—-I would respect my various Facebook friends, including many lawyers, posting diatribes about President Trump’s deportation efforts “violating the rule of law” if they had ever, ever, evinced similar concerns about President Biden or whoever…) deliberately foiling U.S. immigration laws while allowing millions of illegal immigrants to breach our borders and scatter, often leaving violent crimes in their wake.
—-As a Greater Bostonian who was brought up in the shadows of Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, the Paul Revere House, Fanuel Hall, the Old North Church and other Meccas of the American Revolution (I must not omit the one such landmark in my home town of Arlington, the Jason Russell House, where Jason and several Menotomy Minute Men were shot to death on April 19 by the British while they were hiding in Jason’s closet), I’m going to save the Ethics Alarms celebrations of the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” and related events for Patriots Day, which is tomorrow.
Meanwhile…
1. Just to push Harvard further down the Cognitive Dissonance Scale where it belongs, I want to note that Cedric Lodge, manager of the morgue at Harvard Medical School from 2018 until March 2023, will plead guilty to stealing body parts that had been donated for research and selling them for thousands of dollars to non-medical personnel, aka ghouls, who collect them as trophies. Nice! He had been entrusted with handling cadavers that were part of the medical school’s Anatomical Gift Program and were supposed to be cremated after the research on them had been completed. Instead, Lodge “turned the morgue into a shopping emporium for brains, skin and other body parts, that were purchased by collectors.” Investigators say that he drove the stolen body parts to his home in New Hampshire.
2. Baseball Ethics alert! New York Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. was ejected from Thursday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays for arguing balls and strikes with home-plate umpire John Bacon. That’s an automatic ejection now. Immediately thereafter, the angry player referred to the incident on in a Twitter/ X post, writing, “Not even fucking close!!!!!” I can’t say he was wrong…
MLB players are also not allowed to use electronic devices during a game, and baseball’s social media policy forbids players, managers and coaches from displaying or transmitting attacks on “the impartiality of a Major League umpire” or otherwise denigrating one of them. (There is no crying or Freedom of Speech in baseball.)
This is one more example of why they cannot start using electronic pitch-calling too soon for me.
3. A useful reminder of why it was unethical to vote for Kamala Harris: Harris’s campaign paid $50,000 to the production company of billionaire NBA superstar LeBron James to endorse her in a deceptively edited video calling Trump a racist and a white supremacist. Paying for softball interviews and endorsements that were represented as sincere and genuine was a dishonest theme of the Democrats’ campaign. The code word for the practice was “campaign event production.” Campaign disclosures this week show that the Harris campaign paid James’s SpringHill Entertainment for posting the 75-second video on his social media accounts where he has 53 million and 159 million followers. Harris’s team paid $165,000 to the production company of Beyoncé Knowles, who spoke for four minutes in support of Harris at a rally in Houston in October. It gave the production company of Oprah Winfrey at least $1 million for a sit-down interview in Chicago. Harris’s campaign paid actress Jennifer Garner $35,000 for “campaign event production and travel,” and the Capital One pitchwoman, actress and ex-wife of Ben Affleck appeared at several campaign events alongside Harris. Another $100,000 went to the shell company of Barack and Michelle Obama, who appeared at several campaign events for the Worst Major Party Presidential Candidate Ever. $58,000 went to rapper Cardi B, who spoke at a rally for Harris in Milwaukee. At the time. the rapper denied that she was paid, and, of course, the campaign didn’t correct her. Did you know that Donald Trump lies all the time? Harris also gave a whopping $500,000 to the nonprofit of MSNBC host Al Sharpton, who interviewed Harris weeks after the donation. (He also didn’t tell MSNBC about the deal.
Why this practice isn’t forbidden by the election laws eludes me, but it is still unethical, legal or not. And yes, the recipients of the Harris money were as unethical as the campaign.
4.Daniela J. Lamas, a contributing Opinion writer at the New York Times and a pulmonary and critical care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, has a sneaky propaganda piece at the Times about how difficult it is for doctors to reject patient requests to use home remedies, fad treatments and “natural” medications. She writes, “Is it OK to depart from the standard practices of medicine for the sake of building trust with patients and their families? It’s a question that is more relevant than ever in this political climate, amid increasing vaccine hesitancy and suspicion of medical professionals.” Later, she adds, “When doctors prescribe medications that they don’t believe in, even ones that pose little risk to the patient, it can cost them the trust of their colleagues. Families might question why their doctors give in to some requests and not others. She believes that what patients and their families really need is honest and open communication surrounding doctors’ decisions and the time to build confidence in their providers. But when distrust is so entrenched, as is the case in the United States now, that ideal might not be achievable…” [The italics are mine.]
