History

The Amazing Saga Of Big Papi And Maverick Schutte: This One Has Everything, Folks: Baseball! The Bambino! Courage! Kindness! Compassion! Heroics! Moral Luck! Hubris! Consequentialism! And Dammit, I’m Crying Again

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Let’s see if I can through this to the Ethics Quiz portion without shorting out my laptop.

Maverick Schutte, a 6-year-old from Cheyenne, Wyoming, has required over 30 surgeries, including five open chest procedures,  to treat a heart condition.He still must be hooked up to a ventilator most of each day to allow oxygen to reach his lungs, and more surgery will be needed, as he is in constant danger of heart failure.

The child’s greatest joy is baseball, and he has adopted his father’s team, the Boston Red Sox, as his passion. The Children’s Miracle Network put the family in touch with former Red Sox player Kevin Millar, now an MLB host and broadcaster, and Millar contacted Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, Maverick’s favorite, after the family explained that Maverick was in the hospital again and needed a morale boost. With Millar, Ortiz made a video for Maverick, ending with Ortiz promising to hit a home run that night, just for him. I didn’t believe it when I heard the story, but it was true. “Stay positive, keep the faith, and I’m going to hit a home run for you (Friday night),” Ortiz says in the video. “Remember that.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for today before, as Paul Harvey would say, you learn “the rest of the story”…

Was it ethical for Ortiz to make such a promise to Maverick?

Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Day: Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804)

/ Jack Marshall / 89 Comments

hamilton

“For my individual part my mind is made up. I will never more be responsible for him by my direct support—even though the consequence should be the election of Jefferson. If we must have an enemy at the head of the Government, let it be one whom we can oppose & for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures. Under Adams as under Jefferson the government will sink. The party in the hands of whose chief it shall sink will sink with it and the advantage will all be on the side of his adversaries.”

—–Federalist Alexander Hamilton, in a letter written during the political machinations surrounding the contested Presidential election of 1800, explaining why he would support Thomas Jefferson, his personal and political foe, over his own party’s candidate, John Adams.

It is depressing to reflect upon the fact that the choice that Hamilton found so revolting was between two geniuses who both came to represent among the grandest flowering of American intellect and public service dedication in American history. In just 216 years, the quality of character and ability in that Presidential contest has has given way to one in which Charles Addams or George Jefferson would be considered attractive alternatives.

(Oh—the Broadway musical “Hamilton” today received the 16 Tony nominations, the most in the award’s history.)

____________________

Source: “The Papers of Alexander Hamilton,” edited by Harold Coffin Syrett (1976)

KABOOM! ESPN Achieves A New Low In Unethical Journalism: Misinforming The Public Out Of Spite

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
If you told me ESPN COULD make my head explode, I wouldn't have believed you...

If you told me ESPN COULD make my head explode, I wouldn’t have believed you…

ESPN has been foundering in a sea of ethical ignorance for some time now, but this was shocking even for them.

In a petty exercise to express its disdain and and anger at dismissed baseball commentator Curt Schilling, the sports network excised an entire section of its documentary on the legendary 2004 American League Championship play-offs when it was shown last night prior to the scheduled Red Sox-Yankee game. I cannot think of a single example of unethical journalism by a major outlet so blatant and so offensive.

Let’s go back a bit. Schilling is an outspoken religious conservative, active on social media. He was suspended from his baseball game broadcasting duties last season after comparing Islamic radicals to Nazis in a Twitter post—not all that unreasonable, actually, but if ESPN has a policy against its employees making controversial political statements on social media, and apparently it does, Schilling was asking for trouble.

