Business & Commercial

“The Unabomber Was Right”#11: Phone Wars

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Lately that most familiar of technological marvels, the telephone, has been making me crazy and my life miserable almost daily because of abuse, misuse, and overuse.

Let me count the ways, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning would say:

1. I just saw an allegedly hilarious TV add about “multi-processing” showing people walking into poles, tripping over obstacles and falling into trash cans while walking in public while either staring at a smart phone screen or chatting away using the speaker. I don’t even recall the product (Effective ad there, guys!), but it did tick me off. it’s not a funny phenomenon. Just yesterday, and asshole walking along staring at his phone nearly collided with me and Spuds, startling both of us, and I had to fling all of my weight against the leash from keeping my protective dog from biting the asshole’s face off—which he deserved, but my dog would be the one blamed. One woman nearly did the same thing a few weeks ago jogging while looking at her phone. People who do this are inconsiderate, reckless and self-absorbed fools, and dangerous as well. Yet such conduct is rapidly becoming a social norm. Last week, also while walking Spuds, I noted that eight straight pedestrians I encountered including three dog-walkers, one mother pushing a toddler in a stroller and three teens were all proceeding while staring at a phone screen or talking into a phone held in front of them. They are effectively cutting off the world while they are in the world, furthering the isolation of humanity, and increasing the alienation of American from each other. It is uncivil—rude—as well. When ethics fails law takes over (and usually makes a mess of things), so I am not advocating a law, but social disapproval, beginning with parents telling their kids not to do this would be a nice start.

2. I recently had to call the D.C. Office of Corporate Registration (or whatever it’s called) to eliminate my still-born law firm, BernsteinMarshall, PLLC. Screwed up beyond belief like everything else in the District, the “convenient website” had no link for ending a company, so I had to call the office. The pert, friendly, chatterbox of a recording went on for ten minutes telling me all the things the office could do for me, then spent another five telling me about all the options (“which may have changed”), then after I pushed one button, started down another list of topics while I screamed, “SHUT UP!!!!!” like Michael Palin in the Monty Python Torremolinos” travel agent skit.

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The Rest of the Story: A Non-Apology Apology For An Unethical Quote of the Month

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Toronto Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. kind-of, sort-of, not really “apologized” yesterday for the ethically brain-dead comments he made during a Spanish language interview about his $500 million, 14-year contract. I wrote earlier in the week about his absurd protestation that his huge contact wasn’t meant to pay for what he would produce on the field over the next decade-plus, but just a reward for what Vlad had already done. When the erstwhile slugger was criticized for the statement, he doubled down. Now, a scant two days later, he is suddenly contrite, or something.

“The main reason I’m here is because I regret my comments the other day,” Guerrero said through a translator. “I feel from my heart that my fans, my teammates, they needed an apology from me and that’s what I’m here for. Obviously, I’m also here because I’m just going to tell everyone that I’m going to continue to keep working hard to make my contract a great one.

“I just gave it some thought and I felt like the comments I made the other day is not what I really wanted to say, and I really feel that everyone, my fans, everyone deserves an apology from me and that’s the main reason I’m here today.”

Oh. What??? Wait, what exactly is Vlad apologizing for? He’s apologizing because others “needed” an apology because he didn’t say what he “really wanted to say?” We still don’t know what he wanted to say, or if he even understands what he’s apologizing for.

This isn’t even a level 10 apology on the Apology Scale ( “An insincere and dishonest apology designed to allow the wrongdoer to escape accountability cheaply, and to deceive his or her victims into forgiveness and trust…”). He might as well have said, “I apologize, whatever that means.” He regrets his comments because he’s getting criticism from fans, and someone, apparently his Hall of Fame father, Vlad Sr., told him that he had better say he didn’t mean what he said. Guerrero obviously did and does, because he said what he said twice, and that was essentially, “I don’t owe the team of fans anything going forward. So I stink this year; deal with it. I’ve got my money.” Guerrero’s contract includes a record $325 million signing bonus that protects his contract from the possible work stoppage everyone expects in 2027.

Now he says he “regrets” what he said twice, which is not the same as a sincere apology.

To be fair, I’ll concede that Vlad doesn’t speak English very well. I’ll also note that there’s no excuse for this, since he has split his residences between Florida and Toronto for at least seven years.

