Around the World

From The Ethics Alarms Archives: “What Is Wrong Is That We Do Not Ask What Is Right.”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I stumbled across this post from 2022 by accident, but feel like it is a good time to repost it. It sparks recall of one of the histories’s great thinkers, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) G.K. slaughtered Clarence Darrow in an Oxford debate over the existence of God—Darrow took the negative position, naturally, an assertion that he had won debates maintaining many times. After the debacle, Darrow commented, in essence, “My hat’s off to him. He was better prepared and won fair and square.” He was thinking, I believe, “Holy cats! This guy is smarter than me!” Chesterton, sadly, is mostly known today by Americans because of the PBS series dramatizing his “Father Brown” mysteries, stories Chesterton published as a lark. He was much more than second-rate Arthur Conan Doyle.

I also am moved to repost this because it was the sole guest post offered by my late wife, best friend, business partner and inspiration, Grace Bowen Marshall, who suddenly perished this month in 2024. She occasionally commented here, but her real love was literature, especially British literature. In her introduction she wrote in part,

“The first chapter of his 1910 book “What’s Wrong With The World” was a ‘bright-light’ experience for me. Though hopelessly outdated in some 21st century factual respects, it is considered to be one of his more interesting works because Chesterton examines the human thought process and how it affects the outcomes of different kinds of problems, reminiscent of the “observer effect.” G.K. was, in 1910, much more trusting of science and medicine than we are now, e.g., and did not address 21st century thought-process issues like the scientists’ tendency to do something simply because they can without considering if they should. Here is an excerpt from G.K. Chesterton’s “What’s Wrong With The World.”

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Friday Rainy Day Open Forum

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

I used to complain about how much of Northern Virginia winters were spent in the rain, but the deluge overnight here, which is going to restart any minute, could not be more welcome. My neighborhood has been iced-over for weeks, with snow on the ground longer than any time during my decades long residence. (Naturally, this is just more evidence of climate change and global warming, “experts” say, and they know best.) The warm rain is ending that, meaning that walking my over-enthusiastic dog, Spuds, will no longer be life-threatening…at least not as life threatening.

I have too many things I want to write about, and as always, I am hoping to find some guest posts (as in “you write about it so I don’t have to” posts) here today when the dust settles. Olympics ethics stories will be especially welcome, because I refuse to watch the hypocritical spectacle or read about it unless someone sends me a tip. I am very tempted, however, to write about Elaine Gu, the all-American super-star skier who competes representing China in this Winter Olympics. According to the Wall Street Journal, Gu and Zhu Yi, a fellow American-born figure skater who now competes for China, were paid a combined $6.6 million by the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau in 2025 for “striving for excellent results in qualifying for the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics.” In all, the two were reportedly paid nearly $14 million over the past three years. The payments were revealed when the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau budget was posted online with the names of Gu and Zhu. Their names have since been scrubbed from the public report.”

Nice. Gu is revolting, and it also proves how far the Olympic have come from their original roots of extolling amateur athletic competition. Gu still is paid by some American corporations to be their sponsors. They are also revolting. Gu’s betrayal of her own nation raises the ethical issue of dual citizenship. She’s a great walking, talking, greedy, ethically-inert example of why we shouldn’t allow it.

But don’t get me started. You get started…

45 Minutes Of Mainstream Media Morning Spin and Distortions

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

At 8:30 am EST I was up this morning. Spuds was snoring away on my bed, it was gray outside in Alexandria, and I began my morning routine of a light breakfast and a strong cup of coffee. By 8:45 I was sitting on my sofa (Boy, do I ever need to replace that!) and leaving the DirecTV “News Mix” on as background noise as I checked the EA comments (not much yet), looked over multiple news aggregator headlines, and periodically switched channels among CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.

CNN began a “report” ( a hit job, in fact) on “the rise of Christian nationalism,” interviewing some cherry-picked fanatic Christian families (one with nine kids) and focusing on a school that makes students pledge allegiance to a Christian flag “and indoctrinates students in the false belief that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation.” CNN’s spin was that this is a scary cult “beginning to infiltrate all parts of American society and culture.”

It would have been nice if some objective historian had interjected that the 13 original colonies were indeed founded by Christians, but that the founding documents of the U.S. went to some lengths to avoid locking the U.S. into any religious faith. It was founded as a secular nation by a group of wise Christians who had learned that governments should keep their metaphorical noses out of religious beliefs and that organized religion should stay out of government.

CNN’s “report” was thinly veiled “conservatives are dangerous” propaganda. But this is CNN…

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Comment of the Day: “Ethics Quiz: Rep. Fine’s ‘Islamaphobic’ Quote”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

[Apologies to all: I was so eager to get Steve’s Comment of the Day up that I forgot to add the headline!]

