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Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 10/25/2018: Parlor Games! [UPDATED]

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Good Morning!

I know that’s a photo from last night’s Red Sox World Series victory, but thinking about this catch by Andrew Benintendi it has certainly brightened MY morning…

1  (Psst! Joe, you idiot: George Wallace was crippled for life by an attempted assassination.) Said Joe Biden at a political rally two days ago, “This president is more like George Wallace than George Washington!” Long before Trump came along, Joe told African Americans that Mitt Romney would but them back in chains. I know it’s unfair to focus on Simple Joe (or Hillary, or Maxine, or Elizabeth, or Nancy, or Keith…) to characterize Democrats, but according to polls, this guy is currently the party front-runner for the Presidential nomination. [Pointer: Ann Althouse, who rejoined, “Because he doesn’t own slaves?”] Joe really is a boob, but he makes for good parlor games. My favorite comments in the Althouse thread…

“He’s more like George Washington…they both got elected president.”

“Trump is more like Elizabeth Warren because they’re both not Indians.”

“Because he doesn’t own slaves?” No, because he worries about black unemployment. Washington never worried about that.

“Because Wallace was a Democrat, like Trump was his whole life until 15 minutes before he ran for president?”

2. Fake News. New York Times headline: “Pipe Bombs Sent to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and CNN Offices.”

How much more dishonest can a single headline be? There were no “pipe bombs,” but hoax bombs, and the hoax bomb sent to “CNN offices” was addressed to John Brennan. The headline deceitfully aims to suggest that the target was the news media.

3. I figured this out when I was 17 years old. A new book called The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing, by Merve Emre, (Doubleday, 336 pages, $27.95) explains that the iconic personality test is junk science. I first took the test in high school, when my parents paid a psychologist to advise me where to apply to college. He complained that the battery of tests I took had contradictory results. Yes, that would be because it was so obvious how to manipulate them, and also how insulting they were, since any fool could see the little pigeon holes the tests were trying to stuff you into. Essentially, the test was designed to create bias on the part of employers. Writes Reason,

“This book is a useful study of how a dubious idea can gain traction if it arrives at the right time.”

There’s another parlor game: which dubious ideas are gaining traction now, supported by junk science, junk research, or false assumptions? Continue reading →

When The Anti-Liberty Mobs Attack, Courage And Character Are Paramount, Part II: “Slav”

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Betty Bonifassi in “Slav”

Fortunately, not every artist has the jelly-spine of Scarlett Johansson when the political correctness, anti-liberty mobs attack.

In Montreal,the Montreal International Jazz Festival immediately did its best imitation of the artist bowing out of her planned role as a transgender male when it cancelled  the show “Slav,” by the acclaimed Quebec theater director Robert Lepage. The production called itself a a “theatrical odyssey” inspired by “traditional African-American slave and work songs,” but–oh-oh!–it also features a nearly all-white cast performing “black” music. Silly me, I never realized music was colored.  Lepage, is white, as is “Slav’s” star Betty Bonifassi.  Only two of the seven cast members are black.

The show was immediately attacked for its “cultural appropriation” and by black activists for “stealing” “their” songs.

The jazz festival , emulating most organizations that ironically tend to have even fewer spinal columns than individual people, canceled the show after only two performances, even though the production had sold more than 8,000 tickets for its scheduled for 16 performances. The craven festival organizers said it had been “shaken” by the criticism, and grovelled, saying.in a statement, “We would like to apologize to those who were hurt. It was not our intention at all.”

Yecchhh.

As I wrote in the Part I, as Johansson essentially killed a film project because she didn’t have the wit or the guts to stand up to unethical bullying by transgender activists, “What is desperately needed when groups misbehave this way and abuse their influence and power is for their target to say no. Unfortunately, doing so requires unusual levels of principal, character, responsibility, intelligence and courage.”