Baseball Park Naming Ethics Again: Getting Closer and Closer to “Chico’s Bail Bonds Park”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Bad News Bears

The Detroit Tigers will be playing in a ballpark named “Fifth Third Park” next year.

They have no shame. It’s bad enough that there is a bank with the ridiculous name of “Fifth Third Bank” (In 1908, Third National Bank and Fifth National Bank merged and nobody had the wit to come up with a better name. I wouldn’t entrust my money to a bank run by such dimwits), but a ballpark? What’s a fifth of a third out? A third strike? Houston briefly had its park named after Enron, and San Diego’s ball park is named after supplier of dog and cat merchandise, but at least “Petco Park” is alliterative.

I was sure that I had already written a rueful post about baseball teams that sell out their fans, history, traditions, cities and dignity for filthy lucre and name their home fields after any company who will pay to turn a stadium into its billboard. In 2010 I wrote a  post  about the adultery website Ashley Madison tried to by the naming rights to the NFL Giant’s stadium, and sure enough, decade ago I covered this revolting topic thoroughly. In honor of Fifth Third Park, I’m posting it again below, with a couple of additions and edits.

***

The Washington Nationals announced this week that it has partnered with Major League Baseball Advanced Media and the consulting firm Korn Ferry to sell naming rights to Nationals Park, as the team’s home field has been known since it opened in 2008.

After all, the team explains, plastering a corporation’s name on the ballpark could add between ten and twenty million dollars a year to the team’s revenue, and imagine how much better the team will be with another starting pitcher or slugging outfielder. Why wouldn’t a team sell its home’s name, and a large chunk of its identity, to a bank, a website, or a pet supplies company?

[Update: I am happy to announce that the Nationals did not ultimately give in to greed and name its stadium MSNow Park. It is still Nationals Park.]

I admit it: being a life-time fan of the Boston Red Sox, who play in one of the the ten major league parks ( the others: Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Dodger Stadium, Fenway Park, Kauffman Stadium, Marlins Park, Nationals Park, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Turner Field, Wrigley Field, and Yankee Stadium ) belonging to teams that have not accepted filthy lucre to mar their stadium entrances with the names of companies Bernie Sanders would hate, I find the idea revolting.  A baseball team represents its community; its lore becomes part of the culture and shared memories passed down through generations.. That has value, and symbolic significance. How much is it worth? It’s priceless, or should be. Continue reading →

The Converse Ad Controversy: Oh-Oh…”The Great Stupid” May Even Be Gathering Momentum

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

I wonder if and when enough people will wake up to the fact that when they vote for progressives, this is the kind of culture they are voting to live in. You know: hysterical, power-mad, and insane.

The footwear and apparel company Converse was attacked this week by the woke social media mob for an ad in a new sneaker campaign. It featured the bottom half of a person wearing a white garment and holding a pair of black sneakers.

The shadows that suggest the outline of a long, tapering triangle was obviously reminiscent of the pointed hood of a Klan robe, see. And the lighting makes the black sneakers look like someone is being hanged. The sneakers are black, get it? And have a single leg in two shoes, or something. The alleged lyncher was K-pop singer Karina wearing a skirt and holding a pair of Chuck 70 X sneakers, but never mind: some genius figured out this was another opportunity to hold 21st century America guilty of racism.

Naturally, Converse groveled an apology, thus ensuring more of this crap from the race-baiters and political correctness thugs. “We’re sorry,” Converse said in an emailed statement. “We understand why this image is deeply upsetting and recognize that we got this wrong. We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared,” the statement added. “This should not have happened and we will do better.”

I wish I bought Converse merchandise so I could boycott the brand. Their craven behavior harms every American, the culture, society, commerce, kids, brains, everything. Just listen to these idiots:

“As a Black man and someone who loves Converse shoes, I find this very insensitive and distasteful,” Kendall Peacock, who runs the Education Firm, a tutoring and mentorship program in Atlanta, said on social media. “Deliberate racist intent hasn’t been established yet, but that doesn’t erase the impact,” he added.

Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney based in Texas, posted on Instagram that Converse’s apology “doesn’t undo what got past legal, marketing and leadership at every step.”

Stephanie Schwartz, a social justice photographer, wrote on social media, “Every photographer can tell you, whoever did this ad knew EXACTLY what they were doing.”

