fairness

Being Clear on Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

Hall OFLast week, I raised the greasy topic of Pete Rose, in fact defending Pete against the unethical efforts by Topps to avoid invoking his name on their cards, as if he were baseball’s Voldemort. Somehow, the comments morphed into debate about whether Pete deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, and I fear that my position regarding Pete’s qualifications was muddled in the various exchanges.

No, Pete doesn’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, for two very clear reasons. His conduct in betting on baseball games, including his own team’s games, while he was a Major League manager requires that he be banned from baseball for life under Rule 21 of Major League Baseball’s official rules, and the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown has its own rule that makes any player so banned ineligible for enshrinement. Rose is prevented from admission to the Hall by those rules, which were in place when his conduct brought them into play. He doesn’t deserve to be in the Hall, because the rules say so. Pete Rose broke a cardinal rule that potential Hall candidates cannot break. The ethical reason he should not be in the Hall is accountability, or as Tony Baretta used to say on the old TV show, “Don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time.”

Is there anything at all about Rose’s career record as a player that doesn’t qualify him for the Hall, indeed, over-qualify him? No. Unlike Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire, his statistics are beyond challenge or criticism. He didn’t cheat. He was a great and admirable player in every way.

Was there anything in his conduct as a player on the field, as a player off the field, or off the field as a retired player, that constituted such egregious misconduct that it would justify refusing his admission the Hall of Fame under its so-called character clause? [ “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the team(s) on which the player played.”]

Here is where I want to clarify my position. My answer to this is “No.” Continue reading →

Artistic License, History, and Lincoln’s Green Socks

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments
Of course, some historical fabrications are harmless.

Of course, some historical fabrications are harmless.

Several well-placed critics are taking “Lincoln” screenwriter Tony Kushner to task for what they believe are unethical misrepresentations of fact in the much-praised, and supposedly scrupulously accurate film. He, on the other hand, is annoyed. Kushner counters that unlike in history books where a historian gives a well-researched “a blow-by-blow account,” it is reasonable and ethical for a screenwriter to “manipulate a small detail in the service of a greater historical truth. History doesn’t always organize itself according to the rules of drama. It’s ridiculous. It’s like saying that Lincoln didn’t have green socks, he had blue socks.”

I’m going to spare Kushner lawyerly word-parsing and not hold him to “a greater historical truth,” though I suspect that in his hands (he is a skilled political propagandist as well as writer), we would not be pleased with what that license would bring. A politically sympatico film director named Oliver Stone, for example, thought it served a greater historical truth to present completely fictional evidence that Lyndon Johnson was complicit in John F. Kennedy’s assassination, even though Stone’s vehicle, “JFK,” was marketed as a veritable documentary on the “truth” of the Kennedy assassination. Let’s just say that Kushner feels that in a work of entertainment and drama, strictly accurate representation of all historical facts is impossible and unreasonable to expect or require.

I agree. But there is a big, big difference between the ethics of showing Lincoln wearing the wrong color socks, and representing a highly dubious story as fact to denigrate the reputation of a probable hero, as James Cameron did in “Titanic” when he showed First Officer William Murdoch taking a bribe to let a passenger on a lifeboat ( fantasy), shooting a passenger (pure speculation), and committing suicide (denied by a fellow officer under oath at the inquest). Continue reading →

And Speaking of Grading Ethics…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

.

Grrrrrrrrr!

Grrrrrrrrr!

..I am reminded of a grading traumatic experience of my own, involving a famous professor whose curve was the opposite of Prof. Frölich’s.

