fairness

Welcome To My World

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments
Suicide jokes, however, are fine...

Suicide jokes, however, are fine…

In the ethics CLE (Continuing Legal Education) world, seminar attendees rank presenters. Ethics is a much-detested topic; if you can crack 3 (out of 5, the best), you are doing well. My scores are usually between 4.6 and 4.9.

Attendees are also invited to write comments. I recently received the survey summaries from an out-of-state seminar I taught to a section of that state’s bar. The response during an immediately after the seminar was terrific, so I expected my usual ratings. The coordinator sent me an e-mail stating that my scores were “very good overall” (4.7, in fact) but that there were “concerns about a rape joke in my presentation.”

There was no rape joke in the session. I don’t make rape jokes.

I had been talking about Donald Trump’s lawyer, in an incident I posted about here, incompetently saying that “you can’t rape your spouse.” “You can rape your spouse,” I said. “I have this image of hopeful spousal abusers reading this idiot’s comments and saying, “This is great!”

I wrote back to the coordinator and said that I wanted my objection to this characterization in my files and on the record. I know how it works. All that is remembered later is the complaint, and groups, even bars, are controversy averse. Next year, when they are deciding whether to have me speak, all that has to happen is for someone to say, “Wasn’t there some rape joke he made that we got flack for?” That would be enough; nobody would check, nobody would investigate. I would be eliminated as a potential speaker, probably for all time. They might even tell another bar association about the episode when they are called about whether to use me. “Well, his seminar was popular, but there was some problem about a rape joke he told.”

I asked to see all the surveys. The “concern” about my “rape joke” consisted of exactly one anonymous comment out of a hundred attendees.

I would estimate political correctness hyper-sensitivity by single attendees cost me about a client a year. The other members of their groups have to be saddled with boring ethics seminars because one lawyer had to prove how vigilant he or she was in being properly offended.

(Now THIS is a rape joke...and I would never tell it.)

Elle’s Paul Ford: Nominee For Most Unethical Father Of The Year (Non-Criminal Division)

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments
"We're giving one of you most of our money, because we already know the other one won't need it."

“We’re giving one of you most of our money, because we already know the other one won’t need it.”

Bias, as we say here often, makes you stupid, and social justice delusions unmoored from facts, ethics, common sense and reality make you spectacularly stupid.

A nauseatingly self-congratulatory feature by Elle writer Paul Ford was introduced by the women’s magazine this way:

“As Paul Ford’s twins grew, he couldn’t stand the fact that his daughter would always lag behind his son financially. Then he hatched a brilliant plan….”

Here’s the brilliant plan, in Ford’s own words: Continue reading →

Colbert And Matthews: You know, Guys,The American Public Deserves Better Than This.

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Stephen Colbert

What we  deserve is fairness, truth, respect, and not to have the people with the biggest megaphones working overtime to mislead, corrupt and indoctrinate us.

First, Stephen Colbert.

The media drooling over Colbert taking over for David Letterman has been embarrassing and itself a symptom of anti-conservative bias. Colbert is versatile, smart and funny, but we have many such performers. He is only lovedlovedloved—as opposed to appreciated and admired– because he mocked Republicans and conservatives. and no one else, on his Comedy Central show. (So did Letterman on CBS in his dotage, but Colbert is sunnier and smarter than Dave.) Colbert can be another knee-jerk liberal mouthpiece if he chooses, but its a boring choice and ultimately diminishing: there is ample ammunition for satire and mockery in the conduct of all politicians. Representing otherwise on a big stage every night in an election year will ultimately become an exercise in cultural indoctrination and lazy punditry, like Bill Maher playing to the approving screams of his atheist, drug-loving, progressive audience. Maybe Colbert will get good ratings this way, but it’s not what he suggested would be his course in the run up to yesterday’s premiere on CBS.

I won a bet that I hoped he would lose: I bet that Colbert would mock Trump, and leave Hillary alone. And so he did. Maybe he will make up for this in later shows, but I doubt it very much after his demeanor last night. Trump is an easy mark: Conan has been mocking him for years. But it is Hillary who has provided the best material for a genuine, Equal Opportunity satirist, especially her Manchurian Candidate, robotic “apology” statement from earlier in the day. Talk about creepy…and, if the possibility didn’t exist that this pod person might end up in the White House, comedy gold:

Especially since she didn’t genuinely apologize for anything. Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On The Great “2015 Best American Poetry” Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments
William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770-April 23, 1850)

William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770-April 23, 1850)

Sherman Alexie is the editor of the 2015 edition of Best American Poetry, an annual anthology that came out this week. One of his choices for inclusion was “The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve” by Yi-Fen Chou.

