Author: Jack Marshall

The Great Stupid, SBA Variant

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Equity! Is there anything it can’t do?

The Small Business Administration, which  administered the Wuhan virus assistance Paycheck Protection Program, now says it will not pursue collection on loans that are  in default as long as the amount owed is $100,000 or less. In fact, most of the 12 million loans given out in 2020 and 2021 were under $100,000.

Hey, free money! Is this a great country or what? May we be so bold as to ask why this largess is being offered to deadbeat businesses?

The SBA claims that the decision to forego collections will ensure “equitable” treatment of  smaller sole proprietor borrowers and larger incorporated borrowers. The SBA reasons that if they pursued collections, the individuals associated with the generally larger incorporated borrowers would hide behind their corporate shield, while individual sole proprietors would be on the hook—-for the money they accepted with a promise to pay it back. Can’t have that! Right? If it’s theoretically possible for rich individuals to duck the loan obligation by having their business declare bankruptcy, it’s unfair to make smaller deadbeats pay back the money they owe. Equity!

The SBA’s Inspector General is not impressed with this logic (he must be a Trump hire), and reported in part,

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A Popeye: Today’s Grandstanding After The Michigan State Shooting [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

This exploitation of the tragedy is as predictable as it is dishonest and irresponsible:

  • The shooter, who was nuts, had a prior criminal conviction and should not have been able to acquire a firearm. So again, as in so many of these episodes, it wasn’t the law that was the problem, it was the human and organizational incompetence in enforcing the law.
  • President Biden, in his mastery of fatuousness and ability to issue empty pronouncements, said that these kinds of events “happen too often.” Gee, Joe, what would be “just often enough”? Are there any tragedies that only happen the right number of times? A guy in a U-Haul truck just ran amuck in New York City, running down pedestrians. That’s never happened before—was once “too much”? Should we have back-ground checks on truck rentals?
  • Some Michigan House member—it doesn’t matter which, I’m sure her demagoguery is fungible—said she was furious that law-makers couldn’t or wouldn’t “do something” to prevent such shootings. Do something. Every time, the same stock, meaningless demand. When pressed on what “something” would be, the answer is inevitably something that would violate the Second Amendment, a law that is already on the books, or “something” that wouldn’t have stopped the shooting that prompted the rant.
  • The NBC newscaster I was listening to concluded from the fact that the shooter couldn’t legally own a gun that the problem was “too many guns.” She did not enlighten us about how, short of armed gun confiscation, “too many” could  be whittled down to “just enough.” [I checked: It was Rep. Elissa Slotkin.]

Something Else To Blame On Wuhan Hysteria Baseball’s Corrupting “Ghost Runner” Becomes Permanent

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I am just about as loyal and devoted a fan of baseball as there is, and if recent developments in the game under the misguided and incompetent stewardship of Commissioner Ron Manfred risk alienating me, the “National Pastime” is in big trouble.

In the 2020 season, Major League Baseball responded to the Wuhan-interrupted Spring Training and shortened season by instituting the “ghost runner” rule that had been used in some minor leagues as an experiment. Each half inning after the 9th if a game was tied would begin with a runner on second base, that runner being the player who made the final out of the previous inning. The theory was that this would decrease the likelihood of marathon games, decrease player workloads and mitigate the chances of injuries to the supposedly under-prepared players. It was pushed, of course, by the Players Union, which wants its millionaires to have to do the minimal among of work possible for their lucre. Players have always hated extra-inning games; it’s like unpaid overtime. Never mind the fact that such games have frequently resulted in some of the most exciting and memorable contests in baseball’s history. I was in the stands for one of them: Carlton Fisk’s legendary home run off the foul pole in Fenway Park’s left field in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.

Notes one baseball website,

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What Unidentified Flying Objects Tell Us About Unethical Federal Obstacles To Democracy

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Shortly before the U.S. military, flushed with success after shooting down a Chinese spy balloon after it had floated across the country’s air space, began shooting down unidentified flying objects with wild abandon, I happened upon “Into the Blue,” a 2003 documentary about the long-running UFO controversy. Unlike just about every other documentary I have seen on the subject (I wrote a book report on the UFO phenomenon when I was 10), this one, narrated by Ken Burns’ favorite voice of late, Peter Coyote, is not hysterical, nor does it destroy its credibility by going off the rails with conspiracy theories.