Scarlett obviously doesn’t have them. Roger Lepage, however, does, especially after several leading theater directors in Quebec rallied behind Lepage this week, pointing out that closing the production could have a chilling effect on artistic expression in Canada. At least four theaters are now proceeding with productions of “Slav,” and preparing to metaphorically spit in the protesters’ eyes. Continue reading →

Observations On The Justin Trudeau Groping Allegation

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Canadian progressive rock star and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is now dealing with his own #MeToo crisis, and, as you will see, not that well. These are old allegations, first appearing in a tiny community paper called the Creston Valley Advance in 2000 An unsigned editorial related that Trudeau, then a 28-year-old teacher, groped a young, female Advance reporter covering the Kokanee Summit Festival in Creston, British Columbia. The Creston editorial did not include details of the alleged groping incident, but wrote that the reporter involved felt “blatantly disrespected” and that Trudeau allegedly apologized a day later for “inappropriately handling” her.

Nobody cared. After all, Bill Clinton had just ducked impeachment because American Democrats and the news media successfully sold the narrative that a President using his intern as a personal sex-toy was “private, personal, consensual conduct.” The story was quickly forgotten.

Then came the Harvey Weinstein Ethics Train Wreck, and suddenly any male in power is vulnerable to having their career and reputation undone because of a recovered or re-evaluated memory they did that everyone winked at decades ago, but is now proof positive of a dark and irredeemable soul, or something. (This is the point where, if you are Prof. Paul Butler, you shout “Oh come ON!”)  The episode resurfaced recently when popular political commentator and Trudeau critic Warren Kinsella tweeted a picture of the editorial last month with the hashtag #MeToo. His tweet was later picked up by various conservative outlets. This is suddenly a problem for liberal leader who has proclaimed his feminist credentials. He has said that he has no tolerance for any kind of sexual harassment or unwanted touching.

And now this. Observations:

  • Here was Trudeau’s response to the allegations: he initially said that he did not recall the event. Then he said, well, he remembered the event, but not the incident. “I remember that day in Creston well. It was an Avalanche Foundation event to support avalanche safety. I had a good day that day. I don’t remember any negative interactions that day at all,” he said. The next day,  he told reporters that he apologized to the alleged victim for the incident he doesn’t remember “in the moment,” but said he is confident he “did not act inappropriately”…but respects ” the fact that someone else might have experienced this differently.”

Translation of this self-contradicting double-talk:

Let’s see now: He doesn’t remember the event, which he remembers well, but not the incident, though he remembers that he apologized for it, though he is certain he did nothing that required an apology, but he can certainly understand how someone might see it differently.

All righty then! Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 7/6/2018: I See Unethical People…

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

Good morning, everyone!

1. Good, but better if it had happened six months ago. Ethically-challenged EPA chief Scott Pruitt finally “resigned” yesterday.  He was actually fired, and President Trump should have fired him as soon as it became clear that his pal couldn’t break himself of the bad habits he developed as a lawyer and a politician, including taking advantage of his position for personal gain. There were 14 separate investigations of Pruitt’s conduct, and his continued presence with Trump’s leave undermined the President’s pledge to “drain the swamp.” As several wags said with utter accuracy, Pruitt personified the swamp, but Trump does not place ethics or avoiding the appearance of impropriety high on his list of priorities, and never has. Pruitt’s conduct was also as stupid as it was wrong. He was a villain of the environmental Left, and had bullseyes and laser targets metaphorically covering his body. In such a situation, a prudent individual knows that he or she must be otherwise beyond reproach. Not Pruitt!

The National Review neatly summed up his demise:

“EPA administrator Scott Pruitt had enemies who were out to get him because he is a Republican, a conservative, a high-ranking member of the Trump administration, and an environmental deregulator. But it wasn’t liberals, the media, or deep staters who made him get large raises for his top aides, deny that he knew about it, and then admit that he did. It wasn’t they who made him have an aide find him a discount mattress, or run sirens so he could get to a French restaurant on time. The aides who told journalists, or congressional investigators, or both about Pruitt’s misbehavior weren’t all or even mostly liberals or deep staters. Several of them were conservative Trump supporters who were disturbed by Pruitt’s behavior and thought he was serving both the president and taxpayers poorly. Some of them had come with Pruitt from Oklahoma because they believed in him. The more they saw him in action in D.C., the less they did. Today it caught up with him.”

Good riddance.

