Today is Easter in the Greek Orthodox Church. Different calendar, you know. Our family, with my mother a member of that church and my father a Methodist, celebrated Easter on the Roman Catholic date (unless the two Easters converged, which sometimes happens), presumably to allow my sister and I to be in sync with the wider culture’s Easter celebrations, and also because dying eggs many colors was a lot more fun than dying them all deep, dark red, which is the Greek custom. The Easter egg is symbolic of the tomb Jesus was in before the Resurrection; dyeing eggs red symbolizes Christ’s blood. Cracking a dyed egg is supposed to symbolize Jesus emerging from the tomb. On Greek Easter, everyone plays tsougrima (“clinking together)”with the red-dyed eggs. One player holds a red egg and taps it against another player’s egg, and the loser is the one whose egg cracks. Then the Easter egg warrior with the unbroken egg uses the same end of his or her egg to try to crack the other end of their opponent’s egg. While the participants do this, one says “Christos Anesti!” (“Christ has risen!”) and the other celebrant responds “Alithos Anesti!” (“Indeed He has risen!”). The Marshalls played the egg game with the regular multi-colored Easter eggs, and on non-Greek Easter. My mother never explained the symbolism of it all to us; she just liked cracking eggs. I assumed everyone did it, Greek or not. As in all competitions, Mom was ruthless at tsougrima.

Incidentally, it was considered unethical to strike an opponent’s egg in the side rather than the end, and doing so meant you forfeited the game.

1. “Go woke, go broke,” or at least become irrelevant. The stock plunges of both Disney and Netflix are at least substantially related to their imposing progressive and partisan propaganda on the substantial percentage of their market that doesn’t want to have such positions rammed down their metaphorical throats. Honors-bestowing organizations like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Nobel Prize have seen the perception of their credibility and integrity fall mightily after attaching political requirements to their awards. Now an open letter signed by dozens of professional journalism organizations, nonprofits, and labor unions asks the Pulitzer Prizes to require newsrooms to participate in the News Leaders Association’s annual diversity survey (or similar) by 2024 in order to be considered for their journalism awards. I have no doubt that the Pulitzers will capitulate to this plan to make only left-driven organizations eligible for honors in journalism, for the prizes are already heavily tilted ideologically: recall that the New York Times and its racist reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones were rewarded for the fake history-spreading “1619” project. On the other hand, because of that and similar fiascos, the Pulitzers have lost much of their sheen already.

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Yikes.

Weatherford College pitcher Owen Woodward was kicked off the team after he attacked the opposing player who had just hit a home run off him.

Weatherford College said in a statement, “The WC student in question will face potential disciplinary action from the Office of Student Services up to and possibly including expulsion. The Weatherford College Police Department is also investigating the incident and has taken statements.”

We are shocked and disappointed at what happened in our game today,” the team’s coach said in a statement. “We do not condone this type of behavior. We have worked hard to build a program with the highest of standards. We are completely embarrassed by this incident, and we apologize to North Central Texas College and the fans of WC baseball. This type of behavior cannot be tolerated.”

Why yes, tackle baseball has never really caught on.

Even Ralph Branca, who was the pitcher in this most crushing of all home runs, didn’t stoop to that…

 

1. NPR reported that “DeSantis wanted to punish Disney. Repealing its tax status may hurt taxpayers instead. The bill will undercut Disney’s autonomy, but it could impose a steep cost on Orange and Osceola counties, where the theme park is located. The two counties would inherit the Disney district’s debts, which officials say would result in higher taxes.” This theme was echoed—talk about echo chambers!–all over the mainstream media, and it appears to be nonsense, an attempt to undermine the decision and to mislead the public. “Officials” turned out to be a single Orange County Democrat, so the plural was fake news as well as a dishonest appeal to authority. In addition, the only entity certain to see a tax hike as a result of the loss of Disney’s special status will be Disney because its tax break is gone. And why would Florida be on the hook for Disney’s debts? Disney borrowed the money, and Disney still has the cash to pay them off. [Source: Don Surber]

2. On the incompetence and irresponsible conduct front, Disney’s action’s mandate this standard Ethics Alarms clip in reference to the company’s woke CEO…

Since it impetuously shot off its public declaration of opposition to the Florida Parental Rights Law, Disney’s stock has dropped precipitously, costing the company nearly $50 billion in value. This hurts stockholders obviously, and constitutes a needless self-inflicted wound. Continue reading →

More than a year since the 2020 election, the mainstream media’s statement as fact that there were no reasons to question the integrity of the Presidential vote elected Joe Biden, and that the continuing insistence by Donald Trump that the election was “stolen” is a lie are still virtually daily features of the news. It was the main topic in the unethically edited Piers Morgan interview of Trump this week. Meanwhile, the “Trump has set out to destroy Americans’ trust in elections!” mantra is the linchpin in the “Republicans are an existential threat to democracy!” Big Lie that has become one of the handful of desperate messages the Democratic Party will use to try to avoid disaster in November.

Trump’s conviction (he’s may be mistaken, but he’s not lying) that the election was stolen is currently being weaponized by the Democratic House to show that the Jan.6 riot at the Capitol was an attempted coup (while their two partisan impeachments were not), and that his supporters in the GOP were accomplices in an “insurrection.”

Intrinsic to the narrative is the sub-narrative that Republicans are gullible zombies who believe whatever Trump tells them to believe, and that there is no evidence whatsoever to support suspicions about the election, though in crucial states voting laws were loosened illegally, insecure “drop-boxes” were widely employed, and mail-in ballots made undetectable vote manipulation ridiculously easy….never mind the successful efforts by social media platforms and the mainstream media to bury significant news that would hurt Biden’s support.

You know: no reason to be suspicious whatsoever. Continue reading →

Nothing quite warms the cockles of an ethicist’s heart like a public figure stating the truth against his or her own perceived interests. That’s ethics. Add to that when such a statement is likely to enrage an especially vicious and ruthless activist mob, and the result is a clear Ethics Hero: ethics perception plus integrity and courage.

Australian professional golfer Mianne Bagger, the first transgender athlete to compete in a professional golf tournament Down Under, told news.com.au. that she supports a bill thatwould exclude trans athletes from female sports. “Letting trans athletes compete in female sport is a slap in the face to women,” Bagger told an interviewer. She explained that trans women competing in female sports leagues when they are  more biologically similar to men and often have not undergone the medical procedures necessary for complete transition is unfair and undermines the integrity of the sport.

(Are you reading this, Lia?) Continue reading →

I sat down at Ol’ Betsy (I call my PC Ol’ Betsy) to write the first post of the day, and what do I find in the “Pending Comments” queue but a comment submitted for publication by “Lisa Clifton” regarding this October 21 essay which discussed an interesting legal and ethical issue. My analysis was clear, amusing and correct, but Lisa was outraged by the piece. Why? Because she didn’t understand it, or didn’t read it carefully, so she just dashed off an insulting rant. In fact, she dinged her own comment in the first few sentences:

Jack Marshall, what the hell gives you the right to call Dillon Webb a jerk. Bc you don’t like what her wrote. I guess that makes you a jerk as well. Bc I don’t like what you wrote. Leave it to the “fake news, lying ass, sorry pieces of shit press” to condemn someone else for writing what they want to….

First, Lisa didn’t check the comment rules (above) before foaming at her metaphorical mouth. That never bodes well. Then, her first sentence… Continue reading →