Author: Jack Marshall

Afternoon Ethics Round-Up, 4/8/2022: Suspicion, Suspicious, And The Usual Suspects

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I’m wracking my brain to explain why there are a significant number of skeptics out there who want to give Putin and Russia “the benefit of the doubt” and who will wait for “an investigation” before they will conclude that Ukraine is the victim in this deadly invasion and that  the country and its leader, Zelenskyy (are we supposed to include the extra “y” or not?) are hoaxing the world. I understand the talking heads like Tucker Carlson, who are dead-eyed opportunist’s who only care about controversy and ratings. I understand the isolationists (this includes Carlson as well), who think they have to make Zelenskyy a villain so the U.S. isn’t drawn into a war with Russia. But I don’t understand the rest of the “let’s not be so hard on Putin: all of what we hear and read may be Ukraine false-flag operations and propaganda” gang, some of whom were flushed out by this post. Since the “Putin is a victim” claim makes no sense whatsoever (like the Putin excuse, “I had to invade because NAZIS!!!”), I have some theories:

  • The super-skeptics have been so damaged by the increasing vidence of media fake news and propaganda accompanied by exposed lies by all sides of the political spectrum, highlighted by the pandemic Ethics Train Wreckthat they literally don’t believe anything now. Anything. They are victims of ethics rot across our institutions and our culture. Unfortunately, disbelieving everything creates fear and paranoia.. It also presumed the kind of mass, bi-partisan conspiracy that is impossible to hide.
  • They are Super-Trumpers, who, because Donald said some nice things about Putin and because the media sued the Russia collusion hoax to cripple his Presidency, the cognitive dissonance scale pushed them to excuse Putin.
  • It is an extreme backlash to the news media’s sanctification of Zelenskyy, who has taken several anti-democratic measures and is probably using his position to get rich, because the leaders of most Second World nations like Ukraine do.
  • The skeptics are Russian agents.
  • They’re nuts.

Any other explanations?

1. Everything is seemingly spinning out of control! Apparently more pro tennis players are smashing or throwing their rackets. Recent episodes on the tour have come close to injuring officials, ballboys and girls and spectators, so the game is increasing penalties. Two statements in the recent Times story about the topic bothered me:

  • “Long accepted as an entertaining idiosyncrasy of the sport…” Who goes to tennis tournaments to see some asshole throw a racket? When I played competitive tennis, throwing a racket was an automatic forfeit, plus the mark of an infantile jerk. When did that change? I guess it’s Donald Trump’s fault.
  • “Racket-smashing tantrums have long been accepted as part of the game. Like hockey fights, they are a way for players to blow off steam. But as the broader culture becomes less tolerant of public displays of anger, and with an increasing number of close calls on the court, racket smashing suddenly no longer seems like an entertaining idiosyncrasy.” Who says the broader culture has become less tolerant of public displays of anger? That’s an assertion without evidence, especially after the Will Smith episode.

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Open Forum, Or As I Am Thinking Today, “PLAY BALL!”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

The Red Sox start their season with a day game against the Yankees in Yankee Stadium, so I’ll be especially busy today. Cover for me by pitching theories, fielding questions and batting around ethics matters here, okay?

From The “Res Ipsa Loquitur” Files: Brian Stelter’s Response To A Question About CNN’s Bias And Dishonest Journalism

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

There is a lot to mock regarding University of Chicago’s “Conference on Disinformation and Erosion of Democracy,” dominated by Democrats, who are determined to continue eroding democracy in ways that will increase and guarantee the party’s power, and their allies in the mainstream media, or “the mainstream media” for short. The Federalist has one of many deft take-downs here, though it is a bit like shooting genetically-altered fish born with targets on their sides in a barrel.

To the event’s credit however, it has permitted University of Chicago students to ask questions that exposed the hypocrisy of the partisan exercise, as in the Anne Applebaum video clip I embedded here. This exchange was even better, as another student took aim at CNN’s fake media watchdog, the revolting and incompetent Brian Stelter.

