Journalism & Media

Psychic Ethics: Sylvia Browne’s Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments
Sylvia Browne, under fire for not being a real psychic by people who should know better.

Sylvia Browne, under fire for not being a real psychic by people who should know better.

Growing up, I knew Sylvia Browne as one of the more colorful friends of my father, who knew her brother in the army. She visited from Kansas City every year or so, and her claims of psychic powers never came up, perhaps because my father didn’t believe in such things. My first inkling of “Aunt” Sylvia’s other life was when she pulled me aside in the fall of 1966, after hearing me bemoan the low state to which my beloved Boston Red Sox had fallen. They were going to finish the season in last place, the team’s vaunted youth movement was a flop, and I was disconsolate. “Don’t tell anyone I said this, ” she told me, “but the Red Sox will be in the pennant race next year to the very end. It will come down to the last two games.”

This seemed incredible to me, but what the heck: when the 1967 season tickets went on sale that winter, I sent in an order for two seats on the third base side for the next-to-last game of the season, against the Minnesota Twins. Baseball fans will recall that the ’67 season featured the closest race in American League history, with four teams, including the underdog Red Sox, staying essentially tied for months, with the pennant decided in the last two days at Fenway Park. Sure enough, Boston swept the Twins twice to make up a one game deficit and go the World Series. Sylvia called it.

During college and law school, Sylvia Browne fell out of my family’s life, but our paths intersected again when she showed up for a surprise visit at our home while I was studying for the Massachusetts bar exam in 1975. My job with the Mass Defenders had fallen through, and I had received an unexpected job offer from my law school to work for the new Dean. It would mean moving to D.C., which I didn’t want to do, and I was torn. This was the big topic of discussion while Sylvia was having dinner with us; my mother was emphatic that I should turn the offer down. For the second time, Sylvia pulled me aside for an unsolicited consultation. “Go to D.C.,” she said. “Your future wife is waiting for you.” I naturally assumed that she meant my current girl friend from law school, who was still in the District. “Not her,” Sylvia said. “Another. This job will bring you together, for good.”

I did take the job, although Sylvia’s advice played no part in it. Indeed, I forgot about the conversation completely until it came back to me right before I proposed to my wife, now my wife of 33 years, who was a work colleague of mine at the law school. Sylvia was two for two, at least where I was concerned.

Why I only had dealings with Sylvia Browne when the Red Sox were destined to go to the World Series I can’t imagine (Boston played Cincinnati in the 1975 classic), but the next time I heard from her was in 2004, the year they finally won it. She called me in my ProEthics office on November 17 of that year, and she was distraught. She was calling me, it turned out, not to give advice, but to receive it.  Continue reading →

Integrity Test For The Public And News Media: The IRS Outrage

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments
"It's OK...the King is sorry."

“It’s OK…the King is sorry.”

  • Scandal: Obama, Jay Carney, Susan Rice, Hillary and the State Department meticulously lying about the cause of the Benghazi attack during an election campaign

Media Response: “Bah! Old news [about something the press never treated as news at all]! Politics! A ‘conservative story’!”

Media Response: “Oh, Please!—a typical conservative conspiracy theory…what? It really happened? Well, the public doesn’t care about it, and “Pigford” is a funny name, so no harm…”

Well, let’s try something really new. I wonder if the IRS admitting that it targeted and harassed conservative non-profit groups in an election year qualifies as a scandal that calls into legitimate question the ethics and competence of the Obama Administration, in the eyes of our fair and objective press, the guardian of our freedoms.  Is there any depth to the media’s complicity with this government’s misconduct? I suppose we’ll find out.**

From the Associated Press: Continue reading →

Angel Hernandez’s Botched Home Run Call, Continued: Now THIS Would Justify Over-Ruling It

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments
"You blew that call deliberately! Didn't you? DIDN'T YOU???"

“You blew that call deliberately! Didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU???”

Yesterday I wrote about the terrible, tomato-worthy botch of a home run call by Angel Hernandez in an Oakland-Cleveland baseball game, and how as bad as it was, the rules of the game don’t permit such rules to be over-turned, and thus over-turned they must not be, lest the game’s integrity be damaged. But on the Dan Patrick radio sports show today, renowned baseball writer Peter Gammons theorized that Hernandez may have refused to credit Adam Rosales of the A’s with a home run, despite the instant replay proving to anyone with eyes that it was not a double as he had ruled, because he, like many if not all major league umpires, hates the concept of allowing instant video replay to over-rule umpire judgments.

