Childhood and children

Adam LaRoche Drama Epilogue: A Reflection On Life, Kids, Baseball And Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

drake-adam-laroche-

Well, I don’t recall anyone leaving baseball like this before.

When last we visited Adam LaRoche a couple of days ago, he was retiring from baseball (and abandoning his 13 million dollar 2016 contract  to play for the Chicago White Sox) because team executive Kenny Williams asked that he not have his 14-year-old son Drake living and traveling with the team, as well as being being perpetually in the clubhouse, as he was all last year. Today LaRoche released a remarkable statement explaining his decision.

It is well worth reading. I’ll have some comments at the end about the bolded sections, marked by me with letters. Now, here’s Adam:
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Comment of the Day: “Ethic Quiz: ‘Springtime For Hitler’ Ethics”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Producers-2

This most recent  ethics thread commentary from Rick Jones (a.k.a. “Curmie,” who chronicles education fiascos, among other matters, during the year on his own blog) involves the recent kerfuffle over a high school production of “The Producers” having its Nazi decorations stripped away. I confess that I specifically requested Rick’s take on this one, knowing him to be a theater colleague as well as a teacher, and he did not disappoint….except that he uses the British spelling of “theatre.”

Here is Rick’s Comment of the Day on the Ethics Quiz: “Springtime for Hitler” Ethics.

Oh, Jack… You couldn’t just let me have a spring break without feeling compelled to reply to one of your posts, could you?

And… as I suspect you may have been expecting if not hoping, I agree with your arguments but disagree with your conclusion.

First, let me confess to ignorance of the stage version of The Producers. I know the film, of course, but being neither a big musical theatre guy nor made of money, I’ve never actually seen the play. Assuming it to be substantially similar to the film, therefore, is for me (but not for those more informed) a risky proposition.

It is not clear whether the school’s administration formally signed off on the choice of play, but de facto they did: the rights and royalties for a musical will cost—depending on a variety of factors such as venue size, number of performances, and ticket prices—hundreds or (more likely) thousands of dollars, and no high school theatre director can just write a check on a school account for that amount of money. Expenditures of that size need approval.

So here’s where I agree with your point that cultural illiteracy was very much at play from the beginning of this saga. I’m not suggesting that every high school administrator should have seen the movie or the play, but certainly the “Springtime for Hitler” shtick has long since passed into the public consciousness. I was too young (in junior high, perhaps?) to have seen the film on its first run, but I knew about the campy production number long before I actually saw the film when I was in high school or college. Similarly, I know that “I will take what is mine with fire and blood” is a ”Game of Thrones” reference without ever having picked up one of the books or tuned in to the television show. A competent administrator would at the very least have known what s/he was signing off on. Or… you know… asked: that’s an option, apparently.

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Unethical Quote Of The Week: Nautika Harris

/ Jack Marshall / 91 Comments

miami-teen-home-intruder

“You have to look at it from every child’s point of view that was raised in the hood. You have to understand … how he gonna get his money to have clothes to go to school? You have to look at it from his point of view.”

—Nautika Harris (above, right), the cousin of a 17-year-old teen shot dead by a 54-year-old Miami woman as he tried to exit her home, which he had entered to burglarize.

Miami-Dade police say that Trevon Johnson, 17, burglarized the home of a 54-year-old old woman last week.

She was not in the house when the break-in occurred, but after being alerted by her surveillance system, she rushed home and found Johnson climbing out of a window. She shot him dead, and his relatives are outraged.

“I don’t care if she have her gun license or any of that. That is way beyond the law … way beyond,” Johnson’s cousin Nautika Harris told local radio station WFOR. “He was not supposed to die like this. He had a future ahead of him. Trevon had goals … he was a funny guy, very big on education, loved learning.”

And loved burglary, apparently. Continue reading →

Loyalty Drama: The Strange, Sudden, Ethical, Unethical Retirement Of White Sox First Baseman Adam LaRoche

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

chi-adam-laroche

Yesterday,  baseball’s Spring Training was shaken when Chicago White Sox first baseman Adam LaRoche unexpectedly announced that he was retiring, effectively giving up his guaranteed 13 million dollar salary. LaRoche had suffered a down year in 2015, but he was healthy, and assured of a place in the ChiSox line-up. The reason for the precipitous decision was mysteriously and ominously reported as caused by a “personal matter.”  Was there dire illness in the family? What would make a healthy athlete walk away from his team mates and so much money?

