Author: Jack Marshall

Gee, Could Massachusetts Democrats Come Up With A MORE Unethical Bill?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

[You know,  writing this blog of late has made me feel like I’m Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill I,” fighting O-Ren Ishii’s (Lucy Liu) personal army, The Crazy 88’s. The ethics stories just get worse and worse, especially from the world of government and politics, and they keep on coming. The mission of this blog is to, in some small way, try to encourage ethical analysis and sensitivity in the culture of a nation uniquely dependent on it, and all I see is the ethics in our culture, especially in the professions (which exist to be trusted) and our institutions (all of them) deteriorating rapidly and seemingly deliberately. The effort feels hopeless. Maybe a better analogy than The Bride’s mass battle in “Kill Bill I” is Viking king Ragnar (Ernest Borgnine) fighting gleefully and futilely in a pit full of hungry wolves in “The Vikings.” After all, Uma wins her fight. But Ethics Alarms is not directed by Quentin Tarantino.

What prompts these musings? This item from the State of my birth: Massachusetts Democrats have offered a bill giving prison inmates reduced sentences when they donate their kidneys and bone marrow. State Reps. Carlos Gonzalez and Judith Garcia came up with this monstrosity, which aims to create “The Bone Marrow and Organ Donation Program” within the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. Prisoners would be able to shave between 60 days to a year off their sentences. 

Talk about killing bills—I’d love that bill as a hypothetical in an ethics class, though I would think it might be too easy for anyone old enough to vote. In The Guardian’s story, we read that the bill “has raised ethical concerns.” YA THINK??? Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “On The Plus Side, At Least There’s No Reason To Hold Any Illusions That American Journalists Will Even Try To Be Ethical Journalists In The Foreseeable Future…”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

No, the former CNN host of “Reliable Sources” isn’t necessarily the most biased, hypocritical and unethical journalist I could use to illustrate Curmie’s Comment of the Day but he is the most ridiculous, as the hack whom mean wags on the right call “Potato” regularly flaunted his biases while he was allegedly examining the ethics of his profession, a task he was spectacularly unqualified to perform. His real job, as anyone could discern after about five minutes of listening to him, was to obfuscate regarding his employer’s manifest breaches of fair and objective journalism, and to impugn CNN’s competition, especially Fox News, regularly calling the kettle black in strong terms.

When I read Curmie’s typically adept commentary, I realized that a regular reader here might be able to program a computer to write a response to an Ethics Alarms post on rotting journalism ethics (and, to be honest, many other recurring themes here) that I would almost be certain to select as a Comment of the Day. That would be unethical, of course, and I can vouch for the fact that Curmie isn’t a computer, having had the pleasure of meeting him in person.

Here is real, live, human being Curmie’s Comment of the Day on objectivity, subjectivity, the nature of bias, and the post,  “On The Plus Side, At Least There’s No Reason To Hold Any Illusions That American Journalists Will Even Try To Be Ethical Journalists In The Foreseeable Future…”

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I dabbled in journalism as an undergrad. Admittedly, that wasn’t exactly last week: the newsroom was stocked with manual typewriters, if that gives you a rough idea. There was no journalism department, and, I believe, only a single introductory course–which virtually no one on the staff of the newspaper took. A bunch of my colleagues turned out okay, though: three that I worked with ended up in senior management positions: one with the Wall Street Journal, one with the International Herald Tribune, one with Newsweek.

I did some day editing, mostly on the arts page; I had a weekly column, and I did a little news reporting. I never sought an upper-level editorial position. It’s possible, perhaps even probable, I could have been arts editor if I’d really wanted the job; I didn’t.

But I did have a lot of conversations about journalism with some people who were subsequently to be very successful in that business. The consensus was that objectivity was a goal, but one it was impossible to achieve. The reasons for this were two-fold. First, you can’t entirely suppress your own life experience, perspectives, and (yes) prejudices. Second, you inevitably interpret the significance of events. If X happened and Y also happened, there are manifold ways of framing the story, using variations on the theme of “despite” or “therefore,” for example. Even saying “X and Y” instead of “Y and X” often betrays a bias.

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring Because They Were Installed Upside-Down And Backwards…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

There’s not a lot one can say about this astounding story or that needs to be said, but it still must be told because the head-exploding incident demonstrates just how completely ethically inert some alleged adults in authority can be. From there we must consider how our culture is failing if anyone could be raised in it for 22 years and do what Arlisha Boykins did.

