Month: August 2023

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 8/4/2023: “Good Morning!”…To Lizzo, Joe, Hunter, And More

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Good ethics history and bad ethics history on this date. The Good: in 1936, U.S. Olympian Jesse Owens gave a metaphorical “Bite me!” to Adolf Hitler, winning the second of his four gold medals (in the long jump) in Berlin, which had been carefully framed as Nazi Germany’s “master race” showcase. The Bad: this is also the date, in 1944, that the Nazi Gestapo seized 15-year-old Anne Frank and her family from their hidden hideaway in an Amsterdam warehouse.They had occupied the small space with another Jewish family and an unmarried Jewish man since 1942 with the help of Christian friends who brought them food and supplies. Anne spent much of her time in the secret annex working on her now immortal diary. After their refuge was discovered, Anne and all of the others but her father perished in the Nazi death camps.

Even today, more than 80 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, hardly a day goes by that some aspect of World War II isn’t directly relevant to unfolding events. Yet the war is barely taught in our schools: television and movies are the primary tutorials, and I doubt the rising generation is flocking to their WWII fare. This is not new, for my curricula through high school included little of substance on the most important historical event in the last 300 years (at least), and there was no requirement at Harvard, even for a government major like me, to study the World War II period in college.

I consider myself fortunate that my father, for whom the war was unquestionably the defining experience of his life, frequently used family meals when I was a child to discuss WWII history—except for his own combat experiences.

1. Lizzo may be “Hypocrite of the Year”! Lizzo…you know, this woman…

… the defiantly obese pop singer who has promoted herself as a champion of body positivity, is being sued by three of her former who allege that she subjected them fat-shaming as well as sexual and racial harassment. Of course these are allegations only, and if there ever was a lawsuit that seemed to demand a quick settlement to make it go away, this would be it. But the singer seems to be inclined to fight the action, which is admirable if she is innocent, but still likely to be unwise. When a celebrity’s carefully crafted image of virtues is shattered by such contrary claims, it often causes a dam of silence to break, as happened to Ellen Degeneris (who turned out not to be the super-nice lesbian she pretended to be) and Bill Cosby (who…well, you know.) This seems to be happening to Lizzo. Triggered by news of the lawsuit, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sophia Nahli Allison, who tried collaborating with the singer on the 2019 documentary “Love, Lizzo,” piled on. “In 2019, I traveled a bit with Lizzo to be the director of her documentary. I walked away after about 2 weeks … I was treated with such disrespect by her. I witnessed how arrogant, self-centered, and unkind she is.”

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Ethics Heroes: Christy Turlington, Kate Winslet, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep Et Al.

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

All of the above named middle-aged female celebrities have spoken out against how their industry pressure —along with the culture—women to resort to cosmetic surgery to continue appearing marketably youthful. Jane Fonda, who is pictured above, once made similar statements and then had herself surgically transformed into a walking, talking, Madam Tussaud’s exhibit. She is in her mid-eighties, and that’s what is regarded as good cosmetic surgery.

Turlington, the supermodel who is now 54, disagrees.“Women who have stayed away from augmentation of themselves — those are the women I really admire,” she told Marie Claire.” I love seeing a real face. A face of someone who’s lived life. They have the kind of faces I like to see, and we don’t get to see as many of those in the world anymore….I will be one of those faces. I am one of those faces.” She added, “I don’t think it looks good. Maybe I would think differently if I thought it looked good, and it didn’t hurt and it didn’t send bad messages to young people. But I’ve never seen someone who I’ve been like, ‘Oh, that’s a good idea.’ It looks freaky to me.”

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Ethics Dunce (Again): Fox News

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

From the New York Times today:

Shortly after learning he was being indicted a third time, former President Donald J. Trump had a private dinner with the top leadership at Fox News as they lobbied him to attend the first Republican presidential primary debate this month, three people familiar with the event said.

The dinner between Mr. Trump, the Fox News president Jay Wallace and the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, was held in a private dining room at Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., according to two of the people familiar with the event. The dinner was scheduled before the indictment news.

In a break from its recent practice, the Times did not attempt to spin or characterize the facts in order to make its usual anti-Trump, anti-Fox, anti-conservative points. It didn’t have to.

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Weaponizing Climate Change Hysteria For Political Gain, Part 2

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Ethics Alarms usually avoids the familiar fake news clickbait approach of discussing what might happen, what a President is allegedly considering doing, or worst case scenarios. In this instance, however, I will make an exception.