But despite my interest in the topic, what I took away from the film had nothing to do with UFOs at all. The evidence doesn’t prove that we have had visitors from outer space, though that conclusion seems hard to avoid. It does prove, however, that the “Deep State” is real, pernicious, persistent, and an existential threat to democracy. What is so frightening and striking about the documented efforts by individuals in the military, scientists, ordinary citizens and in at least two cases (as of 2003, the date of the film), Presidents of the United States to get an open and honest assessment of what evidence there is for the existence of extra-terrestrial vehicles visiting Earth is how thoroughly these efforts have been foiled by Federal agencies and bureaucrats with their own agendas. Not only is the Deep State powerful and sinister, it is apparently impenetrable, especially because the news media and those who benefit from having a shadow government wielding lies that advance their ends continue to deny its existence.

The serial horrible instances of cover-ups, fake investigations and calculated disinformation exposed in the film confirm that… Continue reading →

Call Me Strict, But I Think A Director Smearing Feces On A Ballet Critic’s Face For A Negative Review Warrants A Bit More Than A Suspension

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

This kind of conduct by an employee doesn’t require an investigation. Nobody needs to know why he did it. A responsible employer whose employee engages in this crime against any individual—yes. even a critic—has to fire him for cause, immediately and without hesitation.

The daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the Hannover state opera house’s ballet director Marco Goecke—that’s him above, looking like the son of the sinister Nazi whose head melts in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”— confronted its dance critic, Wiebke Huester, during the intermission of a premiere. Goecke, was furious over a nasty review she wrote of a production he staged at The Hague, and accused her of being responsible for people canceling their season tickets. Then he took dog excrement out of a paper bag he had brought for the occasion and smeared the woman’s face with the guck as she screamed. Huester has filed a criminal complaint.

On its website, the opera house said Huester’s “personal integrity” was violated “in an unspeakable way.” I wonder who came up with those weasel words. It added that the opera house had officially apologized to her. After all, the post said, Goecke’s “impulsive reaction” violated the ground rules of the theater and that “he caused massive damage to the Hannover State Opera and State Ballet.”

So…..?

So, it said, he is being suspended and banned from the opera house until further notice,though the lunatic will be given an opportunity to apologize “comprehensively” and explain himself to theater management “before further steps are announced.” Continue reading →

The NFL’s Offensive And Divisive “Black National Anthem” Pander [Revised and Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Just because I wasn’t watching the showcase for the nation’s most unethical professional sports league doesn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention. The NFL truly is a blot on American culture, and its nauseating use of the so-called “black national anthem,” “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” is one more piece of evidence.

The NFL started its practice of using the song as a counterpoint to THE National Anthem, the Star Spangled Banner in 2021, in craven grovelling to the George Floyd riots and Black Lives Matter, as well as sop to the NFL’s National Anthem protesters like Colin Kaepernick. It was a disgraceful suck-up to the large majority of black players in the league, and if 2021  were the only instance of it, the stunt could be forgiven. But now the song has been presented before three straight Super Bowls, and that means we are stuck with it forever, just like baseball is stuck with “God Bless America,” the redundant Irving Berlin song that stadiums started sticking into the Seventh Inning Stretch as a show of unity after the attacks of 9/11. But “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is even more beyond ending, and you know why as well as I do. Continue reading →

Unethical Tweet Of The Month: Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Larry Tribe

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

  • No, it doesn’t look like that at all.
  • An extensive and expensive investigation held by anti-Trump-biased lawyers found otherwise, and
  • This kind of claim regarding a stolen election has been called “baseless” by the mainstream media and Democrats as a virtual mantra for more than two years, and is routinely categorized as “misinformation.”
  • Tribe, as a law professor, is presumed to know what evidence is, but there is no “evidence” of what Tribe claims, and the Mueller Report specifically stated so, as painful as it must have been.

Tribe’s reputation-scarring delusions, however, are confirmation for the Trump Deranged, who think, for example, this meme by Occupy Democrats is profound: Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Alec And The Philharmonic [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

I did not know that Alec “Quick-Draw” Baldwin, currently criminal charges in New Mexico as a consequence of his fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins while filming the film “Rust,” is and has been the New York Philharmonic’s radio host. In writing this,  I am admitting that I haven’t listened to live broadcasts of the orchestra in a long time, probably since Leonard Bernstein was waving the baton. On the other hand, if I knew I had to listen to Baldwin to hear “Peter and the Wolf” again (Lenny’s rendition was big hit when I was 10), I wouldn’t have listened anyway. I can tolerate Baldwin in older films (like “The Hunt for the Red October”) before he became a public asshole, and in more recent movies (like “The Departed,” “Pearl Harbor” and the “Mission Impossible” films) where he is only in a small supporting role: he is, after all, a competent actor (like many assholes). In any other setting, however, if Alec is connected with it, count me out; the cognitive dissonance is too great.

