Month: December 2022

Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz Of The Day: ‘Gotcha!’ Or ‘Benefit Of The Doubt’?”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The recent ethics quiz about the apparent swastika pattern in the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle triggered many fascinating responses, none more so than curmie’s Comment of the Day. Here (again) is the provocative puzzle:

…and here is curmie’s COTD on the post, “Ethics Quiz Of The Day: ‘Gotcha!’ Or ‘Benefit Of The Doubt’?”:

***

This one is fascinating. Were I still in the classroom, I’d definitely be using it as an example of the way the postmodern idea of meaning being created by the receiver rather than the sender plays out in real life as well as in art per se.

There’s a little bit of Hanlon’s Razor, a little bit of Paul Simon’s line in “The Boxer” that “a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.” However we frame it, it seems to me that an individual’s response to this stimulus tells us more about the respondent than it does about the creator of the puzzle. I say this as neutrally as possible: there are those, like Steve Witherspoon, to whom “the white outlined swastika jumped off the page.” There are those, like P.M. Lawrence, who struggle to see the design even when knowing what to look for.

Two observations, both of them important. First, neither response is wrong, although they seem totally at odds. Second, I am not suggesting that an individual’s response is necessarily linked to an ideology or demographic. That is, having a positive or negative view of the NYT, leaning to the left or the right politically, being Jewish or not… any of all of these considerations might influence our reactions, but I’d be surprised if there aren’t a significant number of people from every combination of these factors on both sides of this issue. Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 12/21/2022:Chilly Ethics…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

(I know that’s not a very holiday-cheery graphic, but it’s how this Jack feels—like Jack Nicholson playing Frozen Jack Torrance in “The Shining”—after walking Spuds this chilly morning…)

A few notes before we start in earnest…

  • Relatively few lawyers in the D.C. area (that I have talked with on the topic)seem to think Rudy Giuliani either should be disbarred or will be for, in the over-heated words of the D.C. Bar’s ethics prosecutor, “weaponizing his bar license.” Those who do see doom for Rudy seem to be in the  group of  hyper-partisan lawyers (bias makes you stupid!) who want to make it impossible for Donald Trump to get effective legal representation, which allies the attack on old Rudy with the recent referral to the Justice Department for prosecution of the former President from a transparently partisan “Get Trump!” investigation in the House.
  • Ed Larson, the Pulitzer-winning historian who collaborated with me on “The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow” (a great Christmas gift!) has just written a new book, “American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation.” It promises to be excellent, and a scholarly as well as fascinating tonic for “1619 Project” nonsense.
  • An unscientific survey: based on lawn decorations in Alexandria, Virginia, secular Christmas has now completely obliterated the religious holiday, and we have returned to the holiday’s pagan origins. I’ve been counting: inflatables of Will Farrell in “Elf” (8 to 1) and Chevy Chase being electrocuted in “Christmas Vacation” (4-1)  outnumber any references to Jesus’s birth…indeed, a single, lonely creche is the only hint of that event among over a hundred homes in my neighborhood. Snowmen dominate the lawn genre completely here. Back in my Arlington, Massachusetts days, it was common to see multiple manger scenes on every street and road.

1. Diversity follies…The Washington Post completely beclowned itself by allowing academic race-hustler Erika Edwards to author an op-ed titled “Why doesn’t Argentina have more Black players in the World Cup?” Apart from the obvious and correct answer, “Because the players the team has are the best players, and you don’t choose athletic team squads via affirmative action,” there is also the fact that the percentage of African-Argentinians in the country is 0.37%. Never mind: the Post allowed Edwards to imply the country was racially biased against blacks anyway. Said critic Ignacio Manuel García Medina,

Why is Argentina’s national team any more racist for not having any black players than Japan’s national team for having only Asians? Why is not Cameroon’s team racist for not having any whites, Latinos or Asians? The answer seems obvious: because The Washington Post is only interested in bombarding us with the white supremacist narrative that the left loves and exploits so much.The Washington Post‘s ridiculous article would prove that those who boast most about respect and tolerance for other cultures are actually the ones who look down on others. The readers of The Washington Post deserve much more than articles that pretend to be well-documented but think that soccer teams and countries should be like a Netflix movie.