The historically literate, unrestrained Ethics Alarms veteran commenter Steve-O-in NJ returns to the familiar (to him) Comment of the Day podium making the case that Rep. Fine was not being one bit unreasonable and certainly not “Islamophobic” when he responded to a New York City Muslim activists assertion that dogs should not be kept as pets in the Big Apple with the quip, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”

In casual conversation about Fine’s line (not to be confused with “a fine line” ) I have yet to encounter anyone who doesn’t feel he got the better of the exchange. One lawyer friend, known for his combative courtroom style, opined that the woman’s ‘Islam is right that dogs are dirty’ remark was such a metaphorical hanging curve ball that it would have been unethical not to hit it out of the park.

Here is Steve-O-in-NJ’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: Rep. Fine’s ‘Islamaphobic’ Quote”:

***

Islamic attitudes toward dogs vary. Some think of them as okay to use as working animals (herding, hunting etc.), but not pets. Judaism also for a time was anti-dog, and I think that ported over to Islam, same as the rule against pork.

I for one have never owned a dog, but I have known many, and I think they are useful in a number of ways, including as companion animals. They assist the disabled, protect and direct livestock, find people (or bodies), save those stranded on mountains, assist the emergency services, and even tow carts with Christmas trees or other evergreen decorations (the Bernese Mountain Dog is the usual breed for this). I’ll take a large gentle dog or an affectionate energetic dog (little yappy dogs are not my thing) over a hyper-religious neighbor who wants to tell me what to do any day. I’ve said a few times that Islam is not compatible with Western values, and this is just one other reason why it isn’t.

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A Shocking Ice Dancing Judging Scandal at the Winter Olympics

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

You can read the details of this completely predictable and in general ridiculous ice-dancing judging scandal here, here, and here. I’m not going recount the details because the details are misleading.

The ethics story is that the American ice dancing team of Madison Chock and Evan Bates lost the gold to the French team of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron because a French judge, Jezabel Dabouis, favored Beaudry and Cizeron by nearly eight points (make that “points”) over the three-time world champions in the free dance, a margin inexplicable when compared to the scores of the other judges, and so large that if her score were removed entirely, Chock and Bates would have won the top prize easily.

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BREAKING: DEI Bias Eats The A.P.’s Brains

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Why would the Associate Press feel the world needs this “news” when Savannah Guthrie’s mother is still missing?

The Associated Press is troubled that there are so many white athletes at the Winter Olympics. No, it really offered a new story that says this. No I am NOT kidding. The apparently woke-mad Chris Nisi complains in “Europe’s rising diversity is not reflected at the Winter Olympics. Culture plays a big role” [Note: “Culture plays a big role”= “Bulletin: Water is Wet.”]…

Immigration from Africa and the Middle East has transformed the demographics of Europe in recent decades. And while the growing diversity is reflected in many sports such as soccer — Sweden’s men’s national team has several Black players including Liverpool striker Alexander Isak — it hasn’t made a dent in winter sports…At the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Sweden is sending a team made up almost exclusively of ethnically Swedish athletes, with NHL player Mika Zibanejad, whose father is from Iran, a rare exception. That hardly reflects the diversity of the Nordic country: About 2 million of its 10 million residents were born abroad, about half of them in Asia or Africa, according to national statistics agency SCB.

The lack of athletes of color at the Winter Olympics — and in winter sports in general — has been a recurring theme in the U.S., which is sending one of its most diverse teams to the Games. It hasn’t gotten the same attention in Europe.

The Olympic rosters of France, Germany, Switzerland and other European winter sports nations look a lot like Sweden’s: overwhelmingly white and lacking the immigrant representation seen in their soccer or basketball teams…”

 

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Ethics Quiz: The United Nations

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The New York Times reports (Gift link!) that the United Nations announced it was “facing imminent financial collapse and would run out of money by July” because the United States had not paid its annual dues for 2025. If the situation isn’t rectified, the U.N. will be forced to shut down its New York City headquarters this summer. Also in jeopardy: the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “which responds to global emergencies like conflicts and natural disasters.”

U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, sent a letter to all 196 member states warning of “imminent financial collapse.” “The crisis is deepening, threatening program delivery and risking financial collapse,” he wrote. “And the situation will further deteriorate in the near future. I cannot overstate the urgency of the situation we now face.”

The United Nations’ 2026 budget is $3.45 billion. That is supposed to cover what the U.N. calls its “three core pillars of work: peace and security, sustainable development and human rights.”

What has the U.N. done for “peace and security” lately? “Sustainable development”…sound like “climate change” to me. Human rights? The U.N. criticizes the United States for alleged human rights violation, while letting actual human rights atrocities.