Stelter has as much business as a featured authority in a conference on fighting “disinformation” as China has on the U.N. Human Rights Committee, The setting was a panel on “How Media Platforms Shape Consumer Realities,” , featuring moderator Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times (This tells you all you need to know about his perspective), The Dispatch’s Stephen Hayes, Lauren Williams of Capital B, and Stelter. His perambulations to avoid dealing with the substance of the question were the stuff of “Monty Python” satire:

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Evening Clean-Up On The Ethics Aisle, 4/7/2022: “Yecchh!”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

April 7 is a really bad ethics date. In 1994, the worst episode of genocide since World War II was triggered in Rawanda, resulting in the massacre of between 500,000 to 1 million civilian Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Rwandan forces even managed to avoid significant international intervention after the murder of ten Belgian peacekeeping officers: the Tutsis, a minority population that made up about 10% of Rwanda’s population, were never deemed important enough to be rescued by the international community. (Yes, the United Nations has been fearful, negligent, and in this case, racist, for a long time now.) The U.N. did eventually admit that a mere 5,000 soldier peace keeping force could have stopped the slaughter at the start.

That was big of the U.N.

Let’s send them more money.

The genocide’s seeds were planted the early 1990s when President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, began using anti-Tutsi rhetoric to consolidate his power . What followed were several massacres, killing hundreds of Tutsis. The government and army assembled the “Interahamwe” (meaning “those who attack together”) and armed Hutus with guns and machetes for the explicit purpose of wiping the Tutsis out. On April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana was killed when his plane was shot down. In response, Hutu extremists in the military began murdering Tutsis within hours. Belgian peacekeepers were killed the next day, and the U.N’s reaction was…

It bravely pulled its forces from Rwanda. Thousands of innocent people were hacked to death with machetes by their neighbors, but the international community, and notably the United States, took no action to stop the genocide. An estimated 75 % of the Tutsis living in Rwanda had been murdered. Bill Clinton later called America’s failure to intervene “the biggest regret” of his administration.

At least it beat out Monica.

1. They are still trying to excuse Will Smith and blame Chris Rock! Surprised? There were two additions to the canon today. The New York Times featured an absurd piece called “The Slap, Hair and Black Women.” A sample: Continue reading →

Ethics Wrap-Up: Stupid Confirmation Tricks

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Marx said that history begins as tragedy and ends up as face. Let’s begin with a farce. Here was the headline of a Washington Post Op-Ed today: “The Senate Judiciary Committee mistreated Judge Jackson. I should know.” The author: Anita Hill, the Democratic lawyer and former staffer of Clarence Thomas who ambushed the then-SCOTUS nominee and accused him of unverifiable sexual harassment (for example, she said he once made a joke about a pubic hair on a Coke can in a meeting!), smearing and embarrassing him on national TV. In this latest screed, she’s not analogizing Thomas’s treatment by Democrats to that of Republicans attacking Jackson. It’s the criticism of herself for turning those 1991 hearings into a circus she thinks is telling, for she is black, and…wait, Thomas is also black, and he, like Jackson, was being considered before America for the highest court in the land. But Hill’s a black woman, see, so that justifies the column’s thesis, apparently. She’s a law professor, and that’s the quality of her analogy skills. Let’s hope Judge Jackson is better.

Hill has been making a living off of her unethical attempt to derail Thomas’s career for over 30 years. The only fair response to her at this point is, “Shut up, Anita.”  But at least she made me laugh.

Now that we’ve checked the funny papers, back to the news:

The Senate today confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, with three Republicans adding their support to the unanimous Democratic block, making the vote 53-47.

Ethics observations: Continue reading →

“Diversity And Inclusion,” Georgetown Style

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This story combines many Ethics Alarms themes of late: Georgetown University’s ethics corruption, progressive racial discrimination, woke hypocrisy, and, of course, The Great Stupid.

Georgetown’s Campus Ministry has scheduled to two events specifically for black students.  First is an online “Black Hoya Meditation” tomorrow, advertised as a gathering “grounded in belonging and centered on healing and wellness.”

Isn’t “belonging” the opposite of “inclusion” when it is limited my color or group membership? “Healing” from what? Presumably from all the white supremacy-inflicted carnage. Or something Continue reading →

From The “When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring” Files: The Sarah Lawrence College Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

For “don’t ring,” maybe substituting “don’t exist” would be appropriate. I question the competence and sanity of any parent who would allow their child to attend Sarah Lawrence College after this.