After being informed by Alexie that his short poem, previously published in a small journal, had been honored with selection,  Yi-Fen Chou contacted Alexie to reveal that he wasn’t Yi-Fen Chou, but boring, white, privileged  Michael Derrick Hudson of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Hudson explained to Alexie, and in his bio for the anthology, that he had posed as an obscure Asian poet rather than as an obscure WASP poet after his poem was rejected by 40 different journals when it was submitted under his real name. He decided to test his theory that the poem would suddenly seem better to editors if it had a little pro-diversity, cultural bias behind it. He was right. Now two editors had favored it.

Alexie left the poem in the collection, with the poet’s real name, and has been attacked for doing so, from all sorts of angles. Hudson has received criticism as well. Alexie wrote a heartfelt, thoughtful, and self-contradictory explanation of why he thought he did the right thing. Read it, if you can stand it. Also worth reading is Jesse Singal’s essay, inspired by this rhyme-crime, in New York Magazine about bias.  His most useful statement—“It can feel threatening to acknowledge that we are all susceptible to bias. The reality is that it’s simply a part of being human”—is wise. Otherwise, he is far too kind to Alexie simply because he was transparent and thoughtful in analyzing his conduct. Transparent and thoughtful Alexie is. He is also wrong.

Observations: Continue reading →

The Dissing Of Judy Carne: Wait, Aren’t Newspapers Supposed To Make Us BETTER Informed?

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

CarneWitness this bit of “information,” courtesy of Washington Post writer Justin Wm. Moyer on the occasion of the death of Judy Carne, Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-In’s “Sock it to me” girl:

“The joke now seems as cruel — and as difficult to explain to millennials — as it seemed hilarious in the 1960s: A young, lithe woman, often in a miniskirt or less, stands onstage. She announces that it’s “sock-it-to-me time.” Then, she is hit with a bucket of water, or dropped through the floor, or otherwise clobbered in some form or fashion.“

Is the Post now recruiting its feature writers from Jupiter? Are editors extinct? Has the paper decided that political correctness, hyper-sensitivity, gender-obsession dementia is both mandatory and universal?

What happened to Judy Carne is called slapstick. It is funny. It has always been funny. What happened to Judy Carne is no more cruel—that is, not cruel at all—than what repeatedly happened to Lucy,  Laverne, Wile. E. Coyote—and Raven, Tina Fay…Katy Perry….

Anyone writing about history and culture in a national publication—about anything, really—has has an obligation to actually know what he or she is writing about, and not make stuff up. There was definitely a lot of stuff that was on Laugh-in that will look weird today to anyone under the age of 50 or so; after all, the show is a half-century old, and the Sixties were weird even in the Sixties. Goldie Hahn dancing in a bikini with words written all over her body, for example. People laughing at every mention of the word “bippy.”  Nehru jackets. NOT women and men having staged catastrophes befalling them for laughs. Continue reading →

Hugh Hewitt’s “Gotcha!” On Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

trump-hewitt

If the Republicans, conservatives and liberal media can’t torpedo Donald Trump’s ridiculous and destructive presidential quest fairly and based on substance, their problems go a lot deeper than Donald Trump.

Wait a minute—they do!

The attempt to make a big deal out of Trump’s performance on the conservative radio talk show hosted by Earl Warren look-alike Hugh Hewitt is another example of the kind of unfair tactics that will just drive more supporters his way. First Hewitt asked Trump about Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who Washington Post blogger Erik Wemple calls the famous leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force. Really? Famous? I’ll say right now: never heard of the dude. I will also say that if my ethics business required dealing with Iraq, I’d be briefed on him thoroughly before I had to make any substantive decisions. Trump’s “yeeees…”  indicated that ether he knew a quiz was coming, or had no idea who he was; then he said,  “Go ahead, give me a little, go ahead, tell me.” Then…

Hewitt: “He runs the Quds Forces.” (Listen to this on the Post link. I’m from Boston.  Anyone in my high school would have pronounced “Quds” and “Kurds” indistinguishably)

Trump: “Yes, OK, right.”

Hewitt: “Do you expect his behavior–”

Trump: “I think the Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated by us.”

Hewitt: “No, not the Kurds — the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Forces — the bad guys.”

Trump: “Yes, right.”

Hewitt: “Do you expect his behavior to change as a result –”

Trump: “Oh, I thought you said Kurds, Kurds.”