Indeed, Curt has nothing if not integrity when it comes to expressing himself, and he could not resist commenting on the transgender bathroom controversy, re-tweeting a particularly ugly meme on the issue:

transgender bathroom tweet

ESPN fired Curt. He had earlier in the year opined in a radio interview that “If I’m gonna believe, and I don’t have any reason not to believe, that she gave classified information on hundreds if not thousands of emails on a public server after what happened to General Petraeus, she should buried under a jail somewhere.” Allowing for hyperbole, that’s a perfectly legitimate position to take, but again, if ESPN doesn’t want Curt, who it was paying a million bucks or so, to take shots at someone it believed its audience members were fond of,  it can instruct its employees accordingly. It expressed its objections to Schilling, and he tweeted the meme anyway. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Comment of the Day (1): ‘Unethical Quote Of The Week: Chelsea Clinton’”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments
Hysterics, obviously...

Hysterics, obviously…

The gun-banning deceit is revving up again, so to pace the blog on this topic, which already had been discussed in a recent post and a Comment of the Day on it, I held out this excellent post by lively Ethic Alarms regular Steve-O-in-NJ for a few days.

By deceit, I mean statements like White House spokesman Josh Earnest yesterday regarding so-called “smart gun” technology, on which the White House is preparing a legislative push. He said in part:

“I think what is true is that I couldn’t think of another industry off the top of my head that isn’t interested in looking at new technology that could make their product safer. Just about every other industry that I can think of, that’s what people do. That’s what manufacturers do. That is a source of innovation in a variety of fields. I think the best example of this is in the auto industry. Auto manufacturers actually market the degree to which they use new technology to make their products safer, to make cars and trucks safer. It is surprising to me that so many gun manufacturers shirk that responsibility.”

It is amusing that Earnest—is he the worst of the three professional liars the Obama White House has employed to mislead the press, deny the truth and spin misconduct?—prefaced his remarks by dismissing “wild conspiracy theories” that the new initiative was designed to make guns less accessible, then uttered this whopper. Guns aren’t supposed to be safe, or what anti-gun zealots regard as safe, which would mean that they would have to be made out of foam rubber. They are designed to kill things, including, when necessary, people. Cars are not supposed to kill  anyone: making safe cars is nothing at all like making safe guns.

You know, Josh, I can’t think of any another industry off the top of my head–which is apparently quite a bit more well-furnished than yours–that makes killing tools and machines and does look for technology to make them “safer” by the anti-gun lobby’s definition. Hunting knives? Baseball bats? Have you ever seen a safe hammer? A safe bomb? Safe poison? Of course “smart gun” requirements would make guns less accessible (meeting regulations costs money and adds to purchase price, “smart” features that don’t work right engender lawsuits, guns that are more cumbersome to use are less desirable to people who want guns…) by making them more expensive and difficult to use. And that’s just what the President, Hillary, Chelsae and the rest want.

You’re a liar who treats the press and public as if they were idiots, Josh. Just off the top of my head. Yes, I know: I don’t care that you are just channeling your boss. The line about gun-makers “shirking responsibility” is a transparent effort to grease the skids for product liability lawsuits that would make it impossible to make guns, which is exactly the agenda being pursued here. Gun rights supporters know it, and are derided as conspiracy nuts. Anti-gun advocates also know it, and think it’s just fine.

Here is Steve-O-in-NJ‘s Comment of the Day on the Ethics Alarms post “Comment of the Day (1): ‘Unethical Quote Of The Week: Chelsea Clinton’”: Continue reading →

Indeed He Deserved All Of It, But Denny Hastert’s Sentencing Hearing Was A Legal And Ethical Travesty

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Hastert sentencing

“I am deeply ashamed to be standing here,” former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert  told a judge yesterday at his sentencing hearing.  “I know why I am here … I mistreated some of the athletes that I coached.”

Wait…what? That’s not why Hastert was in court at all. He was before a judge for one reason: he violated banking laws and lied to the F.B.I.. The fact that he was a sexual predator and molested members of the wrestling team he coached many years ago is not the reason he was in court. It couldn’t be. The statute of limitations on all of those crimes, horrible crimes all, had expired. Hastert couldn’t be charged, tried or convicted of any of them.