The United States is entirely responsible for the current crisis, because 95% of the money owed to the United Nations is our share. And this is because the United States pays a ridiculously excessive share of the expenses of an organization that has increasingly done this nation little good and a great deal of harm for decades.

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Bite Me, “Doomsday Clock”!

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

If anyone or anything ever deserved an Ethics Alarms “Bite Me!,” it’s the ridiculous Doomsday Clock and the pompous, biased, fear-mongering scientists who set it.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set the clock each year since 1947, and to say it does not have a sterling record, whatever standards one uses, would be an understatement. Well, I’ll take that back: they have a sterling record for being wrong. Still, once again the thing is in the news. “The ‘”‘Doomsday Clock'”‘ — a symbolic clock that supposedly represents how close humanity is to global catastrophe according to “experts” — “has moved closer to midnight,” ABC News tells us. “The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced Tuesday that the clock is now 85 seconds to midnight, with midnight representing the apocalypse.”

That’s the closest its ever been! AAAAIIIIIIIIII!!!

[Watch out now, you have to click on “2” below to keep reading…]

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The DEI Slippery Slope Goes Here:

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Suraj Bhaskar, 20, from Uttar Pradesh, one of the Indian states, failed the NEET medical school admission exam twice. Determined to become a doctor, however, the plucky young man wouldn’t give up. Indian law mandates a 5% set aside in admissions for people with disabilities (PwDs) in government-aided higher education institutions, including medical colleges.

So he cut off his foot.

A police investigation indicated the violent assault on Suraj that his older brother reported was in fact a carefully planned ruse. The aspiring doctor was indeed found unconscious with a severed foot, but the plot fell apart rapidly.

“The accused tried to mislead the investigation with a fabricated story, but his claims did not stand scrutiny during sustained questioning and examination of evidence,” a police spokesperson told local reporters. A diary belonging to Suraj conatined an entry that read, “I will become an MBBS doctor in 2026,” and his girlfriend testified to Suraj’s obsession with getting into medical school. He had unsuccessfully tried to obtain disability-related documents a few months prior, but was foiled. The medical report determined that Suraj’s foot had been cleanly cut off, most likely with a machine, and the incision was too clean to have been inflicted with a violent knife attack as the two brothers claimed. The syringes found in a field near where Suraj lay strongly suggested that used a drug to numb his legs before performing the self-amputation.

His foot is still missing.

There appears to be some doubt as to whether any charges or punishment will follow with this scheme, which is widely seen as self-punishing. If nothing else, Suraj’s medical career has definitely gotten off on the wrong foot.

I’m sorry, but I regard it as unethical to pass up an obvious punch line like that.

A Trump Derangement Test: Show This Story To Your Friends and Relatives and Note Which Ones Believe The President’s Secret “Daughter”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Necla Ozmen, 55, who lives in Ankara, Turkey, has filed a paternity lawsuit claiming the President is her biological father and is demanding a DNA test to prove it. Her filing was immediately dismissed by the Turkish court, and she’s appealing.

Necla says she was born in 1970 and is officially registered as the daughter of Sati and Dursun Ozmen, the couple who raised her.  However, she claims she later learned she had been adopted. Her mother told her that she gave birth to a stillborn baby and that another woman giving birth at the same time, a US citizen Necla identifies only as Sophia, handed over her newborn to be raised and registered by the Ozmen family.

This resembles the plot of “The Omen.” Was Sophia a jackal, by any chance? If so, that means Necla is the Anti-Christ and Trump is The Beast! I knew it!

“Sophia,” Necla says, said that she was the result of an elicit relationship with Trump. The President’s alleged “daughter” wants the judges to establish her paternity and order genetic testing.  Necla has no idea how Trump and Sophia met. “I don’t want to cause him any trouble. I just want to know the truth,” she tells interviewers. “I just want to know whether he is my father. I would like him to speak with me. I can prove through a DNA test that he is my father, if he agrees. I believe he is a good father. I believe he will not turn me away either.” She has also sent petitions to the U.S. Embassy and to courts in the US.

Several of the news reports I have read say that the woman has an “uncanny” resemblance to Trump. Wow. They’re almost twins.

Hey…you know one of you reading out there might be Trump’s kid too. Can’t hurt to check it out! And if he’s not the father, why would Trump oppose a blood test?

I’m guessing that at least 30% of your Trump Deranged acquaintances will instantly accept this Turkish woman’s account as plausible, with a similar number calling it hypocrisy if you don’t after criticizing Hunter Biden’s denial of paternity of one of Joe Biden’s grandchildren.

What are the odds, now, of some Trump-hating judge in the U.S. granting Necla’s request? I’d say strong, and that’s why her lawyers are not unethical to press her claims.

As the wicket Witch of the West memorably said, “What a world, what a world…”