Today, the club revealed the surprisng answer. Last year, LaRoche’s son, Drake, 14, spent most of the season with his father and the team and even had his own locker in the home clubhouse at U.S. Cellular Field. Drake was with also with the team in this year’s spring training. White Sox executive vice president Ken Williams told LaRoche that he would have to limit the amount of time his son spent in the clubhouse this season, and in response, LaRoche announced he was quitting.

Again, the threshold question to so much ethical analysis is crucial: What’s going on here?
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Ethic Quiz: “Springtime For Hitler” Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

And speaking of Donald Trump…

In South Orangetown, New York, the school superintendent stepped in and cut the swastikas from Tappan Zee High School’s student production of “The Producers” less than a week before the production. Of course, the Mel Brooks musical satire based on his film “The Producers” employs swastikas on Nazi flags and armbands during its famous campy “Springtime For Hitler” number and at other points in the show. Before someone posted a picture of the swastikas on the stage on a Facebook page, this aspect of “The Producers” had somehow escaped the attention of school administrators.

Some parents were shocked, and complained. After checking out the stage, the superintendent cut the costume details and set dressing.“There is no context in a public high school where a swastika is appropriate,” South Orangetown Superintendent Bob Pritchard told CBS. Pritchard consulted with local rabbis before making his decision.

Rabbis, of course, would be a natural audience for “The Producers.” (Reports that the rabbis suggested a production of “Fiddler on the Roof” instead have not been confirmed.)

Your spring-is-in-the-air Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is this example of school censorship of the performing arts fair, responsible and ethical?

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“A Nation Of Assholes”: Epilogue

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

Daily News

In this post titled “A Nation of Assholes: The Ultimate, Undeniable And Crucial Reason Donald Trump Must Never Be President.” I explained why a Donald Trump presidency would corrupt and warp American culture to a tragic, dangerous, and perhaps incurable degree. The post did not deal with policy issues, or Trump’s incoherent and ever-changing positions. because those are only tangentially in the realm of ethics. The post was about character and societal standards, as well as the importance of ethics, which are central themes here.

That post was written and published on September 10, 2015. If I ever deluded myself that what I write here has any more significance than a lone pigeon feather tossed in the breeze, this should disabuse me of that notion. Nevertheless, the post was correct, and subsequent events have validated every assertion, which, I have to say, were already fully obvious to those capable of paying attention six months ago.

The events of last week have helped enlighten a few more, and I guess that’s progress.

Cokie Roberts gets it, though her example wasn’t the best. On MSNBC, she cross-examined Trump, who, as usual, blabbered incoherently: Continue reading →

Would Gun Rights Advocates Support “Jamie’s Law”?

/ Jack Marshall / 83 Comments

shot by kid

I’m proposing a new gun control law that would be named after Jamie Gilt, who this week was accidentally shot in the back by her 4-year-old son, who was seated in the back seat of her truck at the time. The child had picked up a .45 handgun that she had left on the floor of the vehicle. “Jamie’s Law” would ban gun ownership for life if an adult leaves a firearm, loaded, within the reach of a child below a certain age. Personally, I’d be fine if the cut-off was 18, but just to keep the law as close to Jamie’s situation as possible, let’s say 10 or under. Would that be unreasonable?

We could make the law really specific to Jamie, who is an idiot, by banning gun ownership by anyone who leaves guns lying around for kids to play with AND maintains a Facebook page called “Jamie Gilt for Gun Sense,“…well, with their name, not Jamie’s. Yes, Jamie—did I mention that she is an idiot?—did this while promoting responsible gun ownership. I wonder what she would consider irresponsible gun ownership. Maybe giving a child a loaded gun to suck on, instead of a pacifier.

I’m not too fond of the million or so anti-gun types who went on the page to insult and berate Jamie, who is in the hospital. (I see that the page has been taken down since last night.) I’m sure she feels bad enough already, in part because she was shot and also because she will be the face of foolish gun owners for the foreseeable future. What she should feel is lucky. The only difference between Jamie and Veronica Jean Rutledge, shot dead in a Walmart by her two-year-old in 2014, is moral luck. Actually, what Gilt did was more reckless that the conduct that killed Rutledge: Gilt was driving, and Rutledge at least had her gun in her purse, not in plain view. Both Rutledge and Gilt were lucky their children weren’t killed.

What do you think about Jamie’s Law?

Maybe gun owners who do this should be banned from having custody of children, too.

(Of course, it goes without saying that they would be presumed innocent until proven Gilty….)*

_______________________

*I’m sorry, I really am, but there’s a place in Hell for people who pass up set-ups like this.

KABOOM! “Baby Fight Club?”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

exploding-head

There’s not a lot to say about this one. I usually don’t write about incidents that are obviously unethical to this extreme, but when something broadens my understanding of the full range of human depravity, and makes my head explode, like this story, attention must be paid.