I don’t understand why this hasn’t been the focus of the coverage of Hastert’s ordeal yesterday. Why did the judge think it was appropriate to “angrily” lecture him about his crimes that in the eyes of the law he must be considered innocent of by the legal system, because he cannot be found guilty of these crimes any more?

“‘If Denny Hastert could do it, anyone could do it,'” U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin said. “Nothing is more stunning than to have the words ‘serial child molester’ and ‘speaker of the House’ in the same sentence.” Well, that’s very interesting, Judge. If  the late Ted Kennedy had been before you to be sentenced for, say, just a wild hypothetical, a drunk driving charge, would you lecture him about letting Mary Jo Kopechne drown in his car?

I may have missed it, but when O.J. Simpson was sentenced for burglary, I don’t recall the judge asking him to confess to murdering Nicole and Ron…did that happen?

Earlier this month, the judge and prosecutors allowed the trial to become a proxy trial for a crime that wasn’t on the docket, with prosecutors hammering at graphic details about the sex-abuse, describing how Hastert would sit in a recliner in the locker room with a direct view of the showers. The victims, prosecutors said, were boys between 14 and 17. Hastert was in his 20s and 30s. This is relevant to the charges against Hastert how, exactly? Answer: They aren’t. Continue reading →

A Federal Court Reinstates Tom Brady’s Suspension For Cheating

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Good.

What Brady doesn't get: When people think you cheated, the smirk is does as much damage as the conduct.

What Brady doesn’t get: When people think you cheated, the smirk is does as much damage as the conduct.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit appeals court reinstated the NFL’s four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady yesterday. This overturned last year’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman, who had nullified the league’s suspension of the superstar quarterback. The three-judge panel of the appeals court wrote…

“We hold that the Commissioner properly exercised his broad discretion under the collective bargaining agreement and that his procedural rulings were properly grounded in that agreement and did not deprive Brady of fundamental fairness.”

It is important to note that the Court only ruled on whether NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had the power to suspend Brady and did not violate the player’s rights as a players union member by doing so. The NFL’s current deal with the players gives Goodell the kind of power Major League Baseball gave to its first commissioner after the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, when gamblers fixed the World Series. Goodell, like Landis, can use his discretion to punish a player for “conduct detrimental” to the game and the NFL. They did this because a disturbing number of NFL players were getting headlines for doing things that don’t comport with what the public expects of its paid heroes, like sucker-punching women, shooting people, getting in bar fights, and engaging in assorted felonies. The game also has a very successful coach, Brady’s coach, in fact, who has made it very clear that he will cheat whenever he can get away with it..

I’m not going to rehash the “Deflategate” incident: I wrote enough about it when it occurred. Nobody knows for certain if Tom Brady in fact did conspire with Patriots employees to cheat when his team was behind in a crucial play-off game, but we know this: Continue reading →

Observations On Donald Trump’s Harriet Tubman Comments

/ Jack Marshall / 94 Comments

Harriet.Tubman 20

Don’t worry. Despite Donald Trump’s supposed “new leaf” that has him trying act and sound “presidential,” he’s going to continue to say ignorant, stupid and offensive things, because he really doesn’t know what is “presidential,” or ignorant, stupid and offensive, for that matter.

Today’s example was his off-the-cuff commentary about Harriet Tubman replacing President Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill.Trump said:

“I think Harriet Tubman is fantastic. I would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can come up with another denomination. Maybe we do the $2 bill or another bill. I don’t like seeing it. Yes, I think it’s pure political correctness. He’s been on the bill for many, many years and really represented somebody that was really very important to this country.”

Observations:

1. Ethics Alarms offers this competence and responsibility-based rule for public figures, especially those running for President of the United States.

If you can’t say something that is constructive, coherent and adds substance to the discussion, keep your opinion to yourself.