Yup!

Continue reading →

Tales Of The Great Stupid: The Tweet Speaks For Itself

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Woods bills herself as a film and TV critic, and she is complaining about “cultural appropriation” by whites regarding a nonexistent, science fiction culture. Are the Avatar people (whatever they’re called: I don’t care) considered “of color” on their planet? Has “The Great Stupid” spread that far?

Woods made this head-exploding, antiwhite statement, was fabulously mocked for it, and because she didn’t have the wit or rhetorical skills to debate her critics on the merits of her assertion (there are none), she shut down comments on her tweet.

And I thought “The Simpsons” insisting that Dr. Hibbard, a black cartoon character, had to be voiced by an “actor of color” was bonkers. This is the equivalent of insisting that Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer needs to be voiced by a BIPOC actor in the old Rankin-Bass cartoon because deer are brown.

People like Kathia Woods—you know, morons—in sufficient volume and given a critical level of exposure, will eventually render the human race too dumb to survive, like the dodo.

Comment Of The Day: “Comment Of The Day: A Language Ethics Quiz: Regarding ‘Groomer’”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This is complicated. Humble Talent’s Comment of The Day, in addition to being sparked by Mrs. Q’s comment, also responded to the comment on Mrs. Q’s Comment of the Day by dekerivers, whose quote begins Humble Talent’s post. All are relevant to the assertions about the term “groomer” made by RL Stroller, which are discussed here.

Got all that? Good…now, as my dad used to say in such situations, explain it to me.

***

“From my perspective as a gay man, teachers and school programs today are designed to foster a child to see themselves as who they are and allow for the expression of their individualism, which includes sexual orientation and identity.”

From my perspective as a gay man, if that actually all they were doing, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. Oh sure, there are legitimately Americans who still hate the fact that gay people exist, so *a* conversation would be going on, but it wouldn’t be this one.

And that, I think, basically encapsulates my disagreement with you: You ignore too much. you accept to much. You have done what so many people who identify with the acronym have done and taken in some awful people who have done shitty things and wrapped them up in the protection of inclusivity.

Just recently, during the Balenciaga SNAFU… There was a contingent of people saying that the moral panic du jour over pedophilia was an attack on LGBTQ people. Now, I believe that was a poorly designed shock campaign gone bad… But no one mentioned gay people. No one mentioned groomers. This is something the LGBTQ community took upon themselves, and I’m left standing at the outside of that, horrified at the implication. I don’t know how much lifting that + does for you, but it apparently does some heavy lifting elsewhere. I make it simple: Pedophiles don’t get to sit at my table. I don’t see an attack on pedophiles as an attack on me. I don’t know what exactly went on in Balenciaga’s office space, but it was fucking dumb, and no skin off my ass if they get called out.

Continue reading →

Twitter Files VII: Here’s More News That’s Fit To Print That The NYT Won’t, And Sunlight That The WaPo Will Block To Keep Us In Darkness…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The latest document drop from Twitter is reported by Michael Shellenberger. I shouldn’t have to do this: real journalists, if there were any, should do it. Yes, I know there’s a Twitter app that will collect tweet-burts like this, but I’m not on Twitter yet and won’t be until I’m certain where this wheel-of-chaos will stop.

As ought to be apparent by now, there are three separate but interlocking ethics matters here. One is, of course, the dastardly and fair election-staining conspiracy by the mainstream news media, social media and the “deep state” intelligence and law enforcement agencies to ensure that Joe Biden won the Presidency in 2020. (No, it is irrelevant that he probably would have won anyway. That is like saying that Barry Bonds deserves to be in the Hall of Fame because he was good enough that he didn’t have to cheat.) The second ethics issue is the implications of the convincing evidence of government agencies using their power and influence to work around the First Amendment and censor speech (and specific individuals) they found inconvenient to their political agendas.