And, of course, Hernandez has a well-earned reputation as a spiteful jerk.

Hernandez would never admit to so unprofessional an act, but I think Gammons’ speculation is fair, and also very possibly correct. The alternative is to conclude that Hernandez literally can’t see, which seems unlikely. What seems far more likely is that he and his umpiring crew decided to register a nasty and unprofessional protest over the gradually expanding trend in Major League Baseball of letting technology do better what umpires have traditionally done well. Continue reading →

Of Hero Ethics, Credit, Fame, And Angel Cordero

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
Angel Cordero, unsung hero. And in good company.

Angel Cordero, unsung hero. And in good company.

Apparently a Cleveland man named Angel Cordero is every bit as deserving of accolades in the rescue of the three kidnapping victims of Ariel Castro [of alleged kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro, that is. Reflect on this case the next time someone puffs themselves up to reprimand you for a missing “alleged” and lectures you about how the accused are “innocent until proven guilty.” Yes, we know—and that means we can’t lock them up and throw away the key until they have had a fair trial and been officially proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the judgment of a jury. It does not mean,  in a situation where there is literally no possible interpretation of the facts that would not end with the conclusion that the man who owns the house where three women have been kept prisoner for ten years and who have told interviewers that he beat them, starved them and raped them, that to state the obvious is some kind of human rights violation. By the way, O.J. is guilty too.] as the more colorful, more publicized–and more ridiculed—Charles Ramsey.

I want Cordero to receive the credit and admiration he deserves. I don’t want him to feel bitter and unappreciated. If the media, public and popular culture is inclined to bestow its goodies on the heroes of this horrible story, I hope he gets his fair share. Still, I also hope that he would be sufficiently large of soul and solid of values to adopt the attitude that what is important is that the women were rescued, and not who gets credit for it, now or in the future. Continue reading →

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula Is Not A Political Prisoner

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments
My favorite Nakoula arrest meme: Funny, but wrong.

My favorite Nakoula arrest meme: Funny, but wrong.

The Congressional hearings regarding what increasingly appears to be intentional dissembling by the Obama Administration to minimize the political fallout from the Benghazi terrorist attack have, predictably, sparked renewed attention to the fate of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the creator of the anti-Islamist Youtube video that Hillary, the President, and Susan Rice pretended was the reason an ambassador and others ended up dead.

Nakoula is in prison, and his arrest for violating the terms of his probation was certainly well-timed for Obama Administration spin  purposes; purportedly (and if true, outrageously) Hillary Clinton told the family of one of the slain Americans that the filmmaker responsible for the video would be punished. This is only hearsay, but I am inclined to believe it: it is pure Clinton, masterful deceit. Nakoula couldn’t be punished for the video, of course, because of that darn old First Amendment. But Hillary may have known that he was headed for punishment and prison for something else, so it was a perfect ploy to make the victims’ families and any offended Muslims think this was why he was going to jail. Me, I think that oh-so-clever ploy is a betrayal of American integrity and values, but that depends on what the meaning of is is.

The Right, however, is sure that Nakoula was arrested for the video, one way or the other. Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, has come right out and said that he’s a political prisoner. Continue reading →

Read It And Weep: The Reader’s Digest 100 Most Trusted Americans

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments

Here are the results of a Reader’s Digest poll of “over a thousand” citizens to determine who Americans trust, ranked #1 through #100.

A few observations: Continue reading →

What Good Are Think Tanks If Only Partisans Will Believe Them?

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
Better to be blind than to be proven wrong?

Better to be blind than to be proven wrong?

As you probably have heard, the conservative Heritage Foundation, one of the most venerable think tanks, now overseen by former GOP Senator Jim DeMint, has released a report showing that the proposed immigration reform will cost over 6 trillion dollars. Naturally, no non-conservatives are treating it as anything other than a partisan document and a biased study. The same thing happens regularly when the Urban Institute or Brookings puts out a study, though the press, being tilted the same way, tends to treat these with more deference.