You can read the details of the astounding story here and here, but I’m not especially interested in the evil Larry Ray, who was just convicted in New York on 15 counts including extortion, forced labor, sex trafficking, obstruction of justice, and various financial crimes, and faces life in prison. Nobody needs an ethicist to explain that his conduct was unethical (I hope!). I’m interested in this [From the Washington Post]:

After a federal securities fraud conviction, charges related to a custody dispute and a bail-jumping case, Ray was released from a stint behind bars in 2010.He began living at his daughter Talia’s dorm suite at Sarah Lawrence, a private liberal arts college in Westchester County, just north of New York City. There, he encountered Talia’s roommates and injected himself into their lives. Ray cooked meals and hosted late-night chats for the college sophomores, promising them he could help them lead “better, more honest lives…He told them that he had special training that could help them gain clarity and discipline…He said if they shared their deepest feelings with him, he could help resolve their problems…

Claudia Drury was 19 when she met Ray at the dorm suite called Slonim Woods 9. She testified that after drawing her into his orbit, Ray eventually physically abused her. At the same time, she said, he convinced Drury that she had tried to poison him and owed him huge sums of money as a result.

Eventually, Drury told jurors, she worked four years as a prostitute, meeting clients in hotel rooms and paying Ray $10,000 to $50,000 per week. In 2018, she said, Ray suffocated her with a plastic bag after she told a regular client that his name was on a website Ray created to post embarrassing and damaging information he could use to control her.

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Wait…WHICH Side Of The Ideological Divide Is A Threat To Democratic Institutions Again?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

This is so outrageous that even after three cups of coffee I don’t know what to call it. Pathological hypocrisy? Playing with metaphorical matches in a kerosene factory? Prime Great Stupid? Help me out here.

In reaction to a relatively obscure 5-4 Supreme Court decision yesterday, numerous woke journalists and pundits went bonkers and argued that President Biden should just defy the ruling, you know, like Andrew Jackson did when he supposedly said, after the Court (correctly) ruled against his position in Worcester v. Georgia, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”

More about that later.

The Supreme Court yesterday temporarily reinstated a Trump environmental policy that made it harder for states to block projects that could cause water pollution. The opinion, on the so-called “emergency docket” that allows the Court to rule on urgent matters without hearing an oral argument, was unsigned and without any written explanation (so much for Justice Barrett’s “Read the opinion” remarks) prompting Chief Justice John Roberts to join the court’s three left-leaning justices in criticizing the majority’s use of the emergency docket, or as critics call it, the shadow docket.” The particulars of the case don’t matter; what does matter is the Left’s nascent totalitarians in the news media calling for direct defiance.

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Comment Of The Day: “Observations On The Unethical Tweet Of The Month”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Michael West’s Comment of the Day was less a commentary on  a post than an observation triggered by it. There’s been a lot of lawyer-style analysis around here of late, so it’s high time for an engineer’s perspective—in some respects the reverse of the legal problem-solving method–  to be highlighted, in reaction to the post, “Observations On The Unethical Tweet Of The Month.”

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Science is a wonderful thing. The rise of empiricism as a practiced discipline by professionals from it’s rudimentary roots in ancient philosophy has allowed mankind the ability to learn beyond his superstitious ancestor’s imaginations. And combined with that human imagination – the knowledge gained by science has empowered us to manipulate, to engineer, incredible solutions to direct problems as well as reduce mere inconveniences and discomforts to non-entities.

Scientists and engineers, by merely studying a problem, determining predictable laws that govern the interactions within problems and using that knowledge to develop a solution, opened up the power of man’s intellect.

But therein lies another problem. We think we can engineer, we can manipulate our way to solve everything. We think we’ve studied the factors going into a problem so thoroughly that we know the right solution. I’m an architect, and we have a saying – “A problem thoroughly defined is more that half-solved”. By “defined”, we mean, researched, studied, determined our constraints and our opportunities. Very rapidly, in the design process – the more we spend in studying the problem the more our options are narrowed down to one or two appropriate solutions. Soon, the solution presents itself. Continue reading →

And Now For Something Completely Stupid: “Cracker Jill”

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

The Great Stupid obviously know no bounds.

PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay has announced that “Cracker Jills” is now an official product, because popcorn and peanuts are obviously the way to celebrate women  in sports. The snack will be available in ballparks, and as part of the pandering exercise, PepsiCo will donate $200,000 Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF).

Cracker Jills are no different in substance than the 125-year old classic Cracker Jack snacks, but the packages features five different representations of women on the special-edition bags. They represent the most populous ethnicities  in the U.S. according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, because just representing just one woman to stand for all would be racist, or “exclusive” or something. Continue reading →