Of course, that would mean Trump would seldom get to say anything. Still, this statement was completely gratuitous, vapid, clumsy and wrong. Continue reading →

Nine Critical Questions About The Independence Hall Social Justice Warrior Park Ranger Tour Guide

/ Jack Marshall / 78 Comments

Philadephia-Independence_Hall_Panorama

Conservative columnist and former Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams reported that Holly Holst, a federal employee of the National Park Service, took visitors on a guided tour of Independence Hall, during which she informed them that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were the product of “class elites who were just out to protect their privileged status.”

[UPDATE: Adams corrected his original report, which misidentified the ranger involved as Mary A. Hogan. Ethics Alarms has corrected it s original post accordingly. I apologize to Hogan and my readers.]

Adams writes that several attendees of her tour group on Monday told him that Holst repeatedly denigrated the Founders.  She claimed that  “the Founders knew that when they left this room, what they had written wouldn’t matter very much, ” and also told them that the “most important part of the Constitution written at Independence Hall was the ability to change it.”

Exemplifying her historical expertise was Holst’s alleged statement that King George III paid more attention to Parliament than the colonists “because they were right there and could remove him from office.”

Assuming that this is accurate information about Holst and her tour–remember that Adams is a passionate and often angry anti-Obama conservative—I have the following questions.

By the way, if the story above is accurate, my head has asked permission to do its best imitation of Krakatoa.

Questions: Continue reading →

The Real Legal Ethics Conundrums In “Bridge of Spies”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

bridge-of-spies

Quite a few readers have written that they would enjoy some of the problems I present in my seminars on legal ethics. I try to please, so here are some difficult legal ethics issues that arose in the screenplay of last year’s Oscar-nominated film “Bridge of Spies.”

I wrote about the film earlier this year, here.

The film tells the true story of Jim Donovan, an insurance lawyer who is recruited, in 1957, by his New York bar association to take on the representation of the accused Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, a job that we see Donovan not only do bravely and competently, but one that he takes all the way to the Supreme Court. He loses, and Abel goes to prison.

Legal ethics points:

  • That ends the representation, and Abel is no longer Donovan’s client, but a former client.
  • Lawyers still have duties to former clients: they must keep all of the confidences learned during the representation and after, and not use these against the interests of the ex-client, or reveal them ever, even after the ex-client is dead and buried, except under rare circumstances.
  • A lawyer is also not allowed to become adverse to the interests of a former client in a substantially related matter to the one he (or she) handled for the client.

Because when representing Abel, Donovan had argued against executing the spy on the grounds that he might a useful  bargaining chip if an American was captured by the Russians—an argument he made to save Abel’s life, not to provide unsolicited advice to the government—the capture of U2 pilot Gary Powers after he was shot down in a spy plane makes the lawyer a candidate to make his own scenario come true. An East German official sends Donovan a letter claiming to be able to broker an exchange of Powers for Abel. When the CIA learns about the letter, they ask Donovan to go to East German and negotiate the deal. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Week: Secretary of State John Kerry

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Kerry Hiroshima

“It is a stunning display. It is a gut-wrenching display. It is a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries … to create and pursue a world free from nuclear weapons.”

—-Secretary of State John Kerry in Japan, as he toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum this week before meeting foreign ministers at the G-7 Summit.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to call this an unethical quote, though it is an infuriating one. It is certainly a stupid quote, but we all know John Kerry’s verbal and intellectual deficiencies, and he was indeed in a tough spot. What would have been an appropriate statement to make in this setting, that would not risk insulting his hosts and setting off yet another debate about Hiroshima that would be a distraction from the G-7 Summit’s objectives?

While I agree philosophically with the editors of the Federalist that it would have been more satisfying if Kerry had said that the display was “a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries to stop extremist regimes like Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons” or perhaps that it was “a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries to ensure that we are well prepared for the next force that threatens peace,” each carried its own diplomatic and political risks. So would “Sorry you made us do this, but we didn’t bomb ourselves at Pearl Harbor,” which is what I would have been tempted to say. I’m no diplomat, however, as you may have noticed. Continue reading →