“If”

For Phillies Pitcher Orion Kirkering, In Compassion and Sympathy

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

The Philadelphia Phillies, who had the best record in the National league this season are desperate for a World Series championship. They last won it in 2008, and have only won a World Series twice since the team was founded in 1883. Last night the Phillies lost the deciding game of the NL Divisional Series to the Dodgers in a dramatic, extra inning contest (with no stupid “zombie runner” because MLB plats baseball the right way in the post season) on a disastrous final play that is destined to live in Philadelphia infamy.

The culprit was pitcher Orion Kirkering. With two outs and the potential Dodger winning run on third base in the 11th inning, he got the batter to hit a weak grounder back to him. First he fumbled the ball, recovered, and only had to throw to first base to get the third out and end the inning. But he saw the base runner from second running home, and inexplicably threw the ball to his catcher, or tried to. In his panic, he threw wildly. The run scored, the game was lost, and the Phillies season was over.

In baseball terms, Kirkering choked. When the game was on the line and professional athletes are supposed to rise to the occasion and be at their best, he was at his worst. A whole city blames him for the crushing loss: he is now Philadelphia’s Bill Buckner.

All I can do for Orion is to remind him of my father’s favorite poem, by Rudyard Kipling, which he told me gave him hope and solace as young, fatherless boy during the Depression, and later, when having to cope with his own tragedies, failures and perceived shortcomings. I think of it often, and read it again just two weeks ago.

The poem is, of course, “If.”

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs, and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet, don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves, to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop, and build ’em up, with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn, long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—

You’ll be a Man, my son!

A Brief Ethics Observation: Kudos To The Ethics Alarms Commentariat (Bad Link Fixed!)

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

hysteria

In my father’s favorite poem, Rudyard Kipling salutes those who can keep their heads when all around them are losing theirs. Yes, he ends his verse with “You’ll be a man, my son,” thus resulting in the 21st Century ignoring Kipling’s wisdom because he expressed these sentiments in the context of his own culture and time rather than ours. (Fortunately, actress Ellen Page just demonstrated that any woman who feels left out can join Kipling’s target audience by just announcing she’s a man, so maybe Rudyard’s return to respectability is imminent.)

I have to peruse a lot of websites and social media to keep Ethics Alarms current, and I can state without hesitation that people are losing their heads with alarming frequency. I just read an alarming series of comments, almost 200 of them, on an Althouse post. I regard Ann’s blog as as close to this one in tone and orientation as any other I have encountered, although as with Ethics Alarms, it appears that most of her left-of-center commentators have fled because she has tried to be fair to President Trump. The thread is scary, as are several others of late. Some commenters are saying that Joe Biden will never take office. Some are openly trying to organize an armed insurrection. With very few exceptions, commenters are resorting to snark and bitterness rather than substance.

Continue reading →

For You, Dad.

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Jack Marshall Sr Army portraitI lost my dad, Jack Marshall, Sr., five years ago today, and for some reason the loss feels especially sharp right now. This has been another miserable birthday, but not so miserable as that one, and I found myself once again revisiting my father’s favorite poem, which was a personnel credo for him and which has often served me well in hard times too. It is linked in the “Inspiration” section on the  Ethics Alarms home page, as well as quoted in my post here on the day my father was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Nonetheless, I am going to post Rudyard Kipling’s “If” once again. My father’s favorite line was…

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;   
That was Dad to the core. He never looked back, never cursed his luck, never thought too highly of himself (or anyone else), always believed in tomorrow, and that no victory was final, and no defeat was forever. And I know he was right, though it doesn’t often feel like it. So this is for you, Dad. Thanks for everything.

“If”

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs, and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet, don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves, to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop, and build ’em up, with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn, long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—

You’ll be a Man, my son!

 

Ethics Quiz: Silent Soccer

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Zip_it_ball

The American culture’s grim determination to raise a race of wimps, weenies, hysterics and delicate snowflakes continues apace. Or is this a necessary adjustment to our growing incivility?

In Ohio, the Thunder United Metro Futbol Club, a kids’ soccer league, held an experimental “silent soccer weekend.” Parents and fans were told that there would be no shouting or cheering at the games. Clapping was permitted, but not whistling or using  noise makers. Team coaches were instructed to keep shouted instructions to a minimum. Printed signs and rally towels got a green light, since they are quiet.

The objective, of course, was to combat negative shouts and other demonstrations by parents and fans that might bruise youthful egos and squash self esteem.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for today:

Is banning crowd commentary at youth athletic events responsible, or irresponsible?

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My Father, Memorial Day, and Reflections

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Jack Marshall Sr Army portrait

[In the last few years of his life, my father used to take my sister and me on a pilgrimage to Arlington National Cemetery on the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend. He was always strangely jolly about it, though appropriately reverent. We always visited the oddly inadequate Battle of the Bulge memorial, where my dad would usually tell us one new story of his horrible experiences in that conflict that he had previously suppressed. We always paid our respects to the humble grave of Audie Murphy, World War II’s most decorated American soldier. We did NOT visit the grave of my dad’s own father, whose betrayal of his mother he would never forgive, though my grandfather, a veteran of the First World War, was also buried at Arlington. Mostly we just walked around the beautiful surroundings, with Dad periodically admiring some grand monument and suggesting, tongue in cheek, that he wouldn’t mind being under something like that some day. Continue reading →

The Second Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The BEST of Ethics 2010

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The Best in Ethics 2010. Not nearly long enough…but still a lot of men, women and deeds worth celebrating.

Most Important Ethical Act of the Year: Continue reading →

What Rudyard Kipling Taught My Father

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Jack Marshall Sr Army portrait

Today the Army buried my father, Major Jack Marshall, Sr., with full military honors. He had earned them, for he was a hero in World War II. Let me correct that: every soldier who serves in battle is a hero, but my Dad had a few special distinctions, like a Silver Star and a Bronze Star to go with his Purple Heart.  He  sustained a crippling wound to his foot from a hand-grenade, healed enough to jam what was left of it into a boot, and went on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge.

Under the clearest of blue skies, with the cemetery covered in snow, a caisson drawn by black horses, one without a rider, carried my father to a gravesite ceremony where the American flag draping his casket was carefully folded by six soldiers and given to my mother, following a 21-gun salute. My father was a hero off the battlefield as well, a profoundly ethical and courageous man throughout his life, and how he got that way is worth examining. Continue reading →