2. Wait, haven’t we seen this movie before? Many commenters here expressed skepticism at the accusation that GOP Congressman Jim Jordan had turned a blind eye to sexual abuse  of student wrestlers when he was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State almost 40 years ago. Indeed the timing of the story looked like a political hit job, and it may be one whether the allegations are true or not. But now, as I noted in the first post about the controversy, the issue is Jordan’s denials. They rang false to my trained ear, and now there are four former wrestlers who say Jordan knew a team doctor was abusing the students.

It’s still their word against his, but it doesn’t matter. My position, as in the Harvey Weinstein mess, as in cases where fathers are molesting daughters, and in the Penn State scandal and so, so many others, is that those close to the situation either knew or should have known, and often deliberately avoid “knowing.”  Even if Jordan didn’t know, he should have and could have, and if he immediately accepted responsibility when the issue arose, he might have preserved some level of trustworthiness. He didn’t. They never do.

And we know how this movie ends. Continue reading →

Sunday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 6/24/18: Potpourri!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Good Morning!

Once again, I am prepping for a law firm training session (at 9 am!), and am rushing to get as much covered as I can.

1 More on how sports commentators make us stupid. I happened to be listening to the Sirius-XM MLB channel, as old Red Sox third-baseman Rico Petrocelli was holding forth on the luck factor in baseball. “I mean,” opined Rico,” a single missed strike or ball call by an umpire can change games, championships, seasons and careers! A single missed pitch by an umpire!”

Then he and his partner on the show noted that there have even been calls for balls and strikes to be called electronically, which, as I have pointed out here, is now completely feasible. “Ridiculous!” spat Rico, as his sidekick vigorously agreed.

Let me get this straight: he just (correctly) talked about how a single mistaken call can have momentous consequences, but says it’s ridiculous to eliminate mistaken calls when the technology is available to do so.

That’s even less logical than the defenses of illegal immigration. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz Of The Day: The Two-Way Peanut Butter Treat…Ick Or Ethics?

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Described in news reports as a “baffling oversight,” Canada only bans bestiality if it involves penetration. This means that there is a lot of oral sex going on between humans and moose, or something, so while reminding her colleagues that a Canadian sex freak  used this very loophole to escape conviction last year, Calgary MP Michelle Rempel has introduced Bill C-388 to add one line to the Criminal Code defining bestiality as “any contact by a person, for a sexual purpose, with an animal.”

This of course, would mean that doing business with Harvey Weinstein would be illegal in Canada.

Said Rampel in a statement, “I am disturbed that the government has not yet corrected this glaring void in our criminal code….This is a non-partisan issue.”

Ah, but is it a stupid issue? Or an ethics issue?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is this vital question:

Is it unethical to spread peanut butter on your genitals and then encourage your pet Newfoundland to lick it off?

Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 10/24/17: It’s The Andrew Sullivan Show!

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

Still trying to clear the decks..

1 Last week, Andrew Sullivan delivered a couple of excellent pieces of commentary with ethical clarity. My definition of an ethical analyst is one who can steer away from the magnetic pull of cognitive dissonance, and realize that, for example, just because Democrats and progressives deplore President Trump as much as you do doesn’t mean you have to regard their battiest and most unethical positions as better than they are. Sullivan qualifies. Here he is making what I once thought was an obvious point: that Democrats and progressives embracing open borders (and condemning as racist anyone who doesn’t) was irresponsible:

I don’t believe it’s disputable at this point that the most potent issue behind the rise of the far right in America and Europe is mass immigration. It’s a core reason that Trump is now president…[and the] reason why I have dwindling hopes that the Democratic Party will be able to defeat Trump in 2020. Instead of adjusting to this new reality, and listening to the electorate, the Dems have moved ever farther to the left, and are controlled by ever-radicalizing activists. There’s a nuanced, smart — and shockingly honest — piece in Vox by Dara Lind about this. Money quote:

For Democrats, it’s been a simple calculus. Democrats’ attempts at “tough love” centrism didn’t win them any credit across the aisle, while an increasingly empowered immigrant-rights movement started calling them to task for the adverse consequences of enforcement policies. Democrats learned to ignore the critics on the right they couldn’t please, and embrace the critics on the left who they could… Democrats in 2017, in general, tend to criticize the use of immigration enforcement, and tend to side with those accused of violating immigration law, as a broad matter of principle beyond opposing the particular actions of the administration … Democrats are no longer as willing to attack “illegal immigration” as a fundamental problem anymore.

