people’s lives when they do ask questions. Last I heard we still have the Constitution. It’s hanging by a thread thanks to some of the work some people in this area have done. But we’re going to save that Constitution and we’re going to bring back freedom of speech. And maybe someday you’ll thank us for that.”

As to that last sentence, I very much doubt it.

Assuming the quote is being reported accurately, that is an impressive and fair response even if Lake had expected the question and had her answer polished and ready. Gee, isn’t it nice when candidates can speak in complete sentences and make clear, organized, articulate statements on the fly?

Continue reading →

A Chess Ethics Controversy!

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

And it’s a chess ethics controversy that I don’t understand, despite a relatively secure knowledge of chess. Here’s what happened:

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen quit the annual, invite-only Sinquefield Cup chess tournament in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, a stop on the Grand Chess Tour, mid-match. His unprecedented exit sparked speculation that he was engaged in a silent protest after losing to Hans Niemann, regarded as an inferior player. Niemann was accused of cheating earlier in his career.

Opined WorldChess.com,  “Carlsen likely walked out because he felt that the organizers could not ensure fair play procedures.” This was the consensus of many chess fans and commentators as well. Chess Grand Master Hikaru Nakamura also theorized that Carlsen withdrew because he suspected Niemann of cheating in their game, saying: “I think that Magnus believes that Hans probably is cheating.”

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Keep Talking And Tweeting, Sam: Eventually Almost Everybody Will Figure Out That You’re Ridiculous…Won’t They?”

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

I wasn’t able to get three Extradimensional Cephalopod Comments of the Day up yesterday as I said I was trying to do. Sorry. This is the intended #2: EC’s excellent outline of how to have a rational discussion with someone who is gratuitously calling people and groups he or she disagrees with “fascists.”

I strongly suspect that most people one would have this conversation with are too far over the metaphorical moon to respond in an encouraging manner, but the theory is sound, and as many have said in many ways, you never know unless you try.

Here is Extradimensional Cephalopod‘s Comment of the Day on the post, “Keep Talking And Tweeting, Sam: Eventually Almost Everybody Will Figure Out That You’re Ridiculous…Won’t They?”

***

As one of the tiny percentage of competent philosophers on this planet, I recommend that we start asking people to explain what fascism means to them–after putting them in a calm frame of mind, that is. It’s part of the deconstruction method: 1) make them comfortable; 2) make them think; 3) make them choose. In this case, we don’t have to make them choose. We can just gather information.

Example:

Step 1: Make them comfortable. Continue reading →

Now THIS Is An Unethical Movie Review!

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0qTlBst_8c

True, it comes to us from The Daily Kos, so it shouldn’t be news. That far, far Left site jumped the ethics shark so long ago, the shark was a Megalodon, and the Julie Principle was devised for such situations. The Daily Kos is dishonest, biased, and believes in stimulating its loyal progressive-wacko readership by any means necessary, so why is Ethics Alarms pointing out that it is again doing what it does and can be relied upon to do, without shame or regret?

Just this: unethical film, stage, and book reviews are a passion of mine, and I’ve never seen one this bad.

The headline at the Kos is “Movie review: ‘My Son Hunter’ is a soft-porn conspiracy flick for weird conservative incels.”

Continue reading →

Be Proud, Mainstream Media And Health “Experts”! This Is Your Doing…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

That is poor Vanessa Sun above, an obviously intelligent young woman (even though she does include her pronouns in her social media profiles) who has been turned into a mad phobic by years of pandemic hysteria, political manipulation and fearmongering. She writes on Twitter, “The universities said we are doing the personal responsibility approach so now I will be lugging this large air purifier to my classes 2x a week.”

Vanessa is an MIT geochemistry PhD student, and has been reduced to this.

Where is the accountability for turning millions of U.S. citizens into whatever this is?