I discovered the racist sneaker ad because Holly Mathnerd wrote about it on her exotic and eccentric substack. I can’t do better than Holly’s evisceration of the latest woke obsession, and besides, she’s sharp, she’s funny, she writes well, and she deserves attention. She wrote in part,

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Ethics Observations on the Walmart Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

An awful event that could have been avoided in many ways if even one of the key players had just behaved responsibly and ethically, or knew what behaving responsibly and ethically is…

Bert Atienza, 77, was shopping at Walmart with his wife after church a week ago when store a 17-year-old store employee rushed down the aisle narrowly missing Josephine Atienza with a cart. Bert sharply admonished the young woman, saying, “You almost hit my wife with your heavy cart, and you did not even say excuse me or apologize to her,” according to his wife in interviews after the event. The African- American staffer argued with him briefly and then tossed a can at the couple as they walked away. Minutes later Travis White and Erika Mitchell attacked Bert as their daughter, the reckless employee, watched according to store surveillance video. [Note: Accounts say they “allegedly” attacked him. It it’s on video, it happened, unless the claim is that the video is a “deep fake.” I hate that reflex news media characterization. (‘John Wilkes Booth allegedly shot Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theater in front of hundreds of witnesses…’) Even the attorney for White and Mitchell doesn’t dispute the attack].

The two parents shoved Atienza from the back, one punched him in the face, then they pushed him into the shelving unit. After he fell to the ground, as one of the attackers kicked him. “While he’s on the floor, they’re still kicking him and I told them stop. My husband has heart problems,” Josephine said.

Oh! We’re sorry, if we knew the 77-year-old man had heart problems, we never would have attacked him!

Bert Atienza lost consciousness before help arrived and he was rushed to a hospital where he died the next day. White and Mitchell were arrested days later and charged with second-degree murder. Their daughter (described as “no longer employed by Walmart”—ya think?) has also been charged with assault and battery, aggravated malicious wounding and conspiracy to commit a felony. Her name has not been released to the press because she is a minor.

Well! What a nice story! Let’s see..

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Cross Street-Naming Ethics With Fanatic Red Sox Fan Ethics and You Get…Whatever This Is. In Utah…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

In a remote neighborhood in Herriman, Utah, there is a charming subdivision with streets named only for past Boston Red Sox stars. Ipswitch Way and Yawkey Way—named after streets around Fenway Park—surround Fisk Drive, Remy Road, Pesky Lane, Eovaldi Avenue, Pedroia Street, Xander Lane, Varitek Drive and Boggs Way. Never mind if you don’t recognize those names: I do, but it’s likely that very few residents know their Boston Red Sox lore.

The project manager is a man named Brandon Parr who has lived in Utah his entire life, started following the Red Sox when he was 7, and now, in his forties, carries a Red Sox water bottle and wears a Red Sox cap every day. Developing the subdivision in Herriman was his first assignment as a project manager in 2021. Apparently the builder gets to name any new streets in any proposed project—I did not know that!—and when Parr was told about the honor, he said, “I’m doing Red Sox!” He submitted ten street names for approval, all well-known to Sox aficionados.

Ethics issue #1: Is it fair and responsible to use the naming power to satisfy a personal passion when it is completely divorced from the region and the community as well as the likely future residents? Utah doesn’t even have a Major League baseball team. Maybe the Miami Marlins are further away that the Red Sox , but not by much (don’t check that: I won’t, and if I’m wrong, I don’t care). My verdict? A mild “unethical.” I don’t know the origins of most of the streets in my Alexandria neighborhood except the section where all the streets are named after Presidents (Tyler intersects Taylor). Still, turning a Utah neighborhood into a Boston Red Sox fan display seems a bit excessive.

Ethics issue #2 struck me immediately, however: If a Sox fan is going to do this, there is an obligation to do some research and due diligence. With 10 streets to name for Red Sox favorites, where is the homage to Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, David Ortiz, and Pedro Martinez? OK, I’ll forgive Roger Clemens: I wouldn’t name a street after that asshole either.

