Author: Jack Marshall

Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

This is one of the days I already have the topics lined up I want to post about, so try to do me a favor. While exploring ethics issues of your own choosing here, please don’t preempt me so I have to go looking for new topics unless you choose to write on one of the topics below in sufficient detail that I don’t have to. THAT I always appreciate. The looming posts are on:

  • The school principle in Washington state who responded to someone scrawling a swastika on a campus wall by reminding parents that in some cultures the symbol “has deep historical and cultural significance in other parts of the world.”
  • The hilarious response of the Harris campaign to the sudden focus on Tim Walz’s habit of lying his fool head off, nicely exposed in his debate with J.D. Vance.
  • Ethics issues raised by AI’s ability to play Rich Little and convincingly imitate celebrity voices, and…
  • President Biden’s bone-chilling response when asked “What do the states in the storm zone need — after what you saw today?” Biden said, in sum,”Which storm?”

Here is also a good place to note that I won a million dollar bet with myself that indefatigable New York Times apologist “A Friend” would respond to this post with along protest. Unfortunately “A Friend” got himself banned long ago by 1) violating the comment policies by telling me how to moderate EA and 2) eliminating any chance of being reinstated by defying the ban any time he feels like commenting, conduct that is disrespectful of the forum, and me. Here’s a tip: if you get banned, the proper and almost always successful response is “I’m sorry, I understand, and I promise to be good if you give me a second chance.”

I don’t read these unauthorized replies before sending them directly to Spam Hell, but in this case my eye caught just enough words in the first paragraph to see where the post was going: Because the Times included an op-ed critical of Walz in the same batch as M. Gessen advocating partisan bias and censorship by journalists, A Friend thinks that justifies the Times giving a regular platform to an opponent of ethical journalism and free speech. It doesn’t. There are more than one rationalizations on the list with commentary that explains that, as in the discussion of “Ethics Accounting.”

Why Is Someone Who Could Make This Argument An Opinion Writer For The New York Times?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Oh, wait, now I see. M. Gessen is trans or something, refers to whatever he/she is as “they,” and the fact that “her”their” gender identity is non-traditional means that “their” opinion on political matters must have value. No, of course it makes no sense, but never mind. That’s the Times these days. It still doesn’t excuse letting someone who thinks like this have a platform in the most read newspaper in the country.

The Times provided a transcript to the podcast called “The Real Loser of the V.P. Debate.” Here are some representative quotes (in my view, the podcast isn’t worth listening to):

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“It’s Hell Being An Ethicist”: A Continuing Narrative

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I’m having an incredibly busy, stressful day, as I have had every day at least since mid-August. Grace memorial event, which I am completely unprepared for emotionally, is 9 days away. I just learned that my Aunt Beatrice, the last of my mother’s family in that generation, died last night. I have client work that, as usual, will take me well into the night.

But I have to walk the dog, and did so, luckily with my (I nearly wrote “our”) neighbor who was walking her dog, one of Spuds’ pals, as a companion. Our neighborhood firehouse puts out boxes of biscuits and dog treats for the many canines around here, and both dogs pulled us toward that locale as soon as we got close.

I had Spuds’ leash in one hand, so to gather some treats for both dogs I had to put down what filled my other hand: a plastic bag heavy with my dog’s morning offal. I rested the bag on a shelf next to the dog yummies. It wasn’t until I got home that I remembered that I had forgotten to pick the bag up, so I could deposit it in my trash.

So, big deal. It was obvious what the bag was, and what it contained. It was tied up. Would it be so terrible if one of the fire fighters had to toss the thing? But I can’t allow rationalizations like that to outweigh the obvious. Once, I might have.

So I got into my car, drove to the fire house, and retrieved the bag.

It was the right thing to do, damn it.

So…The Second Gentleman Running For First Gentleman Impregnated His Nanny During His First Marriage and Slapped a Date In the Face: Is That a Problem?

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

By the established standards of the news media and the rest of the Axis of Unethical Conduct, it should be, don’t you think? But apparently not.

Huh.

A throbbing example of wildly varying standards in the media depending on whether they are covering Donald Trump or Kamala Harris just raised its warty head. Did you see that Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband who was largely invisible until she pushed President Biden off the Democratic ticket, admitted he had an adulterous affair with his nanny and got her pregnant, leading to his divorce? That happened in August, after the slimy Daily Mail broke the scandal and Emhoff came clean to CNN. I missed it entirely, which means that, for example, the New York Times either ignored it or soft-peddled it because, well, you know. But the story burst on the social media scene this week after ex-Obama paid liar Jen Psaki, now a full-time Axis propagandist at MSNBC, interviewed Emhoff and gushed that he had “reshaped the perception of masculinity.” “Has that been an evolution for you and do you think that’s part of the role you might play as first gentleman?” Psaki continued. Yecchh. That was nauseating enough (no Vice-President’s spouse has the power, visibility or status to “reshape” anything), but Emhoff’s answer exploded heads from coast to coast.

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More VP Debate Ethics: Oh-Oh! Tim Walz Doesn’t Get That First Amendment Thingy…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Does this bother you? It should: It bothers me. And Walz has been saying the same illiterate crap about free speech for years. I don’t want Presidents who don’t understand the First Amendment. It means they are incompetent at least, and dangerous at worst. If I don’t want a President with these deficits, I don’t want a Vice President with them either.

I was late to this particular party because I can only find one transcript of the debate online, CBS’s, and the site demands that I dump my ad-blocker to read it. Bite me. This is public information, and CBS shouldn’t have a monopoly on it: that’s unethical. Journalism has no public interest at heart at all, at least not the outlets I usually deal with.