The reason is evident above. The Biden Administration increasingly is accessing totalitarian strategies and rhetoric. One of its favored abuses of power is weaponizing the climate change hysteria being spread by that cult. There has been rampant speculation that President Biden will use climate change to declare a “national emergency” under the 1976 National Emergencies Act. I view such a move as, first, inevitable with the current Democratic Party, and second, an existential threat to democracy that requires an effective and decisive counter-response, ranging from legal challenges to organized public protests. It’s time—past time, really—to start planning.

John Kerry, the special presidential climate envoy who flies around the world in a jet to tell conferences about the perils of carbon pollution, told the New York Times last week that the debate within the administration isn’t about whether a “climate change emergency” should be declared, but when. Biden, meanwhile, Biden told reporters on July 20, “As president, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger. And that’s what climate change is about. It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger.”

I would view Biden’s invoking of the National Emergency Act as the equivalent of illicitly declaring martial law as a means to dictatorial power. As the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice explains, the purpose of the law is “to temporarily enhance executive power during unexpected crises that are moving too fast for Congress to respond.” By that definition, it is ridiculous to call “climate change” an emergency, and Biden rhetoric, as usual, suggests that he is either misleading the public, doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, or both.

By declaring a climate emergency, Biden, meaning the climate change-deranged Democratic Party, could halt crude oil exports, suspend offshore oil and gas drilling, restrict international trade in fossil fuels, order the construction of renewable energy systems in “climate-vulnerable communities,” and use Defense Production Act (DPA) funds to advance the use of “clean energy” technology, like electric cars, which don’t really help the situation at all. Biden could also halt hundreds of billions of dollars in international fossil-fuel financing.

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Nice Try, Columbia! (Well, Not Really…)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Universities and colleges have made it pretty clear so far that they fully intend to continue to engage in “good racial discrimination” in admissions despite the Supreme Court finally declaring affirmative action what it is and has always been: unfair, illegal and unconstitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion in the Harvard and University of North Carolina cases, inadvertently (or not) gave the green light for this: he noted that a black applicant could still get an edge by signalling his or her diverse “experiences” and exemplary character in the face of adversity by writing an essay about dealing with the traumas of racism. Now administrators know they can favor black applicants over white and Asians (who can be seen above at Harvard demonstrating for discrimination against themselves) on the basis of race if they’re clever enough about it.

This wasn’t clever enough: Columbia Law School’s admissions page on its website this week announced that “all applicants” had to submit a 90 second video answering a “question chosen at random.” You know, like “What race am I?” The requirement was supposedly intended to “allow applicants to provide the Admissions Committee with additional insight into their personal strengths and academic or other achievements.”

All it took was a wave of critical social media posts flagging Columbia’s lame trick to persuade the law school that it needs to come up with something else. The video requirement didn’t even last the day.

A spokesperson told reporters that the video statement requirement was “posted in error.”

Sure.

Another Unlikely Ethics Problem From “The Affair”

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

This one isn’t an ethics quiz; I know the answer. Maybe you’ll disagree.

In the final, 5th season of Showtime’s Chaos Theory and ethics series “The Affair,” the ethics carnage radiating from the now over-and-done-marriage-destroying tryst between Alison and Noah is still powerful. Alison is dead (murdered); Noah is out for prison, and teaching at a charter school in LA. His first wife and kids are also in LA, having followed her new, reliable, loving partner Vik, a surgeon, to a new post at a prestigious hospital.

But Vik is diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He knows it’s incurable, and stubbornly refuses treatment. Asked by Helen, Noah’s wife before “The Affair,” what she can do, he answers, “Have my baby.” (That’s a selfish request, but it’s a different issue). Overwhelmed by self-pity, the prospect of impending death, and a “why me?” mood, plus being drunk and depressed after learning that Helen can’t have any more children at 50, Vik falls into bed with Sierra (above), a New Age, moon-ring, crystal-loving, 20-year-old woman-child hippie idiot next door. SHE gets pregnant as a result, and decides to keep the baby.

Helen learns about this as her crypto-husband (they never formally wed) is on his death bed. Later, after promising Vik, Helen tells Sierra that she will do what she can to help her with her now deceased sort-of husband’s offspring, because he so wanted to have a piece of himself live on, or something.