Parr has his excuses lined up: “Williams,” “Ortiz” and “Martinez” streets are too common, and “Yastrzemski Road” is too hard to spell. He also claimed that alternatives to “Williams” like “Splendid Splinter Street” were too long. I’m not buying it. “Big Papi Drive” would cover David Ortiz. “Yaz Ave” is an easy call. What’s the matter with “Ted Williams Way”? Meanwhile, as a Red Sox fan, I respectfully object to some of his choices. “Eovaldi Ave.” is named for a Sox pitcher whose fame is based on a single game performance in relief during the 2018 World Series. Does this alleged Sox fan recall Curt Schilling and the “bloody sock” games in 2004? He admits to being a big Xander Bogaerts fan, hence “Xander Lane.” Bogaerts abandoned Boston as a free agent choosing money over team (so did Nathan Eovaldi). There are too many superior Sox players who did not place cash over loyalty, and leaving Tony Conigliaro out of the street names (Tony C. Court) while honoring sex-addicted, Yankee traitor Wade Boggs is deeply offensive.

Ethics Quiz: Sydney Sweeney (Again)

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Sweeney, the shapely and bold young actress who already angered the Left with her jeans/genes ad that supposedly dog whistled white supremacy, is now getting attacked by the Mad Left for the video above. She’s objectifying female athletes, you see. Or something. Because women athletes have never used sexual attractiveness to promote themselves and their sports…

Hey, how did pro-golfer Paige Spiranac get in there? Away with you, Devil Woman!

Now where were we? Oh yes, Sydney Sweeney….

Here’s The Athletic:

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Small Ethics Tunes…[UPDATED]

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

1. Phone Hold Music Ethics. DirecTV, which has bedeviled me, annoyed me and frustrated me for 30 years, had, all during that time, the worst on-hold music in human history. It was a scratchy recording of a high-pitched flute repeating the same unresolved bars over and over again. This selection was particularly crazy-making when DirecTV would, as was their wont, keep me waiting for ten minutes or more after telling me my wait time would be “less than two minutes.” Today I had an occasion to call the service again, and, mirabile dictu, the hold music is now a clear, crisp piano composition by Schubert. Small victories is all I have these days…

[Update: It wasn’t even a small victory! The new music was a tell: I was engaging with a fake DirecTV scammer. Irony: the lousy hold music helped make me check out the caller.]

2. More DirecTV…For weeks I have been getting robo calls from DirecTV telling me to call a phone number. Sometimes I would get ten such calls a day. As a matter of principle, I refuse to continue robocalls or the new AI calls in which a female voice begins with “Hello?” so I hang up, sometimes with a tart, “Bite me!” Finally I decided to call the number I had been getting ordered to call just to complain about being harassed. I then learned from the agent in Bangladesh or somewhere that because I had set some kind of record for legitimate complaints over the past six months (loss of signal, interruption in service, installment of equipment, incompetent agents, etc, etc.) I was receiving a special promotion to keep me from ditching the service like so many other subscribers apparently are. It will save me about 50 bucks a month for two years, so I’m not complaining. At least for now.

[Update: yes, this was a scam. I hate and distrust DirecTV so much that the ridiculously complicated script I was being read and the confusing payment process seemed consistent with my usual interactions.]

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Yes, Football Is Still The Most Unethical Sport and Supporting It Is Unethical Too.

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Item: From the New York Times…

New data provides a sobering indication: At least one in four of all the people who have played in the N.F.L. might expect to end up with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, according to a study of hundreds of cases over a recent six-year period.

Researchers considered every former N.F.L. player who died from 2016 to 2021. There were 878. Some died in their 20s, some in their 80s, most in between.

The study’s main finding was simple math: At least 215 of those 878 former players — 24.5 percent — had C.T.E.

The actual prevalence could be far higher. The roughly 25 percent rate does not consider the 643 brains that were not examined. Some of those, maybe many of them, likely had C.T.E. too.

C.T.E. is a progressive neurological disease caused by repeated impacts to the head. It can be definitively diagnosed only by examining the brain after death.

Studies have shown that the rate of C.T.E. in people who have not sustained repeated impacts to the head is nearly zero.

If the new study’s statistics were applied to today’s players — 1,696 on the league’s 32 regular-season rosters, not including more than 500 members of practice squads and those ineligible due to injury — at least 400 of them would be diagnosed with C.T.E.

Experts say that the rate of brain disease represents an occupational safety hazard with little comparison in the American workplace.

I have written this before, and had this story on the EA runway for a long time because it makes me angry. People who cheer on football are literally encouraging young men to cripple themselves for their entertainment. It is unethical, and indefensible.