But first, an aside. Many readers have asked my views on the weird story of  Megan Thode, the grad student who sued to have her C+ grade changed, alleging that it was the result of bias and will cost her 1.3 million dollars in lost income. The judge was understandably annoyed at having to decide the case, and has suggested a compromise between the parties to relieve him of the responsibility of perhaps having to change the grade himself. There was no good result possible here. If the school really had a bias against Megan and she could prove it, then the law suite was valid. She shouldn’t have her career disrupted because of unfair grading. If, on the other hand, her grade was within the range of proper discretion, the law suit was a threat to the education system, and had to be be fought until the last dog died. Nor should the school compromise, as it would create a system in which grades have no integrity and where anyone could buy an inflated grade by threatening court action. Ultimately, the judge decided that the grade had to stand. What I see here is an educational system on all levels collapsing from a toxic combination of warped objectives (education for monetary payoffs, not for its own sake) and a dearth of trust in the competence and integrity of the educators.

Now the story of my own disputed C+, starring the renowned Chester James Antieau. Continue reading →

Horrible Thought: The Last Unethical Act Ever?

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Asteroid coming

From antic conservative talk radio host Chris Plante comes this horrible thought, just expressed on his morning show in Washington D.C. :

How do we know NASA,  in the grand tradition of former official Jon Harpold–quoted as arguing in 2003 that if their flight were doomed by an unrepairable  heat shield flaw, the astronauts on the Space Shuttle Columbia shouldn’t be told of their certain deaths and be allowed to burn up upon re-entry, quickly and humanely— isn’t lying to us about today’s near-miss with an asteroid?

“Maybe the Obama Administration, in its infinite wisdom, has determined that it’s best that we not know the the truth, which is that the asteroid is going to hit the Earth and we’re all going to die,” Plante said.

Oh-oh.

For the record, if true, this is completely unethical.

I thought you should know.

Thanks for everything.

UPDATE: Whew!

________________________________

Spark: Chris Plante

Graphic: Oh, what the hell difference does it make now? I’m headed to Boston to say goodbye to Fenway Park.

Ethics Quiz: The Professor, the Plot, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 110 Comments
Prisoner's Dilemma

The Prisoner’s Dilemma

Professor Peter Frölich teaches “Intermediate Programming,” “Computer Science Fundamentals,” and “Introduction to Programming for Scientists and Engineers” at Johns Hopkins University. He uses a grading system in which the top score in any exam defines an A, and all other scores are graded down from that point (I like that system, by the way).

His students in all three courses hatched an ambitious conspiracy to ensure A’s for everyone.  They all agreed to refuse to enter the exam rooms, so the top score, and only score, anyone could get would be zero. Since the grading curve would have to start with that, they reasoned, everyone would have to get the top grade. The students stringently enforced their plot, apparently, and nobody broke ranks. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “The ‘So What?’ Follies”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

My brilliant friend, lawyer/writer/actor/singer/dancer Loarraine McGee, scores with a  Comment of the Day that it probably takes a Broadway musicals buff, Stephen Sondheim worshiper, Mandy Patinkin lover or “Glee” fan to fully appreciate, a lyrical comment to the melody of Sondheim’s “Buddy’s Blues” from the second act of his great, troubling 1971 musical “Follies.”  Here is the song (Bronson Pinchot is no Mandy, but he’s OK), and then Lorraine’s Comment of the Day, to the today’s post “The “So What?’ Follies,” follows.

“Did you say “Follies”????”

I’ve got those

“Gotta keep the numbers up-Find something!-I can make it Neeeews” Blues!

That

“Long as there are photos I can make it seem important” feeling!

That

“If you’re slightly famous all you do is enough,
As long as there’s a talking head involved it’s good stuff,”
And “Bring the camera closer, gotta make the public buy this!” feeeeeeling!

Those

“Everything is ad sales so I gotta make the nonsense neeeews!” blues!

The “So What?” Follies

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments
So what?

So what?

Reluctant to report actual news, in many cases, that makes their favorite politicians and elected leaders look bad, or perhaps as they really are, our sad, inept and juvenile news media attempts to balance its lack of diligence by promoting other stories as brewing scandals that have no legitimacy whatsoever, and are similarly fueled by bias. Two particularly offensive examples: Continue reading →

Chris Dorner Capture Reward Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

John_Wilkes_Booth_wanted_poster_colourThe gossip site TMZ often has horrible ideas, but for once it has come up with a horrible idea that is worth discussing seriously.