This is, to be blunt, political suicide. The Democrats’ current position seems to be that the Dreamer parents who broke the law are near heroes, indistinguishable from the children they brought with them; and their rhetoric is very hard to distinguish, certainly for most swing voters, from a belief in open borders. In fact, the Democrats increasingly seem to suggest that any kind of distinction between citizens and noncitizens is somehow racist. You could see this at the last convention, when an entire evening was dedicated to Latinos, illegal and legal, as if the rule of law were largely irrelevant. Hence the euphemism “undocumented” rather than “illegal.” So the stage was built, lit, and set for Trump.

Bingo.

2. A post that fell through the cracks months ago involved one more example of California morphing into Bizarro USA. Then the post was about a speech-dictating bill passed by the legislature; this month, Jerry Brown signed it into law. The bill was SB-219, changing the laws regarding health care facilities, including nursing homes. Continue reading →

In This Case, Blame The Victim

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Catt Gallinger, a 24-year-old Canadian woman, is trying to warn others after getting a “scleral tattoo,” which consists of injecting ink into the white part of the eyeball. She has posted graphic images of her eye leaking purple dye after an attempt to tattoo the white of one eye that went horribly if predictably wrong, and may leave her partially blind.

Serious question: How many people need this warning? How many brain-damaged, lobotomized dementia sufferers need this warning?

Gallinger already has a forked tongue, multiple piercings and many more conventional tattoos, wrote on Facebook that immediately after the tattoo was done on September 5, purple dye began streaming down her face.

Obviously, the tattoo artist wrongly offered a dangerous survice, but even more obviously, only an idiot would ask for it. One does not need extensive research to determine that using a needle to inject ink into one’s EYE is insanely risky and completely unnecessary.

If she loses the sight of that eye, Catt is entirely at fault. She is a perfect poster child for the logical and ethical limits of the nostrum, “Don’t blame the victim.”

Ethics Quote Of The Week: Prof. Jonathan Turley

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

“It is astonishing to see the pride of that such individuals taken in their embrace of gender or racial discrimination as a tool of social justice. They see no moral or legal problem with penalizing people due to the color of their skin or their gender. Instead, they foster the same blind stereotypes and prejudices that once segregated societies on these grounds. They learned the history but not its lesson.”

—-Blogging prof Jonathan Turley, writing about a Canadian director who has insisted that white, “cis” males pay a higher ticket price to see his film. It’s called “Justice Pricing.”

Observations:

1 Turley is wrong: there’s nothing astonishing about it, as I just explained.

2. Now we know there is a place for all the anti-democratic social justice warriors who would be very happy to see the U.S. establish unconstitutional “Justice Pricing,” “Justice Hiring,” “Justice Promotions,” “Justice Convictions,” “Justice Admissions,” “Justice Expulsions,” “Justice Taxing,” “Justice Elections,” “Justice Sentencing,” “Justice Justice” and more: Canada.

3. “Justice Pricing” is about as Orwellian as it gets, don’t you think? Continue reading →

Fast Food Ethics: Subway’s Chicken TASTES Like Chicken—Isn’t That Enough?

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments
OK, what's in this Teriyaki Sweet Onion Chicken sandwich? (Hint: It's a trick question...)

OK, what’s in this  Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich? (Hint: It’s a trick question…)

DNA researcher Matt Harnden at Trent University’s Wildlife Forensic DNA Laboratory, working out of  Peterborough, Ontario, analyzed six popular chicken sandwiches served at various fast food chains. Unadulterated chicken should have 100% chicken DNA, or close to it. Seasoning, marinating or processing meat  bring that number down some , so fast food  wouldn’t be expected to have a perfect score.

The chicken in the following sandwiches were tested: McDonald’s Country Chicken – Grilled,Wendy’s Grilled Chicken Sandwich, A&W Chicken Grill Deluxe,Tim Hortons Chipotle Chicken Grilled Wrap, Subway Oven Roasted Chicken Sandwich, and Subway Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki, which is made with chicken strips.

The lab tested two samples of five of the chicken meat fillings, and one sample of the Subway strips. From each of those samples, the researchers isolated three smaller samples and tested each of those. The scores were then averaged for each sandwich. The results? Continue reading →