This is one more horrible way that bias makes truth-seeking difficult if not impossible. Ideally and logically, all think tanks and research institutions, not to mention the researchers themselves, should be objective. But donors, as they say in professional fundraising, give for their reasons, not yours, and when enough of your funding comes from  those with allied interests, their reasons inevitably become your interests. An American Enterprise Institute study that supported a liberal policy objective, like eliminating the capital gains discount, would have immediate credibility. It would also probably be suicidal. Thus the only think tank likely to examine the issue and show that capital gains should be taxed at regular rates would be one supported by George Soros or others like him…and for that reason, capable of influencing nobody. Continue reading →

The Ethics of Ignorance

/ Jack Marshall / 59 Comments

Jamestown Cannibalism

I don’t know Albert T. Harrison, though he may well be a neighbor: we both live in Alexandria, Virginia. He is probably a good and decent man, in fact, I’m pretty certain of it, and it pains me to take him to task for what he wrote to, and was subsequently published in, the Washington Post’s weekly “Free for All” page. His letter is already on the web, however, and I’m sure other good, and, like Albert, willfully ignorant Americans are reading it and nodding their heads. His is an unethical, irresponsible, cowardly and dangerous position, and it has too many supporters already.

I’m sorry, Mr. Harrison, but you force my hand.

This week, scientists determined with near certainty that rumors of cannibalism in the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, were true. The remains of a 14-year-old girl from an excavation at the site of the settlement showed unmistakable signs of deliberate butchering. From the Post story: Continue reading →

Sports Commentary Ethics And Bigotry: ESPN Should Tell Chris Broussard To Shut Up

/ Jack Marshall / 154 Comments
Yes, I have a question, Chris: Who cares what your religious beliefs are?

Yes, I have a question, Chris: Who cares what your religious beliefs are?

ESPN has raised some eyebrows for the sports network’s unequivocal support of Chris Broussard, one of its NBA reporters, who in response to a request for his reaction to Jason Collins’ announcing that he was gay, becoming the first active NBA player ever to do so, said this on the ESPN show, “Outside the Lines”:

“I’m a Christian. I don’t agree with homosexuality. I think it’s a sin, as I think all sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is,” he said (transcript via Blazers Edge’s Ben Golliver). “L.Z. [Granderson, a gay sportswriter and ESPN contributor] knows that. He and I have played on basketball teams together for several years. We’ve gone out, had lunch together, we’ve had good conversations, good laughs together. He knows where I stand, and I know where he stands. I don’t criticize him, he doesn’t criticize me, and call me a bigot, call me ignorant, call me intolerant. In talking to some people around the league, there’s a lot of Christians in the NBA, and just because they disagree with that lifestyle, they don’t want to be called bigoted and intolerant and things like that. That’s what L.Z. was getting at. Just like I may tolerate someone whose lifestyle I disagree with, he can tolerate my beliefs. He disagrees with my beliefs and my lifestyle, but true tolerance and acceptance is being able to handle that as mature adults and not criticize each other and call each other names….

“Personally, I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly premarital sex between heterosexuals, if you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, then the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that’s a sin. If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, adultery, fornication, premarital sex between heterosexuals, whatever it may be, I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I do not think the Bible would characterize them as a Christian.”

ESPN diplomatically responded, In a statement, ESPN said: “We regret that a respectful discussion of personal viewpoints became a distraction from today’s news. ESPN is fully committed to diversity and welcomes Jason Collins’ announcement.”

I find it difficult to believe that ESPN would regard similar sentiments about the sinfulness of women failing to be subordinate to their husbands or inter-racial marriage as “a respectful discussion of personal viewpoints.” Continue reading →

The Steubenville Ethics Train Wreck: So Far, So Bad

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

steubenville

There has been no mention here of the awful Steubenville, Ohio rape case before today, and there was a reason for that. This is a massive ethics train wreck that is not only still rolling and accumulating passengers and victims, but is also too full of debris and wreckage to fully understand. At the end of this month, a grand jury will begin examining the looming question of whether others besides the two high school football players already convicted of the rape should be indicted.  The town is also doing an investigation of its own. These will help. My hesitation in diving into this gothic American nightmare is that recounting the obvious instances of miserable, heartless, ethically incomprehensible conduct by participants, observers, public officials and commentators doesn’t begin to make sense of it.  We will be analyzing and discussing this episode for a long time—we will have an obligation to do so. It is every bit as important and alarming as the Penn State scandal, and more significant than the infamous New Bedford pool table rape case, which was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film, “The Accused.”

The crucial cultural questions that will have to be answered are these: Continue reading →