Author: Jack Marshall

Comment Of The Day: “Abortion Confusion Ethics: What Should We Call This?”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This story, which I was hoping would spark more discussion here than it has so far, would be an excellent starting point for a question in a presidential candidates debate, or indeed any debate regarding the proper status of abortion in the law and our societal ethics. Right now, the negligent killing of two fertilized eggs that a married couple regarded, with considerable justification, as “their babies” is treated with less seriousness than if someone had murdered the family’s puppy. What is a fertilized egg, a zygote, a fetus, an embryo, and a newborn baby? It can’t possibly be that their true nature as human beings (or not) with the right to be protected (or not) under the law is magically altered according to what the mother chooses to believe, or what a legislature decrees…can it?

Here is James Hodgson’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Abortion Confusion Ethics: What Should We Call This?”:

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Negligent homicide by the staff, and strict financial liability for the corporation, are evident here, in my view. I know this sounds harsh to some, but so is the killing of an unborn child.

Over the past decade, my wife and I caught several errors in prescription fulfillment in our own meager regimes of pharmaceuticals. This happened at three of our previous insurance-preferred pharmacies. It is also reported anecdotally by a number of people I know.

Fortunately for us, we detected the errors before taking any wrongly prescribed drugs, and we learned to double-check everything, every time. (These errors also gave us more motivation to improve our nutrition and fitness in order to escape prescription drugs altogether.)

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Quinn Mitchell, The Teenage Human Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Let’s not bury the ethics lede: If it is irresponsible to treat a teenage climate change fanatic as a serious authority on international policy, and it is, it is similarly irresponsible to bestow the status of a journalist on a 15-year-old.

Yet the New Hampshire Republican Party, reminding us that the GOP isn’t called “the Stupid Party” for nothing, invited 15-year-old Quinn Mitchell to a June 27 town hall in Hollis, N.H. for fading presidential aspirant Ron DeSantis, and gave the boy press credentials. Morons, and Ethics Foul #1. The justification was (officially) that the kid has a political commentary blog, and a podcast, and says he’s attended more than 80 presidential campaign events since he was 10. That’s nice (but weird), and Quinn is evidently precocious and might be a real journalist some day (which the way things are going, is like saying he might be a real Stegosaurus some day), but that does not make him a journalist now. Some flack had the brilliant idea that inviting and credentialing a young conservative would be cute and show Generation Whatever that Republicans are cool. That flack needs to be fired.

Of course Quinn doesn’t think he’s a fake journalist and not qualified to inject himself into the proceedings, so when DeSantis foolishly called on him (“Aw, isn’t that cute, let’s see what the little feller wants to know…”), Mitchell asked a “gotcha!” question: Did the Florida governor believe that former President Trump had violated the law on Jan. 6, 2021? Naturally, the unprepared DeSantis huminahumina-ed his way through dodging it, and the video “went viral.”

That question was Ethics Foul #2, but you can’t blame Mitchell. Asking questions with an underlying agenda is a standard unethical journalism habit now, and the teen has no reason to think this isn’t what journalists are supposed to do. That’s what they have been doing his entire life.

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A Ruthless CEO Explains What To Do “When Life Hands You Lemons”

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

Mike Flannagan (not the old Orioles pitcher) is a rising star director/screenwriter in the horror genre. His brilliant and complex mash-up of “The Haunting of Hill House” was as good as any horror movie or series I’ve ever seen, and his two follow-ups, one a re-thinking of “The Turn of the Screw,” are also smart, original and excellent. Now his mash-up of Edgar Alan Poe tales in a modern day horror story evoking the Sackler family and the opioid scandal is on Netflix. As with the previous three, “The Fall of the House of Usher”—the Ushers are the Sacklers— is cast substantially with his “rep company” including E.T.’s Henry Thomas and Annabeth Gish.

Last night I saw the episode in which the Faux Sackler family head and chief villain, played by Bruce Greenwood, gives a spontaneous speech about what smart businesses do when “Life hands them lemons,” and boy, it sure isn’t “make lemonade.” The second I heard it, when I had stopped applauding, I decided that the speech was an instant classic, much cleverer and better than Oliver Stone’s celebrated “Greed is good” speech that he wrote for Michael Douglas in “Wall Street.” It should be appearing soon in business school lectures across the country, and maybe laws schools too. I’m going to use it in an ethics seminar.

Flannagan’s speech for the bitter Usher family head is at once funny, chilling, revealing and true, perfectly encapsulating the ruthless logic of 21st Century capitalism as well as the soul of entrepreneurism.

Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz: The Consequences For Endorsing Terrorism”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I am way, WAY behind in posting deserving Comments of the Day, and I apologize to all, both the authors of these excellent posts and EA readers who have not had the opportunity to read them. I’m going to try to post them in chronological order, oldest first, but don’t hold me to that: I have a sinking feeling that this COTD by Sarah B. came after one or more that I intended to post last week. Her comment (I hope I’m not misgendering her!) is actually one of many superb ones on this Ethics Quiz, including those by Michael R, Curmie, and Chris Marschner, among others. I highly recommend reading the entire exchange.

Now here is Sarah B.’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: The Consequences For Endorsing Terrorism”:

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Actions have consequences. Speech has consequences. We can talk all we like about the Freedom of Speech (or Religion or Right to Assemble, etc), but while the government cannot punish us for our speech, our fellow citizens can and will make judgements about us despite that.

There needs to be some determination of how to decide what to do with adults who proclaim stupid things in an institute of learning while respecting the value of free speech. I propose that for professors, lecturers, administrators, and those in positions of power,they required to give a two hour session on their position, open to all. The first 45 or so minutes would be reserved for what they have to say, with the remaining time being devoted to questions A moderator (or perhaps two of opposing positions) should be present to step in when the speaker does not answer a question. Ex. “Why do you believe that is is fair to intentionally target and behead young children and the elderly non-combatants?” “Well, Israel doesn’t belong there so it doesn’t matter.” Moderators can point out that this is not an answer and require a real answer to the tough questions before continuing. On the other hand, “Does this mean you deny the Moon Landing?” would be thrown out by the moderator as completely stupid. Of course, anyone, teacher or student, who tries the heckler’s veto or shouts down another person should be immediately escorted out. Professors who support the heckler’s veto should be immediately terminated.

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Baseball Ethics: Is It Time To Stop Booing The Houston Astros? Hell No…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Tonight, the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros, from the same American League Division and with the same regular season record (a modest 90-72), will begin playing the American League Championship Series to decide which team will represent the league in the World Series. If you’re a baseball fan or an ethics fan, you will root for the Rangers. The Astros are ethics villains, and among the worst ethics corrupting teams in all of professional sports history. They do not deserve to be forgiven, for the multiple blights they inflicted on the game are still causing tangible damage, and despite the exposure of the team’s rotten culture in 2019 ( exhaustively discussed on Ethics Alarms) they were never sufficiently punished, and the main perps in the team’s scheme have never adequately acknowledged that they did anything wrong.

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Leon Panetta, Poster Boy For “My Mind’s Made Up, Don’t Confuse Me With Facts”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I had a couple of rapid thoughts when I saw this revolting story. The first was remembering how that line in the title above was one of my father’s favorite mordantly humorous slogans, along with “He was right, dead right, as he sped along, but he’s just as dead as if he were wrong!” and the tale about feeling sad and hopeless, hearing a little voice saying, “Cheer up, things could be worse!” and then, sure enough, things got worse. The second was realizing that I occasionally, very rarely but still occasionally, miss important information by refusing to watch Fox News. A third was deciding that I had mistakenly judged Leon Panetta to be an honorable and trustworthy public servant.

In an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News, Panetta, who was Bill Clinton’s Swiss Army knife aide and Cabinet member notably as head of the CIA, was asked by Baier if he had any regrets about signing the infamous open letter from 51 former intelligence officials using their influence and presumed expertise to advance the cover-up scheme declaring the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation.

In a head-exploding display of chutzpah, Panetta announced that he had no regrets at all, and that he has seen no evidence that would make him change his mind. Gobsmacked, Baier said, “You don’t think it was real?” Panetta responded “I think disinformation is involved here.”

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Abortion Confusion Ethics: What Should We Call This?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

“According to a report by 8 News Now, Las Vegas resident Timika Thomas in 2019 wanted to add one more to her family of four….In her 30s, Thomas said she struggled getting pregnant…. Even though [she and her husband] were not insured for the costs they would endure, they decided to pay for invitro fertilization (IVF). …doctors sedated Thomas, inserted two eggs inside her body and sent her home with prescriptions, one of which would trick her body into producing enough hormones to kickstart her pregnancy. “You have to make yourself think it’s pregnant,” Thomas told the 8 News Now Investigators.Thomas went to her CVS branch pharmacy… took two of her required doses and knew something was wrong. “I started cramping really bad,” Thomas said. … “It was extreme. It was painful.” Thomas checked the prescription bottle and looked up the name of the drug. “The first thing I read is it’s used for abortions,” Thomas said…

[T]wo technicians and two pharmacists made a series of errors that led to Thomas being given the wrong medication, which essentially terminated her budding pregnancy on the spot. “They just killed my baby,” she said to herself at the time. “Both my babies, because I transferred two embryos.”