The third is the ongoing refusal of the mainstream media to report this. I regard this the most serious of the three, and the other two are very serious indeed.

Here is “Twitter Files,” part 7. As before, you’ll need to go to the link to see the attachments, which are helpful. A lot is repetitive, but this quote alone is worth reviewing the material: “As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — “Bu alumni” — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals.”

In Twitter Files #6, we saw the FBI relentlessly seek to exercise influence over Twitter, including over its content, its users, and its data. In Twitter Files #7, we present evidence pointing to an organized effort by representatives of the intelligence community (IC), aimed at senior executives at news and social media companies, to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was published.

The story begins in December 2019 when a Delaware computer store owner named John Paul (J.P.) Mac Isaac contacts the FBI about a laptop that Hunter Biden had left with him On Dec 9, 2019, the FBI issues a subpoena for, and takes, Hunter Biden’s laptop. By Aug 2020, Mac Isaac still had not heard back from the FBI, even though he had discovered evidence of criminal activity. And so he emails Rudy Giuliani, who was under FBI surveillance at the time. In early Oct, Giuliani gives it to@nypost.

Shortly before 7 pm ET on October 13, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, emails JP Mac Isaac. Hunter and Mesires had just learned from the New York Post that its story about the laptop would be published the next day. At 9:22 pm ET (6:22 PT), FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan sends 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter.The next day, October 14, 2020, The New York Post runs its explosive story revealing the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Every single fact in it was accurate. And yet, within hours, Twitter and other social media companies censor the NY Post article, preventing it from spreading and, more importantly, undermining its credibility in the minds of many Americans. Why is that? What, exactly, happened?

On Dec 2, Matt Taibbi  described the debate inside Twitter over its decision to censor a wholly accurate article. Since then, we have discovered new info that points to an organized effort by the intel community to influence Twitter & other platforms. First, it’s important to understand that Hunter Biden earned *tens of millions* of dollars in contracts with foreign businesses, including ones linked to China’s government, for which Hunter offered no real work. Here’s an overview by investigative journalist  @peterschweizer

And yet, during all of 2020, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies repeatedly primed Yoel Roth to dismiss reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop as a Russian “hack and leak” operation. This is from a sworn declaration by Roth given in December 2020:

Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Colorado Avalanche Defenseman Cale Makar

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I bet this doesn’t become a trend.

During the Colorado Avalanche–New York Islanders game last night in the first period, Avalanche star defenseman Cale Makar had the puck behind his team’s net while being pursued by Islanders forward Mathew Barzal. Makar fell, and looked like that Barzal tripped Makar, so a penalty was called, which would give Colorado a one-player  advantage. But when the referee blew his whistle, Makar  waved at him to indicate it wasn’t a penalty after all.  After briefly conferring the referees retracted the penalty.

This literally never happens in hockey, nor basketball, nor pro football, not Major League Baseball. A player telling a referee or umpire that a call benefiting his team was wrong? That’s not how the professional sports roll. The assumption is that eventually the bad calls even out. If you don’t accept gifts, your team will suffer in the long run.

Barzal’s reaction:  “I honestly didn’t even know he waved it off until I saw it after. I thought the ref just made the call but, yeah, good sportsmanship on his part, not taking that. I don’t know if I would have done the same, to be honest with you.” Continue reading →

Nah, The Democrats Would Never Cheat To Hold On To Power! Whatever Would Make Anyone Think That?

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

I saw the photoshopped Joe Biden photo that “allegedly” had been sent out by “Team Biden” last night, and decided that I couldn’t rely on the conservative source, since I would not put it past “Team GOP” to photoshop a picture and then claim Democrats were responsible. This is what we’ve come to—we literally cannot trust any source, any account, any claim, and neither Right nor Left nor their media mouthpieces are sufficiently trustworthy, fair, honest or decent that you, I or anyone can be sure of the facts about virtually anything.