That’s her above, taking a free throw in a basketball game. That game was being played by the Churchland High JV team, on which the players were 13-to 15-year-old girls. Arlisha was the assistant coach of that team—as I noted, she’s 22-years old—and when one of her team’s players who is 13 had to miss a game, Boykins masqueraded as her, wearing the player’s uniform and taking her place on the court for a January 21 contest.

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On The Plus Side, At Least There’s No Reason To Hold Any Illusions That American Journalists Will Even Try To Be Ethical Journalists In The Foreseeable Future…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

It looks like honking will do as much good as anything else.

Former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward interviewed over 75 media leaders to assess how the industry views the concept of “objectivity.”

The message they got was that objectivity was over-rated, and what really matters is diversity. Sure, that makes sense. Not really, but it was predictable.  Journalists, Downey and Heyward were told,  should include their own beliefs, biases, and experiences to convey “truth.” Journalistic objectivity was either unrealistic or undesirable.

“Objectivity has got to go,” said Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s objective by whose standard? … That standard seems to be White, educated, and fairly wealthy,” said Kathleen Carroll, former executive editor at the Associated Press. USA Today editor-in-chief Nicole Carroll said that she allows  reporters to write about their own experiences, so long as the stories aren’t “too biased.”

[That’s signature significance for editorial incompetence. Any bias is too biased.] Continue reading →

‘How Dare A White Actress Try To Win An Oscar Nomination That Might Have Gone To A Black Actress?’

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

So, as the saying goes, it’s come to this.

What’s “this”? “This” is a metastasizing cultural mandate that it is part of  systemic racism for a white citizen in the United States to seek any position, place of honor, influence, prestige or prominence, reward, benefit or achievement that a “BIPOC” might have attained without the competition. Naturally Hollywood in one of the agar nutrients growing this toxic and unethical contagion.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced  that it will be “conducting a review” of this season’s Oscar nomination campaigns by studios and artists. Everyone knows, however, that the real impetus for the investigation is the grassroots campaign  that nabbed a best actress Oscar nomination for Andrea Riseborough’s performance in the independent film “To Leslie.”  Riseborough is, to the public at least, an obscure 41-year-old British actress whose film was heard of by few, seen by fewer, cost little to make and grossed nothing by Hollywood standards. Critics, however, were lavish in their praise for her performance, and, missing the advantage of big studio promotional marketing aimed at Oscar voters, she and the film’s supporters created buzz the old-fashioned way, through networking and word of mouth.

The film’s director, Michael Morris and his wife, the actress Mary McCormack, appealed to notable friends in the actors’ section of the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences, urging them to see the film,  post about Riseborough’s performance on social media, and to host in-person or Zoomed interviews with the actress. Among the glitterati who promoted Riseborough on social media or through events hyping the film were Susan Sarandon, Helen Hunt, Zooey Deschanel, Mira Sorvino, Constance Zimmer, Rosie O’Donnell, Alan Cumming , Edward Norton, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Minnie Driver, Gwyneth Paltrow, Amy Adams, Frances Fisher and Kate Winslet, who said of Riseborough’s To Leslie performance at the event she hosted, “I think this is the greatest female performance onscreen I have ever seen in my life!”

It worked. But—oh-oh!—none of Riseborough’s advocates were black, and you know what THAT means. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce (And Preening Jerk): Actor Alan Cumming

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Yecchh.

Alan Cumming, whose ticket to stardom was punched by acquiring his initial acclaim reprising a role that was originated by a superior performer (Joel Grey, the first “MC” of “Cabaret”) gladly accepted an OBE, the British award bestowed on the Scottish performer in 2009 by the late Queen Elizabeth II as part of her annual birthday honors list. Cumming was allegedly honored for his work as an actor as well as his campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights: the Crown was trying to pander to the LGBTQ crowd at the time. There is no way Cummings’ acting career warranted the honor itself. It was the equivalent of the Academy of Motion Picture Science giving a Lifetime Achievement Award to Demi Lovato.