[The] technician – incorrectly believing she knew the generic name for the brand prescribed by the doctor – entered the wrong name into the prescription. One pharmacist did not catch the error, and another pharmacist failed to counsel Thomas when she came to pick up her medication…”

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That’s the CVS near my house in Alexandria. The CVS culprit in this ugly story was in Las Vegas, but it shows the same level of competence and care I’ve experienced.

Here’s the account from Fox Business:

“According to a report by 8 News Now, Las Vegas resident Timika Thomas in 2019 wanted to add one more to her family of four….In her 30s, Thomas said she struggled getting pregnant…. Even though [she and her husband] were not insured for the costs they would endure, they decided to pay for invitro fertilization (IVF). …doctors sedated Thomas, inserted two eggs inside her body and sent her home with prescriptions, one of which would trick her body into producing enough hormones to kickstart her pregnancy. “You have to make yourself think it’s pregnant,” Thomas told the 8 News Now Investigators.Thomas went to her CVS branch pharmacy… took two of her required doses and knew something was wrong. “I started cramping really bad,” Thomas said. … “It was extreme. It was painful.” Thomas checked the prescription bottle and looked up the name of the drug. “The first thing I read is it’s used for abortions,” Thomas said…

[T]wo technicians and two pharmacists made a series of errors that led to Thomas being given the wrong medication, which essentially terminated her budding pregnancy on the spot. “They just killed my baby,” she said to herself at the time. “Both my babies, because I transferred two embryos.”

[The] technician – incorrectly believing she knew the generic name for the brand prescribed by the doctor – entered the wrong name into the prescription. One pharmacist did not catch the error, and another pharmacist failed to counsel Thomas when she came to pick up her medication…”

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More On The Harvard President’s Self-Serving Spin On The Hamas-Israel Conflict.

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The editor of Campus Reform, Zachary Marschall, a PhD and an adjunct professor at the University of Kentucky, is far less diplomatic about Claudine Gay’s video statement (here) than I was yesterday (at the same link), but I substantially concur with his points in “ANALYSIS: Harvard president Claudine Gay is a hypocritical fraud.”

Among the details I only generally alluded to or failed to mention that he highlights:

  • In 2022, Harvard ranked  as having the most anti-Semitic incidents of any campus in the country. 
  • Though Gay claimed that Harvard “embraces a commitment to free expression,” in 2018, Harvard investigated a professor after students complained that he was making “verbal or non-verbal” microaggressions in class. Says Marschall, “A cohort of leftist university administrators that believe both speech and silence can be violence devoted more interceding in a nothing-burger incident than Gay has expended in response to student activists clamoring for more dead Jews.”
  • “In 2020, then Harvard University President Lawrence Barcow issued a statement supporting the Marxist political movemnet Black Lives Matter, which just this week is celebrating the Hamas terror attacks.” Gay’s words suggested that Harvard would never do such a thing.   Marschall writes,

The anti-Semitic idea that Jews are benefactors of white supremacy informs Gay’s inability to take a consistent and morally sound stance on her students’ safety. Whatever capacity academics had for compassion and respect for people’s differences died in 2016 when Donald Trump’s candidacy drove the left into a radical combative hysteria. “The 6 justices who overturned Roe should never know peace again. It is our civic duty to accost them every time they are in public,” Harvard Law clinical instructor Alejandra Caraballo stated after the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Harvard scholars only know peace and empathy for their side, and Gay has made it clear that she considers Jews not on their side. 

Do read the whole thing.

Ethics Dunce: The National Book Foundation

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Add the National Book Foundation to the growing list of alleged non-political non-profits that can’t stay in their lanes.

Yesterday Levar Burton, whose claim to celebrity rests solely on two iconic roles, in “Roots” and “Star Trek” but who now describes himself as an “actor, podcaster, and reading advocate” (that is, has-been) said in a statement, “It’s an honor to return as host of the biggest night for books, especially in a moment when the freedom to read is at risk.” Burton also hosted the ceremony in 2019, presumably because he hosted the PBS children’s show “Reading Rainbow” for its entire two decade run.

The “freedom to read” is NOT at risk in any way, but Burton is dutifully mouthing ideological deceit from those who believe minors should be “free to read” books with sexual content and that advocate sex-related conduct in the collections of public school libraries. That’s not a reading issue but a parental rights issue. But I digress.

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