I missed the first coverage of this atrocity, which sounds like a bad joke, two years ago.  Last week, Virginia jury found day-care provider Kierra Spriggs, 26, guilty of four counts of felony child cruelty and two misdemeanor counts of assault and battery after a two-week jury trial in Prince William County. She was a “teacher” at the idyllically named Minnieland Academy at the Glen until fellow teachers blew the whistle on her in 2014.

Testimony during the trial indicated that Spriggs habitually and sadistically mistreated the toddlers, including encouraging twin sisters to fight each other. Prosecutors characterized her crowded classroom containing nearly 20 toddlers from 18 to 27 months as “baby fight club.” She also..

…fed a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto to a toddler, leaving the girl gasping for air.

…stepped on kids’ toes and laughed.

…put rubber bands on the toddlers’ hands and snapped them.

…intentionally tripped a running child.

…dumped water on a little girl’s head.

…taught the children to abuse each other.

Another teacher at the same facility, Sarah Jordan, was convicted in January for similar abuse.

Good. But questions remain in whatever segment of my brain that isn’t on my ceiling, walls, and laptop. Like.. Continue reading →

Abortion, Ethics, and Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments

protest SCOTUS

The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a major abortion case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. The case was brought by several Texas abortion clinics and three doctors who perform abortions in the state. They seek to strike down two restrictions in a law enacted by the Texas Legislature in 2013 that requires all abortion clinics to meet the standards for “ambulatory surgical centers,” including regulations concerning buildings, equipment and staffing, and also requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital.

Abortion rights groups argue that the restrictions are expensive, unnecessary and specifically designed to put many of the clinics out of business. In fact, the law has already caused many clinics to close. The number of abortion clinics in Texas has dropped  to about 20 from more than 40.

The Supreme Court will measure the law against the court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which held that states were not permitted to place undue burdens on the constitutional right to an abortion before the fetus was viable. Undue burdens, include “unnecessary health regulations that have the purpose or effect of presenting a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion.”

Legally, it’s a tough case, like all SCOTUS cases. Ethically, it’s pretty repugnant. All of the supporters of the bill, including the drafters, are adamantly anti-abortion, though the law is ostensibly aimed a making abortions safer. While the briefs to the court argue that the restrictions were put in place to foster safety, it’s a sham argument, crafted to meet the Casey test. Make no mistake about it: the purpose of the law is to make abortions as difficult to get performed in Texas as possible. There are literally no lawmakers behind the law nor supporters of the law who don’t want abortion banned. What a coincidence! Yesterday, at the huge demonstrations in front of the Court, the groups weren’t divided into  “Safer abortions” and “More accessible abortions.” The armies were pro- and anti-abortion, and intensely so. Thus the Supreme Court is going to decide if a law designed to interfere with a Constitutional right should be upheld because it can be justified on legitimate medical safety grounds.
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Cutting The Racial Gordian Knot: What Are The Ethical Implications Of The Terrible Economic Disparity Between Black And White In America?

/ Jack Marshall / 237 Comments

Gordian Knot

The question raises the ethical implications to all American citizens and our shared obligation to our nation and its society of a disastrous, crippling problem that poisons our culture. and society: the persistent plight of Black America.

Back when I was a senior in college majoring in American Government and the U.S. Presidency, I took a course  from Professor Thomas Pettigrew, then as now one of the foremost scholars on race, prejudice and public policy. It was about the challenges facing blacks as they tried then to benefit from new legislation and opportunities created by the Civil Rights Act and other policies, such as school busing. I was very impressed by Pettigrew’s even-handed, objective and non-political approach, even though, at my college, political teaching was the rule, not the exception.

I have never left a course so discouraged. Pettigrew, himself a pretty optimistic man, led us into one dead-end after another: black families, education, neighborhoods, political behavior, crime and more, all dysfunctional or suffering. All areas of black society interfered with or blocked improvements, progress, remedies and policy initiatives that showed promise to address racial inequality in other areas.

Late in the course I asked him if he saw any hope that in 50 years, black America would be approaching parity with white America. “I have hope,” he said. “But I honestly don’t see how we get there from here. There is a path, but we haven’t found it.”

It appears that my discouragement then was an accurate reading of the problems ahead.

Last week, these charts from the Brookings Institution’s Social Mobility Memos blog were posted to the web by other sources. They show how deeply the problems I was warned about have failed to improve in 50 years. Here is what they show:

1. Upward mobility is much more unlikely  for black than white Americans. 51% of the black Americans born into the lowest fifth of the earnings distribution remain there at age 40: