U.S. Society

Baseball Ethics: The Ultimate Debasement Of The All-Star Game

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

It almost isn’t worth writing about, really. Maybe it isn’t. I don’t care about the baseball All-Star Game any more, and haven’t for many years, so why should I care that it just got even worse? I mention it now, I guess, as a cautionary tale about life, entropy, management and ethics, because one of baseball’s great values is its usefulness as a metaphor for many more important things.

The All-Star Game, which will be played in Los Angeles this week, was once a major sporting event. The brainstorm of a Chicago sportswriter, the idea was to have a super-game, with two baseball teams made up of the best players in the American and National Leagues, as an exhibition to make money for a players’ pension fund. The two leagues only played each other during the World Series and were organizationally distinct, so it promised to create memorable confrontations that couldn’t be seen during the regular season. Moreover, the players approached the game as test of pride: as All-Stars elected by the fans, they didn’t want to lose or look bad, so they went all out.

It really was a great game most years. Player exploits during the game burnished their reputations and became legends. Television made the game even more popular

Then a series of events, developments and decisions caused the All-Star Game to rot, and its popularity to wither away. The life lesson: all things have a tendency to fall apart. Here is an incomplete list of the stages of the event’s deterioration:

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Tuesday Morning Ethics Warm-Up. 7/19/2022: Harvard, Redheads, Uvalde, Bad House Guests And More

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

A lot of people find images like this, and the motto, offensive, presumably because of the association with Ronald Reagan, who brilliantly appropriated optimistic patriotism as a conservative value in response to Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” vision of the nation. Being negatively triggered by one’s own flag and expressions of pride and enthusiasm regarding the nation it represents is not a healthy state of mind, and therefore it is unethical conduct to actively promote such an attitude…which we now see being done every day.

1. It may be unethical, but Harvard at least has gall…In April, Harvard University set out to exceed its previous record for virtue signaling, committing $100 million to “redress its ties to slavery” after a report concluded that slavery played an “integral” role in shaping the University. This is the Cambridge version of reparations, and the flagrant act of misusing donated non-profit funds wasn’t even controversial. The whole board signed on without dissent, which shows how Borg-like the Harvard leadership is. “Diversity” of thought when wokeness is at issue is not welcome. In this month’s alumni magazine, amusingly, Harvard begs for contributions to keep the magazine operating at a high level (it is an excellent alumni magazine), as if  tossing away 100 million dollars on non-educational matters didn’t make the appeal ridiculous. As one contrarian alum noted in a letter to the editor, if Harvard can give away all that money to assuage its conscience about supporting and benefiting long ago from a legal and predominant practice that had gone on for centuries, “it doesn’t need mine.”

In other damning news from Old Ivy, the Harvard  web site calls Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard,  currently pending before the Supreme Court, as a “politically motivated lawsuit.”  That’s the case in which Asian-American students allege that Harvard discriminates against them (like it discriminates against whites) in its admissions policies.  The web site states, “Harvard College does not discriminate against applicants from any group in its admission processes.” This is pure “it isn’t what it is” gaslighting. One can argue that affirmative action, which is the real issue  in the case, should continue and that it passes ethical standards via utilitarian balancing, but it cannot be denied that  the practice isn’t discrimination. The statement is a lie. Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On Gallup’s U.S. “Moral Values” Poll

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Gallup released a depressing poll last week that it headlined, “Record-High 50% of Americans Rate U.S. Moral Values as ‘Poor.'” Like many Gallup polls, but perhaps more than most, this one suffered badly from a failure a define terms and to ensure that respondents were basing their judgments on the same understanding of “values.” Using the term “moral” rather than “ethical” to define values is a crippling error: it automatically directs attention to religion. This, in turn, probably explains this chart…

…in which twice as many Republicans as Democrats rate the state of “moral values” as “poor.” About twice as many Republicans and Democrats are religious: the result was preordained. Morality involves behavioral codes, notably the Ten Commandments. Republicans are more likely to believe that such codes should guide conduct, although the whole point of moral codes is that one doesn’t have to think: just follow the code, and you’ll be “good.” Democrats have increasingly embraced the idea of subjective values and personal codes, “pursuing one’s truth.” Their idea of poor values are values that seem contrary to their objectives.

The poll does not rank values, or even require respondents to identify what values they think are being violated or ignored. Thus the figures given for various measurements in the poll are by definition apples, oranges and eggplants mash-ups. For example, a core ethical value is fairness, but progressives increasingly believe what is fair is for everyone to achieve the same level of success, security, comfort and power regardless of effort, ability, or contributions to society. Conservatives believe  fairness means that every individual should be allowed to achieve according to his or her aspirations and best efforts given the resources, talents and opportunities distributed by the vicissitudes of life and luck, and keep and use the rewards of those efforts, if any. Asking whether a group believes that life in the U.S. is fair when the group holds diametrically opposed definitions of the word is useless.

Similarly, an increasing component of the American Left believes that the U.S. Constitution embodies the wrong values. They believe it would be more “moral” to censor speech so as not to “harm” vulnerable populations; to keep “dangerous” ideas and “misinformation” advocated by Bad People from being heard or read. They believe that a right to self-defense is “immoral” because the tools of self-defense can be used to kill. They also believe, as we have seen in recent weeks, that it is “moral” to allow the mass killing of the unborn, because otherwise women are hindered in their opportunities and life choices by “unfair” biology. Most conservatives view those positions as opposition to American values.

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Sunday Ethics Picnic Ants, 7/17/22: Why We Can’t Have Nice Things…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Let me just say  it really annoys me that I still tear up every time I watch “E.T,” especially when Spielberg stoops to that icky rainbow trail for the spaceship at the end…

And what has happened to Disneyland is also worth choking up over. Walt’s culture-changing theme park opened on this date in 1955. After years of growing up with Walt, the “Disneyland” TV show, the “Mickey Mouse Club,” and the “Wonderful World of Color,” I looked forward to finally visiting the “happiest place on Earth” like Christmas morning, but as a college sophomore, I was certain that the reality would be a let down. But it wasn’t! Disneyland was every bit as magical as I imagined, and the full day I spent at the park was just about perfect. Today, that’s impossible, because Disney’s successors have allowed political and social agendas to make a carefree, innocent visit impossible.

1. Tucker Carlson’s unethical accusation. Last night, Fox News’ habitually unreliable star made the following claim:

“How did he manage to get through the campaign? Well, it turned out, we learned later his staff, supervised by Dr. Jill, his wife, was giving him pills before every public appearance–checking the time and at a certain hour giving him a dose of something. Now it’s not a guess, we’re not making that up. We’ve spoken directly to someone who was there and saw it happen multiple times. Now, before taking the medications this person said, Biden was quote ‘Like a small child. You could not communicate with him, he changed completely because he was on drugs and he clearly still is on drugs.’ Someone’s pushing, we don’t know what those drugs are. We should know.”

Making an allegation like that on television without citing a source or evidence is indefensible, but that’s how Tucker rolls. He should “put up” or apologize, and quick. Continue reading →

Saturday Afternoon Ethics Amusements, 7/16/2022: The Snotty Professor, Don Lemon’s Defiance, Obama Being Obama…Plus Dog Name Games

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Speaking of amusements…the big sports news in my neck of the swamp is that the Washington Nationals have announced that they will be seeking to trade Juan Soto, their 23 year-old superstar. Why? Well, Soto is a free agent after the 2024 season, and if teams with young stars want to avoid the free agency auction uncertainty, they need to sign them up to long-term contracts before the Sirens start singing. The offer to Soto was for a guaranteed 15 years, at $440 million for the package. Soto is one of the three or four top talents in the game. A franchise that can’t hold on to such a cornerstone has to ask itself whether it has any business selling tickets. The Nats are arguably the worst team in the National League after last season’s tear-down that saw them trading every other good player except Soto. Washington’s baseball fan support is tenuous: it has lost two previous teams after the fan base got disgusted. This isn’t Boston, LA, New York, St. Louis, Chicago or Philadelphia, whose fans will keep coming to games no matter what. On the other side of the fairness issue, many will ask how a contract for nearly a half-billion dollars isn’t enough for a 23-year old. It could be mad greed; it could be the fact that his agent is Scott Boras, who routinely seeks the highest imaginable payday among for his clients regardless of other less green considerations because it means the most money for him, and it could be that Soto doesn’t feel like ending up as Mike Trout has, playing out a long contract with a team (the Angels in Trout’s case) that is perpetually lousy. Moreover, the Nats offer, while the largest in MLB history in total cash, would only give Soto one of the top 15 current contracts in yearly salary. It’s only for about $29 million a year.

Only.

1. On more high-falutin’ matters…Social Psychology Quarterly has a much praised (by its rarefied readers) study out called “When a Name Gives You Pause: Racialized Names and Time to Adoption in a County Dog Shelter.” It is another academic effort to show how racist America is. The thesis: dogs with names identified with white culture are adopted more quickly than dogs with names with connections to black or Hispanic culture. Of course the study claims that the research proves the thesis. Continue reading →

Icky Or Unethical? Alexa Is Learning A New Trick

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

From Ars Technica:

Amazon is figuring out how to make its Alexa voice assistant deepfake the voice of anyone, dead or alive, with just a short recording. The company demoed the feature at its re:Mars conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, using the emotional trauma of the ongoing pandemic and grief to sell interest.

Amazon’s re:Mars focuses on artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and other emerging technologies, with technical experts and industry leaders taking the stage. During the second-day keynote, Rohit Prasad, senior vice president and head scientist of Alexa AI at Amazon, showed off a feature being developed for Alexa.

After noting the large amount of lives lost during the pandemic, Prasad played a video demo, where a child asks Alexa, “Can grandma finish reading me Wizard of Oz?” Alexa responds, “Okay,” in her typical effeminate, robotic voice. But next, the voice of the child’s grandma comes out of the speaker to read L. Frank Baum’s tale.

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The Democrats’ Revealing Hypocrisy Regarding The Harassment Of Justice Kavanaugh [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Eschewing, for the nonce, a detailed explication about how long the list is of things AOC doesn’t “get,” this tweet was issued just a few days when an obnoxious comedian and right wing troll named Alex Stein ambushed the perpetually clueless socialist Congresswoman as she was going up the steps of the Capitol, gleefully calling out that she was his favorite “big booty Latina” and saying that even though she wants to “kill babies,” she looked “sexy” in her dress. AOC reacted thusly to his camera operator, and Stein later posted the episode on his YouTube channel.

Of course, Stein’s conduct was disgusting, and his treatment of the Congresswoman qualifies as sexual harassment in form and substance despite being legal. I also qualifies as a protest. But Ocasio-Cortez was not amused, tweeting in succession…

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Pssst! David Brooks! Proposing A Solution That Doesn’t Exist Is Lazy And Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I saw the headline, “A 2024 Presidential Candidate Who Meets the Moment” in the opinion section of my digital New York Times and saw that the writer was David Brooks, the pseudo conservative, what-passes-for-an-intellectual pundit who at least poses as rational much of the time. I had to click..who could it be that Brooks believes is the promising man or woman who can lead the nation back to unity and sanity? I searched my memory banks and couldn’t imagine who it might be. Having given up on the guessing game, I finally read his column.

Do you know who Brooks’ 2024 Presidential Candidate Who Meets the Moment is?

Nobody.

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Unethical Quote Of The Week: GOP Senate Candidate Herschel Walker [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

“Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air. So when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then — now we got we to clean that back up.”

Yes, Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker really said those words, in that order. The gibberish is on a recently released video of an appearance he made last week at a local GOP picnic in Hall County, northeast of Atlanta, when Walker spoke, if you can call it that, about climate change. The Republican Party, desperate to take control of the Senate, actually nominated a candidate to defeat Democratic incumbent Ralph Warnock whose grasp of science, logic and language is that infantile.

Walker’s sole qualifications, if you can call them that, for the Senate are that he is a local and national sports celebrity, and black. He has no other qualifications. In addition to his obvious lack of education and erudition, he has also lied repeatedly for years, presenting himself as someone he is not. He is a neon-bright hypocrite, lecturing about the responsibilities of fatherhood while hiding the existence of his own children conceived without the security of a secure relationship with their mothers. Continue reading →