Dr. Lamas never admits, as she should and would if she were trustworthy, that the distrust of the medical profession is justified, and that its dishonest, politically-motivated handling of the Wuhan virus pandemic is a major reason public no longer believes doctors, not the “political climate,” which is code for “It’s all Trump’s fault.”
5. More of the above: Fark, the humorous news aggregator, posts this story with the intro, “‘The fish rots from the head'”‘: Racist takes her cue from the Pernicious Pumpkin, verbally attacks street vendor in Simi Valley and shoves her to the ground.” The fiance of a woman who drowned her 7-year-old daughter attempts to blame her worrying over her immigration status on the murder. She was here illegally. This looks like a promising new route for excusing crimes by illegals: Trump’s policies made them do it!
6. Another thing that should be made illegal: state lotteries. Here is a gift link to how Texas rigged its lottery.
7. And here’s the Washington Post pimping for crummy Americans whose solution to their party losing an election is to flee the country for nations far less democratic (but more woke, so its all good) than this one. Ethics Alarms takes the position that citizens are responsible for our government and ethically bound to either work to change it by civically ethical means, or to accept what they get. Ann Althouse comments, “Where’s the love?! If you really hate what the President is doing, what good is it to remove yourself and observe from afar? Presumably, you hate him because of what he is doing to hundreds of millions of people, who will remain where they are, victims of his (as you see it) evildoing? Your leaving the premises does absolutely nothing to help. Why would it matter where you are?”
Ethics Alarms 
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/texas-lottery-gamblers-jackpot-win-40e3d6fb?st=qt2fYo&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I couldn’t get your link to work, so here is one on the same story from the WSJ.
I think it is a bit unfair to Texas to say it rigged its lottery. The story tells the tale of a group of professional gamblers who operate by spotting vulnerabilities and tossing wads of cash and manpower to take advantage of them.
Some of those opportunities evidently include state run lotteries. This group scours the globe for such chances and apparently makes a hefty return on it.
The theory behind it is that certain gambling situations offer mathematically proven chances for someone to invest a bunch of money to rake in an even bigger return.
At least with the lottery operation, it sounds conceptually no different than your local lottery club where people pool their money to go in on a bunch of lottery tickets to improve the chances of winning. Now think of that lottery club whose members are Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates pooling their seat cushion cash to buy lotto tickets.
I think of this more as an ‘ick’ situation. State lotteries are by definition unethical, so investing in them on an industrial basis is no more or less ethical than me buying a scratch off ticket.
i was going to reload the link, but it worked right away for me. A faulty gift from the Times!
The link you posted was a regular link, it worked for you because you have a subscription. Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/us/rigged-texas-lottery.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BE8.dtVp.V62CEuzp06B6&smid=url-share
The problem wasn’t just that the lotteries allow groups to buy tickets, it was that they set up special storefronts to print out massive amounts of tickets.
Again, it wasn’t the lottery that set up the storefronts to print these tickets. They allowed online companies to set up a storefront and these gamblers partnered with one of those companies to do so.
What the lottery did not do until after this exploit was to limit the number of tickets that a given store could print in a day, so these folks had machines delivered to their four storefronts and, when they decided to strike, had the machines running 24 hours a day.
Remember that they were buying all those tickets that were printed, so the lottery people thought Texans were going bonkers over the lottery that week.
This was definitely free enterprise in action. They saw a market opportunity, invested a bunch of money and labor, and reaped a big reward.
I think in some respects this is akin to short sellers. While betting on a company’s stock to tank is perfectly legitimate, it can leave a bad taste in other people’s mouths.
Again, more of an ick thing that anything else, in my opinion.
Jack wrote:
7. And here’s the Washington Post pimping for crummy Americans whose solution to their party losing an election is to flee the country for nations far less democratic (but more woke, so its all good) than this one.
What is even more annoying is the fact that these people fleeing the country are universally among the so-called “1%”, wealthy and often politically influential far beyond what their actual expertise would justify.
The Left, on one hand, purports to want to “eat the rich”, but when it comes to the foul Orange Man, they are willing to overlook anything as long as those worthies are on the “right side” of the politics. So departing the country, an act of pure virtue-signalling with no redeeming justification (as you point out), must be applauded if it is couched as fear of Trump.