When J.D. Vance pointed out that Walz had said there is no First Amendment right to misinformation,” Walz interjected “or threatening, or hate speech.”  Why do woke fools like Walz keep saying this? While “True threats”—meaning threats that are accompanied by the means and circumstances to carry them out—aren’t protected by the First Amendment. Misinformation that falls short of fraud or defamation definitely is, indeed outright lies are protected.

“Hate speech” also has full First Amendment protection. Walz, a high ranking member of the Democratic Party, the pro-censorship party, naturally is in favor of gutting free speech, or he doesn’t know what it is. I’m guessing both.

That’s particularly troubling in someone who taught school.

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Just a Few Ethics Notes On The V.P. Debate…

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

…because it isn’t worth more. As I assumed, nothing occurred in the debate that might be expected to change enough votes that matter, unless you believe that a Presidential nominee’s choice of Veep tells us something about the nominee’s judgment, management skills, responsibility, and priorities. It should, but historically, it doesn’t. I’m trying to think of whether anyone has been picked as a running mate on the grounds that the individual was the most qualified person to take over as POTUS. Harris wasn’t. Biden wasn’t. Pence wasn’t…I’m back to Grover Cleveland now. Nope!

Still…

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Harris Is Losing the Meme Wars, So Naturally Democrats Want To Censor Memes

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Who would have expected the AI metaphorical tidal wave to have an influence on the Presidential election? Memes are a breeze to make using artificial intelligence, and while I got heartily sick of my Facebook friends bombarding me with political ones, I have to admit that the technology has the silver lining of taking blunt and biased punditry out of the political cartoonist monopoly and letting some very witty people make satirical political statements.

So far, at least, it appears that conservatives have mastered meming before the Left has, and in this race for President, that is having impact, though how much and how significant is impossible to tell. However, it is clear that the Kamala-Harris-as-a-Communist memes are getting under the skin of some Democrats—one of my Trump-Deranged relatives was complaining about those just yesterday—and so now there are calls for “something to be done” about anti-Harris memes. On MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show,” NPR’s Maria Hinojosa was very upset about AI images of Harris presented in Maoist uniforms:

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Ethics Dunce: The AARP

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

My mother, who resented aging and refused to “accept” it, constantly complained that younger people treated seniors like children or idiots. I would not expect the AARP to prove her point, but then, at a loss for bathroom reading material, I looked at the AARP’s “bulletin” tabloid. On the back page, I discovered, is a feature called “Wit and Wisdom.” Here is this month’s entire content of witty and wise repartee:

  • Ken: “I hear you quit your job digging wells. Ben: “Yeah, I got fed up with the hole business.’
  • Colin: “How would you describe a dry-erase board?” Caitlin: “Remarkable.”
  • John: “Are waterbeds bouncy?” Jan: “Yes, if you use spring water.”
  • Patient: “I need a cure for my paranoia.” Doctor: “We’ve been expecting you!”
  • Molly: “How do cats settle an argument?” Wally: “They hiss and make up.”
  • Customer: “I’d like a pizza delivered,. Will it be long?” Clerk: “No, it will be round.”
  • Student: “Do chemists tell dad jokes?” Professor: “Yes, periodically.”

There isn’t anything vaguely wise or witty in any of those moldy puns. When I was a cub scout,  I had a subscription to “Boy’s Life.” The back page had a feature called “Think and Grin,” and the jokes there were generally of a higher quality that that crap. There are so many legitimately clever jokes, one-liners and anecdotes out there, some of them true, that a little research and taste would uncover. Instead, the AARP infantalizes its member and view them as old geezers sitting around the radio cackling at “Lum and Abner” —which was also generally more clever than “No, round.” Heck, “Hee-Haw” had more wit and wisdom.

My dad, like me, had a sophomoric sense of humor. He also could quote Mark Twain, P.G. Wodehouse, S.J. Perelman, and Will Rogers—okay, also Henny Youngman— right up until the day I found him dead in his favorite chair. That AARP feature is disrespectful, lazy, and insulting.

Here’s Your Ethics Challenge: Argue Convincingly That It Would Have Been More Ethical For This Horrible Couple To Abort The Baby…

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Early favorites for “Parents of the Year”!

Darien Urban, 21, and Shalene Ehlers, 20, decided to sell their baby to a stranger while they were at a camp ground. (No, they weren’t married: why would you even ask?) As Mom explained later, having to deal with a baby while taking care of three dogs was just too much. All they asked for was a six-pack of beer and a thousand bucks. What a deal!

“I, Darien Urban and Shalene Ehlers, are signing our rights over to [Cody Martin] of our baby for $1,000 on 9/21/24,” their contract read. Good: these things should be legal. “After signing this there will be no changing y’all two’s minds and to never contact again,” it concluded.

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Pre-V.P. Debate “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Note…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

From Politico, prognosticating about how tonight’s debate might go: “Both men struggle at times to hide their tempers, and with plenty of bad blood between the two of them — stemming in large part from Vance’s attacks on Walz’s military record and Walz’s crusade to label Vance as “weird” — don’t be surprised if things turn personal.”

That’s clever—biased, insidious, but clever.

Walz has been dishonest about his military record. That is a matter of record, and pointing it out to a public that knows nothing about Walz’s past and character isn’t “personal.” Calling an opponent “weird,” however, is pure ad hominem, and a personal attack by definition. (Interesting that the self-labelled “public school teacher” wields schoolyard-style insults. I thought teachers were supposed to explain why such jibes are wrong.)

So we have Politico, a Democratic propaganda news site, engaging in false equivalence to validate Walz’s cheap tactic (admittedly, one favored by Donald Trump) while minimizing Walz’s very real misrepresentation of his military record.

The news media deserves to be rejected, foiled, mocked and crushed by this election. Their efforts to rig it are so transparent. It is an ongoing assault on democracy and a betrayal of the public.