This, apparently, shows that Trump is unqualified to be President.  (He is, but not because of this.) Count on Democrats using the fact that Hillary can run off these names as proof of her superiority, though she was, you know, Secretary of State. Later, when Hewitt tried more quiz questions about the Middle East, Trump objected: Continue reading →

The “Now I’ll Make You Feel Bad For Insisting On Getting What You Paid For” Ploy

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
My hotel room TV, post Fred.

My hotel room TV, post Fred.

I’m in the midst of a legal ethics tour of Virginia, moving from one hotel to another. Last night I arrived at a Richmond Hilton at 11 pm, after fighting the usual traffic jams from late night construction on Rt.95 in my two hour car trip to get there. Oh, I had all the usual fun: the room that I had been told was pre-paid by my hosts wasn’t; later, the Wi-Fi in the room didn’t work. First, however, I immediately noticed that room 527 featured a TV that was hanging limply from its pedestal, forward and to the left. I guess I could have watched it sort of comfortably if I sat cross-legged on the floor with my head tilted to one side like President Buchanan.

I decided to call the desk instead.

The chirpy clerk answered my call brightly. “Yes, Mr. Marshall, what can I do for you?” she said.

“Well, my TV is broken. The screen is crooked, and it’s tipping off its pedestal.” Continue reading →

The Nurturing Of Race Hate, Part Two: The Daniele Watts Saga

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

daniele-watts

Last September, African-American actress Daniele Watts (“Django Unchained”) engaged in lewd, if non-felonious, public conduct, then exploited the tensions arising out of Ferguson to claim victim status, police harassment and race prejudice. When the police were exonerated by the recording of her arrest and she was ordered to apologize by a judge (and asked to apologize by civil rights leaders, who were embarrassed after they rallied to her support only to find that she had played the race card without  justification), she failed—twice—to deliver a sincere apology. She is defiant and intoxicated by her martyrdom, another young African American who has been convinced of her entitlement to be an anti-white racist.

To appreciate the tale, we have to go back to September 11, 2014, when the actress and her white boyfriend, a “celebrity chef,” were visibly engaged in sexual conduct in their car in broad daylight on an LA street. Neighbors complained—we have not yet reached the point where rutting in public is legal and acceptable, but give progressives time—and police responded. Naturally, as this was at the height of the Ferguson controversy, the news media immediately reported the story as more police harassment of black citizens, this time for “kissing while black.” Here’s a typical account from  September 14: Continue reading →

All Right, News Media, Now You’ve Made Me Defend Donald Trump Twice In Less Than 24 Hours…CUT IT OUT!

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

(If I believed in karma, which I don’t, I’d swear this has happened because I mocked my old school chum Dr. Peter Canaday for his comment proving that he was the exception to the rule—and it IS a rule—that supporting Donald Trump for President proves that a parasite has eaten your brain and defecated out your sense and values.)

During his Iowa press conference yesterday, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos insisted on asking questions (a.k.a. “making a speech”) of the current GOP front-runner for the nomination without waiting to be called on—-this is consistent for Ramos, who also feels that Mexicans should be able to jump ahead of legitimate immigration applicants and just enter the country at will…same principle, really—and when he refused to sit down, Trump had him removed.

OK, I’m settling my gorge, swallowing twice, wiping my brow, but…

Good for Donald Trump.

Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On The Old Dominion University Signa Nu Fraternity Freakout

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

It is times like this when I wonder if my theory that ethics evolves toward wisdom may be excessively optimistic.

In Norfolk, Virginia, Old Dominion University officials went bananas when a fraternity engaged in randy verbal hijinks of questionable taste at its off-campus home across the street from the institution. ( “Hijinks of questionable taste” is synonymous with “acted like a fraternity.”) Some frat boys hung painted bedsheets as banners to welcome incoming freshmen co-eds, thusly:

Fraternity

Well, THE HORROR!

ODU’s leadership responded to the tomfoolery by issuing the following statement:

“Messages like the ones displayed yesterday by a few students on the balcony of their private residence are not and will not [be] tolerated. The moment University staff became aware of these banners, they worked to have them removed. At ODU, we foster a community of respect and dignity, and these messages sickened us. They are not representative of our 3,000 faculty and staff, 25,000 students, and 130,000 alumni.

Ours is a community that works actively to promote bystander intervention and takes a stand denouncing violence against women. The ‘It’s on Us’ video is just one example of ODU students’ leadership on this topic. In addition, the University ensures all students receive education on the prevention of sexual harassment and relationship violence.”

Old Dominion’s Student Government Association also issued their own verbal condemnation of the incident. They filmed a video directly addressing the banners and stated: Continue reading →