This points to a profound cognitive dissonance within the Left, so deep and pervasive that the hypocrisy inherent in these positions bothers them not at all. They are willing to ignore any inconsistency in their positions and all the subsequent mocking by the opposition just to be seen as being against Trump and to pimp anyone who agrees with them as good, even “moral.”
The WaPo, as always, is simply a DC echo chamber defending all the good guys from the depredations of Trump. One would think that Easter and Holy Week in general would be a good time to reflect on their bias and outrageous inconsistencies, but apparently such self-examination cannot be allowed to stand in the way of self-deluded moral righteousness.
I guess when someone is absolutely sure they are on the side of the angels, they needn’t bother with introspection or rational thinking.
item 3- Two events from the 1970’s conflated and have had siginficant impact on thehelathcare phenomena
2. I was waiting for the words “Laz” and “Diaz” to pop up in this item. Frankly, I was surprised to see the “call” when I enlarged the video. A call that bad on low “strikes” gets made at least every other inning. That call is NOT an outlier by any means. And why does anyone think umps can make legitimate decisions on the bottom of the strike zone? Every call on low pitches is a guess.
2. That is one of the most difficult pitches to call, a left-handed batter and a left-handed pitcher, with a sinking curve ball coming from the umpire’s right as he’s leaning right. (Yes, I’ve pitched left-handed and umpired.)
A 2-d video replay and a 2-d box cannot accurately portray the strike zone. Was it in the rectangle or very close as it passed the front of the plate? Can’t tell.
Situations like this make a good case for dispensing with the human calling balls and strikes, but I sure would miss so-called pros spewing spittle.
Chisholm should have been ejected sooner. And, we as a society need somehow to ratchet down the attitude among those who are in love with their apparent superiority that they are always right.
Note taken!
Re: #1 Jazz Chisholm Jr.
There is a humorous Cricket anecdote of a batsman given ‘Out’ muttering something as he walks off past the Umpire.
The Umpire spins around and says: “What did you say?”
Batsman: “What; are you deaf as well?”
It must heve happened at some time!
Jazz:
2) So, another replay situation from this afternoon. Wyatt Langford is on 1st, two outs, bottom of the 9th, Rangers trailing 1-0. He tries to steal second — he clearly has the base stolen, but he apparently pops up off the bag and is called out. Nothing to lose replay review is about three minutes and the call stands.
Naturally, this was the hot topic amongst the announcers during postgame. What they seemed to see on the replays was that Langford stole the base, then the tag came off, he came off the bag, his cleats came back onto the bag, and the fielder reapplied the tag.
Obviously the guys in NY saw something different, but the consensus was that whether he was called safe or out, there wasn’t enough to overturn.
So their question then was: If we are placing so much emphasis on getting the call correct — that’s the whole rationale behind replays, right? — and we have all this high tech equipment and doo-dads in New York, why is so much weight given to the lowest tech component of the equation — the umpire’s unaided human eye?
It actually is a valid point. Should the replay guys in New York even know what the original call was?
Yes, my announcers are not impartial, and this is the second game ending replay decision in three days that went against the Rangers, so there is some frustration there as well.
What do you folks think?
1) This is reminiscent of the story you posted a year or so ago about a Harvard library being in possession of a book about death that had a cover made from human skin. At that time I argued that Harvard was probably the victim of a curse, and that the best course of action would be for them to try to pass the cursed book on to some other unsuspecting victim, possibly a library at Yale.
Given this new information, however, I am now inclined to believe that Harvard, far from being an innocent victim, is in fact a willing participant and is itself knee deep in the dark arts. The proper course of action is clear: get a Catholic priest, or perhaps several, (it’s a big campus), willing to perform whatever ceremonies are necessary to exorcise the demons that have taken control at Harvard. These cannot, of course, be priests affiliated with Harvard, as they have likely been corrupted too.
Simultaneously, at dawn, all Harvard administrators, faculty members, alumni, and current students should be arrested, given a speedy trial, and then burned alive at the stake. (Perhaps exceptions can be made for alums who have voluntarily turned their diplomas to the wall. Or maybe we have them smear lambs blood on the door.) Unfortunately, October 13th doesn’t fall on a Friday this year, but I’m sure we can find an equally appropriate date.
Once this has been done, the entire campus needs to be razed, and then the earth salted, so that nothing can ever grow there again. Only then will the nation be free from the abomination that Harvard has become.