(Fuck.)

However, I traced down the source of the fake. Here’s the whole photo, in a tweet from Democratic strategist and former party chair Chris Jackson….

Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz Of The Day: “Gotcha!” Or “Benefit Of The Doubt”?

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

That’s yesterday’s Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle, titled “Some Theme’s Missing,”, above. Does the pattern of the letter squares remind you of anything? Given that December 18 is the first night of Hanukkah, many found the resemblance of the puzzle to a Nazi swastika…disturbing. Sinister even.

Republicans pounced. New York Times-haters pounced. Donald Trump Jr. pounced, on Twitter. Israel’s Israel National News thought it notable that the swastika crossword was published following what it deemed an anti-Semitic op-ed by the Times the day before, warning that Benjamin “Netanyahu’s government…is a significant threat to the future of Israel — its direction, its security and even the idea of a Jewish homeland.”

The publication also posted a poll asking readers if the puzzle’s design was “intentional Nazi imagery or an unfortunate coincidence?” Of the 440 votes, nearly 85% deemed the symbol to be deliberate.

Continue reading →

Institutional Ethics Dunce: The U.S. Congress

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The House of Representatives passed legislation last week ordering the Capitol’s bust of Roger Taney, the Supreme Court Chief Justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision, to Hell, or someplace. It will be replaced by a new bust of Thurgood Marshall, the first black judge to serve on Court.

Of course it will. This naked political grandstanding wouldn’t be complete without installing a black judge’s image as a rebuke to the evil white judge. The legislation now heads to President Biden’s desk to be signed, probably followed by a victory jig.

The pandering legislation says that Taney’s bust is “unsuitable for the honor of display to the many visitors to the Capitol.” It currently sits at the entrance of the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol where the Supreme Court met from 1810 to 1860. Taney led the court from 1836 to 1864.

“While the removal of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s bust from the Capitol does not relieve the Congress of the historical wrongs it committed to protect the institution of slavery, it expresses Congress’s recognition of one of the most notorious wrongs to have ever taken place in one of its rooms, that of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s Dred Scott v. Sandford decision,” the legislation says. I wonder how many of the members who voted for the legislation know anything about Taney or have ever engaged in an objective reading of his opinion. My guess: not many. Maybe none.

Continue reading →

The Elon Musk-Twitter Ethics Roller-Coaster Ride Continues

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

(I hate roller-coasters.)

The last week has demonstrated clearly, I think we can all agree, that 1) there is an urgent need for Twitter to be de-politicized, stripped of partisan censorship, and become a trustworthy platform for the unfettered distribution of news, information and opinion to the public, and 2) Elon Musk is too much of a loose cannon to be the manager of Twitter’s reform.

Yesterday almost qualified as a meltdown, or a tantrum, or something. Maybe a joke. Who knows with him? He teased his withdrawal from the daily management of the reeling social media giant. He hinted that the company was teetering on bankruptcy. He put his continued tenure as CEO up for a vote, pledging to abide by the results.

Chaos. Musk is quite a bit like Donald Trump, which shouldn’t be surprising: the successful entrepreneur/ CEO/ autocrat/narcissist is a well-understood personality type, and management by chaos is a management style that can be very effective for the short term in a private company (but not the U.S. government). I worked for a chaos manager for seven years, and he was brilliant at it, but I decided then and there that I could never operate that way. It is hard on subordinates, employees and stake-holders; only the chaotic manager enjoys the pressure. It is a non-Golden Rule management style that relies entirely on utilitarianism as its ethical justification. Yes, the methods causes breakdowns, anxiety and constant crisis, but if it “works,” it’s worth the pain. That’s what Musk has been doing.

Continue reading →