Now it’s nine months later. Sierra, an aspiring actress with IQ of a sponge, has invited about 20 New Age friends into her home to witness the birth of her child, “naturally,” in her living room. They romp around chanting, toking and dancing with funny things on their heads. Meanwhile, Sierra has been in labor for 24 hours, and a woman who may or may not be a trained midwife is telling her that her “negative energy” is keeping the baby from feeling welcome and other nonsense.

Sierra is exhausted and in pain. Helen shows up and Sierra shouts out that she can’t stand the pain and wants to go to the hospital. The acting midwife says that this is typical of first-time mothers under the influence of “negative energy,” and that Sierra doesn’t mean it. Helen is worried about the baby and Sierra.

What should she do?

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Weaponizing Climate Change Hysteria For Political Gain, Part I

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

Apparently, the political left has no ethics alarms whatsoever when it sees an opportunity to gain crushing power. That’s the unavoidable message conveyed by two ominous developments—both so far only portending possible real world consequences while expressing Democratic Party aspirations of overwhelming dominance—regarding climate change fearmongering.

First, we learned that four Democratic Senators, the Marxist from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat (and you know what that means) Jeff Merkley from Oregon, which is as at least as wokified as Mass., and Native American Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to sue the fossil fuel industry. “Big oil has known for decades that they are fueling the climate crisis and lied to hide it,” Markey tweeted. “Now, we’re seeing record-breaking temperatures and unprecedented damage. We must hold them accountable for their misleading, unforgivable campaigning.”

Typical: Markey issues misleading public statements while saying that the oil industry is guilty of misleading the public. 1) There are no “record-breaking temperatures” because there’s no way to tell what the records are. This Big Lie all by itself marks Markey as science dunce and a climate change propaganda hack. NASA has repeatedly said that it is impossible to determine global temperatures with sufficient accuracy to declare “records” before methods of measurement existed. 2) “Unprecedented damage” is meaningless gibberish. 3) Oil companies have every right to protect their business and serving the public interest by countering purely speculative and politically motivated doomsday lobbying by irresponsible activists.

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In Which I Check On My Old Home Sweet Home And Discover That Massachusetts Has Finally Gone Nuts….

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

The toxic wokism that oozes out of Harvard and the other educational institutions in the Bay State have finally infected Massachusetts to the point where the it is too deranged even for the long-time Democratic Party’s mouthpiece, the Boston Globe. The propaganda rag that hasn’t endorsed a Republican President since… hmmmm, never, actually, though it has occasionally endorsed Republicans for governor if they sounded and acted like Democrats…issued an editorial this week headlined, “Massachusetts can’t handle the influx of migrants on its own.” Good ol’ Globe: it can’t stop spinning for the Left even when its criticizing it. The issue is illegal immigrants, not “migrants.” And it’s not an influx: it’s a completely predictable occupation in response to persistent invitations.

Two days ago, the Legislature passed a bill granting in-state tuition at public colleges for all illegal immigrants who graduate from Massachusetts high schools, where they shouldn’t be allowed to attend in the first place. State Rep. Paul Frost, a Republican, rose to make the obvious critical observation about the measure, saying, “This is another incentive to encourage more illegal immigration to the Commonwealth, that the taxpayers and the residents of Massachusetts will have to subsidize.”

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Comment Of The Day: “I’m Sick Of Hearing These Arguments That College Admissions Favor The Wealthy And Privileged…”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Humble Talent has provided a nicely provocative snapshot of the frustrating and weird state of the quest for fair college admissions. Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, “I’m Sick Of Hearing These Arguments That College Admissions Favor The Wealthy And Privileged Because The Problem Is Easy To Fix. So Fix It.” (It also touches on the “disparate impact” scam, discussed here in another context.)

***

What I have trouble dealing with is how incoherent some of the positions some of the people are taking are.

Legacy admissions are a great example. We all know why they’re happening: Legacy admissions are a great way of enticing future philanthropy out of donor parents. While I’m sure there are some racists in admissions, that’s financially driven, not racially driven. But we pretend it’s a racial issue because of disparate impact.

In fact, we’re supposed to pretend that legacy admissions are a resource of white supremacy, despite the fact that legacy admissions are almost perfectly proportionate, at least for white applicants (hovering very close to 70%). I don’t know about you, but if I were designing a system that was supposed to privilege my race over others, I might devise a system where my race isn’t almost perfectly proportionately treated.

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