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Labor Day Weekend Ethics Inventory [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Two “the rest of the story” items to kick things off:

  • As we all hoped would be the case, MLB reprimanded umpire Doug Eddings for telling rookie St. Louis Cardinals rookie reliever Hancel Rincon to straighten his cap and to “Grow the hell up!” Eddings issued an apology. EA covered the episode here. But last night, as many suggested, many Cardinals wore their caps askew as a visual rebuke to Eddings, who was the umpire at third base. Interestingly, some of the Colorado Rockies had their caps tilted as well. Eddings claimed that he admonished Rincon because a Rockies batter, Hunter Goodman, flagged the rakish angle of the young pitcher’s headgear. Goodman, however denies that he said anything.

See? I said this was an ethics train wreck!

  • In this post, EA discussed the absurd controversy involving “Stars and Stripes” staff maintaining that they were “independent” of the Pentagon. In a 24-page ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden turned down the entreaty by the newspaper’s publisher, editor-in-chief and Middle East reporter to stay their firings while a lawsuit challenging the terminations as First Amendment violations works its way through the court system.  McFadden found the government probably did not violate their First Amendment rights by firing them. I think their claim came perilously close to being a frivolous suit. If it were to prevail, no reporter or journalist could be fired by a government publication for an inflammatory or anti-American output because it could be framed as “censorship.” Editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and reporter Lara Korte told CBS in an interview that they “worked for Stars and Stripes, “not for the Pentagon, not for any administration, not for any policymaker.” They were asserting total independence and autonomy, despite being a Pentagon publication and funded by tax-payers.

Meanwhile…

1. The NFL is increasingly ridiculous, and I continue to wonder when it’s core audience will just say, “Enough already! Bye!” The league’s woke virtue signaling and DEI embrace is obnoxious, but its recent decision that football needs screamingly fey male cheerleaders boggles the mind. Look at this guy:

What the hell? I find female NFL cheerleaders an embarrassment, but this…any idea what the NFL is going for here or why? Tim O’Brien writes in part,

“I mean, who in the world asked for this? What market research told the NFL that what it really needed to do was complement all that toxic masculinity during the game with this? Seriously, are gay men a viable market for the NFL? How big is that market? Perhaps even more pointedly, as a percentage, how many not just gay men, but flaming gay men, watch the NFL on Sundays? Are we missing something? …[T]he NFL continues to find ways to alienate me and the millions of others who tune in because all we want to do is watch good football, see a little patriotism, and get a dose of a high-energy, traditional game-day atmosphere, nothing more….All of it is telling me the NFL no longer wants or needs people like me as fans. I’m cool with that, but if I have one message for the league, it’s this: “Be careful what you wish for.”

The NFL is already the most unethical sports league in existence (after the WNBA, of course). More on that tomorrow.

2. Speaking of the WNBA, ESPN’s headline was “Cathy Engelbert, who oversaw WNBA boom, to retire as commissioner.” It could well have read, “Cathy Engelbert, who proved completely incapable of leading the WNBA as it found itself immersed in racial and gender controversies, is running away. Good.” “Over the years, it has been amazing to watch WNBA players thrive and lead the massive cultural surge around women’s sports,” Engelbert said in a statement. “I retire knowing we have built something bigger, stronger and more enduring than we could have imagined. I am grateful to the WNBA and NBA team owners and staff, players, investors, fans and the powerhouse league office staff, who believed in what this league could become. I retire with immense gratitude and tremendous optimism for the future of the WNBA, with the best yet to come.”

Englebert is an accountant, and served as the CEO of Deloitte. She was brought in to develop the WNBA as a business, but had no skills or orientation that qualified her to deal with the league’s image and public relations problems. It took some gall for her to talk about the surge in “women’s sports” as so many of her league’s coaches speak as if they don’t know what a woman is.

Players and coaches have described her as “negligent.” One player said that the WNBA had the “worst leadership in the world.” From my observations, this was a severely limited leader who saw her job in the narrowest possible terms. She was hired to cut business deals and make money for the owners. She was good at that. Meanwhile, under her stewardship the WNBA has acquired the reputation of being dominated by lesbian thugs who resent the few white heterosexuals in their midst.

Maybe the WNBA should acquire the NFL’s gay cheerleaders…

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