Cumming happily accepted the honor and the prestige and publicity that go with it. Now, 11-years later, whatever momentum the Order bestowed on him has waned, as has Cumming’s career. ( His short-lived CBS series “Instinct,” where he played, badly, an academic who assists the NYPD solve crimes, was unwatchable.) And thus it is that he decided he could once again get headlines and stir social media controversy by marking his 58th birthday by announcing on Instagram,

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Yet Another Explanation For The Tyre Nichols Police Attack That Doesn’t Involve “White Supremacy”…And It Is Very Much Based On Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Radlye Balko made a cogent and well-supported case that the horrible beating death of young hands Tyre Nichols at the hands of five ‘elite” black Memphis cops was the result of cities creating unaccountable special urban law enforcement teams that are negligently supervised, trained and selected. Now comes iconoclast sportswriter, podcaster and pundit Jason Whitlock, a co-founder of “Outkick,” to offer a more explosive, and unwelcome explanation (in the woke community at least):

[T]he five police officers mimicked gang behavior and that the whole sad event is a byproduct of communities overrun with matriarchal values and controlled by single black mothers….the conversation we should be having in reaction to Tyre Nichols centers on the cost of destroying the black family.

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Black urban areas are dominated by matriarchal rulership. It’s an utter failure and disaster. These areas all operate similar to Memphis. Crime is astronomical. Young men settle their differences with deadly violence. Academic performance hovers at record lows. Illegitimacy rates skyrocket.

Tyre Nichols was 29. The five police officers who participated in beating him to death range in age from 24 to 32. The behavior we witnessed from the officers resembles what happens when a group of Vice Lords catch a Gangster Disciple on their turf. The Disciple will flee. The Vice Lords will chase. Violence ensues.

My point is what we saw Friday night does not appear to be an outgrowth of bad policing. I’ve yet to see video evidence that depicts what caused the traffic stop and why Nichols had to be snatched from his car. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been shown the complete story. Something about the encounter feels far more personal than anything born of the frustration created by a resistant suspect. The use of pepper spray makes zero sense.

It feels like the outgrowth of a rotten culture, a culture where black men are canonized and celebrated for handling petty beefs and disrespect with lethal violence. That type of emotional violence is commonplace within zip codes dominated by the matriarchy.

Tyre Nichols cried out for his mama for a reason. I’m not saying that to belittle Nichols. I’m saying it’s a reflection of modern black culture, a culture that inappropriately places women at the top of the food chain. Mama is the ultimate authority and savior.

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At Last! A Persuasive Explanation For The Tyre Nichols Police Attack That Doesn’t Involve “White Supremacy”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Radley Balko, the former “Reason” investigative reporter who, as long as he isn’t discussing Donald Trump-related issues, is still a reliable, perceptive and ethical analyst, has a guest essay in the New York Times convincingly arguing that the tragedy was a predicable result of the ““elite” police team fad around the country. “Elite police teams” are, he explains, assembled for the broad purpose of fighting crime waves, and they intentionally operate with far more freedom and less oversight than police officers normally do.

The five officers who terrorized and eventually killed young Tyre Nichols were members of the 10-officer Memphis version of this phenomenon, and were collectively called “Scorpion.” Balko points out that the name is a tell: though the Memphis police force website emphasizes the importance of winning the community’s trust, the theory behind elite police teams is that they should inspire fear.

When I first learned that the Memphis police had shut down Scorpion in response to the Nichols tragedy, my initial reaction was that this was the Barn Door Fallacy, a rush to eliminate what was being blamed for a disastrous event without any evidence that doing so will have a beneficial effect, in order to be perceived as doing something. Balko makes a strong argument that these teams are ticking bombs:

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring…Or Were Never Installed: The Caring Asst. Principal

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

First of all, has Ms. Harvey (idiot/idiot/idiot’s) been fired yet? Why not? At least the principal reacted quickly, sending out this: Continue reading →

Cartoon Ethics, Part II: There…

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

AleXsandro Palombo, an edgy Italian artist who often uses pop culture images to make serious points, was hired to paint appropriate murals around Milan’s Holocaust memorial, which is located at Platform 21 inside the city’s main train station from which approximately  1,200 Jews were sent to Nazi death camps in 1943. Shortly before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Shoah Memorial Foundation discovered what the artist felt was appropriate art: characters from “The Simpsons” dressed as Jews at various stages of the Final Solution.

Doh! Continue reading →