The New York Post reports that despite the actor facing homicide murder charges (two counts of involuntary manslaughter) , the Philharmonic will allow Baldwin to keep his role as the famed orchestra’s  radio host and will remain a member of its board of directors. “He has been an incredibly strong person on the board, and very, very helpful and I think that will probably carry us today,” Charles F. Neimeth, a fellow board member, said in explaining the organization’s decision. “He’s been a strong contributor, both financially and otherwise.” Continue reading →

“The Ethicist” On Allowing Your Kids To Associate With The Children Of Crooks [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

One of the downsides of only getting the digital version of the New York Times (because I no longer could justify sending such an unethical and nation-damaging publication almost a hundred bucks a month) is that I don’t keep up with “The Ethicist,” aka Kwame Anthony Appiah, as well as I did when the Times Magazine was always available in our bathroom. A recent catch-up session revealed a lot of interesting topics posed by “The Ethicist’s” readers, as well as some that shouldn’t require an ethicist to figure out ( “Is It OK to Let My Relatives Think Their Dead Sister Is Still Alive?”).

At the end of January, a mother asked whether she should have let her children go to a sleepover at a new classmate’s home after she discovered that the parents  “are now infamous for their unscrupulous and callous illegal business dealings that ultimately led to a multimillion-dollar settlement with our city government.” The mother was concerned about punishing the couple’s children for their parents’ misdeeds. “Should we let the children hang out?” she asks. “How much do we share with our own child, who is old enough to understand why their behavior is unacceptable?”

As usual the ethics teacher goes into great detail examining all pros and cons, writing things like, “Your duties to your own child do take precedence over your concerns for the children of others. In the philosophical literature on “partiality” — the special concern we have toward those with whom we have special relationships — some have argued that it’s morally permissible to give your own children priority. In my view, it isn’t merely permissible; it’s morally obligatory. What you owe to your child is not the same as what you owe to just any child.” Continue reading →

Replay: Still Time To Be Ethical And Decide Not To Watch The Super Bowl

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

[I was going to write a brand new post pointing out why watching the Super Bowl (and the ads of the NFL’s unethical accessories) was unconscionable, but then I remembered how many times I’ve written similar pieces, and constantly going over the same unethical territory is eating away at my joie de vie—“my twinkle,” as Cosmo Kramer would say. Cant have that, so here is a previous post on the theme from 2019.

It is remarkable to me that the near death of Damar Hamlin mid game less than two months ago has essentially vanished from the sports pages after a brief flurry of “why do we cheer on this mayhem?” pieces before the NFL’s play-offs started. The big concern seems to be whether President Biden is snubbing Fox News be refusing to give a mid-game Super Bowl interview (which is supposedly a “tradition”) or Fox News is snubbing President Biden. In any event Joe’s not being interviewed, though a chat with someone who is cognitively damaged during the game might do some good by reminding viewers what they are cheering.]

Let me say something good about the New York Times: not all of it’s editorials are repetitious attacks on President Trump, just most of them. Last week editorial board member Alex Kinsbury persuaded his colleague to let him used the space for an opinion both ethical and irrefutable. A quick summary: Football is maiming its players, the NFL doesn’t care, and if you watch the Super Bowl and support its sponsors, you’re complicit.

But then you knew that, right? At least you know it if you’re been coming here for any length of time.

Recalling a hard hit on Patriots star Rob Gronkowski, Kinsbury writes, “As the sound of the hit faded into a commercial break, I realized with absolute certainty that I couldn’t watch football anymore. There aren’t enough yards to gain or Super Bowl rings to win that are worth the cost.”

True. What took you so long? He continues by reviewing the well-publicized data:

The first research into the link between football and traumatic brain injury was published in 2005. Since then, the science has become impossible to ignore. In 2017, The Journal of the American Medical Association published the results of the autopsies of the brains of 111 deceased former N.F.L. players, whose relatives gave their bodies up for study. The group was not a random sample, yet 110 showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., a degenerative brain disease linked to concussions. Research published in November estimated that a minimum of 10 percent of all professional football players would develop C.T.E. at some point in their lives.

10% is wishful thinking, even for the  players who can still think. Continue reading →