Several citizens provided information that led to renegade killer Chris Dorner being trapped and ultimately killed in a stand-off with police. This should put them in line for three rich rewards offered for information leading to the end of Dorner’s rampage, but TMZ identified catches in all three:

 “The Mayor of L.A. announced a $1 million reward — funded by private groups — for information leading to the “capture and conviction” of Dorner.  Big problem — technically speaking, Dorner must be both captured AND convicted to trigger the reward. The L.A. City Council offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to “the identification, apprehension, and conviction” of Dorner.  Again … no conviction.  City Council sources tell us there’s already a disagreement between the Legislative Analyst and the City Attorney over how to interpret the reward language. And finally … the L.A. County Board of Supervisors offered a $100,000 reward for information “leading to the capture of Christopher Dorner.”  One source at the Board of Supervisors tells TMZ,  “Dorner was cornered but not captured.”

Could TMZ possibly be correct? Would the offerers of these rewards weasel out of their obligations, citing the fact that Dorner burned to death before he could be captured and convicted?

Legally it’s possible, but barely. Ethically, it would be unfair and a breach of public trust. Pragmatically, it would be stupid beyond all imagining. Continue reading →

Topps’ Pete Rose Abuse

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments
Pete Rose now, with his Playboy model wife (he calls his marriage "Tits and Hits"), and as a player, when the fact that he was a low-life didn't seem to matter.

Pete Rose now, with his Playboy model wife (he calls his marriage “Tits and Hits”), and as the  player called “Charlie Hustle,” when the fact that he was a low-life didn’t seem to matter.

Baseball season is fast approaching, and with it the usual welter of fascinating ethical issues that sport always generates. Here is an early one, arising out of one of the first signs of Spring Training, the release of the Topps’ baseball cards.

Pete Rose, as every educated American should know, was a wonderful player on the baseball field and a certifiable low-life off of it. Though he is the all-time leader in career hits, the former Cincinnati  Reds icon has been banned from baseball for two decades, the result of defying baseball’s “third rail” by gambling on the game after his playing career, when he was a manager. (Rose also lied about his conduct, helped send a Commissioner of Baseball to an early grave, and has served time for tax evasion…and even without all this, he would still be an insufferable slime-ball. Trivia note: Pete was in the very first group of “Ethics Dunces” in 2004, along with Bindi Irwin‘s dad, and Fox.  See? Nothing changes!) Never mind, though: Rose’s records have never been regarded as anything but legitimate, unlike those of baseball’s other living major miscreant, lifetime home run champ, steroid cheat and ethics corrupter Barry Bonds.

Yet as Aaron Gleeman reports on NBC sports, Topps is now, based on the evidence of its 2013 line of baseball cards, going out of the way to purge Rose’s name from all honor and memory: Continue reading →

My Spidey Sense Is Tingling: When Skipping The Tip IS Theft

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Things are stranger than ever, it seems, in Times Square.

Chelsea? Is that really you?

Chelsea? Is that really you?

Philip Williams, 35, is one of many individuals who makes a living of sorts in Manhattan’s famed pop-culture and commerce jungle by dressing up as a colorful character to amuse tourists. In Williams’ case, it’s Spiderman. He is currently charged with assault and harassment for punching a woman who asked him to pose for a photo with her kids, then after getting her picture, refused to pay him the customary tip when he asked for some money.

“Sorry, I don’t have any,” said she. “You’re crap!” said Spidey, and socked her. Williams claimed in court that his punch was in self-defense, because, he claims, the woman threw a snowball at him. This is disputed. 

Williams’ arrest came when police intervened to stop the assaulted woman’s husband from squishing Spiderman, which he was endeavoring to do with a packpack. Initially, the woman had fingered another Times Square Spiderman as her assailant, but the husband was paying better attention, and knew which one to pound on.

I love this city! Continue reading →